Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
October 8, 2006
When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them, "Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it." Then he embraced them and blessed them, placing his hands on them.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
A couple of weeks ago I heard of a father who had died in a mountain climbing accident. Evidently he had a daughter, the son he never had, and they started going mountain and rock climbing when she was around 8 years old. When she was around 10 years old they were continuing what they had done. They would go up on the mountain and go climbing. He had a system where he would have a rope tied around his waist and one around her waist with 20 feet of rope in between so if she fell she would only fall a little ways and he could recover her. They were climbing the mountain and the night before it had snowed. He lost his footing and he fell off the side of a cliff. The little girl was pulled to the edge of the cliff and she was clinging to a rock. The father reached back without a thought and grabbing his knife he cut the rope and fell to his death. He knew that he had to protect his child.
The gospel today, that last part especially, we see Jesus with the little children. He embraces them and blesses them and placed His Hands upon them. This gospel is connected with last Sunday's gospel. And I am going to quote it because Jesus tells us what is going to happen if we don't protect children, if we harm children.
Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.
The admonition there is that everyone must protect children. And one would think it is axiomatic that anyone who is in a leadership position in the church would recognize this.
Over 2 billion dollars so far in the country show that is not axiomatic. It shows that we cannot accept that just because everyone knows it that everyone is going to do the right thing. Two billion here two billion there and after awhile it starts to add up to real money! There is a movie that just came out this week about the money hemorrhaging in Los Angeles in which a priest tells how he was allowed to abuse children and how wrong that was. We cannot depend on society or those who are responsible for the church to protect children. But this is what Jesus tells us we must do. This is the standard for every person in the Church, clergy or laity.
Today's gospel begins with Jesus being approached by some lawyers.
The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked," Is it was lawful for a husband to divorce his wife."
They were testing Him.
Lawyers lay traps for other people. Good lawyers lay traps to show the truth. Bad lawyers lay traps to win big judgments. I am not here referring to the $2 billion.
I am the chaplain for the Catholic Society of St. Thomas More, a catholic lawyer society and even good catholic lawyers will say there are too many lawyers in this country. It would be better if we had lower taxes and fewer lawyers. That is axiomatic and we don't. We probably have more lawyers that any other country in the world. And Pharaoh never had a plague so terrible! It is something we deserve when we don't protect children and we actually push them towards lies then this seems to be a penance or a cross to carry.
This gospel starts out asking if it is lawful for a husband to divorce his wife. This is my queue for me to start speaking about the Texas-OU game. (laughter) Of course, Texas won! I could spend a lot of time talking about the rivalry, the Cotton Bowl, the Fair, the corny dogs just so we wouldn't have to talk about the D word. I don't mean Dallas I mean DIVORCE. Or I could posit and wonder if TO is going to be in the next game and the way I follow sports I have no business even going into this territory. It would be a good diversion until someone told me TO didn't play tennis. Again I am not really up on sports as you can tell by looking at me. I could use all this time and run down the clock so I didn't have to talk about DIVORCE. But I am going to talk about this gospel and yet I am
going to say a few things before I do.
This is not lawyer language. If you are divorced or you know someone who is divorced, or maybe someone sitting next to you is divorced, you are not to judge them. Jesus says that we are to leave the judging to God and judge not lest ye be judged. And so too often in the oprahization of our country we talk about these things so openly and this is to the weakness of our country. Also if you believe that my purpose in life is to embarrass you or someone you love or to judge you than I am telling you before God that you don't know me. And I will have none of it so don't even try to put that on me. I am not packing my bags and you are not sending me on a guilt trip!
But what am I supposed to do when I come up upon this gospel. One of the vows I took when I became a priest was to pray the Liturgy of the Hours everyday. Essentially the church says that I should pray these prayers according to a schedule. I said I would. If you open up the Liturgy of the Hours for today, Sunday.there is a second reading from Pope Saint Gregory the Great. He is one of the few popes called great and that is because he is held in great esteem by the church.
Pope Saint Gregory the Great writes,
This is the pope who was pope during a very difficult time in the church when barbarians were trying to capture Rome and burn it down. The Romans called these tribes barbarians because when up to them and were speaking foreign languages these tribes sounded like they were barking dogs, bar, bar, bar, barbarians...We get the word barbarian from the Romans who made fun of these tribes.Pastors who lack foresight hesitate to say openly what is right because they fear losing the favor of men. As the voice of truth tells us, such leaders are not zealous pastors who protect their flocks, rather they are like mercenaries who fell by taking refuge in silence when the wolf appears......When a pastor has been afraid to assert what is right, had he not turned his back and fled by remaining silent?
St. Gregory the Great says that a pastor who will not speak what Christ teaches is like a dog who will not bark. What good is a dog who will not bark? Why not let your veterinarian sign on your checking account if your dog won't bark and attack bad people? You are just going to throw money away.
So here this gospel is and here we are and we have to address this. Let's start at last weeks gospel when Our Lord says,
Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut if off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, where 'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.'"
Look at the bottom of the gospel today,
Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.
The best way to think of this is that Our Lord is telling us that we cannot embrace mortal sin and Our Lord at the same time. We can't hold mortal sin and Jesus at the same time. And yet we actually believe that we can pursue grave mortal sin and be fine upstanding Christians. We are lying to ourselves and we run the risk of lying to our children. Up until the 1930s,Catholics and other Christians in this country were united on two points. We were against divorce and birth control, contraception. We were for the traditional marriage. The wretched World Council of Churches gave permission as if they had the right to do so for people to start divorcing and contracepting. You can actually make a chart from that day until today and see that the number of lawyers has grown exponentially.
When people turn their back on their pastor and turn to their lawyer what are you going to get more of? When you go before God do you want your pastor with you or your lawyer? I am sure they could bring one up! (Laughter) Who do you want?
Jesus says in the gospel,
..Whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.
Many people have decided to turn their backs on Christ and instead to embrace the Pharisees. This is to their peril. This business about divorce is so common and so prevalent. It has weakened marriage.
You will notice on page 7 of the bulletin that the beautiful azaleas were given in honor of the recent wedding at St. William's of Francisco and Maria Aguilera. They were married here yesterday at 12:30pm. They entered as two individuals but they left as one flesh. Now if divorce is allowed and a good thing then what happened here yesterday was a sham! But everybody who was here yesterday by their presence that for Francisco and Maria they were dedicating their help and prayers to seeing that they were going to have a marriage that was traditional. What is a traditional marriage? People don't know that today. We think it is axiomatic like everyone knows we have to protect children. You heard what happened in the Amish country of Pennsylvania.
So what is a traditional marriage? It is between a male and a female. It is a Sacrament, not in front of the Justice of the Peace or falling out of an airplane or being married underwater. It's between a male and a female. It is a Sacrament that is conferred and it is open to life. That means children. That doesn't mean 2.5 children. It means open to the children that God sends. It could be one and it could be none. It means being open to life. And the last part of the traditional marriage is "until death do us part."
Friday, two days ago, the Dallas Morning News ran an insert. A despicable insert. It was another attempt to redefine marriage. The adults here can figure out what I am alluding to. Redefining marriage is given over 20 pages in this insert. Included in this insert was that this is such a grace to so many children. Go back and read it.
How many Catholics today will not approach the Church for marriage, because they don't know it is a sacrament. How many are open to life. Again since the 1930s there has been a split. We have not been united in being prolife. Last week we had the Life Chain here in Greenville and 80 or so people from our parish participated. We spent an hour there standing up for life and praying. We were the most represented of all the churches in Greenville. I was so proud.
And you didn't need to see the thumbs up or some other hand signal from those driving by to figure out if they were pro life or pro abortion. You could see by the expressions on their faces. If it was a scowl they were not pro life. And yet this mentality that says no to the children that God would send is a contraceptive mentality. It is hurting traditional marriage.
Some people might say that a priest rubbed their hand in confession and told me it was ok to contracept. That is one reason we need a grill separating priest and penitent. Check out what the church says. Traditional marriage is between a male and a female, it is a Sacrament, it a open to life and it is until death to us part. How easy it is for us to know people who are experiencing problems. How easy it is for us to be drawn into it! DO NOT be drawn into it.
And of course if you think I am speaking from some mountaintop and I am inaccessible than I say with sadness that my parents divorced when I was in high school. Fortunately for me my parents did not say that what they had done gave grace to our family. Thanks be to God!
We have to tell our children the truth. If we do not tell our children the truth than we are not protecting them; we are protecting ourselves. Think of that first image that I started with two hours ago in this homily where the father reached back and got his knife and cut the rope to save his daughter. He told the truth right there in that instant; that her life meant more to him than saving his neck. Oh sure he might have been able to have her hold on to that rock and she would probably never be able to walk again for the rest of her life, her spine paralyzed or something like that. He wasn't going to think all of this through. He knew what had to be done and he did it. He protected the child.
Look at how parents should be concerned about their children. If parents have children you read here that if anyone of your children was going to lead someone else into sin well it would be for him or her if a great millstone were put around his or her neck and he or she were thrown into the sea. So think about modesty in dress. You may as well be thinking about it because hardly anyone is in this country. Are you going to bed or are you going to a dinner party dressed like that? That is the question most parents have to ask their children. Are you going to bed or are you going to a dinner party? Because it is so diaphanous, everything is see through. How sad we have come to this. If one of your children leads someone else into sin then your child is putting someone else at risk. Your
child could be a teenager or an adult. But who is going to speak to your child?
If you have sons you should be concerned about this. Our Lords says in this gospel today,
"Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."
Remember what Jesus says about if a man looks at a woman with lust in his eyes that he has already committed adultery with her in his heart. That is what Jesus says and so how many parents hope that their little boy will grow up to leer after and lust after women in his heart. Listen I am a man and every man understands how we have to be guarded in the world today when people are literally undressing around us, and then coming up very close to us. It is like don't they understand what a spectacle they are making of themselves. We have to recognize that this is a real temptation for young men and men in this world. Any young lady or lady worth that title should always be dressed modestly.
But that is as understood as what Jesus says about divorce. Children must be protected. Parents are always telling their kids to stop hitting one another and invariably the response is,
"He hit me first.”
Parents must say it ten times or maybe a million times a day,
"Two wrongs don't make a right."
Pope Benedict said recently that the Christian response to evil is always good. We have to meet lies with the truth. If we begin to tell our child lies then we begin to lead them away from Christ. Our connection with lies has to be as drastic as ripping paper in two. [Father Paul rips paper in two]. Our Lord says in last Sunday's gospel that if you hand causes you to sin CUT IT OFF, if your foot causes you to sin, CUT IT OFF, if your eye causes you to sin pluck it out. That is why there is a growing movement in this country among Catholics to throw out their televisions, their computers, the internet and if you believe this you have already dozed off again.[laughter]
Why would Catholics be doing that…to protect themselves from committing adultery in their hearts. The next time you press the clicker to go from one channel to the other and something pops up are you just going to say that it doesn't matter to Jesus? There is a commandment about that. Once I talking with a couple of people and they were with child without the benefit of marriage. We were discussing the situation honestly but only up to a point when the man said that he believed that God wanted this (the unchaste relationship of fornication) to happen and that God was gracing them to pull them together. I told him to stop right there and reminded them that there was a commandment on this and that he was going over the cliff. Fornication is the next-door neighbor to adultery. Inside of marriage it is adultery.
Our Lord wants us to be in His embrace. Look at how St. Therese is clutching that cross to her breast. She is embracing Christ. This is not easy; in fact, we have to guard ourselves, our eyes, because so many people, Catholics and non-Catholics alike want to go to confession. They have seen it on Oprah and now they want to try it out at the water cooler. It might be innocent and you are on break and talking when someone starts giving you information they should only be giving to their pastor. However you are there and you don't want to be impolite. They have already been impolite by bringing up intimate secrets that should be shared only with their pastor. At the end of the conversation when the break is about to end they are going to want you to nod your head YES, affirming their decision to do X, Y, and Z. They are going to get you to roll over.
You have got to be careful because as we begin to roll over our shoulders begin to curve. The points on our shoulders begin to be rubbed off and then we can just roll over again and again like a rolling pin that has no shoulders. We have got to stand up for traditional marriage in a time when the barbarians want nothing more than to destroy traditional marriage. We must stand up for marriage between a male and a female, marriage that is a Sacrament, marriage that is open to life and marriage that is "till death do us part."
I will leave you with just one last image. We have so many people in this parish from Mexico. Pretend that one of our parishioners has just gotten a call on Friday afternoon that his grandmother or some other favorite relative is across the border in one of those border towns and is dying. The man packs up his family on that Friday afternoon and rushes down there and back in time for work on Monday morning. This is a great expense and a very long drive. They get to the border and the person at the border looking at the papers says that they are lacking some document. The man pleads get across but the border patrol says that they can't because they are lacking a critical document. Now you are beginning to get the feeling that I don't want any of my flock to experience on the last day of your life; to go through this valley of tears and to make it all the way to the end and then…
"I'm sorry, you can't be admitted here."
What does Jesus say,
Whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it." Then he embraced them and blessed them, placing his hands on them.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.