Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
All Saints Day
November 1, 2006
”Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.”
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
Today is the Feast of All Saints, the Feast of All Hallows as it used to be referred to, as in,
“Our Father Who are in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name”.
The holy ones, those who are hallowed are in Heaven and they see God in the Face.
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.
There is a lot of confusion about the saints; there is simple confusion and then there is profound confusion. My mother’s only sister, who passed away almost 5 years ago, used to be confused by my mother on All Saints Day. Today would have been my aunt’s birthday. Being the older sister, my mother used to tell my aunt Mary,
“Yea, mom tells you that you were born on All Saints Day but you were really born on Halloween!”
Sounds like something an older sister would do. That is “simple confusion”. However, there is profound confusion, such as the confusion I saw yesterday while looking at the Drudge Report. So many people in our country don’t believe in God; if you don’t believe in God you don’t believe in Heaven and then the saints are way off the chart, right?
“Everyone believes in God!”
No, no…everyone does not believe in God. There has never been a time when I didn’t know about God. My family, teachers, and friends have been telling me about God and, thanks be to God they did. But there has been a great damage to the Church and in the last forty years there has been such an overemphasis on the horizontal. It is like the old pagan myth of Narcissus, the nymph in the forest who went over to the pool and peered in and when he saw his reflection he was so taken by it that he fell in. Of course that is where we get the word narcissistic. This whole horizontal, narcissistic attitude of
” I am so good, look in the mirror. Why do I need God when I have me? Oh I am sorry, enough about me; how about me?”
Right? Why change the subject when we are on such an excellent subject as “me”? The saints help us to get our bearings and to find God. You see, we can’t expect people to know about the saints, even people who should know better.
Last Saturday I got the news that a friend of mine, who was made a Monsignor years ago and is younger than I am, was made Bishop elect. It is kind of nice not to have done anything with my life if that is how they reward you. Anyway he is the new Bishop elect of Detroit, the new Auxiliary there, Msgr. Danny Flores. We were in the seminary together. He is an excellent priest and he will make an excellent Successor to the Apostles…God bless him! Please keep him in your prayers. When we were in seminary together there was a man who was hired to be the music director of the seminary. We all knew that when he got behind the organ he put his swim fins on his feet to play the organ. It was terrible, but when he began to chant it was even worse.
I remember that it was the first Sunday of Lent the last year we were at Holy Trinity and he tried something new. He was going to chant the prayers of the faithful, the General Intercession. The seminary is supposedly where they teach you to be a priest and so you think everything there is squared away theologically. I remember the guy opening his mouth to chant this.
“For those who are in the presence of God…we pray to the Lord.”
It was even worse than I just chanted it. The sound was so dissonant and the theology was even more discordant.
“For those who are in the presence of God…we pray to the Lord.”
So, Msgr. Danny Flores who was a student then was very charitable. Of course the rest of us were laughing after, and asking what we were doing praying for the saints! They are before the Throne of God in Heaven adoring Him, seeing Him face to Face and they are praying for us! Get him, he was praying that the saints would get where? They are already in Heaven! Maybe he is waiting for Heaven to relocate to where it officially should be! TEXAS! [Laughter]
We walked up to the music director and told him that we are not praying for the saints, they are praying for us. A whole week went by and we were once again waiting for the music director to open his mouth and sing the Prayers of the Faithful and he said it again! This does not help confusion; this does no help to dispel confusion and this is wrong, theologically and doctrinally WRONG! Of course I’ve forgotten all about it. [Laughter]
This has been a crisis over the last forty years because we see people who have taken over at Saint so and so, no matter what state it is in and their saints have been tossed and taken to the garbage dump. That is where these two statues of angels were rescued from, the garbage dump.
Last night I was talking to a friend of mine from New Mexico and he was telling me that in their Church in the last twenty-five years they have put up columns and cornices and statues. They recently got a new priest and all of it is gone! What took them twenty-five years to scrimp and save for is all gone. I would just say,
“Father, we will help you with those but wait just a second, I am making a call to the Bishop.”
“Bishop, why don’t you leave the statues and TAKE HIM!”
Unfortunately people just sit by and allow this kind of thing to happen.
You are adults, when you look at this Gospel you can fill in the blanks concerning the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. But when you talk to children and you say,
Blessed are the merciful for they shall be shown mercy; blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
It is like Charlie Brown’s teacher addressing the class.
“Waa wawa waa wawa.”
You can understand Charlie Brown but that is all you are going to hear from the teacher. You see, there is a problem with the Beatitudes, a problem that children have with the Beatitudes that adults probably don’t have. The Beatitudes need to be interpreted for children and they need very tangible examples of the Beatitudes to understand them. Adults go on and on about the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount and children are wondering what all the big hurrah is all about. Pope John Paul II, on January 6, 2001 at the end of the Jubilee Year wrote Novo Millennio Ineunte, it is on page two of your bulletin every week along with those five documents that are the foundation for what goes on here at St. William’s from week to week.
Pope John Paul II gave us homework for the next thousand years and he addressed a point that needs immediate attention. He said what we need today is a lived theology of the saints. this means that the saints become three-dimensional. Take a look at the two side altars, there are flowers there surrounding Our Lady on one and St. Joseph on the other. Of course being Catholic all my life I know that Our Lady is Queen of all saints and of Heaven and earth. She is not God but she is above all the saints and angels. And then we have St. Joseph, the spouse of the Blessed Virgin and the foster father of Jesus. St. Joseph is the Patron of a happy death. What happen there? Why does he get the privilege and why does she get the privilege? All of a sudden you and I are starting at a deficit; they got special treatment and you and I have to slug it out as peons. Not at all!
St. Joseph is the patron of a happy death because as we read in the Bible about the finding Jesus in the temple, there is St. Joseph with the Virgin Mary and then we never hear of him again. Jesus begins His public life and the Church contends that somewhere in between, St. Joseph passed away and of course when he died who do you think was on one side and who do you think was on the other? Our Lady and Jesus were. If you start feeling like you are behind or at a deficit all you have to do is read the Life of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. You don’t even have to do that because in your bulletin there are the 12 Promised of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to this saint in 1670. The Sacred Heart says in promise 12 that those who receive Holy Communion on the First Friday of the month for 9 consecutive months, that He will be with them in their last moments, they will receive the Sacraments and will not die abandoned. Of course wherever you find Jesus there is Our Lady. Now, how is that any different from St. Joseph?
The symbolism or the wisdom of the Church in promoting St. Joseph as the Patron Saint of a Happy Death is lost on so many people because we don’t study the lives of the saints. Somehow they don’t make it in between the programs on TV and the next commercial; you are not going to find them there. You are going to have to go out and hunt them down. The Church is no longer going to provide them and people spend their whole lives without making it to Mass on their saint’s day. Now, you don’t have to go to Mass on your saint’s day. Don’t make me cry in public! Ok? Of course you don’t have to attend the Mass on your saint’s day unless it is Christmas or the Assumption or December 8th or one of the Holy Days of Obligation, right? Wouldn’t you attend Mass on your saint’s day if you were thinking about saints and the connection?
The horizontal dimension of the last forty years says that you and I are the Church; Church never existed before today and never will exist without us. That is ridiculous! What you see here today is a mere part of the Church. The largest part of the Church has already gone on ahead of us and there are many saints in Heaven, who see God face to Face. We can study their lives. We can look back at how the earliest saints had such difficulties.
Just after her Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, the neurotic Nero had plans for remodeling the city of Rome and somehow it burned down. When Nero saw that the mobs were coming after him, he did what politicians still do today; he pointed to someone else and said,
“I think they did it!”
Of course people in Washington are still pointing at Christians in disbelief and accusing them of things they have never even done. What happened was, the people of Rome probably knew they had a stinker for an Emperor but the Romans were angry and they wanted that anger to be released on someone so they figured that the Christians were just as good as anyone else to release the anger on and what began was a spectacle of the early Christian martyrs of Rome. Of course Nero busied himself building new palaces where the shops and markets had stood in Rome before. He built lavish palaces, gardens, and swimming pools and the like. Then he started giving these evening cocktail parties. If you have a big garden and your party lags on into the night as they usually do, well you need some kind of illumination. Nero had an idea and had the Christians bound and tied up, dipped in pitch and then had them placed on something about the size of a large fencepost, On the top there was a very sharp point and the Christians were placed on that point, just under their chin, suspending them from the post. Of course they were unable to scream out in agony. Then they were lighted. Our Lord says,
You are the light of the world
They were the light of those evening parties. And what happened? Did the Christians turn away from Christianity because they didn’t want to suffer? No, they came in even greater numbers because as Tertulian said,
If you look at a map of the Mediterranean you can see where the north of African extends up towards Italy and it was there that St. Felicity and Perpetua were martyred. These two saints are mentioned in the ancient Roman Canon, Eucharistic Prayer #1, which until forty years ago was the only Eucharistic prayer used. The only Eucharistic prayer used and of course, mention is made at the beginning and the end of many of the early saints. The last forty years permission has been given to the “modern people” to excise those name from the beginning and end. Now we can just streamline it and make it go faster because we are more important than thinking about the saints. How sad!The Blood of Martyrs is the seed of faith.
Sts. Felicity and Perpetua…I can’t remember which one of the two it was but one was very rich and one very poor. They were both Christians so they were fast friends. It is amazing how that works isn’t it? One of the two had just delivered a child and the other went to prison expecting a child. You know what her big concern was? It was that awaiting a child she was not going to be allowed to give her life in the arena for love of Christ. You know, the same thing you or I would do if we were in her position. Not at al! This saint delivered the baby early and gave it to a Christian woman and joyfully went to her death in the arena. These two saints show how women in the earliest times of the Church were incredibly strengthened by the Holy Spirit.
Recall St. Maria Goretti, who lived about a hundred years ago. She was martyred for purity.
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.
She was 12 years old and Alessandro Serenelli, who was 18 or 19 years old attacked her. Do you remember what her words were to him?
“No Alessandro! It is a mortal sin; you will go to hell!
Many people today would just advise someone to forget it and survive it and then they can put him in jail. No, she was thinking of the immediate consequences to his soul. She was stabbed many times and somehow survived. They caught Alessandro and put him in jail. He was hard of heart and wouldn’t go to Confession or even say he was sorry.
Just before Maria died they operated on her; they didn’t give her any water because that “might kill her”. They didn’t give her any anesthetic because, that “might kill her.” Of course the pain was killing her, right? Fortunately she had a very good priest and he asked her while she was on her deathbed if she forgave Alessandro and she said she forgives him with all her heart because she wanted Jesus to forgive her all her sins. She also told the priest that she wanted Alessandro to be with her in Heaven.
She was so young and had just made her First Communion weeks before this happened. She had the responsibility of taking care of her siblings as well has household chores. She had no modern conveniences; this was 100 years ago! She received permission from her mother to walk to the next town to be instructed in her faith so that she could make her First Communion.
Alessandro went to jail as I said and his heart remaind like stone. He wouldn’t speak to anyone and then St. Maria appeared to him in a dream with her arms full of lilies, which are a symbol of purity. You see the lily in St. Joseph’s arms as well. The saint melted the stony heart of Alessandro and the next morning he begged for a priest to hear his Confession.
When St. Maria was Canonized her mother and siblings were there and so was Alessandro. Of course they had all grown much older. Pope Pius XII canonized Maria. I pray that one day this pope is raised to the Altars of the Church. The saints teach us so much. Can you imagine St. Maria Goretti saying in a whining fashion to her parents,
“Mom please, dad please, it is a peachy movie; come on, I know it is an “R” rated movie but it is a light “R” rated movie.”
No, this is the young woman who said,
“Alessandro, no! It is a mortal sin and you will go to hell!”
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.
Studying the lives of the saints will leave a lasting impression on us and the saints will lead us to Heaven. We have many people we associate with that can lead us in the wrong direction. St. Thomas More, who was the Chancellor of England, was best friends with Henry VIII until the king decided to make himself the pope of England. St. Thomas More stood in he breach and for that he paid a very dear price. Thomas More was a husband and father, a judge and a statesman. Just a few years ago Pope John Paul II made him patron of lawyers and judges. St. Thomas More was the consummate politician. His last words are well known. Just before the man cut off his head he told the people that he forgave the king and that he prayed for the king and all of England. He said,
We are coming up on the day of elections; can you imagine someone running for office saying,“I die the King’s good servant but God’s first.”
“This ad has been sponsored by so and so; I am the good public servant but God’s first”
I’d punch that button to vote for him in a minute, wouldn’t you? St. Thomas More is still teaching us what a politician should or shouldn’t be. Even during his time of peril he was teaching. He told his daughter, Margaret, not to pin her soul to another man’s back because he was worried she would follow someone and not end up in Heaven. If we follow the saints and their example we will always end up in Heaven.
These saints are not gloomy saints. St. Teresa of Avila said,
I love St. Teresa of Avila."From sour-faced saints, Good Lord, deliver us!"
Right before St. Thomas More’s head was severed from his body he told the man with the axe in reference to the beard he’d grown in prison,
St. Lawrence, the deacon of Rome, who had given all the wealth of the Church to the poor when the Emperor wanted it, was placed on a grill with a slow fire, cooking him. The saint is the one who said to his executioners,“ My beard hasn’t committed any crime, please spare it from being executed.
St. Francis of Assisi, the one who gave everything up for God never complained but instead had a perfect joy that everyone still thinks of today. We fail to consider the saints because they are so unnecessary. St. Bernard says in today’s Office of Readings that,You can turn me over now; I am done on this side.
St. Bernard was talking about this back in the middle ages and he is right. When we show the saints just a trifle bit of attention, lives change. There was a woman who was an atheist in pre-Hitler Germany…if you can imagine that. She was born into a very devout Jewish family but at the age of 13 years old she announced that she was an atheist and that she didn’t believe in God. Her father was dead but this broke her mother’s heart. This woman’s name was Edith Stein and in pre-Hitler Germany she did something that few women ever did, she got a postdoctoral degree at a German university. In the end she converted to the Catholic faith but how did that happen?Calling the saints to mind inspires or rather arouses in us above all else a longing to enjoy their company, so desirable in itself. We long to share in the citizenship of Heaven, to dwell with the spirits of the blessed, to join the assembly of the patriarchs, the ranks of the prophets, the council of the Apostles, the great host of martyrs and the noble company of Confessors and the choir of Virgins. In short, we long to be united in happiness with all the saints but our dispositions change The Church of all the first followers of Christ awaits us, but we do nothing about it. The saints want us to be with them, and we are indifferent. The souls of the just await us, and we ignore them.
One night Edith was visiting some friends and they went out for an occasion while she stayed home. In their home was a library, something every home should have, that contained books on the saints. Edith Stein would read books like a paper shredder shredding paper. Her hosts came home from their evening out and she announced to them the next morning that she was going to become Catholic. Somewhere in between the host’s night out and breakfast the next morning she believed in God! She also announced that she was going to be a cloistered Carmelite Nun. She did do just that. Her sister Rosa as well as herself were both victims of Hitler’s holocaust and died at Auschwitz. When we give the saints even a little bit of attention, our lives change.
When I was in seminary and having a difficult time, a friend of mine and friend of Bishop elect Flores as well, gave me a book. I asked him if it was a phone book because it was so huge. It was the secret of getting through the seminary; it was the life of St. John Vianney, who is patron of diocesan priests. I am a diocesan priest and I am sorry, but I will be in this diocese the rest of my life so you better move if you don’t like it; I am not going anywhere! [Laughter] St. John died exactly one hundred years before I was born. He probably wanted to hang on to meet me, ha ha, but I hope some day to meet him in Heaven. I have seen his body, which is not embalmed but incorrupt. It is beneath the Altar in a little town called Ars; he was the Cure, the Pastor of Ars, France. Again and again he tried to make it through the seminary and graduate but again and again they would ask him if he was sure he should be a priest and this is the patron of diocesan priests! Even back then, in the south of France they were having a tough time.
St. John finally made it through seminary and settled in this little Church of Ars and he served people from all over as well as cardinals and bishops. He would hear their Confessions. The green eyed monster, jealousy, really reared its head and once in a while priest from the diocese would get up a petition among the priests to have St. John removed from the parish. Every time the bishop would receive one of these petitions he would look down the list to see which priest signed it and invariably, there would be the signature of St. John Vianney. [Laughter] He’d signed the petition to remove him.
The saints demand our attention but if we do not focus on the saints who will always lead us to Heaven but instead, we give in to what is so present at hand like TV, then confusion will reign. Think of this paragraph the next time you hit the power button on the remote control.
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.
Apart from Mother Angelica you cannot turn on the TV and not be offended spiritually and morally; it is impossible. When I was young you could do it because there was a test pattern from 10 pm until 8 am the next morning. I can barely remember it though; I am only 29. [Laughter] You can’t even watch the Super Bowl without being offended. I guess we are going to have to get EWTN to start sponsoring the Super Bowl. Fr. Pacwa could do the play-by-play and then the sisters could be the entertainment for half time. Other than that, you can’t let your kids watch the Super Bowl because they will be offended. Being offended will confuse them. They know you teach them to try to get to Heaven but allowing them to watch improper things on the TV is sending mixed signals and is static and confusion. It is hard enough living in the valley of tears without helping children to be confused. To clear the static and show them the way we must turn to our brothers and sisters in Heaven, the Saints.
”Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.”
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen