Author: Fr. Matt Schmitz

Jesus is the Good Shepherd

/ Fr. Matt Schmitz / Leave a comment

Homily for 4th Sunday of Easter
April 21-22, 2018
Sacred Heart, EGF: 5:00 PM
Holy Trinity, Tabor: 8:00 AM; St. Francis of Assisi, Fisher: 10:00 AM

Focus:              Jesus is the Good Shepherd.
Function:        Let him shepherd you.

Fr. Peter the Good Shepherd

Some friends at Mom and Dad’s farm on the weekend of my diaconate ordination in 2016.  Fr. Peter is a veteran priest, 3 of us are rookie priests, and 1 will be ordained this summer.

Thank God that Jesus is a Good Shepherd, because I know how much I am prone to wander…

 

As the Good Shepherd, Jesus leads me to green pastures, he shows me where to drink from the waters of salvation, he feeds me with the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation…

And as the sheep, I walk away, focused more on myself than on him. I choose to wallow in the muck of my sins, I wander away, off on my own path, rather than walking in the way he has pointed out to me.

And when I do that, when I sin, he calls me back. He never abandons me.  He comes looking for me.  He beckons.  He calls out to me.  He invites me to “turn around” and to repent, to call out to him even as he calls out to me so that he can find me, pick me up, put me on his shoulders, and bring me back.  He reminds me that I can’t do it without him, that I am dependent on him, that I need him.  But he also reminds me that that’s OK, because he is there for me.  He is my Shepherd.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. I am the sheep.  To be a good disciple is to be a good sheep – a sheep who gets distracted and wander from time to time, certainly; but also a sheep who knows the One to whom he belongs.  I am to be a sheep who knows the heart of His Shepherd.

The heart of my Shepherd is a heart of love, a heart that listens, a heart that calls me, that protects me, that leads me, that feeds me. The heart of my Shepherd knows the heart of his sheep.  The heart of my Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.

And, brothers and sisters, he invites us to do the same.

The Good Shepherd first invites us to follow him as his sheep, then as we mature he invites us to become shepherds for others.

He calls us to do this as husbands and fathers, and wives and mothers, who introduce their children to the Good Shepherd.

He calls us to do this as priests who stand in the person of Christ, who make Christ present in a parish through the celebration of the sacraments and in the preaching of His Word…

He calls us to do this as monks and nuns, as brothers and sisters, who by the radical yet joyful laying down of their lives give us an example of faith and sacrifice to imitate as they devote their lives to leading others to the Good Shepherd.

Today is World Day of Prayer for Vocations.

Today, the Church asks us to pray particularly for an increase in vocations to the priesthood and the religious life. Pope Francis has asked every Christian in the world to spend some time today praying for vocations to the priesthood and the religious life.

The Good Shepherd speaks into the hearts of the children and young adults in our midst. Today is a day to remember that as they grow and mature, their vocation will be revealed to them, if they learn to listen for it, if we pray for them, and if we promote an environment where that vocation is encouraged to grow and flourish, an environment where it will not suffocate from fear or lack of encouragement.

Our diocese needs priests. When was the last time you told a young man that you think he’d be a good priest and why?  Our future shepherds are among us.  Christ does not leave his Church without shepherds.  They just need us to shepherd them as they grow and discover this call.

We can shepherd others only if we ourselves know and strive to follow the Good Shepherd. If we don’t know the voice of the Good Shepherd in our own lives, if we don’t try to listen and to follow the voice of the Good Shepherd in our own lives, then we become a hireling and not a shepherd.

St. Gregory the Great said this:
Whether a man be a shepherd or a hireling, cannot be told for certain, except in a time of trial. In tranquil times, the hireling generally stands watch like the shepherd.  But when the wolf comes, then everyone shows with what spirit he stood watch over the flock.

The shepherd is the one who has learned to lay down his life for the sheep…

The shepherd is the one who loves with a sacrificial type of love…

Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd precisely because he is also the Lamb of God, the Lamb of God who offered himself upon the altar of the Cross in order to take away the sins of the world.

Blessed indeed are we who are called to the supper of the Lamb.

 

Office of Readings: The Cross of Christ Gives Life to the Human Race

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The following is from the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours – Friday of the Third Week of Easter.  St. Ephrem was a deacon who lived in the 4th century.  He left us many hymns, poems, and sermons.  I found this one particularly good.

From a sermon by Saint Ephrem, deacon
The cross of Christ gives life to the human race

Death trampled our Lord underfoot, but he in his turn treated death as a highroad for his own feet. He submitted to it, enduring it willingly, because by this means he would be able to destroy death in spite of itself. Death had its own way when our Lord went out from Jerusalem carrying his cross; but when by a loud cry from that cross he summoned the dead from the underworld, death was powerless to prevent it.

Death slew him by means of the body which he had assumed, but that same body proved to be the weapon with which he conquered death. Concealed beneath the cloak of his manhood, his godhead engaged death in combat; but in slaying our Lord, death itself was slain. It was able to kill natural human life, but was itself killed by the life that is above the nature of man.

Death could not devour our Lord unless he possessed a body, neither could hell swallow him up unless he bore our flesh; and so he came in search of a chariot in which to ride to the underworld. This chariot was the body which he received from the Virgin; in it he invaded death’s fortress, broke open its strongroom and scattered all its treasure.

At length he came upon Eve, the mother of all the living. She was that vineyard whose enclosure her own hands had enabled death to violate, so that she could taste its fruit; thus the mother of all the living became the source of death for every living creature. But in her stead Mary grew up, a new vine in place of the old. Christ, the new life, dwelt within her. When death, with its customary impudence, came foraging for her mortal fruit, it encountered its own destruction in the hidden life that fruit contained. All unsuspecting, it swallowed him up, and in so doing released life itself and set free a multitude of men.

He who was also the carpenter’s glorious son set up his cross above death’s all-consuming jaws, and led the human race into the dwelling place of life. Since a tree had brought about the downfall of mankind, it was upon a tree that mankind crossed over to the realm of life. Bitter was the branch that had once been grafted upon that ancient tree, but sweet the young shoot that has now been grafted in, the shoot in which we are meant to recognize the Lord whom no creature can resist.

We give glory to you, Lord, who raised up your cross to span the jaws of death like a bridge by which souls might pass from the region of the dead to the land of the living. We give glory to you who put on the body of a single mortal man and made it the source of life for every other mortal man. You are incontestably alive. Your murderers sowed your living body in the earth as farmers sow grain, but it sprang up and yielded an abundant harvest of men raised from the dead.

Come then, my brothers and sisters, let us offer our Lord the great and all-embracing sacrifice of our love, pouring out our treasury of hymns and prayers before him who offered his cross in sacrifice to God for the enrichment of us all.

The Wounds of Christ are what God uses to Heal our Wounds

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Homily for Divine Mercy Sunday (B)
April 8, 2018
Sacred Heart, EGF – 7:30, 9:00, 10:30

Focus:              The wounds of Christ are what God uses to heal our wounds.
Function:        Show him your wounds.

DivineMercyPostcardHe showed them his hands and his side.

He showed them his wounds.

His body, risen and glorified, still bore the scars, the gashes, and the holes from the nails that held him to the cross. It still bore the mark of the soldier’s spear that was thrust through his most Sacred Heart.

Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side.

You need to see my wounds? I not only show them to you, I let you experience them.

He showed them his wounds.

The wounds of Christ are what God uses to heal our wounds.

The wounds of Christ remind us of the price he paid for our redemption.

The wounds of his hands, which bled…his hands, through which the blood of Christ pours over your baptized soul, when a priest, acting in the very person of Christ, raises the same wounded hand of Christ over your head and pronounces those sacred words: I absolve you…

The wounds of Christ, especially the wound in his side, the wound of his Sacred Heart, pierced for our offenses so that his Precious Blood could gush forth like a raging torrent, washing over our sins, forgiving and healing them, restoring the life we had lost. It was through the wound in his side that his Precious Blood poured forth, the blood that prefigures the Eucharist, the same Blood from his Sacred Heart that pours forth from his side and into the Chalice in this celebration of the Eucharist.

The wounds of his side, through which the water which prefigures baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit surges forth, the true stream that flows out of the Temple of his Body onto a dry and weary land, giving new birth, new life, to those who drink from this living stream in the fountain of baptism…

He showed them his wounds…

The wounds of Christ are what God uses to heal the wounds of sin.

The wounds of Christ are what God uses to heal our wounds.

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday.

Today we celebrate the mercy of God. The mercy of God is manifested in the wounds of his Son, in the wounds He bore for us.

This is a special feast day for our parish in particular. We are the community of Sacred Heart, and today we are reminded that His Sacred Heart was pierced.  Blood and water flowed forth, as we see in the image that Sr. Faustina left us.

I am speaking, of course, of the image of Divine Mercy.

This image is in our church, it is in the most appropriate place in our church. It is in the confessional.

The image shows Jesus looking at you, one hand raised in blessing, the other pointing to the wound in his side…his wounded heart, through which 2 rays shine forth onto you…2 rays representing the water and the blood that flowed from his side. Jesus Christ came in water and in blood.

He came in water to give you new birth.

He came in blood to nourish you with his flesh for the life of the world.

He came to manifest the mercy of God. He came to give us an image of Divine Mercy.

Mercy. Misericordia.  The Latin word means “a suffering heart”.  A heart that is wounded by the suffering of another.

My brothers and sisters, if you ever doubt the words of Christ, you need only to look to and to experience his wounds. If you doubt his words, believe his wounds.  The caption under the image of divine mercy reads, “Jesus, I trust in you.”  Look at the crucifix and see what he endured for you, for love of you.  His heart suffered for your sins.  His heart was wounded by your sins in order to absolve you of your sins.  Look at the mark on his side, see that his heart was pierced for you, and believe in the Mercy of God.  Trust in the mercy of God.  Look at the wound of his side, and cry out in faith with Thomas: My Lord and My God! Jesus, I trust in you!

The wounds of Christ are what God uses to heal our wounds.

He shows us his wounds so that we will show him our wounds.

He shows us his wounds so that we will trust him with our wounds.

The place where we trust him with our wounds is in the confessional. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them. Whose sins you retain are retained.

God takes away our sins, but he doesn’t take away our wounds. They still remain, just like Christ’s wounds remain.  But he heals them.  He glorifies them, just as Christ’s wounds were glorified.  He leaves the scars to remind us of what he has done for us.

The scars remind us of his Divine Mercy.

His glorified wounds remind us that his mercy continues to gush forth from them, even today. They remind us that his mercy endures forever.

It is Far Easier to Admire Jesus on the Cross than it is to Carry the Cross

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Good Friday Homily
March 30, 2018
Sacred Heart, EGF – 3 PM

Focus:             It is far easier to admire Jesus on the Cross than it is to carry the Cross..
Function:       Carry the Cross.

simon and jesus

It is far easier to admire Jesus on the Cross than it is to carry the Cross.

Yesterday afternoon, I sat down in my comfortable chair in my room with a hot cup of coffee to think and pray about this homily. It was finally quiet…and I was ready to admire Jesus on the Cross in the hope that I’d be given an insight to share with you today.

I was mid-sip into my first sip of coffee when the phone rang.

It was a family friend. Her father-in-law was in the Emergency Room.  They were working on him.  Could I come?

The chaplain met me in the ER and brought me to him. The room was full of doctors and nurses as they performed CPR on him.  This was Cal’s Good Friday.  He was experiencing the Cross.  I approached, absolved his sins, and anointed him.

I then joined the family as the doctor was updating them on his condition. There was nothing more they could do.  The doctor said we would be able to see him shortly, and left the room.  I began to pray with the family, that they would be given strength in this moment of grief.  I paused as the nurse came in to tell the family that they could see him.  My friend grasped my hand and said, “Please don’t leave us.”  It was indeed Cal’s Good Friday, but it was also his family’s Good Friday as, like Mary and the Beloved disciple, they stood at the foot of the Cross and watched their husband and father breathe his last.

It is one thing to admire Jesus on the Cross, it is something altogether different to experience the Cross.

It is far easier to admire Jesus on the Cross than it is carry the Cross.

I admire the Cross when I stand in awe of what he did.
I carry it when I allow his suffering to cause me to suffer.

I admire the Cross when, like Peter, I stand at a safe distance…when I stay outside of the courtyard of another’s pain and suffering.

I carry the Cross when, like the Beloved Disciple, I am willing to enter inside the courtyard of suffering, when I stand at the foot of the Cross and offer my presence to another in the midst of their suffering and despair, offering strength and hope by my simple presence, a presence that says “You are not alone. I care.  I love you.”

Brothers and sisters, today our Lord endures his agony. Good Friday is not only remembered, it is made present to us today.  We stand at the foot of Calvary.

As you approach the altar to venerate the Cross today, will you admire the Cross? Or will you carry it?

Chaplain’s Conference: If You Wish, You Can Make Me Clean

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Chaplain’s Conference
Sacred Heart Catholic High School
Thursday, February 15, 2018

7 deadly sins

This past Sunday, the Gospel laid out for us the story of a leper; a leper who ran up to Jesus, knelt down before him, and said “If you wish, you can make me clean.”

Leprosy – the word means “to peel off”.  Lepers were separated from family and society so they could not infect others.  They were sentenced to a living death…a fate worse than death.

If you wish, you can make me clean.

Jesus looks at him with pity. He looks at him with love. I do will it. Be made clean.

The Lord gives us Lent because he loves us. He loves you and he wants you to be all you can be. He wants you to become the saint that you are meant to be. He wants to free you so that you can live fully and love deeply.

He longs to speak those words to you. I do will it. Be made clean.

But if he is to speak those words, he must speak them in response to your request. If you are to hear those words and have them take effect in your life, you must make your request.

If you wish, you can make me clean.

And so, every year, the Church gives us the season of Lent. A season for days of reflection. A season that provides us the opportunity to stop, to step back and to examine our lives. A season that provides a space for us to ask the question:

What is the state of my heart?

How am I doing in my relationship with God and with those around me?

Where have I allowed habits of sin to creep in and close the doors of my heart?

This is the purpose of Lent: it is a time to examine the state of our hearts. Once we have examined our hearts and see where we need Jesus to make us clean, then we are to direct our Lenten practices toward overcoming that habit of sin and growing in the opposite virtue.

What are some of these habits of sin that may be affecting us? What is the leprosy that infects your heart? Let’s look at the 7 deadly sins. As I describe them, I ask you to reflect on which of these you currently struggle with the most.

Pride. Pride is a puffed up view of myself. I’m the cock of the walk. I have all of the answers and don’t have anything to learn from anyone else. Pride is the chief sin. It is also a blinding sin. People who are prideful often don’t see that they are prideful. But everyone else sees it. They live in a castle of illusion, thinking they are the center of the universe. Do you suffer from pride? If you quickly said “no” or just rolled your eyes, I would encourage you to ask yourself the question again…

Anger. Anger is often caused by impatience. There are times that anger is justified if it moves me to stand up for what is right. But habits of anger turn the heart bitter and prevent us from loving as God calls us to love. Do you suffer from anger? Is anger turning your heart bitter?

Gluttony. Gluttony is eating or drinking to excess. My body needs proper nourishment to function well, and my body is a gift from God. A habit of gluttony enslaves me to my desires – if I want it, then I will have it, regardless of whether or not it’s excessive or unhealthy. Gluttony weakens my will power and my ability to choose. Do you suffer from gluttony?

Lust. Lust is a disordered desire for sexual pleasure. Lust sees other people as objects to be used for my pleasure. Lust sees body parts and not the whole person. Here, I would draw a distinction between attraction and lust. Attraction is recognizing beauty in another person. Lust focuses on the physical attraction and begins to fantasize or make demeaning comments about the other. Do I find myself looking at pornography or engaging in sexual acts with myself or with others? Do I regularly give in to lust?  Perhaps the Lord wants to set you free from lust this Lent…

Sloth. Sloth is a laziness of spirit. Sloth takes away my zeal. It saps me of my energy. It makes me waste my time doing nothing instead of putting my energy into serving others. How much time do I spend sitting around all day, doing nothing? Do I spend countless hours watching TV or playing video games? Do I set goals for myself? Perhaps the Lord wants to free you from sloth this Lent…

Envy. Envy is jealousy – wishing that I had what others have. It makes me think badly of others for what they have and it prevents me from being grateful for what I have. Do I often find myself jealous of others? Cultivating a spirit of gratitude is the opposite of envy.

Greed. The love of money is the root of all evil. Not money itself, but the love of money. Do I find myself always wanting more? Will I use other people to get more for myself? Is my heart attached to things that really don’t matter? Your heart it made for God and he is ultimately the only One who can satisfy the desires of your heart. Do I suffer from greed?

Out of those 7 deadly sins, which one affects you the most? Pride, anger, gluttony, lust, sloth, envy, or greed? Lent is your time to approach the Lord with that sin, to kneel down, and to say, Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.

What if we did that?

What if we directed our Lenten sacrifices toward tearing open our hearts so that the weed of sin that we struggle with could be plucked out?

What if we directed our Lenten sacrifices to uprooting these sins and replacing them with the opposite virtues: planting humility in place of pride, patience in place of anger, temperance or moderation in place of gluttony, chastity in place of lust, diligence in place of sloth, gratitude in place of envy or jealousy, generosity in place of greed?

What if we did that?

What if our penances were directed toward a purpose?

What if we actually expected to grow this Lent…to change this Lent?

How would your life be different? Would it be better?

Where is Jesus inviting you to grow? Where is Jesus calling you from death to life?

Pray for the grace to grow in that area. Pray for it on your knees, daily on your knees imploring the God of all grace for the grace to be made clean. Pray for the grace to return to confession if it’s been years. Pray for the grace to rend your heart – to experience true contrition for your sins. Pray for God to do within you what you cannot do for yourself.

St. Augustine offers this piece of wisdom:
Do you want your prayer to fly to God? Then give it the wings of fasting and almsgiving.

Prayer gives God permission to do his part.
Fasting and almsgiving is your part.

Pray and then fast.

Fasting builds spiritual muscle. We have one will. If you strengthen your will in one area, it will strengthen it in other areas where you struggle. Giving up chocolate or pop strengthens your will in the area of food, and that carries over into the areas of anger, drink, and sex among others. But you have direct it toward that virtue you are trying to grow in. Don’t just give up pop and chocolate for its own sake. Give up pop and chocolate and offer that as a sacrifice to God, asking him to free you from the sin you struggle with. Direct your penance toward a purpose. Know why you’re doing it.

Pray, fast, and give alms. Almsgiving atones for sins. It returns to God from a grateful heart, and in turn it makes the heart more grateful. It focuses your heart on others – it stretches your heart so that it can be filled with the love of God. Find a way to give of your time, your gifts, or your money this Lent. Practice charity. Focus on the needs of others.

Pray, fast, and give alms – direct all of those practices toward rooting out the habit of sin that plagues you and toward planting the opposite virtue will give you the freedom to live more fully and to love more deeply.

Don’t put off to next year what you can do this year. Approach the Lord with the words of the leper. Lord if you wish, you can make me clean.

He wishes to make you clean.

You are his beloved Son. You are his beloved daughter. He want to make you free. You have only to ask him in prayer and then to commit to fasting and almsgiving, and you will see a transformation happen.

 

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

/ Fr. Matt Schmitz / Leave a comment

Homily for Ash Wednesday (Year B)
February 14, 2018
Holy Trinity, Tabor – 6:00 PM
St. Francis of Assisi, Fisher – 7:30 PM

Focus:                   It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
Function:             Live Lent intentionally.

Ash Wed

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
There’ll be ashes and fasting
no chocolate nor candy
this Valentine’s Daaaaaaay!

…

Maybe I should stop before I’m thrown out…

After all, we’ve been fasting all day. No meat. We’re hungry. It’s cold and dark outside. It’s been a long day.

We’re all a little cranky.

This isn’t the time to be messing around. Let’s get on with it…Mass is going to take long enough since we all have to come forward twice…

Repent and believe in the Gospel.
Remember that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.

Real cheerful.

It is certainly not the most wonderful time of the year. It’s a time of drudgery, a time of penance, a time where we wallow in our guilt, or at least pretend to wallow in our guilt. We take up arbitrary penances for the sake of punishing ourselves for no apparent reason other than it’s what we do. A little bit of Catholic guilt is supposed to be good for the soul.

We watch as our co-workers eat their juicy cheeseburgers and then listen as they taunt us for our outdated traditions.

Penance services abound and the priests are cranky because we’ll drive 20 minutes in the cold, dark night to offer our 8th penance service of the week and two people will show up.

The readings are woeful as they urge us to be reconciled to God, to turn away from our sins, to rend our hearts with repentance to such a degree that they are torn open and new spiritual muscle grows.

It’s Lent. The most wonderful time of the year…

Uh-huh. I don’t know about that.

It’s a time, alright, but what type of time is it? Our second reading gives us a clue:

Behold, now is a very acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.

The day of salvation…the day of salvation will be a wonderful time.

The day of salvation when there will be no more suffering, no more pain, where we will experience new life and live it to the full. And, of course, the Good News of the Gospel is that we can begin to live this new life here and now. Jesus promises us this new life here and now. The Kingdom is among us.

Behold, now is a very acceptable time! Behold, now is the day of salvation!

Behold, now is the time to begin anew. Now is the time of conversion, the time for new life, for new life in this life, for a life lived to the full, a resurrection experience in midst of the winter of life.

Now is the time of opportunity, the time of struggle, yes, but also a time of great growth that comes in the midst of the struggle. As they say, no pain, no gain…

Behold, now is a very acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation!

Now is the time to become who you were meant to be. Now is the time for breaking out of the humdrum and ho-hum of everyday life.

Now is the time to end the endless cycle of cynicism and mediocrity and lukewarm Christianity and to begin to live our faith, our life, our love of God and neighbor with boldness and with zeal. Now is the time to become fully alive in Christ. Now is the time for cold hearts to be rent open and set ablaze with Divine love.

Behold, now is a very acceptable time! Now is the day of salvation!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year if we seize it. It’s the most wonderful time of the year if we make the most of it.

It can indeed be the most wonderful time of the year if we make this Lent different from the Lents of the past…if we take up our Crosses daily and follow after him…if we direct all of our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving toward rending our hearts of the vices that plague them and replacing those vices with the opposing virtues.

What if?

What if we directed our Lenten sacrifices, our prayer, our fasting, and our almsgiving…what if we directed them toward tearing open our hardened hearts so that they could be emptied of pride or greed or anger or lust or sloth or gluttony or envy or…?

What if we emptied our hearts of these vices and sins and then filled them, filled them with the virtues of humility or generosity or patience or chastity or diligence or temperance or gratitude or…? What if we did that?

What if our penances were directed toward a purpose?

What if we actually expected to grow this Lent…to change this Lent?

What if we actually tried to seize this acceptable time, this day of salvation, this wonderful time of the year?

How would your life be different? Would it be better? Would it be more…wonderful?

Where is Jesus inviting you to grow? Where is Jesus calling you from death to life?

Pray for the grace to grow in that area. Pray for it on your knees, daily on your knees imploring the God of all grace for the grace that you need to seize this acceptable time. Pray for the grace to return to confession if it’s been years. Pray for the grace to rend your heart – to experience true contrition for your sins. Pray for God to do within you what you cannot do for yourself.

St. Augustine offers this piece of wisdom: Do you want your prayer to fly to God? Then give it the wings of fasting and almsgiving.

Prayer gives God permission to do his part. Fasting and almsgiving is your part.

Pray and then fast.

Fasting builds spiritual muscle. We have one will. If you strengthen your will in one area, it will strengthen it in other areas where you struggle. Giving up desserts strengthens your will in the area of food, and that carries over into the areas of anger, drink, and sex among others. But you have direct it toward that virtue you are trying to grow in.

Pray, fast, and give alms. Almsgiving atones for sins. It returns to God from a grateful heart, and in turn it makes the heart more grateful. It focuses your heart on others – it stretches your heart so that it can be filled with the love of God.

Pray, fast, and give alms – direct all of those practices toward the pursuit of a virtue that will bring about the day of salvation, a virtue that will give you the freedom to live more fully and to love more deeply.

Don’t put off to next year what you can do this year. Don’t waste your time – your acceptable time.

Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.

It is, indeed, the most wonderful time of the year.

If You Wish, He Can Make You Clean

/ Fr. Matt Schmitz / Leave a comment

Homily for 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
February 11, 2018
St. Henry – 7:30 AM Eastern Time (St. Henry, Indiana)

Focus:              If you wish, he can make you clean.
Function:        Will it – be made clean!

Pope Francis

It was the most dreaded of all diseases.  Leprosy.  The word means “to peel off”.  For someone who lived during Old Testament times, leprosy was a living death.  One was separated from family and community.  They were kept outside, away, apart, at a safe distance, where they would not be able to infect others.

Today we meet one of them.  We meet a leper.  He comes to Jesus, kneels down, and begs him:
If you wish, you can make me clean.

Last week, I found myself in the chapel at Saint Meinrad for a time of Eucharistic adoration.  As I sat there, I was aware of my own need to go to confession.  It had only been two weeks and yet I knew that I needed to go.  There was something bothering me, sin weighing me down and getting in the way of my relationship with the Lord, something for which I knew that I needed to ask forgiveness…a leprosy of the heart that needed to be cured.

And I sat there.

I sat there knowing that I needed to go but not wanting to go.

Perhaps you can relate.

So often, we think of confession as our once/year obligation that needs to be met.  We hate to go.  We think we don’t need to go.  We’d rather pretend we’re fine.  I haven’t been that bad, after all.  I’m a good person. 

I’m sure the leper was a good person too.  He still needed to be healed of his leprosy.

All of us experience this leprosy of the heart in its different forms.  There’s the leprosy of a heart puffed up by pride, a heart embittered by anger, a heart soiled by lust or soured by envy.  There’s the leprosy of a heart weakened by gluttony, paralyzed by sloth, or poisoned by greed.

The leprosy of the heart plagues us.  Sometimes we are all too well aware of it and at other times we try to pretend it’s not there, but we can’t escape it.  We know it’s there.

And like the leper, we can’t cure it on our own.  Like the leper, we need to come to Jesus with a simple request:

If you wish, you can make me clean.

Sin makes us want to hide.  We try to hide it like Adam and Eve tried to hide themselves in the Garden.  But, like leprosy, sin doesn’t get better by hiding it.  We must bring it into the light.

The leper had to show himself to Jesus Christ, the true priest.  And, brothers and sisters, so must we.  We must show our leprosy to the priest.

Just as leprosy disfigured the body, so sin defaces the soul.

Just as leprosy caused pain, fear, and depression, so sin destroys interior peace, creates remorse and instills fear of judgement.

But the good news of the Gospel is that we are not to be left in our sins.  Our leprosy is not incurable.  It can be healed!  God sent his Son to die for us so that it could be healed!  God wants to dwell in our hearts – he wants to make his abode in our hearts, but he can do so only if we allow him to first heal our hearts so that they can become a fit dwelling place for him!

Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.”  If we are to be pure of heart, we must allow him to clean the leprosy from our hearts.

We must approach him with the words of the leper on our lips:
If you wish, you can make me clean.

I finally got up.  I walked into the confessional and showed my leprosy to the Lord.  If you wish, you can make me clean. I allowed him, in the person of the priest, to stretch out his hand and to speak the words that he spoke to the leper in today’s Gospel: I do will it, be made clean

The invitation works both ways.  The leper said to Jesus, “If you wish, you can make me clean.”

Jesus extends the invitation to you: “If you wish, I can make you clean”

Do you will it?

Do you want to be made clean?

Lent begins this week.  Confession is a great way to start Lent.  Then, we can direct our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving toward overcoming a particular leprosy of the heart.  We can direct our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to the Lord, asking him to heal us of the particular leprosy that we struggle with, be it pride, anger, greed, lust, envy, sloth, or gluttony.  We can focus our Lenten disciplines toward asking the Lord to overcome these vices in us and to help us to cultivate the opposite virtues.  He will do it.  He wishes to make you clean.

When the leper was healed, he couldn’t contain his joy.  His living death was over.  He experienced resurrection.  He experienced new life.  He experienced redemption.

If you wish, you can make me clean.

Jesus wills it.

Do you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chaplain’s Conference: The Iron Curtain and Why We Worship

/ Fr. Matt Schmitz / Leave a comment

Chaplain’s Conference
Sacred Heart Catholic High School
Thursday, January 25, 2018

iron curtain

In the years surrounding and following World War II, an Iron Curtain descended across the continent of Europe, dividing the East from the West. Countries to the West of the Iron Curtain enjoyed more freedom, while countries to the East of the Iron Curtain found themselves under the influence of the Soviet Union and communism.

These countries, including Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, were gradually occupied one after another by the Soviet Army. As the Soviets invaded, they lowered the Iron Curtain, which served to keep information and the influence of the outside world out and to keep people who might flee to freedom in the West in.  These countries were referred to as being “behind the Iron Curtain.”  The Iron Curtain allowed war crimes to be committed without being observed and controlled by the outside world.

The Iron Curtain got its name from the iron curtain that was common in the theaters of the day. Events behind the theater curtain were not visible to the audience and were cut off from outside observation.

The term became popular in 1946, just a year after World War II ended, when Winston Churchill, the British Prime minister, delivered his famous “Iron Curtain Speech”, in which he stated the following:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe, Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but also to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.[1]

To say that life behind the Iron Curtain for Christians was hard is an understatement. Totalitarian regimes cannot and do not tolerate the free expression of religion.  The alarm was sounded because churches had organized their own youth retreats and summer camps.  Soviet leaders marched into the forest and brought children home.  By the late 1940’s, Christian charities and schools were closed down and large numbers of priests were arrested.[2]

 Karol Woityla was a young man who grew up behind the Iron Curtain during this time. In 1978, he was elected Pope and took the name John Paul II.  That year, he wrote a letter to priests, in which he tells of a custom that developed in many places behind the Iron Curtain, where persecution left no priests.

The custom is this:

People would go to an abandoned church, or if one no longer existed, to a cemetery where a priest was buried. They would take a stole, the garment worn by a priest when he celebrates the sacraments, when he acts in the person of Jesus Christ, and they would place it on the altar or on the priest’s tombstone, and together they would recite the prayers of the Mass.  At the place where the consecration would occur, a deep silence would ensue, which was sometimes interrupted by weeping.[3]

My brothers and sisters, think how much these people yearned to hear the words of consecration that only a priest could utter! Think of how much their hearts ached to receive the Body and Blood of the Lord.  Think of how much they longed to hear someone tell them, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Here in the United States, here in East Grand Forks, we live with incredible freedoms. Yet as the book of Proverbs says: “Times of adversity make one forget times of prosperity; and times of prosperity make one forget times of adversity.”  In other words, sometimes we forget how good we have it.

Those who lived behind the Iron Curtain risked their lives to offer worship to God, and they longed to celebrate a Mass which they could not celebrate because they had no priest to offer the sacrifice.

What about us?

Can we recover this sense of the sacred, this sense of the gift of what we have offered to us here every week?

What is my attitude toward community prayer, in particular our High School Masses and our Thursday celebrations of the Liturgy of the Hours?

You may say: “It’s boring.  I don’t like to sing.  I don’t like praying in a group.  I don’t get anything out of it.”

I say: “Worship is not about what you get out of it. It’s about what you put into it.”

Cain and Abel were to first two sons of Adam and Eve. Abel was a shepherd and Cain was a farmer who worked the soil.  Cain brought an offering to the Lord from the fruit of the soil, while Abel, for his part, brought one of the best firstlings of his flock.  God was pleased with Abel’s sacrifice because he brought his best.  He gave an offering out of a grateful heart.  God was displeased with Cain’s offering because he didn’t give his best – he gave simply because he was supposed to give something.  His heart wasn’t in it.  Abel gave his best out of love and his sacrifice cost him something, while Cain held back his best out of selfishness, and it didn’t cost him anything.

What about us?

When we gather to worship together, we offer neither a lamb nor crops. We offer our hearts.  Each of us brings our heart.

How do you offer your heart? Do you offer the best of what you have, like Abel?  Or do you hold back, like Cain?

God desires one thing: our hearts.

A grateful heart is the one thing that we can offer the Creator that he does not possess already. A grateful heart is the best that we can offer to God for his blessings to us.

True worship is not about me.  It is about God.  True worship is defined by the priority we place on who God is in our lives.

That’s good news.

It means that when I worship, when I choose to sing, when I choose to say the responses loudly and with boldness, even when I don’t feel like it, especially when I don’t feel like it, it is then that I offer God my best worship.

It means I can offer God my best:
even at the absurd hour of 7:15 in the morning,
even when the singing is off-key,
even if I’m tired and cranky – perhaps especially when I’m tired and cranky because it is then when I am truly offering a sacrifice of praise.

I said it at the beginning of the school year and I will say it again:
Just “being here” while prayer is going on, is not prayer. It is a waste of your time.  Prayer requires something of us – it requires us to invest our hearts.

Two weeks ago, in my homily at mass, I spoke of paralyzed hearts. I also spoke of how the Holy Spirit wants to use you to transform our experience of worship.  He will work through you if you allow him to.  Your personal worship has an impact on the worship of the community.

Worship is not about what you get out of it. It’s about what you put into it.
But God will not be outdone in generosity.
When you put yourself into it, it’s then that you begin to get something out of it.
When you put yourself into it, it’s then that we all begin to get something out of it.

Last week, during the Liturgy of the Hours, we saw the beginning of this transformation, as a group of young men banded together and offered their best worship to God. They led the charge.  They lifted their voices.  They sang out.  They spoke boldly.  They allowed the Holy Spirit to work through them, and it began to transform our community’s experience of worship.

I invite you to join them. Join us.  Lift up your hearts.  Raise your voices and speak out loudly.  Let’s mean the words that we say.  Let’s offer God a worthy sacrifice of praise, a sacrifice that those who gathered in that cemetery behind the Iron Curtain so many years ago risked their lives to offer.

From the depths of our hearts, let us ask God’s blessing upon us as we begin anew. Let us ask his blessing upon us through the intercession of our Blessed Mother,

Our Blessed Mother who gave her whole heart to God with her “yes” to the angel’s message,
Our Blessed Mother who was radically open to the Holy Spirit and offered perfect worship to God…
that Blessed Lady upon whom we cast all of our cares:

Hail Mary…

[1] http://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/political-science-and-government/military-affairs-nonnaval/iron-curtain

[2] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2013/01/religion-behind-the-iron-curtain/

[3] Joseph Ratzinger, Teaching and Learning the Love of God: Being a Priest Today, p. 39

Your Hands are a Manger When They Receive the Body of Christ

/ Fr. Matt Schmitz / Leave a comment

Homily for Christmas (Year B)
December 24-25, 2017
4:30 PM – Holy Trinity, Tabor
10:00 PM – Sacred Heart, East Grand Forks
10:00 AM – St. Francis of Assisi, Fisher

Focus: Your hands are a manger when they receive the Body of Christ.
Function: Stand in awe of this mystery.

Original Sin and the Fall
• At the dawn of humanity…in the Garden of Eden: 2 trees – Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; Tree of Life
• Adam and Eve, in disobedience, reach out and take from the Tree of Knowledge. Sin and death enter the world. They have to leave the Garden lest they reach out and take from the Tree of Life as well.
• The Original Sin: Pride, Disobedience, Taking

2000 Years ago…on this night
• In the silence…in the stillness…without much fanfare…the Lord comes.
• God becomes man – one of us
• Divinity takes up humanity
• Adam and Eve took the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge
• God gives his son and places him in the womb of the Virgin Mary
o The Son – the fruit of not the Tree of Knowledge, but the Tree of Life
o “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus”
o “I came that they might have life and have it to the full…” John 10:10
• Mary then places the God-man in the wood of the manger
o Wood comes from trees…

What is a manger, if not a feeding trough? A place where animals eat…
• Foreshadows the Eucharist.
• Jesus is the Bread of Life from the Tree of Life

At the Cross
• Christ, in obedience, allows men to place him back on the tree.
• Un-does the sin of Adam: Humility, Obedience, Giving
• Christ dies, rises, and ascends to the Father…

Now at this Mass
• Adam and Eve reached out and took the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge
• God gives his Son in the womb of the virgin Mary. She places him in the manger.
• He allows himself to be placed back on the Tree of the Cross…The Cross that stands revealed as the Tree of Life.
• And now at this Mass, he comes to us again and is placed back onto the wood of this altar. The Fruit from the Tree of Life, the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ, comes and is laid on the manger of this altar.
• The Body of Christ once again is placed on the manger of this altar…and then you come forward and receive him into the manger of your outstretched hands. And you take him into yourself, and he is born, tonight, not in Bethlehem like he was 2000 years ago, but he is born into your heart this Christmas night.
o May we never fail to stand in wonder and awe of so great a mystery!
o May we never spurn by indifference a love so fervent, a love so marvelous…but may we always stir up within our hearts a great love and fervor for the One who gave everything for us.

Our God has become so small that our very hands can hold him, like that manger in Bethlehem.
May we never fail to place ourselves within his hands, as he places himself within ours.

(Excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI, “The Blessing of Christmas”, Chapter 3: The Tree of Life)

God Preserved Mary from Original Sin for Our Sake

/ Fr. Matt Schmitz / Leave a comment

Homily for Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception (Year B)
Friday, December 8, 2017
6:00 PM – Saint Francis of Assisi, Fisher; 7:30 PM – Holy Trinity, Tabor

Focus:             God preserved Mary from original sin for our sake.
Function:        Let us remain free from sin for His sake.

Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous deeds!

Brothers and sisters, on this holy night we celebrate one of the most marvelous deeds of our God. We celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception…Mary conceived in her mother, Anne’s, womb…Mary conceived without original sin.

At the dawn of humanity, when Adam and Eve walked in the garden, they enjoyed friendship with God. Adam and Eve were created without original sin.  They were also created with free will.  They could choose.  They could choose because they were called to love.  One cannot love if one cannot choose because love is essentially a choice, a choice to will the good of the other.

We know how they chose.

The serpent approached Eve. “Did God really say that if you eat of the fruit of any tree in the garden, you would die?”

“No, we may eat of any of the trees in the garden, it is only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat of it, lest you die.’

But the serpent said, “You surely will not die! No, you will become like God himself.”

Eve looked at the tree. She had a choice to make.  Would she choose to trust God, to obey God, to love God?  Or would she distrust, disobey, and choose for herself?

She chose.
She chose to commit the original sin.

Sin entered the world, and with sin, the effects of sin. Our freedom to choose God was now wounded.  We experienced the effects of sin in ourselves.  We do what we hate and we do not do what we want.

Sin entered the world, and with sin, death.

Eve became the mother of all of the living. But all of the living would eventually die.

But already, at that moment, before the apple core had hit the bushes, God had a plan. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers.”

In the fullness of time, God himself would become one of us. God would become man so that man might become God and live forever.  But to become one of us, he needed one of us.

He needed a mother.

He who could make all things from nothing would not remake his ruined creation without Mary.[i]

And so, in the fullness of time, he chose and prepared a worthy mother.

He chose Mary, a humble girl. He chose her, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.

He chose her, and he preserved her. He preserved her from original sin.

He preserved her before he was born, suffered, died and rose.  He preserved her by the merits of his Passion before he underwent his Passion.

He preserved her, not for her own sake, but for ours.

We needed a redeemer who was both God and man:
Man, because man was the one who needed to pay the debt…
God, because only God was capable of paying the debt…

The Son already had a Father who was God.
What he needed was a mother who was human.

So much was riding on Mary’s cooperation with God’s plan to bring Jesus Christ our Redeemer into the world that he wanted to make sure she was fully free to choose.

God preserved Mary from original sin for our sake.
And Mary became the new Eve.
And, like Eve, she was presented with a choice.

But where Eve failed, Mary succeeded.
Where Eve distrusted, Mary trusted. “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.”
Where Eve disobeyed, Mary obeyed. “Let it be done unto me according to your word.”

Mary undid what Eve had done.
God used the means of our Fall to redeem us.

Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous deeds!

Jesus Christ is son of God and son of Mary. He is son of God in his divinity and son of Mary in his humanity.

And how great a redeemer we have! Christ died in his humanity to pay the debt for our sins, and in dying, he broke the prison bars of death and restored us to life.  He lives to restore us, even now, to the glory and freedom we experienced before the Fall!

God preserved Mary from original sin for our sake.
Let us who have been redeemed keep ourselves from sin for his sake.

Because of the Father’s love for us…
Because of Mary’s yes for us…
Because of the Son’s sacrifice for us…
We are able to be restored to our original freedom, to our original call.

Listen again to the words of Saint Paul:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.

Mary was preserved from original sin so that she might be worthy to bear the Lord in her body.
May we who have been redeemed by him keep ourselves from sin so that we might be worthy to bear the Lord in our bodies.

He dwelt in her. Now he comes to dwell in us.

Brothers and sisters, may we never take it for granted.

Like Mary, we have a high calling.
Like Mary, we have a choice.

May we, like Mary, choose Him.  May we choose to love.

May we who have been redeemed by him be quick to turn to him, to confess our sins, and to seek his mercy, so that like Mary, we might be made a worthy dwelling place for Christ.

Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous deeds!

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

[i] St. Anselm.  Liturgy of the Hours, Office of Readings for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.