OK, here we go. OK. Um... yes, yes Socrates... uh-huh, uh-huh, I like this... I like this...
I like this... this is good, this is good um, mmmm.
Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.
A number of years ago, I came across this quote:
I just I loved it. I thought it was hilarious but also relatively accurate.
It said this, (dramatically) it uttered thus:
(normal voice) Unasked for advice is always criticism.
Oh my gosh, yes!
I remember sharing that with some people and they're like, "I don't think so. I don't think that ..."
and I was like, "Yeah, because you're always giving your advice. Of course you don't think ..."
Or they think, "No, no. I'm just trying to help. I'm trying to help you with my advice."
Like, that's fine. You can be trying to help with your advice.
It's a criticism if you didn't either have your responsibility,
like you're a teacher giving your advice, a parent giving your advice,
like a lot—oh sorry, you're a parent of a child giving your advice.
A parent of a grown person, that's typically again, it's always gonna be criticism.
Again, if you want to say I don't agree with that statement, that's fine.
It's not really a definition. It was more like a clever little saying that
reminded me that it's so easy—this is the point—that it's so easy for us to be critics.
I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but, but think of like
all the opportunities you and I have to simply like rank other things or to give it a grade.
Like, we watch a movie and we think, "Oh no, that's terrible."
We read a book and say, "Oh that's awful." We, you know, see a TV show or we listen to a song, like,
"I hate those people." "They're the worst." "It's awful."
And you think, these people who took all of their time, years of their lives, to make this movie
or to make this book or to be part of this band and I'd listen to it once and I thought
(pbbt). You know, it's so easy to, what they call, "poo poo" on someone else's creation.
It's easy to be a critic.
Obviously, we should think critically. That's ... it's a necessary part of living in this world.
We need to be able to assess things and say, "OK, is this true? Is this good? Is this beautiful?"
Obviously, we have to do that kind of a thing because there's a lot of stuff out there
that isn't good and isn't true and isn't beautiful, so we need to have critical thinking.
But just because I'm a critic, doesn't mean I'm a Socrates.
I mean if you've read any of Socrates, you know, Plato's stuff about Socrates,
then you would see that he came on the scene
and people would make statements and he would just poke holes in those statements.
But he wasn't merely a critic. He was critically thinking in order to get to the truth.
He was trying to get to the true and the good and the beautiful.
He was trying to get to that place. He wasn't simply a critic.
He was trying, he was trying to discover what to believe.
In his criticism, he was trying to create a creed.
And this is what we're called to.
Again, easier, it's far easier to be a critic than to be a creator. It's far easier to be a critic than to have a creed.
You and I are called to not merely have critical thinking or be a critic.
We're called to stand for something. We're called to confess something.
We're called to create.
In fact, um, being made in God, in God's image and likeness, means that we're made to create.
We're built for that.
And yet the temptation or the fear is what? The fear is, "Well, if I create something or if I stand for something,
if I state something, if I have a creed, then I could be misunderstood
and people could criticize me. Then people could poke holes in what I'm trying to say
or what I'm trying to do. Then I can be labelled. Then I can be misjudged.
Then", all these kinds of things, "and if I just, if I don't confess anything, if I don't have a creed,
if I don't make anything on my own,
if I don't create something, then I'm safe."
But I'll also be spineless.
And I don't mean to be like super dramatic about that
but I mean it.
Critics risk nothing.
You know, again, here's a person who spent years of their life writing a book.
I read it in a couple hours and then write a review. It costs me nothing.
But to create something, to create something, is to risk something.
To stand for something, is to risk something.
To stand for something is to require a spine.
if you're a Catholic Christian, you and I, we have to do that.
We can't really be critics. We have to have a creed. We have a Creed, actually, and we say it every Sunday.
But I don't know how many times we just go through the motions and say the Creed
like "I believe in one God the Father Almighty," etc. etc. and we just think we're just reciting words.
No, that's what you're saying, "This is what I believe, this is what I stand for."
Every time you and I go to Mass, we say, state the Creed.
We're saying, we're confessing something and saying,
"This is what I stand for. This is what I live for. This is what I'll die for, if I have to."
And every time you say the Creed, what you're saying is,
"If I'm gonna stand for this, I need a spine.
If I'm gonna stand for this, I'm gonna risk for this."
The critic doesn't risk.
The confessor risks.
Now, it could be that, what we ... the Creed, well maybe it's false, maybe there's holes in it,
maybe there's ... I don't believe that—the Catholic creed, the Nicene Con ...
or the, actually what they call it, the Nicaea-Constantinopolitan Creed, that's the technical term,
we just say the Nicene Creed—that it's a hundred percent true absolutely.
If I state that, someone can say, "Really? You believe that?
You believe in the resurrection of the dead? Wow." Like, "Yes." Yes, I have to stand for that,
because I believe that it's true and I believe that God is good and I believe that life is beautiful, that God made.
Here's my invitation for all of us.
When you say the Creed, sign your name to it.
Like, next time you go to Mass, and you state the Creed, sign your name to it, like "signed me, this is what I stand for."
I didn't just say it because everyone around me stood up and said it too.
I said it because this IS what I stand for, this is what I live for,
and if I need to, this is what I'll die for.
I'm not just a critic. I'm someone who has a Creed.
And that Creed directs my life.
You and I, every day, can live in the image and likeness of God when we think critically, yes, intellectual,
when we love like God, but also when we create.
Our Creed, the Nicene Creed is a risk,
but my invitation: sign your name to it.
From all of us here at Ascension Presents,
my name's Father Mike.
God bless.