Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
2nd Sunday in Advent
December 10, 2006
John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah: A voice of one crying out in the desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
The Gospel, of course, is in the New Testament and the Prophet Isaiah quoted is from the Old Testament. When you research the New Testament, the book most often cited by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John or on the Lips of Our Lord, Himself, is Isaiah followed next by the Book of Psalms. It is like the days following Thanksgiving. Every dish including breakfast and dessert include turkey. Every day in Advent appears to have a healthy serving of the Prophet Isaiah. The Prophet Isaiah is featured prominently.
Last Tuesday we had that beautiful reading from Chapter 11 of the Prophet Isaiah. Today is the Lord's Day and we always give the Lord His Day. The reading harkens back apparently to the Garden of Eden. It seems to take place some time in the future.
And the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid. The giraffe and the lion shall browse together with a little child to guide them. The cow and the bear shall be neighbors. Together their young shall rest. The lion shall eat hay like the ox. The baby shall play by the cobra's den and the child lay his hand on the adder's lair. There shall be no harm or ruin on My Holy Mountain for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the Lord as water covers the sea.
The effects of the knowledge of the Lord, Holy Wisdom, will produce all of this sometime in the future. But it sounds like the Garden of Eden before the Fall, the first sin of Adam and Eve; the Original Sin. There is a certain joy in hearing this about sometime in the future because present always looks rather bleak, very much like a desert. The readings from today speak of joy. The last sentence from the reading in the Book of Baruch,
God is leading Israel in joy but the light of His Glory, with His Mercy and Justice for company.
And in the Psalm,
The Lord has done great things for us we are filled with joy.
And St. Paul's letter to the Philippians,
I pray always with joy in my every prayer for all of you because of your partnership for the Gospel from the first day until now.
All of this talk of joyfulness during Advent leading up to our Christmas Hymn, "Joy to the World," it doesn't seem to quite fit. All of this joy is in conflict with my take on life and my experience of life. Or as the philosopher of Alabama, Mother Angelica, once said,
"That's the problem with life. It is so daily!
That sounds like something you would here from a philosopher and she is right. There is not a whole lot to be joyful about.
Last Thursday I did as I always do, I went by the Missionaries of Charity in Dallas. Instead of going there later in the day I went early because we had two vigil Masses for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception here in Greenville. So I went early and the sisters were already in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament in their chapel in their convent. They live in a very small home in one of the most blighted neighborhoods in Dallas. The neighborhood is very difficult. The sisters come from far away places like India and Costa Rica. The sisters live there all the time. I go there during the day but I don't think that I would be able to find the courage to go by there at night; let alone live there.
The sisters, when I arrived there on Thursday, were singing hymns. The joy in their voices was palpable. You could experience that joy just listening to their singing to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. These sisters don't have a penny to their name yet they are so joyful. You look around the neighborhood and there is nothing obvious to be joyful about and yet joy is overflowing in their voices. I did as always and gave them the talk and made them cry. (Laughter) I went into the next room to hear their confessions. It is the same thing I do every Thursday. As I was going into the next room the sisters began singing the Immaculate Mary. The joy was so effervescent in these sisters.
I quipped in my homily on the Immaculate Conception and then I drove back to Greenville for the afternoon vigil Masses. I pondered aloud,
"I wonder what those sisters are going to watch on TV?"
Maybe a rerun of the Sopranos or an HBO special? No, the sisters don't own a TV. The sisters don't allow so many images that enter into our lives to enter into their convent. Their focus is on God and on the service of God and their neighbor. They don't let any other images or icons to come in and block the road.
That is what the Prophet Isaiah is writing about today.
The mountains will be brought low and fill in the valleys to make a level road.
The level road needed especially for Israel so that everyone can stream toward Jerusalem, the Heavenly Jerusalem which is the symbol for Heaven. God desires this leveling to occur. That is part of the work of Advent. I am wearing a penitential color. Advent is a time of penance where you and I are supposed to be removing anything that would hinder us on the road Christmas and by extension on the road to Heaven. So many things hinder us yet we do not lift a finger to remove them from our every day lives.
Thursday, a week ago, I was up in Detroit for the ordination of Bishop Flores. I turned on the weather channel and was going to study what would hinder me from returning to Dallas. I looked in awe at the great frozen cities of Tulsa and Dallas, cities that are in the South while I was languishing there in Detroit above 32 degrees. After the weather and realizing that I would get back and you can see that I am back, I switched the channel to EWTN, Mother Angelica. The Sopranos hadn't come on yet! Please! On EWTN I saw Pope Benedict walk into the greatest Church in Turkey, the Hagia Sofia, Holy Wisdom, like the holy wisdom we hear about in today's reading. The Emperor Constantine started the Church of Holy Wisdom, the Hagia Sofia. He founded Constantinople, now Istanbul, as a second Rome, his definition. He moved the imperial administration to Constantinople.
The church was built on a very prominent slope overlooking the future city. It is a massive church. Massive then and massive now even though it is in a region known for its earthquakes. It is in the modern country of Turkey and up until 1453 Constantinople was a Catholic City and Mass was offered every day in the Hagia Sofia. The Hagia Sofia was known for its absence of columns in the large central area. The large dome allows a tremendous open space, which in not seen in many churches that are riddled with columns, fly buttresses, and piers. Up until 1453 it was a Catholic Church. So for just over 1000 years Constantinople was a catholic city and like turning a light switch from on to off, one day the city was catholic and the next day it was Muslim. The Muslims took it in 1453. Some ventured to burn down the Hagia Sofia yet other cooler heads prevailed. Thanks be to God! Hagia Sofia was turned into a mosque adding four towers to the exterior they said they had an instant mosque. There was a problem in the interior. The large and very exquisite icons were everywhere inside. On the huge dome they are enormous. Icons are forbidden according to the teaching of the Koran. An icon is something like you see on our altar. The icons in the Hagia Sofia were on a grand scale.
Some Muslims wanted the icons removed but being the same fallen nature as you and I someone else came up with the idea to just plaster over them. It would be less work than climbing up there to take them out. It was easier to plaster over them and that is what they did. Hagia Sofia was a mosque from 1453 until the 20th century when Attaturk was chosen as president of Turkey. One of his first steps in uniting his country was to turn Hagia Sofia into a museum. That was a very wise move. There were those who hoped the mosque would be returned to the Christians. A fight would have ensued. Adults acting like they were children. Attaturk just turned it into a museum and since 1453 Muslim governments have been repairing and maintaining a Catholic Church at great expense.
In the twentieth century the plaster fell off of many of the mosaics and nothing was done about it. Some of the finest ancient mosaics are there. When I turned on EWTN there was Pope Benedict entering into the museum and Turks surrounded him. This is very interesting because Sept 12, 2006, the Pope gave a talk at Regensberg in German. This is not that amazing because he was born in Germany and picked up
German. He gave a talk at a university at which he used to teach and he spoke of a leader in Constantinople centuries ago who was commenting on the radical terrorism latent in so many in Islam. A firestorm began with those comments.
Immediately major Muslim leaders around the world told the Holy Father to take that back or to commit suicide or they would gladly sever his head from his body for him. Things like that began to fly around the press and of course, Al Jazeera, what's new? The Holy Father did not apologize or take it back. His only apology was that he was sorry for "their" reaction. In marriage you would still be sleeping on the sofa if you apologized like that. The Holy Father said that anytime we discuss religion, reason must be present at the table. If some people are reasonable and others are emotional we can't have a discussion. Perhaps you saw this at Thanksgiving with members of your family.
Some people want to discuss religion and others are just virulent. The Holy Father was right. Without reasonable people one cannot have a discussion about religion or anything important. Some people say that you shouldn't talk about religion or politics. G.K. Chesterton said, "What else is there to talk about?" The Holy Father's comments pushed some fiend to shoot an Italian nun who was working in Africa as she had done for a long time. This elderly nun was working in a children's hospital when some "brave" soul shot her in the back as she was entering the children's hospital. How sad. A priest was also killed. We heard about so many in the Muslim world and how they were huffing and puffing and they were going to blow all of Christendom down.
Words then came out that it was very imprudent for the Holy Father to go to Turkey at this time. It is too awful. "Look what you have done!" "Who is going to clean that up?" It was comments like this that were flying around. So the Holy Father, on the Thursday after Thanksgiving was there in Turkey and was surrounded by Muslims. It was kind of like the old movies, "Come on out with your hands up. You are surrounded." But these were all faithful citizens of Turkey who were Muslim. They were so eager, like when you give your grandchild a hundred dollar bill and then drive them to Toys-R-Us as they are just opening. This is how the Holy Father was being treated. They couldn't pull him forward fast enough. There was eagerness on their faces. I would even go further and say there was JOY.
They were so happy. Just like it is written in the Koran,
"Welcome the Pope anytime he comes to the Hagia Sofia."
That statement is not in the Koran. Father Paul is joking.
This is remarkable and kind of like what was written in Isaiah chapter 11. There was a joy, a big joy on their faces and when they got to the big room and they pointed to that big dome. Look, Look! Most of you don't know but I am fluent in Arabic. I could understand what they were saying,
"Looki, looki."
It was amazing both the joy on their faces and the joy in their voices to have the Pope in the church, then mosque, then museum. This is totally counter-intuitive. No one expected to see this.
The wolf as a guest of the lamb and the leopard lying down with the kid, the calf and the young lion browsing together.
There was obvious unity there and they couldn't wait to say, "Look", for on the dome of the Hagia Sofia, was an the Icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary who was either awaiting the Birth of her Son Jesus Christ or right after He was born. So many of the icons are of the Baby Jesus waiting to be born as if in a see through window in His mother.
There was unity there on that Thursday for a little while. A unity nobody foresaw. In fact all of the prophets of doom, the alphabet media and diocesan papers spoke against such a move and yet the unity was there. You have to respect the Holy Father and admire what God was able to do against such incredible odds.
On the cover of the bulletin you will see something similar. Yesterday was the 475th anniversary of Our Lady appearing to John in the Desert. In this case it is Mexico City but had previously been known as the Hill at Tepeyac, which while there are cactus growing there it is not a desert. However, the entire Aztec Empire, which had been conquered just a little before her visit in 1531, was indeed a desert. There was not a square inch in the entire empire that had not been liberally soaked in human blood. They had perfected, if I can use that word, human sacrifice and cannibalism. They had worshipped Satan for centuries and had practiced every vice. It was a wretched place. A disaster. The Blessed Mother appeared there yesterday, December 9th, for the first time in 1531 and for the last time on December 12, 1531. On the last appearance Our Lady left this image.
Never before in the history of the world, and never since has the Blessed Mother left her image; not at Lourdes, nor at Fatima, nor at the Rue de Bac in Paris. In those cases the visionaries had to speak and describe how the Blessed Mother looked. This time we can understand why she left her image. She appeared to a man! He would have just described her as a beautiful lady and that is all we would have known about Our Lady of Guadalupe. Her image would have been lost forever in the mind of John, St. Juan Diego!
Father is joking here. He has often told us that women remember exactly what other women were wearing while men just notice that they looked beautiful.
However, this is a remarkable icon for many reasons. If you look at her hands and then above her hands is a sash around her body. Any woman who has given birth to a child will recognize the significance of the bow being so high on her body. She is about to give birth and that is where the bow has to go. When you look at this image in the capital of the former Aztec Empire it is interesting that we are looking at a Mother and Child. Before this image was left and cared for by Bishop Zumaraga there was just over 200,000 baptisms had occurred over a 12-year period in the former Aztec Empire. Then when Our Lady left her image on the tilma there were over 9,000,000 baptisms in 10 years. Over 9 million came and requested baptism.
Contrary to what you are going to hear about those baptisms these baptisms were not forced. The people were not put to the sword or coerced in any way. That was against what the King and Queen of Spain wanted and against what the Franciscans wanted. The Franciscans even had to write Rome and request that the Rite of Baptism be shortened. It seems that some of the priests who were baptizing those 9 million people were having their arms fall off. The people who say that they were forced to come in from the jungles or the inner parts of the country are being ridiculous. They would have had to empty Spain to have enough conquistadors to find all of those people and bring them in. It didn't happen that way. The reason it, all of those baptisms, happened was because of this icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
If you look closely at Our Lady of Guadalupe there is no expiration date. This image still is a powerful vehicle of evangelization just as it was when Our Lady left it on December 12, 1531. She is the Patroness of the Americas. If you have no image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in your home you must take home this bulletin. I will bless them after Mass. You must take home this image and put it in a place of honor and respect. Sadly so many homes have not welcomed this image into their homes but
instead the great sewer of society, TV, has emptied into our homes. The television has continued to bring for decades raw sewage into our living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, dining rooms and bathrooms. What is that about? I can imagine that there are people who have TVs in their walk in closets and in their garages. You know I might miss something. We might miss an image on the TV that might be helpful. I will tell you that that is an elusive image. That is right up there with Yeti or the abominable snowman. Try to find an image on television that is going to try and get you or me to Heaven. I guess if they still had that test pattern?
There are now more TVs in homes than there are Americans. Yet this image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is so arresting, so helpful, while the images that come across the TV screen and perhaps filling entire lives with raw sewage are not leveling the mountains or filling in the valleys. Instead they are heaping up great obstacles. This is when images on TVs and computers and shall I say it, video games, start to become hindrances or obstacles.
Advent is the time the church gives you and me a time to remove such hindrances such icons that are definitely working for the other team. The Blessed Mother's image or icon in Mexico, in the New World was unprecedented. There was never in the history of the world such an outpouring of the Holy Spirit as we saw during those ten years in the former Aztec Empire. It seemed like a new Pentecost. The numbers involved even dwarfed Pentecost. It is the same Holy Spirit.
This season of Advent must be used. God can make use of our week efforts. He can bless them and make us strong. That which seems impossible can be done like Isaiah's famous quote to the evil King Ahaz,
"A virgin shall be with Child and bear a Son and shall name Him Emmanuel."
A name which means “God is with us.”
If we take the icons and images that are proving to be obstacles to the Lord and His Progress which really means our progress toward Him and replace them with an icon such as Our Lady of Guadalupe we will be fulfilling that ancient prophecy found in today's gospel.
John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin. As it is written in the book of the Prophet Isaiah, "A Voice of one crying out in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight His paths."
It happened with John in the desert in Mexico. St. Juan Diego. And it can happen today as well. It must happen. We must prepare a way for the Lord and make straight His paths.
Every valley shall be filled and every mountain shall be made low.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.