Father Mike Schmitz

It actually took me until I got back to the United States and someone was expressing, they were conveying their experience.

They spent the summer in France, living with a religious community in France, another seminarian.

And he said, yeah, you know, something about living in another culture that strips you of your personality.

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.

Something about, he said something about speaking another language that strips you of your personality because you miss out on all the jokes you miss on the subtle, you know, kind of references.

They cried out with a loud voice, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?

And I thought, oh my gosh, that is exactly what happened to me because here I thought we were all speaking English.

Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

We were, but.

All the things that I guess the references that would make me kind of funny, um, or the references that I would get their humor.

When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale.

I didn't, we were different cultures.

And so I was regularly told almost every day when I was down in St.

Vincent, you're so dumb.

Um, there was, there was by teenagers.

So you give them a break, but they were like, you're so dumb.

Like, well, I guess, I mean, I get it, but why, um,

The sky vanished like a scroll that is rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

And the reason why is because I didn't get their jokes.

Then the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the generals, and the rich, and the strong, and everyone, slave and free, hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.