"He Leadeth Me: The Simple Secret" | 5th Sunday of Lent (Fr. Mike's Homily) #sundayhomily

so I don't know if you've ever thought about this like sometimes when someone when you see someone do something awesome or something impressive uh a lot of times the question you ask is just like how and it's not just like how did you do the thing it's like um so you see someone who like they're raising their kids and their kids seem all together like you go to church or something and their kids are like really well behaved and they all kind of walk in and March you know they come they genu like the right time they sit there behave they don't fight with each other the question a lot of times you ask someone like that is oh my gosh your kids are so well behaved what's your secret or or if you see like someone just you know someone who looks like they have it all together they're just like they're able to not only uh you know they seem like get enough sleep or they seem like you get their work done they seem like they're taking care of themselves and the question it's like how do you do that like what's your secret in fact um you know I talked to a guy actually just last week uh at the gym and he had just he did some what they call body recomposition stuff where he grew in lean muscle mass and lost some lost some fat and and I was like I knew I was going to get this homy this upcoming Sunday and so I was like bro what's your secret like how did you do that kind of thing and the crazy the the interesting thing I think is whenever you ask someone like you know you did the thing what's your secret it's almost it's almost never a secret it's it's almost always one of the situations where like actually the thing that I did was really really simple it's the thing that everyone knows like when it comes to you know children's Behavior although that's kind of maybe a more nebulous kind of a situation but when it comes to things put together when it comes to um the body recomposition I said what's your secret he's like well I was hungry a lot over the last 3 months I'm like okay that's that's the the reality right sometimes the simp the secret can be simple but it's it's rarely easy you for the last this whole lent we've been following father Walter chisek right he was this American priest who was a a Jesuit missionary to Russia and then when he got to Russia you know he's accus accused of being Soviet Russia he was accused of being a Vatican spy during the Cold War he was interrogated in solidary confinement for not only one year interrogations but 5 years of interrogations he then spent about 15 years in a Soviet Gulag in Siberia and then after he got out of the Soviet Gulag he was uh he ministered all across Siberia as as a priest in secret when he got back to the United States and people knew of his this incredible life they knew of his incredible faith that he survived the solitary confinement that he survived the gulag they survived like life in Siberia the question people asked him again and again was what was your secret in fact he wrote about it in the book he says he says many people from news men to Housewives asked me over and over again how I managed to surv the years in Soviet prisons and the labor camps of Siberia he said my answer has always been and can only be that I survived on the basis of the faith Others May find too simple and naive so basically in the answer to the question father Walter how' you do it like what's your secret he said it's it's the secret is simple it's a in fact it's so simple you might think that it's simplistic you might think it's too naive How could a person persist how can an ordinary man remember an ordinary Christian how how was he able to survive such an extraordinary ordeal he said it's nothing more than a simple secret and that simple secret can be boiled down to one word and that one word is trust like trust that's that's the simple secret like what's your secret that through every moment and in every moment brother Walter knew that he could trust God now the crazy thing about this is that that he already knew it when when he was became a priest he already knew he could trust God when he went to Poland to try try to get to Russia he already knew he could trust God but he learned through the solitary confinement through the Soviet Gulag he learned How Deeply that trust could actually go that his trust with in God became so profound that he put it like this and this these are his words he said the simple secret is I do not need to find God's will in this moment and in these circumstances this moment and these circumstances are God's will for me that's the simple secret that this this this person right in front of me that's God's will for me this joy that I'm experiencing that's God's will for me this rest he's calling me into this is God's will for me this labor this work that God is calling right in front of me this labor this failure this is God's will for me even even this suffering that I'm going through this is God's will for my life right now now this is this simple circuit is so profound that we have to stop on on this for a moment because we need to be reminded of who God is before we go into this this this simple but deep secret we have to be reminded of the very nature of God remember that God is good that God God is not just good God is entirely good so so we know this that God never directly Wills evil because he can't because since God by his nature right God is goodness itself everything that directly comes from God is good and yet and yet we realize this we know the truth is that but father Walter and so many other people they suffered they were abused they were killed even and we can ask the question wait how can that be God's will in order to answer that question we have to ask another question what do we mean when we say God's will I think in order to understand what we mean we need a deeper and truer understanding of that term because we need to understand who God is and this is this is this is one of the reasons we need to understand who God is one of the reasons why I cannot recommend enough that we need to get familiar with the scriptures we actually need to have a lens we look at the world and we look at God through the lens of how he's revealed himself that's why if you have not started yet if you've have not yet ever read through the Bible if you're not ever listening there's a podcast out there that go takes you all the way through like if you have never done that it's so important to do that why because if we don't get rooted in God's word then we just have our imagination of who God is but if we allow God to speak to us through his own word then he gets to tell us no actually you can trust me even in Brokenness you can trust me that even in distress you can trust me even in suffering you can trust TR me cuz I'm I'm involved in all of it so what do we mean when we say the will of God we mean two things there are what you might call quote unquote two Wills of God first there's God's perfect will and there's God's permissive will so God's perfect will is it's we'd say like this this is what God Wills directly this is what he directly wants to happen like life and love and joy and healing and hope all of those things again God's perfect will to say it like this this is what God wants this is what God directly wants his permissive will is this is what God allows and so even things like suffering even things like abuse even things like death can fall under God's permissive will again not because he directly wants them to happen but he allows them to happen and the big question comes back of course we want to ask right now why why suffering why does God tolerate this why does he tolerate us to go through so much suffering in this world and the short answer is there is no short answer it's that in fact the catechism says that in so many words the catechism points to the fact that the short answer is there is no short answer the catechism points out that actually the only answer to the problem of evil the only answer to the problem of how in the world could God allow so much evil in the world is the whole gospel that the entire gospel is an answer to the question why does God allow this to happen but to make it as simple as possible God's permissive will would he allows to happen for two reasons one is to maintain and preserve our human Freedom right because God made us to love God made us for Joy he made us to to choose him he made us to be like him in this world but if we're going to be free we can't only be free to choose good we have to also be free to choose its opposite we can't only be free to love we have to also be free truly free to do the opposite of love so why does God allow evil both to maintain and preserve human freedom and secondly because this is the harder one because he knows he can bring about a greater good the reason why God allows this why his permissive will allows suffering is because he knows he can bring about a greater good and I know that this is challenging but this is the simple secret that doesn't make it easy so years ago I was in a place called yadvashem yadvashem is the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Museum in Israel and it's just if you've ever been there if you been to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in in DC it is overwhelming it's an incredibly somber place because you're looking at these images and reading these stories and even sometimes seeing videos of the torment the torture the the abuse the Suffering The Evil that people went through and so as you're walking through this Memorial Museum I mean no one's no one's talking no one's even looking at each other they're just we're just kind of like we're just absorbing everything so it's quiet and at one point I was walking through and uh dressed like a priest right and and this one one young young Jewish boy from the United States came up to me he out of nowhere uh he must have been 13 to 15 years old somewhere in there and he said um he said yeah so my dad's cousins were were killed in the Holocaust and just out of nowhere I'm like okay you know just trying to maintain like oh I'm sorry that it's horrible and it is um he's like and he kept talking like yeah this and this and this I'm just kind of like again we're the only two people talking and and pretty soon his dad walks up and and his dad I in my memory his dad was this huge man just a enormous human being and his son looks his dad say Dad this guy wants to know about your cousins who died in the Holocaust and I was like h i and they the man was he was kind of taken a and he was like I just well yeah so it was my my mom's you know and then all say he stopped and said wait so why do you want to know know about my cousins and I was like sir I am so sorry I was just walking through here and your son started talking to me I you know with respect I don't I don't you know and he was like oh okay he he knew his son he's like yeah my son does that sometimes he talks to people like yeah so just I'll let you go back to taking in the moment I started walking away and the man had enough time to kind of regain his composure and I heard as I was walking away I heard this this voice his voice say wait get back here it was like this commanding voice and I was like shoot what's going on so I turned around he said get over here right now okay and so he said you're a Christian right and I'm just like a priest I'm like yeah he said okay and he's very very clearly distressed I mean the the whole scene of course is already charged with emotion but you can see this is going on there's something that's just been building up inside of him and he says okay I need to ask you this question I've never understood this he said you Christians you blame Jews for the death of Jesus right that that you blame us that we're we're the cause of Jesus's death so he says but you also believe that Jesus's death is what saved the world so rather than blaming us Jews you should be thanking us shouldn't you and I was like I don't know what to do right now I'm like I am not in a place to answer this theological question just prayed to the Lord and just like okay um well two things as Catholics we don't blame Jews for the death of Jesus just we need to understand that that that yes there were some Jews involved and some Romans involved in the death of Jesus but Catholic theology says that it wasn't just the individuals involved in that moment that killed Jesus I said my Catholic theology teaches me that it was my sins that brought Jesus to the Cross there there was me it was my sins that brought Jesus to the cross and it was his love that kept him on the cross um in fact I don't know if you guys know this but but in the movie The Passion of the Christ you m Gibson was the director of this movie he doesn't make any appearance in the entire movie except for one scene and it's only his hands it's the scene where Jesus's hands are nailed to the cross the hands doing the nailing are Mill Gibson's hands because he wanted to say in this symbolic way that it's no it's not the Jews fault it's not even the ancient Romans fault it's my it's my sin so I said that to the man I said no we don't believe Jesus the Jews killed Jesus we believe it's my own sins that was what was responsible for bringing him to the cross and it was his love for us that kept him on the cross and he's like okay that that makes sense and he said but what about the other thing what about how you know why shouldn't you thank us for his death if if you blame Jews and I said well remember the story of Joseph because of course he does in the Hebrew scriptures know the story of Joseph the story of Joseph in the Book of Genesis you have the story of you know the second to youngest of these brothers and Joseph his brothers want to kill him but instead of killing him they sell him to slavery and he not only sold him into slavery he's also placed in prison he goes through all these torments over the course of his young life until finally he's actually elevated to being second in command of the whole nation of Egypt next to Pharaoh why because God appeared to him in a vision and revealed to him that there'll be seven years of feasting followed by seven years of famine so then they during the feasting times they stored up ration rations and whatnot so during the the fasting or feasting or the the drought time they're able to have more food people of Israel then came to Egypt got food Joseph was able to save the lives of thousands if not millions of people because of what he went through at the end of the whole story his brothers come to Joseph the ones who sold him into slavery they think that he's going to take his Vengeance on them and try to kill them and what he says to them is this powerful words he says you meant evil against me but God meant it for good I said to the man here in the yadvashem I said that that's what we believe about Jesus that that there's here's a horrible evil that God allowed that God permitted and God was present to do and that brought about a great salvation in fact we even have it in today's Gospel in John's gospel today you have Jesus saying essentially this is going to happen again and this is that that what happened with Joseph it was was a foretaste of what's going to happen in him he says when I am lifted up from the earth I will draw Al men to myself now what Jesus is pointing to is that worst moment in history again the worst moment in history is that God became vulnerable and we murdered him and Jesus is saying but when I'm lifted up from the earth I will draw all men to myself that the worst moment in history will be used to bring about the greatest good in History the salvation of the world the man he heard that and said okay that makes sense I can see that I can see how God can allow evil his permissive will can allow evil because he knows he can bring about a greater good even if that greater even if that evil is is hard because I mean what does Jesus even say in today's Gospel too not only yes when I'm lifted up from the earth I will draw unto myself all men to myself but he also says I'm troubled now yeah what should I say say father save me from this hour he says it was for this purpose that I came to this hour and that's the simple secret it was for this purpose for this moment that I came to this hour that's why father chze is able to say the secret is I don't need to find God's will in this moment and in these circumstances because this moment and these circumstances are God's will for me but this is so difficult this this simple secret is so difficult that it has to be learned over and over again in fact father chisek even says this he says I had to continuously learn to accept God's will not as I wish it to be not as it might have been but as it actually was at the moment because you know he came to know that deep truth while he was in solitary confinement but he did not stay in solitary confinement in fact after 5 years of solitary he was put on a train and brought to Siberia to the gulock and he said almost immediately as he's brought from solitary confinement on that train he met the Russian underworld and they and these were men who would just easily kill you in fact the moment they met him they took father chis clothes they just took them because the the ethic of the underworld was if you can't keep your stuff you don't deserve your stuff and so father chisek had to relearn this wait this is God's will for me this moment is God's will for me he says it like this he says it had been easy during periods of prayer and contemplation to imagine future happenings and the way I'd respond to them we all do that right where it is like okay when the day comes that I do here's how I'm going to act he says it was easy to do that but in light of the vision I enjoyed it was easy to FL freely and euphorically into the future ready to accept whatever God might have prepared for me there but the future was now present as is always the case and it was a lot more unmanageable and full of bustle than it had seemed in the abstract to put it in another way I had been alone with God as it were on the Mountaintop but now I had to come down once more into the hubbub the turmoil and dissension of the camp and somewhat like Moses the first thing I discovered was the presence of evil and he said I realized almost immediately that all the same questions all the same doubts all the same fears all the same kind of things of like I need to cling to my will came back up again and I realized too that it's one thing to give up such doubts and questions in a moment of Grace and inspiration and spiritual Insight but it's another to prevent them from rising spontaneously when the harsh and rough circumstances of a moment of daily life drive from the mind everything except the thoughts of here and now he goes on to say like I didn't know how how I would react to these moments I didn't know how I would react but it was precisely this reason the the reality that I didn't know how I how I would react was precisely why I had resolved to accept All Things Come What May as from his hands because I don't know what's going to happen that's why I had resolved to accept All Things Come What May as from his hands because that's the simple secret I do not need to find God's will in this moment and in these circumstances because this moment and these circumstances are God's will for me that's why he said I have resolved to accept all things as from his hands you know there's another character in the Old Testament there's a snapshot moment of his life where this is also the case his name King David and we we know David uh David's a flawed character he's he's he's a holy character he's a sacred character but he's also a flawed character and at one moment in David's life after he's the king after he has his whole family because of a number of events that some were David's fault and some were someone else's fault David found himself on the run from his own son absolum if you know anything about the story is that absolum was one of his sons that David was David could have been a better father but he wasn't and as a result of that and some other things absam is actively trying to kill his own father so David in order to escape death he's fleeing from the city of Jerusalem he's fleeing from his kingdom and as he's fleeing with his army with his the rest of his family there's this man named shim and shm is a Tribe of Benjamin right so he's a relative of Saul the king that David replaced and Sh is walking along next to David and next to his soldiers and he's throwing dirt and stones and spitting at them and he's basically saying he says get out get out of the city you man of blood you worthless man may the Lord avenge on you with all the blood of the House of Saul Etc he's just cursing him again and again and so one of David's men his name is U abashi abashi says to David David King my king let me go over and Lop off his head like this this guy should this this dog should not curse you then we just kill him right here and David looks at abashi in this moment of just loss in this moment of uncertainty in this moment of degradation the moment of humiliation and David says if he is cursing because the Lord has told him curse David then who shall say why have you done so goes on to say he says behold my my own son seeks my life how much more now may this benjaminite leave him alone and let him curse because the Lord has told him to here is David saying I accept all things as from God's hands here's father Chach says I accept all things as from God's hands even this humiliation I accept is from his hands and that's the key too because sometimes I think I don't know about you but I think sometimes we think that okay it's the big moments it's the big moments that like that's want to rise up and say okay God this is your will right now as opposed to realizing that most often it's in those small moments in the daily moments in those times that I just I want things to be different father jiz says it like this he says the kingdom of God will not be brought to fulfillment on Earth by one great sword swinging battle against the powers of Darkness but only by each of us laboring and suffering day after day as Christ labored and suffered till all things at last have been transformed so it's just the small moments of quiet trust it's say that patient yes to the moment it's things that we sometimes Overlook and think this is so small this is God's will I mean getting stuck in traffic having the coffee ready to go and then the cup spills over just doing the thing of like here's a person in front of you who is is arguing and being just like Rude the person at at the checkout counter who just seems to be having the worst day and taking it out on you those things might be seen so small like how could that be God's will for me but that is what it is in fact he says this why because none of it's wasted he says between God and the individual soul there are no insignificant moments this is the mystery of God's Providence so it's not just the great sword singing swinging moments battles it's the small moments because there are no such thing as insignificant moments he goes on to say no matter how small my sufferings are I have a choice I can either let them make me bitter or I can meet them with the confidence that God will not abandon me that's the choice I can allow the situations of my life to make me bitter or I can meet those situations with the confidence that God will not abandon me that's the simple secret that this is God's will for me I have to trust it as we said a couple times already it's simple but it's not easy the second reading today letter to the Hebrews it says when Jesus was in the flesh how did he pray wasn't just always calm wasn't always this place of bliss it says Jesus prayed with loud cries and tears we know that in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus Christ sweat blood and so it's easy when we're having a good day to say yeah God's will is in everything it is difficult when our prayers are marked by loud cries and tears it's another thing when our prayers are marked by sweating and blood in fact F says this he says it's much easier to see the Redemptive role of pain and suffering in God's plan if you're not actually undergoing pain and suffering he says it's only by struggling with such feelings however that growth can occur every victory over discouragement gives an increase in spiritual courage every success however fleeting in finding the hand of God behind all things made it easier to recapture the sense of his purpose in a new day that was seemingly and senseless again it's it's it's that trust is saying this not saying it's easy but that that question is settled imagine the alternative I mean here's trust God this is your will for me imagine the alternative the alternative to trust is constant suspicion I know some people they live a life with the burden of con constant suspicion or I keep have ask okay God can I still trust you God can I still Trust You Can I Trust You In This Moment imagine here's father Chach this is the life that he had had to live was challenging enough I cannot imagine having to live that life with the extra burden of Suspicion not knowing that he could actually trust God but his trust in God was real and it was not naive and it was not blind he didn't trust God just because God had stated hey you can trust me he knew he could trust God because he knew the truth that God has become one of us and he lived and he suffered and he died for you and for me to prove his trustworthiness and to slay suspicion that's why St Paul wrote If God is for us who can be against us he who did not spare his only son but gave him up for us all how will he not also graciously give us all things that's why if you've ever encountered the true and living God in Jesus Christ that he heals the wounds of Suspicion and he slays suspicion he heals the wounds of distrust and that's the simple secret I have to be willing to let go of Suspicion you know for the the one who doesn't trust no amount of proof will ever be enough but for the one who does trust no more proof is needed it's one of the reasons why I encourage everyone everyone in confession a lot of times for my Penance I'll I'll offer them I invite them to pray Psalm 3 Psalm 3 is a Psalm of trust it's also a Psalm of David so it's a Psalm that just states where J David is declaring God I trust you I know I can trust you I can always trust you all circumstances I can I'll Trust you forever but David this is interesting thing is David did not rewrite Psalm 3 from his Palace on a throne David wrote Psalm 3 this Psalm of trust as he was being hunted by his own son Absalom as we heard before there was in the midst of time of uncertainty and confusion in the midst of like the chaos imagine your own son trying to kill you and you turn to the Lord and say God I know I can trust you that's the simple secret that I can trust God in every moment and in every circumstance because this moment and these circumstances are God's will for my life and this is the last thing I I I think that for the you know we do have one more week we have Palm Sunday but to end this uh and this I want to let father chiz have the last word because it's one thing for me to say it's another for him he says this he says for those who do not believe in God I suppose such thoughts will seem sheer nonsense and unexplainable stupidity he says I've written much in this book about the will of God and his Providence I'm afraid that some readers may feel that I've made too much of it and to them I can only apologize others might feel that my belief in this matter is too simple even naive and they may find that my faith is not only childlike but childish he said I'm sorry if they feel this way but I've written only what I know know what I've experienced this is where he says many people have asked me from from Housewives to newsmen how I survived what's your secret father chisek and my answer always has been and can only be that I survived on the basis of the Faith That Others May find too simple and naive to those who feel disappointed who find it hard to accept so simple an explanation who had perhaps hoped to hear from me some secret and mysterious formula that would help them change their lives and strengthen their faith and cannot accept what I've written I can only Express my regrets and my sympathy yet no one can know greater peace no one can achieve a greater sense of fulfillment in this life than the one who believes in this truth of the faith and strives daily to put it into practice if it all seems too simple you have only to try try it to find out how difficult it is but you also only have to try it to find as well the joy and the peace and the happiness that can bring for what can ultimately trouble the soul that accepts every moment of every day as a gift from the hands of God and strives always to do his will if God is for us who can be against us nothing not even death can separate us from God nothing can touch us that does not come from his hand and nothing can trouble us because all things come from his hand if this is really too simple are we just afraid really to believe it to accept it fully in every detail of Our Lives to yield ourselves up to it in total commitment it is the ultim question of Faith but it is the question every one of us must answer then he says at the end that is the only secret I have come to know it's not mine alone Christ himself spoke of it the Saints have practiced it and others have written about it far better than I I can only hope that what I have written will strike a responsive chord in some will prove a help to others however few and I pray that you may be one of them that's the simple Secret you do not need to find God's will in this moment and in these circumstances because this moment and these circumstances are God's will for you the simple secret is you can trust [Music] God

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Id: g_vBCjfDlik

Length: 29min 4sec (1744 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 17 2024