The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast

Fr. Mike goes all the way back to Genesis to explain why Catholics have a pope. God established the kingdom of Israel with the twelve sons of Jacob. Centuries later, he appointed David as the king who would unite this kingdom. Centuries after that kingdom was divided, Jesus established a new kingdom by appointing the twelve apostles. To unite this new kingdom, which is the Church, he appointed Peter as his vicar here on earth. Jesus is the king, but he gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter. This means Peter and his successors play the role of the “prime minister”, or the right-hand-man, or the steward of the king while Jesus is gone. The papacy may be a divisive topic today, but clearly God gave his Church a pope as a sign of unity for all who are a part of the new kingdom Christ established.

We hear the phrase “in the world but not of it” quite often. But how do we live that out in our everyday lives? Fr. Mike gives a crash course on how to follow Christ in situations where there may be tension between you and someone you’re close to. Reminding us of Matthew 10:34, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” Fr. Mike explains that Jesus is a cause of division. As followers of Christ, we have to acknowledge and accept the painful reality that following him will cause us to be divided from many people we love. Once we accept that, allowing God’s love to fill our hearts, we will search for ways to love those who strongly disagree with us. See more at ascensionpress.com (https://media.ascensionpress.com/)

When it comes to trying to control God and keep him at a distance in our lives, there are at least two ways that we go about it. Either we lay low and stay out of trouble, or we excel at whatever task we’ve currently been assigned to. Both strategies intend to keep God out of our lives so we can keep doing what we’re doing, because we’re comfortable doing it. Well, if you’re in one of those camps, get ready because God can call you to something different any minute now. You may not have even noticed yourself slipping into one of these subtle thought processes that so many of us slip into. That’s why it’s important to give our lives to God at least daily. Try doing it first thing in the morning before anything else. That’s how Fr. Mike does it, and it seems to have worked out quite well for him. “Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” (John 15:2).

Fr. Mike is honest about why it’s so hard for us to make friends. A necessity for friendship is time, something that many of us simply don’t have. More than that, true friendship requires a painful level of vulnerability and transparency. When asking yourself who you are willing to be friends with, you’re really asking “Who are you willing to give access to your wounds?” With that in mind, consider what Jesus said: “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). How much time do you spend with Jesus? Will you give him access to your wounds? This is afterall what it means to be a friend. Are you a friend of Jesus?

Fr. Mike asks if the bad things you think you don’t have the capacity to do are actually just things you don’t have the opportunity to do. A friend of Fr. Mike’s was recovering from an addiction, and this friend noticed how he was deceiving himself. He was telling himself “I would never …” when he should have been saying, “I haven’t yet ...” Many times the sins we avoid we have only avoided because we haven’t had the opportunity to commit them. Acknowledging that we may do something regretful if given the opportunity is a great—although difficult—exercise in self-knowledge that could prevent some serious sin in the future. This week, consider the benefits that come with strengthening your self-discipline. Make an extra attempt to reinforce a virtue that may help you combat the corresponding vice. This will go a long way in increasing your holiness.

How we spend our time is one of the most valuable decisions we make, because time is one thing we can never get back once it’s gone. Maybe God is calling you to do something more with your time, in this very moment even, but distractions are pulling you in too many different directions to focus. Make no mistake, distractions steal our time, even those we willfully choose. Even worse, as St. Alphonsus Ligouri said, voluntary distraction can steal our soul. Maybe there’s a dozen different things you know you should be doing, but you can’t choose one, so you choose none. If that’s the case, Fr. Mike says to take solace in the fact that you only have to choose one task, because the reality is that multitasking doesn’t work anyway. Holiness is to choose one thing, namely to say yes to God’s will. So choose your one sacrifice, and say yes to the focused and singular task of holiness.

For many people, the Catholic Church’s teaching on in vitro fertilization and contraception is a hard one, but it is in concordance with the nature of things. The nature of a thing, as Fr. MIke puts it, is its “what-it’s-for-ness”. Sex is for procreation and the unity of the couple. Equally important is the fact that sex, not in vitro fertilization, is the natural way to bring forth a new life. Contraception and in vitro fertilization violate the nature of not only sex, but also the nature of the person and life itself. If you feel that this teaching prohibits you from being truly happy, Fr. Mike offers encouragement. It may not seem fair to us at first, but the deep abiding peace we acquire from living by God’s plan is better than anything we could acquire by doing things our way.

Perhaps you’ve felt the temptation to be a cookie-cutter Catholic, one who does all the Catholic things that other Catholics are doing because they think … well … that’s what makes us Catholic. But comparison is kind of like the cousin of envy, Fr. Mike says. If we only express our faith in certain ways because that’s what other believers around us our doing, we should re-examine our relationship with Christ. After all, he is the only one we should pattern our life after.

What good does feeling sorry for yourself do? Fr. Mike points out a hard truth in saying—while you have the right to grieve when tragic things happen in your life—you never have the right, or permission, to feel sorry for yourself. All it does is shrink the universe down to the size of you. It blocks out the blessings God gave you that you should be thankful for, and paralyzes you from joyfully giving to others. When you feel the temptation to feel sorry for yourself coming on, in the words of St. Paul, Fr. Mike recommends: “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful” (Colossians 3:15). Quote from G.I. Jane: “I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A bird will fall frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself” (Viggo Mortensen as Master Chief John James Urgayle in G.I. Jane, original quote from D.H. Lawrence, 20th century English writer).

Many people say God acted much differently in the Old Testament than he did in the New Testament. They say the God of the New Testament is merciful and compassionate, but in the Old Testament he is often harsh and unforgiving. A thorough look at Scripture reveals that this is not the case. God is in fact merciful and just throughout the Bible. Fr. Mike clears up a great deal of confusion between the Old and New Testaments, and shows how God has stayed quite the same since before the beginning of time until now. This isn't the first time Fr. Mike's been asked about God changing, check out his original answer here (https://media.ascensionpress.com/podcast/didgodchange-2/).

God wants you to be holy, so he is going to set you on a path of purification if you choose to do his will. He is the one who is going to make you holy. This process is going to strip away many things you hold dear. It’s going to require active participation in his will, doing what is right and good. But it’s also going to require passive acceptance of things that are out of your control. See everything you do and experience as a chance to grow in holiness, and God will make you into a saint.

Jesus asked the crippled man at the pool of Bethesda, “Do you want to be well?” It seems like an obvious question, but—as Fr. Mike explains—in order for this man to desire healing, he had to believe he could be healed. So many of us have given up on the thought that God can change us from whatever it is we don’t want to be into whatever it is we want to be, and what we believe he wants us to be. Whether it’s an illness, lack of willpower, or just lack of ability, we believe our problem is chronic. Jesus’ question to the man at the pool is an appeal to the man’s belief that God can heal him. Believing God can make a drastic change for the better in our own lives may just be the key to actually making that change happen.

There are many great ways to describe hope, but Fr. Mike defines it as “trust in another extended into the future.” He recalls two stories from the Gospels that exemplify what hope is not. When Peter denied Christ, and when the two travelers on the road to Emmaus abandoned their hope in Christ. Peter had Jesus (they were basically best friends), but—by denying him—was essentially saying he didn’t need Jesus. The travelers needed Jesus, but the way they saw it they no longer had him. Fr. Mike explains how hope is knowing that we have Jesus and knowing that we need him. This hope can empower us to courageously get through our darkest hours.

Fr. Mike’s words on taking up our crosses may come as a relief to many of us. He rejects the “harder is holier” approach, and reminds us that taking up our crosses is ultimately about having more freedom. Christ says “My yoke is easy, and my is burden light” (Matthew 11:30). God has a particular task for each of us, and taking up our crosses means denying what we want for our lives so that we can do God’s will. After all, that is what we were made to do and the only way to truly be free. “Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25).

Jiminy Cricket said “Always let your conscience be your guide,” but how do I know if I have a good conscience? A good conscience more often is concerned with our responsibilities than with our rights. It is more preoccupied with what God wants than with what I want. Fr. Mike tells us, “Stop thinking like the world and start thinking like God.” The world will have us think our conscience is the final judge on what is right and wrong, but as Catholics we know that God is the final judge, and our consciences need to be formed—in fact, transformed—to abide by and abide in his will. “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). Interesting tidbit: As you may know, “Jiminy Cricket” is a minced oath for “Jesus Christ”; but did you know that Blessed John Henry Newman considered the conscience to be the “aboriginal vicar of Christ”?

When Catholics call Mary their mother, it may seem like they are taking away some of the respect due to Jesus and giving it to Mary. This is far from the case. Fr. Mike points out two reasons why calling Mary our mother can improve our relationship with Christ, and strengthen our faith life. Loving the people Jesus loves helps you love him more. The more you love Mary the more you love God. Jesus gave Mary to us as our Mother on the Cross. “When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home” (John 19:26-27).

Fr. Mike discusses four signs that your relationship is in danger of falling apart, especially when it comes to stonewalling. Stonewalling, as used in the context of this episode, is when we refuse to communicate or cooperate with someone. Psychologist Dr. John Gottman calls it one of the “four horsemen of the apocalypse”, or one of four types of expression that indicate that your relationship is falling apart. The other three are defensiveness, criticism, and contempt. As Christians, we should always pay attention to the one who is communicating with us. After all, we would expect at least that much from them when communicating with them. Loving someone means seeing them. By seeing, here we mean literally looking them in the eyes when they talk to you, but also understanding them and seeing them as a person made in God’s image.

Fr. Mike is asked a lot about what to do when your life is thrown off course by a breakup. In a previous episode, Fr. Mike discussed four questions to ask yourself when discerning God’s will for your life. When presented with a new door (or big decision), ask yourself: Is it good? Is it open? Is it wise? Is it something I want? Now when applying this discernment process to a relationship, you have to remember that the other person is likely asking him or herself the same questions. The hardest heartbreak, though, comes when the first three questions check out but the fourth question—Is this something I want?—does not. In these situations, the one thing Fr. Mike says not to do is blame God. If you’re the one choosing to break up with your significant other, it’s easy to deflect the blame onto God and say he told you to do it. It’s more likely, however, that God gave you the freedom to choose what to do for yourself. So take responsibility. If you are the one who was dumped, God still has a plan for you. You

What does the Israelites’ forty years in the desert tell us about the purpose of Lent? Sure, they both involve the number forty—which often represents a time of test and trial in the Bible—but what’s the more important connection? The Israelites’ time in the desert and our forty-day Lenten fast represent God’s invitation for us to trust him completely. Fr. Mike explains, the Israelites did not believe the Lord could bring them into the Promised Land because it was inhabited by a people much more powerful and larger than Israel—they didn’t trust him even after he delivered them from slavery to the largest civilization on the planet, Egypt. We can be the same way. We think God can’t give us the strength to overcome this or that sin or habit. But purpose of Lent is to set aside time for us to trust God completely so we can see that he is all we need.

Fr. Mike knows the tricks we can play on ourselves when it comes to picking something for Lent. So he gives a straightforward guideline: Don’t pick something that’s arbitrary. Pick something that is necessary. In other words, don’t say you’re giving up watermelon when you know you will hardly eat watermelon anyway; and don’t give up hot showers if you know cold showers actually won’t help you grow in holiness. We can easily fool ourselves into thinking strictness equates to holiness. Likewise, we can fall into the trap of thinking that the easiest thing will be the most helpful. What do I really need to do or give up for Lent? If I take an honest look inside myself, it may be something difficult, but I will know.