Father Paul Weinberger, Pastor
St. William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
3rd Sunday of Advent
Gaudette Sunday
December 17, 2006
Rejoice in the Lord always, I say it again, rejoice; your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
Today is Gaudette Sunday; Gaudette means rejoice in Latin. If we had not sung the opening hymn we could have chanted the opening Antiphon, which is taken from the first line of the Second Reading of St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians.
Normally the vestment color during Advent is purple but on the 3rd Sunday of Advent it is rose. You are going to think I am kidding but I am serious about this. The Church as mother and teacher is so concerned that you and I have been so deliberate and so dedicated, so focused and concentrated that by now we are practically dead from so many penances; a penance here and a penance there in preparation for Christmas. Pause for coughing, hack, hack! Right? This is why we have a change in color today.
There is a scandal in the Church; I am not talking about the scandal that is the ever expanding, ongoing, never-ending scandal like you saw Friday and Saturday in the Dallas Morning News about the Diocese to the west of ours. No, it is the scandal that says that there are no more cases and all the information has been released. Then the next day there is an admission of one thing and then another. The day after that they say that there is nothing more. But…the next day comes and there was “that” too. But that’s it! That is finally all. It is a never-ending scandal; fallible human beings sadly minister the Church. Bishops, priests, religious and lay people are all afflicted and sometimes those afflicted people are more afflicted than others so it seems like this scandal just never ends. Two billion dollars in this country alone and counting… that is a lot of money. Not to mention the incredible harm and anguish that has been inflicted on victims and families; even some lives have been taken because of it. Then there is the faith that has been lost or sadly tried for no reason. That is a scandal in the Church.
We will not and cannot forget that scandal because it is ever-present before us and so we should do penance. If I have to wear this rose colored vestment I will wear it as penance. Whatever ever we do during these four weeks of Advent we should do in penance because there is a scandal that goes back 2000 years, and that scandal is about Mary and Joseph knocking on the doors of Bethlehem but there was no room found for the Holy Family, and so baby Jesus was born in the most meager of circumstances in a stable 2000 years ago this year, and that is probably the closest we are going to get to the anniversary…2000 years ago, this year.
There was a parish putting on a Christmas program years ago and the parents decided that children needed constant practice and repetition to know their lines to avoid any surprises. Anytime you have children involved, you are going to have surprises. Art Linkletter understood this very well; kids say the funniest things. This particular parish had practiced and practiced for months for the Christmas play and it wasn’t all that difficult. Mary and St. Joseph would go to a series of doors and a boy in a fake mustache like the one I am wearing [Laughter] would answer. Mary and Joseph would ask for a place to stay and the boy would tell them they had no room and then slam the door. Of course they chose boys for this because they are experts at slamming doors, right? Anyway, this kept going on with Joseph and Mary having doors slammed in the faces. The play was going perfectly until they got to the last boy. He’d been listening to this series of doors slamming in the face of Joseph and Mary. When they came to his door and knocked the boy answered the door and looked around. After they’d asked for a place he said,
“You know, they told me to tell you “NO”, but come on in anyway!”
There went the big moment for the kids in the stable, right?
Anyway, that is the scandal that could possibly repeat itself in about a week. Do you know that at this time, a week from today will be Mass #1 for Christmas, so the scandal which could be avoided is the scandal of arriving at Christmas but there is no room…. SLAM! Our Lord’s anniversary goes unnoticed.
In the Office of Readings today the Antiphon is beautiful.
Let us cleanse our hearts for the coming of the great King, that we may be ready to welcome Him; He is coming and will not delay.
That is absolutely beautiful and very similar to the second reading.
Rejoice in the Lord always, I say it again, rejoice; your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near.
Time is running out and we have to prepare!
If you look at the front of the bulletin you will see the Altar to Our Lady of Guadalupe. If you look over there where it should be, it is not there. Now it is on the cover of the bulletin. We put the Altar for Our Lady of Guadalupe up on Monday and took it down on Friday. We removed a couple rows of benches and took away the Altar rail and had to place this large picture of Our Lady in front of the Baptismal Font, which is beautiful and weighs maybe 600 to 800 pounds. We have a rule here. NEVER MOVE the Baptismal Font! Some chiropractor in town is probably out of business because we refuse to move it. So, we placed Our Lady right in front. We moved the rail and pews to accommodate the crowds.
The Sanctuary is very small, especially when you get Deacon Ishmael up here with me; it gets really small for some reason…especially when the deacon comes in. He is probably eating a donut right now. I should talk, right?
We had to take extraordinary measures to display Our Lady of Guadalupe and I think it turned out rather beautiful; she is so beautiful.
Click here to view the bulletin cover of Our Lady’s Altar
http://semperficatholic.com///OLG_6.JPG
The baptismal Font being behind her is interesting because when Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared 475 years ago on the 12th of December, after her apparition over nine million people came in from the surrounding lands of Mexico City requesting Baptism. They became brothers and sisters of the Lord, freed from Original Sin and personal sin.
Now, this is very important; I haven’t seen Mel Gibson’s latest movie, “Apocalypto” but I understand that it is about life under the Aztecs. If what I have heard is true, in the last moments there is the arrival of the Spaniards. Can you think of any empire at the time of those events that would be more in need of Baptism to remove the Original Sin, the sin of Adam and Eve, as well as personal sin? It is so precious that Our Lady opened the door to so many graces and blessings.
As Catholics, we understand, but to some it might sound as though we are inflating our Lady a lot, like we are giving her a lot of credit. Every grace and every blessing has the same origin, which is the Cross of Jesus Christ. There is no blessing or grace, which does not originate in this never-ending stream. If we trace this stream all the way back to its source it is the very Heart of God the Father. No, this is not just nice sounding rhetoric but it is the truth; every grace comes from this source.
There is absolutely no grace that has blessed the universe that has not originated or will originate from this endless source of grace. The graces go all the way back to Adam and Eve; how else could they have been redeemed if this were not so. These graces come to us at this very moment and the graces are extended in the future for anyone who will ever live. This is a spring, a fountain sealed if you will, that can be accessed by absolutely anyone through the graces and blessings that come to us in Baptism. What a tremendous thing for the Americas when Our Lady appeared 475 years ago. If Our Lord gives me life in twenty-five years I will be honored and privileged beyond belief to celebrate the 500th Anniversary of Our Lady of Guadalupe and her coming.
When Our Lady appeared in Mexico City she was appearing as the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The cover of your bulletin is a picture of the Immaculate Conception and the statue behind me that is surrounded by roses is the traditional statue of the Immaculate Conception
This statue can be viewed here
http://semperficatholic.com///Immaculate_4.JPG
So here is the Immaculate Conception on the bulletin and there is the Immaculate Conception behind me. The only difference here is that Our Lady left us this image of herself, which doesn’t disprove that one. When Our Lady first appeared to St. Juan Diego it was December 9th. If you were to consider the 2,000 years of the Church as one, 24-hour day, in the last 5 seconds the Church has changed the way she celebrates a great Solemnity like the Immaculate Conception. Until about 40 years ago December 8th came and over the next 8 days (what was then called and "octave") the Church meditated over the great blessings and Graces contained in the Immaculate Conception. Today it's very different - only a single day to process so much greatness.
When Our Lady appeared that first day, on December 9th, she identified herself as the Immaculate Conception and then she left us this image, which is the only time in the history of the world she identified herself silently. So many in Mexico like to call her the Mother of Mexico, and with reason and pride. But, she is also the Mother of the Americas. She appeared almost in the center of the Americas. There is the tip of South American and the tip of North America and this is where she appeared, give or take a few miles.
In the year 2008 we will be celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Our Lady’s appearance to St. Bernadette in Lourdes, in the South of France. Very similar to Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady appears at a hinge or junction between places; you know, where the South of France comes down and the Pyrenees Mountains rise up in beauty and majesty. What descends from the Pyrenees is called the Iberian Peninsula…Spain and Portugal. It is kind of the like the way Florida is tacked onto the Eastern Seaboard. The Iberian Peninsula descends from France and the continent of Europe and our Lady chose to appear right on the border between France and Spain in 1858. She appeared to a young lady named St. Bernadette Soubirous. Every time she appeared to St. Bernadette, Our Lady spoke to her and every time she appeared St. Bernadette would ask her name. Finally at the end of her many visits Our Lady identified herself and said,
I am the Immaculate Conception
No one else could hear or see her but many people began to believe that she was indeed appearing. When Pope John Paul II went to Lourdes he said this about Our Lady.
It is not really an invitation; it is a command, a direction, or an instruction. When we have imperatives that come from our father, that is a command and when they come from our mothers, we call them suggestions. [Laughter] Or as in here, an invitation, right? If you dad tells you to do something, that is an order. But mom is just inviting me to clean my room. Uh huh! Anyway…The sinless Virgin Mary gracefully welcomes sinners and the pilgrims are always quick to answer her invitation. “Go and drink at the spring and wash yourself there.
An account here of Our Lady’s appearance at Lourdes tells us how St. Bernadette followed this command of Our Lady, who at different times told her to do things that were symbolic. Think of this; Jeremiah, a prophet in the Old Testament was told to do symbolic things like getting a clay pot and calling the people together and he smashed it. God says through Jeremiah that this is what will happen to Jerusalem. Jeremiah calls them all to gather and he has a suitcase with him. He dug a hole in the wall and takes the suitcase and goes through the wall of the city to the outside of the city and predicts that they will have to flee for their lives.
They didn’t like Jeremiah because of these symbolic newsflashes from God; many people didn’t understand him and many didn’t understand the symbolism connected with St. Bernadette. She was told to put her arms out in the form of a cross and kiss the ground, which was difficult as well as humiliating and humbling. Don’t you know what some people thought?
“Ok, up until this point I believed her but she is evidentially unhinged. Get the kids and let’s go.”
These are the kind of symbolic gestures that St. Bernadette was asked to do. During one of the apparitions St. Bernadette was told to drink from a spring, which was a symbolic gesture. If you are familiar with Lourdes you know that there is a grotto that has been carved, probably by erosion where the river ate into the side of the rock formation and created a hollow cave. Our Lady appeared above that in a niche and told St. Bernadette to go and drink from the spring. Well, there was no spring visible to the eye and Bernadette didn’t know of any spring so she turned and started to walk toward the river. The Lady called her back and indicated to St. Bernadette a spot on the ground and obediently St. Bernadette dug into the ground.
If you travel to Lourdes today there is wall after wall of spigots coming out and when you push on the spigot you can fill up gallon after gallon of plastic jugs. There are baths where you can wash yourself, which are filled with that same water. At the time of St. Bernadette there were no springs because they had not been discovered until she began to dig into the earth. The people watching were astounded to see the little visionary apparently eating mud or dirt. She was on her knees and she would dig and water would come up and she would try to drink but there was not enough water so she would throw the mud aside and try again and finally she gets enough and bends down bringing the water to her face and of course, there was mud on her face. She then turns around to the people and looks ridiculous to some of the people. Don’t you know that some of these people had thought she lost her mind and they walked away? Some of the witnesses though, said this.
What was she doing? PENANCE! She was doing symbolic penance with her arms outstretched, recalling the Lord on the Cross. Why was she kissing the earth? Well, it could be a reference to,That which made me believe, it was indeed the Blessed Virgin Mary; was to see Bernadette go up on her knees, kissing the earth, her arms extended like a cross without touching the ground with her hands. She did this with astonishing vivacity, raising and lowering herself without faltering. I was stronger than her and I could not have done it.
You are dust and unto dust you shall return.
Don’t those words really grip you on Ash Wednesday at the service?
The witness that I just quoted probably said that what he saw really put it over the top for him.
Her penance would benefit so many others. Humbling herself would help so many other people on their roads of faith.Heaven gave the child enough strength to do what was asked of her; to humiliate herself in front of the people of Lourdes in order to shake them out of their spiritual torpor.
Here we are, the 3rd Sunday of Advent and we are supposed to have been about our penance for a long time now and yet it is still not too late to begin. Penance is what is needed and this is what they were looking for when they addressed St. John the Baptist in the Gospel today. The crowds asked St. John the Baptist what they should do, but look at what he DOESN’T tell them to do. He doesn’t tell them to form a committee or start a club or association where they could have sub committees and rules. He said none of that but he did say,
The man who has two cloaks should share with the man who has none and the man who has food should do likewise.
He was very direct, very shy of bureaucracy and very brief. It is amazing what St. John the states as a form of penance, and he is only baptizing with water. He says that someone mightier is coming who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire, which is a reference to his cousin, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Messiah!
It is amazing how much one person can amass under one roof. I had a distant relative, whose husband predeceased her; she had kids who grew up to be very successful…thanks be to God! She passed away at a ripe old age and the family went in to settle the estate. The two children were to divide between themselves over a million dollars. I got a real nice “goose egg” although I wasn’t looking for anything; they are distant relatives, right? The important thing is, they went in to clean out the house and eventually had to get a dumpster. Every time this deceased relative would go to Whataburger or Wendy’s she would pick up those plastic spoons and forks that come with salt and pepper, Sweet and Low or sugar. Over a lifetime she amassed quit a treasure. Whenever there was a funeral and someone put on a dinner she would not attend the funeral but the dinner after and fix a big plate to take home along with extra paper plates, napkins and plastic wear. Her family threw all of this away. Of course we all know it is ok to steal from the Church. No, I checked on that one before we started Mass and it is not ok to steal paper plates or whatever from a Church. She was hoarding these things and it is a good thing she didn’t smoke because the house would have gone up in flames. There were so many things under one roof, but we are really not that different.
We live in the greatest country with the greatest freedoms and the temptations to do exactly as she did, although probably not so conspicuously as she had done. Perhaps you have cornered the market and ordered every dish that has been offered on the Home Shopping Network. Well, there is that newly married couple on the end of the block just starting out and perhaps you could let them have your first set of dishes that you ever bought when you were newly married.
“Well Father Paul, I don’t know; what if the Waltons come over for Christmas dinner this year?”
Just borrow it back! Again, what St. John the Baptist is saying to you and to me, and it is still fresh; whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none. It is the same with food. He tells the tax collectors to stop collecting more than what is prescribed. Can someone fax this to Washington D.C.? They still have not gotten this message. He told soldiers not to practice extortion or falsely accuse anyone but to be satisfied with their wages. We don’t need a committee to be able to do this, but penance and kindnesses is what we need. It is going to be a penance to let go of some of these things but Our Lord says that it is a time of great anticipation. The Prophet Isaiah says this and St. Paul says this in the second reading, I should say.
Rejoice in the Lord always. Your kindness should be known to all; the Lord is near.
Those words paint a picture for us. We need to get on the stick and we need to do what we can because there is still time, especially when you consider the fact that I am not the Immaculate Conception and you are not the Immaculate Conception. Later on when you get the chance look at page four and five in the bulletin and you will see that from Saturday, which was yesterday, and until next Saturday there are over fifteen hours of scheduled Confessions.
“Oh, I don’t like going to Confession after dark.”
You are in “luck”. There are Confessions in the morning, afternoon and at night. Go to the other ones and not the ones at night. But, Confession is a way of humbling ourselves so that we can prepare a place, getting rid of sin or material possessions in a joyful way. How many wise parents have figured this out?
“You know kids, Christmas is just around the corner. Of your best toys, which ones do you want to send to kids who will get no toys?”
If they grumble you just cut back on the toys, right? Your kids have grown to be privileged beyond their wildest dreams. We should all be doing this in a spirit of joy.
As St. Paul says,
Rejoice in the Lord always, I say it again, rejoice; your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near
Lest He hear those words, there is no room here for you….SLAM! That would be to perpetuate the scandal, which still stings 2000 years hence.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen