Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.
So, recently I was talking with someone who they said to me, they said,
"So I believe that you know like something like abortion is wrong. I believe in the Church teachings.
I believe—" they might even said, "I believe abortion is wrong," but then they said,
"but I could never hate someone who had an abortion."
I was like, "Oh, yeah. Don't. Right. Yeah, don't do that."
They said, "No, I b- I just, you know I and- I believe in the Church's teaching on marriage
but I could never hate someone who is in this other situation."
Like, wait wait where did you get the idea that to believe in a certain doctrine or to believe in a certain creed
also means you have to hate someone who failed to live up to that creed or failed to believe in the same creed
or failed to profess that same creed?
Like, I just thought, "Wow, we've done such a bad job as Catholic Christians of witnessing to the fact that
we can hold on to what we truly believe is the truth
without falling into that trap of coming across like we hate someone."
Do you know that Jesus actually commands us to not hate.
Now, he doesn't just even command us to not hate someone who disagrees with us
or who fails to live up to some standard.
He forbids us to hate even those who hurt us.
So this whole standard is not just kind of like, "Yeah, you know, you should accept people
or you should tolerate people or you should kind of just be OK with other people not believing what you believe,"
He says, "No, when someone is persecuting you, if someone is torturing you,
if someone kills you, you need to love them. You need to pray for them, you need to forgive them."
The Church teaches what Jesus taught which is,
Yeah, there are certain things that are right and certain things that are wrong.
We have this standard of behavior, we have this thing we're all called to and yet we all fall short
and we all need mercy, that in the midst of our lives, everyone we talk to,
everyone we meet is facing some kind of battle that we have no idea what they're going through.
That's one of the reasons why we may never ever judge another person's heart.
Now, we can assess actions and say that was a good action or that was not a very good action
or that was a really cruel action.
We can never judge someone's heart. And we must never ever condemn someone or hate someone.
The history of the Church in its best—at its best, the history of the saints at their best
is exactly what I just described:
This ability to say, "Here's what's true, here's what's good, here's what's beautiful
and when I encounter someone who doesn't live up to that or doesn't believe that,
willing to still serve them."
You know, especially when it comes—let's look at the golden rule, Matthew chapter 7:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Now, other people have claimed like, "Well, that's the same rule, that's the same command of anyone else."
In fact, Confucius had said something exactly like it and let's press pause and say,
actually, it sounds it similar but what Confucius said was,
"Don't do unto others what you don't want them to do to you."
Sounds very similar but they're incredibly different.
I was just reading something the other day. A man pointed this out, he said,
The one, Confucianism, don't do unto others what you would not want them to do to you,
basically says, "Yeah, if you don't want to get punched in the face, don't punch someone else in the face."
Great. It's prohibitive, its restrictive. Awesome. Just stay out of people's way.
I won't want them to be in my way, stay out of their way.
Do unto others as you would have them do to you means not only do I not punch them in the face,
it also means if I see them by the side of the road, I would want to be helped, so I'm going to go help.
He realized that the Confucianism it's like again, I'm not trashing Confucianism,
I'm just saying that that is a prohibition on doing bad things.
The Christian is called to love EVERYONE,
to do to others,
not just good people,
to do to others—not just people who believe what we believe—to do to others
even our enemies, what we would want them to do to us.
I mean this is why we have ... this is why Christianity invented hospitals,
take care of people who are sick who will never be able to pay you back.
This is why Christianity invented school systems for everybody, even those who are poor,
who could never pay you back.
This is why Christianity did all these things like hospice
and took care of people that no one else wanted to take care of, why?
Because, do to others what you'd have them do to you
as opposed to, don't do unto others what you would not want them to do to you.
Our command is that we have to not just believe certain things but we need to live this out,
not to say, "Wow, Christians, you believe a certain thing? That's amazing, that's incredible. I like what you believe,"
but to see Christians [and] said, "OK here's ... you Christians, you believe a certain thing
and you live this way? Well, now that makes a difference in my life."
Because ultimately as Catholics, our beliefs are irrelevant to the world
as long as our beliefs simply stay in our hearts or in our minds,
but when our beliefs are translated into action or
not—I don't just believe that people should be loved, to actually love people,
where I don't just believe that should forgive my enemies but actually forgive my enemies,
that I don't just believe that everyone's worthy of dignity and of respect
but actually treat people around me with dignity and respect.
That is the moment when Catholicism becomes relevant.
Where does it start?
It starts in my life right now. I'll walk out this door and there will be people who are here
with me in my life and it starts by loving them.
For you, it starts by loving the person in the cubicle next to you or the kids who are under your roof
or the parents who are in your home.
It starts by loving the people closest to us.
Here's the thing. It's like, you know what I'm doing right now?
The teaching, the video stuff, that's easy.
This is easy to say, "Here's what we believe and now go do it *click click* and I believe in you! *pow*" Right?
That's (laughs) sorry. That, this is easy.
To live it out, that's hard.
But the world will never believe that we actually love people and love God
unless we start to love people and to love God.
From all of us here at Ascension Presents,
my name's Father Mike.
God bless.