Homily by:
Father Paul Weinberger, Pastor
St. William Roman Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
7 / 3 / 2005 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
”Come to Me all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest. Take My Yoke upon you and learn from Me for I Am meek and humble of heart and you will find rest for yourselves; for My Yoke is easy and My Burden light.”
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
My dad’s only sister, my Aunt Jo, lives in Quinlan and attends Our Lady of Fatima. Every year Aunt Jo writes up calendars and passes them out. It is a very dear gesture; she writes down birthdays and the days family members died, as well as wedding dates and ordination dates so we can recall the most important dates. I looked on the last day of June on Aunt Jo’s calendar and there was written, “Father Paul left for France in 1997.” She is even writing down my vacations. [Laughter] Someone is always watching!
I went to France in 1997 and I spent several days in Lourdes in the South of France. Lourdes is like Greenville; no one ever goes to Lourdes unless they are aiming for it. You don’t just show up in Lourdes without purposefully wanting to go there. Once you are there you are glad to be there. No insult to Lourdes or to Greenville. The thing about Lourdes is that it is totally dedicated to the honor of Our Lady, the mother of God. So many miraculous cures have come about through the waters of Lourdes. That is not in honor of Our Lady but in honor of Our Lady’s intercession before her Son. Any cure or miracle is through Christ.
After I was in Lourdes I thought I would make a five-day retreat there. As a priest I have to make a retreat every year so I thought that while I was in France I would just include a retreat during my vacation. I was there with fifty thousand of my closest friends on retreat; it is very crowded.. There are the large processions with all of the physically and mentally ill along with the disabled on what looks like a great racetrack but it is made for the people in wheel chairs and wheel beds. Everyone gets to take part in the procession and those who are ill go to the front and lead the procession; it is beautiful.
About 8pm they close up and I found this out the hard way. I arrived there just as they were getting ready to close the gates. The next day I found out that they close the place down at night but St. Bernadette’s Path, the path that she took to get to the Grotto is open, so you can go there at all hours of the night and people are there praying and the candles are burning. It is tremendous and it is a place that just pulls you into prayer; Our Lady’s presence just pulls you to her Son, Jesus Christ. From that point on I decided that every year when I make a retreat that I would go back to Lourdes. In 1998, Msgr. Botik died; he was the retired priest that was with me at Blessed Sacrament. Because of his death I didn’t go to Lourdes in 1998.
Fall was upon me and I remembered that I had not made my retreat so I decided to go up to Boston. I’d made a retreat outside Boston at a Monastery called St. Benedict’s Monastery, about ten years before. I didn’t call ahead and ask them if I could come because I couldn’t go to Lourdes. I didn’t tell anyone, I just thought I would call and make plans to go to St. Benedict’s and that is what I did.
I flew up to Boston, took a cab too the train and took the train to the small town where the Monastery is and they sent a car to pick me up. How can anyone plan what time they will arrive at the Monastery with plane and train schedules, traffic and a car coming to pick you up? All of this put me at the Monastery in the afternoon so they put me in a house where all the other priests visiting for retreat were. I dropped my bags in my room and immediately went to the Chapel to say a prayer of thanksgiving because I had managed to arrive for the retreat. Just as I put my hand on the door, one of the priests from the monastery told me to follow him. So, I followed him all the way through to the back of the Monastery where all the monks were standing behind their chairs ready to eat their dinner. It was like the “behind the scenes” of St. Benedict’s Monastery, the kind of thing you would love to witness while using a movie camera so you can see how they eat, which would be just like everyone else.
I was standing behind my chair and the Abbot knocked three times, which is the signal for grace to begin in Latin. I still don’t know grace in Latin so I just moved my lips; you know the feeling right? [Laughter] We all sat down and I tried not to break or spill anything and everyone was moving about and serving dinner in perfect “silence”. This was something to behold. I ‘d always heard that during the meals they would read from the Bible, the Rule of St. Benedict or the Lives of Saints. I wondered to myself if they would do it there. Right behind me from up above there was a priest who he began reading. Wherever they leave off from the meal before they just pick up at the next meal and continue the reading. So, here I am having dinner with the monks at the Monastery and this is what I heard when the priest started to read.
“The first time that I was at the Grotto I went to collect wood together with two other girls. On reaching the mill, I asked them if they would like to see where the water from the mill ran into the river and they said, “yes”. We went along the channel and arrived in front of a Grotto. My companions crossed the water as I remained on the other side. I asked them to throw some rocks into the river to enable me to cross over it without taking off my shoes; they told me to do as they had done if I wanted to cross.
At this point I went a bit further down in an attempt to cross over but didn’t succeed in doing so. I returned in front of the Grotto and began taking off my shoes. I’d just taken off one shoe when I heard a noise similar to a gust of wind. I turned toward the meadows and noticed that the trees were motionless. I began taking off my other shoe and heard the same noise. I lifted up my head towards the Grotto and saw a lady dressed in white. She had on a white dress, a blue belt, a white veil over her head and a yellow rose on each foot. I thought I had made some mistake so I rubbed my eyes; I looked again and again and noticed the same lady. I then put my hand in my pocket and took out my Rosary. I wanted to make the Sign of the Cross but was unable to do so because I could not reach up my hand. Although filled with fear I stayed there.
The apparition made the Sign of the Cross, so I too tried to do so and succeeded. In making the Sign of the Cross I calmed down and recited the Rosary with the image of the lady constantly before me. She motioned to me with her finger to draw near but I did not have the courage to do so and I remained in the same place. “
Of course you recognize this reading; this is from the Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Bernadette in 1858 at Lourdes, France. So, there I am in Boston and thinking to myself that I couldn’t go to Lourdes but Lourdes came to me. That was in only the first hour of my retreat. Any time someone goes on a retreat or takes a rest in the Lord, he or she is always rewarded; always rewarded!
Remember two Fridays ago on the Solemnity of the Birth of St. John the Baptist that I started reading the Gospel of St. Luke for an hour and a half because it contains the Birth of St. John the Baptist? This past Friday, two days ago, which was the First Friday of the month, I exposed the Blessed Sacrament at 10 am and then began the Divine Office. As it says in your bulletin about the Divine Office,
“These prayers are part of the liturgy of the Hours which are also known as the Divine Office. These prayers are centuries old and are prayed by members of the Church around the world. The prayers are taken from the Bible, mainly from the Book of Psalms as well as the Old and New Testaments Readings. Included in this prayer are the writings and thoughts of the saints.”
The same prayers that we prayed here on Friday were being prayed around the world like a chain of prayer wrapping around the world. This one and the same prayer is called the Divine Office. It is based on the Psalms; in one of the Psalms we hear:
“Seven times I rise to praise You God.”
So, there are seven different hours, meaning seven different times to pray. Some of the prayers are longer and some are shorter. So, on Friday we prayed the Divine Office and then at 10:30 am I started reading from the Gospel of St. Luke. I finished on chapter 11, verse 29 the previous Friday so on First Friday I took up where I left off and just started reading for an hour and a half.
During that time people came and went just as I had asked and anticipated. It wasn’t Mass, it was the Reading of the Word of God. This is only the second time I had done this during the sixteen years I have been a priest. You know how it is when you read something for a long time; after a while it starts to get blurry and the letters get smaller as you get tired. All of that happened to me during that hour and a half and I had no idea where I was going to end but I knew that at noon I had to stop. Well, this is where I had to stop when it was twelve noon. It was chapter 23 of St. Luke’s Gospel, verse 44, 45, and 46.
It was now about the sixth hour and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened and the curtain of the Temple was torn in two. And Jesus cried out with a loud voice and said, “Father, into Thy Hands I commend My Spirit”. And having said this He expired.
What a great place on a Friday to finish the reading. You see, every Friday we should automatically think of Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified for all of us. The First Friday is an attempt for us to really think about Good Friday and one of the reasons why we are reading the Gospels is that, right now as it stands, once a year we hear the Reading of the Passion of Christ. We hear it during Holy Week but every Friday we should be concentrating on the Passion of the Lord so at least half the year, every Friday, we will hear the readings on the Passion.
Something else happened during the reading of the Word of God. I was over there seated and as I was reading something tremendous happened and it is something I have been waiting a long time for. It started to rain! It rained and rained and rained! You see those windows? Well, on that day you couldn’t see any light outside because it was so overcast.
We got about two inches here and I asked Charles up at Web Hill Country Club later on when I went to take his mother Holy Communion at the nursing home, if they’d gotten any rain there. He said they also got two inches. He told me they had a golf tournament that day and I asked him if it had to be postponed. He said that the tournament started at 1:00 pm but the rain ended at 12:30 pm. Some people here would say that he was lucky and if you said that, see me after Mass because I am going to get you! It wasn’t luck it was providence. Look at it this way; all of his tanks were filled and all the grass was watered. You can hook up the sprinkler in the yard and water and water but when just one good rain comes you see an instant effect. It is good to water your yard but when a rain comes it automatically produces many effects instantly.
When I was reading St. Luke’s Gospel and the rains were coming down, I was so grateful because it had been a long time since it rained like that here. So many of us have been praying for rain and I wasn’t surprised and thought it was fitting. I was thinking of the scene of Moses and as long as Moses had his arms up in the air the Israelites wanted battle. I didn’t stop to see how many inches it rained, I just kept reading. I stopped at noon and it kept raining for another thirty minutes.
A verse from the Bible kept coming back to me and it was something like,
Just as from the Heavens the snow and the rain come down and do not return without great profit.
Something along those lines and I kept thinking about how God said that His Word doesn’t go out without giving great profit. At noon I stopped reading from St. Luke, we prayed the Angelus and then we had Midday Prayer. I went over to the rectory and went to the computer and keyed in the part of the Bible quote that I mention about the snow and the rain coming down. I typed in what part I could and of course 500,000 hits come up so I just took the very first one, right? This is what came up in number one. It is from Isaiah 55, verses 10 and 11.
[/color]For just as from the Heavens the rain and the snow come down and do not return there until they have watered the earth making it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to him who sows and bread to him who eats. God says, “So shall My Word be that goes forth from My Mouth. It shall not return to Me void, it shall do My Will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”[/color]
I thought of how beautifully Isaiah has connected the rain coming down and producing immediate effects. Also on that afternoon about 2 pm, we had our low temperature for the day. Happens all the time, right? At 2 pm in the afternoon you get your low temperature in Tex…Texas? It doesn’t happen! But, God is in charge of air-conditioning outside of here! On the outside he is in charge of the air-conditioning and the heating; He is also in charge of the air-conditioning and heating for all eternity! That is something to think about too!
Think of the ‘immediate effects’! Today it is still cool and it is probably due to the effects of that beautiful rain. You can see that everything perked up and the birds are having a blast. If you are in a hurry and in a car, rain is a bother, but the rain was a great blessing that came upon us on Friday. I thought how fitting it was to connect that just as the rain comes down and produces great effects, so God says His Word will not go forth and return to Him empty or void, it will produce effects.
I copied the quote I found from the Internet on Isaiah 55, verses 10 and 11 and it is a piece on the Life of St. Benedict who founded Western Monasticism. I have spoken about St.Benedict’s Monastery near Boston earlier. Here is what the article says before the quote from Isaiah;
“St. Benedict realized the strongest and truest foundation for the power of words was the Word of God Itself.”
St. Benedict said,
“For what page or word of the Bible is not a perfect rule for everyday life?”
St. Benedict had experienced the power of God’s Word as expressed in Scripture;
[/color]For just as from the Heavens the rain and the snow come down and do not return there until they have watered the earth making it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to him who sows and bread to him who eats. God says, “So shall My Word be that goes forth from My Mouth. It shall not return to Me void, it shall do My Will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”[/color]
How beautiful that quote is, just soak it in! St. Benedict built these Monasteries and these Monasteries went out and civilized Europe. The European Constitution won’t admit it but that is what history speaks of; God’s Word went out and through these Monasteries, civilized Europe. St. Benedict and his monks centered their lives on the Word of God so much so that any time the monks heard the bell they would come into the Chapel if they were near by to pray the Divine Office. If they were out in the field they would stop what they were doing, kneel down and soak in the Word of God under the roof of the sky. They would spend four to six hours a day listening to the Word of God. I know what some people are thinking;
“Four to six hours? Man! I couldn’t, awe…..four to six hours of just hearing the Word of God?”
Yes, think about it! Think about how we hear speech four to six hours a day from Oprah, the news on TV or from the radio. Four to six hours just go by like that and none of it or most of it "ain’t gonna help ya" get one step closer to Heaven. St. Benedict and his monks just decided that they would focus on Jesus and His Word and so great results were produced.
Going back to the article, it says the whole Monastic life in the Monastery was centered on God’s Word coming down to us through the Scriptures and the Church.
“The Sacred reading of the Bible however, was a study in love. It was not just an exercise of the mind, it was also an exercise of contemplation so that voices and hearts would harmonize. Each word of God would soak into their minds, their hearts, their very souls so that the prayers would spring up from the depths of their being, not just from their memory.”
In other words, not just memorize the prayers but the Word of God would soak into their hearts, minds and souls and they would begin praying in a way they never prayed before. They would go far beyond just memorized prayers. St. Benedict said,
“We realize that we will be heard for our pure and sorrowful hearts and not for the number of our spoken words. A heart was pure when it was empty of all but God’s Word and our desire to remain in God’s Word.”
It is a beautiful passage on the Life of St. Benedict and what it is like to live in a Benedictine Monastery. One last story of St. Benedict is given here. In one story on the life of St. Benedict there was a poor man who went to the Monastery begging for oil with which to cook. St. Benedict commanded that the oil be given to the beggar but the monk in charge of the cooking thought that there wasn’t enough for the beggar and the Monastery so he said,’ No”. St. Benedict was very angry with his, the monk’s distrust of God’s providence, and so the Saint knelt down to pray. As he prayed a bubbling sound came from inside the oil jar; all the monks watched in fascination as oil from God filled the vessel so completely that it overflowed and leaked out from beneath the lid and finally pushed off the cover and cascaded out onto the floor.
I know what you are thinking, at least the women.
“Who is going to clean that up?”
Right? It is a miracle, a miracle! Someone clean it up..ok, I can sleep tonight. Someone did clean it up! It is a miracle. St. Benedict being so immersed in the Word of God knew that he should pray for a miracle because the Bible is full of miracles.
Think of this; science cannot produce rain. Well, they can seed the clouds and think that they can seed them again if it doesn’t produce rain and keep seeding them every day until it rains and say,
“Look! We produced the rain!”
Only God can produce rain and the rain produces many instant and long-lasting effects. In the same way, God is the ONLY ONE Who can give us rest. We are in the 4th of July extended weekend, a weekend of rest.
“I have to do this and this and this; when is this priest going to shut up…err, err, err…”
Right? So we have all of these things to do and where are we factoring in the Word of God? In the fireworks, err, err, err…..? See. we have an extended weekend but no room for resting in God yet we are thirsting and our minds are so hard,Father knocks on the pulpit three times our hearts are so hard, Again he knocks three times and we wonder why people frown when they see us coming.
“Oh no, it is him, it is her! Argh!”
God’s Word can’t get in, He can’t help us to rest because we never give Him a chance. Our Lord says,
”Come to Me all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest.”
Only God is in charge of rest.
I went to find out where Isaiah 55, verses 10-11 would appear in the weekday readings; I had no idea. You know,
[/color]For just as from the Heavens the rain and the snow come down and do not return there until they have watered the earth.[/color]
So I looked it up and you will hear those words next Sunday. I thought,
“Darn, it was so close, I needed them for this Sunday!”
Then I looked on the calendar and these words are going to appear next Sunday and do you know what next Sunday is? It is the day before the Feast of St. Benedict! Hahahahaha! I had to laugh because it is better that they are next Sunday instead of today. It is not always that way every year. Sometimes the readings for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time might be at the end of June or July but this year…lucky right? See me after Mass! I will do the world a favor!
Think of Lourdes again; Lourdes is always connected with Lourdes water!
“Oh, someone is sick? You want some Lourdes water?”
O! Water from Lourdes, thank you!”
The water that comes down from Heaven upon us is a great analogy for the way God wants to give us rest. At my last parish, Blessed Sacrament, there was a beautiful window of Christ the Good Shepherd. Christ is dressed as a Priest at Mass, wearing a green vestment. The vestment was a very dark green unlike the one I am wearing that is lighter. In one hand Jesus holds a lamb and in the other He is holding a staff. Whenever I would see that window I would automatically think of Psalm 23.
The Lord is my Shepherd; there is nothing that I shall want. In verdant pastures He gives me repose; beside restful waters He leads Me; He refreshes my soul.
That window is so beautiful that you expect to look at it and see the lamb nibbling on His vestment because it looks like grass; it is the perfect color green for the Good Shepherd. The effects of the Good Shepherd in giving us His Word is so necessary because, for parents to include the Word of God in everyday life you are showing that you are not relying on yourself. You have an idea of what you are supposed to be doing but God is going to tweak it and give you the details along the way. You will never sit down with the Word of God and come away from it without having been enriched.
Here we are in the greatest country on God’s green earth on the 4th of July weekend at time of rest and so many people are restless. St. Augustine said,
O Lord, you have made us for Yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
Jesus says it,
”Come to me all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest.”
You don’t have to go to Lourdes for a retreat although if you can it is great. God wishes to give us a rest and He says,
”Come to Me all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest. Take My Yoke upon you and learn from Me for I Am meek and humble of heart and you will find rest for yourselves; for My Yoke is easy and My Burden light.”
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
14th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2005
Moderators: Denise, Fr.Paul Weinberger