Father Paul Weinberger, Pastor
St. William Roman Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
5 / 1 / 2005 Sixth Sunday of Easter
Jesus said to His disciples, “If you love Me you will keep My Commandments.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
If you look on the front of your bulletin you will see the words, “Habemus Papam”, We Have a Pope; then there is also a picture of Pope Benedict XVI. This is something worth keeping and framing, which is code for “send your wife to Wal-Mart” to buy the frame, right? Anyway it is a very nice print and if you take a bulletin home for each person in the family, each one will have a picture of the Holy Father; what a great thing.
I want to show you something; look under the ‘H’ of Habemus and follow it down to his hand, then follow the hand down the arm to his body and you see an image. This is the image of St. Matthew. The vestment that he is wearing is a stole; I am wearing a stole but you can’t see it because it is underneath my vestment, which is called a chausable. If you look at the third window from the front there, you see the two keys and then the stole wrapped over the keys; the stole symbolizes the office of a priest or bishop.
This is not merely a picture of the new pope with his stole, but I want to point you to the figure on the stole up near his right ear; that is a figure of St. Matthew. Down below him is St. Luke and the best I can tell, on the other side at the top, is St. John and at the bottom is St. Mark. So on the top of the stole is St. Matthew and on the bottom of the same side is St. Luke. On the top of the other side is St. John and under him is St. Mark; you can barely see the lion at his feet.
It appears that the pope just went to the closet and said, “Gee, I need to wear something. I have just been elected pope and I need something to put on to go out there to say hello to the folks so I will take that one.” NO! Look closely; St. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John surround him. The four Evangelist, the four Gospel writers surround him. Notice that last Sunday he wore the pointed hat, the miter, and on the front and back were the same four Saints, the Gospel writers. This was the same miter that he wore at the Pope’s funeral and it is the same miter that he wore during the conclave. I guess he just went into the closet and said, “You got something pointy?” No, that is not what he said; he is making a statement and making it very clear. This is consistent with his teaching over the years.
If you recall, last Sunday I preached on the declaration that was published in the year 2000, on August 6th. Cardinal Ratzinger who is now Pope Benedict XVI published a document called Dominus Jesus. Dominus Jesus, The Lord Jesus, is a declaration on the one Church that Christ founded. Christ did not go around founding hundreds and hundreds of churches; He founded one Church and this is a declaration on the one Church of Christ for the salvation of all. In their terms it is Dominus Jesus, on the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church; a little more complicated but that is what it means, one Church founded by Christ for the salvation of all men.
The first paragraph in Dominus Jesus is a paragraph full of references to the Ascension. Now Thursday is Ascension Thursday; recall that forty days before Easter is Ash Wednesday and forty days after Easter is Ascension Thursday. I can already sense some people’s hands becoming sweaty and their heart rate increasing; don’t worry though, it is not a Holy Day of Obligation. The Holy Day has been waved off, ok? We will celebrate Ascension Thursday on Sunday so you don’t “gotta” go to Mass on Thursday. For those of you that do not know Fr. Paul personally, this really bothers him when Holy Days are moved to Sunday. Peace is restored to St. Williams, right? The obligation to attend Mass on Thursday, the Ascension, is dispensed and transferred to Sunday.
The document, Dominus Jesus begins with the last words of Jesus, which are so very important. It is kind of like what might be heard in your house; “Listen, I am going to be gone for a couple of hours and when I get back this house better not be a mess.” Then the wife leaves the husband at home, right? Hahahaha.. She goes to the grocery store. No, parents say this to their kids at home, “We are going to be gone for a little while and when we come back, everyone better still be alive and this house better be in good shape.” These are parting words of parents and Jesus has His parting words to His Church which are found in St. Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 28, St. Luke’s Gospel, chapter 24, St. John’s Gospel, chapter 17, Mark 16, and Acts, chapter 1. It is all over the New Testament but let us go specifically to Matthew, chapter 28.
In Matthew 28, 18-20 Jesus is speaking His last words before He ascended into Heaven. All power (full authority) in heaven and on earth has been given to Me; go therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Behold, I Am with you always until the end of the world. Full authority! All power has been given to Me, Jesus says, by His Father in Heaven; both in Heaven and on earth. It is kind of comprehensive; you can’t think of any power outside of that, there is no other legitimate power outside of that. [color=red All power (full authority) in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.[/color] This is very important; full authority. There is in Jesus Christ, full authority. It is not 80% or 89% or “try harder next time.” It is not 99.9% but it is 100%. On the one hand this seems very obvious, but relativism is on the march says Dominus Jesus.
Pope Benedict XVI in his opening remarks to the world as pope, mentioned even before the Conclave the rise of relativism and this threatens to undermine the authority of Jesus and calls into question the authority of Jesus. This is what paragraph six says in Dominus Jesus, which is very long…maybe fifteen pages. It is not long at all is it? You can get it off the Vatican web site at http://www.vatican.va ; it will repay your effort. Paragraph six states:
Not even by Christianity or by Jesus Christ Himself! This is how serious relativism is in our time. Of course we fail to recognize that there is a religion out there that is under the radar that is called “secularism”! People are devoted members of secularism. Instead of the Adoremus Hymnal, they have the New York Times. Right? That is a good example of an approach to secularism. It is a religion and if you disagree with these people, they will respond as if religious zealots. Secularism is on the rise and it is challenging the authority of Christ; but since Christ’s authority is complete, full, total, and 100%, it is a vain threat and although it is a threat and leads many astray, Christ’s authority is not threatened but people’s perceptions are.The theory of limited incomplete or imperfect character of the revelation of Jesus Christ, which would be complimentary to that found in other religions is contrary to the Church’s faith. Such a position would claim to be based on the notion that the truth about God cannot be grasped and manifested in it’s universality and completeness in any historical religion, neither by Christianity nor by Jesus Christ.
Paragraph six says it so very well. There is a theory that revelation is somehow limited, incomplete, or imperfect. The fullness if revelation of God the Father is Jesus Christ. St. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have given, along with the tradition of the Church, the portrait of our Lord. You are not going to wake up tomorrow morning and find out that there is another gospel. “Oh, wait a minute! I read something about this in the DaVinci Code!” Grow Up! Grow UP! The DaVinci Code is a lie! “But, but…it was written down.” Please, grow up! There is not a fifth Gospel on the stole of Pope Benedict XVI called the DaVinci Code. There is Matthew, Mark, Luke and John!
Look at that picture of Pope Benedict XVI. It appears that the stole is like a yoke that you put around an animal like an ox or horse to pull a plow. In a sense what Pope Benedict is saying with the stole is that he is bound by what the Church has received through the fullness of revelation in Jesus Christ; what we have through the four Gospels and the tradition of the Church. He cannot make up another Gospel next week and say, “Oh, look what I did with Plato and finger paints. I wrote another gospel.” He can’t do it because he is bound by Christ in those last words to teach what Christ teaches, Full authority has been given to Me both on earth and in the Heavens. He is giving that authority to the Church, binding the Church before He ascends into Heaven. Now, I am very glad that Pope Benedict has full authority and I am very glad that Pope John Paul II understood that he had been bound by that authority as well.
A lady called me the day Pope John Paul II died; I have known her for a long time. This lady is in her 80s. She got a call from her grandson in Florida who has a daughter living there that has a baby. The baby’s name is Lucas. Lucas was born early and they kept him in the neonatal ICU. At two days old, they took him out and the mother got to hold the baby for the first time, then they discovered that the baby was blind. The mother called her father who called his grandmother and she called me. She told me when she first got the news she thought about dropping to her knees in prayer, then she thought about running around the house. She said, “Then I thought about calling you!” That is usually the order a lot of people take in calling me. So she called me because she couldn’t think of anything better to do as she said, and we were talking about little Lucas.
I said, “You know, the Pope has just died and what a terrible thing it is to lose a Pope and a beloved Pope at that, and to hear that a new member of the family was born and born blind.” As a grandmother she wanted to reach out to her grandson and on to little Lucas and just hold them all in her arms, but living in Dallas that would be rather impossible. I told her that the Holy Father had just died and she ought to remember how much he loved little babies. In fact, the day he was shot on May 13, 1981, he had just handed a little baby back to it’s parents that he had just kissed and blessed when Mehmet Ali Acga shot him. He loved to hold and bless babies and so I told her, “Right now everyone is grieving about the Pope, why don’t you pray to him and ask his intercession?” It is kind of like buying AT&T stocks at twenty-five cents a share; who wouldn’t? She started praying to Pope John Paul II.
I reminded her of something that she had told me a long time ago. When she and her husband got married, they bought a house. He was a traveling salesman. About ten or eleven months after they were married, the first baby arrived. After a couple months while her husband was away on a trip and she was just getting her sea legs back after the first baby and settling into a new home, she thought she would walk up with the new baby to a ballpark she lived near to watch a baseball game as she was a very athletic person. At the game someone reported to her that her tests had come back and she was indeed expecting a second child. You know how it is in small towns. The lady started to immediately think things like, “Oh gee, we just got started, just got a new home, I have just had a baby who is only two months old and now I am expecting another child.” In today’s world, if you didn’t have these thoughts in your mind, it would take you ten seconds to find another person who would put them into your mind; a family member, a priest or someone would put them into your mind. “Oh, that is too bad and I am so sorry.”
The woman was trying to deal with her different feelings over that weekend when she got the news that her husband was killed in an accident while he was away on business. Her only son was only a couple months old. Her baby was born and now her son had a sister so he didn’t grow up an only child. Now there is nothing terrible about being an only child but isn’t it great he grew up with a sibling? The way that woman had mapped out her future was totally different that she planned. She never remarried but she did raise her children. I said to her, “Listen, God had a plan for you back then that you didn’t understand but it was something better than you had figured out; why not trust in God now and ask the intercession of this Pope who has just passed away? There are great graces that are available at this time and all you have to do is ask for them.”
This woman prayed and a few days later she called me back after having been praying to the Pope and she had asked her grandson and his daughter to pray also. I had encouraged her by telling her that the baby’s name was Lucas named for St. Luke, the physician who wrote one of the four Gospels. Someone also reminded me that Lucas is also named for St. Lucy who is the patron of people who have problems with their eyes. Anyway, the lady called me and told me that shortly after our conversation that the doctors conferred and then went in for an operation. With the laser they repaired the problem. You think you have a tough job? How would you like to be that doctor holding that laser over a baby’s yes? The baby is no longer blind! I told her that it is a miracle. Oh yea, through the cooperation of doctors and nurses for sure but I told her to write it up and send it to Rome. Maybe this could be the first miracle for Pope John Paul II’s canonization. It very well could be.
I told the lady that she had to have trust in God just as that trust was called into question over fifty years ago when she was a newly wed and new mother. Her faith had to be total then and it has to be total now. What we see in the miracle of the healing of this baby…isn’t it the same thing that you see in the opening of that First Reading? Look at it; the Acts of the Apostles.
How does St. Phillip cure all those people? Was it his charisma, his personality? It was the full authority that had been given to Christ and is vested in his Church. That is how St. Phillip was able to cure and that is how Lucas was cured; if only we submit our intellect and will to that faith and believe.St. Phillip went down to the city of Samaria. The unclean spirits were crying out in a loud voice. They came out of many possessed people and many paralyzed or cripple people were cured.
Every time you or I go to Confession we experience the full authority of Jesus. You can talk to people here, in India, or in Africa and they will all say the same thing. “When I go into Confession I feel very different than when I come out. When I come out of Confession it is as if a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders.” That is because a big weight has been lifted off your shoulders! Right? Everyone says it because it is true. How is that possible? Full authority, the full authority of Jesus has taken away our sins. That is why those keys are there in that stained glass window along with the stole. Jesus, on the day of His Resurrection, appeared to His church and said, The sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven; the sins you shall bind, they are held bound. How can you not see the Sacrament of Confession in that? A laser won’t repair your faith. Jesus says that the sins you shall forgive are forgiven but the sins you won’t, aren’t. The Power of the Keys! The full authority of Jesus is available to Roman Catholics who are in the state of grace, and everyday if you like, to receive Holy Communion. How is that bread and wine changed into the body and blood of Jesus? It is through His full power and His full authority.
When people bring their children to be baptized and the water is poured three times over their forehead with the words, “I baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” Original sin is taken away and the grace of the Holy Spirit enters the soul for the first time. We are so excited when this happens. There is never a Godmother or father saying, “Oh, no, no, no, only part of Christ in this child; I don’t want all of the Holy Spirit in this child, just part of it.” Never do we hear this; we glory in the full authority, all power of Christ to confer that Sacrament on that child in Baptism.
There are so many other instances where the full authority of Christ comes to our assistance. I saw someone relieved of a tremendous oppression on Divine Mercy Sunday; someone who had been struggling for a very long time and lots of people were praying and interceding. There would be progress then fallback, progress and then fallback but on Divine Mercy Sunday is what like, ‘Well, where have you been? We knew you were in there! Where have you been?” It is a miracle and there is absolutely no other term for it except that it is a miracle. How was in possible? Full authority has been given to Christ!
We ought to take Christ at His words because he says what He means. He’d just said to His disciples, If you love me you will keep my Commandments. “We don’t really know what he means.” If your children answered you like that you would pop them. If you love me you will keep my Commandments. “Gee, I just don’t know what you mean.” If you don’t know them it is either stubbornness or invincible ignorance. We have the Commandments and it is very clear that if we love Him we will keep His commandments and if we don’t love Him we won’t keep His commandments. Full authority is what Christ has and what is our response to full authority? Glad you asked. In paragraph seven of Dominus Jesus, the then Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI says this,
So, full authority demands full submission of my intellect and my will. Let me show you though how flighty we are. Vacation time is almost here and we all know what the Catholic Church teaches, right? During the summer months as well as the rest of the year, if you don’t want to go to Mass on Sunday you don’t have to, right? Isn’t that what the Church teaches? No! That is not what the Church teaches! What is the third Commandment? “Yes, honor your father and mother.” Oh wait a minute, that is close but it is the fourth one. Keep holy the Lord’s Day. “You mean I gotta go to Mass on Sunday? If you are on vacation forget it, you don’t have to go.” Notice how we have taken the Ten Commandments and we say, “How about seven out of then? Is that ok? You get to pick.”The proper response of God’s revelation is the obedience of faith by which man freely entrusts his entire self to God, offering the full submission of intellect and will to God.
We know it is impossible for anyone to completely and fully submit their intellect and will to the full authority of Christ. Oh, I am sorry, these two people behind me…and I don’t mean these two altar servers that are asleep…I am talking about St. Joseph and Our Lady…full submission of their intellect and will was given. Today is the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker; May is the month of the Blessed Virgin Mary, two examples of people that gave full submission of their intellect and will. If you threw in the thousands of martyrs and saints….well… I mean if you want to get picky, right? Right! So, Jesus says very clearly that If you love Me you will keep My Commandments.
The fullness of revelation comes to us from God the Father through His Son Jesus Christ, who has founded ONE CHURCH for the salvation of all. If you are following the calendar of the Church and Ascension Thursday is within arm’s reach we have to be thinking of this ‘full authority”. What is my response? Full authority demands only one response and the proper response says Pope Benedict XVI is the obedience of faith in which man freely entrusts his entire self to God, offering the full submission of intellect and will to God. That means we trust in God and in his plan. Like it says at the bottom of the Divine Mercy picture, “Jesus, I trust in You.” Just remember the woman whose great grandbaby had to under go that operation and fifty years or so ago she could have been thinking she just didn’t want another baby at that time. She had to trust and her trust was rewarded handsomely by God.
It is like what I said on the Feast of the Holy Family, “If a man is not in charge of your family, then a woman is.” There is no other choice. If Jesus is not in full authority over you and your family then the other team is. He will not share power like some parliament over in the United Kingdom. Jesus has been given full power and total authority and it is for us in turn to give Him the obedience of faith and to submit freely our intellect and will to Him. As Jesus has said in a shorter and more direct way,
If you love Me, you will keep My Commandments.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen