4/18/25 Pause - Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz

4/18/25 Pause

Fri Apr 18 2025

The Passion of Christ is not the end of the Story, but we must pause and reflect on it. It is the lens through which we see: What love looks like when it costs everything, what sin looks like when we can see the wounds, and what mercy looks like when it refuses to give up.

Summary

Summary of "Pause" Episode from Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz

Podcast Information:

Title: Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
Host/Author: Ascension
Episode Title: Pause
Release Date: April 18, 2025

Introduction

In the April 18, 2025 episode titled "Pause" from Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz, Fr. Mike delves into the profound significance of taking moments to reflect deeply on the narratives of faith, particularly focusing on the passion and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Through his engaging homily, Fr. Mike invites listeners to halt the fast-paced flow of life to absorb the true essence of love, sin, and mercy as depicted in the Scriptures.

Main Themes

The Necessity of Pausing

Fr. Mike underscores the importance of pausing to thoroughly contemplate the story of Jesus' passion. He warns against merely skimming the surface, advocating for a deliberate and heartfelt engagement with the narrative.

"We have to pause the story and look, because we know this. We know that the crucifix is not just a symbol, that the story is a window..."
[05:30]
Love That Costs Everything

Central to Fr. Mike's homily is the concept that true love involves ultimate sacrifice. He juxtaposes human tendencies to seek reciprocal benefits in love with Jesus' selfless act of dying for humanity's sins without any expectation of return.

"We get to see what love looks like when it costs everything... love always involves sacrifice."
[12:15]

Subpoints:
- Unconditional Love: Jesus' love is portrayed as unconditional and exhaustive, extending to the fullest extent without holding back.
- Sacrifice Beyond Expectation: Unlike typical human relationships where love often results in mutual benefits, Jesus' sacrifice was purely for the redemption of others.
Sin and Its Visible Wounds

Fr. Mike explores the consequences of sin, illustrating how the crucifix serves as a stark reminder of the injuries and suffering sin inflicts upon both individuals and the broader human narrative.

"We see what sin looks like when we can see the wound... my choices put a crown of thorns on his head."
[18:45]

Subpoints:
- Physical Manifestation of Sin: The physical agony of Jesus represents the tangible impacts of sin.
- Personal Responsibility: Emphasizes the personal nature of sin, highlighting that individual choices contribute to the broader narrative of suffering.
Mercy That Refuses to Give Up

The homily culminates in the depiction of mercy as an unwavering force. Fr. Mike highlights Jesus' continual plea for forgiveness from the cross as a testament to relentless mercy.

"We see what mercy looks like when it refuses to give up... he repeatedly said, father, forgive them."
[25:10]

Subpoints:
- Persistent Forgiveness: Jesus' repeated prayers for forgiveness exemplify a mercy that endures despite immense suffering.
- Hope Beyond Despair: Mercy provides a bridge from despair to hope, ensuring that redemption remains attainable.

Notable Discussions and Insights

The Garden of Eden Connection:

Fr. Mike draws parallels between the fall of Adam and Eve and the crucifixion, emphasizing that both narratives highlight the costs associated with love and sin. He points out that God's act of clothing Adam and Eve with leather garments signifies His presence despite their expulsion from the garden, reinforcing that God remains with humanity even in times of suffering.

"God didn't abandon them. He went out into the wilderness with them."
[10:20]
Human Nature vs. Divine Love:

Addressing human tendencies, Fr. Mike reflects on the common misconception that love should yield personal gains. He contrasts this with Jesus' approach, where love is devoid of self-interest, setting a divine example for believers.

"In my life, and probably in your life too, whenever we love, we always get something back. But Jesus doesn’t get anything back."
[14:50]
Confession and Forgiveness:

Linking the crucifixion to the sacrament of confession, Fr. Mike envisions Jesus witnessing believers seeking forgiveness. He underscores that Jesus' sacrifice facilitates a continuous opportunity for mercy through confession, highlighting the dynamism of the faith narrative.

"Jesus on the cross could see you the next time you need to go to confession and you say, okay, Jesus, I will let you win. I will let you forgive me."
[23:15]

Conclusions and Takeaways

Fr. Mike concludes the homily by reaffirming that the crucifixion, while a moment of profound suffering, is not the culmination of the faith story. Instead, it serves as a pivotal pause that enables the continuation of love, redemption, and mercy. He encourages listeners to use this moment of reflection to deepen their understanding of these core themes, ultimately fostering a more grounded and transformative faith journey.

"This story didn't start with sin. It started with love. This story doesn't end with sin. It ends with mercy."
[30:00]

Final Reflections

"Pause" is a compelling episode that invites Catholics and seekers alike to slow down and engage deeply with the foundational narratives of their faith. Fr. Mike Schmitz masterfully intertwines scriptural insights with relatable reflections, offering listeners a pathway to ground their faith, fortify their hearts, and transform their lives through the enduring lessons of love, sacrifice, and mercy.

Transcript

A (0:00)

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz. I am so excited to be joining the Courage under fire gala on May 23rd in Nashville, Tennessee. And I would love for you to be there, too. I believe that this world needs people of faith who are willing to live with clarity, conviction, and compassion. That's what this night is all about. Standing in truth, rooted in Christ and unshaken by the storms around us. You know this. We weren't made for comfort. We weren't. We were made for courage. So go to the Courage Under Fire gala by grabbing your ticket@courageunderfiregala.org that's courageunderfiregala.org and God bless. So this is one of those moments where we get to pause. I think it's one of the moments where we have to pause. I think that hearing this story again, you know, this account of the passion, of the real suffering and the real death of Jesus, the fact that he really died, we have to pause. I think that right now we have to just stop and look because I think maybe our temptation is like, kind of like take a glance and then. And then move on, but we have to pause the story and look, because we know this. We know this, right? We know that the story is not just a story. We know that the crucifix is not just a symbol, that the story is a window, right? The story that the crucifix is a lens through which we see the truth. The truth that we get to see what love looks like when it holds nothing back. We get to see love, what sin looks like when we see the wounds, and we can see what mercy looks like when it refuses to give up. But these three things, right? If we. If we stop right now, if we pause right now and look, we see those three things. We see what love looks like when it costs everything, what sin looks like when we can see the wound, and what mercy looks like when it refuses to give up. The first thing is we see what love looks like when it costs everything. You know, yesterday we talked about this last night, right? At the last supper, we prayed with the fact that it said Jesus loved having loved his own who are in the world. He loved them to the end. So we know what love looks like when it costs everything, right? That. The fact that here's Jesus who loved them, Eis telos, right? That Greek term that doesn't just mean to the end of the story. It means to the fullest extent. We get to see what love looks like when it loves to the fullest extent, you know, ever since the fall. We talked about the fall yesterday. Ever since the fall. Human beings, us who are made for love, God, who is love. Ever since the fall. Love always involves sacrifice, right? That's. That's the remedy that's given to Eve, that she's going to love the children that she gives birth to, but it's also going to cause her pain because love involves sacrifice. And to Adam, that he's going to bring forth fruit from the earth, but it's going to cost him something. So love always involves sacrifice. In fact, you might have caught this, that at the end of the whole story of Adam and Eve in the garden, that they're cast out of the garden. We know this, but I don't know if you've ever noticed these two points. These two points of this is that as Adam and Eve are leaving the garden, it said the Lord God then clothed them with leather garments. And that tells us two things. One, it tells them, tells us that God didn't abandoned them. He didn't stay in the garden. He went out into the wilderness with them. So God is with us. God is with us. And the second thing it tells us is that he clothed them with leather garments. How do you get leather garments? You get leather garments when something is killed. You can only make leather garments out of something that was alive and now it's dead. Why? Because this resounding truth that love always involves sacrifice. And today we get to. Through the lens of this story, through the lens of this, of the crucifix, we get to see what love looks like when it costs everything, what love looks like when it demands sacrifice. And I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but it just struck me so powerfully of. I'm so accustomed to my. My own twisted heart. My own twisted heart is this. I will love. I'm grateful for the ability to love. And yes, of course it involves sacrifice, but in my life, and probably in your life too, whenever I love, whenever we love, we always get something back. I mean, typically we get something back. So here's the mom, she has a child and it costs her something, but she has a child. The child hopefully loves her back. Here's a man who goes to work and he can do this thing and brings forth fruit from the earth with pain and difficulty, and it's sacrifice, but he gets something back. The story we just heard, Jesus doesn't get anything back. What I mean by that is that there's nothing to this story, nothing to this action, nothing to the thing we just Heard that's for him. I don't know if you've ever thought about this. I've been praying about this for days, though. That sense of Jesus gets nothing out of this. And just sit with that. Like to pause, to stop and sit with that. None of this is for him. But this is the lens that we get to see what love looks like when it holds nothing back. We also get to see what sin looks like when we can see the wound. I think so often we don't see the wound. I mean, sometimes we do. Sometimes we see the consequences of sin. But so often in our lives, we just, like no sin kind of sometimes can feel just like, I broke a rule or I broke a law. And we know this. We know there's rules in our lives. There's laws in our lives that you can kind of sort of fudge with. And there's no consequence. Like, there's no kind of thing. You could go a little bit over the speed limit or kind of roll through that stop sign and we're all fine. Everyone's fine. The world didn't collapse. So I think we get accustomed to this notion that, well, sins are just rules. Our sins are just those laws that maybe I broke. But again, no one was hurt. But the story we just heard shows us what sin looks like when we can see the wound. We heard it in the first reading, Isaiah 52 and Isaiah 53, where it talks about this, talks. Who would believe what we've heard? He says there was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him. He was a man of suffering, acquainted with infirmity, one of those from whom people hide their faces. We held him in no esteem. And yet. And this is the cost of my sin. Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured while we thought of him, stricken, as afflicted by God. He was pierced for our offenses, and he was crushed for our sins. Just to sit with that for a second, that my choices nailed Jesus to the tree. That my choices put a crown of thorns on his head. That my choices nailed his feet to the cross. That there was my choices that asphyxiated Jesus himself. And this is one of those things, the story when we stop, when we pause and we look, we can see the consequences of our choices. Again, I say this, I say the crucifix, or this story is the lens through which I can see what my choices have done. And because of that, we have to. Today on Good Friday, we have to stop and we have to look. Because this story reveals what love looks like when it costs everything. And what sin looks like when we can see the wound. And thirdly, lastly, it reveals what mercy looks like when it refuses to give up. We heard Jesus praying in the gospel, father, forgive them. Now, I just discovered this. This just blows my mind. Is that the Greek when it says. And Jesus said, father, forgive them. The Greek is actually not. Jesus said like. As if he said it once. It was the Greek form of the word that means he said it again and again. Like this whole time. This whole time that Jesus feet are being nailed to the cross, his hands are being nailed to the cross. This whole time, maybe even who knows, as the cross is being stood up and he is hanging on the cross, he repeatedly said, father, forgive them. He didn't just say. He kept saying, father, forgive them. And we stop and look. We can see what love looks like when it refuses to give up. I don't know if you ever paused and thought about this. If we look at the cross, we can see what love looks like when it refuses to give up. What did Jesus see from the cross? What did Jesus look at? You know, the other day we had confessions on Palm Sunday night. And a number of people who are in Ocia, we have a big, huge class of OCIA people coming into the church this year. It's a bunch of first confessions. And at one point, I was just struck by. Here's someone. These people come into confession for the first time in years and years and years. Maybe sometimes people for the first time ever. I just kept thinking, oh, my gosh, Jesus, this is what you saw, like, from the cross. Jesus, this is what you saw. You saw this moment. Because why? Because. Why did Jesus die for our sins? He died. Sorry. Why did Jesus die on the cross? He died so our sins could be forgiven. What happens in confession? Our sins are forgiven. So here I imagine what Jesus saw from the cross, when we look at the cross is love that refuses to give up mercy that refuses to give up the cost of our sins. What Jesus saw from the cross, I'm guessing he saw that moment, like Palm Sunday night last week when someone went to confession and they let Jesus win. That Jesus on the cross could see you the next time you need to go to confession and you say, okay, Jesus, I will let you win. I will let you forgive me. So we have to stop. We have to pause in this story. Because when we pause in the story and look through this, this story is a len through which we See what love looks like when it costs everything. What sin looks like when we can see the wound. And what mercy looks like when it refuses to give up. We have to pause and we have to look, we have to stop the story. But here's the reality. Of course, this is the last thing the reality is. This is just a pause. What I mean by that is, this, today is not the end of the story. This is not the end of the story. But it had to happen for the story to go on. We know this. The truth is, this story didn't start with sin. It started with love. And this story doesn't end with sin. It ends with mercy. Of course, we all know that sin is a part of the story. That suffering and evil and death we just heard about that is a part of the story. We know that the Passion and the cross, they stand. This declaration that sin does not have the final word. That death, the death of those you love, that your death and not. And also, even including Jesus, death, it's not the end of the story. Today we pray, stop. And we pause and we look at the crucifix, because that's the lens. And we look at the story, hear the story, because that's the lens. But we also know that this is not the end of the story. It happened so that the story could go on.