Father Paul Weinberger, Pastor
St. William Roman Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
April 9, 2006
Palm Sunday
My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me?
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
There are people, even in 2006, who hear those words and assume…and you know what happens when you assume…they assume that Jesus had lost His faith. He despaired, just look at that,
My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me?
It is so elementary. In fact, we had Psalm 21 today as the Responsorial Psalm. The Psalmist, the man who is saying these words to God begins with
My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me?
Then he speaks of all his aches and pains and leaves nothing out. He mentions how everyone is mistreating him and spitting upon him and scourging him, etc. It shows how he is at the point of giving up hope, but the Psalm, which takes all of three or four minutes to read, ends in a crescendo of faith in God. It starts out miserably but ends with the Psalmist saying he doesn’t care because he has faith in God. What a beautiful Psalm! Even today people think that Jesus despaired when he asked why He had been abandoned. Yea, right! Maybe it was the “Last Temptation of Christ” that people got the idea that He despaired. What a blasphemous movie! Or, maybe someone read it in a novel like the “Da Vinci Code!” What a screed that is!
These obvious incredible charges can easily divert us in our faith. People fail to recognize that the Jews, in the days of Jesus, would have all the Psalms memorized. Books were too costly and there are only 150 Psalms and because they prayed them everyday they would have them memorized. It would be like me starting to say the Lord’s Prayer and then stopping…you could finish the rest. Or if I said the first five words of the Hail Mary, you could finish the rest as well. Any Jew who heard, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me,” could finish the rest standing on his head. Yet, it is so simply and we presume the worst because “somebody” said such and such or someone wrote it down. What if I told you that two people in Hugo, Oklahoma wrote The Gospel of Judas, would you read it?
“Well, no! It is from Hugo; who wants to read that?”
Right? Oh but no…last week it is all we have heard about.
I was talking to a few men after the last Mass and it seems that their experience with the Gospel of Judas is exactly my experience with it. Over the past week whenever I read “The Gospel of Judas” that is where I stopped. There AIN’T a gospel of Judas! Maybe you read in the paper last week that after March Madness was over here in Dallas that I, Fr. Paul was chosen the most valuable player for the NBA. [Laughter] I am a valuable player and was chose the most valuable player.
“Uh, Father!”
Well, didn’t you just hear me say it? Doesn’t that make it so?
“Father, March Madness has evidently drifted over in April Madness.”
Right? Whenever I started to read articles concerning this “gospel”, when I saw the words, “The Gospel of Judas”, I never even looked at the next word because I know there AIN’T ONE! It is like a few months ago when I heard that the church was trying to turn the tables on Judas and trying to canonize him, I didn’t believe that either. Trash! Found out weeks later that it was all wrong. Let me see; talking about Judas…better that he had never been born! Who said that? JESUS, the one he betrayed!
“Oh but Father, there is a new show coming out about necromancers.”
Yea, these are people who talk with the dead and people are actually going to be on that show! If you tune in to that show, beware! I think it is called “Medium” or something like that. Why don’t we just skip it and call it “rare”? Let's not get to Medium and just skip it altogether.
“Oh but people are going to talk with the dead!”
Why in the world would you want to? I mean, if you want to talk with the dead go and address Congress! [Laughter] You have no idea how dangerous wanting to talk to the dead is! Yet people are lining up to get tickets to talk to the dead!
Then we hear that the “Jesus Papers” are coming out. Fine! Let some fool take his hard earned money and plop it down for that but don’t you do it! What is this? I am amazed at how easily we are diverted. When someone tells us to “look over there”, WE LOOK! Why? ‘Jesus Papers”, and Da Vinci Code”! That is coming out in movie form in about a month. There has to be a special place in Hell for someone who would say those things, even fictionally, about Jesus, His mother and St. Mary Magdalene. Catholics like sheep, baa baa baa, are going to go right off to those movie theaters and put that money down.
“Well, I HAD to see it! I just had to see it.”
The Da Vinci Code is a terrible thing and we are so easily diverted! Then when people do go to see this kind of thing they come away and say that their faith is in question! There is nothing there to be in question; if you go to the Da Vinci Code movie, read the gospel of Judas or read the Jesus papers or watch the show with the medium…again, it is like the dog chasing his own tail. He gets nowhere and looks ridiculous. If we do this we are not growing in faith in these areas.
These are serious days! Taking five minutes on the Lord’s Day to read Psalm 21, we have to admit that the Lord’s Day is a concept very far from us. I am forty-six and looking back over my life I regret how I did not do honor to the Lord’s Day throughout my life. Even as a priest I could have done better but you know what? From this point forward I am going to do a lot better because it is the Lord’s Day. In fact, it is not really the Lord’s Day because we slice off an hour or so to give to Him. It is like throwing the dog a bone. The rest of the day is mine!
“There is that closet and for years it has gone untouched. It is Sunday and by George, I am going to clean it!”
You know, you can’t paint a house unless it is Sunday; it is a law here.
No it is not! Monday through Saturday go by but Sunday,
“ I am going to fix that car! I am going to put the new roof on the house and then let's put the posts in. It is Sunday!”
Reaching into the pocket of the Lord to take time away from His Day…. what does that have to do with Holy Week? The Lord’s Day is one day in seven; Holy Week is one week in fifty-two. If we are not prone to focus and concentrate on the Lord’s Day, we have no idea what holy ground we are on. Moses was told to take his sandals off because he was on Holy Ground before the Burning Bush as God spoke to him.
This is the threshold of Holy Week; a week made holy by the Lord’s Blood and we have the temptation to treat it just like every other week. All those projects you have planned because the weather is nice. When does it rain around here anyway? What do you mean, the weather is nice, it is always nice. Wait until after Easter to get those projects done. We have to see this week through and walk with Our Lord as He asks us to do during this Holy Week, the same way that he asked Peter, James, and John and the other Apostles, minus Judas who was off writing his gospel, [Laughter] to go to the Garden of Gethsemane and they all fell asleep.
These days are so important and yet we will allow ourselves to be easily distracted. This is why we have to take drastic measures. Turn off the I Pod and text message only when necessary. Talk on the phone only when absolutely necessary and work on the computer only when necessary, answering the essential emails. Leave the jokes and trash and don’t bother to delete them until after Easter. We can also keep talk radio off as well and the TV. And don’t finish reading the Da Vinci Code! Take TV for instance; turn the TV off and just for a little insurance, put the remote in the freezer, ok? Then when you think you need to turn it on…ha! It doesn’t work! [Laughter]
This is serious and we have to take serious steps because we are so easily distracted. So many things are possible during Holy Week and so many graces are right at our fingertips. On page seven of your bulletin is the text of what was preached by the Papal Household Preacher on Friday to the Pope and his household. I have mentioned Fr. Cantalamessa before. Here is what he said to the household;
“In the souls of many Christians, Christ is not jailed but rather Christ is free on parole. Many Christians allow Christ to move about but within certain limits.”
It is kind of like when the captain turns off the seatbelt sign and says you are free to move about the cabin, but you are not leaving the plane. Right?
” Christ, don’t go there and don’t go there! Don’t even think about going there Christ!”
He’s on parole. Fr. Cantalamessa said that Christians tend to place restrictions on what they think God can require of them. He outlined the commitment of the typical Christian, which is the
Yes but NOT” syndrome. Prayer…well yes, but not to the point of losing sleep or rest. Obedience…well yes, but not to the detriment of our own convenience. Chastity…yes, but not to the point of depriving ourselves of some entertaining spectacle.
It is a collection of half measures. Look at that last paragraph.
I am Judas, who betrayed Jesus. I am Peter, who renounced Jesus. I am the crowd that cried out against Him.
This is the way that St. Ignatius of Loyola would have us read the Passion. He is the one, who with St. Francis Xavier founded the Jesuits. The statue you see over there, where St. Joseph use to be, is a statue of St. Francis Xavier. He and St. Ignatius started the Society of Jesus and Friday was 500th Anniversary of his birthday. St. Ignatius said that when we read the Gospels to put ourselves in place of those main characters. St. Francis was a theology professor at the University of Paris and in midlife he had a change. God called him from that cushy job to be a missionary to the Orient. He died on the coast of China; he wanted to convert China and that man alone probably could have done it.
Yesterday at CCD I was talking to the kids and showed them the statue of St. Francis Xavier, telling them that he’d baptized many people and I asked them if they could guess how many he had baptized. Some said one hundred; one said seventy-five and one child said five hundred. Try a million! He knew so many languages and this was probably a gift from the Holy Spirit. He probably knew how to say “next” in all those different languages, or maybe, “keep it moving!” If you are going to baptize a million people you will have to know those words, right?
As I said before, he died on the coast of China and just before he died he said,
“Lord, may I win more souls for You?”
That is dedication and it shows us that a man, starting out in midlife, can do so much! Then we look at the way Jesus is treated and use the model of St. Ignatius. Well…
I am Judas, who betrayed Him, Peter, who renounced Him. I am the crowd that cried out against him.”
Rejecting Jesus; isn’t that the classic definition of sin…the “yes but not” syndrome that Fr. Cantalamessa is talking about?
“But there is nothing, absolutely nothing we can do about it!”
Oh, but there are people like St. Francis Xavier that do show us that this statement is not true! We can focus and dedicate ourselves to Jesus and emphasize Him.
Look at what is ahead…Holy Week. All those temptations to look over there or maybe over there; do anything but what Jesus instructs us to do. What does He say to Peter, James and John in the Garden of Gethsemane?
Stay awake and pray that you may not be put to the test. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”
I don’t have to draw you a map of “what the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” means. I know what it means and you know what it means just from personal experience. Are the instructions of Jesus to stay awake and pray to complicated for us? Don’t you know that at the end of his life St. Peter regretted a so public denunciation of Christ? Would you ever call one of your friends if they started cursing and denying that they knew you?
“I don’t know that so and so Fr. Paul!”
Jesus asked St. Peter to stay awake and pray so he went to sleep. Here we are and this may be my last Holy Week ever and who knows, I may die before Holy Week of 2007; no one knows. People die at all different times. What if St. Peter had stayed awake and prayed and then when he was put to the test he would have affirmed his love for Jesus?
“Yes, that is my friend. What are you going to do about it?”
Have you noticed where Peter is sitting when Jesus is arrested and goes into the courtyard? He is sitting with the guards. He is sitting with the enemy, the people who’d just arrested Jesus! How fickle we are and how easily we are swayed by news. Like,
My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
If a neighbor called you up and pointed that out to you, there are people who would admit that they never thought of that. Huh! Couple that with all the other trash I was talking about and you can see how people lose their focus and kind of just walk around in circles and never get anywhere.
Let us use this Holy Week as we have probably never used a Holy Week before. The church is open Monday through Wednesday from 7am until after 8pm at night. Thursday and Friday it is open until 11pm. There will be forty hours of Confession as you see on the back page of the bulletin. Unless your leg is broken you should plan on being in line with your children and grandchildren. Bring your friends as well. If everyone waits until Saturday…forget it! With forty hours of confession you will have no doubts where I am going to be!
There has to be a dedication and we have to leave everything aside that is going to draw us away. We have to focus on that which is essential. Is it different? Yea! It is a different way of looking at Holy Week. Fifty-one weeks we can do as we please and we do “do as we please!” But this week is Holy Week; together let us honor Christ. St. John of the cross says it best when he said;
Accept nothing less than God!
This week, Holy Week…accept nothing less than God. So, when extraneous things come to your attention don’t look; don’t take the bait. Accept nothing less than God. I don’t care if the sand bass are running, I don’t care if the crappie are this big, I don’t care if there is a sale here or there. Accept nothing less than God and I guarantee you, even though there are few guarantees in life, God will grace your efforts. What if God has planned for me and for you to use this Holy Week to get us past that ceiling where we seem never to be able to pass? But this Holy Week we are going to go through that ceiling and go even higher but we have to stay awake and pray.
My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me?
It should be said the other way around; we abandon God…the “yes but not.” So let us change with this Holy Week and accept nothing less than God.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen