Father Paul Weinberger, Pastor
St. William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 27, 2006
Many of Jesus’ Disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard, who can accept it?”
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
Yesterday I went over to see Mother Teresa’s sisters, the Missionaries of Charity. Yesterday was the anniversary of Blessed Mother Teresa’s birth. On the way over to the sisters I was listening to the radio and there is a guy on Saturday who has a long radio program. He knows everything about cars; about new cars and what each one of them can do. He is on channel 4. My dad used to like to watch him in the morning. He really does have an opinion on everything and is very knowledgeable. He knows everything about the car industry. No, I am not looking to buy a new car; I have a 1993, why would I want a new car?
This guy’s name is Ed Wallace and he really is a cynic and it kind of breaks his leg to give us some good news. Yesterday Ed was letting the good news out. This man is really someone in the know. Right now oil is something like seventy-four dollars a barrel. He said that experts say that very soon oil will be below fifty dollars and some even say it may drop into the single digits. Well, I just hope it is somewhere between nine dollars and fifty, that would be fine with me if I get to vote. This would be tremendous news. It appears that something artificial has been afoot; welcome to the oil age. This is a resource; without this resource our country is paralyzed, right? We can’t live without this natural resource so this is good news.
I have been hearing a lot of things like, now the kids are back in school people usually start slowing down while driving. That is something that they have only recently started. It is like trying to talk us into something in a very smooth way. People drive just as much as they ever did! For most people, if they have to drop something off to a neighbor that lives across the street, they get in the car, drive across the street and get out. [Laughter] So this is good news.
The readings today speak of two resources that are so necessary to day-to-day existence in this country. They are not natural resources but supernatural resources and they are involved in the Second Reading and the Gospel, which are connected but it is not obvious. In fact that is the problem, it is not obvious and it should be obvious. The middle of the Opening Prayer for the Mass says,
“In our desire for what You promise, make us one in mind and heart.”
The fact is, we are not one and there is not unity in the Church as there should be. We saw an example of that last Sunday. Every Sunday after the 11:30 am Mass we have potluck in the cafeteria just as we did last Sunday and today. Everyone is invited!
We have a married couple from the parish, who both have degrees from Criswell college in Dallas, which is a Baptist College. They studied their way into the Catholic Church. This couple has a little daughter and as she says, she is three.
Father held up two fingers
Anyway, they were having a birthday party last Sunday after Mass and they invited her parents to come. They are not Baptists but Pentecostal. Fine, let them come because they are welcome. They did come to Mass but instead went to the party. I saw something that I have never seen in seventeen years as a priest. These guests started breaking up into pairs or threes and going around the room essentially trying to convince the children playing checkers or the children playing chess and the adults sitting there, that because we are Catholic we are going to Hell. Well, we were just going to eat lunch, right? [Laughter] I knew they were proselytizing but it is like having company over to your house, you have to extend hospitality to them and put up with them.
I looked around the room and I knew that the people there know their Catholic faith and boy, set the fazers on stun. They were taught a thing or two by the parishioners that were here. The thing is, they started handing out little tracts against the Catholic faith. It was like an Easter egg hunt; they were hiding them all over the place so if you go to the cafeteria and you are looking around and find a tract in a pan in the closet just throw it away. The son in law to these people apologized to everyone and then he took them to task. Now that was last Sunday.
On Wednesday I went over to bury a lady in Ben Franklin, Texas. I never knew such a place existed. I told the undertaker that I would just meet them at the cemetery but he told me to come over to Commerce and they would drive me out there. I am so glad he did because I would still be driving around, circling Ben Franklin and someone else would be here right now. [Laughter] It is beautiful out there but even dropping breadcrumbs I could not have found my way home. The funeral director told me that the other man would drive me so the two of us got into this SUV and the man driving me the distance there and back was a Baptist Preacher from Delta County. Now, I know some of you are thinking you would have liked to hear the conversation in that SUV, me driving over there with a Baptist Pastor! He is a great guy! He has a wife and five kids. A couple of years ago his first child got married and now he has his first grandchild. His youngest child is two years old. They are Christians just as we are Christians and they are open to life just as we should be open to life. But, there are differences there that shouldn’t be there.
For example, we believe that marriage is a Sacrament, one of the superhighways of grace that I mentioned a few weeks ago. They value marriage but they do not see it as a Sacrament. They also do not see Holy Communion as a Sacrament. Our Lord says in John, chapter 6, something that we have been reading this Sunday and last Sunday. It is the Bread of Life discourse where Jesus says,
“I AM the Bread that came down from Heaven; unless you eat My Flesh and drink My Blood you do not have life in you.”
I would hope that there would be unity in the Church as the opening prayer says,
Make us one in mind and heart.
A condemned man, who was also God prayed at the Last Supper,
“Father may they be ONE!”
We are not ONE! Yes, the Catholic Church is the Church Christ founded but there are many splinters off the Catholic Church and that needs to be addressed. This is one of those “hard sayings”, like what our Lord is talking about in the Gospel today. The disciples who were hearing Jesus claim to be the Son of God and the Bread that came down from Heaven? Eventually it says in that Gospel,
Many of His Disciples returned to their former life and no longer accompanied Him.
They walked away from Jesus; they walked away from Him and that is not good. They were with Him and in His company, heard what He was teaching, found it hard and walked away. There are some Christians who don’t believe in marriage as a Sacrament and who don’t believe in Holy Communion as a Sacrament. For example, the Moslems believe Jesus was just one prophet among other prophets. That is not being united; there is no unity there. Jesus wants unity; He found a Church. He did not found a bunch of churches. He is the Shepherd of that One Church He founded. The Church has one Shepherd and that Shepherd is Jesus Christ, Who is the Head of the Church.
Look at that second reading and we will start at the top. I am going to read down and when I stop keep your finger where I stop; you are not going to believe this.
“Brothers and sisters be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is Head of the Church, He Himself, the Savior of the Body. As the Church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.
Put your finger right there, ok? When you go home, not here in Church, if you have access to a computer look up the web site for the Conference of Bishops for the United States, the USCCB. I know what you are thinking,
“I’d like to buy a vowel!”
If you google the USCCB, it will take you right to their web site. Along the top click on Readings and then it will give you a calendar. Click on today’s date and go to the second reading. You will see this whole reading and at the bottom of the reading you will see two letters…OR. Now, you see where your finger is? That is where this reading will start.
“Gasp! Why is that?”
Well, I think we all know. Did you notice how quickly I read through that? Kind of like some people might eat spinach, right? If they eat it in a hurry it is not going to taste all that bad. If I read through it real fast…it is a hard saying so if I just … read through it real fast… That is not why I was reading through it fast. I am going to deal with this!
First of all it used to read,
Wives should be submissive to their husbands.
They figured that word, submissive, was so nuclear, radio active, so they changed it out with “subordinate”. When I was a kid I watched Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music and I love Julie Andrews but when she came up again as Mary Poppins, my sisters went to see that. There was a big hit.
Supercalifragelisticexpealidocious.
This was a hit song bu Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins. I don’t know what that word means and I have no idea what this word means. This is a clarification? Wives, you are now subordinate! What are you, a different species? What does that word mean? Submissive was a lot easier to deal with.
The was a bishop in Ireland several years ago that said this reading and a few others should be ripped out of the Bible. You don’t hear from him anymore. After he made that comment you just never heard from him anymore. I wonder why? For two thousand years this reading was just fine and the last forty years we have to admit this has been a problem. We are going to deal with this hard saying directly connected with the hard sayings in the Gospel because the supernatural resource, which is in great supply today, is at risk. I am referring to the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. This Sacrament is the foundation, the building block of this country and that, which keeps this country together is Holy Matrimony. It has been under attack the last forty years and before in a real way.
A recent study came out, which I have started hearing rumblings about. I have also seen evidence of this in my work as a priest. When young Catholic people decide to get married today do you know the one place they aren’t going to call? The Catholic Church! They are Catholic but just aren’t going to get married in the Church. They haven’t been told that marriage is one of those super highways, a Sacrament instituted by Christ to give grace. Evidentially this is something that needs to be emphasized again and again. This is affecting young people adversely. When I see the married people in my day-to-day work as a priest I am always encouraged.
Yesterday I anointed a lady who will soon go in for an operation and her husband was right there with her. They have been married fifty-five years; the first fifty-five are the hardest. After all those years he was right there by her side to encourage her just as she was at his side every step of the way to encourage him. They are great and this puts a spring in my step because I know that they have been through good times and bad, sickness and health, and richer or poorer. They have seen the bumps in married life.
People today have unreal expectations. There is this book that I didn’t want to read so I just read the first sentence. M.Scott Peck wrote the “Road Less Traveled”. I think that is the description of the road that goes to Ben Franklin cemetery in Delta County. [Laughter] Anyway, the first sentence is all you need; I memorized it so don’t buy the book.
Life is difficult!
[Laughter]
I just couldn’t bear to read the whole book because it is too difficult so I just put it down. You know, it is very hard to live with someone and it is very hard to live alone. You’re getting this, right? Life is difficult! Either way marriage is difficult. Living alone is difficult. Life is difficult! There are people who lie to say that marriage is difficult. Oh yea! And living alone is a cakewalk! No it is not! The fact is that we have to see marriage, the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony as Christ and St. Paul see it and how it is connected to this Gospel Reading today.
I said earlier that Christ is the Shepherd of His Church. In the Office of the Readings today there is a reading from the Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spies, about the Church and the modern world. It talks about husbands, wives and their families being in the world. The fact is that just as Christ is the head of the Church, every family is a Domestic Church. Those are not just words, it is true. Every family is a Domestic Church and every family has a head just as the Church has a Head, Christ. The head of the family is the husband, ok? These words today are all of a sudden incendiary and it is ridiculous. We have to face this hard saying and I will show you why the husband is the head of the family, right. Look right here.
Father Paul takes the rather large Procession Crucifix and places it on his shoulders.
See. It just fits. On my shoulder is the Cross. This is exactly why the man, who is the head of the family is the head of the family. Just as Christ carried the Cross for His Church, every man has to carry the Cross for his family.
There is a rite enacted every week when the family comes home from the grocery store. The mother protecting the bread and eggs carries them in and then the husband gets the fifty-pound bag of dog food and all the other heavy items, right? This is because his shoulders are broad and stronger than hers. This is by God’s design. So, when St. Paul says that
Wives should be submissive to their husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is Head of the Church.
We need to get this out of the way. Pretend I have a scale here, and as you know I like to avoid scales of any kind. [Laughter] So I have a scale here and on this scale I am going to place what St. Paul says to wives about being submissive to their husbands. On this scale I am going to place what St. Paul says to husbands about loving their wives as Christ loves the Church, even to the point of shedding their blood. St. Paul doesn’t say for wives to be submissive to their husbands to the point of shedding blood, no he doesn’t say that but He does say to husbands that they are to love their wives to the point of shedding their blood for the wife. We know who has the greater responsibility.
I want to talk about submission head-on and in a sense, shake loose this error about this most supernatural resource of marriage. Here is how we are going to do it. Women who have a successful and who sit down in a waiting room or in a store next to another woman with a successful marriage, no matter where they are or what language they are speaking, and one turns to the other and asks if she has ever had to be submissive to her husband, the other will say that she has been submissive countless times. If this is done in reverse you will get the same answer. Now I am saying “successful” marriage. So many people have attacked marriage and marriages have failed. This is a lament and is a sad thing. In successful marriages where you have two women talking between themselves, they will admit that this is part of marriage.
Friday I went to see a man in rehab here in Greenville. Weeks ago he was in an accident and they took him to helicopter to Dallas and his wife followed by automobile. For weeks she was right there at his side. They decided to make some special arrangements for her. When I saw the man on Friday he had on this t-shirt and on the front of it was this big RV, big motor home. They have been married over thirty years and he was telling me that during these years they would drive everywhere in this RV. They arranged for his wife to stay in this RV in Dallas while he was in the hospital and then in rehab there. I asked the man if his wife had driven the RV to Dallas and he told me she had not. He said he had always asked his wife to learn how to drive it but she was content to just sit in the passenger seat. Now that is a smart woman.
“I can’t drive it honey.”
She has always been in the shotgun seat and she has been submissive. Some friends of theirs drove the RV to Dallas for her. She is a smart woman! Just think of how her being submissive has helped their family arrive at their destinations safely in the RV. For example, the husband is driving, he is a man and so he has no time for any map, which is a three-letter word.
“I can find it! I can even find Ben Franklin.”
Go back to the funeral director asking me just to go to Commerce and get a ride to Ben Franklin. I had a problem finding the funeral home!
Anyway, how many times has this wife been submissively sitting right beside him in that RV saying,
“Honey, would you mind stopping up here, I really need to get some water. And oh yea, this is our exit.”
Do you notice how she just slipped that in there? He was about to go right past it and have to turn around. There goes fifteen gallons of gas right there. It is one of those big “slurp” RVs just sucking that gas right up! She had just saved him a month’s pay! But look how smoothly, how submissively she saved him from missing their destination. A wife who is indeed submissive according to Christ and His teachings is exactly intent on getting her family and herself to their final destination, which is Heaven.
You have a great example right here. There is a picture of St. Augustine on the front of the bulletin.
You can view the picture at the link below
http://www.mnac.es/img/foto/colleccio/c ... _3_big.jpg
Tomorrow is the Feast of St. Augustine but today is the Feast of St. Monica, his mother. St. Monica was someone who was very submissive and who was intent on getting her family to its final destination. She started out kind of shaky. When she was a child her parents would send her down to the cellar to bring the wine up for the family meal. They told her not to drink the wine. She started tasting the wine and it got to be a habit. She was drinking two or three cups of wine and a woman in the house saw her and told St. Monica that she was a drunkard. St. Monica, hundreds of years before AA, took a first step. She admitted she had a problem.
Notice how the “other team” was attacking St. Monica because if she had been weakened at that point she probably would never have married her husband. But she did marry Patricius later on and she gave up the wine. Marrying Patricius was like marrying a bear that you had to train to ride a bike in the circus. He was a big, rough, tough pagan. She was a Catholic Christian and he was pagan. He was pretty rough with her. I don’t think he physically abused her but he huffed and puffed and growled at her a lot. Monica would ask him again and again to be Baptized and he would have none of it. She cried and prayed and cried and prayed because her three children that I am aware of were not Christian and were not Baptized. Her family was going downhill fast and so she prayed and she submitted. She was not a punching bag or a doormat. That is not what is meant by wives being submissive to their husbands. No, she put up with Patricius and offered in her prayers every bit of submission to God for his conversion. A year before his death…what do you know, he asked to be Baptized. No, she didn’t Baptize him in his sleep, he asked to be Baptized and then the other children came along and were Baptized.
St. Augustine is one of the greatest Doctors of the Church and this almost didn’t happen. He was about thirty when he was Baptized. He was smart…no, he was intelligent, handsome, wealthy, and was sought after and he had no reason to become a Christian, he thought. He was baptized by St. Ambrose of Milan and was eventually ordained a priest and then a bishop.
If you look at the picture provided for you on the bulletin, St. Paul is right there below St. Augustine’s left shoulder on that stole. On the other side is St. Peter. St. Augustine is a saint today because his mother submitted according to the Sacrament of Matrimony and she got her family to its final destination and in the end she got everything she wanted and prayed for.
It is interesting that marriage and marathon both start with the same letter and she understood submitting and that submitting was going to be a long road but in the end as in the game a girl plays, St. Monica picked up all the jacks. Everything she wanted she got; she was patient and submissive and is a saint. This is really important. The diplomat, who was St. Monica, got her husband to the Church and got through her prayers her son was Baptized. Her daughter went into the convent and I have no idea what happened to the other son but I am sure he followed suit.
Look at the bottom of that second reading please and I will make the connection here very quickly. Look at what St. Paul says as he quotes Genesis.
“For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery but I speak in reference to Christ and the Church.”
What St. Paul says there is that the intimacy that a husband and wife know, in that most intimate moment of marriage is the best symbol of how close Christ is to His Church. Now watch this.
Father walks over and touches the Tabernacle and the over and touches the Altar
I didn’t have to walk very far; I am not even out of breath. I walked over to the Tabernacle, I walked over to the Altar…at the Tabernacle Christ is inside, reserved in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. In a few moments Christ will descend to this Altar. His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity will be present…not a symbol but really present under the appearance of bread and wine. Christ is so close to His Bride, the Church. How many brides does Christ have? He has ONE and Her name is THE CHURCH, not the churches, THE CHURCH. So the Church has one Head and that is Christ.
On the back page of your bulletin is a prayer that you can find in Cardinal Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict, in his book, Spirit of the Liturgy. This is a beautiful prayer to pray any time we receive Holy Communion. Think of saying these words after receiving Our Lord in Holy Communion. I wish I had the opportunity last Sunday to ask those Pentecostals,
“Do you know what I did today? I just finished with Mass and just had an encounter with Christ. In fact, after receiving Him in Holy Communion I was able to say, “Jesus, my Living Lord, I know that you have just entered my soul, my heart…thank You. I surrender myself to You. Please raise me up and transform me. Amen”
Why would any Baptist or Pentecostal have anything to critique there? It is beautiful. They should be saying,
“Hey, I want some of that!”
I haven’t actually seen the study yet but have heard about it, where young adults in Texas who are Hispanic Catholics have a higher rate of suicide than the average population. I fear it is due to the fact that they do not know about these super highways of grace, which are the Sacraments. And by the way, the are not marrying in the Church and looking to receive the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony because they don’t understand it and they don’t understand how Christ is present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in Holy Communion. St. Paul says that this is a great mystery and he is talking about the union of husband and wife in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony; the intimate action between a husband and wife who have received the Sacrament of Matrimony; this is how close Christ is to His Church. He is even closer.
When I receive Holy Communion Christ not only enters my body, He enters my soul. There is nothing anyone will do in their life that is more intimate than receiving the Most Blessed Sacrament.
“Jesus, my Living Lord, I know that you have just entered my soul, my heart…thank You. I surrender myself to You. Please raise me up and transform me. Amen”
He just surrendered Himself to me and I turn around and surrender myself to Him; this is an exchange of persons. I didn’t receive a thing, I have received my Lord into my body and soul and that is why I can only receive Holy Communion in the state of grace. I don’t want to invite Christ into my soul if it is a mess! So, young adults who do not recognize this find life very difficult and “perhaps” turn to suicide. As I said, I haven’t seen the study.
You can see how beautifully these two readings are; the second reading and the Gospel. Yet, some find the second reading to be a hard teaching. If a man is not the head of the family than a woman is. This is obvious and any woman has only to think that when her son gets married, she would want him to be the head of his family. We can’t have it both ways. If a mother can recognize this about her son then she has to recognize that she is married to someone’s son also. Being submissive is like being a diplomat. In the end St. Monica got everything she prayed for and more, she got her family to Heaven.
Many of Jesus’ Disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard, who can accept it?”
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen