← Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
Episode 123142: 1/4/26 Proximity or Intimacy
00:14:31
Christ has come close. And yet, we all still have a choice: will we remain indifferent to His presence or will we seek Him out? If we choose indifference, we will not remain indifferent. When it comes to God, we either give Him our hearts or we remove Him from our lives.
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Welcome to Sunday Homilies with me, Fr. Mike Schmitz. I hope today's homily inspires and motivates you, and I also hope that it leaves you hungry for the One who gave everything to feed you. If you want to get this and other Sunday Mass resources sent straight to your inbox, sign up@ascensionpress.com Sunday or by texting Sunday to 33777. You can also follow or subscribe in your podcast app for for weekly Notifications God Bless the Lord be with you and with your spirit. A Reading from the Holy Gospel According to Matthew Glory to you, o Lord. Chapter 2, verses 1 through 12 When Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem saying, where is the newborn King of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage. When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled, and all Jerusalem with him, assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They said to him, in Bethlehem of Judea. For thus it has been written through the prophet and you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, since from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod called the Magi secretly and ascertained from them the time of the Tsar's appearance. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word that I too may go and do him homage. After their audience with the King, they set out and behold the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary, his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage, and then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way, the Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. Glad you have a seat. So I grew up. This is the Here we are, the last Sunday in Christmas season. It reminds me of this. This is the whole thing. I grew up in Brainerd, Minnesota, which is the vacation area of one of the vacation areas of Minnesota. And one of the things we have a claim to fame claim to fame is that Brainerd is the Quote, unquote, birthplace or the home of Paul Bunyan. So if you know the. You know, the tall tale of Paul Bunyan. Tall tale. We recognize that we had a thing called Paul Bunyan Amusement Park. And it was in my hometown, in town, basically, kind of right on the outskirts of town, Paul Bunyan Amusement Park. And we begged our parents to be able to. That we could go to Paul Bunyan. They never took us. The only time we ever got to go to Paul Bunyan Amusement park was when the cousins came to visit, which was relatively rare. And they would say, okay, now we can go to the amusement park. It was one of those situations where I'm like, but we live here. We should be able to go here all the time. Now, obviously, if you've ever been to Paul Bunyan Amusement park, you know that it's not. As an adult, it's not that big. It's kind of a small thing. But as a kid, it was the place I wanted to go more than anything. But it seemed like one of those situations where it was so, so close to home that it was too close to home, if that makes any sense. There are sometimes there are places in our lives or people in our lives that, oh, yeah, they live in our town. Famous person. We don't, like, go to see them because they're from here. Or we have some kind of. Like, some kind of site in our hometown where people will drive from all over the place to see this site. But no, I mean, we live here. It's just. It's just down the street. And I think sometimes we confuse proximity for maybe intimacy. Here's what I mean. Here we are, as I said, at that very end of the Christmas season, the beginning of the Christmas season would be celebrated. We celebrate Christmas, which is what? The fact that God has come close, that God has drawn near to us, that the God of the universe not only at one point in time became a human being, a little child in Bethlehem, as we heard today. But that same God has taken up residence among us. Emmanuel, right? God is with us. And that we could at any moment stop by a Catholic church in our town, and we could spend time in front of Jesus, the real God, at any moment. We wanted to imagine right down the street from wherever you live right now. God waits. Now, obviously, God is present at all places at all times, but he's uniquely present in the Eucharist. I find it fascinating that we'll go on pilgrimages. Pilgrimages are great. They're such an incredible opportunity to exercise faith. Went to Poland A year and a half, two years ago now, by now. And it was remarkable. We had journeyed all the way from the United States of America to Poland, and we were stopping at these parish churches. And it was funny because these parish churches are still parish churches, right? They're pilgrimage sites. They're places of great importance in the history of the church, but particularly the history of the church in Poland. But they're just someone's parish. Like, they're just the church that people go to for daily Mass. That's the church people go to for Sunday mass. And I remember seeing these people realizing, like, wait, your home parish is my pilgrimage site that we travel from across the world just to be able to pray, where you get to pray every single day, or where you get to choose not to pray every single day. In the Gospel today, we have these two feasts of epistemology, right? We have these two kind of groups of people. One of the group of people is magi, right? These people who came from the east, they traveled a very far distance because why? Because for whatever reason, it mattered to them that this king was born. For whatever reason, it mattered to them that they didn't even know that God was among them. And so at great, what we imagine, at great personal cost, they left their comfort, they left their home, they left their families, they left everything just to be able to encounter this king, to be able to worship this king, and to be able to be changed by this king. You realize Herod, the other group, Herod, lived six miles from Bethlehem. It would have taken him virtually no time at all to go and see this child. And I just asked the question, why? And how much is this is us? You know, in Japan, they have this. This. This word. And the word is. I'm not going to pronounce it in a great way, but it's mendokusai. Mendokusai. If any word summarized so. So much of our culture, it's this Japanese word. What it means is can't be bothered that here's something happening, but I just can't be bothered. But something amazing is right next door. We just can't be bothered. And how much of this marks not only our culture, how much of this marks our own hearts? You can see this in Herod. He could have gone with the magi. He could have been a magi. He could have been a wise man seeking the Lord. But only six miles. That's all it would have taken. But this. Sometimes we have this incredible indifference. Again, Christmas, just a couple weeks ago, declaring God is Here, God is among us. But we know this proximity does not equal intimacy. How many times has God been into our. Stepped into our lives? And I just. You know what? I'm indifferent. I can't be bothered. He's actually so close that maybe in some ways he's too close. Imagine this. We can say this in our own hearts, that if he was a little further off, then, yeah, I will go. I'll seek him with my whole self. But he's so close that actually what that means is I don't get to visit and come home. It means he's in my home. That's the invitation. That's the invitation of this whole process, is God comes close. And the first obstacle is, will that proximity lead to intimacy or will that proximity lead to hostility? Because that's what happens in the gospel. That's the second thing. First question. Will that proximity lead to intimacy or will that proximity lead to hostility? Because that's how it is with God. This is how it has to be with God. Now, when it comes to God, we can't just kind of be. We can't remain indifferent. At some point, we either fall in love with him, or at some point we want to do what Herod tried to do to Jesus. Eliminate him from our lives, eliminate him from the face of the earth. Again, indifference never remains indifferent when it comes to God. We either have to choose a side. He either gets my whole heart or he gets nothing except my hatred. Think about. And I'll talk to a lot of couples who are discerning marriage. If they don't share the same faith, they're saying, okay, can we make this work? And of course, according to the Catholic Church, you can marry someone who's not Catholic. If you're a Catholic, you can marry someone who's not Catholic. Sometimes there's certain boundaries or certain kind of guidelines. But yes, you can get married to someone who's not Catholic. The question is not is that right or wrong? The question is, is that wise? Because. Why? Because. Well, no, he's willing, or she's willing to go to Mass with me on Sunday. That's great. That's wonderful. I'm really glad they're willing to go to Mass with you on Sunday. What happens when your following Jesus costs them something? What happens when they say, okay, so as Catholics, we can't use contraception. And that means that we both can't use contraception anymore. That means we both have to have a heart that's open to life. That actually might make an impact not only on Me and my faith, but also you and your lack of faith. At some point, that indifference, not the indifference, at some point, the closeness of God is going to cost us something. And either that closeness melts my heart and I belong to him, or that closeness hardens my heart. And I want to do what Herod did. I want to eliminate him from this world, from my life, from our relationship. We're called to do what the Magi did, not only to seek him, that intimacy, actually that proximity leads to intimacy, but also that sense of, okay, now, yeah, I'm in front of the Lord, and. And what do I do? What the Magi did I offer him. Now, what do we have to offer God? Gold, Frankincense, Myrrh. Yes. What is your best. What's the best thing that you and I have to offer God? I remember one of the saints, I think it might have been St. Augustine had said this. He had said, the only thing that the two things that I can give to God, the only thing I can give to God that is truly mine are my sins. Everything else I give to God, it actually comes from Him. The only thing I can give to God that are truly mine are my sins. So that's one of the things I give to God. It's one of the things I offer to the Lord. Again, through that proximity, not to lead to hostility, I melt my heart and give him my worst. But also Augustine would point out, and what Jesus had pointed out, which is the best way to love God, is obedience. That I give him my will, I give him my yes, I give him my heart. And how do we do that? If you love me, you'll keep my commandments, says the Lord Jesus. And so we realize this, that when God has come close, proximity does not necessarily equal intimacy. I have to be open, have to seek him. I have to let him come close. Number two. The response is I have to respond with worship. I have to respond with offering something. And what we offer God is we offer him our worst. And we offer him our best. We offer him our sins, the only things that are truly ours. And we offer him our best. Our heart, our yes, our obedience. And the last thing is this. If God comes close, we can't say the same. What's it says? It says about the wise men, it says that they return to their country from another way. That they didn't go back home the same as they did when they arrived. I don't know. This strikes me as so, so incredible how often we come to mass and we don't Expect to be changed at all. We come to mass and we think, like, you know, I will leave this mass exactly the same as I was was when I walked in. And you think, how bananas is that to realize we're approaching the true and living God. We're approaching the. The. The throne. We're approaching the source of grace, we're approaching even more than the burning bush that Moses approached on Mount Sinai. And we expect to remain unchanged because we know this proximity does not equal intimacy. I have to be willing to be changed, and I have to be willing to make a change. Here's my invitation. And this is the last thing here on this last day of the Christmas season leading into ordinary time. Next Sunday, Ordinary time, it's the feast of the baptism of the Lord, but it's where we start moving forward. Once again, number one, we know that proximity does not equal intimacy. I have to allow. I can't be indifferent. I have to allow him to melt my heart. Number two, that response is, I give him my worst. I give him my best. I have to offer him something. And number three is I have to change. Here's the invitation. What's one thing after this Mass? What's one thing about my environment? What's one thing about my home that I can change physically change that'll help me get closer to Jesus? We all know there's things in our homes. There's things on our phones, there's things in our lives that I keep them here. They don't help me to get to the Lord. They sometimes hurt me when it comes to my relationship with the Lord. What's one thing in my environment that could be that sign, like the Magi to return to their home by another way? What's one change I can make today? What's one change I can make by the end of this mass where I'm not going home the same, and I'm not going to the same home. But I've encountered this God who's come close. And by my. Yes, by my change, by my openness to him, that proximity does lead to intimacy.