Episode 123148: 3/8/26 Autobiography: The Middle

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 on 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 woman for a drink, for Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, Sir, you do not even have a bucket, and the cistern is deep. Where then can you get us this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks. Jesus answered and said to her, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst. The water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water. Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband and come back. The woman answered and said to him, I do not have a husband. Jesus answered her, You are right in saying I do not have a husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.

2:10 What you have said is true. The woman said to him, Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but your people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus said to her, Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will neither worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not understand. We worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Indeed, the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. The woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ. When he comes, he will tell us everything. Jesus said to her, I am he, the one speaking with you.

3:05 At that moment, his disciples returned and were amazed that he was talking to a woman. But still no one had said, what are you looking for? Or why are you talking with her? The woman left her water jar and went into town and said to the people, come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ? They went out of the town and came to him. Meanwhile, his disciples urged him, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat of which you do not know. So the disciples said to one another, Could someone have brought him something to eat? Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to finish his work. Do you not say, In four months the harvest will be here? I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. The reaper is already receiving payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For here is the saying is verified that one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for.

4:04 Others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work. Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified, he told me everything I have done. When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them, and he stayed there for two days. Many more began to believe in him because of his word. And they said to the woman, We no longer believe because of your word, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. May you have a seat. so we started uh the series uh the beginning of this of this lent and the series is called autobiography because we realize this we recognize that every life is a story every person is an author and the only question is who will we be at the end of the story and so we know this we know that that every story has a title we talked about that last week we know every story has a beginning we know because the question is who will we be at the end we know every story has an end but one of the things we sometimes forget is the middle.

5:17 I think, in fact, I think sometimes— Okay, let me clarify. I don't necessarily think that we sometimes forget that there is a middle, but I think we sometimes can forget what the middle is like. Within the last couple of years, I had an encounter with a man named Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the adopted son of President Ronald Reagan and his first wife, Jane Wyman. They adopted Michael when he was three days old. And then when he was three years old, Ronald Reagan and his ex-wife Jane divorced. And Michael went to live with his mother's family.

5:54 And what you might say is like this life of privilege or this life of opportunity, this life that could be just completely, you know, kind of a silver spoon in his mouth, actually was a life marked by a lot of pain. Michael has an autobiography where he talks about that early life, that early childhood. and even his adolescent years and just how they were marked by pain, how they were marked by abuse, how they were marked by both physical and emotional abuse. He had a learning disability that was kind of undiagnosed, and so he always felt like he was dumb compared to the people around him. He always felt, in many ways, like he was the child who was unwanted.

6:28 At one point, a devastating moment in his life happened. He was sexually abused by his babysitter. And all of these things marked his life. All these things he realized as he's getting older, that they all had consequences in his life. He brought that feeling of being unwanted, that feeling of not being like the rest of them, the feeling of being abused into his adolescence where he lived a destructive lifestyle, into his 20s where he went through a series of just really destructive relationships. And in many, many ways, he looked at his life even as a young man and said, this is, this is the end. when it comes to the middle of our autobiography, when it comes to the middle of our story, again, we forget, not that middles happen, we forget what the middle is like.

7:24 So for example, the first reading today, Exodus chapter 17, you have the story here, here are the people of Israel, and they were slaves for 100 years, they were set free from God, God shows up, and he sets them free by doing 10 incredible, miraculous signs that he's fighting for them, he wants their freedom, He's on their side and he wins their freedom. They get to the Red Sea and they can walk through the Red Sea. They see this miracle. They're living. They're in the middle of a miracle. Now they're in the wilderness and God is feeding them every single day with this manna, right? With his bread from heaven. And we can read this in Exodus 17 and we go like, well, this is exciting. This is amazing because we know the end. Like we know how the, we know that, okay, you're in the wilderness. You're in the desert. This is not the end. And we actually know the end. But as they were living it, they couldn't possibly know the end. All they knew is that they were thirsty and they were in a desert.

8:21 here's the problem in the middle there's no way to see the end in the middle of the story there's no way to know the end and this is true of Michael Reagan's story this is true of Exodus chapter 17 this is true of our autobiography that probably where you and I are right now we're in the middle and in the middle is that pain like the pain like Michael experienced pain like the Israelites experienced or maybe it could be just like the crisis of life like the struggles of life, the suffering of life, loss and grief, or it could even be the drudgery of life. Some of us might be going through this thing where it's just like, man, it like just seems to go on and on just one day after the other is just the same. And it feels like, and this is the thing, it feels like this is the end. Or it feels like this doesn't matter. we have to realize, we have to realize that this is part of the story too because in this middle, we ask the same question the Israelites did in Exodus 17, we just heard it the question was what?

9:29 is God in our midst or not? the question is, is God in the middle? in the middle, I cannot possibly know the end so I want to ask that question, is God in the middle? because of course we know the beginning. The beginning can be really exciting. The beginning can be so hopeful, right? The beginning of a story can be so full of promise. I imagine, go back to John chapter four, the gospel we heard, the long gospel we heard. And here's the story of the woman at the well. I sometimes think about her life and just try to unpack it a little bit more because here is Jesus, he's talking with her. He says, go and get your husband, come back. And she's like, she says, I don't have a husband. And you heard what Jesus said. He said, you're right, you don't have a husband. You've had five husbands and the man you're with right now is not your husband. Now, then we just move on. But pause on this for a second and actually just go back and imagine this woman in John chapter four, imagine her before her first wedding.

10:25 Imagine her before her first marriage. If you've ever had the opportunity to be part of a wedding, if you have an opportunity to be part of an engagement or proposal or any of those things, just we know that here's the beginning. It's so exciting. Imagine, here's this woman, all of her siblings, are gathered around her. Here, mom and dad have made all these preparations. They've all made all these arrangements. I imagine cousins and extended family have come to this village, maybe this exact same village. They've come here to celebrate with her wedding. Imagine those two families meeting each other, those two families being so excited for the prospect of this couple is coming together. Imagine the night before the wedding and how excited, in Jewish weddings were so, they were an incredibly joyful affair. It would last for days.

11:11 Imagine, how awesome that beginning would be. And then we know, somehow it ended. somehow it failed. Either her husband died or he walked away or something happened. And so here she is, she's alone. And what happens? Well, maybe she meets another man. Or maybe her family says, okay, well, we lost that first husband. We'll get you another one. And she shows up for that second wedding. Okay, okay, this is good. This is going to be okay. We're going to restore some things. And then for whatever reason, Again, either he died or they divorced. At some point, they're like, okay, here's a third guy. You can imagine, for every one of these weddings, there's just a little less excitement or a lot less excitement, a lot less hope, and a lot more shame.

12:13 You know, there's a detail that John includes in this gospel story. He says that Jesus is at this well about noon, middle of the day. and this woman comes out by herself to gather water. You probably maybe have heard this before. The time to gather water for people, for women, was the early morning or the evening when it was cool. But here she is coming out at noon in the heat of the day. Why? Most likely it's because she's isolated, ostracized. That she's in this place of shame. And so she comes out when? in the middle of the day. and she's in the middle of this life. I imagine that she's like, I'm living with this one guy. I'm shacking up with this sixth guy because why even try?

13:06 Why even get married? This is the end, but the truth is, from the middle, we can never know the end. I imagine at some point, in the middle, this woman is looking at her life and she just, even when Jesus brings it up, bring your husband. Imagine she just has this line that goes through her mind that just says, I hate that this is part of my story. go get your husband. I don't have a husband. I'm not gonna mention this part of my story. And he says, yeah, you had five. The man you're with is not your husband. I can imagine. Even she changes the subject, right? She says, I can see you're a prophet. Why? Because my guess is that she hates that this is part of her story. Imagine she looks at her life and says, I don't want this to be part of my story. You know, we've been following the story of the prodigal son, the older brother, young brother, and the father for the last couple of weeks.

14:01 You can imagine, here's the prodigal son. here's the younger son. What has he done? He's rejected his father. He's rejected his family. He's rejected his people. Remember, he was among the swine. Imagine he would look at his life and say, I hate this. I hate that this is a part of my story. You can even imagine the younger son saying, I hate that this is where my story ends. Or even the older son, right? The older brother who just, all we know of him is he just worked. And he saw his work that is slavery, right? He He says he just slaved away. He's alone outside the celebration. You can imagine him standing outside alone as the father is celebrating the younger son and he's just standing out there saying, I hate this. I hate that this is part of my story. I hate that this is the end of my story. But here's the question, how often is that us? I mean, honestly, how often do we look at our lives and think either this is the end or maybe this is the middle, but I hate that this middle, I hate that this part of the story is a part of my story.

15:04 Because we can say this because I don't want this to be part of my story. Whether that be like something like a grief, maybe we're heartbroken. Maybe we're like this woman at the well. We can experience this heartbreak where she looks at her life and her life is just completely a mess. And she can say, this is not the life I pictured. Imagine so many of us can look at our lives right now and go back to whatever promise you made, whatever vow you might have made in your life and say, here we are now. and this is not the life I pictured. That when I started out, I had such high hopes.

15:36 Whether that be in marriage or promises or vows in a religious community or a priest or even just parents looking at the lives of the children and having such high hopes. And now where you're at now is this place of grief, place of loss. Where you say this is not the life I pictured. I hate that this grief is a part of my story. or maybe it's not outside. Maybe it's actually a regret. This could be something too that we can actually be angry with ourselves. I came across this quote. I love this quote. I think it's really funny and insightful, and I'll repeat it again, even if it makes people mad, and it's this quote. It says, everything happens for a reason. Sometimes that reason is you're stupid and you make bad decisions. I think that's really funny, but it's also true. I look at myself and think like, yeah, everything happens for a reason. Sometimes it's because I'm stupid and make bad decisions and I regret it.

16:28 here's the younger son. Maybe here's this woman at the well. Here's us. We can look at our lives and think, oh my gosh, how in the world did I end up this way? How in the world did I choose make a shipwreck, make a mess of my life like I did? Can't believe that I did this to myself. And so what happens a lot of times is we fall into this trap of self-accusation or self-condemnation. We're with all this regret, not just with the grief of loss and this grief of I pictured it to be better, but also this regret and this self-condemnation where we just think like, again, I look at the mess I made and I say, I hate that this is part of my story. I don't want this to be part of my story. Or maybe even it's this, maybe it's just not just grief and not just regret. Maybe it's resistance. Talk about resistance last week, how resistance leads to resentment.

17:22 Maybe we look at our own hearts and we just say, man, I hate my wounds. Maybe that's us right now. You look at your heart and you say, I hate my heart. You know, it's funny how many students I'll talk to who in moments of vulnerability and moments of real honesty will say, I just, I hate my personality. Like, I wish I was more fun. I wish that I was more laid back. I wish that I was a harder worker. I wish that I was someone people can count on. But they look at their heart and say, I hate my heart. and this could be any one of us, where we can look at our lives and say, I wish that my sins weren't part of my story.

18:16 I wish that my, the wounds I have to bear, right, the weight I have to carry, I wish this, I wish it were otherwise. You know, in 2 Corinthians, St. Paul writes about this. It's actually 2 Corinthians chapter 12. St. Paul, he's just described that God has blessed him in a lot of ways, but then he also describes that he's got a wound in his heart that my guess is that he hated. There's something part of his story that he wished was not part of his story. He says, that I might not become too elated. A thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. He says, three times I begged the Lord about this, that I might leave me.

19:02 We don't know what that is. We don't know what it was in St. Paul's life, but I just, I know what that feeling is like. I know whether that's the grief that I just say, it's not how I pictured life or the regret of I wish I hadn't done this or even that resistance to the fact that like, I look at my heart, my personality, I look at my wounds and I say, I wish this wasn't part of my story. So what do we do with that? What do we do when we look at the middle of our story, wherever you're going through right now, you look at the middle and say, I wish it were otherwise. What happens when we look at our story and we say, I hate that this is part of my story. What do we do? Well, there's this amazing book. It's one of my favorite books, maybe of all time. It's one of them. It's in the top 10. It's by a man named Father Romano Guardini. It's called The Virtues That Lead You to God. I almost don't want to mention it because it's so good. I get so much out of it, but I'll tell you right now. Here's the disclaimer. It's a book called The Virtues That Lead You to God. And Romano Gordini talks about this. Father Gordini says that there's, out of all the virtues, there's one virtue that if you don't have this virtue, there is absolutely no way you can grow in holiness.

20:00 Again, if you don't have this one virtue, there's no way that any of us will ever be able to get out of the middle and to the end. and the virtue he describes, it's kind of shocking. When I first read it, I was not ready to hear what virtue it was and he said it was the virtue of acceptance and what he means by acceptance is this, the acceptance of reality, the acceptance of like, okay, this is the middle and this is part of my story. This is so important. This is so insightful from Father Guardini because he said, unless I'm willing to accept the fact that, yes, this grief is part of my life. Yes, I've made decisions that have made a mess of my life. Yes, this is my heart. This is the actual heart that's in my chest. This is the... Until I accept the fact that I don't want this to be my story, but it is.

20:54 I will never be able to get to the end. When I was reading this in that book, I thought of another book that I read when I was in junior high. It is a book called Hatchet by a guy named Gary Paulson. And Hatchet, if you remember this, if you remember back to your junior high days, you probably had to read this book about a young boy named Brian. Brian's 13 years old. The story opens where Brian's parents have just gotten divorced, and Brian is in a kind of a prop plane, a small prop plane flying over the Yukon where the plane crashes. And the plane crashes. He's the only survivor, and he's got a hatchet. And he finds himself in the woods. And no, Brian at this point is wounded. He's wounded by his parents' divorce. He's wounded by the fact that his plane crashed. He's the only one alive. And he's in the woods, hundreds of miles from home. He's lost. He's hungry. He's cold. He's wet because it's raining. And he just cries. So I remember my sister, one of my older sisters told me that at one point, she was reading that book to her oldest son. Her oldest son at the time was maybe five or six years old.

21:49 His name is Max. And she's reading this book to Max. And she reads this section where here's Brian. And he's in the woods. And again, he's hundreds of miles from home. It's raining. He's cold. He's wet. He's hungry. He doesn't want to be there. And it says this. She's reading this to Max. that Brian sat there and he cried and he cried and he cried. And then the book goes on to say that when he was done crying, Brian looked up and he was still cold and he was still hungry and he was still wet and he was still hundreds of miles from home and all that crying did nothing to help him. And this is my sister who looked at my nephew Max and said, C-Max, crying doesn't do any good, which tells you about my family. Anyways, that's the point. And Brian, actually Gary Paulson, unfolds Brian's story and highlights the fact that this was just the middle of Brian's story as long as he was willing to accept the fact, yep, I'm hungry, I need to do something about it.

22:43 Yes, I'm hundreds of miles from home and I can do something about it. To accept the fact that, yes, I'm cold and I need to do something about it. To accept the fact that, yes, this is part of my story. Because only when we get to that place of acceptance where we realize I hate that this is part of my story, but I'm willing to accept this as a part of my story. It's only then that we can take the next step and the next step that Jesus offers us is so powerful. If the first step is acceptance, the next step is absolutely necessary and it is completely powerful and that step is redemption. the step is to be able to accept that this is my story this is part of my story this is my heart and i give it to jesus and he can do something with it saint paul writes about this again second corinthians chapter 12 he begged this wound to leave him three times he begged the lord that he would take it from him but god said jesus said to him my grace is sufficient for you for power is made perfect in weakness. And then Paul says, therefore, I rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses in order that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I'm content with weaknesses, with insults, with hardships, with persecutions, with constraints for the sake of Christ. For when I'm weak, then I'm strong. See, Paul got the secret here, the secret that Jesus is trying to share with this woman at the well, the secret of all of our lives, that God doesn't waste our wounds. That if we find ourselves in the middle, we realize that all of this can be used. The woman in John 4, right, she goes to the village and she says, come see the man who told me everything about me.

24:35 God used her to bring glory to Jesus in her village. The younger son, right? The younger son returns. God, the father, meets him at his lowest point possible. and reveals how deep the Father's love goes. That's why in the second reading today, Romans chapter 5, Paul writes, God proves his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

25:02 The reality, of course, is that God does not waste our wounds. That all of this can be used. That the truth is this, that nothing given to God is ever, ever wasted because he's involved. Because God can use every part of your story. Because the answer to that question, is God in the middle, is an absolute resounding yes. So this is the last thing. Michael Reagan, when he grew up, as I said, with all these wounds in his past, he had wounds in his present, right? His life was a mess. His life was a wreck. And then what happened is he met Jesus.

25:41 Jesus was brought into his life and he took all of that pain and all of that suffering, he took all that story, all of that, and he brought it to Jesus and he found mercy. That's why the actual, the title of Michael Reagan's autobiography is Twice Adopted. He was adopted first by Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman and then he was adopted by God, his father.

26:08 And he said he wrote this book, and this is a great quote, he said, I've written this book because I want God to use my past and the painful things I've gone through to bring help and healing to other people. Because that's what he does. If we're willing to say, okay, maybe I hate this as part of my story, but it is. Have acceptance, then I can give it to him and he can use all of it to realize all of this, all of your story can be used. That God can use every part of your story, even the mess.

26:47 God can use every part of your story, even when you can't see the end. And God can use every part of your story, even the middle. He has an answer to that question. Is God in our midst or not? Is God in the middle of your story or not?