Fr. Paul Weinberger
St. William’s Roman Catholic Parish
Greenville, Texas
January 22, 2006
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God. “This is the time of fulfillment; the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the Gospel.”
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
Take a minute and look at the front of the bulletin; it is a beautiful depiction of the Annunciation. On one side you see Our Lady and opposite her is the Archangel, Gabriel. Above the archangel is a depiction of God the Father surrounded by cherubim, little angels. All you can see are their faces surrounded by wings, just like the cherubim on this sanctuary lamp here.
To view the picture That Fr. Paul is describing, click on the link below.
http://www.wga.hu/art/p/pinturic/spello1.jpg
God the Father is sending down the Holy Spirit upon Our Lady. This depicts the moment before Annunciation; the moment before Our Lord, Jesus Christ took flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The moment after this moment, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ took flesh in Mary’s womb and would grow for nine months and is born on Christmas, two thousand years ago. After thirty years He would begin His public ministry and then three years later He would be crucified, die, and rise from the dead. The entire Church recognizes the Annunciation as the first moment in the first minute in the life of Christ on earth.
Today is the ignominious anniversary of Roe versus Wade; we are in the Diocese where that case originated, the Diocese of Dallas, Texas. This case went all the way to the Supreme Court where some of the judges found a reason, after hundreds of years, to make abortion on demand legal. They said they had discovered “emanations from the penumbra,” which when translated means,
“BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!”
It doesn’t mean anything! “Emanations from the penumbra,” how fascinating. We had never heard it put that way. Here we are over thirty years later, on this sad anniversary and over fifty million Americans have died as a result. I heard an advertisement on the secular radio by an African American woman. She said that even though black women in this country represent only seven percent of the population, that abortion of demand has claimed forty percent of African American women. What the clan couldn’t do, abortion on demand has done. It is interesting that this anniversary follows on the heels of Dr. King’s celebrated day. He had a dream but evidently the dream is being snuffed out.
Fifty million Americans are not alive today because of this “made up” pretext of a law called Roe v Wade. How can I, as a Christian, recognize that the first moment of the first minute of the life of Jesus on earth was the Annunciation and, in all other instances declare that human life does NOT begin at the moment of conception?
As Christians in the Latin Church and Christians in the Eastern Church, as well as non-catholic Christians around the world do admit, I must admit that the Life of Christ on earth began at the moment of the Annunciation, that is, the moment of His conception in the womb of His Mother. What is true about the Life of Christ on earth must be admitted and confirmed about the first moment in the life of every other child conceived
The First reading from the Book of the Prophet Jonah has him going through Nineveh. Many people aren’t familiar with Nineveh but if you took the worst aspects of the following American cities like Hollywood, L.A., San Francisco, Vegas, New Orleans before it was swept away, new York City, and I will go ahead and throw in New Jersey, and throw in the worst part of those cities and states combined you would get Nineveh, except for the fact that Nineveh was always pagan; it wasn’t Christian and turned pagan…it was always pagan. Nineveh was a “cesspool of immorality”, as St. Paul described it last week. When the First Reading ends, we hear,
When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, He repented of the evil that He had threatened to do to them.
He did not carry it out! God was going to destroy Nineveh and He sent the prophet Jonah to let them know. Jonah was the most reluctant of prophets. Imagine that something was about to occur at the University of A&M in College Station and the only person who knew about it was one student at the University of Texas in Austin. He would probably make the drive down there in reverse or walk there and upon arriving he would warn those there in a very weak voice. He wouldn’t be proclaiming it in a loud voice.
So, when Jonah was told by God to go to Nineveh, he got on a boat going in the opposite direction; he really disliked the people of Nineveh. They threw him overboard and a whale swallowed him. He spent three days in the belly of a whale until the whale vomited him out onto the beach; that probably wasn’t pleasant for the whale and it certainly wasn’t pleasant for Jonah. The people in Nineveh were probably converted by just the smell alone. They probably smelled Jonah before they saw him. [Laughter]
“What is that? Argh!”
It was probably weeks before he got it out of his hair and he probably had to burn his clothes. But Jonah started going through Nineveh; it was a big city and it took three days. He went through the city one day saying in a very low voice that wasn’t very audible,
“Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed.”
He probably said it in a lower voice than that. He was probably stopped by people on the street and asked,
“What is that smell and what are you mumbling?”
And on the basis of such a reluctant prophet, Nineveh is converted and God repented of the evil that He threatened to do them and He did not carry it out.
If you look on page four of the bulletin you will see that Wednesday is the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. Again, a tremendously important day in the Latin Church, the Eastern Church and a day to pray for unity among all Christians. St Paul was Saul before he was baptize and converted to the Christian faith.
Saul was going around arresting Christians. The Feast of St. Stephen is the day after Christmas. St. Stephen the Deacon was killed and Saul had everything to do with his being stoned to death. He was the one, we hear, who was holding the cloaks while the others picked up rocks and threw them at St. Stephen.
“How I hate going to those things; my clothes just get so dirty.”
Fortunately there was someone there who would hold the coats for the people who were killing St. Stephen, who, for his part prayed for his persecutors as he suffered. He prayed as though he were a laser beam for Saul.
Father forgive them, they know not what they are doing.
We have a great apostle to the gentiles because of this prayer, which converted Saul and as a result of his conversion, St. Paul converted the nations…the non-Jews…our ancestors. Saul benefited from the prayer of St. Stephen, the early Christians, Ananias and of course Our Lord Himself as he had this encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus.
Like the apostles in the Gospel today, he was called. He noticed that the fishermen were freed of their nets, like fish escaping a net they were called by Christ. They turned with Him and converted to Him. Conversion means to “turn with”. They were called and turned with Christ, leaving their occupation, leaving their father as well.
There is a friend of mine, who is a priest up in Kentucky and is one of the Fathers of Mercy. Father David Wilton is from Natural Bridge, New York. He is a Yankee! He also has a very interesting take on today’s anniversary. When he was preaching at Blessed Sacrament once, he mentioned that this anniversary could have been just a mere blip in American history if something done very easily had occurred. He said that in his opinion, if every Catholic parish in the Northeast of the USA in the general vicinity if washing D.C. had sent one busload of Catholics for one day, the Supreme Court, like Punxsutawney Phil, would have retreated right back into their hole and changed their minds, admitting they couldn’t even spell “penumbra,” saying to forget it because it isn’t a law and it can’t be done. But, Catholics didn’t do it; it would have been over as quickly as that! But, it didn’t happen and so here we are…fifty million dead later. That is a million for each state in the Union.
What is needed is not another judge on the Supreme Court. We will now have five Catholics on the Supreme Court and that is interesting because the five voices that are most vociferously opposing this nomination of the next Catholic to the Supreme Court…those five are Catholic. They are ardently in favor of abortion on demand. Not too good on the quality control as Catholics, are we? It is not going to be left up to Congress or the Supreme Court, but it is going to be left up to those who were connected one way or the other with the fifty million abortions in this country. The men and women, who somehow had something to do with it will be the reason why abortion is no longer possible in this country. The conversion of these people will bring about the conversion of our country as well as the change of heart. We have to!
Several weeks ago a lady left he Church after the 4pm Mass and to get to her car she had to cross the street right in front of the Church. This lady has done this many times because she has been a parishioner here for a long time. She’d crossed the street to come into the church and now she was crossing the street to go home. She looked both ways for traffic and seeing that it was clear she proceeded to cross and fell in the middle of the street. Fortunately there was no car coming and she didn’t break anything, but she walked off the edge of the street and into a large hole in the middle of Stuart Street right in front of the Church.
From this side of the street she couldn’t see that there was this large sinkhole. On the way in she probably avoided it because she came up on the downside of it. But on the way back to her car she just walked off and fell flat. As I said it was a blessing a car did not hurt her.
Last week I went over to my previous parish, Blessed Sacrament, where I was until I came to St. William’s two years ago and for me, that is very familiar ground as well. The priest there had invited me to come and remove the pulpit that was commissioned in 2001 for our Centennial. He told me I could have it. It isn’t an old pulpit. This is a most magnificent pulpit Fr. Paul had built. Someone had to supervise, right? So I went over to this very familiar territory…I’d been there ten and a half years. We got it out of the Church and put it on one truck and were going to transfer it to another truck. We went to a place where it would be easy because the upper parking lot met the lower parking lot.
Well, the sidewalk coming down from the school is very level and then it kind of dips off at an angle. Right about here is one step…I think I was the one who put it there. Anyway, there is one step and then a place where the upper lot joins the lower lot. So far everything was going great that morning. Again, I was supervising. [Laugher] So I am up on the school level and the men are down moving the pulpit from one truck to the other and I am walking down and I had forgotten about that step. Of course, there I am dressed in my clerical garb, black and white. Just like a domino, black and white, I fell. There was no bracing because I didn’t see it coming. I thought it was the “rapture” and all of a sudden I was floating. Oh…we don’t believe in the rapture. [Laughter] When I landed, this is the only thing that was hurt, the back of my hand. Father has a long scratch/gash on the back of his hand. I bet a lot of you think I need to lose a little weight. No, this is padding I put on every morning for just this kind of accident. I don’t have air bags in my car and uh…[Laughter]
Anyway, after I fell just like a domino but in a very dignified way, I rolled off that to the parking lot below. Fortunately only one person saw me do this and if I hear him telling the story…Anyway…I was on familiar territory and I fell. I could have broken teeth and really injured myself. I didn’t see it coming. What do they say in the home? They say most accidents happen in the bathroom. People aren’t in the hospital saying,
“I don’t know; I went into this room that I had never been in before and fell.”
We have to visit the bathroom regularly throughout the course of a day and yet that is where most accidents occur, in the most familiar area.
When we think about conversion to Christ, turning with Christ, we obviously can see the need for our country to turn away from this mortal sin, which is abortion, and turn toward Christ. We also have to think about how we are going to do that. If you look on the last page of the bulletin you will see a Prayer to God the Father. I changed it just a little bit and reprinted it.
The prayer Fr. Paul is referring to can be viewed on this page, along with the introduction, which is a must read before praying the prayer.
http://www.semperficatholic.com/page20.html
This is a prayer to God the Father, inspired by St. Therese’. If you turn to the backside of the page there is a question that asks, “Where is this prayer in the Bible?” It mentions St. John’s Gospel, chapter 16, verse 23. Below that is mentioned St. Luke’s Gospel, chapter 11, verse 13. That is the one I want to concentrate on.
Fr. Gabriel Amorth is the Chief Exorcist of Rome and I would guess that by now he has performed over 50,000 exorcisms. He wrote the two books I have listed for you, and then another on the Blessed Virgin Mary. At the bottom of your page I have a quote from this book. Father Amorth is someone who knows how to help people convert to Christ and he knows the power of the Holy Spirit. He says,
It is useful to reflect on this detail; the Holy Spirit can be received many times, indeed without limit with a growing increase of fruits. The Holy Spirit descends on us in Baptism with even greater strength at our Confirmation and all the times that we invoked Him because the Lord Jesus has said the Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him for it. For that reason we must never tire of invoking the Holy Spirit in order to always and with more clarity listen to and follow his voice, so different from that of the flesh and of the world and in order to arrive at the full imitation of Christ, which the Lord expects from us.
Let us say that you had your house exterminated and you are standing there with your check book and the exterminator tells you he is finished and gives you a total for the bill. You ask him if he sprayed here and there and he says he sprayed here but not there, so you would tell him to go back and spray where he missed and that you wouldn’t pay him until he’d done so. You want all the areas sprayed. Well, this prayer to the Holy Spirit, One Who knows us better than we know ourselves, is a way of asking the Holy Spirit to enter into absolutely every part of us, and whatever He finds in us that will not help us get to Heaven to please take it away and in place of any garbage that will not get me to Heaven, fill us with His Divine Presence.
This is a prayer, which should be prayed daily for an ongoing conversion. If your computer security system recommended that you scan your computer everyday…yes sir! Well I mean not doing so could be dangerous, computers cost money and they are important but your soul is not?
Father Amorth points how important the Holy Spirit is. In the Prayer to God the Father, one line says,
Holy Spirit, please guard me from ever displeasing You through mortal sin. Please double my distaste for even venial sin.
Venial sins are the small sins. If someone dies with Venial sins on their soul, they will not be denied Heaven. If someone dies without having repented of Mortal sin, the Church teaches and has always taught that the person will not arrive at Heaven, ever. So, Mortal sin gets most of the discussion. We feel pretty sure that Venial sin won’t hurt us because Confession, Baptism, Act of Contrition, worthily receiving Our Lord in Holy Communion and proper participation in the Mass, can take them away. These are ways that Venial sins can be taken away although we have to see Venial sins as contrary to our friendship with Christ and His call to follow him.
I am holding up a book that is a reprint. It is by Blessed Columba Marmion and is titled “Christ, the Ideal of the Priest.” It is a tremendous book for priests but anyone can read it and receive much from having done so. On page 99 he talks about Mortal and Venial sin. Here his emphasis is on Venial sin. He says,
The first degree is manifestly and complete renouncement of Mortal sin. Unless there is a categorical decision to make this break with Mortal sin, Divine Charity cannot live in us.
He moves on from Mortal sin to Venial sin and makes a case. He says,
I am speaking now of Venial sins committed with full consent. Many falls in the course of a day are due to inadvertence to negligence or indeed the human frailty and do not involve any deliberate intention of offending God.
So he is not talking about those when we find ourselves asking what we have just done and saying we are sorry. He is talking about the deliberate Venial sins. One that is real popular that I reel against again and again is this one, which I hear said so often.
“Well, I was thinking it so I might as well go ahead and say it!”
The next time you hear someone say that to you or someone else, stop them and ask where they read that or where it can be found written down. It is NOT written down…well at least not in anything Christian. You might find it in pop psychology or something like that. I am very grateful to my parents that they did not say everything that they thought in my presence. They might say things like,
“Agh, he’s your son!” or “What are we going to do with him?” or “Let him back in.”
[Laughter]
Maybe they would say something like that but I am so glad that they didn’t say the other things that were on their minds. Blessed Columba speaks about how deliberate Venial sins can be very harmful to the soul. He calls them infidelities.
Every Venial sin is an act of infidelity to God the Father and an obstacle to our friendship with Christ.
An infidelity! It is also a sign of disrespect to God the Father and to Jesus. Speaking of my dad; if he told me to set the table and I made a big sigh or told him it wasn’t my turn, well, I never did that because my dad had hands as big as frying pans, I knew it would be a lack of respect toward my dad and I didn’t want to go there. Constant, deliberate, and habitual Venial sins are an infidelity to God the Father and are a stumbling block to our relationship with Christ. Blessed Columba says,
When deliberate venial sins are multiplied, they lessen our fear of displeasing God. They diminish our powers of resistance and thus predispose us to grave falls.
So…deliberate Venial sins multiplied can set us up for a big fall, a fall into Mortal sin. He goes on to say,
By consenting to live in a habitual state of infidelity to grace and to duty, the soul is established in a state of existence called “spiritual tepidity.”
Spiritual tepidity is luke-warmness. So many in our country admit that we live in a habitual state of infidelity to grace and duty. This is or was a Christian country up until about 1973. Blessed Columba says that the soul is established in a state of existence, which is called spiritual luke- warmness. Remember what Jesus says in the Book of Revelations about the luke-warm? He’ll have you hot or He’ll have you cold but the lukewarm He will vomit out of His mouth. Those words are very graphic. Blessed Columba says,
If a real collapse takes place, the sinner’s capacity to react is paralyzed by the rut into which he falls.
We are on common ground, familiar ground with habitual Venial sin. Only Christians who begin to turn with Christ and live according to this call, are going to be able to reach out to our brothers and sisters in this country and help them to see what a grave sin abortion on demand is, what a grave evil it is and how terrible they are afflicted. The only way this is going to happen is through conversion and the Holy Spirit is the greatest advocate we have of sustained, ongoing, daily conversion as Christians. If we are not converting and turning with Christ, we are going back to what is familiar just like the apostles going back to their nets, then we risk a great fall, one which may be our last from which we may never recover.
If this country does not turn with Christ then it is turning away from Christ and in doing so is risking a great travesty. As I said last week, the only thing more difficult than following Christ is not following Christ, and the only thing more difficult than being a disciple of Christ is not being a disciple of Christ. There is a sense of urgency. Our Lord Himself says,
“This is the time of fulfillment; the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the Gospel.”
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen