The Fr. Mike Schmitz Interview with Matthew Kelly

i had the chance recently to sit down with father mike schmitz the author of how to make great decisions our conversation covered everything from how much coffee he drinks and who his favorite superhero is to his work with young people his life as a priest his insights into prayer and relationships and his favorite material possession now i am delighted to share our conversation with you it is my hope that it will help you get to know him like never before so father mike it's great to be with you thank you so much for joining us um we're super grateful and excited to have this time with you i have a very serious question to get started and that is who is your favorite superhero and why yes um i think that's a great question but it actually is a it's not a softball it is just a challenging question so um i'm kind of a dc guy there's marvel of course there's dc um one has made really successful movies the other has made really incredible um comics so it comes down to superman and batman kind of the big two and if i had to uh i don't know that i could actually ever choose if i had to go marvel that's easy captain america all the way that's just very very clear um but one of the things marvel does with their with their characters is they always want to give them some really clear flaws which is not horrible it's just not why why i would want to read comic books everyone read comic books to get into that world i don't necessarily need the the heroes i'd like the heroes to uh to have a purpose and be driven by that purpose um more than anything else fantastic so we um we asked uh on social media this morning we asked people to submit questions and also another very serious question from the audience is how much coffee do you drink that's funny because i right next to me have my my coffee mug i've only had i would say half of a cup today so far and i have to in half the day's through so um i can go anywhere from a couple pots so it's interesting because um if i'm at my parents place or my family's house and they're just hanging out and there's someone keeps making coffee i will keep drinking coffee if i'm at a conference and they keep having coffee there i'll just keep sipping on it not because i need it to be just because it's one of those things like oh you might as well drink on something step on something warm but i can go for from one cup to uh maybe two parts in any given day i've kind of a spread fantastic what about favorite sport and is there a lesson you draw from that sport about life oh gosh yeah so i i would say um recently went within the last four years i never watched sports ever um i liked the olympics love the olympics um because the olympics were the only place that i could get the sports i was that i participated in um i never understood the idea of watching someone else do with something you like doing yourself like so i never if you play basketball it'd be like we'll just go play basketball don't watch people play basketball um but but the olympics i could understand i like i ran i swam um triathlon cross-country skiing those were kind of my jam which are not necessarily broadcast very often except for every four years um on tv um but within the last four years i got into crossfit and in competing in crossfit a little bit and um not anything big just kind of small stuff and i find myself wanting to watch all of the time other people do this because uh and i kind of get what it is to be a fan now to be able to watch and see how someone does something so excellently it's just it blows my mind so that's one thing i think kind of a takeaway is from from sports is is this pursuit of excellence and this decision to i can i can choose to be great um the other piece that i love about sports that's one of the reasons i think everyone should be in sports or in music or in theater or anywhere you can fail is that hopefully sports teach you how to fail and i think that's probably one of the best lessons that anyone could possibly learn is how to fail and uh i think it's one of the best lessons that sports offer to uh young people that's a that's a fantastic insight um you know i think i think it's as a parent it's hard to let your children fail yeah and it's it's so important you know um we talk here a lot about the idea that your parents role isn't to prepare the road for their child but to prepare their child for the road right and there is failure on the road so that's a fantastic insight what about some you know you've touched a lot of people and and so they're naturally curious about you tell us a little bit about like growing up what what was what was father mike like growing up and what was growing up like for father mike yeah i um i would say that if you could sum it up in one word i would say i was a punk but probably wasn't that much of a punk um kind of a so i would say this i grew up i was raised in a a catholic family so i had my mom and dad who both are catholic and and brought us all to church i'm one of six kids um three boys and three girls and um yeah so when it came to faith uh there was the rule that we have to go to mass every single sunday and i would say that um the only reason my parents said the only reason only way you could get out of going to sunday mass was if you're too sick to do anything for the rest of the day um to do anything else and so there were times where i did disliked going to mass so much that i would pretend to be sick get out of one hour of mass but then have to sit in my room the entire rest of the day this is you know before devices before phones before computers before tvs and rooms like basically being your by yourself meant sitting on your bed doing nothing and for whatever reason i thought that was a good trade-off like i disliked going to mass so much that i thought that's not bad i got one hour free now i have the rest of the day in captivity but at least i didn't have to go to church and all of that changed um i remember actually even had a it must have been gosh fifth sixth grade somewhere in there um where one of our teachers she was a substitute substitute teacher and she was playing christian music at some point and i was at a catholic school and she she said i said oh is this one of those she played christian music and i said are you one of those jesus freaks and i have no idea why where where did i ever hear that phrase when my parents didn't talk like that where would i even say this and she's like what are you talking about i was like this sounds like one of those jesus freak songs and uh she says yes i am and you know what one day you are gonna be too and i was like no way she says wait a second jesus is going to get a hold of you when he does you just better watch out and i was like whatever and then when i was about 15 or 16 i had this big moment of conversion and um where jesus got a hold of me and it started um it was pretty private pretty personal um wasn't in a group wasn't through any like big no no one gave a talk i didn't read a book what happened was um i just had this personal awareness at one point of my own sin i mean that was what it was it was i'd heard what that all the sins were for you know my whole year my whole life growing up and those were all yep i know what they are they're on the list they're on the tablets um but all of a sudden there was this awareness that oh my gosh that's what i do like sin is something that that's in me now and i remember thinking oh my gosh like i i i can't just i can't just forgive myself i can't just save myself i need a savior and it was like one of those thing like oh my goodness that's what they've been telling me my entire life is that jesus is the savior and i realized oh my gosh now i get what that means i think i had been given the answer before i had the question and i'd been given the lifeline before i knew that i needed it and in that moment it was so clear i knew i needed to pray i knew i needed to go to confession and so the prayer route started at one point you can talk about that if you ever want to but i remember confession i i didn't know how i didn't know you're supposed to wait until saturday to go so i knew where the priest lived and so i got on my bike and i rode across town 10 o'clock on tuesday morning knocked on the priest door and i always say of course he was home because priests only worked one day a week and uh and i said father can i go to confession sure come on in sat down on the couch and i'm into confession and i remember walking out of that rectory stepping on the front porch and three thoughts were so clear in my mind one was just god thank you so much um because i had felt the weight of sin to a degree i had felt that and i just god thank you so much for you've completely forgiven me of all of my sins my second thought was god if you ever want me to be a priest i will hear anyone's confession anytime they ask and i never thought about being a priest before i mean maybe when i was really really little but never entertained it seriously but that was the first time i ever just god if you want so first two thoughts one god thank you so much uh second if you ever want to be want me to be a priest i will hear anyone's confession whenever they ask my third thought was oh she's really cute like so that started this this uh battle of like gosh what do you want me to do lord and but then you know i i did read some books and did encounter uh the truth of jesus in the eucharist in a way that just blew me away encountered the reality of the life of prayer that we're meant to be called into um that just can transform my life but it all started um like pope benedict said in god is love where he says being christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty ideal it's the result of an encounter with a person that gives one's life a uh says it gives one's life a new horizon and sets it in a decisive direction and i can trace so much back to stepping on that front porch and realizing okay lord from that moment you gave me give my life a new horizon and you set me in a decisive direction and that was that was i was kind of that was pretty big of course i had all the same things i was still in sports and still loved uh high school i i went with weird people who liked high school um but uh that's a whole other story that's fantastic so would you say you know that moment on the porch uh is that the moment where the faith became your faith or is there another moment that you define in that way yeah that would that was that was a big moment it's all part of that same process it was started with this awareness of sin it started with it continued and really the encounter of jesus in confession just really knowing his love so a very similar uh but it was all part of the the oh my gosh i need him um oh he's been given to me and then there was uh two other pieces one is learning how to pray and the other was learning about jesus in the eucharist and all of those things it was very large because learning how to pray wasn't just a one-time thing and that was a okay how do i show up for prayer and if this is real i have to do this if this is real then i need to spend time with him i mean even as a as a high schooler it was very very clear and then i remember reading in a book about the real presence of jesus in the eucharist and it's crazy i i went downstairs and told my siblings like you guys do you know that jesus really is truly president in the eucharist like yeah like no he's like really present like they're looking at we've all went to catholic school too we know this and like i don't know if i was sick that day i don't know if i didn't pay attention i know i didn't pay attention um but it that that changed everything and just recognizing not only god's love for me personally in confession through his forgiveness of sins but also in the mat in the mass in the eucharist and so everything changed i mean then from then on i never wanted to skip mass again it was just a matter of okay i need to need to be there but yeah the way to say it is is that that is the season where the faith became my faith yeah fantastic so that's you know it's just over 30 years ago since you you stepped on that porch yeah how does jesus continue to amaze you today oh my gosh that is such a great question because um you know that was that was the beginning in so many ways i mean the real beginning was baptism all those but um i i can look back at that moment or that that season with such great fondness um but recognizing that the lord is here now and the only i can look back with gratitude and fondness and and also i can learn a lot you know you know jesus in the uh book of revelation talks about one of the words for the churches i think it's the church at ephesus is that you know you're doing all the right things and and you believe all the right things and and you're doing okay but this thing i have against you you lost your first love and so i can look back at times and that season and say okay lord how am i doing am i am am i um am i really pursuing you with the same abandon as i did at first am i still loving you with the same love um that i did at first and i mean by same love i mean uh with that same uh i want you to have my whole heart you know i think sometimes we settle into uh just kind of rhythms that are comfortable as opposed to rhythms that really stretch us and say um okay yeah i i following you lord cost me something it cost me my whole heart and like well no but i've got comfortable things around me got this really nice chair behind me i've got you know comfortable room that i'm in right now as opposed to saying lord it's all yours and so um what i've experienced since then is that that depth of god gets to claim everything else he gets to claim everything um so i for initially it was you get to claim my sins thank you lord i think you get to take those away from me but uh but he asks he has to be able to have access to every part of my life and that's one of the things that i keep coming back to every single day um in prayer is that he has to have access to all of it it's powerful you know the phrase like wholehearted is so common in our society i i've been meditating just on that phrase over the last couple of weeks and meditating what have i done in my life in a wholehearted way what am i doing in my life in a wholehearted way now and it's interesting how we can get to a place of wholeheartedness and then regress from that wholeheartedness but still think that we're there and and and that's why it's just so important i think to check back in from time to time you know you spend a lot of time working with young people young adults um which is beautiful and and so needed and necessary what would you say is young people's greatest need today as you're working with these young people what strikes you as oh this is their greatest need like there's these great moments in the in the gospels where jesus jesus just surveyed the crowd and he recognized some yearning in them some logging in them some needing them as you survey all the young people you're working with today what is their greatest need it's a great great question because there's so many needs obviously in the last year we've experienced the need for others need for community need for real friendship um the need to be able to be together i mean just like there's so much isolation and uh you know that scripture says jesus saw the crowd and felt pity on them because they were uh frightened and abandon like sheep without a shepherd i think there's an abandonment that that that grips a lot of young people these days or even a fear of abandonment they can have they can have they can have uh even intact families that they're coming from the families of origin and still have that fear of abandonment um because because relationships are so transitory even um even in stable families they see like we'll be up in my my extended family had my aunt knuckle walked away from each other or whatever you know just they all their friends so there's that transitoriness um there's the isolation but one of the things that i would say is i believe that we are in a crisis one of the crises that they experience most profoundly for profoundly is meaninglessness i think that uh and and not just why i found my own meaning or i found my bliss i found my purpose but the greater substantial root kind of meaning that is objective that you can build a life on um that that when all the storms of life attack or when there's isolation all these other things all the plans you had are falling through uh to know that okay but this all means something that this isn't an accident and i think that a lot of our our culture and a lot of what they are presented with what we're presented with because we're living in the culture too is um is so temporary and is so based on and i'm gonna say this uh subjective experience that what happens when that subjective experience is all just pain what happens with that subjective subjective experience is uh is is so confusing that i don't understand it and there's got to be something more and so i would say that there's the greatest need the greatest wound is a christ as a meaning because it touches every single aspect of their lives and so if you know someone came to you and just said hey i feel like i'm drowning in meaninglessness yeah desperate for purpose what would you say is the first step what is the first step you would encourage them to take yeah well the first thing i would i would i want to spell it out and say that you're not an accident that your life is not an accident that you're not you don't have to just happen to exist because that is the presentation the the idea is uh of um a materialist worldview is that no you're just a random cosmic you're you're you're stardust the reason you're special is because you're dust of stars like that's not special if everything's made of stardust uh that doesn't mean anything um so to be able to say okay one of the things you need to realize is that you're not an accident that you have been made on purpose that your life um is made for purpose and then you get to live on purpose uh but one of the things that happens is you believe your life is an accident then we just walk through life um off purpose we walk through life on accident and but if you've made it for a purpose then you get to live on purpose and there's even something that's just kind of like to to to present a base level of even just that you're not an accident uh you're made on purpose you actually have the ability to live on purpose is uh is an invitation i've seen so many people respond to in a really positive and powerful way fantastic you know i think a lot of young people um they suffer well people of all ages suffer under the weight of of shame of self-loathing um of regret um do you have a regret in your life and how have you made peace with that regret yeah um i think that you know there are some people who say uh never regret anything in life because it brought you to where you you are today it made you person you are today and that is i mean i can i can understand the truth of that but i don't know that it's completely true in one sense that what if you're a worse person now because of that that experience and so um what if i'm a worse person because of that because of that experience so on one hand that is there's the truth there 100 there's a truth there but at the same time um i think it makes sense to be able to have some things that we've lived through things we've chosen that um if i had to do it over again i would have chosen differently um now here's as christians we believe god can use it all absolutely god can use every single mistake we've made everything else and we've he can he can write a great story even in the midst of our brokenness so i have absolute confidence and faith in that um but i also know that those things those elements of my life that i've i wish i hadn't chosen what i get to do now is that this is the what i'll do and when i feel overwhelmed by that so you mentioned shame you mentioned and maybe some embarrassment or guilt and that regret um i can't go back in time and change that what i can do is i can take all of it and place it under his dominion and i know that's kind of a fancy way of saying this but i i surrender it to him and say okay god i can't do anything about this this is this is the situation this is what it how it happened these are the consequences that i'm living with right now and i can't change any of them so what i'm gonna do is i submit them to you i surrender them to you and i place them under your lordship i place it under your dominion and so you get to be lord of that too you get to be lord of the my broken past you get to be the lord of the consequences that i'm living through right now that i wish i didn't i could change if i could but you get to be lord of it you get to have access to it and what i found is i found so much freedom in that um because there's nothing that he can't do something with there's nothing no element of our life that god can't do something with and including the sources are shame and some of the sources of our guilt so as you're you're making your journey and and you're you're coming alongside people ministering to them um do you see god using your broken past to minister to those people yeah i even see god using my broken presence to minister to the people uh there is a uh i i just you know um there there is an element where when it's surrendered to him he uses it all so here's an example i i can talk to my about myself but here's someone who's very close to me um that for years he's an older man and for years he he we've talked about this he said i i invite people to church all the time but no one's ever said yes he's like what's up with this i invite people all the time you say i need to go out and evangelize i need to go and invite welcome people to the church and no one ever says yes and uh i was like i don't know keep trying i guess uh this individual at one point had to go to rehab for alcoholism and goes to meetings at least once a week talks with his sponsor at least once a day and is an active part of alcoholics anonymous and i've seen in this person's life so much where now when he invites people they respond now when he comes out of this place of uh before a place that i'm put together i've got it all under figured it out i've got it all under control um yeah no i'm not gonna go with you but now where he comes out of the place of just not excessive uh uh i have my my badge that says i'm an alcoholic but out of a place of humility in a place of uh i'm approaching others as one who is broken uh people have responded so powerfully to his invitation to come close to the lord that it's uh is incredible and i i see that happen in his life all the time and i hope what happens in mind too that's fantastic you know we're we're dealing with sort of epidemic levels of addiction in our culture of all types what would you say to someone who is struggling with an addiction i think that um it all depends on where they're at as we know that the uh there's some people who point to an addiction as an excuse i i find that a lot then people who say well i'm i have this addiction therefore i can't stop this particular behavior and for them i would have a different word than those who are in denial like for someone who's like i have this addiction so i don't um it's it's kind of like um any other disease i think think of a um think of an another kind of mental illness like say depression or something like this i can't not be depressed if i diagnosed with depressed depression i can't just not be depressed but i can continue to take my medication and i can continue to talk to my therapist and i can continue to show up for those kind of meetings so i can't i can't just eliminate the the problem but that doesn't mean i can't just because i can't do everything doesn't mean i can't do anything and so that's one thing so if someone is out of that place when it comes to addiction and they're saying i'm just gonna uh blame my behavior on my addiction okay on the other hand um there are there's so much again go back to the word shame so much shame when it comes to uh the wounds that we all carry and every one of us carries wounds and some of the ones some of the wounds that we are most uh ashamed about that have the most power over us are the secret wounds and sometimes addiction is that it's just it's a secret wound for so many people um and so we have to ask the question um would it have more power or less power in your life if you brought it out into the light would it would it would it be easier to carry if you allowed someone else to carry it with you um or would it would it crush you even more and i have found so often that people keep themselves back they hold themselves back from real freedom because they don't want to reach out for help and i understand that but um at the same time i don't understand it because freedom is possible and and uh sobriety is possible and a new life is possible and i just think that um as long as there are those lies that keep attacking us from inside saying you can't let anyone know um that no one's there to help that i tried once and i got shot down all these kind of pieces uh to recognize that that you're not over and your life's not over and freedom uh can be in your future that's fantastic what um we're talking about like our aspiration to be all god created us to be we're talking about our humanity um one thing i notice a lot of people struggle with i see it a lot in moms you know and it's like okay you're a mom but before you're a mom and before you're a wife and before you're a daughter and before you're a sibling you're an individual human being you know and and you have a mandate from god you know you have a responsibility to yourself as an individual human being before you're a priest before you're a speaker before you're an author before you're all of those other things you're a human being how do you honor that in the midst of all your other roles and responsibilities yeah that's um and not only i i would say that my deepest identity would be a child a son of god um that uh that i can't i can't summarize or express any more deeply any more central any more core of of who i am as other than an adopted son of god and so that has to come first i know that it's so easy as you're mentioning as your question even mentions how it's so easy to say well i've got got to get all this work done um this is this is the task that needs to be accomplished this is um the person needs to be taken care of um and yet at the same time there is a a primary relationship the primary primary relationship that gives me my identity is between the father and myself and so i would say that um if when i'm when i'm not i would say if i'm not if i if i don't haven't taken the time for prayer and say okay let's brief raise accurately when i haven't taken time for prayer and when i say take take time for prayers is i know that uh what what is necessary i know what kind of prayers necessary i know how long i need to be in prayer for it to be the kind of prayer that actually goes to the identity and actually helps the relationship and i also know what kind of prayer it has to be it can't be prayer where i'm also writing a homily it can't be prayer where i'm also writing writing a talk it has to be where it's just okay lord this is us together um it can be brief but the agenda has to be uh love and that and without that um without that there's there's nothing else and and i think a person could continue to work but they wouldn't work with um they could keep working but it wouldn't keep working you know i think that that kind of fuel runs out pretty quickly absolutely you're working with young people you know what advice do you have for young people about love um i can't remember who it was who said this uh dumb kembera maybe might have been the name uh the man he said something like life teaches us how to love um i i like how in the cure in the christian context what john paul ii said which is that the family is the school of love um and so in that case like life doesn't just teach us how to love life could also teach us how to become bitter life can teach us how to resent um but a life lived with christ teaches teaches us how to love and um one of the things that life with christ teaches us one of the aspects of love that life with with christ teaches us is that um you are always free to choose to love you're always free to choose to love that that they're the gift of the emotion of love is is a gift it is real and it's a real gift but i'm not beholden to it and you don't have to be a slave to that that you can actually choose to love regardless of your feelings you actually get to lead your feelings um when it comes to love and and that is actually it's actually possible to keep your promises and that's and that's an element again going back to john paul ii where he said a person who does not promise to love for a lifetime will never truly be able to love truly love for even one day um because there's that sense that it can't just be transitory it has to be and has to have an element that says i will i mean i i when it comes down to this i always highlight for our couples when i do marriage prep with them that uh on your wedding day you're gonna make some vows which is kind of silly in some ways meaning you're gonna make a vow to be faithful to each other to love to each other to honor each other on your wedding day which is silly because of course you are that day of course on your wedding day of course you're gonna love each other you're gonna be faithful to each other you're gonna honor each other the reason you're making a vow on your wedding day is because you know that the day is going to come when you won't feel like loving each other when you won't want to be faithful to each other when you don't want to honor each other and what you're saying is when that day comes i promise you i still will love you and i will still choose you and i will still be faithful to you and i will still honor you and that kind of thing is something i wish that more people knew because that's possible it's possible to love like that so as i listen to you speak um you speak about love you're building uh your whole description of love and story of love and philosophy of love on the idea that love is a choice but the culture is sending a message very very powerfully in music in books in tv shows in movies that love is a feeling how do you draw people out of the love is a feeling philosophy and into the love is a choice philosophy yeah i think that um i think life has to teach them that what i mean by like i think what dom kimbera was saying that life teaches us how to love in the sense that um there are some relationships that are say even romantic relationships but they also can be relationships of friendship that are only for a season and that's okay so there is there's an element where um just because we're dating doesn't mean that i'm gonna love you forever and that's okay just because we're friends in in geometry class doesn't mean that we're friends after school and that's okay that there can be an element of different kinds of friendship there's friendships for a season and the friendships for life there's love for a season that's love for life to be able to recognize okay that's possible both things can be true at the same time that there are such things as kind of more transitional type friendships and relationships but there's also a great gift that comes along with a permanent or more permanent friendship and a vow to love and i think that um oftentimes the young people that i i deal with i get to you know interact with one of the things that they're seeing is like wait a minute wait a second so i'm dating this person i mean we have to this is forever like well maybe but hold your horses or the opposite which is there's no such thing as forever and so i think that as they mature the i don't say edges get worn off what i mean is i think things come into focus where i could recognize there are such things as friendships and relationships relationships for a season and there are such things as friendships and relationships for life and part of the the wisdom of living is being able to discern which one is which what is um so we're talking about love and there's there's a youthfulness to love and and i think love keeps us young yeah um what advice would you have for married couples who've been married for 20 30 40 years um well they haven't figured it out yet um i always think of kind of two things one is especially if they well to be careful with each other i think that that is one thing that i see happening a lot when it comes to even newly married couples is they um get to a place where we're so comfortable with each other that we stopped being careful with each other um and i just and i don't mean fragile way i don't mean walking on eggshells but i do mean um if i've noticed that i'm treating strangers more politely than i'm treating my spouse something's wrong if i notice i'm treating people at work uh with more care than people treating my spouse then something's off that this should be the relationship that i'm being most careful with because this is the one that matters the most and it's the one that's gonna last the longest so one is just even as simple just be careful with each other second one is if someone has revealed themselves to you stop waiting for them to change maybe i'll say it like a different way um i have found that newly married couples are more patient with the foibles and inconsistencies and uh wounds than well of their spouse then couples have been married for a long time which i think should be the opposite on one hand you might think well of course that by this point they're just tired of it and they just like i don't have any patience for you but i i look at that and think wait if you've been reminding him to put down the toilet seat for the last 25 years um or if you've been if he's been waiting and just like i'm so frustrated she's always late she's always running late when we have to go somewhere why would you why would that why would you give that permission to stress you out in any way shape or form it's been 25 years if you haven't learned yet he doesn't put down the toilet seat she is always late if you haven't learned that by now the problem is not with them the problem is with you at this point and so i would say that you have been married for a long time realize this is the person i married and be able to not just accept but also maybe even delight in those little idiosyncrasies those little things that's like of course yeah we're going to be late and i'm not going to let it bother me or yeah the seats this way and i'm not going to let it bother me because if this toilet seat up meant he doesn't actually love me he would have left me a long time ago and if and if her being late means she doesn't respect me then then this that's this is the least of my problems but probably it's just that he is forgetful probably it's just that she has a lot on her mind and it happens in taking care of everyone else before she takes care of herself and that's where we're at and i think there's an element of acceptance of the other person that would bring a lot of peace to couples that have been married for a long time excellent insight so we're talking about relationships and um a big part of relationships is communication and i've heard you talk about conversations before what is the most important part of any conversation that's a great question i would think that on some level it'd be um meaning i didn't just say what i wanted to say you understand what i was trying to communicate but i think that there are so many times in the course of our any given day or any given situation where there's not enough time necessarily to clarify okay you said you wanted the blue mittens not the red ones they're blue mittens with red stripes okay where yes that's what i said blue mittens red stripes both left and right hand or whatever the thing is sometimes there's not enough time to communicate these things in a way that i know you understand me and you know that i understand you so the most important part of communication would be i think what would what might be the most important part of any relationship and that is more foundational i think than love is respect and more foundational and respect is built bullet and respect are built off of trust and and so that sense of being able to say oh sorry i bought the blue mittens with the red stripe not the redmonds with the blue stripe or whatever the thing is but that person knows they can trust me that person knows they can trust that i respect them and i love them and if i had remembered i would have gotten the mittens they wanted then then we're going to be okay because i know at the end of the day the most important part of community most important part of communication is the relationship itself and if that relationship itself is built off of a mutual love and respect undergirded by trust then then i think that uh words are going to be words but this is the relationship in in your book uh how to make great decisions you talk about um like learning to listen to god you know and uh one of the things i love is how like you make connections between our faith life and the practical realities of our everyday and so as i'm i'm listening to you speak um you know about this this knowing this understanding this trusting and i'm i'm putting that together with the piece in the book about learning to listen to god how does learning to listen to god make us a better listener in relationships wow yeah i think on one i know for myself when it comes to prayer one of the things that i wanted is i wanted god to speak to me the way it seemed like he spoke to others um here is uh samuel the who's in the living in the temple and here's his god calling his voice samuel samuel and he goes to eli and says you called me i know i didn't call you and and then later on it's revealed that this is the lord god calling samuel and i'm like yeah talk to me like that lord i i don't mind i'd like to hear the the audible voice you're telling me what to do and then realizing that god you get to talk to me however you want like you actually get to communicate with me how you want not necessarily how i prefer and there's something about that that that is um a humbling and also it translates really really well into our relationships with others meaning if i'm going to expect someone else to think the way i think i'm going to expect them to do something they can't do if i'm going to expect someone to always talk the way or speak the way i speak then i'm expecting them to do something that they don't have the capacity to do and so when it comes to the lord i want to say okay god speak to me how you i want to learn how you speak to me and think when it comes to other people is the same thing is okay i want to learn how you speak to me my my spouse my friend my child even that's another thing is is that your parents and children that recognition that um our ones kids are not just carbon copies they might look similar but they have their own minds their own way of understanding things their own way of getting from a to b their own way of communicating those things and so there's a massive level of i get to accept that you have a different mind than i do you have a different way of speaking than i do and it's my job to learn how to learn how you speak and that's what i think we've done with that we strive to do when it comes to the lord and then when we do that well we can realize we're doing it we do it we do that with everybody so we're talking um you know our relationships and every relationship is an opportunity to become a better version of ourselves if you could put together a dinner party and invite a handful of people from history anyone in history who would you invite to dinner that's a great question and it's one that um i i i think we'll here's one submission one potential guest list and i think that i might the the group that comes to me is um [Music] one might be the apostles the other might be a group called the inklings right so c.s lewis and j.r tolkien and matthew barfield i think is another one of them some other folks and the reason why is because it's a group of friends who had this virtuous friendship and one of the things that they they did together is they um here's the apostles they're completely different but united in their love and experience of jesus and united and they're being commissioned by christ himself the inklings same kind of thing united in their love of literature but also in their pursuit of the lord and that that that that to me um as an i'm an introvert uh if we have to go to a dinner party i would like to be at a dinner party where they're all friends and i get to kind of listen in on their conversation so that's that's kind of where where maybe where i would go but uh that's just my yeah right off the top my head love it love it so let's shift a little bit let's talk a little bit about the life of jesus and and the scriptures and um you know if you could if you could go into one moment of the life of jesus if if you could have been there for one moment which moment would you choose wow um i will you know my my in my mind i'm going all the way from the big moments um i'll get back to that second but also the small moments where where it's um the day-to-day with the lord so there's the scenes from the gospels that would be incredible i mean i think it'd be incredible on one hand to be able to be with the lord in the garden of gethsemane and to know what that moment means and to be there for jesus in a unique way to be able to say to whatever degree i can i get it um to be able to give him that on the other hand uh it'd be incredible to be able to be there at the moment of the resurrection and just to to bear witness to that incredible reality and so those are some of the big moments but again i just there's something so i love going to the holy land i love going to israel and one of the things i love about israel is i love returning to those normal places and just think okay the lord walked here or he saw that hill or this is what uh the air smelled like when he was walking uh down mount arbel towards the sea of galilee and those elements of just be able to walk with him to be able to be on that hike with him would be would be remarkable um but sometimes these days i think i've been there maybe a dozen times or so now these days some of my favorite parts of the pilgrimage is when we're just hanging out at the hotel afterwards and it's it's just this chance to be eating some food like having a beer and just enjoying each other's presents and so i think some of those moments are the moments i really would love to be able to have with the lord um the big moments are awesome but maybe even some of those small moments of just having dinner um going for a walk so um i love the holy land as well i love now i love watching other people discover for the first time any experience where jesus walked for the first time and and walk where jesus walked you know you talked earlier about like this idea of virtuous friendship and a group of friends who are challenging and encouraging each other to become the best version of themselves and um when you imagine jesus just walking down the dusty roads with the disciples what do you imagine that was like right so i have the images i've had a chance opportunity to hike a bunch in my life or camp a bunch in my life and one of the things that happens when you're on those kind of journeys um easy kind of either pair up or you're going to triple up and then drop back and people are joining and rejoining groups and one of the things that just strikes me is the naturalness of you know you just kind of drop back a little bit because you want some quiet time are you join up with this other group because you you what are they talking about up there or you get to just even can walk next to the lord and have that opportunity to just um maybe not even say anything but be able to be walking with him walking with him and and just being in his presence um going the same direction knowing you're headed the same direction uh i keep having that yeah that's that's what i keep imagining is those pair ups those those uh dropping back those walking with the lord um i imagine it'd be a lot whether it be laughter i imagine that there'd be some times when it was you know jesus set his face like flint to jerusalem and he decided i'm gonna go there and i'm gonna announce to you all that what's gonna happen when i get there um it's maybe less laughter than those situations but but that would be incredible too to see how does the lord face um how how does he do this walk how does he just walk where he knows what's at the end of the road um yeah that'd be i think it would be pretty remarkable awesome awesome if you know someone is you've helped so many people discover the bible and and rediscover the bible and um [Music] if there's someone listening and watching who has never read the bible but feels called feels drawn [Music] what one piece of practical advice would you give to someone approaching the bible for the first time uh yeah maybe practical advice would be um let gosh if it's a way to say this let the bible be what it is and not what you want it to be i think that could really help a lot of people um yeah what about parents you know you're you're ministering to young people they all have parents uh as i've traveled around the world the past decades i see a lot of anguish and catholic parents whose children have fallen away from the church what advice would you have for those parents yeah i think that uh it's easy to feel powerless because the only person you can control is yourself and you can't even control that person very well a lot of times so it's really easy to feel powerless and yet parents aren't powerless um [Music] parents not only have the ability to continue to give witness i mean that's a thing to be able to continue to give witness even if your children are grown and out of the house is profound what i mean by that is um say someone has walked away to always leave the way back someone is left okay but there's always i'm leaving this door open there's always a way back to make that clear and that is modeling the love of the father it's loving it's modeling the prodigal father you know in the parable um another thing is the power of a parent's blessing the power of a parent's prayer and the power of parents penance i think that that a willingness to really you know jesus when there was a demon that the apostles could not drive out he said this one can only be driven out by prayer and fasting and i think that there is and there's the evil one and evil one wants the souls he wants our souls he wants the souls of our our children our family people we love and to be able to say you have these powerful tools you have uh the ability to give witness to the lord you have ability to keep that door open you have the ability to pray you have ability to um continue to fast you have the ability to dependence for for your kids and that that is not uh those are not little things those are not small things they are powerful things as we're talking almost every topic what strikes me is the celebration of choice that we do have choice that we are free to choose um we're making thousands of decisions in our lives i mean one of the things i love about your book how to make great decisions is that we're just making so many decisions and and most people have never thought okay what is my process for making a decision how do i make great decisions how do i give wisdom a place in my decision-making process walk us through a little bit like what is your decision-making process how do you counsel and and coach other people to make decisions yeah well you know um christian smith who is a sociologist he used to be based out of north carolina i think chapel hill but now he works at notre dame he had done this nationwide survey on the moral lives of american young adults and um and one of the things he found he and his team found was that after researching thousands and thousands of uh young adults in america 18 to 29 i think it was he found the conclusion they came to was that the vast majority over 66 percent of american young adults had neither um the ability nor the categories to make moral decisions and and what he meant by that that's not the ability because he's like well we're not the categories didn't have the words for it didn't have the words to be able to communicate um this is what good is this is what that is in fact sometimes the words they would use instead of saying something was bad they would say oh this is merely stupid you're being stupid that kind of a thing um so they have the categories of either right or wrong it also didn't have the categories of um the act itself the intention the circumstances those kind of things but then the ability uh to make moral decisions and he could say that because he said that so often a person would appeal to how they felt these appeal appealed to their gut and said i don't know i don't know how i chose it i just it felt right i kind of sort of wanted to do it and so i just based that decision off of a feeling now there's such a thing as intuition obviously but how do you like develop intuition and so when it comes to making decisions whether they be moral decisions or otherwise um i think that there's a number of things we can do and one is we can uh gather data and i think that gathering data is one of the most basic things any one of us can do but um it's also something we often can overlook so for example um just look at the example of discerning a college to go to um and say okay uh i don't know should i go to this college or this college you know college ex or college y i don't even know well okay what are some points of data that you might want to even just discover um well this collegex costs this much college why cost this much i don't know are there any scholarships well gather data um what does what is campus life like okay gather data and since all those things are just you're you're not solving the problem but you think of in terms of variables you have you're trying to solve for x but you also have all these unknowns you have y and z and w and all these things well if you can fill in some of those those letters with actual numbers with with data then you have a better idea at least of how to solve for x so data gathering the second is i think council so council is very similar to data gathering but it's not um it can be i mean you can seek counsel from somebody and get more data that way but also council can often often help uh process the data because there's a lot that i don't know i don't know how to process whether um college x that cost as much in college why the cost as much how that could be offset by scholarships or by whatever um but someone else might so seek counsel from every wise man the scripture says um so first gathering data second seeking counsel a third one is i just think at some point you need to we need to move we need to decide so um that frightens a lot of people we need to have courage in order to do that why it frightens a lot of people is because if i've decided that means it's done that means the decision's over and it doesn't um what it means is i've tentatively taken a step i've taken a step down this road that looks promising i don't know where it's going to lead i don't even know if this is the right step but if i don't ever take the step i will never know if that's the right step so the image i always have is the image of sighting in a rifle so um in minnesota and other places in the country where someone goes out to go deer hunting a couple weeks before you actually go to your hunting if you have a scope on your rifle you go to the firing range and you line up the the target in the scope or in the sights and then you have to actually pull the trigger so you line it up you don't just walk away say oh yeah it looks like it's good you have to line it up and then you have to fire and then you see okay is it off in any way is it down into the left is it down into the up and to the right if it is you adjust and then you line it up again and fire again and and that is actually how you sight in a rifle that's actually also how we're supposed to make decisions we get data we get counsel and then we take a step and say is this the right step and if it's not then we calibrate and take another step and if calibrate and take another step that's not failure that's the process and that's how it's supposed to go it's not i made this decision and now i just don't have to think about it anymore it's made the decision to take one step not to run the whole marathon so when you're you're making a decision you know sometimes it's hot enough to make a decision with even if you have a rich inner life even if you're sort of you feel like you're in a great place in your spiritual life it seems for a lot of people however even people who are committed to the spiritual journey that making a difficult decision also coincides with a difficult time of prayer a time when they're struggling to pray when they're having trouble praying when you're having trouble praying how do you recalibrate how do you how do you allow god to draw you back into it how do you how do you deal with that yeah that's a great question i think one one big piece is consistency one pic it's faithfulness um that i would say that hands down consistency beats intensity every time that recognition of i'm gonna show up again and uh whether prayer is is uh full of consolation whether it's full of difficulty dryness distractions um that's that's okay it doesn't matter because i'm here secondly i'll be back tomorrow that that sense of um when it comes down to it everything's not riding on this one prayer time this is and also gosh i mean if i'm only seeking an answer when i go to prayer um i will often leave disappointed but if i seek the lord when i enter into prayer then i'll never be disappointed and so i think that it also so you can recalibration it recalibrates our focus because sometimes i will i'll go into prayer like okay no lord here we go we got to figure this out and he reminds me i figured it out already uh what this time is for is for you to get to know my heart because he already knows my heart but that time of prayer is for me to get to know his heart and to abide in him to rest in him um and to find him there yeah so you keep showing up and um when you keep showing up that takes the urgency out of it you're not you know showing up and saying all right god do your thing um go go how how how have you grown into that patient um over the last 30 years oh man i um because you know ever since that first moment of conversion and up until coordination every day every day the prayer was god just tell me just tell me what it is you want me to do you want me to be a priest do you want me to marry this girl do you want whatever just and i remember thinking i wouldn't even say my prayer just tell me i i don't care what it is i mean i do care what is but if you tell me i'll do it and god is so good because he will never be too late with his revealing his invitation to us but he will also never be too early with his revealing his invitation to us and i know this looking back now that every i mean i there are so many graces that i missed um that god was giving me because i would every retreat i went to every every camp i went to every time of prayer every mass i wanted my one answer that's all i wanted and here's god who's trying to give all these other graces they're like no no i don't want those other grace i want the answer and i think of how ungrateful that i i must have been during that whole time because he was moving he was acting he was doing something in my life but i was only paying attention paying attention to what i hadn't been given yet i wasn't paying attention to what he was giving me so that's a that was that was a deep conviction that um it took me a while to to understand and to really not just understand but also recognize for what it what it is like how how deep that goes um here's god constantly blessing but no until you give me the thing i'm asking for i don't want any of those other blessings that's one thing that's one the big thing that taught me um the other is i remember that when the lord finally made it very clear that he was inviting me to even just go to seminary um [Music] it was painful because i was i had been dating this girl for about three years and i knew what had happened in that relationship but so it was it was it was very difficult but he had prepared my heart sufficiently so that by that moment i was able to say yes in freedom and i would think that i i've often looked back and have i wondered if the lord had even revealed that two weeks earlier if my heart would have been in the right place it would have been in the same place i might have still done what he asked but it might have been more like trying to fit around peg in a square hole so that recognition of in the meantime god is giving so many blessings secondly uh is that he's on time he's never going to be too late but he also will not be too early so you went you went to seminary um how is priesthood different to how you thought it would be as a seminarian i think i emphasized in my mind in anticipation i emphasized all the potential negative things that possibly could be you know full i i honestly i pictured the life of a priest in northern minnesota to me myself in my own by myself a drafty rectory with the winter winds rattling the the windows and me sitting in a rocking chair you know with an afghan on my lap stroke stroking my cat while i looked out over the desolate barren wasteland of you know the winter in minnesota um i thought that would be a lot of a lot of that and i would say i also thought um i was afraid of being being lonely um i don't think i'm afraid of being alone but i'm afraid of being lonely and i would say that the both of those both of those fears were were inaccurate they're misplaced fears uh that i've never i haven't been lonely more than 15 minutes i think in the last 18 years of being ordained um yeah it's been such a gift my life has been so full of joy and so full of the lord so full of like incredible people um the problem is that i don't have enough life to uh fit all the people in you know i don't have enough um uh capacity for all of the the gifts that god has has been giving and so again the fear was was loneliness the fear was like isolation and sadness um and uh the reality has been the opposite even though i know that at some point the lord i mean he has to purify my heart somehow so he does it in a number of ways one of those ways could be in the future of leading me to a place of loneliness which by that point i pray that um i'll be able to see it as a gift from his hand that sense of like no maybe there's loneliness maybe there's pain but this is because he's he's good and he wants me to be his fully it's beautiful so you talk about these sort of different seasons in your life different seasons in our lives what advice would you have for someone who hasn't been to confession for a while well i would my advice is always go i mean without hesitation go there was a a person who contacted me and said i haven't been to confession in 50 plus years um can i go to confession and it was the most incredible thing um when she left she was walking out of the confessional she said you're gonna need to call me tomorrow to make sure i'm not dead and i remember thinking um what does that mean and so i contacted her the next day and said hey i hope you're still alive you know i don't know if this is a joke or this is or whatever um this is a threat you know whether she's safe or not place of safety and she she wrote to me in an email she said i'm afraid that you thought that i was gonna hurt myself i would never hurt myself i meant call me tomorrow to make sure that i'm not haven't had that i haven't died of joy um she says that the her entire if she should i can't believe was 50 years i just let these small things hold me back allowing the lord to forgive me allowing me to enter into joy allowing me to enter into the love and the life that god has for me because i thought well i'm disqualified i can't say this i i mean i can't reveal this to anybody i can't whatever the thing is and i realized that for so much of her life she has refused to enter into joy and i'm just so yeah so uh make sure i'm not dead tomorrow because of joy and yeah she's written many times since then just saying like every day every day is a gift um and that could be you so if someone has been away from confession for a long time uh why why why not enter into joy when i put down what is weighing you down and uh allow the lord to love you as you are powerful i think very often we make the assumption that people know jesus uh let's imagine we're in a place in a time where people have never heard of jesus and in some ways that's not unlike this place in time for many people yeah how would you describe jesus to someone who has never heard of him yeah i one thing i would want to do is want to find out what they do know what they do imagine like is is there do you have an awareness that there's more to this life than just this life you have an awareness that there's there's more that you're not an accident but you're made on purpose is there any awareness of that um you haven't you have you have a hope or even a a a glimmer of a hope that your life is intentional that it means something that your choices mean something that there is someone behind it all or something behind it all so i want to find out if that's the case and if it is the case there's that sense of being able to say okay let's let's let's talk about your heart and let's talk about your experience of life because my guess is your experience of life and your heart has been this that uh you have longing in your heart that um you wonder if it's you wonder if it's real you wonder if um the longing in your heart is can never be ever be really satisfied or if you just wishful thinking because you thought it was uh when i get that degree then i'll be happy he got the degree and you weren't happy you thought it was well yeah but a person i just want someone who loves me when you had that relationship that person and then i'll be happy and you you got it and you weren't completely happy would maybe have to have kids people have this job maybe if i live in this place maybe if i collect a bunch of experiences and to be able to say okay there's all these pieces that you thought were going to make you happy and so now maybe there's some bitterness maybe there is some disappointment maybe even there's some anger at um being sold this lie that if you did these things accomplish these things got these things then you'd be happy um [Music] i just want to let you know that all of that was a lie now i'm not saying that people who told you that were liars maybe they didn't know any better but at least you know this one thing it wasn't true but there is one uh the one behind everything the one who made this universe one who made it good the one who made that heart in you that you say but i think something in my heart is made for love i think this thing in my chest is made for more that one who made that heart actually made you for more and that more is him and and and that sense of being able to say that he revealed his heart and his heart is one that says this a lot of you know this but you know there are a lot of religions around the world um in every one of them you have to fight to get the god or the goddess's attention you have to work to get them to notice you and um you have to bleed in order for them to pay attention to you or to care about you but in this broken world the one god who made everything he made it good and he made your heart he didn't break your heart but he made your heart and then this world and sin broke your heart um he entered into this world and he allowed his heart to be broken so you would know that you have a god who has a broken heart like yours that he allowed himself to bleed not because not so you didn't have to believe to get his attention he came down to this earth and he became one of us and he bleds to get your attention um you don't have to give him the this massive sacrifice so that uh he can trust you that he gave everything so that you would trust him and that's what his heart is and that's who he is that's fantastic very powerful very beautiful there's a lot of people out there have read your books they've listened to you speak you've been an inspiration to them they admire you [Music] they think they know you they know parts of you what's one thing you would like all of those people to know about you as a human being yeah uh on the surface i would say know that i'm an introvert and so i get i like people i get recharged by being alone um that's not something that i think uh matters really in the big picture of things i think uh what if you're i think it's it's good for all of us to be reminded of and good thing for people uh to remind you about myself is that just um [Music] everyone has uh everyone is wounded and everyone and as we said before uh some of the most shameful wounds we have are the ones that are secret the ones that no one else sees and they don't have to be scandalous they could just be that they're that thorn in our side right they don't have to be something that would shake someone's faith but every one of us is wounded right and so um i'm not an exception to that uh i'm not an exception to the rule of humanity which is we are all walking wounded um but i also recognize that the lord jesus loves me in my woundedness and he continues to call me in my woundedness and he continues to use me in my woundedness and uh and so uh what i would want people to know is uh the level of woundedness and my need for prayers excellent so last two questions one very worldly question one very otherworldly question we live in a material world god has gifted us with this material world what is one material possession that just brings you great joy you know it's just the thing you understand it's just a thing but it just brings you great joy wow that's a great question because i've actually thought about this recently um i i i about a year and a half ago i got my first buck uh my first deer but i got it by hitting with my car um so i totaled the car and so i had to get a new car and almost every it's been a year and a half almost and virtually every time i get in the car and start it i think this is such an awesome car when i drive it i think this is great it's the same the brand as all my other cars basically before this um but it's just a new model and i just think this is so nice i love it so much so my car that's awesome when we turn to the other worldly you know i think we don't talk enough about heaven we don't think enough about heaven when you reflect on heaven what do you think about what do you imagine what comes to mind i think you're right i think we don't think enough about heaven and yet this is this is god willing our destination this is god willing where we get to spend eternity and i think many of us are uh we want heaven because we don't want the other thing but we don't want heaven for what heaven really is and and that recognition of uh not only on the one hand we have as scripture says a new heavens and a new earth where all creation gets redeemed all creation is groaning as awaits redemption um so that means that this universe will be a redeemed universe so heaven's not simply spiritual it's actually tangible physical material but supernaturalized material world so this completely redeemed and also at our bodies completely redeemed resurrected bodies that have all the properties that god originally intended and more when it comes to jesus christ as the first fruits of the resurrection of the dead um not only that but relationships redeemed i mean just all these pieces the creation redeemed our bodies redeemed relationships redeemed and then the the heart of heaven which is god himself and that sense of being able to say man i i know my heart isn't prepared for heaven because of the fact that i i know my heart needs to be more open to the lord than it is and right now heaven can't fit in my heart or mind maybe i say that my heart can't fit into heaven yet and so every time i go to prayer that's what's one of the things i'm asking god to do is god um let me love you so much that if all you ever gifted me in heaven was you that would be enough and so that's that's the heart of my prayers this god let me love you so much that if all you ever gifted me in heaven was you then that would be more than enough it's beautiful amazing to be with you thank you for having hope we can do it again soon um god bless you thank you for all you're doing for the church i know that um it comes at a cost to you personally and on behalf of everyone um who's been touched by your life and your ministry just thank you for for who you are that means a lot thank you matthew i read that means a lot and i want to thank you too because i even actually uh have a homily coming up where i'm quoting you a bit so i'm grateful for all that you've done and all that i've learned from you god bless you we hope you have a great day and look forward to chatting with you again soon thanks sam god bless god bless thank you bye-bye

Channel: Matthew Kelly

Views: 175,533

Keywords: Fr. Mike Schmitz, Matthew Kelly, Ascension Presents, Dynamic Catholic, Interview, Conversation, Priest, Fr. Mike, 60 Second Wisdom, The Best Version of Yourself

Id: -lJTd6K2XpI

Length: 75min 23sec (4523 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 15 2021