← The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
If This Doesn’t Bother You, That’s a Problem (w/ Fr. Mike Schmitz)
00:06:18
What's in our heart that refuses to celebrate when good things happen to someone else? Fr. Mike Schmitz reflects on the story of the man healed on the Sabbath. Many focus on the fact that Jesus healed on the Sabbath, though technically allowed, but Fr. Mike invites us to look deeper. The real issue isn’t the law. It’s the heart. More than Jesus performing the miracle, what this story exposes is that sometimes we fail to value the suffering of others, or even the joy of others, because they simply don’t matter enough to us.
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I can see myself being one of the people in the crowd going, oh, for Pete's sake, he's got edema. Can you cure my athlete's footlord? This guy with edema, like, he can last another day. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascension Presents. You know, there are some stories in the Gospels that strike me as like, why, what? What's your deal, man? Come, bro. Like, what is your big hang up? And one of those recurring stories in the Bible is when Jesus heals someone on the Sabbath and all of these other people are angry about it. Like, not just kind of, like annoyed, but angry. I wonder, like, what is going on in your life, man, that you can't rejoice because someone got healed even if it's on a Sabbath? I was reading through Luke's gospel. There's a story of a man who comes, comes before Jesus and he has dropsy. And so Jesus heals him of dropsy. And he even says, if your ox fell into a well, you wouldn't get him out on a Sabbath. So this person, right, that's the context of the story. And I was thinking about this and thinking, okay, here are people who, again, they're genuinely angry at Jesus. That's what Luke describes. They're angry with him for healing this person on a Sabbath. So I've been really, really wondering, pondering this, turning it over my head again, why, what in me? And this is what I have to ask. What in me has potential for this? Because we all have the potential for this. I think when it comes to anything in the spiritual life, whenever we see the bad thing, we have to know that's also in my heart, right? I've been turning this over in my brain and in my heart, saying, hey, God, where? Where could that be me? And then I just kind of focused on one of the details in the Gospel and it said, this man again had dropsy. I was like, well, what's dropsy? So I went to the Internet and said, what's dropsy? And dropsy is edema. So it's a gathering of fluid in the limbs. On one hand, this guy has maybe swollen feet or swollen hands, swollen legs, he has edema, right? This swelling now obviously this can get really serious. But I was just picturing, okay, what if this was not life threatening but really inconvenient for this guy, right? And Jesus says, today's the day. Today's the day. I see you. Today's the day. You're in front of me. Today's the day. You're asking for help. So today's the day. I'm gonna heal you. I can see myself being one of the people in the crowd going, oh, for Pete's sake, he's got edema. What the heck? You know? He's like, can you cure my athlete's footlord and have that sense of me of saying, like, no, the rule here is the Sabbath. Keep holy the Sabbath. No working on the Sabbath. This guy with edema, like, he can last another day. Now, again, I'm just trying to. Trying to find out what part of it is. What part of this whole thing is in my heart, which is why I love that Jesus says, like, who among you, if your animal falls into a pit, you wouldn't get them out on a Sabbath. I think what Jesus is saying is he's like, listen, the. The law actually says you can do stuff like this. The law says that if your animal or your child falls into a well, into a pit, like, you can save them on. On a Sabbath. The issue is you don't think this person with edema is that important. Yeah, if it was your son, if it was your daughter, if it was your animal, even you would say, well, that's important. That's important to me. And so, yeah, get him out on the Sabbath. But you don't think this guy with edema is that important. He's not important to you. That's the issue. The issue is not that he's not hurting. The issue is not that he's not here. The issue is not that I can't do this. The issue is not even that the law prohibits this. The issue is his suffering doesn't matter enough to you because he doesn't matter enough to you. This is one of those things I keep going back to. Again, this is my heart to be able to say, wow, Lord, where is that in my heart? Where I could say, come back tomorrow. It's just Edema. And Jesus is like, yeah, but if it was yours, you wouldn't say, I'll come back tomorrow. If it was you, he'd say, God, please. Now, if it was your child, you wouldn't say, oh, I'll come back tomorrow. If it was your child, you'd say, God, please do it. Now. Again, the issue wasn't even the law. The law allowed. The law permitted things like this. The issue was the heart. And the issue was the fact that certain of those people in that crowd, they didn't care enough about the man standing in front of them, because if. If he mattered to them, they wouldn't be angry that Jesus healed him. They would celebrate, they'd rejoice. And that's the thing for us. What is it in our hearts that refuses to celebrate when someone is set free, that refuses to celebrate when someone is helped, that refuses to celebrate when. When God does something great in their lives? My guess is it's that same thing. Not that what just happened was not good, but the person to whom it happened didn't matter to me. And so what I say is this. My heart has to change. It's called magnanimity. It's just a fun word to say to become magnanimous, which means large hearted, of large spirit, of large soul, and to recognize that God's graces, God's gifts, God's blessings, they are more than enough to go around. And everyone matters anyways. I just think it's important for me to say God when I see something going wrong. I have to ask myself, where could that go wrong in my heart. And I found it out when individual, when the person in front of me, when they don't matter to me. But I want to be a Christian. I want to be someone who is like Jesus, which means everyone has to matter, everyone gets to matter and everyone hopefully gets mattered to you too. So magnanimity, be magnanimous, have that large heart, that large spirit that recognizes everyone matters anyways. From all of the citizen Ascension presents, My name is Fr. Mike. God bless.