Second Sunday in Ordinary Time 2006

[Fr.Paul Weinberger]

Homily by:
Fr. Paul Weinberger
St. William’s Roman Catholic Parish
Greenville, Texas
Second Sunday in Ordinary time 2006
January 15, 2006


Samuel answered, “Speak, for Your servant is listening.” Samuel grew up and the Lord was with him, not permitting any word of his to be without effect.

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

Amen

Later on today, after you get home I suggest that you get out your Bible and look at the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament and read the next chapter. The reading you heard from Samuel today you hear so often because it returns again and again. Reading the next chapter is very informative; it is the contrast of Eli and Samuel; one is very young and one is very old. Eli is ninety-eight and has two sons, Hophni and Phinehas. He never corrected his children and their crimes brought ruin to his family and to the country.

As the great high priest, he had a responsibility before God to speak out to his own children as well as to others and we can see that he is a man of wisdom; he gives excellent counsel to Samuel when God called him. But to his own, he spoke when he should have been silent and was silent when he should have spoken. For this, he brought ruin upon himself and his family; he had everything going. This is Eli, the last great figure before the kings were established in Israel. The next person to rule Israel will be Saul and what a disaster he was as a king. Just as predicted by God, Saul would be a terrible king but since everyone else had a king, the Israelites demanded a king and a king they got.

Eli was the great high priest, Phinehas was to succeed him and the good news was that the wife of Phinehas was expecting a child. There was hope that this child would be a son to carry on the work after Phinehas reached a ripe old age.

However, Chapter four of the First Book of Samuel talks about a great fight between the Philistines and the Israelites. The Philistines outnumber the Israelites but the Israelites get the idea of getting the Ark of the Covenant and taking it to battle so that they will be victorious. They are so revved that they let out a great shout that sends fear and trembling throughout the ranks of the Philistines. They believe that as long as the Ark of the Covenant is with them they cannot lose. I believe Jerry Jones is now looking for the Ark of the Covenant. ( Jerry Jones owns the Dallas Cowboys. ) They go into battle and Israel is defeated and there are over thirty thousand dead. All the survivors run away to their own homes.

One survivor makes his way back to Eli to give a report. Now it says that Eli’s sight had grown dim with age. Eli was by the gate taking a rest and doing what our parents always tell us not to do, he was leaning back on the legs of the chair and being a big guy this was a precarious position. You know, we don’t run with scissors or lean back in a chair because the back legs will break.

Anyway, Eli was ninety-eight when the man ran up and told him that Hophni and Phinehas had been killed in battle and that thirty thousand had been dispatched and the Ark of the Covenant had been captured. At the news about the Ark of the Covenant, Eli fell backward and broke his neck, a supposedly wise man dying a foolish death. The news reached his daughter-in-law, who was with child and she went into labor and died after having named the child. The child was named Ichabod, which means, “The glory has departed from Israel”, because the Ark of the Covenant had been captured. All of the future of Eli and his plans had gone up in one day. His sight was failing but he didn’t take his own advice. He knew how to pray. One of the things he tells Samuel is to go to sleep and if you are called reply, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.” So we see the contrast between Eli and Samuel; Samuel is at God’s service and his words have great effect.

We are told in the First Book of Samuel that God just wasn’t speaking to Israel as He had in the past. Apparently God was speaking but Israel and the person of Eli just wasn’t listening. A man who is high priest would be expected to be prayerful. A prayerful man would not let his children run afoul of the law as Hophni and Phinehas did, bringing great ruin upon his house and the country. The way that Eli instructs Samuel shows his knowledge of the right way but evidentally he refused to follow his own advice.

Last week, on Monday and Tuesday I was away in Houston. I attended the burial of my Aunt Dora. When I came back I brought a friend along, or at least a fellow traveler. I brought the flu bug along with me and so Wednesday and Thursday I didn’t offer a public Mass. It was either Wednesday or Thursday that I offered a private Mass in the evening and then I prayed a rosary. After the rosary I sat in the Church for a while and mentally I was going over the last two or three weeks and giving thanks to God for so many blessings, like the trip to Houston. I didn’t really get hit by the flu until the funeral was over so I made it through that.

Anyway I was going over different cases that had come to my attention or in which I had been involved and how God answered prayer after prayer after prayer after prayer, just as effortlessly as turning a page in a book. What seemed beyond my abilities and obviously were beyond my abilities was a breeze to HIM! So I just sat without any list written down; it was so easy to marvel at the tremendous difficulties that God had helped me through.

I remember that last Tuesday was our Feast Day here, the Feast of St. William, and gave thanks to God because He had helped me through some very difficult times like having to leave Blessed Sacrament with five days notice and moved to Greenville. The prayers of others and my own prayers sustained me through such a difficult time. So, I was giving thanks to God for so many things and of course at the end I couldn’t help adding,

Lord, you have answered so many prayers so effortlessly, please send down a generous rain upon North Texas.”

Well, Hunt County and a few others got it. Thirty minutes later I heard a sound like a freight train was going down Stuart Street, but it wasn’t a train it was a mysterious cell of thunderstorms that blanketed East Texas. The meteorologist didn’t know where it came from but I did. I guess I could look into getting another job. I knew where it came from, all rain comes from God and it just appeared out of nowhere and I marveled. I looked out the door and the rain was coming down in buckets. A few minutes later I opened the door again because I heard a sound that sounded familiar. I opened the door and sure enough hail the size of half a marble was coming down. I didn’t say to God.

“What is this? Oh hail, we don’t need this”.

I thanked God that the hail was not any larger and knew that when it melted it would water the earth as well. We had prayed last Sunday for rain and just a few days later God answered yet another prayer. It is hard to pray and yet the only thing more difficult than prayer is not praying. When we fail to pray we turn to ourselves and look to only ourselves in during these trials and we are “it”.

The fact is, this reading today follows beautifully, the Feast of the Epiphany. When I spoke of the prayer of Adoration…prayer needs to take on many different aspects. Prayer of petition we know well, the prayer of Thanksgiving and thanking God for his generosity in so many ways; kind of like the vows in a wedding ceremony we should pray,

“In sickness and in health, for richer for poorer and for better or for worse.”

Truly we should pray in this way but we don’t. In fact, when we fail to pray and rely on ourselves we are no better than Eli and we bring ruin on others and ourselves.

When I was in Houston last week I spoke with a friend of mine, who probably has the most difficult job I could ever imagine but for her it is not a job it is a vocation. She stands there as people walk up the driveway to go into an abortion clinic and she prays and tries to speak to the people before they go in and help them turn from their plans of abortion and instead have the baby. She spoke with a lady last week and she was asking for prayers because she was so frustrated.

A lady and her daughter fell into conversation with her. The daughter was very young and was about to go in and have an abortion; it was the mother’s wish that this occur. The daughter had been attacked and raped and the child was conceived. My friend told the mother that this unborn child had done nothing to anyone and to abort this child is to attack the child without cause. She tried to convince the mother to allow her daughter to give birth to her grandbaby. The mother was adamant that the abortion was the solution. My friend said that some women do not think this through very well, what an abortion means. There are casualties involved beside the one that is aborted.

The mother told my friend that even if her daughter should die during the abortion that it didn’t matter to her, but she was going to have the abortion. My friend asked the lady about the sin her daughter would die in the middle of. The mother is evidentially Pentacostal and I don’t pretend to know much about that faith so I am sure this woman’s comments are not representative of their teachings but it is representative of someone who has a deformed understanding of the Pentacostal faith. She said that if her daughter were to die during the abortion committing such a grave sin that she would just ask that the Blood of Jesus cover over it and she would go on to Heaven. That is about the same as someone approaching a coke machine and dropping in two quarters and making a selection; just drop in the Blood of Jesus and everything is erased and all better and they will see us all in Heaven. How sad!

This woman has faced a crisis. Her daughter was attacked and now they are faced with a pregnancy because of the attack. Perhaps the mother is out of her mind or never prays. It is difficult to start praying after having lived a long time but, start we must and when a difficult situation like this comes up, the many people who don’t pray, instead lift their fists to Heaven and curse God for having this to happen to them.

In the Gospel today St. John the Baptist directs our attention to Jesus by saying to St. John and St. Andrew,

Behold the Lamb of God.

Jesus was an innocent lamb who was arrested, falsely accused, sentenced to death and then crucified. Why did God allow that to happen? As a lamb He was led to the slaughter but He is also the Good Shepherd leading the way for all of us and as a brother He shows us how we are to be in the face of difficulties or crisis or setbacks, accepting the will of the Father while searching with prayer for a way to do that. “Here am I Lord, I come to do Your will,” is easy enough to say during Mass for a Responsorial Psalm but quite another thing to do when applied to our daily life.

The image on the front of the bulletin is an image of St. Agnes, whose Feast Day is next Saturday, January 21st.

If you would like to view the picture Fr. Paul is referring to please click on the link below.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... tagnes.jpg

She was only about twelve years old when she was martyred for the Faith. St. Paul says in the Second Reading to avoid immorality, avoid impurity because the body is the temple of the Lord and that you have the Spirit of God in your souls. That is exactly what St. Agnes was doing seventeen hundred years before this building was erected, around the year 254. She was noted for her beauty, something that she did not cultivate but there were men who wanted to attack her. They didn’t want to marry her they just “wanted” her. St. Agnes told them there was no way.

She had consecrated herself to Christ like a woman religious or Nun does today. The men turned her over to the Roman authorities and she was put to death. In the picture you can see the angel about to place a crown on her head and in the other hand he has a palm, the palm of martyrdom signifying victory over this world. You also see the little lamb at the bottom. Agnus, Agnus Dei meaning Lamb of God. Agnes is derived from the word in Latin, which means lamb. She was docile to God’s Will until her last breath and until her last breath she prayed that she too would avoid immorality, avoid impurity. This is quite a model today when we are awash in immorality and impurity. It is sad but true.

The beginning of a new year usually means we should begin new resolutions and prayer had to be part of it. To go through the year 2006 would be like the Apostles in the Gospel not going to see where Jesus lived and spending the day with Him. Jesus said to them,

”Come and you will see,” so they went and saw where Jesus was staying and they stayed with Him that day

Prayer in the year 2006, prayer in the morning, midday, evening, and before your head hits the pillow, before and after meals is a way of knowing that one day after another we can stay with Jesus and He with us and He can direct us and guide us through His spirit in our souls. Most people pray only when they can’t find a parking space at the mall or downtown. To allow our prayer to be offered on in extraneous moments is to waste the days that are given us.

Again, the only thing harder than prayer is not praying. People who don’t pray and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; the daily difficulties that come our way through no fault of our own are victorious over us. They sweep like a wave over us and flatten us. Prayer however, guides us through the fog. If you have ever driven through fog, you reduce your speed and know that the fog won’t last forever but you remain alert. In Dallas when there is fog people recognize this and because it is very dangerous to drive in fog they accelerate and speed up. This is not what we should do when faced with difficulties; we should slow down and turn to God in prayer, presenting Him with difficult case after difficult case or disappointment. Those who have no recourse to prayer are so along and abandoned and can easily blame God for their plight, raising their fists and cursing God who is ready wiling and able if there is only an open ear on the other end willing to listen.

You parents and grandparents have perhaps experienced this phenomenon that God experiences every day. You know 1-800-Jerry Springer, children complaining that the reason their life is terrible is because a mother and father didn’t do this or that or they did such and such and blame their lives on mom and dad or the grandparents. They take no responsibility for their lives themselves. The same way with people, who don’t pray, they can see every pitfall and disappointment as God punishing them. God is trying to speak to them but they are not listening.

The advice that the old man gave Samuel was good advice but he just didn’t take the advice and live it himself and it brought ruin and destruction on his family and country. We have to be very careful also about how we describe ourselves.

“Oh I have no time for prayer, I can’t pray because I am too busy to do so.”

I think it was St. Teresa of Avila who once said that she prayed every day for thirty minutes but when she was very busy she prayed an hour. There is wisdom in this. If we are so busy and so overwhelmed with busy things like chores that take up our time and there is not a minute left over at the end of the day to pray, then where do those hours and hours come from that are lulled away in front of the television? Talk about avoid immorality…the only way that is possible is to unplug it and turn it toward the wall or at least watch EWTN.

The fact is, that if our country dedicated merely half the time that we dedicate to the most holy television, we would be a country of saints and the world would already be converted. We would have no fear of radical Islam because we would have already converted them as well as other radicals in the world. People are just too busy and so they just have no time for prayer. They are so busy telling others that they are so busy.

Being able to follow the example of the Lamb of God doesn’t promise us a life without difficulties and disappointments but we see how we are to deal with them. Praying the First Sorrowful Mystery rather than concentrating on how Jesus sweat great drops of blood, I prefer to meditate on the passage where Jesus tells Peter, James, and John to stay awake and pray that they might not be put to the test, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. That is exactly what St. Paul is saying in the Second Reading today. Jesus chides his closest friends while in the Garden of Gethsemane; as they yawn away and are overcome by sleep, He is over there pouring out His heart in prayer. He asks them if they couldn’t stay awake and pray an hour. I mean, we all dedicate at least an hour to prayer every day. That is hard to say with a straight face.

The year 2006 is just beginning and if prayer is new to you, you begin. If prayers are foreign to you it will be hard at first but the words from Eli to Samuel are still fresh. Just say, “Speak Lord your servant is listening.” So, we have prayers of adoration, prayers of petition, prayers of thanksgiving and the prayer, which listens intently, allowing God to get a word in edgewise. When we present such difficult cases to God and in faith pray through the crisis, it is like driving through a fog with the faith that we will come out safe on the other side knowing that He is with us and has not abandoned us. Parents will notice that this is a way to pray through difficulties that arise in families either among spouses or parents with their children and vise versa. This is the model for the life of prayer. Your words will have an effect far beyond your ability.

As it says in the last words of the First Reading;

Samuel answered, “Speak for Your servant is listening. Samuel grew up an the Lord was with him, not permitting any word of his to be without effect.”

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

Amen