← The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
If You’re Too Busy, You’re in Danger of This Grave Mistake (w/ Fr. Mike Schmitz)
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"'Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?' He (Jesus) said to him, 'You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" Matthew 22: 36-39 Fr. Mike Schmitz warns us of the dangers of making our lives too full, even with good things. He reminds us of the beautiful quote from St. John of the Cross, "In the twilight of our lives, we will be judged on love alone."
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My new favorite quote, I came across it years ago, is from St. John of the Cross. In the twilight of our lives, we will be judged on love alone. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascension Presents. Here's Jesus, who in the Gospels, when he's asked what the great commandments are, he says, love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. John of the Cross isn't like inventing anything new when he says, in the twilight of our lives, at the end of our lives, we'll be judged on love alone, because Jesus said that the two great commandments, Love God with all you got. Love your neighbor as yourself. So that's key. But here's the problem. Love. Maybe this is just me. Our lives are so full that we find it difficult to love. What I mean by that is, of course I want to love God with everything. I want to love my neighbor as myself. But my life is so full, I just. It's really hard. I was thinking about this particularly because there is a parable in Luke's gospel where Jesus says, there's a wealthy man who's holding a great feast, a great feast for everyone. And so he invites three people. He invites at first, someone. And the guy says, I can't because I just bought a new field. I got to go inspect the field. Consider being excused. Second guy says, I have to. I just bought some new oxen. I got to inspect the oxen. Consider me excused. Third guy says, I just married a woman and I can't. I can't make it. So all three of them. Now, later on, it goes on that Jesus says that the. That the wealthy man invites everybody in. He wants to have his house full. He wants his place to be packed. But these first three, these aren't even excuses. They all have reasons. I have a new field. I've got to go take care of the field. I've got new oxen. I got to take care of the oxen. I got a new wife. I got. I want to be with my wife. Those are all good reasons, and they're reasons that you and I would give, too. God says, I want to spend time with you. Okay, that's great, but I've got this and this and this and all these things I've got going on in my life. I want to love you, God. My life is just too far. And it doesn't even have to be full of bad things. It might be actually full of really, really good things. But in the twilight of my life, I'M going to be judged on love. Have I loved God with everything I've got? Have I loved my neighbor as myself? How do I know that I've loved God? The way he's asking me to love and then my neighbor, the way he's commanding me to love my neighbor when I've got so many good things that seem to do what they seem to kind of choke out love. I've been praying about this a lot and just thinking about this and thinking what is happening in this parable that might give us some insight into a metric to be able to measure our love. Maybe that's what this is. And I'd say, look at the parable and say, well, these three individuals, they all have their plans. And it's true, they all have their plans. Check out the field, check out the oxen, be with your wife, good things. And when they get invited to the great banquet, when they get invited to a better thing, they're not interruptible. Does that make sense? And I reflect on this because I think this might be me. I think this might reflect a little bit of my heart. God, I've got my schedule. It's full, it's packed. Here it is. The question, well, do you love people? Yeah, I think I do. That's why they're on the schedule. Do you love me? Yeah, I do. I think it's why I have a scheduled time to spend time with the Lord every single day, multiple times a day. But am I interruptible? Does God have my permission to interrupt me? Or would I say just like those three individuals were invited to the great, great feast? I got other stuff going on. I wonder if one of the metrics is interruptability. I wonder if one of the great gifts or graces we can be given, one of the great virtues that we can have is the ability to be interrupted and not be interrupted by the small things. Not interrupted by a lesser thing, but to be able to be interrupted by the greater thing. This is important because it means we have to actually assess and say what is most important. That's just what's most, least important. Not just even what's more important, but what is most important. And I think that interruptability means we've taken the time to ask that question, because here's the reality. The reality is, of course, you have probably responsibilities. You probably have to take care of somebody. There are probably some people that you made a commitment to, and you wouldn't want to be interrupted by something that is less important than your previous commitment. That makes sense. But when it comes down to it to be able to be interrupted by God. What is most important in this moment? A willingness to be interruptible by the most important is going to be key when it comes to love. Moms and dads, you've seen that probably a thousand times where here was your plan and your child comes in and they just want your attention for who knows, five minutes maybe. And you probably have had that experience of no, I can't, I'm busy, we gotta do this thing. And then that night you go to bed and you think, wait a second, why did I do that? And we realized that we sacrificed the more important, or maybe even in that moment, the most important for something that just happened to be on the schedule. I find myself doing that all of the time. So I gotta keep. I gotta keep the schedule. Just like I've gotta check out the field, I gotta check out the oxygen. Someone says, I just married someone. All of those things are important. But when God comes knocking, he is the most important. In the twilight of our lives, we will be judged on love alone. But maybe today we'll be judged on how interruptible are we. Does God or do people who need us have our permission to interrupt us? Something to think about for all of us here at Ascension presents. My name is Father Mike. God bless.