Better lighting this time.
Sorry about that.
Last time,
And, scooching...
There we go. Centered.
Hopefully this is ready to go.
All right. Here we go
Hi, my name's Fr. Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.
so, um
I have a brother-in-law who originally is from Oklahoma
and I asked him about this
This man named Father Stanley Rother.
He's actually Blessed Stanley Rother and he said,
"Absolutely!" uh- in high school even like their church took a pilgrimage to his-
I think was his gravesite or maybe it was something else, but they took a pilgrimage to
the thing dedicated to Blessed Stanley Rother and I'm like, "Wow,
You know about this guy this like priest from- no offense- Nowhere, Oklahoma who now is a Blessed."
Here's part of his story. So- again- growing up in relatively nowhere, Oklahoma
He goes to seminary- actually grew up on a farm- right. He goes to seminary kind of gets
dropped out of seminary because he doesn't get Latin.
He`s- you know- one of those language barriers.
They said, "You can't do it." So he leaves- goes back to farming, but this call was still there, right?
So he reapplied, got accepted to seminary, and then got ordained as a priest after a number of years.
They needed priests to go down to Guatemala to serve the mission parishes down there.
So Father Stanley said, "Sure," I mean clearly not great at languages, but
apparently he was good at Spanish. This is like where it gets like super interesting to me at least
He goes on to Guatemala and he's not just an average priest.
An average priest is like me- applied to seminary, went to seminary,
took the classes, passed them all, they ordained me.
I mean all the formation stuff too, but I didn't have the struggle of- That Father Stanley had of failure
and getting kicked out because he couldn't get this class of Latin and having to go through all that
struggle, and all that pain, all that trial
The crooked lines with which God writes his straight story.
Or whatever that quote is, right?
He had a crooked path to get him to become a missionary priest in Guatemala.
But while he's there- in addition to serving the people like massively
I think he had over a thousand baptisms every year.
Sometimes more than five massess on any given Sunday
He also spent hours and hours and hours,
helping the indigenous people learn how to practice better farming techniques.
Why? Because not only was he raised on a farm and had to work,
but also when he got kicked out of seminary
He went back to farming and became a really, really good farmer!
And he would not have had that gift to be able to give to the Guatemalan people that he served,
Had he not been kicked out of seminary.
That is so remarkable and the story goes on that
He kept speaking the truth,
He kept proclaiming Christ, and he kept proclaiming the dignity and the rights of the people,
Ultimately he was martyred
and that's one of the reasons why he is Blessed Stanley Rother.
Because he is a martyr for the-
For the Lord, for the faith.
From Nowheresville, Oklahoma to
Heavensville, Heaven, (laughs)
It's amazing. Here's the point.
Even in the midst of our broken lives,
even in the midst of our crooked lines,
God wastes nothing.
Just, here`s the line.
Those three words.
God. Wastes. Nothing.
Another way we can see it, with more words:
Nothing is wasted on God.
Nothing that we hand over to Him, nothing that we surrender to God, nothing we entrust to God is ever wasted.
None of it is discarded. It all gets used.
This is one of those pieces,
that especially if you`re going through some kind of trial-
If you experience-
your own- you know, you made some bad decisions, and here you are in a place where it's like, man!
This is a rough place or maybe some people made bad decisions
against you. Or maybe even just life, right.
Accidentally you just happen to be in this circumstance
That you're in right now.
All of those points of pain,
surrender to God, like entrust it to God. Give it over to the Lord.
Will never be wasted.
This is one of the reasons why Christians can choose joy.
This is one of the reasons why Catholics can choose joy.
Even in the midst of the moments where you`re like,
"Oh my goodness Lord. What is happening?"
"Why this?"
In those moments we look to the cross.
And we realize, here is God who has is everything and has everything.
But he strips himself of his glory, and he strips himself of his power.
And he enters into our human weakness.
He enters into the worst things human human beings have to offer-
In the torture and the evil they did.
But also he entered into the worst things human beings could experience.
His own physical pain, His own emotional and spiritual darkness.
Everything surrendered to God gets used, because God wastes nothing.
So here's my encouragement.
You and I do not know.
We do not know how God will use our story for His glory.
Whoa, did I just sound like a televangelist preacher?
Like a TV preacher?
(southern accent) "You don`t know how God`s gonna use your story for His glory!"
But that's actually a true thing.
We have no idea. Why?
Because our worldview is bigger than most people's worldview.
Most people have a worldview that says, "This life and no more."
"There's this life and nothing more."
"The worst thing that could happen to you is suffering and death."
But we recognize that our worldview is far bigger than that.
That suffering and death are bad.
They're not good in of themselves.
But there's also more to this life than just this life.
That your story does not end with this life,
but your story will continue for eternity.
Even if you're in a dark part of your story, a difficult part of your story, a part of your story you do not understand,
That part of your story, what you're going through right now,
Hand it over to the Lord. Entrust it to Him. Surrender it to God under Jesus Christ.
It can be used.
Because God wastes nothing.
He uses everything that`s surrendered to Him.
And, it`s true. It does rhyme, but that doesn`t mean it`s not true.
God can use every part of your story for his glory.
Just take it, take it! Receive it. Write it down! Never forget it.
From all of us here at Ascension Presents,
My name is Father Mike Schmitz. If you have a better rhyme, write it in the comments below.
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Love you
It`s like I`m talking to my mom
Maybe I'm talking to my mom. Hey, mom if you're watching this, how's it going? All the rest of the family I do
Love you
and if you're watching this and you are a video person that I'm not related to
I love you in the in the Jesus way.