What Father Mike Schmitz Taught Me About Keeping the Faith

At the beginning of this year, I had the privilege and fun of interviewing Father Mike Schmitz of Ascension Press and YouTube fame. He came all the way out to Boise to speak at the Idaho Catholic Men’s Conference and to spend an evening ministering to youth and their families in a night of teaching and Adoration. 

I was struck by how genuine Father Mike was. This dynamic speaker treated everyone he encountered with kindness and respect.

He had a long line of fans waiting to speak with him and to take pictures, yet he smiled with everyone and remained sincere, even though he had come to the church directly from the airport.

As a fairly new Catholic, I wanted to know how his advice to youth and young adult leaders would differ from the advice followed by Protestant evangelicals, who pride themselves on missionary work and staying in relationship with Christ.

What I found was something to help not just those involved in ministry, but something for myself as well. His take on some tried and true tactics for spiritual growth were refreshing.

The first step seems simple, but...

Although he admitted that recommending prayer seemed like such a simple and redundant thing, it was the first guideline out of his mouth. “We can’t remain in Him unless we have a prayer life that is every single day.

This isn’t just reciting our prayers,” Father Mike said. He then illustrated his point with a story about St. John Paul II and his mentor, Jan Tyranowski. 

Tyranowski was a quiet tailor in Poland who, during the occupation and persecution of the Nazis, discreetly gave spiritual direction to young men, including the future pope. John Paul said that his father taught him the rubrics of praying, but Tyranowski taught him how to have a prayer life that he could carry with him throughout his day, in any situation.

He followed a method of meditative prayer followed by the Salesians of Don Bosco which encouraged choosing a point from morning meditation to carry with him throughout the day.

The buddy system is real

Father Mike illustrated the need for community with the story of a young woman whom he had known since she was a little girl. She grew up going to Mass faithfully, but when she went to college, she stopped going to Mass. He was hurt by this because she had been attending the university where he served.

He asked her what happened, and she said her friends didn’t go to church, so she “just fell out of the habit.” She eventually got back on track, but it was only after years of wandering.

Father Mike said we should never think we can live out our faith on our own. How easy it is for us adults to get caught up in stoicism, that we can do it by ourselves! My own priest Father Ben Uhlenkott says that even just having one good Catholic friend can make a huge difference in people keeping their faith.

The Paradox: me vs. us

 The flip-side to community, is our need to own our faith as an individual. I don’t think I have ever heard this paradox articulated so clearly as I did from Father Mike. He noted that people easily slip into self-centered individualism (“just me and Jesus”), or they mindlessly go to Mass because it’s what is expected of them.  

“Neither of those have ever been historical Christianity. Christianity has always been a personal relationship with Jesus that’s lived out in the context of a community, the Body of Christ. It’s meant to be individual and corporate. Even St. Paul says you’re a member of Christ’s body—you’re a member of the Church. Which doesn’t mean that you have a card and you’re a member [to a club]. No, you’re a physical member, like an arm or a leg. So the arm has to be healthy individually but connected to the head, Jesus. But it also realizes that it’s not the only member."

“To have a real relationship with Jesus, I have real rights and I have real responsibilities. A real right: He says I get to call upon His name and He helps me. Real responsibilities: He says go; I go. And it also means I have a relationship with His Body, the Church. It’s a real relationship that means I have real rights in the Church and real responsibilities in the Church. So that means the Church actually gets to make demands on me, that I might not prefer.”

Your worst enemy: the Spiritual Greenhouse

Father Mike cautioned against raising our kids in greenhouses, where they are constantly sheltered and kept busy in church programs. This kind of busyness can keep kids from developing their relationship with Christ.

I realized this is a problem that us adults can fall into ourselves—we get so busy with the church and our church friends that we create a greenhouse for our own spiritual lives. Although he didn’t tie the two together, I believe Father Mike’s emphasis on being an everyday missionary for Christ is the solution for keeping us from living in spiritual greenhouses.

If we continue in prayer and in developing our individual relationship with Jesus within the community of the Body of Christ, we can more easily reach out to others and keep from getting nearsighted in our faith.

“Pope Paul VI said in his exhortation on modern evangelization that the very heart of the Church is to be on a mission. Paraphrasing he said, we can’t even call ourselves Christians unless we live on mission,” Father Mike explained.

He then said that according to Pope Paul VI, the true test of whether or not we’ve been evangelized is our willingness to evangelize others. Father Mike was quick to say that this doesn’t mean going door to door with religious flyers. This means being aware and looking for opportunities in everyday life to be witnesses of Christ’s love: listening to people’s concerns, offering tangible help, praying for others, and being open to conversations about spiritual matters.

The center of it all

In the youth program which followed my interview, Father Mike said the Eucharist is crucial in keeping a vibrant relationship with Jesus. The Sacrament of Holy Communion is something we can’t ignore or take for granted. After preaching about the depth of God’s love and the presence of Christ Himself in the Eucharist, Father Mike led everyone in Adoration.

This to me was the pinnacle of all the things he had to say that night. Worshiping God in spirit and truth means humbling ourselves and admitting our need for Him, not just in the sense of Him helping us and giving us things, but our need of His very presence in us. We are not complete without Him. Once we grasp this, everything falls into place: prayer, relationship, responsibility, and mission.

(All photos courtesy the Idaho Catholic Register/Emily Woodham. Photos were taken in St. Mark Catholic Church in Boise, Idaho.)