← Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
6/28/26 Intentional Limitation
00:14:51
Homily from the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The necessary risk we must take. Jesus calls us to love Him first. To place Him ahead of every other goal or desire in our lives. In order to answer the question "What are you living for?", we have to take the risk of knowing what we are NOT living for.
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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 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 10, verses 37 through 42 Jesus said to his apostles, whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the One who sent me. Whoever receives a prophet receives a prophet's reward. And whoever receives a prophet because he's a prophet will receive a prophet's reward. Whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward. And whoever gives only a cup of water to one of these little ones to drink because the little one is a disciple. Amen. I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. We should have a seat. So I've been thinking about Here we are in the middle of summer, and I was thinking about our students way back during their finals week, and they're getting closer and closer to graduation. And there are certain people that, Because I've had some conversations with people, certain kinds of people who are just, like, full of ideas, you know? People who are just like. Who are like, so full of possibilities, you know, is one of the Sometimes we might not be full of possibilities. Sometimes we might not be full of ideas. Sometimes we might be actually kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel for, like, I need something to do. I need some kind of initiative. But there are other people, right? There's other people who have, like, so many good ideas. There are people who have. There's so many things that they want to do with life that it's just. It's really exciting. It's really exciting. There's so many things I want to do with life also. It can be kind of draining. It can be Kind of draining when you have 24 tabs open on your computer. And if I say that number 24 people are like, double it and then double it again. Or like, you have, you know, 14 different unfinished ambitions. You have 12 different possible futures. And basically every, every, every someday plan that, like, someday I want to do this thing. And we find ourselves stuck. I came across a man recently. His name is David Foster Wallace. David Foster Wallace was a. He's a novelist and he. He was a college professor. He tragically died in 2008. But before he had died, he wrote about this. He spoke a lot about. He spoke a lot about gifted people who oftentimes fall into this cycle of overthinking. They have so many ideas that they fall into this paralysis because of endless options. And he said this. He said that modern people can become endlessly aware. They can be endlessly capable, and they can be endlessly undecided. Because I am endlessly aware and endlessly capable. I'm endlessly undecided. And what he discovered was, he said. He said, we have these endless possibilities. Possibility can become a prison. Because of course, with all these capabilities, all these possibilities, the question of life is never just going to be, what am I capable of? The question is going to be, what is my life worth? Or what task is worthy of my life? What direction? What step is worthy of my life? Another big question would you say like this, what are you living for? Let's ask that question today. What are you living for? And I think it's pretty dangerous to ask this question. I think partially because to answer the question, what are you living for? You have to take a risk. And I don't just mean like the risk of jumping in or the risk of choosing. The first risk we have to take is the risk of intentionally limiting ourselves. The first risk to even people. Answer the question, what are you living for? Requires the risk of intentionally limiting yourself. You know, this summer we've already started the summer season of weddings. We're like right in the middle of weddings right now. It's so incredible. It's so amazing, so beautiful. Those couples who are just. They're committing their lives to each other. I was earlier this spring was able to go to a number of ordinations of guys who used to. I knew long before they were in seminary. Some were here and now they're priests. And it's just incredible. I get to this upcoming August and this upcoming summer or, sorry, fall of going to religious who are going to consecrate themselves, or religious who are taking their Vows. And all of those are so. They're moments of great joy. But every one of those people, from the married people to the guys getting ordained, to the people who are consecrating themselves, taking vows, all of them have discovered the secret. And the secret is this. That if you want freedom, that if you want love, if you want a full life, it begins with, or at least it involves restriction. That if you and I, if we want freedom, if we want love, if we want a full life, it has to involve restriction. That's what Jesus is talking about today in the Gospel. In the Gospel, Jesus makes it absolutely clear we need to decide who we're living for. So he says, if you love father or mother more than me, son or daughter more than me, basically even your life more than me, you have to forsake all others. And we might look at Jesus and say, that's crazy. But think about this. Every person who gets married, that's what they do. Every person who gets married says, okay, I'm forsaking all. That's one of the lines that you use sometimes in weddings. Forsaking all others. We cling to each other. That every religious sister who consecrates herself to the Lord, to this community, she's forsaking all others. Every priest who makes vows to be able to be a priest, he's forsaking all others. Every one of us knows this. That in every area of life where we want to grow in freedom or we want to grow in love or we want to have a full life, it always involves restriction so that one can be first. And if we don't do that, if we don't take that risk of intentionally limiting ourselves, then we'll never become who we're supposed to be. You might have heard the story of Steve Jobs back in. Back in 1997, when Steve Jobs, he had been let go from Apple, and they brought him back. And Apple, at that point in 1997, was floundering. They had too many products, they had too many ideas. They were going too many different directions. And so there's this. This famous story about how Steve Jobs walks into the boardroom and he goes over to whiteboard and he makes a quadrant on it, right? Four squares. And in the top quadrant over one square, he wrote professional. The other square he wrote consumer. Or he wrote, yeah, consumer. And on the side he wrote desktop, the other side, portable. He said, okay, that's what we're doing. We're making desktop computers for professionals and for consumers, making portable computers for professionals and for consumers. We're doing four things. We're limiting ourselves to doing four things. And he actually, he said this. He had this great quote. He said, people think that focus means saying yes to the thing you got to focus on, but that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to a hundred other good ideas. When they did this at Apple, they completely turned it around. Why? Because we know this. We know this that if you try to do everything, you lack clarity. And the saints have discovered this. Saints have discovered that if you try to live for everything, you end up losing your soul. The risk of answering the question, what are you living for? The risk is it always begins with intentionally limiting ourselves. One of the reasons why John Paul, St. John Paul the Great, he once said this. He said, he said, the person who does not choose to love forever will find it very difficult to truly love for even one day. Like to make the decision to intentionally limit ourselves gives us freedom, gives us life, gives us love. So the question, once again, what are you living for? Because we want to do it all. We want to do it all. But it is often in limitation that we find God's will for us. This is important for all of us. It's often in limitation that we find God's will for us. From those people who have all the ideas in the world to someone who's like, I don't have a lot of options. I have this one option or these two options. Yes, it's often in limitation that we find God's will for us. Why? Because to live for Jesus often means closing the door. Or at least it means taking the risk to intentionally limit ourselves. That's why. Let's go back to the gospel. Jesus says, if you love father or mother, son or daughter, or even your own life more than me, you have to let it go. Now, I'm not saying you have to cut these people out of your lives. What he's saying is to intentionally restrict yourself means to close the door in order to go forward. But I think a lot of us have what you might call like a hoarder mentality. You've seen the TV shows with hoarders in them or like documentary on YouTube of hoarders. And if you're watching, you know, it seems so painful that if you have that hoarder mentality or you're stuck in that hoarder like cycle, you can't imagine how painful that would be to be in that place. On the outside, what do we look? We look at this and say, just get rid of it. We look and say, well, just clean. We say, just throw it away. And they say, well, I can't. I can't just get rid of it. I can't just throw it away. Why not? And part of it is because they have these thoughts that have taken control that say, I can't let go of this because I might need it someday. We can look at someone who's hoarding and say, that's ridiculous. But we'll look at our own lives, look at the way we hold, grasp onto things, possibilities, options. Can't let go of this. We hold onto them just in case. Just like a hoarder would hold onto it just in case. What if I need it later? That's why, to answer the question, what are you living for? It takes a risk because I know for myself, I don't want to close the door definitively. I remember talking to a priest, he's from New Jersey. At one point, we were just talking about just wrestling with sin and tried in, like, that sense of, like, just shutting the door definitively. And he said this. He said this line. He said, sometimes I find myself beating up the old man. The old man. So St. Paul talks about the old man. The old man is our part of us that is inclined to sin. He's like, I find myself sometimes torturing the old man or beating up the old man rather than just letting him die. And I was like, oh, shoot, me too. Rather than just putting him to death and saying, I'm done. Sometimes you hold on just in case. Sometimes you hold on to that old self. And here's the question. The question is, what in my life am I holding on to that is making freedom difficult? What in my life am I holding on to that's keeping me from living for Christ? What is it? What am I loving first rather than Jesus? Again? What am I holding on to just in case? You know, I think it's fascinating that for Christians, for us as Catholics, our initiation, the way we became Catholics, the way we became Christians, is deathlike. Like baptism is actually meant to be a reminder of death, right? St. Paul even says it. We were buried with Christ in the second reading. Today, we're buried with Christ. We're drowned with Christ. Basically, St. Paul is saying, you're dead. You're dead to sin, so what are you living for? He says, you're dead to sin, and now you're living for God in Christ Jesus. That's the answer to the question, what are you living for? The answer has to be. It begins with restriction, right? The intentionally Limiting myself. I'm dead to sin and I'm alive. I'm living for God in Christ Jesus. This is the last thing we can ask the question again, what are you living for? And there's a lot of possibilities, but we know this, that possibilities can become a prison. That's one of the reasons that true freedom, that love, and that a full life involves restriction. So there's this practice that a lot of Christians have done, a lot of Catholics have done for many, many years. And it's these two Latin words. It's meditating on these Latin words. Then Latin words are memento mori. You probably know what those words mean. They mean, remember your death. And so a lot of times you'd have images or you have these saints who would have like a human skull on their des. And they. Or in their. In their presence, in their. In their line of sight, every single day. And they have this. Remember your death. Remember your death. Remember that your life is not going to go on forever. Remember that some point how you live today is going to echo in eternity. That's what memento mori, that's what remember your death means. But it also has a secondary meaning. It doesn't just mean remember the fact that you're going to die. It also means remember the fact that you have died. When the monks, when the nuns, when the saints would have that skull, would have that line, memento mori, it wasn't just a reminder of the future. It was a reminder of the past. It was a reminder of what St. Paul says. You've been dead. You're dead. I've been crucified with Christ, and it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. To realize every single day that you're a walking dead man, to remember every single day I have already died gives us the freedom to answer the question, what am I living for? So here's the invitation. Remember that you've died and take the necessary risk. The necessary risk to intentionally limit yourself that you're dead, to sin. That he is first. And now what you're living for is now you're free to live for God in Christ Jesus our Lord.