Father Paul Weinberger, Pastor
St. William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
August 13, 2006
19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
“Amen, Amen I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I AM the Bread of Life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert but they died. This is the Bread that comes down from Heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I AM the Living Bread that came down from Heaven; whoever eats This Bread will live forever and the Bread that I will give is My Flesh for the life of the world.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
Many people are familiar with St. Martin of Tours, which is in France. St. Martin is a saint of the early Church. My father grew up attending St. Martin of Tour’s Church near West. Texas, which is on the road to Waco.
My father moved to Dallas shortly after he was born. He’d only spent the first couple years of his life in West. My grandfather moved to Dallas looking for work. From time to time they went back to West for visits. My father used to tell the story…God rest his soul…that during one of the visits there they were celebrating Christmas on the family farm. He got some oranges, pecans and a Santa Claus candle. He talked about crying like a baby on the road home from that Christmas celebration. He was indeed a baby but was crying because, on the way home on that treacherous road in a Model A, in a sleeting ice storm, Santa Claus had to be sacrificed so the windshield would stay defrosted. They burned Santa. But they still had Christmas the next year.
I think of that experience every time I head down the highway to Austin. There is a curve in the road and off to the left is a sign that says, “Old Tours Road”. That is the old road one takes to get to Tours and it looks like a broad sidewalk. This is the road that was used to travel to Dallas and back. Now they have a highway of course that goes both directions. Who in their right mind would choose to go down that narrow road when there is such a wide highway now? They are making plans to enlarge the newer highway, and if the plans go through, this would be a super highway. They say it will be four football fields wide. They will have a bullet train that doesn’t have to stop at every crossing.
There will be several highways in one. One highway is going to be used only for 18-wheelers. They are really emphasizing safety and to that end, one highway they are going to designate for women drivers. [Laughter] I think most women would say they would prefer to be driving with other women than to have men on the road. That is understandable.
Father is joking about women drivers of course.
If this highway comes to fruition, it will stretch from the Mexican border all the way to Canada. Maybe someone lives up there; we will find out. Can you imagine a superhighway that is four football fields wide? I remember when they built LBJ Freeway in Dallas; there were all those lanes and the people in the first cars to use it were thinking what a waste of money this was. At that time all the lanes looked vacant. LBJ is largely vacant, between the hours of 2 and 3 am. [Laughter] Right? It is a bottleneck. So, with this image of highways in mind, one would be crazy to choose a narrow road like the old Tours Road, over the safety of a large highway. You have a better chance getting where you are going on a wide and generously accommodating road.
Highways lead into a discussion about what Our Lord is talking about here. When we hear that the Jews murmured about Jesus when Jesus said He was the Bread that came down from Heaven, they said,
Is this not Jesus, the Son of Joseph? Do we not know His father and mother?
What they did to Jesus with that question in today's Gospel -
Isn't he the son of Joseph? Don't we now his father and mother? How can he say that "he has come down from Heaven?
is try to strip Him of His Divinity, regardless of the countless miracles, to which they paid no attention. They also failed to consider the writings of the Old Testament Prophets - the writings that prepare the world for the coming of Christ, who fits the bill perfectly.
Forget all of that and instead of dealing with His miracles from the Old Testament, the Jewish Scriptures, just go ahead and say He is true man - that's it...end of story! As Catholics we believe Christ is BOTH True God and True Man; we say this in the Creed.
Today, when we look back two thousand years at these Jews and we click our tongues at them -"tsk, tsk, tsk…" - we have to realize that the same thing is going on today with Catholics, perhaps unwittingly.
Several examples will help to identify the same pattern of behavior in today's Catholics. Most people have had the experience in a car of being warned at the last moment of an impending crash...just in time. If you have ever been riding with someone and you were distracted and the passenger tells you to “Look out!”, you hit the brake stopping just in time, you thank the passenger because you were not aware of the danger ahead. The same might be true for many people sitting here today, in this Church. To one degree or another I think it is true, that in different parts of life we have no doubt considered denying the Divinity of Christ. To get a "jolt" from today's Gospel and today's first reading, well it’s a good thing indeed!
Highways…there are many highways of grace. I have provided in your bulletin the text of the prayers we will hear soon. For the prayers over the gifts you can see the official Latin text, the ICEL 1973 translation and then the literal translation. Look at the ICEL translation.
God of power, giver of the gifts we bring, accept the offering of your Church and make it (the Church) the sacrament of our salvation. We ask this through Christ our Lord.
After Vatican Council II the Church is called “ur sacramentum”, primordial, the most basic sacrament. There are those who talk about Church as if it were an eighth Sacrament because without the Church we have no access to the Sacraments. The Church did not fall down out of the sky but was founded by Christ. She is Divine in Her founder but human in Her members, but then again, we are all here tonight as a bunch of hypocrites. Right? You are a hypocrite and I am a hypocrite, so say those who do not believe that it is possible for God to use the Church to funnel His grace to mere humans. Well, that sounds too good to be true, and you know why it sounds too good to be true? Because it is too good to be true for mere humans but not for God. It is beyond nature, which is supernatural.
“Well, they are all just a bunch of hypocrites in that Church!”
I would agree with those who say this if we didn’t start Mass with,
I confess to Almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault.
This is an admission right up front. We are all here together, all of us sinners. Oh, I am sorry, “us hypocrites”. Some people think that it is too much for God to be able to form a Church and they immediately deny this highway of grace known as the Church.
Let's move on the seven highways of grace that He gives the Church and what we know as the Seven Sacraments. The Seven Sacraments are so berated and not believed in and this is an everyday occurrence. For example, how many times has someone looked at Confession with different eyes than that of the Church? Many Catholics have asked why they need to confess their sins to a priest because he is “just” a man. Well, lucky them. They hit the daily double and just depreciated, insulted and rejected two Sacraments, the Sacrament of Confession and that of Holy Orders. The Sacrament, which was conferred on me the day I was ordained a priest placed a great responsibility on my shoulders. I didn’t confer the Sacrament on myself. The Sacrament of Confession is berated and those who berate Confession are in contradiction to those very first words that Jesus said to His friends on the evening of Easter Sunday 2000 years ago.
Peace be with you. The sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven. The sins you hold bound, they are held bound.
Catholics have gotten into the habit of lately of staying away from Confession because they like it that way. What they are doing unknowingly or unwittingly is saying,
“Isn’t He just the uhhh, the son of Joseph? Don’t we know His mom and dad? How can He say he has come down from Heaven?”
That is what the Gospel says and we are going to hear that as a refrain today, which should challenge us away from excising the Sacraments and cutting away from the Church, which Christ founded. He instituted the Sacraments. What is the traditional, all-purpose definition of a Sacrament?
A SACRAMENT IS AN OUTWARD SIGN INSTITUTED BY CHRIST TO GIVE GRACE.
That is a very basic definition but we could make it even more basic by saying the Sacraments are seven highways of grace that Christ instituted to pour His Divine Life into our souls, the souls of His friends, who have been made His friends through the SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM.
Let's talk about the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony? The only Person who can take two individuals, a MAN AND A WOMAN and make them ONE is God. The judge can’t do it only God can and He has instituted this Sacrament whereby a man and a woman are joined and this is called Holy Matrimony. When people decide not to begin their married life in this manner and instead go to the beach, the back yard, jump out of a plane, go to the bottom on the ocean or go to the moon, which is probably next on the list, these are all ways of not coming to the Church.
As Catholics we should be aware of some new statistics about this because Catholic periodicals are mention how Catholic people are not getting married in Catholic Churches or with Her permission. That should give us all pause because what is filtering down to the minds of young people is that Holy Matrimony is not a Sacrament. Another way of saying this is,
“Well isn’t He the Son of Joseph, don’t we know His father and mother?” How can He say He has come down from heaven?
Taking Christ’s Divinity away and reducing Him to a mere man means we can just dismiss Him.
“OK, goodbye! Next!”
This is what is being said about Holy Matrimony. You see, when God takes two weak individuals, a man and a woman, and joins them in Holy Matrimony, He makes one person out of them. How many times have I heard from people in all different languages say,
“You know, the two of us together make one person.”
You know who came up with that idea? God! What God has joined, man must not tear asunder and cannot tear asunder; he can tear at it but it won’t be a clean break, it will be a jagged edge. It is a SACRAMENT and something that God has designed to give His grace, like a highway of grace. Between the spouses there is a highway of grace going back and forth from him to her. His job is to get her to Heaven and her job is to get him to Heaven and their job together is to get their children to Heaven. There is a highway of grace that extends from the parents to the children. God’s design of Holy Matrimony is that His grace will be so generously applied that it will seep down into every crack and crevice.
This is how God desires it to be but sometimes we choose a drinking straw over a super highway of grace.
“No, instead of a super highway, do you have a drinking straw that I can receive the grace through?”
That means we are on life support! Gee, and we wonder why our lives are so difficult! Can you imagine getting your oxygen through a drinking straw? After a while you would turn blue! You wouldn’t have enough oxygen and you sure can’t get enough grace without the Sacraments and Christ Himself says this through His Church. Again and again Christ tells us that without Him we can do nothing!
Lets move on. How about using or abusing this!
Father Paul sticks his tongue out.
I am not sticking out my tongue at you - merely showing it. This - my tongue - can be an instrument of grace if used correctly. In prayer, I can use God's name. I can use my speech to direct others, to teach, to warn, to support. But think of how the tongue is used so often in movies, in television, in common speech, in cursing. We can say “God”…. and then BLANK! Well, you shouldn’t say “God” and “blank”!
You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain.
“But Father, when I said “God” and the “blank”, I wasn’t saying anything spiritual.”
Ok, so let's all pretend that we could actually say the name “God” and not think anything spiritual. We are stripping the Divinity from the word “God”. Are we supposed to just kind of grunt or groan when we meet God or paw the ground? “God” is the “Word” and that is how He reveals Himself to us. That is the name He would like us to use!
“Well Father, you are making this all spiritual. I said “God” and the “blank”
You are the one who said “God” and then “blank” and you are the one who brought Him into this and I would like you to just leave Him out of it!
“Well, it is none of your God “blank” business father Paul!”
Oh I see, I see that we even strip the Divinity out of the word “God”.
It is interesting how many times Catholics, all of us, can look in the rearview mirror of our lives and make and examination of conscience and see things back there that we are sad or embarrassed about; we regret things. There are many Catholics that have come around to see the wisdom of Christ and His Church in coming to Mass on Sunday. The greatest prayer that any parent can offer for their children living and deceased is Holy Mass on Sunday, which is the day of the Lord’s Resurrection, and if possible, Holy Communion. You can stack up all the Rosaries you want and then put those up against one Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on Sunday and it doesn’t even come close; a million perfect Rosaries reaching up to Heaven does not even come close to one Sunday Mass and Holy Communion.
Very often Catholic exempt themselves from Mass. I am not referring to the times when you can’t make it to Mass due to a sick child at home. You can’t leave that sick baby at home with your husband. Some men would ask,
“What end do I change, honey?”
If a mother has to stay at home with a sick child, send the husband to Mass. It will probably do him good and he can offer his Holy Communion for you and the baby and you will get some peace and quiet while he is gone, right? Wives are always thinking of reasons to send the husband out just to get some peace of mind for a while. We know how you work. [Laughter]
How about this excuse?
“Well, I am going on vacation so I am not going to Church.”
There are only so many Sundays left in my life and not one more. That is a supreme regret because parents want to store away blessings for their children and grandchildren for years to come. You know how each one of your children are going to be.
“That one there, I know what he is going to do with that income tax check. It will burn a hole in his pocket!”
You know your children; they are yours! In not coming to Mass on Sunday you are missing an opportunity for them and for yourself. And those people who stay away from Holy Communion for one reason or another…
“Well, I know I should go to Communion but I have to go to Confession first.”
Then go to Confession! And then you hear them go back to this statement,
“Well, why confess my sins to a priest; he is just a man, right?”
The First Reading today is very interesting. Elijah says that when you and I have said from time to time,
"Ok Lord, this is enough, take me. I am tired; take me.”
“Take my life for I am no better than my fathers.” He lay down and fell asleep under the broom tree and then the angel touched him and ordered him to get up and eat. Elijah looked and there at his head was a hard cake and a jug of water. After he ate and drank he lay down again.
Well, Elijah was a man; that is what men do after they eat and drink, right?
The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and ordered him, “Get up and eat else the journey will be too long for you.” He got up, ate and drank; then strengthened by that food he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.
Elijah was strengthened by this food. Our Lord gives us His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in Holy Communion in order to do the impossible. Look at the Second Reading; St. Paul says,
“Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you. All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice.”
Wouldn’t you like to just shoot him, right? Yes, I said that! Oh come on, be compassionate, kind, be imitators of Christ? I can’t do that! You are right! I can’t do it and you can’t do it. We can’t do it on our own; it is too much for us! We tell God to go ahead and take us but He says “NO” because He has made us for a reason. He offers His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity as food for the journey!
“Well, isn’t He the son of Joseph? Don’t we know His father and mother? How can He say He has come down from Heaven?”
We reject Him so often and we grow weaker and our spiritual life support slips away. It sounds too good to be true because it is too good to be true! But it is true! A Sacrament is instituted by Christ to give grace.
I have to mention to my shame that I am forty-seven, but that is not what I am ashamed about because you have to be something. I am forty-seven and I have to say that in my forty-seven years I have run from prayer more than I have run toward prayer. I say this to my shame! Prayer is conversation with God but we run from it. There is a very simple test that you can apply at home; here it is. Maybe your wife is always complaining and rightly so, that she can’t get through the garage because it is such a mess. She thinks maybe a couple of the children are there and she just can’t find them because they are surrounded by stuff in the garage. She asks you to clean the garage and you have excuse after excuse not to. Weeks go by and you still haven’t cleaned the garage.
Now wives, this will be very helpful to you if you want that garage cleaned. Just tell your husband that today is Sunday, the Lord’s Day, and the family is ready to pray the Rosary. Hand your husband one and tell him that you are all going to spend an hour in the living room praying. Or tell him that instead he can clean the garage. You know what he is going to say as he is rolling up his sleeves?
“Well, someone has got to clean that garage!”
Right? We’d rather clean out that “everything” drawer or sifting kitty litter rather than pray! What is prayer if not conversation with God? But you know, that is just the son of Joseph, right? We know his father and mother. Look at the way you and I avoid prayer. I've done it, done it and do it all the time! This is an insult to Our Lord and a great loss to you and me.
“Why am I always so weak and why do I always whine like this?”
All of us are asking that too to each other.
“I never pray and I never receive the Sacraments and I can’t understand why I am so weak.”
There it is! But if you want to see proof positive in a very personal way, there is something horrible inside this bulletin. We should be hearing the “Jaws” theme about now. I mean this is terrible to look at and I don’t know if children should look at it but turn to page five and six. There it is! Awe, gee! A HOLY DAY OF OBLIGATION!” Oh argh, no! Well we all know that ALL Catholics are at Mass on a Holy day of Obligation, right? That is the law of the Church and God wants to give us the grace of a Sunday right smack dab in the middle of the week! Like little soldiers we are always at…..no, we are not! There has been a great slide in attendance for Holy Days of Obligation but it is not all your fault.
For example, if I posted only one mass for August 15th would I get a call from headquarters saying,
“Vee undershtand you have only von Mass fir der Holy Day.”
I don’t know why I am talking like that but it woke a few people up. If I had just two Masses I wouldn’t get a phone call. There are parishes that list 5 to 7,000 parishioners in their directory and how many Masses are offered for a Holy Day? One? Two? What are they going to do, cram them all in there? Catholic won’t go! They can see going to the Mall during these tax-free times because there is a value there. But in the minds of many there is no value of going to a Mass on a Holy Day. They have taken the Divinity of Christ out.
On the front of the bulletin is another highway, which many people reject. That picture of the Assumption of Our Lady is a highway stretching from earth all the way to Heaven.
Picture of the Assumption
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y156/g ... 393c0b.jpg
Look at those angels at the bottom; see that one angel with that elbow. I don’t know if he is pulling his elbow away or if he is about to elbow that other angel in the face. [Laughter] He has an olive branch for our Lady and the palm. Our Lady wasn’t a Red Martyr but in a sense she is a White Martyr. A red Martyr is one who sheds their blood from Christ and a White Martyr is one whose intense suffering makes them a martyr. Our Lady definitely qualifies as a White Martyr.
The angel about to get the elbow in the face has roses and a lily, which are symbols of our Lady’s beauty, the beauty of her soul and that of her purity. How many people, years after watching a pitcher pitch a no-hitter after nine innings. They talk about it forever. Well, here is Our Lady, one who made it all through life without an error, without a sin. She made it all the way through her life without sin. She is the highest honor of our race; that is the human race! She is our mother and how many people ask,
“Well, isn’t she the daughter of Joachim and Anne? How can she be the mother of God?
This is just a different refrain on what we hear in the Gospel today. It sounds too good to be true because it is too good to be true for us but not for God. The way that these people, two thousand years ago, subtracted the Divinity from the Eternal Word…tsk, tsk, tsk. His humanity and Divinity are eternally united. I can’t separate it. I can talk about His humanity and Divinity but that is only a mental construct, a verbal use. Listen to this from the Morning Prayers today. It is from the Prophet Ezekiel in the Old Testament. This is God speaking! Oh but I don’t want you to think it is anything spiritual.
Thus says the Lord, God, “O My people I will open your graves and have you rise from them and bring you back to the land of Israel and you shall know that I Am the Lord when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O My people
People saw the miracles of Christ, the raising of the dead. Was that not enough for them?
“You know, that was pretty good, can you do something really miraculous?”
If we do not admit now that Christ is True God and True man and then try to do it for the first time when He is opening our coffins then we will have no one to complain too. The last twenty-four hours of our lives, we won’t be able to set up an interview with Oprah and complain that our parents were imperfect creatures and didn’t tell us that Jesus is True God and True man. The way God has configured it is very similar to the way blood circulates through the brain. If you get a brain injury, like many of you probably think I have had recently; you can usually recover from it because the body is created so that blood can get there in a different way. There is redundancy planned into our brains and to other parts of our bodies. You can see this with your computer. If you are typing along and the power goes off but you have a battery backup, that is redundancy. It backs you up.
God has conspired to get you and me to Heaven. But if we say,
“He is just the son of Joseph, we know his mother and father; how can He come down from Heaven…..”
If we refuse His Sacraments and His many ways of communicating with us through prayer, even after we have used His name in vain, we have no one else to blame. God has conspired to get us to Heaven and parents know a little bit about how God has to slave away. Isn’t it amazing that parents can have five kids and all them be so very different? The parents know when a certain one calls, he will have spent his IRS check and he will be asking you for money, right?
Parents are going to have to slave away to get this one to Heaven or that one to Heaven. In the process parents get a taste of where God is and what He goes through.
“Amen, Amen I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I AM the Bread of Life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert but they died. This is the Bread that comes down from Heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I AM the Living Bread that came down from Heaven; whoever eats This Bread will live forever and the Bread that I will give is My Flesh for the life of the world.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen