Fr. Mike Schmitz

I wouldn't just be reminded of a story or introduced to a new story that maybe I had forgotten or whatever the thing is, a new element.

If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

But it was that my lens, my worldview was being shaped.

But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or a wrongdoer or a mischief-maker.

And I don't know if you, I'm sure you've heard the story of Saint Ignatius of Loyola when he had broken his leg and he was convalescing in, I think, his sister-in-law's house or something like this.

Yet, if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but under that name, let him glorify God.

For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God.

And he used to read romance novels or stories of like the glory of knights and whatnot.

And if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?

And he'd also read stories of the saints and life of Jesus.

And he said that after he read those stories of those knights, he said, during, while I was reading them, I felt like charged it up.

And if the righteous man is scarcely saved, where will the impious and sinner appear?

Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will do right and entrust their souls to a faithful creator.

I wouldn't want it to live like that.

But afterwards I kind of like a sugar crash or it's kind of like this disappointment he experienced versus reading the life of Christ.

Chapter 5.

He was lifted up, but then afterwards he was sustained.

Tending the Flock of Christ So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ as well as a partaker in the glory that is to be revealed, tend the flock of God that is your charge, not by constraint, but willingly, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not as domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.

It was like the sense of like, this was something not just inspiring, not just powerful, but it was something that was good and true and beautiful that had lasting effect.

And that's what I found was I found that when I listened to scripture, that it had this lasting effect in me that because it had shaped my lens of looking at the world and reminded me of like, I just, here's an example.