Homily by:
Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
February 24, 2008
Jesus said to her, “Believe me woman, the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. The hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship Him. God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
In every convent around the world, the Missionaries of Charity have no amenities. One thing a convent does have is a very prominent and large crucifix and in English two words are written just beneath the crucifix, and I don’t care where it is in the world, Mother Teresa had all of her sisters learn English so they could speak to one another. The two words that are written are, “I Thirst”. Every morning when those sisters get up and make their Holy Hour, they say their prayers and then go around waking up the roosters. These sisters spend hours in the presence of the Lord before they go out into the world. The live in such poverty and do so much of bringing in the crops that our Lord is talking about, the harvest at the end of this Gospel. These sisters are inspired by the writings of Mother Teresa as you and I have been over the last weeks of Lent.
I have provided the third part of the Rosary Meditation of Mother Teresa in the bulletin this week, the Third Sorrowful Mystery, the Crowning of Thorns. She writes,
Every time the sisters are kneeling on the cold floor in bear feet they are expressing their faith that, Jesus is in our midst. Is the Lord in our midst or not? That is how the First Reading ended today. The people grumbled because they thought they had been abandoned. We grumble as well when we believe that God has indeed abandoned us. Those sisters, hundreds and thousands of miles away from home and in deserted or poverty stricken places do not feel abandoned; they have such intensity about them because they know Jesus is in their midst and they make an act of faith every morning when they get on their knees and make a Holy Hour in the presence of Our Lord exposed in the monstrance in their convent chapel.Incredibly Jesus loves you as much as the Father loves Him. Here in the Blessed Sacrament He speaks to you personally and loves you as if you were the only one in the world. With infinite desire, Jesus desires to dwell with us, to lavish upon us His choicest gifts of Divine Love and Grace in this Blessed Sacrament.
Look at the last paragraph of Mother Teresa’s meditation.
I don’t know if you remember the last two meditations of Mother Teresa’s that I published in the bulletin. Mother Teresa, who is obviously in tune with the spiritual life, mentions again and again in these meditations that prayer before Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament is a grace multiplier, if you will. She says that great graces come to us when we pray in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament or we turn from what occupies us in the world and turn to Our Lord and unite our hearts with the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Tabernacle. Great conversions are possible, helping to bring in the harvest.Yet most people seldom if ever take the time to visit Him. Only a few people respond to Jesus’ appeal for Eucharistic Adoration. Most people are satisfied with only going to Church on Sunday. Jesus is mortally wounded by the indifference and ingratitude toward His love in the Eucharist then by the lepers who failed to return to give thanks.
Also in the bulletin you will see “Problems with children in grade school and high school. Problems with children who are now of legal age but unmarried.” Problems with children…fill in the blank; you can read the rest. Parents always want to know what the very best is that they can do. Parents are used to cleaning up after their children. Parents have done for us what we cannot do for ourselves and have done so willingly and generously and it no doubts habituates them for later on when they continue to clean up after our messes. Parents who wish to help their children through problems in life want to see what the best way is to do this. Number one says the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and number two is the holy Sacrifice during the week. The rest mentions a Holy Hour in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, Holy Communion at a Communion service during the week or a Spiritual Communion at home.
What Jesus says to this woman in the Gospel today applies to us. No, I don’t have to go to Jerusalem to worship Jesus; all I have to do is put down whatever has absorbed me in the world. Turn it off and turn toward the Lord, Who awaits my visit. But the world has me so tight in its grip, and to my shame I say again that I have come to pray so many times in my life as a priest and even before and my body is present but my mind is on some project that looms. Parents should be familiar with this as well. Problems and difficulties should be brought to the Lord. To turn to the Lord in faith is to make a Holy Hour or Spiritual Communion and from a distance it shows even more faith because the world appears so real that many people, even today believe it is eternal. This world is passing away. As is mentioned in the movie Bella, “Ten out of ten people die.”
Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shall return.”
The world seems so stable and permanent but the real definition is that it is “passing away”. Put down the TV guide, the channel changer or whatever and turn toward the Lord; this is exactly what we should do if we wish to help our Lord bring in the harvest…the conversions that He desires.
I THIRST!”
Jesus is seated at the well in this Gospel. Notice that St. John says that it was about noon. Later in his Gospel and speaking of the crucifixion he will also say it was about noon. That is the time we hear Christ’s words, “I thirst”. Prefiguring that moment, Jesus says to the woman, “I thirst…give me something to drink.” He desires her faith; He is thirsting for her faith. This is the Good Shepherd that has gone in search of the lost sheep. You’d have to be crazy to go out to work at noon in the desert. All the other women went out in the morning or went out in the evening. Why was this woman at the well at noon? This was obviously the “lady in red.” If she went out with the other women in the morning or evening they would probably throw rocks at her. But, there is Christ the Good Shepherd in search of the lost sheep and He is thirsting for her faith. Miss Nobody is not a throwaway to the Good Shepherd and neither is anyone else who has ever been created or ever will be created. It is very different from our permanent world, which throws away life to the tune of millions in many different ways.
St. Augustine in commenting on this Gospel writes of Jesus,
He says if you knew the gift of God…the gift of God is the Holy Spirit.He asks for a drink and he promises a drink; He is in need as one hoping to receive yet, he is rich as one about the satisfy the thirst of others.
The cover of the bulletin shows you the deposition of Christ. This is a beautiful picture by Fra Angelico. Notice the intensity in which St. Mary Magdalene is viewing the dead Christ. Anyone who has ever held in their arms a child, a loved one, a friend, a parent, a sibling who has died finds no problem showering them with kisses. St. Fra Angelico pictures St. Mary Magdalene not being distracted in the least by the fact that he is dead. She is showering His feet in kisses; the lady in red is St. Mary Magdalene. This woman, who was converted to Christ would never be distracted, in fact on Easter Sunday the first to receive Our Lord in the Gospels, the first to meet Him was St. Mary Magdalene. She followed Him in life and she followed Him in His passion and death as well as His resurrection.
This is an example of how I should be praying and how you should be praying, but like St. Martha we are banging around in the kitchen.
“Can you come in here and help me?”
As if praying before the Blessed Sacrament is not lifting great weights. I know people who have brought others to conversion by their prayers and sacrifices. One hundred fifty years ago Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette and through her told us that she is begging us to pray, sacrifice, and do penance for the conversion of sinners. Our Lady’s request is exactly that of Christ to help bring in this harvest.
In Fr. John Hardon’s series on the angels speaks of our guardian angels and he says,
This is so obvious and yet it escapes us. The fact that we don’t have time to pray or make a Holy Hour, you don’t have time to miss your prayers; you don’t have time to miss your Holy Hour because when we avoid prayer or the holy Hour or Communion we are doing it on our own. Very succinctly Christ tells us that without him we can do nothing. What part of that don’t I understand and yet, on a daily basis the world tempts me to consider it more permanent and eternal than Christ our Savior. This woman at the well, who was a throwaway to everyone else, was sought out by Christ, the Good Shepherd to bring others to Him.Our guardian angel knows far better than we, that every sin we commit deprives us of the grace of God. That is the Church’s meaning of guilt; guilt means the loss of God’s grace. The moment we sin we lose, depending on the gravity of the sin, more or less of God’s grace. Our guardian angel is an angel of penance by reminding us every moment of the day that the most effective penance we can perform is to make reparation for our failures in loving God in the past by loving Him now more deeply, more generously and more patiently than we ever would have done if we had never sinned.
How are we different? Perhaps the difference is that her sins were well known and perhaps ours are secret and hidden. They are not hidden to Him. He’d told the woman everything about her. People are fascinated today with communication, whether it is email and cell phone, how many people are more concerned about talking on the cell phone than paying attention to the traffic. I saw that in Dallas last week; the woman was more concerned about her conversation than the truck that was bearing down on her. I am amazed; this desire to communicate with others, and in the same boat no less, when we could speak to the one who knows everything about us and wants to lead us to life giving water. Our Lady of Lourdes is connected with Lourdes water. Our Lady continues the mission of Christ and you and I should as well.
When asked again and again to St. Bernadette why Our Lady chose her, Bernadette replied that no one more unworthy could be found. This should resonate with each one of us.
Jesus said to her, “Believe me woman, the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. The hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship Him. God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen