Father Mike Schmitz to take center stage at Radio City Music Hall
Father Mike Schmitz will bring his Parables tour to Radio City Music Hall in New York on Nov. 16. The tour presents Jesus’ parables as urgent Gospel teachings, with Schmitz emphasizing a personal connection with audiences. The tour is part of a campaign raising funds for a new Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth, where Schmitz serves as chaplain.
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Father Mike Schmitz is scheduled to bring his Parables tour to Radio City Music Hall on Nov. 16, using Jesus’ parables to share the Gospel. The event is also part of a fundraising campaign for a new Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth, where Schmitz serves as chaplain.
Schmitz said he is excited to speak at Radio City Music Hall, while describing the opportunity to preach to attendees as humbling. He asks venues to keep the house lights brighter than usual so he can see the audience and maintain a sense of connection.
He said the tour grew from his conviction that Jesus’ parables convey what people need to know, not merely “a nice little story.” The performances draw on several New Testament parables to communicate the Gospel.
The tour supports Schmitz’s Seeds of Faith Campaign, which is raising money for a new Newman Center on the Duluth campus. Schmitz has described campus ministry as a setting where students ask major questions and can be open to change, with conversions taking place.
According to the article, Bulldog Catholic reports that the Newman Center’s ministry has supported 400 couples through marriage preparation; eight women have entered religious life, and more than 16 men have entered seminary, seven of whom have been ordained priests.
Schmitz recommended that campus ministers offer daily Mass and confession, organize Bible studies, and hold retreats regularly. He said shared activities help build community: “as Catholics we worship in rows, but we grow in circles.”
Parables shape personal faith and contemporary evangelization
Parables shape personal faith by drawing the listener into the Gospel rather than leaving its message at a distance: they invite us to recognize ourselves in the story, reconsider how we see God and other people, and respond in life. For evangelization today, this means telling the Gospel in ways that engage real human experience, while remembering that Christian witness is not just compelling speech: a life shaped by Christ helps make the message credible.
A parable begins with familiar realities—seeds, fields, work, roads, encounters—but points beyond them to the Kingdom of God. Pope John Paul II describes this movement as raising hearers “from what is seen to what is unseen”: ordinary things become a way to perceive God’s action.
Pope Leo XIV emphasizes that a parable is not simply an illustration with a ready-made moral attached. It prompts the listener to ask: “where am I in this story? What does this image say to my life?” The story becomes a kind of examination of conscience: Where is my heart resistant, distracted, or receptive? What does God’s word call me to do?
That personal engagement is not self-invention, as though each hearer could assign the story any meaning. The parable’s deeper meaning remains rooted in Jesus’ proclamation of God and his Kingdom. Yet the listener must enter the story and consider how its truth addresses a particular life. Pope John Paul II notes that the mysteries expressed in parables may require explanation and the inner light of the Holy Spirit for adequate understanding.
The parable of the sower brings together God’s generosity and human responsibility. Pope Leo interprets the seed as God’s word and the soil as the heart, as well as the world, community, and Church. The sower scatters seed widely—even where it seems unlikely to flourish—revealing the generosity of God’s love toward people in varied circumstances. At the same time, the seed’s fruitfulness is affected by how it is received.
This prevents two opposite misunderstandings. The parable does not suggest that people can produce spiritual fruit by their own power, independently of God’s grace. Nor does it imply that our response is irrelevant. John Paul II says that the growth of the Kingdom is God’s work, while also teaching that the condition of the soil represents human interior openness and that human freedom matters.
For personal faith, this makes the parable both hopeful and challenging. A person need not conclude that a difficult season—worry, distraction, or shallow enthusiasm—means God has stopped addressing them. The image invites honest recognition of what is happening within, and hope that the word can still take root. Pope Leo describes the parable as helping people recover hope because it shows how God works in history.
Parables also form faith by changing how we look at other people. In Pope Leo’s reflection on the Good Samaritan, Jesus redirects the legal expert’s question from “Who is my neighbour?” toward the kind of person who becomes a neighbour through compassionate action. The story challenges a self-focused way of asking who owes us care and instead directs attention to the person in need before us.
The Samaritan’s compassion takes practical form: he stops and cares for the wounded man. The parable therefore resists a separation between religious practice and mercy. Pope Leo warns that worship does not automatically make someone compassionate; haste and preoccupation with one’s own plans can prevent a person from responding to another’s suffering.
The Dicastery for Communication adds another dimension to the story’s personal force: the listener can first recognize themselves not as the helper, but as the wounded person who needs compassion. It presents the Samaritan as an image of Jesus approaching us in our need. From that experience of being cared for, the listener can draw conclusions about how to live toward others. In this way, the parable forms both receptivity to Christ and practical love of neighbour.
Jesus’ parables use concrete images and stories rather than relying only on abstract explanation. The USCCB notes that their familiar settings make them accessible, while their surprising details—such as an unexpectedly abundant harvest or selling everything to obtain treasure—arouse wonder and invite the audience to ponder their meaning. The hearer is engaged rather than merely lectured.
This offers a useful principle for contemporary evangelization: communicate the faith through stories that illuminate real human experience, not as a substitute for teaching, but as an entrance into it. A scholarly review of a work on Jesus’ parables describes narrative as a way of opening people to an experience of faith, while stressing that this initial approach should be followed by deeper catechetical formation. A story can awaken a question or illuminate a truth; it does not, by itself, explain the whole faith.
Pope Benedict XVI connects this approach to the example of Jesus, who spoke about the Father and the Kingdom while attending closely to ordinary human situations. He teaches that Christian proclamation and Christian life should be interwoven: a life of faith and charity can itself speak of God and give credibility to words about him. Evangelization, then, involves more than finding an effective story or phrase. It also involves forming communities whose daily relationships show the transforming action of grace.
The Dicastery for Communication applies this insight to difficult conversations: a story may sometimes answer hostility more constructively than an argument, by redirecting attention toward solidarity and a positive message. Its example is Jesus’ Good Samaritan story, which helps the hearer imagine the vulnerability of the wounded person before drawing conclusions about whom to love. This is not a reason to avoid truth or careful explanation. It is a reminder that the way a message is communicated can help people encounter its meaning.
When you pray with a parable, you might ask: What does the story reveal about God? Where do I find myself in it? What response does it invite from me? And how might that response become visible in my treatment of others? These questions follow Pope Leo’s emphasis on letting the parable address one’s life, and Benedict XVI’s insistence that Christian words and conduct belong together.
Parables therefore serve both contemplation and action. They help the listener discover God’s presence in the ordinary, recognize the need for grace, and become more responsive to others. In evangelization, their strength lies not merely in making the faith memorable, but in inviting people into a deeper encounter with Christ—an encounter that should continue in prayer, catechesis, and a life of charity.