Am I a "Good Person?"

Am I a good person? I'm filled with this Catholic guilt. And I thought that's a great question because am I a good person? That's a wonderful question to ask.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmidz and this is Esscure Presents. So, someone had asked me a question that I get a lot. They said, "Okay, so here I am. I'm in a situation in my life." This might be you. They said, "I'm in a situation in my life where, you know, I I have to care for people." Whether that be my elderly parents, my little children, my spouse, I have people in in my life that I have to care for and I'm trying to do my best to care for them. But I also realized that you know I I I'm not praying like Mother Teresa of Kolkata did. I'm not I'm not praying the rosary every day like St. John Paul the Great did. And so so I wanted to know this. Am I a good person? And they said they said this they said this happens a lot. They say or am I just I just feel this I'm filled with this Catholic guilt.

Now first thing we need to address is this idea of Catholic guilt. I hear those that phrase all of the time. So my mom used to say she would say you know I don't know why people always talk about Catholic guilt. She says, "There's nothing Catholic about guilt." Um, if you're guilty, you're guilty. Like, if you're guilty, you should feel bad. If you've done something wrong and don't actually feel bad, there's something that went wrong. Like, guilt is a sign your conscious is alive.

Now, keep in mind, there's a difference between true guilt and false guilt. Like, right? True guilt is when I've done something wrong and I feel badly. False guilt is I have this kind of idea maybe this sense that I must have done I must have done something wrong even though there's no evidence to point to I've actually done something wrong. We need to be able to distinguish between those truth two things true guilt and false guilt. But here's the thing false guilt is not Catholic guilt and true guilt is not Catholic guilt. They're simply true guilt and false guilt. And one of the processes processes one of the ways we mature is by identifying okay what is happening right now did I do something wrong and do I feel guilty commensurate to that did I not do something wrong am I feeling guilty commensurate to that like you know again this kind of idea of like true guilt or false guilt again one of the processes one of the points one of the things we need to grow in and mature in is our ability to discern between true guilt and false guilt so that's the number one thing keep that in mind. There's nothing Catholic about guilt.

Okay, the next thing because God's never asking you or expecting you to do something that he didn't ask you to do. So, you just if if this person is saying like, "I'm caring for my aged parents or caring for my little kids and I'm not praying like Mother Teresa." Well, here's the thing. God called Mother Teresa to pray a certain way. She called God called her to live in a certain way. God called John Paul II to live in a certain way. And he's calling you to live in a certain way, too. So, just keep this in mind. God is not calling us all to the same life, but he is calling us all to say yes to him. Right? He's not calling us all to the same way of life. He called Mother Teresa to establish a religious St. Mother Teresa to establish a religious community and and to, you know, take care of those who are dying. God has called you to take care of your parents or to take care of your kids, to take care of your spouse, to do the things in your little plot of land. That that's the difference. Okay? So, don't feel guilty for not being Mother Teresa. Your name's not Mother Teresa. Don't feel guilty for not being John Paul. Your name's not John Paul. Unless your name is John Paul, in which case, but you know, you know what I'm saying? Okay, that's the number one thing.

Number two is this. Um, I wonder if the question is not so much, am I a good person as much as it is, am I good enough? Meaning, am I good enough to go to heaven? I think that's one of the big questions we have to ask, you know. Okay, so with the life I'm living right now, am I living a life in such a way that I'm good enough to go to heaven? Now, here's the two things. The answer is yes and no. Uh, yes and no. So, because you're made in God's image, you're good. By your very nature, you're very, you're good. You're, if you're baptized, you are a child of God. So, you're good ontologically. By your nature, you're good. But you and I are both both we're all broken, right? We're all flawed. We're all fallen. We all lack something. We all lack a certain goodness because yes uh you know I I pray and I fast and I try to do good and I I try to be faithful but we all know this about ourselves. We know that as Alexander Soljaniten said the dividing line between good and evil passes right through the human heart. So every one of us we know that for all the good things we do I could do more good. Yeah I pray but I could pray more. I love but I could love better. I I I serve but I could serve a lot more. I'm faithful. I could be more faithful. We know this. We recognize, yes, you are good. God loves you. You've been you've been created in his image and you're bapt baptized. You're a child of God. So, you're good at the same time. Am I good enough? Am I good enough for heaven? The answer is no. This that that's just that's it. The answer is is no. But here's the good news about that is no one is. The only good person who ever walked the face of this earth is Jesus Christ himself. The God become man, right? the second person of the trinity who walked on this earth. Now people are going to say, "What about Mary?" Okay, but let's focus is that everything good in Mary she got from God, right? Everything good in Mary she got from the Lord. So just back to our story. The only good person who ever walked the face of the earth is Jesus. So I don't rate my goodness, am I good enough, based off of my neighbor. I don't rate my goodness or am I good enough based off of Hitler. I don't rate my am I good enough enough based off of Gandhi. I rate, am I good enough based off of Jesus? And the answer comes back emphatically, nope. As we say up in Minnesota, nope, I'm not. The problem is my hope for salvation, my hope for heaven too often falls on me. I hope in my goodness. I hope in my my courage. I hope in my uh ability to do the right thing. I hope in my holiness as opposed to I hope in Jesus. That's that's that's he is our hope. And if anyone were to tell you that no, you can if you're good enough, you work hard enough, you pray enough, you fast enough, you do enough good service, get enough good things, then you're worthy to go to heaven, they would be wrong. No one is good enough for heaven. That's not bad news because the secondary news is you don't have to be good enough to go to heaven.

This which leads to the third thing. And the third thing is God loves you. And I know that in this moment you hear that and you're like, "Okay, okay. I I at first I thought you were kind of sappy. You're a little bit corny. You're a little bit kind of like maybe one of those one of those kind of priests over there who kind of like fudge with orthodoxy false. God loves you is not a mambby pami kind of a saying. God loves you is not vanilla. God loves you is not uh it's not a pacifier. It's not a teething ring. God loves you in a way that is ferocious. God loves you in a way that is horrible and terrible and passionate. And he wasn't he won't settle for anything less than our absolute best. He won't settle for anything less than our actually being saved by him. Our or letting him win our hearts back. God loves you is not The fact that God loves you is not something we just tell kids. The fact that God loves you is the truth for every person with all the all the great things you've done in life, all the all the successes you've had, all the times you have prayed, and also all the worst things you've done in your life, all the things you're ashamed of, all the things you're like, I never want anyone to ever know about these things. God loves you.

Here's the thing. I find so many people, I've said this before, I'm going to say it again. I found so many people who their entire life they've heard those words, "God loves you." But most people I meet do not actually believe that God loves them. They believe God tolerates them. The radical lifechanging truth that God actually loves you as you are demands some kind of response. It demands some kind of some kind of answer. Because God's love asks a question. And the question to ask is not is not are you good enough? The question is, does God have your permission to love you as you are? Again, I've said this before, but I think all of Christianity, all of Catholicism comes down to this one question and this one answer question. Does God have your permission to love you as you are? Yes or no? Because if the answer is no, then I'll I'll never let him love me into heaven. But if the answer is yes, that means I love him when I'm on the mountain tops and I love him when I'm in the valleys. If the answer is yes, then I love him when I'm doing well and I am serving the people around me and I am loving them and I am praying and I am like saying yes to his will. But also it means I'm saying yes to him. I'm loving him. I'm letting him love me when I need it the most. I'm letting him love me when I've fallen. I'm letting him love me at my worst. And that love, we believe this, that love brings us back to his heart. That love brings us back to confession. That love brings us back to this place of where we're reconciled to him. And we have to actually get to go back to mass and realize, okay, this is where I belong. Why? Because this is the God who loves me no matter where I'm at at the, as I said, at the peaks, in the valleys, in the place of great life and love, and the place of death and abandonment. And see, the thing is God's, again, I said God's love is not soft. It is ferocious. And right now, God's love might be just saying, "Listen, just let me love you. Just soak in that. Just just let it penetrate the cracks of your heart." God's love also might say, "Will you let me love you? Give me permission to love you." And your answer to that might be, "Okay, now I need to go to confession. I need to let him love me in my sin. I need to let him love me back into life. I need to let him love me and call me out of this way of life that I've been living where I've been far away from him and call me closer and closer to my father's heart because he is your father and he loves you even though you're not good enough. The crazy thing, the amazing thing is you don't have to be. You never will be because you are. You are loved. Does God have your permission to love you right now? That's the question.

Anyways, my name is Father Mike from all of us here presents. God bless. [Music]