04/02/26 Holy Thursday: Everything is Given

0:01 Welcome to Sunday homilies with me, Father Mike Schmitz. I hope today's homily inspires and motivates you, and I also hope that it leaves you hungry for the one who gave everything to feed you. If you want to get this and other Sunday Mass resources sent straight to your inbox, sign up at ascensionpress.com slash Sunday or by texting Sunday to 33777. You can also follow or subscribe in your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless. The Lord be with you. And with your spirit. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. Glory to you, O Lord.

1:05 He took a towel and tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and dry them with the towel around his waist. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, Master, are you going to wash my feet? Jesus answered and said to him, What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will understand later. Peter said to him, You will never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me. Simon Peter said to him, Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and my head as well. Jesus said to him, Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over. So you are clean, but not all. For he knew who would betray him. For this reason, he said, not all of you are clean. So when he had washed their feet and put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, Do you realize what I have done for you?

2:04 You call me teacher and master, and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. I'd like you to have a seat. So I remember the very first time I ever met a man named Kirk Cameron. I said, Kirk, I want to tell you three things. and I'll get that back to that in a little bit tonight tonight is it's kind of the conclusion of Lent. We continue it through the next few days, but tonight is the last day.

3:02 It marks the last, this Mass right now marks the last moments of Lent. In all of Lent, what is Lent? All through Lent, the word is give, right? The word is just give. So prayer and fasting and almsgiving, it's all about giving. So in prayer, we're giving God time. We're giving God attention. In fasting, we're giving up something. And then almsgiving, we're giving help, right? It's all of the last 40 days have been meant to be marked by that one word, give.

3:36 We give our time and attention in prayer. We give up something in fasting. We give help through almsgiving. And I imagine that we might get to the end of our day like this. We are on Holy Thursday. And we're like, yeah, I did it or I didn't do it, right? It's kind of that sense of, okay, the last 40 days I can look back and think, okay, did it happen or did it not happen? Did I check the box or did I not check the box? Did I accomplish the task or did I not? Did I do the thing or did I not do the thing? And sometimes you miss the motive, right? Sometimes we can say, yeah, I did it, but why did I do it? Look over the last 40 days. Maybe you did it, maybe you didn't do it. But what was your motive? What was my motive?

4:17 I think it's really important we ask this question. not only for our own hearts, but also because the whole point of life is to be like Jesus. So here is Jesus. On this night, especially, we see this so clearly. On this night, Jesus gives. He gives everything. In fact, if there's one thing that marks today, is the fact that everything is given. Here's Jesus at the Last Supper, and he strips himself of his garments. Normally, you would have a washing of feet. In your parish, they'll have the bishop or your pastor, your priest will strip off the outer garments and wash people's feet. We won't do that here today, but they'll do that. Because why? Because Jesus, he gave that. He gave this service. He gave this humility. He gave his dignity. He stripped himself of this. He gave everything. He shared his priesthood with the apostles tonight. Then he tells them, do this in memory of me. He establishes the priesthood. Jesus, at the Last Supper, he gives the Eucharist. And that is what? The Eucharist is him, right? It's his body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus. And so we know this, that Jesus gives. On this night, if there's anything to walk away with, it's the fact that everything is given.

5:29 Everything is given. Here's the question. Why? Why does Jesus give? In fact, I love this because in John's gospel, John gives the answer. He makes it so clear. John even begins this section, this chapter 13 by saying exactly this, that Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end. The motive of Jesus, like why did he give? Remember, everything is given. Why did he give? What was his motive? His motive is he loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end. The motive is love. So we look over the last 40 days and think, okay, I gave up X, Y, or Z, or I gave time and attention to the Lord in prayer, or I gave help in some way to people who needed help. Why? Thank you. our hearts need to match your actions and our hearts need to match Jesus' heart. He, on this night, everything is given.

6:23 Why? He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end. The motive was love. The motive is love. even the very fact that God has given us this, the mass right now. Why? The motive is love. Having loved his own in the world, he loved them to the end. He loves you. but there's something even deeper. The here's Christ's motive is love, and our motive has to be love, but we also can ask the question, when did Jesus give? Like, again, remember on tonight, everything is given. When did he give? And again, John makes it so clear. He says it kind of twice. He says, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, And then later on he says, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from the God and was returning to God.

7:24 He took a towel and that's when he washes their feet. That's when he gives everything. That's when everything is given. When? When he was fully aware. This is so important. I think we could say like, okay, yeah, God loves me when I'm doing well. God loves me when I'm good. God loves me when I behave. God loves me when I am without flaws, when I'm without faults. God loves me when I haven't fallen down. and yet here it's so clear in the scriptures, it's so clear in this moment that here is Jesus, and everything is given, and why is it given? It's because he loves, and when does he love them? He loves them when he knows all of their, he knows it all. He knows that they're going to betray. He knows they're gonna run away. He knows that they're gonna fall asleep. He knows that they're going to deny him. In the midst of knowing everything, knowing that they're going to fail him, knowing that these people that he loves so much will not love him back.

8:20 That's the moment. That's when everything is given. And this is true for us, right? I think, again, sometimes I think we fall into this trap. We've said it before, but we fall into this trap of thinking that our sins disqualify us from God's love. That we fall into this trap of thinking that our sins surprise God or shock God. And we forget the reality. And the reality is he already knew it when he picked up his cross, On this night, when everything is given, Jesus already knew all of our sins. and he did it anyways. Remember, scripture says, fully aware, he knows all of it and it's that moment, it's that moment that everything is given.

9:07 Jesus is under no illusions on this night that if I do this for them, they'll be perfect. But he knows the truth. I'm doing this for them because they need it, not because they deserve it. Here we are. God loves us because we need it, not because we deserve it. And he loves us most powerfully and loves us most deeply in the moment we need him the most and deserve him the least. The moment... The moment we've even told him we don't want him,

9:47 that's the moment when everything is given. so I don't know if you know who Kirk Cameron is, but Kirk Cameron was a teen actor, a young actor back when I was a kid, and he was on the movie Growing Pains, and it was a big deal, and he's in a number of other Christian movies and whatnot.

10:09 He's a Christian. He comments on things. Anyways, we were at a pro-life dinner at one point when I first met him, and we're sitting at this table, and I said, Kirk Cameron, I want to tell you three things. And I said, number one, I want to thank you because when I was a high schooler, as a Christian, as a Catholic, you coming out as a Christian in Hollywood was just like so inspiring to me. I didn't know any other like major actors, people who were really, really popular who were Christians and you were so outspoken in your Christianity. It just really helped me as a high schooler to know that there's someone in Hollywood who also is a Christian. And I just want to thank you for that. He said, okay, cool. I said, number two is my uncle, one of my uncles was a writer and a producer of a TV show that his little sister was on. his little sister is Candace Cameron and she was on the TV show Full House and my uncle is one of the writers and a producer of Full House and so then Kirk's other sister was with him at the dinner she's like oh my gosh I know your Uncle Tom like I'm like no way that's so cool it was really great and I said the third thing I need to tell you is your movie Fireproof he's like yeah he's like your movie Fireproof I watch every good Friday during during Holy Week and he's like, really?

11:16 So the movie Fireproof is this movie about, he's like, why? I told him, I said, the movie Fireproof is about a man, he's a firefighter and he's married to his wife. His name is Caleb, her name is Catherine. Basically, the ultimate upshot of the story is a story of a husband who loves his wife who doesn't love him back. Like if you want to summarize it in one sentence. But that's the story. And at first, you know, the story starts up with them having a pretty broken marriage. Caleb is not great, Catherine's not doing great. but the ultimate story is of a husband who loves his wife who doesn't love him back.

11:52 Part of Catherine's story, backstory is, again, it's a cheesy Christian movie, so let's just get that out of the way. It is. But I'm telling you, if you watch it, you might feel, there might be some tears. But here's Catherine. Her mom is suffering from dementia. Her mom has all these massive medical bills. And Caleb, Cameron's character, he can't be bothered to pay her bills and stuff. In fact, he's got this private account or separate account for himself that he's been saving up for years. Basically, his entire working career, his entire life, he's been saving up to buy this pretty massive boat. And this is kind of like his obsession, his side quest of life. The story goes on. He's pursuing her. He's loving her. She's kind of flirting with this doctor at her work. At one point, she even tells him,

12:40 I do not love you. And it just crushes him. He says, you don't. She's like, no, I don't. As the story unfolds towards the end, it turns out there's an anonymous donor that paid for all of Catherine's mom's medical bills.

13:05 And Catherine's thinking that must be this wealthy doctor she's been flirting with. And there's this moment, this dramatic moment where she realizes that it was actually her husband, Caleb, who had done this anonymously. Like, without her knowing it. He had taken all that he had saved up for his whole career, his whole life, all he had saved up, because he knew that it mattered to his wife's mom and to his wife. He gave it for her.

13:42 And didn't tell her. but the climax is this the climax is the moment she realizes that he gave all that money he gave everything he had saved up not only after she had told him i do not love you he gave it after she had served him divorce papers after she had said i want a life apart from you i don't want anything to do with you anymore that was the moment and he knew that was the moment that he gave everything. That's the moment that everything was given. That was the moment that touched her heart, realizing that he had done all of this, that everything is given, when he was fully aware that she did not love him back and she wanted a life apart from him.

14:39 that was the moment that everything is given. And so I'm talking to Kirk Cameron at this dinner and saying, that's the reason why I watch every Good Friday, because we recognize tonight, tonight everything is given. And it's given why? It's given because of love. It's given when, it's given when Jesus knew.

15:04 This is the last thing. When Jesus knew everything you and I are ashamed of, When Jesus knew everything you and I are embarrassed by, when Jesus knew everything you and I hate about ourselves, when Jesus knew everything about every detail of our lives, that's the moment that he loved us the most. when Jesus, fully aware and knowing everything about your heart and my heart and your brokenness and my brokenness, that is the moment when the God of love takes everything he's been given.