Father Paul Weinberger, Pastor
St. William Roman Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
He said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you; that everything written about Me in the law of Moses and in the Prophets and Psalms must be fulfilled." Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. Then He said to them, "Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things".
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
St. Peter addresses the crowd in the First Reading saying, the God of Abraham, the God Isaac, the God of Jacob and the God of our Fathers has glorified His servant, Jesus. Those listening would call to mind the first time God spoke to Moses, speaking to Him in just the same way.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church is divided into sections and the first section takes the Creed line by line and beautifully explains what is contained therein. The catechism explains the Creed and paragraph #203 says that,
God revealed Himself to His people by making his name known to them.
Paragraph #205 says,
God calls Moses from the midst of a bush that burns without being consumed. "I AM the God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." God is the God of the Fathers, the One who had called and guided the patriarchs in their wanderings. He is the faithful and compassionate God who remembers them and his promises; He comes to free their descendants from slavery. He is the God who, from beyond space and time, can do this and wills to do it, the God who will put his almighty power to work for this plan.
Just as Moses freed the people from the slavery of Egypt, so the very Son of God desires for us; to free us from the slavery of sin. Slavery is indeed what sin is for those who belong to Christ; we turn ourselves over to slavery and away from Christ when we sin.
The burning bush that burns and is not consumed is a great symbol of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Sacred Heart of Jesus here above the Tabernacle shows the nail marks on the hands, the wounds on the feet and side. Christ directs our attention to His Heart, which burns for love of us.
Paragraph #205 also quotes the third chapter of Exodus.
Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your Fathers has sent me to you', and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you'. . . this is My Name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations."10
Throughout the Old Testament the Jews refer to God's name as Adonai, Elohim, or Jehovah. We know that God's Name is Yahweh but the Jews would never pronounce the Name of God. Instead they would use other ways to describe the Name of God in code like St. Peter is doing at the beginning of that first reading when he says,
the God of Abraham, the God Isaac, the God of Jacob and the God of our Fathers
That is a way of referring to the Holy Name.
When God finally tells Moses,
Tell them I AM sent you,
that is the Holy Name. You can read more about that in the Catechism; it is beautiful.
We recall that over Holy Week starting with Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, and Good Friday we heard the Passion being read again and again. How beautiful it is to hear the Passion read all the way through at one time.
In the Gospel of St. John, chapter 18, after Christ has awakened His fellow pray-ers, the Apostles, He is about to be arrested. A strong contingent of soldiers carrying torches has been led out to arrest Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. In verse 4 of chapter 18, St. John says,
Jesus, knowing everything that was going to happen to Him went out and said the them, "Whom are you looking for?" They answered Him, "Jesus, the Nazarene." He said to them, "I AM." When He said this to them they turned away and fell to the ground.
So much that is here shows that Jesus knew everything that was going to happen to Him; He knew what was ahead, just as it states at the end of today's Gospel. He knew what was coming when He said in His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane;
Father, if it be Your Will, let this cup pass me by, but not MY will but Yours be done.
Why is this necessary? Because there are so many "scholars" that declare today that Jesus was close lined or ambushed; He didn't see what was coming. They ask how He could possibly know. St. John was very close to Christ and he was a witness to everything. If you read St. John's Gospel, there is someone there that is always being referred to as the "Apostle whom Jesus loved". St. John is actually referring to himself and instead of saying,
"I, John did this and that,"
he refers to himself with this literary device. Some are jealous of St. John because he is the one who reclined his head on the Most Sacred of Jesus. There is nothing for anyone to be jealous about because what St. John did there happens with us every time we worthily receive Our Lord in Holy Communion. He actually reclines near our hearts. So just centimeters away from our own hearts is the Sacred Heart of Jesus. St. John is a very valid witness and someone who knew the very Heart of Jesus and so when he tells us that Jesus knew what He was doing we take his word for it. He was a good and reliable witness.
When the name of God, I AM, is coming from the lips of Jesus, they are so powerful that the soldiers together as a cohort turned away and fell to the ground. Obviously Jesus could have really let them have it but in my opinion there appears to be restraint on his part. It does show us that if Jesus had desired to, He could have mowed them all down and escaped but that was not the reason for his coming into the world. He came to suffer and to die as we hear in the prayer,
For us men and our salvation.
This is why He came down from Heaven and it is very beautiful. St. John shows us the power of the Divine Name. Remember how God told Moses to remove his sandals from the place he was standing because it was Holy ground? Today, the name that God gave to Moses, I AM, is revealed to us in Jesus Christ and that power is to be unleashed through us for the forgiveness of sins and the conversion of sinners as it says in the last line of the Gospel today.
I remember in 1977 when I finished high school and learned everything there was to learn, I entered the workforce. God's gift tot he Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex. [Laughter] My part time job became a full time job. I was working in a grocery store and then they built a "Superstore" So I was part of the super store and I am reminded what someone asked once of Blessed Pope John XXIII. Some stopped him once and said,
"Roughly, how many people work at the Vatican?"
Very quickly the pope said,
"Oh, about half."
[Laughter]
When I was working at the super store I saw that we were not all of one mind. There were certain people who were more equal than others. There was one guy who was supposed to be stocking the shelves one night and he came in after being at a party and clocked in. I couldn't find him and asked where he was because he was supposed to be helping me. Well, he'd found a nice comfortable place in the back room on a pallet of paper sacks and was taking a nap. You know, when you go to work you always like to get that hour or two nap in first before you dig in. I ran across two or three others like that at work so I thought one day, and to my shame, that they shouldn't be the only ones that got the chance to nap and I decided to try it.
Every chance I got and could leave my station I would disappear. Children do this all the time; they disappear from their stations when they do not want to be asked to do something. All you have to do though is ask in a loud voice if this is the child's twenty dollars and all of a sudden they appear, right? It always worked with my father. Anyway, one night I disappeared from my station every chance I got. I was going to avoid work that day. At the end of the day when I clocked out I was so tired. It was more work to avoid work than it actually is to do the work.
On Monday of Holy Week I'd made lunch in the rectory and after I ate I got up and cleaned the dishes. It went so quickly. I'd made a complete meal, cleaned the dishes and it took no time. I remembered as a kid I use to whine about having to do the dishes but now it was nothing to do them. I also thought back on how avoiding work was my goal when I was whining about having to clean up the dishes. I didn't complain about eating the food but I was going to complain about cleaning the dishes after. Of course, who doesn't like to dine on clean dishes. You never hear anyone asking to dine on dirty dishes because they hate washing them. That is not going to happen.
Tomorrow is the feast of St. Joseph the Worker. That statue over there is St. Joseph. On the one hand he has Jesus, who is asleep on the saint's shoulder and is very content. In the other arm he has a lily. As you can see St. Joseph is surrounded by Easter lilies and it is very fitting for his Feast day because the lily is a symbol for purity. Now, any time in the future you are tempted against purity, think of that statue, which depicts St. Joseph. In him we have kind of a saintly see-saw. He has Jesus on one side and purity on the other. You can't have one without the other; you can't have Jesus if you are impure. Being pure bids Jesus to come close to us. St. Joseph the Worker, who was pure and masculine, nothing feminine about him, lived a difficult life and he didn't complain or whine and was always pure in the service of Our Lady and the baby Jesus. So May 1st is the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker and how fitting that St. Joseph would open the door to Our Lady's month as a gentleman should open the door for a lady. Our Lady's month is the month of May and St. Joseph prepares the way for her. The entire month of May is dedicated to Our Lady and the beauty of the month is very fitting for that end.
Yesterday during CCD I was asking the kids what date there was that was very important and was coming up very soon. Of course husbands are always familiar with this kind of question, right? The children had no clue. Then I reminded them that Mother's Day was coming up in two weeks. That sparked their memory. How easy it is to forget Mother's Day; someone who is so familiar but is easily taken for granted. It is the same with the Blessed Mother. Many acknowledge in passing that she is Jesus' mother and the Queen of Heaven but she is so easily taken for granted as well.
May gives us the perfect opportunity to get to work, following the lead of St. Joseph and Our Lady. On May 5, 1917, Pope Benedict XV wrote a letter. I have exerts of the letter right here. Of course 1917 is so far back; almost a hundred years. Someone so obscure as Pope Benedict XV, well I mean, who in the world would consider him as having any influence today? Well, about a year ago Pope Benedict XVI said that his choice of the name Benedict was due in part to his love for Pope Benedict XV. Of course he loved St. Benedict the founder of monasticism as well as St. Martin of Tours. He was quoted when he spoke about his love for Pope Benedict XV, the man who sought peace during W.W.I, where all of the European nations were feeding their youth into the wood chipper and committing suicide on the war fields of Europe. Europe is still committing suicide to this day because they are not having children and of course abortion is way up. Our country in many ways bears the same difficulties and if it were not for our neighbor to the south we would really notice.
Getting back to Pope Benedict; on May 5, 1917 he wrote this;
Our earnestly pleading voice invoking the end of this vast conflict, the suicide of civilized Europe, was then and has remained ever since unheard. So no one is listening to His voice. Indeed it seemed that the dark tide of hatred grew higher and wider among the warring nations and drew other countries into it's frightful sweep, multiplying ruin and massacre.
This is what happens with war; it just keeps growing and consumes more and more in it's path.
Nevertheless our confidence was not lessened since all graces, which the author of all good deigns to grant to the poor children of Adam, by a loving design of His Divine Providence, are dispensed through the hands of the Most Holy Virgin; we wish that the petition of her most afflicted children more than ever, in this terrible hour, may turn with lively confidence to the august Mother of God.
Well you know the popes; they are always recommending praying to Mary. You know, pray to Mary, help us. Amen. It never works, right? WRONG! It always works; that is the whole point of this letter by the pope. He is the one who had inserted in the Litany of Loretto, which is our Lady's Litany, "Queen of Peace, pray for us." Another paragraph in his letter which will be sufficient says,
To Mary then, who is the Mother of Mercy and omnipotent by grace...
Notice the distinction between Our Lady and Jesus; He is omnipotent from the beginning and she is omnipotent by God's gift. That is what grace is, God's gift. You may ask how she can be omnipotent by God's grace. I think it is because God gave her the omnipotence, ok?
To Mary then, who is the Mother of Mercy and omnipotent by grace, let loving and devout appeal go up from every corner of the earth; from nobel temples and tiniest chapels, from royal palaces and mansions of the rich as from the poorest hut; from blood drenched plains and seas, let it bear to her the anguished cry of mothers and wives, the wailing of innocent little ones, the size of every generous heart that her most tender and benign solicitude may be moved and the peace we ask for be obtained for our agitated world.
So the pope writes a letter asking people to pray especially invoking our Lady's help and nothing happened, nothing happened. I mean, we had to wait eight days for something to happen; we had to wait eight days before we got a response from all of those prayers going up from the four corners of the world. Eight days later Our Lady herself appeared to three children in Fatima, May 13, 1917. The appearance there at Fatima in Portugal was prepared by a visit to these three children from an angel, who identified himself as the "Angel of Peace.'" He was preparing the way for the Queen of Peace.
We have all faced in life where we are striving for something and other people are there and just with the effortless twist of the hand they could help us on our way but, they won't even lift a finger to help us. Those times make us so inscensed but here we are in the greatest country on earth; we have our liberty, we weren't hit by that storm. The guy in Gainsville better be very happy that I can't get over there; this man that was quoted on the news saying how "lucky" they were. Lucky? He was very blessed!He is fortunate that I am not there to take the rest of his hair off his head. [Laughter] Gainsville was nearly destroyed and Canton was hurt, but here we are in Greenville unscathed.
We are so blessed to have our liberty, the right to worship God and to have our families. Everything is not perfect and there are glitches here and there and we certainly have our own. Are we going to lift a finger? We have to get to work and begin to pray for the relief of the nations who are at war.
For example, right now it is possible that we could be involved in a nuclear war with Iran. Let us pretend that by morning the issue with Iran would all be resolved. But, Iraq is still there! Well...let us pretend that any issues with Iraq along with Iran is resolved in the morning when we awake. There is still Pakistan! Let us pretend that by tomorrow morning the issues with Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan have all been resolved. There is still North Korea but we can pretend that even issues with them have been resolved by tomorrow. Well, there is still that 1.2 billion people in Communist China. Get the idea?
We have so much compared to those people and people in other places, who would love to have a small part of what we take for granted. So our prayers going up to the Mother of God during HER month, the month of May, a month in which we could easily forget her...we need to get to work! We have to recognize that we need to combine our prayers with the Sacraments, especially the Most Blessed Sacrament. Jesus tells us in that beautiful hymn that began the Mass and in this Gospel to touch Him and see that He is not a ghost! He says to look at His hands and feet. It is the risen Christ that is received in all the Sacraments, especially the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.
What if you were able to meet the pope? I was able to meet him on 1987 in San Antonio, but only after they scrubbed the city clean in preparation for his visit. The pope was so happy to meet me; I could tell in his eye.....[Laughter]...he was so happy. He kind of hid it from other people but I knew. Suppose he was coming to visit you at your home? It would be such an honor that he would visit only your home and no others. But, let us say that you didn't know when he was going to arrive and you'd had a party the previous night that lasted till two or three in the morning and your house smells like the inside of a beer bottle and an ashtray and then about 9 am in the morning you hear a knock at the door. It is not the maid coming to clean. You look quietly out of the peephole and pretend there is no one inside but "us chickens". The pope is standing there waiting and waiting and of course you are going to let him pass by and not allow him to step foot in that house, even if your husband says differently you are not letting him in. You hope you can invite him back later.
This is a good analogy for the Divine Guest, Who comes to us in Holy Communion. Again, we never receive Holy Communion without being in the State of Grace. If the pope would feel uncomfortable and out of place in your home that smelled like an ashtray, think of the Divine Guest, Jesus Christ, who is infinitely more important than any pope, how uncomfortable and out of place He is in a soul that is not prepared to receive Him, one which contains mortal sin. Confession, the forgiveness of sins as it says in the Gospel is necessary first to prepare the way for Him, for His life giving, glorified and risen body. Think about how blessed we are that His Sacred Heart can be taken into our bodies and then when we go and speak of His Name, spiritually armed, we have the strength of the very Son of God.
We have seen examples of this strength as I pointed out, while He was in the Garden of Gethsemane and said two words, "I AM." They turned away and fell to the ground. What God wants of us is not to use the Divine Presence in our souls to do ill but He wants us to spread the good news that He is the fulfillment of everything in the Old Testament from Moses, the prophets and the Psalms and how they had to be fulfilled and that He is the Risen Christ. Yes, He suffered and died and on the third day He rose from he dead so that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things.
When we look at the Sanctuary so configured, especially these men and women, boys and girls, the saints looking at us, we see the "flowers" of the Church. Yes, they are in Heaven but if you do not want to be a saint you will never go to Heaven because anyone who is in Heaven, apart from God and the angels, are saints. These saints show us what can be done when we cooperate with the Divine Presence in our lives and live according to His Commandments. We must live lives that are pure and Christ-filled and this can convert the world as Pope Benedict XV stated in his letter of May 5, 1917.
St. John says the way that we can be sure that we know him is to keep His Commandments.
Those who say, "I know Him", but do not keep His Commandments are liars and the truth is not in them. But whoever keeps His Word, the love of God is truly perfected in him.
When we meditate as we should, on not merely the power of the Name of God, God Himself is brought into our very bodies and souls through the Sacraments, especially Matrimony, Baptism, Confession, Holy Communion and Confirmation to strengthen us to do exactly what the pope was begging us to do in 1917 and what Christ Himself expects, which is to preach His Name to all the nations and to preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen