Homily by:
Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
April 13, 2008
For you had gone astray like sheep but you have now returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.
In the Name of the Father and the Son ad the Holy Spirit
Amen
Last Sunday at this Mass (11:30 am Latin/Novus Ordo) we had visitors to our parish. Many came for the funeral of Theodore Donahue; many were his cousins, who attended this Mass last Sunday. Some of them are here again today.
Something happened at Mass and it is amazing, the things that go on during Mass besides the Consecration, things that go on out there as well as here. [Laughter] So Theodore’s cousins were here and there was another family that came in and sat in front of the cousins. They were two high school young ladies and on the back of their shirts was the face of the devil, which was staring at the cousins through the whole Mass. I mean, it is hard enough just looking at me but to have this added component?
To their (Theodore’s relative) credit, after Mass they approached these two young ladies and spoke to them about the matter. Usually when anything happens, even though I am not there I have to handle it. I am so glad that they took the opportunity and spoke to them. How do I say it?
DEVIL BAD!
Ok? You just don’t think you have to state to someone that this just isn’t appropriate for Church. The young ladies evidentially represented some sports team from their school. They could have worn a sweater, a vest, a raincoat, a bathrobe or all of the above and covered the offensive image. Is there a time when the devil is not an offensive image? Anyway, to bring this image into Church and to make someone else look at it is just not appropriate. Anything that distracts us from God at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is by definition, a distraction, and it is not from God.
I thought the matter was finished, until at the end of the week the mother of those two girls contacted the office to express her dismay at having been approached. Now, while having no connection with the family of the Donahues, these visitors, who had the devil emblazoned on their shirts, they too were from Michigan. What is this Michigan connection with St. William’s? I mean we are nowhere near….anyway. She called to express having been offended by being approached for what the girls had worn, essentially saying,
“Look at me! How dare you look at me!”
Now, they both can’t be right. The cousins from Michigan and the ones, who wore the shirts can’t both be right. This is an example of what Pope Benedict refers to as the tyranny of relativitism.
“Oh they are both right; now that we have settled that, let us move on to something else.”
No they aren’t both right! There us a principle of non-contradiction that applies. They both can’t be right. But, isn’t it interesting…a mother defending her daughter’s rights to wear the devil into Church? I am sure there is a lawyer out there somewhere to find a way to argue that. The fact is that something so obvious has escaped this mother and her two daughters. Something is more important than the truth.
On Wednesday we had the funeral for Theodore and many were there. There were many children there and for many of them, things didn’t really sink in until the casket containing Theodore was lowered into the ground and then was covered with dirt. It was only then that some of the children realized that Theodore is was dead. Children are very literal and what are we adults but children, who have grown up. We appreciate things when they are literal and if you recognize that today is Good Shepherd Sunday and you see the man on the cover of the bulletin, this is the Good Shepherd’s Vicar and he is connected to our Lord through St. Peter. There are over two hundred popes from this one all the way back to St. Peter. It is not a pretend thing that we are connected; this is his literal representative, the Vicar of Christ, the Good Shepherd, and he is coming to our country this week. He will visit New York and Washington DC, and will actually speak at the United Nations.
In the hymn that we just finished singing at the beginning of Mass, we see how Christ understands that we have a need for the literal. In this hymn He says to St. Thomas,
My pierced side, O Thomas see; My hands, My feet I show to thee, not faithless but believing be.
How many are unbelievers who are in the Catholic Church? This is not from God, it is from the devil. There is no other organization in the world that has existed for two thousand years. I know there are ecclesial communities and they call themselves churches. He (the pope) asked that we refer to them as ecclesial communities, and there are some ecclesial communities that have come about in the last 500 years or so, but the Catholic Church has been here since its foundation. Napoleon once told a Cardinal that he was going to entirely destroy the Catholic Church and to his credit, the Cardinal quipped back that if the bishops and priests had not been able to destroy the Church in all of its centuries, what made Napoleon think he would be able to do it. How true.
Now, you can find a handful of stinkers in the succession of the popes. The Borjas come to mind, right? But, never to my knowledge did the stinkers say that their personal behavior, bad behavior was good. Isn’t that the sin against the Holy Spirit, saying evil is good and good is evil? It is done all the time on daytime TV.
“Well, I think it is ok that they did blah blah; I think God understands.”
That is calling good evil or evil good and God does understand, but He understands it according to the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit. The fact is that Christ is the Good Shepherd and He has given us a Vicar to help us on our way.
On March 5th, in St. Peter’s Basilica just a little over a month ago the pope gave a talk on Pope St. Leo the Great. Pope Leo started his time on the Chair of St. Peter in the year 440 and very near the time of Christ. When you read the page or two on Pope St. Leo the Great you are amazed at how similar the time in which Pope Leo lived are similar to our own times. Toward the end of the pope’s talk he speaks of the Council of Chalcedon. The popes states that,
This was a council at which representatives from both the east and west were present. It was held in the east and it was the crown, if you will, of the three councils that preceded it, which are Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus. Pope St. Gregory the Great would say that those three councils and the Council of Chalcedon were like the four Gospels. They synthesize the teachings of the Church about Christ, the same way the Gospels synthesize the teachings of Christ’s life. So, this is very early in the Church and there is something very important about the council. The pope said,This Council, held in 451 and in which 350 Bishops took part, was the most important assembly ever to have been celebrated in the history of the Church.
This is what we are going to pray in just a moment, that He is True God and true man. He doesn’t appear to be man and is God or is God and just appears to be a man; He is True God and true man without confusion or separation in the two natures. He is human and Divine and this is the mystery of the Incarnation in the Person of Christ, our Good Shepherd.The Council of Chalcedon, which rejected the heresy of Eutyches who denied the true human nature of the Son of God, affirmed the union in his One Person, without confusion and without separation, of His two natures, human and Divine.
The pope goes on to talk about what put this council over the top and what brought it all together. Pope Leo sent a letter to the Bishop of Constantinople, who would take that letter and read it at the Council of Chalcedon; it was called the Tome of Leo; a tome is a letter…a Tome to Falvian, and it was read at Chalcedon. We have the minutes of the council, which is an ecumenical council recognized by the entire Catholic Church. The bishops acclaimed what the pope said. The pope living in the west had written to the council in the east and they were so grateful about the way he brought it all together, summing it up and bringing them all together that they said,
Peter continues to speak to us if we have ears to hear. This year we have an anniversary coming up. On July 25, 1968. Pope Paul VI, a Successor of St. Peter, published “Humane Vitae”, which translated means “On Human Life.” The document is very short and I recommend that you read it. In the document the Holy Father predicted, with uncanny results, the problems, which would afflict us over the next forty years. How abortion would take so many lives, and in this country there are been over 40 million so far, how families would feel the pain of divorce and how it would effect children, and how women would be treated and mistreated. He went on and on and prophesied about what would take place, saying it with absolute conviction because the world had begun to accept the contraceptive pill and with it a contraceptive mentality. You may not like that, but then again, what is the final word of the Gospel? Jesus said,Peter has spoken through the mouth of Leo.
I came so that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.
Priests and not a few bishops mocked Pope Paul VI. The phrase was bandied about to dismiss the Holy Father and Humane Vitae and the teaching, which still is the teaching of the Church.
“I don’t want the pope in my bedroom.”
Saying that is like the sheep saying to the shepherd,
”Well, since we are all in this corral for the night, we are just going to go out and wander in the neighborhood for a while and be back in the morning. Everyone knows that the wolf doesn’t come out at night. I don’t want the Good Shepherd to direct me”
By saying that, these things have indeed happened and they continue to happen because they do not recognize that the Good Shepherd is not leading them, but the devil is. There is no third option.
“I’m going to let the government lead me. I am going to let my friends lead me, not God, not the devil but my friends.”
That is exactly what the devil wants us to think. We have a Good Shepherd and He recognizes our desire for a literal shepherd and has given us St. Peter and his Successors, if only we would turn toward him and listen to him.
For you had gone astray like sheep but you have now returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.
In the Name of the Father and the Son ad the Holy Spirit
Amen