0:03 Growing up in Minnesota, in the United States, all of my priests were from here. >> In this video is one of the most heartwarming moments you will see in a homily. Father Mike Schmitz gave this homily in Ireland, and in the middle of his homily, he pauses. He pauses to reflect on all of the priests in Minnesota where he grew up and where they were from Ireland. So, this was a great moment of solidarity brought about by retrospection on Father Mike's part, and really appreciation for the spiritual fathers in his life. Do you have appreciation for the spiritual fathers in your life? So, let's go ahead and check out this clip, and then I have a few thoughts at the end. >> Hello.
0:49 I am so grateful to be able to be here with you all. On the on the on the on the walk-in, aka the procession, um I was so humble I was just so moved because we were Was this song the breastplate of St. Patrick? Was that part of the prayer? And I was like, "Oh my gosh, we're here." I I will mention this probably tonight, but I'm just I just cannot begin to express how grateful I am that you're here tonight. If that that you're able to be here tonight with all the bishops and with these priests. So, you might not know this, I'm not from here. But I am from here, right? Cuz every American likes to say that they're from Ireland. I don't know if you know this, but literally everyone who has like a smidgen of Irish in them in the states is like, "Well, I'm Irish, you know." Like, "You're 1/16
1:35 Irish. Like, you don't count. I'm a quarter." So, that's 25%. My family is from my grandmothers, my dad's mom is from Cork, and so there was the So, I went to Cork area. Um That was from a movie. But anyways, so, their names are Riley, Keefer, and McNamara. And so, I just am so grateful. But, the bigger thing is this. The bigger thing is as we're Growing up in Minnesota, in the United States all of my priests
2:22 were from here. All of them. Everyone. The ones who heard my confession, the ones who offered mass taught me how to pray and they came from here. They left everything. And and lived in relative obscurity. So, I could come back here and have my name on the front of this thing. That's crazy. And you guys all showed up to worship Jesus and it for us to pray together. It is so humbling.
3:09 And thank you. Because without them I wouldn't be me. You know, it's so funny. How how often we we we approach Jesus and we make things so complicated. I don't know where you're at in your life right now, but I think a lot of us are like, "Okay, God, what do you want me to do?" And we make it really, really complicated. I know I I make it I make it complicated all of the time cuz it's because it can't be simple. It couldn't be couldn't possibly be. I mean, especially as as Catholics we I mean, there's this book called the Catechism. Have Have seen this thing? It is so thick. Not only that, but you have the Bible, that's also thick. We need
3:55 like a podcast that reads all of them. That would be That would If someone could come up with an idea, I think that would cut through a lot of the complication. But we make it so complicated because it's all just so There's so much. So if you're going to be Catholic, it's got to be really complicated. If you're going to be Catholic, if you're going to follow Jesus, it's got to be really complicated. And that's not true. In fact, the fact that we make it complicated is not new to us. The verse reading is one of literally one of my favorite readings from the Old Testament. Micah chapter 6. I love it so much because here's Micah who who asks this question. He I Micah Micah's making things
4:41 complicated. And he asks the question. He says, "With what shall I come before the Lord? God, what do you want me to do? How do you How do you want me to love you?" He goes on to say, he says, "With what will I doubt bow down before God most high? Shall I come before you with holocausts with with with with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams with myriad streams of oil?" I mean, this is us, right? Like, "Okay, God, what do you want? If if if you want me, what do I need What do you need me to do? What do you need me to offer? In fact, he even goes on to say, "Shall I offer my firstborn?" God's like, "No, you're crazy." We complicate things. Or we make it like this. We say, "Okay, God, if I come if I if I belong to you, if I'm going to follow you,
5:27 what do I need to do? What do I need to give up? What do I need to sacrifice? Cuz that's Micah. Micah was saying, "Do I have to give all these thousands of lambs or my firstborn? What do I need to sacrifice if I'm going to be yours?" And I love this is one of That's why it's my one of my favorite readings from the Old Testament. Is God responds to Micah. And he says so so simply. He's like, "Oh, you've been told. You already know. You've been told oh man what is good and what the Lord requires you of you." Again, we like to make it complicated and God says, "No, no, no, you already know. You've been told what is good and what the Lord requires of you. Three things. Only.
6:12 Do the right. Love goodness. And walk humbly with your God. All of all of all the stuff. Here's all the the like Levitical laws. Here's all the offer laws of sacrifices. Here's all the laws of like don't mix fibers and don't shave the sides. Here you've been told what is good. Just do the right. Love goodness. And walk humbly with your God. I would say it like this. I would I would say that um we can make it even more simple. That maybe in some ways in Jesus we can make it even more simple. Jesus I think I would I I often say this, but virtually all of Catholicism, virtually all of Christianity comes down to one
6:58 question that God is asking of us. So we only need to give one answer. The question that God is asking every one of us tonight is does God have your permission to love you as you are right now? Guys, that's that's all of the Bible. That's all the catechism. That's all we believe as Catholics. Is does God Here's this one question. Does God have your permission to love you as you are right now? I know what you're thinking. Some of you are thinking like that's not true. I I read the books. It's more complicated than that. But But all it is. It all comes down to
7:43 that one question. Does God have your permission to love you as you are right now? Because here's what I do. I'm like, "Okay, that's enough. That's it. That's That's fine. God, I get it. I get it. I get it." But but what do you really want? Like, "No, I just I just want to love you." So, I start making bargains and I say, "Okay, God, you can love me when I'm better. You can love me when I'm holier. God, you can love me when I get my act together. God, you can love me when I fix it out. You God, you can love me after You can love me after I go to confession. I remember Oh gosh. I went to confession not too long ago, a couple years maybe. That's I've been since then. I've been since then. But the priest was so good. He and he just reminded me. He said, "You know you know that after you give me absolution." He says, "You know that God loved you
8:31 when you walked into this confessional just as much as he loves you when you're walking out of this confessional." The question is, does God have your permission to love you as you are right now? Again, I The question isn't "Hey, will you love God?" The question is, will you first let him love you as you are? I think sometimes is the last thing. I think sometimes I was told to keep this under 3 minutes. I think we're getting close. I think sometimes
9:18 I base I think of Christianity as me trying to get better or trying to do better. But it doesn't come down to that. comes down to will he let you will you let him love you now? So, in this mass we're here for him. We're here for Jesus. Where every one of us is here for Jesus. Will you let him love you? He brought you here. He He brought you here. You're like, "Oh, I'm going to go to mass on a on Monday night." They didn't No, he brought you here. Why? Because he loves you. Will you give him permission to love you as you are right now?
10:05 When you When you screw up, when you fall, when you fail, when you sin, okay, will you give him permission to love you as you are and let him heal you in confession? After you've fallen and it's like, "Well, yeah, but I said I haven't I haven't prayed yet." Okay, will you after you've fallen, after you've sinned, after you've said no to him, in that moment before you go to confession, will you pray and give him permission to love you as you are in your prayers? After you've snapped at your kids after you've been rude to your roommate after you've done the exact thing you swore you would never do again in that moment, will you give God permission to love you as you are right now?
10:53 If we do that we don't become better. If we do it he does something in us. It is not complicated. It's simple. You've been told what is good and what the Lord requires of you. Only do the right love goodness walk humbly with your God and in every moment answer the question, does God have your permission
11:38 to love you as you are? And let him make you a saint. >> And that moment when Father Mike just stops and he ponders and he almost gets teary-eyed just reflecting on all of those great spiritual fathers, all of those great mentors in his life. And just how their influence ultimately led him to be in that moment, in that place. God's providence worked in such a way that there would be priests from Ireland in an obscure little little town, little place in Minnesota to nurture this little boy who grew into a man who eventually grew into a priest and he was
12:24 able to go back to Ireland, kind of almost, you know, he's he's a quite famous individual and just in a humble moment, a sincere moment, just provide appreciation to those those priests' countrymen on how just impactful they were to him in his life. Hopefully, I got that out right. It's just a very profound moment and it gets you to think like do you have appreciation? Do you have respect for the priests in your life? For the influences that God has placed over you in in your life? Um I think many times we think that we're kind of doing it alone and it really is just us and God and do I deserve salvation or not? And that kind of gets into the second thing that I notice with what Father Mike is saying here is just how important it is to kind
13:12 of flip the script of how we normally think and it's always us in relation to God and what we have to do to earn the favor and the love of God. When in reality, what the scriptures are testifying to, what the great tradition is testifying to, what Christianity is ultimately testifying to, which makes it different than every other world religion and ideology, is that God loves you just the way that you are. Does that mean that you have don't have to change? Absolutely not, because God loves you so much as you are to change you and to be in relationship to you, to come inside you and transform you from the inside out. That is an amazing message. And I think the connection here that's important to make is like God does that and he does it through individuals. He does it through the church. He does it through spiritual fathers like priests. He does it through
13:58 your biological fathers if they're spirit even if they're not, but especially if they're spiritually oriented, right? It's amazing how God does what he does and it's so awesome to kind of retrospect in the way that Father Mike is in this moment and it does kind of bring a tear to your eye to just think about how God has used the people in your life to bring you to the place that you are and it's all because of his love and his grace that transforms you in spite of the sins that you have in spite of the frailties and failures that you have to become a person that can actually shine a light to other people, can tell other people about Jesus and what Jesus has done for you. Man, it's just such great moments that bring such grace, it brings such peace and brings such inspiration that you want to go and just be a light, a
14:45 shining light, a lamp on a hill for all to see. Um so this was a very inspirational homily from Father Mike. It almost sounded kind of Protestant, evangelical the way he was kind of framing things, but I do think that that that that way of seeing like it really is God acting on our behalf is something so crucial to both Catholicism and Protestantism and we really kind of go awry when either side loses that view. All right, did I need to throw that in there? No. This really should be about what happened in the clip and what you should remember from this clip is that God loves you. Will you allow him to love you? Just something to be thinking about. God bless and peace.
