I myself second-guessed myself many times after that.

I thought, should I have stopped and said, well, actually, my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascensy Presents. So recently I was having a conversation with a man. I was on the called podcast initiated by the Catholic initiative, but sponsored by Ascension. And so I get to sit down with people who are being the hands and feet, the face and heart of Jesus, wherever they find themselves. In a lot of these conversations, the people are Christian,

but they're not always necessarily Catholic. And so, I'm bringing this up because we got some feedback. And the feedback is this, that in the course of the conversation with this one particular individual who does amazing work, does amazing work around the world in just helping people. I wanted to know his story. And so I asked him,

tell me your story. In the course of it, he talked about not being Catholic. And he almost claimed to say, like, we have different kind of varieties of Christianity. And it's really great that we have so many different varieties of Christianity. And I didn't really engage it in the sense of like starting to debate the fact that we're divided, right? The fact that, well, no, I don't think that that's good. I think that when Jesus prayed at the Last Supper, Father, may they all be

one as you and I are one. Jesus actually wants unity. He doesn't want this division that we experience right now. The comment was, Father, you needed to say something right then. He was saying something that we don't believe. We believe that we should have unity and that division is actually not just varieties, not

just these are not just your different flavors of ice cream, like different kind of denominations of Christianity as if just kind of like, oh, it's great, variety spice of life, that kind of situation. I should have said something and it challenged him on this. And I would say, okay, great. I don't disagree. I don't disagree. I don't disagree that there are times when someone makes a comment and it's like, no, it's our job in that moment to be able to say, well, pause on

that for a second. What do we mean to push back a little bit? In this case, I didn't. In this case, I kind of just acknowledged what he had said and moved on. Even at the moment, I thought, wait, should I say something right now? And then I thought, okay, well, the point of this conversation

that we're having on the called podcast was to hear about his corporate works of mercy, right?

The way in which he has discovered that God is calling him to be the hands and feet, the heart and face of Jesus in the world. And so because that was the point of the conversation, I thought, well, I'll let it slide and we'll move on. Some people would say, Father, you did the wrong thing. You had the opportunity to do a spiritual work of mercy, which is to instruct the ignorant, but you didn't. Maybe it could have said something as simple as, well, we might disagree on that, but let's move on. I could have at least said that as opposed to kind of just kind of, okay? The reason why I'm highlighting this is because we've all been in situations like that, right? We've all been in conversations with somebody and they say something and you think, hmm, should I, should I step up? Should I speak up right now? Should I offer that word of correction? Should I instruct someone who doesn't know? And you don't do it. And other times, you know, on this podcast,, on Central Presents, I have said, you know,

a lot of times we don't do it because we're lacking in something. We're lacking in courage.

This was the time to speak, but I didn't have the courage to speak. We're lacking in knowledge. I didn't know what to say or we're lacking in love. Like that since I don't care enough to speak. In this case, I think it was the middle one.

Like, I just, I don't know.

I don't, I don't, I didn't know.

Is this when I, is this when I speak or is this when I don't speak?

Is this when I just is this when I speak?

Is this when I don't speak? Is this when I just allow this person to tell their story without me

interrupting them? Or should I have said something as simple as, what we disagree on that?

I might see it differently, but let's move on. When it comes to relationships, when it comes to sharing the gospel, when it comes to just living in this world, we won't have all the answers.

There are many times when I'm not sure, should I have said something or done something. I've been processing this for a long time now, a bit of time since that conversation happened.

And I had all my excuses. Well, I didn't know, you know, or the conversation was in a certain direction. I went to interrupt it. And here's what I had to do. What I had to do is I had to go into prayer. I had to bring it to the chapel. I had to be in front of Jesus and say, okay, Lord, I think I know that if you were calling me to say something, I would have said something.

I think that in that moment, I wanted to let this man tell his story without interrupting him.

What do you think, Lord?

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