Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
Laetare Sunday
4th Sunday of Lent 2007
So we are Ambassadors of Christ as if God were appealing through us; we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled with God.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that God does have a sense of humor. You and I are to be veritable rivers of God’s mercy flowing out to everyone we meet. Sigh…lets just say it has not been our experience that we are such ambassadors on a daily basis, right?
The beautiful image that is on the cover of the bulletin is a new statue you see over there, that I purchased. It is not the property of St. William’s. It came in during the 9-day novena leading up to tomorrow’s feast, which is the Feast of St. Joseph. It is a beautiful statue, even down to the glass eyes... St. Joseph and the baby Jesus. The flowers around that statue were donated in honor of Larry Tischler, who passed away almost a month ago and who was a member of this parish a long time.
Saint Joseph is the Patron Saint of a Happy Death and in the bulletin you will find the novena in honor of St. Joseph, which I first learned through Monsignor William Botik, who lived with me for three and a half years. He prayed this novena to St. Joseph every day. I always referred to him as Msgr. Rodney Dangerfield because from me, he got no respect. He came to live with me after serving for twenty-five years at Christ the King in Highland Park. What a change right? Talk about Purgatory on earth…his living with me! So, I made him suffer. Of course now that he is in Heaven he has to pray for those who helped to get him there. I used to tell him that he would have to pray for me when he got to Heaven because I was the one who got him there on a quick ticket.
Monsignor and I used to joke back and forth but we would also talk about St. Joseph. I asked him once that if he could pick any day out of the year to die, which day would he choose and he said he would take March 19th and he never hesitated when he said this. St. Joseph is the Patron of a Happy Death. After the Finding of Jesus in the Temple we don’t hear a peep out of St. Joseph. The Church holds that he probably died sometime between the Finding in the Temple and the Public Life of Jesus. When he died whom did he have at his side but Our Lady and Jesus.
“Saint Joseph you received this great privilege, would you be at my side with Our Lady and Jesus when I die?”
Now, that is something to pray for.
The other day someone mentioned to me that I was driving a nice car; it is 1994 Mercury and it is still in good condition. I told the person that for me to get this car, a priest had to die. Then I told him not to worry because I had an alibi. [Laughter] Monsignor was in Lubbock and I was in Dallas. He’d gone there to be with his brother Joe and his sister-in-law, Evelyn. Monsignor was getting up in years and he was tired after the 45 services we’d offered on Ash Wednesday. I gave him the first forty or forty-two services and I took the rest so he was tired after that. But he drove out to Lubbock in MY CAR! Oh, I am sorry, it was still his. Anyway, he drove there in my car and visited with the family; he didn’t do this very often but he loved it when he got the chance. He played some golf…he probably lost…and then he went home to have a great dinner because Evelyn was a good cook. Then after dinner they played a game of Wahoo, which is a form of Parcheesi. He probably lost that game too. He complained that he wasn’t feeling well, and it was probably because he lost at golf and Wahoo, so he went to bed early that night, which was March 19th. The next morning they called out to him and when he didn’t get up they found he had died during the night.
The Coroner wrote down that he died on March 20th, but if you pray every day of your life to St. Joseph and have expressed on many occasions that you would like to die on March 19th if possible and you go to bed on March 19th and you never get up, I think we can safely put that in St. Joseph’s column. Right? Yes, I think so and may he rest in peace!
Each one of us will experience a “last 24 hours”, but we all know that only when you are very old, say, when you are past fifty, then you will die. Nobody dies young, right? That is not true at all; we have no idea when we will die. Some die very young, some middle aged and some when they are very old. Whatever age God calls us, we will have that “last twenty-four” hours in our lives and whether we realize it or nor, there WILL be a struggle during that time.
When I saw Larry Tischler, who had cancer of the esophagus that spread to his back, during his last months, he was in chronic pain and whenever you have such pain it lowers your resistance and you begin saying things that you might think but you wouldn't normally say it aloud. He restrained himself very well to the very end; I was very edified. Perhaps it was because after Larry retired, he and his wife went to daily Mass.
Last week I mentioned the prayers that Pope Benedict had spoken of, that are the most special prayers, which are the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Divine Office, and the Most Holy Rosary. The Church recommends that we pray, fast, and do works of mercy and these things will also support us during the last twenty-four hours of our lives. The Sacraments that we have received throughout our lives will also be supporting us, especially Confession, which is the Sacrament of God’s Divine Mercy.
On the back of the bulletin you will see a quote from Pope Benedict. He gave a talk last Wednesday in Rome and I have reprinted part of it for you here in the bulletin. We will begin where it says, “A Few Notes on Confession.” It is the Sacrament of Reconciliation or Penance, and also called the Sacrament of Confession. I saw a young lady today that is coming into the Church at Easter and I comforted her by telling her that she is still learning but not to worry because so am I, and I am 47 and have been a Catholic from the very beginning. When you have different names for the same Sacrament, we need to kind of clear this up.
Calling this Sacrament the Sacrament of Reconciliation is the most accurate but it is not the term that most Catholics use. Nobody ever comes into the back of the Church asking if I am hearing the Sacrament of Reconciliation right now. No, they ask if I am hearing Confessions. Right? So, most people refer to this Sacrament as Confession. The “term “Sacrament of Reconciliation” is rather long; it is like you need to pack a lunch because it is so long, but that is exactly what happens; we are reconciled to God. There is an interior reconciliation and reconciliation with our neighbor.
Stop right there. Where is this inexhaustible spring of Divine Love? I will show you; it is right here!The Holy Father [Pope Benedict XVI] said: ""We all need to draw from the inexhaustible spring of Divine Love,
Father turns around and puts his finger on the wound in the side of Jesus on the crucifix.
The wounded side of Christ; and here on the front of the pulpit is the Divine Mercy and Christ is directing us to His Most Sacred Heart. The statue over there is the traditional image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. That is the origin of the inexhaustible spring of Divine Love, which was made totally manifest to us in the mystery of the Cross. Christ did not die of a heart attack; He died on the Cross, right? Continuing with the quote of the Pope,
Again…interior reconciliation between us and God, and reconciliation with our brothers and sisters in Christ. And this is only from this Spiritual Spring, the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The pope continues,"We all need to draw from the inexhaustible spring of Divine Love, which was made totally manifest to us in the Mystery of the Cross, in order to find true Peace with God, with ourselves and with our fellow man.
That paragraph is so important. Do you know there are people who sprang out of bed this morning and rubbed their hands together and thought,Only from this spiritual spring is it possible to draw the interior energy indispensable for defeating evil and sin in the ceaseless struggle that marks our earthly pilgrimage towards the heavenly homeland."
“You know, today I am not going to have to struggle!”
What planet are they living on, right? What? We are not going to have to struggle just like we did yesterday or the last 47 years in my case? There has never been a day where we don’t have to struggle. I love the choice of words that the Holy Father used, “the ceaseless struggle.”
This reminds me of the books by Tolkien, which were made into very good movies, “The Lord of the Rings” Remember that small group of friends in the movie and the City of Men under attack by an evil genius, who can manufacture these terribly ugly creatures called “orks” or “Nazguls “. They just come at the hobbits and these men and they want to destroy everything. There is good and bad news; every time one of the men or hobbits put an arrow in their bow or lift their sword, they kill one of these pathetic, ugly creatures. That is the good news.
The bad new is that when you shoot the first two or three hundred thousand arrows you are doing ok but after that your arm gets tired. You raise your sword to kill the first monster coming at you and right behind him are another million lined up. You are going to have to pull a sword out and hit the next one. I mean, it is not rocket science but it sure can wear you out. Ceaseless struggle!
That is a very good image of what it is like to live here, in this valley of tears known as the world, yet the Lord gives us ways to be free from this ceaseless struggle, like the prayers I just mentioned, which are the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours and the Most Holy Rosary. These are the most special ways that we can be free in this valley of tears even for a little while and they help us get ready for the last twenty-four hours of our lives. You think there is a struggle now? If you do, just wait for your last twenty-four hours. But, don’t wait too long; prepare by prayer, fasting, and works of mercy. This is what is recommended to us during Lent.
We come from a family and not a factory, and if you live in a family you step on people’s toes and others step on your toes. This even happened on Walton’s Mountain, which was a TV series. Everyone got along…this was fiction. In a regular family where everyone loves each other, people are going to be hurt. This is obvious. Perhaps we need to reconsider how we view things and start viewing things in a realistic way.
I saw a friend last week that had gone through the seminary with me. You know, you get together with an old college friend and you went through terrible times and you came out the other end ok. This priest and I went through Holy Trinity Seminary in Irving. I am part of the witness protection program of Holy Trinity Seminary. [Laughter] I mean, I kind of feel that way; I have been to Hell and back and I got through it and then I went down to Houston. My friend and I haven’t seen each other for a couple of years but it is as if we had not seen each other in a day or two. This is what it is like when you go through difficulties in life.
We started to talk about old times, remembering when this or that happened. The memories of those times and especially the very difficult things…I am even making her cry.
A baby started to cry in the Church.
Anyway, life’s difficulties remind me of the four years I spent in Irving and the three years I spent in Houston; they were very difficult times. I don’t have to write all this stuff down because it is chiseled in stone right between my ears. That is all that is there, just rock between my two ears. I could tell you how I have been hurt or my family members have been hurt, how my friends and parishioners have been hurt and I wouldn’t need to be looking at a file on the computer. Isn’t this the way it happens when you get together with someone?
“He said this and then I said…and then he came back and said…”
You just can’t believe you are reliving this stuff! But wait a minute; we have this mandate from Our Lord about forgiving others and so we have the parable of the Prodigal Son because the scribes and pharisees complained that Jesus was eating and drinking with sinners. That is exactly what Jesus is doing right now with you and me; He is eating and drinking with sinners in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, right?
We have to learn to forgive and He gives us this beautiful parable of the Prodigal Son. Forgiveness however, most of the time comes to us in stages. There is the recognizing what has been done to a loved one or us and then we forgive but we don’t forget. Hopefully we move past that and are able to forgive AND forget. Think of your computer; if you want to delete a file you send it to the trashcan or the recycle bin, as they call it. I guess you can’t say “trash” anymore. So it is in the recycle bin and if you click on that and empty the trash you can never get it back.
So, hopefully you will go from recognizing what is happening to forgiving but not forgetting and then eventually to forgetting. Now, we are not supposed to forgive someone and then let them walk all over us.
Do you remember May of 1981 when Mehmet Ali Agca shot two bullets into Pope John Paul II at point blank range and sent the pope to the hospital and Agca to jail? When the Pope recovered he went to the jail to visit Agca and forgave him. You know, the same thing you or I would do if someone plugged us with two bullets at point blank range. After this was over the Pope got up and left. The criminal was still in jail; the Pope did not tell the Italian government to forget what Agca had done and to let him out of jail to make him a member of the Swiss Guard. He didn’t do that did he, he forgave Agca but the pope was realistic. So, when the Church says that we are to forgive, it does mean that we are to allow people to just run over us roughshod again and again.
Our diocese is just over one hundred years old and the last ten years have been the toughest years in the history of the diocese. The Rudy Koss verdict came down in 1997 and now it is ten years later, but in between that time and now it has been really tough being in the Diocese of Dallas. In the diocese we have had bishops, priests and deacons and some people think that over those ten years we have just been holding hands, swaying back and forth while chanting Kumbaya, [Laughter] There is never a problem between bishops, priests, and deacons; never…never! The next sound you will hear is the ceiling of this Church falling in, right. It is not true; of course there are problems. In a family you step on people’s toes and they step on yours and it is the same thing in a diocese, so we have to be really focused on forgiving, otherwise, IT AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN! This includes the clergy, men and women religious, and laypeople alike. St. Paul says that you and I are to be ambassadors for Christ; the world see forgiveness though us.
If we look at the parable of the Prodigal Son, we usually focus on son number one, the Prodigal Son, but there are two sons, and of course Our Lord is using sons because boys are easier to raise than girls. Now we know that, so let us state that and get right past it. But these two sons in the parable gave their father a lot of problems. The younger son told his father that he wanted his inheritance and he took what was given to him, ran off and followed his senses and appetites. He went to a far off country and blew the money; he didn’t lose his wallet in a bar but spent all of it and then had nothing. So now he was distant from his father and had nothing.
The other son is geographically near the father, but very distant. He treats his father as if the father is a boss and he is just a worker or slave. That is very unflattering to the father. It also says that the second son, the one who lives near the father, doesn’t have a brother; he has a co-worker. That is wrong. These two are brothers and they have the same father.
The son who returns to the father comes up with these lines.
Father, I have sinned against you and against God; I no longer deserve to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired hands.
Those are his lines and he has probably practiced them on his way back to his father. It says that his father saw him from a great distance. If the truth is known, the wind was probably blowing just right and he could smell him before he ever saw him. I mean, working with pigs. The father ran up to this son and moved with compassion threw his arms around him and kissed him. He ordered him to have the finest robe, a ring on his fingers and sandals.
The sandals part is interesting isn’t it? Slaves didn’t wear sandals. Why waste the sandals on a slave; having sandals meant you were a son and a member of the father’s household. Notice that the son only got out part of his lines. When he saw this reaction he didn’t get to the part about treating him like a servant or hired hand; he didn’t get to that line did he?
The father brings him back to the house and has a party planned. The other son is very unforgiving; he won’t forgive his brother because he blew the money on prostitutes and now he is back. The Prodigal Son went off to a far away land where he was kept warm with his earthly pleasures while his brother stayed behind near the father and kept warm at night bearing a grudge against his father. They were both warm but in different ways and from different sources. He held a grudge and was unforgiving.
You and I should be very alert at what is going on here because, well, let’s just be frank,
Rocks are hard, water is wet, and most Catholics DO NOT go to Confession!
Right? Let’s be honest; we are in Church.
”But I don’t NEED to go to Confession, Father!”
Notice how that statement doesn’t even ask Him, the Father, if He would like reconciliation. The prodigal Son’s father was overjoyed at being reconciled with his son and he tried being reconciled with the other son but that son would have none of it. He was probably thinking that he didn’t need to be reconciled with his father. The next time you think that you do not need to go to confession, the confession you did not need is exactly what might be there to help you in those last twenty-four hours. In the last twenty-four hours of our lives, the struggle that has been ceaseless will probably multiply and get turned way up like a volume control. Even if you are in a coma, perhaps there will be an interior struggle; we don’t know. But, if my take on it is correct there is going to be a lot of activity and the “other team” is really going to be jumping on me and on you.
Let’s say that we have forgiven but haven’t forgotten and haven’t moved yet to that last phase.
” You know what they did to me? You know how they hurt my family! They hurt my father…”
You get the idea because you have done it before. If we don’t move from here to here to here and forget, then what is going to happen? The “other team” is going to use that “not forgotten” to tempt us and we may hang onto that grudge that is so familiar to us because we have nursed it for years and have never wanted to move it from here to here to here because then we could never get to it again. We kept it here in case we wanted to pull it out and look at it again, right?
“Ok, I’ll put it back.”
No, this is one of those things that are very familiar to us and we know it intimately, yet it will serve us no good purpose.
There was a trial last week I read about on the Drudge Report; a nun was killed years ago. At the time she was in charge of a halfway house up in the northeast. This is a place where they house men who have been in prison and once they have been established they can go into the community. So this nun was running this place for men and she had no business doing it; that is a very dangerous job but the priest who was running it was killed by one of the men staying there and since no one else would take the job this sister did. She ran it for a long time and some really tough guys came through there.
One of the men went into sister’s room when she was away and was looking for something to steal so he could sell it to buy drugs. Sister walked in and he killed her. Sister, who was now dead, has a sibling, a twin who is a nun and she went to get her siblings belongings and found her journals.
I have to tell the men what a journal is; a journal is a book in which women write down their most intimate feelings. If you pointed a gun at a man’s head and told him to keep a journal he would say,
”SHOOT ME NOW!”
Women run to these journals the way men run from them. But, sister was a woman so she wrote in her journal. About fifteen or twenty years ago she evidentially had a premonition and made and entry in her journal that she was going to be murdered. Well duh! Working in a halfway house is dangerous. It was probably more than just a clue; she had some kind of a sense that she was going to be violently murdered so she writes this in her journal.
Her twin sister read it at the end of the trial and everyone was in tears. The guy was sorry; of course he is not high on drugs anymore so he knows what he did and to his credit he didn’t deny it.I don’t know who you are; I don’t know what your name is but I know that you are going to take my life in a violent manner. I forgive you from my heart.
When Saint Maria Goretti was murdered at the age of twelve by a man about 19, Alessandro had tried to ravish her but she would have none of it. She told him that it was a Mortal sin and he would go to Hell. He was really mad so he stabbed her multiple times and then he ran out.
They took Maria to the hospital near by. You can imagine what it was like in that rural hospital in 1902 in a poor part of Italy. Maria was kept there and they wouldn’t give her anything to drink because it would have killed her. They couldn’t operate on her because she has many wounds. When the priest came he asked Maria if she forgave her attacker, Alessandro.
Now, if I was her father and I was standing there I would probably punch him; what kind of a question is that?
“Look what that guy did to my daughter; she is dying right there and you ask her that question?”
The priest was right. You see, a twelve-year-old girl that is about to die needs to make sure she is not holding on to a grudge.
”Well Father, God wouldn’t send her to …”
I don’t know that and neither do you! It is a good question. But Saint Maria said that she forgave Alessandro from her heart because Jesus has forgiven her and that she wanted Alessandro to be with her in Heaven. You know, the same thing you or I would say in the same position, right? Alessandro was tried and sent to jail and remained stone faced. He would not say he was sorry or regretted it. After he was in prison for a while he had a dream and Maria appeared to him. St. Maria appeared to him holding a lily for each time he’d stabbed her. She was giving these lilies to Alessandro. He nearly broke his leg the next morning getting a priest brought in to hear his confession, right?
After Alessandro served his time in prison he went to a Franciscan monastery, rang the doorbell, and there was Maria’s mother. Alessandro begged her forgiveness and she told him that Maria had forgiven him so how could she not forgive him. He was actually present at Maria’s Canonization when Pope Pius XII canonized her. It was the largest crowd up to that date that had ever gathered for a canonization.
It is possible to forgive and forget. But, just in case you are still holding out and you are not convinced after what so and so did to you or what the Church did, when you go home tonight, find a Crucifix and close the door so no one will hear you and say this again and again. See how many times you can mention the ways you’ve been treated by this one or that one. Tell Jesus it isn’t fair. See how many times you can tell Him it isn’t fair the way you’ve been treated. What is not fair is the way we treat Him with our sins, the way He was treated and the way He is treated by so many. And what does He say?
Father forgive them, they know not what they do.
He wants us to be reconciled with the Father to the point that He gives up His Spirit for that end. You and I cannot make a case that we should not forgive. You may go to your grave holding those grudges. Those grudges will not automatically sprout wings and carry you to Heaven; they will weigh you down and pull you in the other direction. So, we have to use everything that God gives us in this life for the ceaseless struggle, as Pope Benedict said. If we are wise we will use prayer, fasting, and works of mercy as well as the Sacraments to help us on our way, especially the Sacrament of Confession in order that you and I may start producing fruit.
Remember last Sunday’s Gospel? The owner of the orchard came by and said there was no fruit on that tree all these years so just cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil? The gardener wanted him to allow the soil around it to be tilled and maybe next year it would produce and if not, he would cut it down.
You and I have to recognize that every man, woman, and child is our brother or sister made in the image and likeness of God. We cannot withhold forgiveness since God has been so generous with us. In fact, you and I must be ambassadors for Christ as if God were appealing through us.
So we are Ambassadors of Christ as if God were appealing through us; we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled with God.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen