2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2007

[Fr.Paul Weinberger]

Homily by:
Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
January 14, 2007

His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.”

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit

Amen

Many years ago I was working for a company and the boss sent me a letter; evidentially there had been some miscommunication. I looked at it and decided it was all wrong, but he was pretty mad and there were about a million things he’d gotten wrong so I thought I would answer him with one page for every point he got wrong. So I wrote a million page letter and was about to deliver it to him. I called a friend of mine who used to work for the man too, and he was someone who was wise beyond his years. I told my friend I was going to drop the letter by for the boss and then I would come by and see him.

My friend told me that I should come by and see him first but I told him I would come to see him after. My friend insisted that I go by to see him first so I did. He read the first of the million pages and said that if he were me, he wouldn’t send it. I remember I didn’t even form the letter “B” on my lips; the first letter in the word “but”, as in,

”But, but….but, but…wait a minute.”

He said he wouldn’t send that if he were me and I thought,

“Ok, here I am in the presence of a wise man, whose counsel I esteem and he is just giving me his opinion. If I am wise, I will listen to him.”

I did listen to him and went back and wrote a half page letter telling the boss I was sorry things happened and they would never happen again, blah, blah, blah…everything was fine!

Last week we celebrated the Feast of the Three Wise Men, which we know as the Epiphany and the next day we celebrated the Baptism of the Lord and now we have the miracle of Jesus at Cana in Galilee. The Three Wise Men, the Baptism of the Lord and the Miracle at Cana in the Latin Rite Church and in the Greek Orthodox Church and the Eastern Churches, these are the three symbols for the Epiphany. We normally focus on the Three Kings but Epiphany means a manifestation, a showing forth. If you take a candle and a match into a totally darkened room and light the candle the light from the candle begins to manifest itself in the darkness. That gives you an idea of what Epiphany means.
God wants His light and His wisdom to be shown. He has revealed the fullness of His wisdom in Jesus Christ and He has held nothing back; there is no hidden extra that is to be revealed later. It is all there laid out for us and it is for you and me to follow through with.

There are many Catholics and many non-Christians who will not listen to anything connected with the Blessed Virgin Mary. For whatever reason, they have some distorted idea of who the Blessed Mother is. If they would just answer this one challenge…in the New Testament find for me a clearer and shorter definition of what it means to be Christian, a disciple of Christ than what Our Lady just said here to the servants

Do whatever He tells you!

I have been talking on prayer the last couple of weeks and I plan to continue to speak on prayer. We should implement this wisdom into our prayer life. So often our prayer is trying to make God change His Mind, as if His Mind needs changing.

Oh God, you have it wrong again; here, let me have that!

Take the weather for example. I prayed this morning and I am praying right now that this rotten weather and the two more waves that are headed this way will stay on the western side of Ft. Worth; they like that kind of weather over there. It is kind of a no man’s land but of course Mert is really going to love that statement. She used to live across the street from the Church and now she lives in Abilene or Amarillo. Let this weather stay on the west side of Ft. Worth but if it is God’s Will it will come this way…Blessed Be God! But I can still pray, and I can pray also that if He allows it to come this way that I will know what to do.

Prayer is not barraging God with lots of words so that He will change His mind because He has made the wrong decision again and we have to set Him straight. Instead prayer should be,

Thy Kingdom Thy Will be done. Help me to accept what Your Will is in my life today and every day.

We would all do well to listen to our Blessed Mother and do whatever He tells you everyday.

His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.”

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit

Amen