St. William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
February 11, 2007
Behold, your reward will be great in Heaven.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
In the First Reading and in the Responsorial Psalm, there is mention of a tree planted besides running waters, whose leaves will never fade. Contrast that with a shrub planted in a lava waste field, in a desert in aired conditions. The contrast if obvious. One flourishes as is mentioned in the Prophet Isaiah.
The tree planted beside running waters whose leaves never fade, which produces fruit every month.
This is a picture of Heaven. When Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous on this day, 149 years ago, a piece of Heaven came down to earth. One of the things that Our Lady said to St. Bernadette in the course of eighteen apparitions it was, I believe, is,
I do not promise you happiness in this life, but in the next.
St. Bernadette would die at the age of thirty-five and her body is incorrupt. She is buried under the altar at Nevers in the convent. Years later the body was exhumed, washed and found to be as supple as when she was alive. No embalming techniques were used and she appears to be asleep, which is where you often find people sleeping… in Church! Maybe not many at the altar. It is interesting because St. Bernadette is incorrupt, just as another visionary of Our Lady in Paris is incorrupt. Her name is St. Catherine Laboure and she is beneath the Altar at the Rue de Bac, which is called the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal.
Our Lady appeared to St. Catherine in 1830. She was Sister Nobody, who remained anonymous all of her life. She did reveal the appearances of Our Lady to her Confessor. Our Lady had charged Catherine to have a medal struck in honor of Her Immaculate Conception. The Medal of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is frequently seen around this parish. Many of you wear the Medal of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but you know the medal under its nickname, which is the Miraculous Medal. The Medal of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a long title and no doubt, because of so many miracles were attached to this medal named for Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception, people would go to purchase one and say,
“Give me one of those medals, um the kind everyone is wearing with the Virgin on it. No, it isn’t St. Christopher, it is uh…No, and it is not the Sacred Heart either. I don’t know it is that miraculous medal.”
That is probably how it got its name, or something like that. Miracles, miracles, and more miracles are connected with this medal. So, Our Lady appeared to St. Catherine in 1830 and to St. Bernadette in 1858. As Catholics we have to recognize that the Immaculate Conception is overlooked or ignored by us for a variety of reasons. Someone recently wrote that the Immaculate Conception is a Doctrine for modern times. That just seems so incongruous because just four before Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette the Church formally declared what the Church had held through the centuries; the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary as bearing on the faith of every Catholic. 1854 doesn’t seem very modern but compared to 2000 years ago, 1854 was day before yesterday. Right? The Dogma was defined and very pertinent to the times in which we lived. In our ignorance and sloth we fail to study this Dogma or even appreciate it. This country is consecrated to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Patroness of the USA is the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Basilica in Washington D.C. is the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary but, other than that there is no reasons to pay any attention to it. That is a lot is reason to pay attention!
When you look at the cover of the bulletin you can see how the artist depicted Our Lady of Lourdes when she appeared to Saint Bernadette.
View picture here
http://www.scborromeo.org/images/saints/lourdes3.jpg
St. Bernadette was very poor; they were so poor that her family was living in the basement of a jail that had been condemned. They were only staying there for a while and weren’t going to be there permanently; they could only borrow the basement of a condemned jail because they were so poor. The whole family lived in one room. Bernadette was almost illiterate and she could barely read or write.
One day St. Bernadette went to gather firewood and she heard a rustling and when she looked up she saw a beautiful lady. NEVER did St. Bernadette refer to the beautiful Lady as the Blessed Virgin Mary. I mean these days it seems everyone is seeing the Blessed Mother in tortilla chips, on the hoods of cars, motel rooms or wherever. No! I remember one year when I was in seminary it was Christmas and I was serving at my parish. St. Phillips. A man walked up to the pastor and said,
“Father, you have to come over to my house right now. The dew settled on the hood of our car and left an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.”
Yea, right! I don’t know why the pastor didn’t just slug him.
Anyway, St. Bernadette never said that she saw the Blessed Virgin Mary. She always referred to her as the beautiful Lady and Bernadette would always ask the Lady what her name was. She asked, not so much because she was curious but because people were pressuring her to ask. The good news is that Our Lady was appearing to St. Bernadette in the South of France at Lourdes; the bad news is that no one else could see her or hear her. That is good news and bad news, right? People would follow her. On the first day the beautiful woman took her Rosary, and as you can see it is on her left arm. Again, this is obvious evidence that the Virgin Mary is left handed. Jesus is over there holding the orb in His left hand and St. Joseph is holding the Baby Jesus in his left hand. It is obvious the entire Holy Family, like your pastor, was left-handed. [Laughter]
When the beautiful Lady went to make the Sign of the Cross with her Rosary, St. Bernadette pulled her Rosary from her pocket and began to pray the Rosary.
“Oh to be able to pray the Rosary along with the prayers of the Blessed Mother, I would give anything!”
No you wouldn’t; we have that opportunity every day and we don’t, or we fight it. Everything fights against us praying the Rosary while we meditate on the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Christ, which is the Rosary. We can pray it everyday but so many other things pull us in all directions. More of that later.
The last time that St. Bernadette saw Our Lady she asked her name and the beautiful Lady said,
I am the Immaculate Conception.
St. Bernadette began repeating over and over again what the Beautiful said.
I am the Immaculate Conception.
She repeated this all the way to the door of the Rectory where her pastor lived. This pastor and some of the people in town had put great pressure on Bernadette to find out the name of the Lady. When Bernadette knocked on the door of the Rectory the priest came to the door and when he opened the door Bernadette blurted out,
I am the Immaculate Conception.
The Pastor asked Bernadette if she knew what she was saying and of course she had no idea so he had to explain to her what Immaculate Conception meant. The beautiful Lady had identified herself as the Immaculate Conception. December 8th is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
On the wall over there is a representation of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It is interesting that the only time in the history of the world that our Lady left her image was in 1531, to St. Juan Diego and for the rest of us as well. That makes perfect sense. St. Bernadette had to describe Our Lady to everyone.
She had a beautiful white dress with a blue sash, a Rosary in her hand and on both feet she had two pale yellow roses
Now, if they had asked St. Juan white Our Lady looked like he would probably say,
She was beautiful!
We know St. Juan Diego was a man so Our Lady just helped him out and left her image for him. If he’d been describing Our Lady of Lourdes he might have said,
I don’t know, she had some flower on her foot; maybe they were white or red, I don’t remember
Right? [Laughter] She identified herself as the Immaculate Conception the first time she appeared to St. Juan Diego, December 9th, which was the day after the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.
Up until 40 years ago the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was celebrated on December 8th and then stretched out over another eight days to savor this great mystery of our faith. So, in Mexico City, on December 9th the priest there would have celebrated the Mass of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. Merely by appearing on December 9th during the Octave of the Immaculate Conception, Our Lady identified herself as the Immaculate Conception.
We don’t give the Immaculate Conception credit; some people don’t give it enough credit because we believe it puts so much attention on her and takes it away from HIM. This of course is ridiculous in the extreme. Again, if you ever want to spot the Catholic after a tornado has ripped through a neighborhood, where no one has died or gotten a scratch, the Catholic will be the one in front of the camera, who says,
“Everything was ruined and we were so lucky that nobody was killed.”
What a blessing that this town has been given and yet he attributes it all to “luck.” Every blessing and grace and every good thing that has come to this world is here right now or will come to this world come from the same fountain and source; it springs from the very Side of Christ. The Immaculate Conception is a tremendous gift to us and is made possible by this same source of grace from the Side of Christ, stretching all the way back to Adam and Eve, to us who are alive today and to the last person who will ever live until Christ comes to judge the living and the dead.
The Immaculate Conception “seems” to be all about “her.” It involves her but it is really all about HIM. Some would object and ask why God would give her a privilege he would never give to anyone else. Adam and Eve received the same privilege; they were created free of sin in original innocence having grace in their souls. But they chose to sin. The birth of the Savior came through the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. If God could choose His own mother…and He did…He would choose the best mother. He made sure that from the very moment of her conception in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, that not even for half a moment would her body and soul ever be in the grip of the “other team.” That way she could be born and grow and then later be asked if she would be the mother of the Savior and she could consent.
So, the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary always leads us to Christ. If you go back to the source of the Immaculate Conception or forward to the Annunciation and Conception of Christ, you see it is all about Christ. In our hurry or ignorance or sloth, we do not appreciate the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Today’s Gospel is very much like what Moses said to the chosen people in the Old Testament. He places before the people blessings and curses. That is exactly what we have here today.
Blessed are you…woe to you…cursed are you.
The blessings and curses are presented to us just as Moses presented them to the chosen people. It is for us to decide which we will take. One thing about the Immaculate Conception that we can say without a doubt is that we are not the Immaculate Conception.
Now look at the bulletin page 5 and you see the time for Confession for this coming week.
“Oh, I don’t need to go to Confession!”
Again, just try telling yourself that you are the Immaculate Conception while looking into the eyes of your spouse, your children, your parents or friends. Then check to see how long it is before they start to laugh. Exactly…it was that quick! I am not the Immaculate Conception and neither are you. Mother Teresa went to confession almost every day, but of course we know about her frequent trips to Las Vegas. [Laughter] There were no trips to Las Vegas, right? Pope John Paul II went to confession several times a week. Sinners! They were not immaculate like you and I are.
These blessings and curses help us to prepare. In June or July you start seeing them put things out for Halloween or at the malls they start playing Christmas music or they put things out for Thanksgiving around Labor Day and by the time you get to Thanksgiving they are putting out the Christmas stuff. The day after Christmas they have marked all that down and have put things out for Valentine’s Day. AND, I have about had it up to here with all that music in the malls starting about January 15th when they start telling us that very soon Ash Wednesday is coming. I have just had enough with all those Ash Wednesday sales, right? No, we don’t get that preparation for Ash Wednesday, do we? They like all the others; they pick and choose.
If you look at your bulletin you will see that the Wednesday after Valentine’s Day, which is Wednesday men; I am helping you out here, ok? [Laughter] The next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, on February 21st. Now, what Christ says to us in this Gospel is what we are going to hear on Ah Wednesday, but not from St. Luke as in this Gospel but from St. Matthew, chapter 6. Jesus says,
When you fast…when you pray…when you give to the poor.
He tells us how it is to be done. When you fast don’t do as the Pharisees do, Christ tells us how to do it, the same for praying and giving alms to the poor. These are three expectations that Christ has for us during Lent. I will go through these and you can see the preparation. Jesus said,
Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.
Just recently I finished signing all the letters going out to you concerning the contributions that you make throughout the year to pay for the electricity and all the other things that are needed in your parish. I am impressed how in small ways and great ways you make yourself poor to enrich the Church. Parents are familiar with making themselves poor. Children, the next time you don’t want to take out the trash or clean the table because it is someone else’s turn, think about this. What if your parents had every dime they ever spent on you or your siblings in a bank account rather than having spent it on you and see how long it takes you before you do your chores. It is amazing because parents could hang on to that money but they make themselves poor to enrich their children. My parents did it with us and good parents do this with their children. It often takes us a long time to figure it out as children. During Lent we are to give alms,
blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom is yours.
To give to the poor or to give to the Church is to voluntarily make us poor in order to enrich someone else. Bernadette didn’t become a saint because she lived in a condemned basement but she is a saint for her heroic virtue. There are plenty of people who are impoverished who are thieves; we think of Oliver Twist, the leader of that gang of children was a thief. Moving on we come to,
Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied.
If you are going to receive Holy Communion today you have been asked by the Church to not have anything to eat or drink other than water an hour before Communion. Of course coming to Mass here, that isn’t hard to do because the homily lasts and hour and a half. Right? The Eucharistic Fast or the hour we wait before receiving Holy Communion is a small way for us to “go hungry”. In the bulletin you see the last prayer of the Mass. It says,
Isn’t that what the one hour Eucharistic Fast achieves in us? I really should be hungering for Holy Communion but I don’t. Food is good but staying away from it is so I can redirect my attention to Spiritual Food, the Bread of Angels and the Bread that came down from Heaven or Holy Communion and the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ. But think of it, we often do not go hungry. During Lent when we are asked to abstain from eating meant and to fast on Ash Wednesday and the Fridays of Lent we get weak just thinking about it.Lord you give us food from Heaven; may we always hunger for the bread of life.
“Two days out of the year and do you think I do this for my own pleasure and I have to stock up for those two day because they can really drain me.
Our Lord says to us,
Blessed are you who are hungry, for you will be satisfied.
How often does someone go to the restaurant and say,
“Gee, that was delicious but what is left on my plate, can you just throw it away?”
Then don’t order it if there is so much you have to throw it away.
“Oh this is our favorite restaurant, we come here all the time and throw food away!”
There are people who are poor who are not satisfied. Again, our Lord says,
Woe to you who are rich, you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry.
Look at the next one.
Blessed are you who are now weeping for you will laugh.
That is combined with the one at the bottom of the page.
Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep.
If you ever drive in from I-30, just before you get to Lake Ray Hubbard you see this huge airplane hanger of to the right. Wait a minute; it is bigger than an airplane hanger. Is there a blimp there? No, it is the Bass Pro Shop and it is huge. It is all about entertainment.
“Father, they don’t sell TVs there!”
I bet they do on some of those yachts. And all of those yachts that have those ice chests; they are just for fish, right? [Laughter] Yea...uh huh! The yachts and everything else inside that Pro Shop are for entertainment. I have mistakenly said that entertainment is just TV. Cardinal O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston said in January about two weeks ago in the Crypt Chapel of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that as Americans we are addicted to entertainment.
Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep.
“I don’t have time to pray father, are you kidding me? I am not a monk or nun. After working all day and I go home and spend 6 or 7 hours in front of the TV or go fishing.”
You can just fill in your own blank; all these things are entertainment. Even our friends and family can be entertainment but we have to take time during the day to pray and to also do penance. That is what Lent is attempting to prepare us for in order to prepare for Easter.
I have recommended this book before. Of course I know we have no time for books because we are always working; we are so German; at least I am. This book is by Therese Taylor, about the life, death and visions of St. Bernadette.
The book can be viewed and purchased here
http://www.amazon.com/Bernadette-Lourde ... 0860123375
It talks specifically about the penitential visions Bernadette received while talking to Our Lady from February 21st through the 28th. These were the only occasions that Bernadette did anything that jarred the sensitivities of educated people. In other words, she kind of dropped the ball with educated people. People would follow Bernadette to the grotto but they couldn’t see the beautiful Lady or hear her but they could watch Bernadette. Once during that period in 1858 the beautiful Lady told St. Bernadette to go and wash in the spring and drink the water so Bernadette started to walk toward the river, which was very near the grotto. The spring was not visible but the beautiful Lady motioned to a place near by, which appeared to be a little moist. Bernadette went over to the place, knelt down and started digging and water started bubbling to the top. She was very obedient to this beautiful Lady and she tried to get some water but there was too much mud.
Bernadette kept digging and eventually she could get enough water in her hands and bring her hands to her mouth and try to drink the water. Of course on her hands was the mud that she had been digging in and when she pulled her hands from her face she had mud all over her face. She looked ridiculous to the people and when she turned around they were all staring at her. Some people decided to leave because they didn’t think Our Lady would make Bernadette look so ridiculous. Bernadette’s aunt walked up to her and cleaned her face.
St. Bernadette didn’t ask the crowd to come back or even apologize to them; she let it speak to itself. At that time during another vision the beautiful Lady motioned to St. Bernadette to eat some grass. Well, she went over and knelt down and started to eat some of the grass. Again, people left because they just knew this couldn’t be the Blessed Mother but Bernadette never said it was the Blessed Virgin Mary but a beautiful Lady.
Over the years when people would approach Bernadette and bring these situations up she would ask if they ate salad. Of course salad is a sacrament in France isn’t it? What is salad but a lot of grass? We just pay extra for it.
This all shows the obedience of St. Bernadette and it shows the penance with that obedience. That is really the message of Lourdes. Therese Taylor mentions that, what is actually written down in the records is that Our Lady’s message is penance and prayer. It says here.
Father grins at this statement.The penitential aspect of the message of Lourdes was so unappealing to modern culture.
1858, modern culture in France. Anyway….
It is an irony that the statements of our Lady as recorded by Bernadette made no mention of miracles of healing, although it is for the miraculous healings that the shrine is famous.The penitential aspect of the message of Lourdes was so unappealing to modern culture that it was downplayed and eventually forgotten.
Interesting because prayer and penance would lead to faith. Isn’t faith the bedrock upon which miracles occur? It is the same with Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Immaculate Conception on this side of the world. The twelve years before Our Lady appeared to St. Juan Diego there were two hundred thousand baptisms recorded. After she appeared there were over nine million baptisms. That is the emphasis of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Any miracles that come along are dwarfed by those baptisms. Yes, there is a miracle here and one there but over nine million came in seeking baptism.The only specific injunction offered by the apparition, were the calls to perform penance, which were not to be incorporated into the eventual message of the shrine.
We are addicted to entertainment and we don’t want to go without money or food but these are ways of making changes right now so that we allow God a chance to get a word in edge wise in this very busy world. Our Lady said to Saint Bernadette,
I do not promise you happiness in this life but only in the next.
Jesus repeats the same thing in the Gospel today and on Ash Wednesday.
Behold, your reward will be great in Heaven.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen