When I was a kid I had this joke book
called, uh, "Snappy Insults and Funny Put-Downs"
It was one of my favorite jokebooks,
but I could never use it 'cause I never wanted
to say something, all the stuff in the jokebook were just insults to people.
That's why it was called "Snappy Insults and Funny Put-Downs"
Um, there was things like, uh "Hey, is that your face or did your neck throw up?"
"Did you get the, uh, the license plate of that van that ran over your face?"
"You like nature? Really? In spite of what it did to you?"
"Oh, she's so pretty! She should eat some makeup so she's pretty on the inside."
That kind of thing. Right? Right?
No offense!
Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascension Presents.
So, I've noticed something relatively recently kind of just in our culture
I guess what we might call it is a culture of offense.
Where I can't hardly go by one day and not hear a bunch of people,
whether it's in person, or online, or on the news talk about how offended they are.
Like "I'm just, that offends me," "I'm offended by this" and "You can't say that," "You can't do that," "That's offensive!"
Which, is interesting because maybe that's true, right?
That I'm offended or that's offensive
And it's not awful, right, to notice those things.
But one of the things that I'm noticing is that it's often used
as a way to shut down the conversation.
So, we're not going to have a conversation because, why?
'Cause I've already described you as someone who is offensive, or that thing as an idea that's offensive.
We can't have a conversation anymore because you've just laid down your trump card and said,
"No, it's done" because why? Because I have this card that says "I'm offended"
Now that might be the case,
but as Catholic Christians, we're called to become unoffendable.
I mean, really, when it comes down to it, you and I are called to become unoffendable.
Now, we're also called to avoid giving offense.
We're actually called to kindness. We're called to gentleness. We're called to humility.
1 Peter 3:15, Saint Peter writes and he says "Always be ready to give a reason for the hope that's within you."
Like, always be ready to proclaim Jesus Christ.
Always be ready to proclaim the truth, and even be ready to fight for the truth.
But he says, "But do it with gentleness and humility."
That, truly, we're meant to be models of Christ, and, if we can, we're called to avoid giving offense.
Be kind, obviously.
But we're also called to become unoffendable.
Any of the stories of the apostles, when they were, after Jesus had risen from the dead, ascended into heaven,
and gave them the Holy Spirit, they went out and proclaimed Christ
And even though they were imprisoned, even though they were tortured, even though they were killed,
you never have a scene of them saying "I'm offended by this!" You never have Saint Paul
saying like "I'm offended that the Athenians aren't listening to me"
or "I'm offended that, you Corinthians, why are you treating me so badly?"
You never have them being offended. You, actually, always have them taking, whatever the injustice is
and doing something about it.
Victor Frankl was in a Nazi concentration camp back in World War II
He later on became a psychologist and he described this.
He said, "You know, people in the concentration camp. I mean, how much more offensive, how much more terrible could life become?"
But Frankl recognized this: He said that in between the circumstances, or the stimulus, what someone else would do against a human being,
in between the stimulus and the response, how they reacted, how they responded. In between the stimulus and the response
is the human person's greatest power:
The power to choose.
That you and I actually have the power, no matter what kind of stimulus,
no matter what kind of circumstances, no matter what someone says to us or how they treat us,
we have the power to choose how we will respond.
And as Catholic Christians, we're called to choose, to respond powerfully,
in truth, and in justice, and in the right way,
but we're also called to not be offended by this.
How do you become unoffendable?
Well, at least two ways:
One is by being willing to tell the truth about yourself.
We do these high school retreats on a regular basis throughout the academic year for confirmation
And, um, we have our college students helping us out.
At one point, one of the college students was talking to his small group and said,
"Oh, Father Mike's pretty funny, isn't he?"
And one of the high school students said, "Well, I mean, he's, like, priest-funny."
"Like, he's not really funny, but he's kind of funny because you're not expecting that of a priest."
And when I heard that, I was like, "Oh! ... Yeah, that's true."
Because it's true! I'm not the most hilarious person in the world.
If I'm willing to tell the truth about myself, there's no way of being offended.
Why? Because if it's true, it's true.
And if it's not true, it's not true.
If you're willing to confess the truth, and live in the truth, the truth cannot hurt you.
And neither can falsehood.
Truth can't hurt ya, and neither can lies.
That's why, as Catholic Christians, we are such a fantastic spot to become unoffendable because we have confession.
And if you and I seek out confession on a regular basis, then, oh my gosh, like that
I mean, tell me something I don't know. Someone says something about me that's true, that's awful.
Like, "Yeah. I go to confession. I admit those things on a regular basis."
Our problem a lot of times is not that we don't know those things to be true,
it's that we don't like thinking that other people know those things to be true about us.
But that's just a sign of immaturity.
Right?
Being offended is a sign of immaturity 'cause, why?
It's an unwillingness to acknowledge, and live in, the truth.
So I need to be willing to tell the truth about myself, but I also need to tell the truth about God.
The second thing is I need to be able to tell the truth about God because, you know,
I can admit that I'm a mess, I can admit that I have all these flaws and all these faults. I can admit all these things,
but I can only admit them with confidence because I know who he is.
Because I know that there is a God who is the Lord of Life, and he's conquered death,
that his love for me and his love for you is unstoppable and completely faithful.
So I can tell the truth about myself: "Yeah, I need God." But then I can point to him and say,
"And I have God. The truth about him is that he loves you, and He'll never stop loving you, even in your weakness." Then ...
What's there to be afraid of?
You know, I think a lot of times being offended is choosing to be a victim.
And remember, between the stimulus and the response is that power we have, the power to choose.
If I'm going to choose to be offended, I'm gonna choose to be a victim.
You know, I gave a homily on this about a year ago. You know, a podcast,
And I got a bunch of emails of people saying,
"So are you saying that when you see injustice, when you see something wrong, that you shouldn't do something about it?"
"That you don't have such a thing as righteous anger?"
I said, "Absolutely not! We should have righteous anger, and we should do something about injustice whenever we see it."
But to simply be offended is not to do something. That's ...
choosing to be a victim.
One of the most powerful people of the last centruy, Martin Luther King Jr.,
he saw injustice, and he acted. He did not waste time being offended by the injustice.
He saw it as evil, and he acted to eradicate the evil.
We're called to do the same.
We're called to avoid giving offense, but we're also called as Catholic, mature Catholic Christians
to become unoffendable.
That all starts with telling the truth about myself,
telling the truth about God,
and choosing to not be a victim,
but to act in response to the truth.
I know you can do this.
I believe in you!
If you're someone who gets offended really easily, um ...
Get over yourself!
Haha, just kidding, no offense.
Ha! See what I did there? (laughter)
From all of us here at Ascension Presents, I'm Father Mike. God bless.