Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
4th Sunday in Ordinary Time
January 28, 2007
When the people in the synagogue heard this they were all filled with fury; they rose, drove Him out of the town and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl Him down headlong.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
As I mentioned last Sunday, there are two groups or two divisions in this country. There are those who believe in God and have faith in him and those who have faith, real faith that God is dead. These are the two divisions and they are both faith filled. One is honest about it; people of faith openly and honestly admit our faith in God. The Secularists refuse to admit that they have such strong faith that God is dead that it influences everything they do. This is a very different way of approaching life.
In today’s Gospel and in a very short span of a few lines, in a visit to a synagogue where Jesus is with religious people, and they are obviously religious because they are in a synagogue, they want to kill Jesus! They were all very happy and were praising Jesus and were amazed at the gracious words that came from His mouth. They spoke highly of Him but just in a few moments when the Gospel ends, it ends with the exact same people ready to kill Jesus. This is amazing. It is kind of like Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week and then Holy Thursday night Jesus is arrested and on Good Friday He is crucified and dies. In this Gospel we have people who wanted to move Good Friday up and kill Jesus at the brow of this hill. Sad, but these are the divisions that are indeed laid out.
About twenty years ago, when he was the right hand man of Pope John Paul II, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who is today Pope Benedict XVI, gave a series of interviews, which were combined and put in this book, “The Ratzinger Report”. It is an excellent book. One of the questions was about Fatima. Our Lady of Fatima appeared to three children almost one hundred years ago; in ten more years it will be one hundred years. Here is part of an answer to a question that the then Cardinal, now Pope gave.
He really gets to the point about Fatima. Jesus says again and again that unless you repent you will all perish! Then Cardinal Ratzinger added, which Fatima fully recalls to mind,A stern warning has been launched from that place, from Fatima, that is directed against the prevailing frivolity, a summons to the seriousness of life, of history; to the perils that threaten humanity. It is that which Jesus Himself recalls very frequently. “Unless you repent you will all perish? Luke 13.’
If you don’t like conversion and you aren’t interested in a daily and ongoing conversion, you’d fit right in with these people in the Gospel. We should already know that conversion is a constant demand of a Christian life and if we read the New Testament, this is not new news.Conversion is a constant demand of Christian life.
Last week we celebrated the Conversion of St. Paul, who was Saul of Tarsus before his conversion. He made his living rounding up Christians to be handed over to the authorities so they could be killed. St. Stephen was the first of these martyrs. Saul was very good at being very bad. On his way to round up more Christians in Damascus, he fell off his horse, or he fell down. As he fell he heard the voice of Jesus saying,
Saul, Saul why do you persecute Me?
He fell on the road to Damascus and he fell in love with God! Up to that point he’d been a very religious man but God Himself declared that he was persecuting Him. Ananias had to really be talked into going to visit Saul in the city of Damascus. God told Ananias that Saul was His chosen instrument and that he would have much to suffer for Him.
God used someone who was actually a tremendous sinner to spread His Word. Saint Paul, as he became known after his baptism, turned from being a real stinker to a great Apostle, shinning the light of Christ over great and vast areas, from the East to the West, from Jerusalem all the way to Rome as well as all parts in between. He was a man that was driven; he was in love with God. He’d persecuted God and handed over God’s friends to be killed and that was the driving force behind Saint Paul. He would spend himself telling friend and foe alike about the Gospel and do this without fear.
Today in the Office of Readings and in Morning Prayer, that quote that I love from Saint Paul came up.
Whenever you see a statue of Saint Peter you see him with a couple of keys. Whenever you see Saint Paul he has a sword and the sword represents the verse I just quoted. The Sword represents the power of the Word of God to convert. In Saint Paul we have the power of the Word and the power of his own blood. St. Paul was a Roman citizen and he was tried in Rome as a Roman citizen for being a Christian and was found guilty. He was led outside the city of Rome and they cut his head off with a sword. Roman citizens were not crucified; that was for everyone else. So whenever you see Saint Paul, that sword he has represents the power of the Word of God.The Word of God is alive; it strikes to the heart. It pierces more surely than a two-edged sword.
How many Christians today actually believe the Word of God has any power? How many times have I heard Catholics say that since they couldn’t go to Communion that they didn’t want to go to Mass because then they would just get nothing out of it if they couldn't receive Communion? What is that saying?
”The Word of God is powerless. The Word of God has no power.”
So they just go to Mass for Communion; how sad!
The beginning of Saints Paul’s 1st Letter to the Thessalonians was in today’s Office of Readings that priests and religious read every day. These are some of the things that the “stinker” turned saint wrote.The Word of God is alive; it strikes to the heart. It pierces more surely than a two-edged sword.
Our preaching the gospel proved not a mere matter of words for you but one of power. It was carried on in the Holy Spirit and out of complete conviction.
There is strength in these words. Later on St. Paul said,
We were not guilty of flattering words or greed under any pretext. As God as our witness, neither did we seek glory from men, you, or any others.
He is telling them very bluntly about Jesus; no time for frills, no time for fancy talk. Good parents will understand this next verse immediately.
You must recall brothers, our efforts and our toils and how we worked day and night. All the time we preached God’s good tidings to you in order not to impose on you in any way. You are witnesses as is God Himself of how upright, just, and irreproachable our conduct was toward you, who are believers. You likewise know how we exhorted every one of you as a father does his children; how we encouraged and pleaded with you to make your lives worthy of the God who calls you to His Kingship and glory.
This is someone who believed in the power of God and had tremendous faith in God and the power of His word to convert, to the point of shedding his blood to prove it. You can’t go any further than that. Then again, we see examples around us all the time of people who underestimate the power of God and His Word. The world is in great need of conversion.
In the beginning of 2007 I began talking about prayer. Remember, you and I didn’t pray enough in 2006. The reason I know this is because it comes up on your credit card bills and I studied them. No, of course not! It won’t be long of course. It is obvious; you didn’t pray enough in 2006 and neither did I. Here we are at the end of month number one of 2007 and where are we? How many times do we not pray just out of sheer laziness?
“I am not going to pray! It does no good! The Word of God is dead and prayer is so lame.”
Right? Do you know the sound you hear after you give yourself permission not to pray? It is the sound you normally hear after that. It is a very slight sound, the sound of a button being depressed on the channel clicker. POWER! Then you can just sit there or lie there and glory in HBO, the Movie Channel or any of the soft or hard porn that is on TV, right? That is what TV passes for today.
”Why pray? I can’t pray but I sure can be dedicated to watching endless hours of something that is going to do absolutely nothing to help my family and me get to Heaven.”
When I pray the Rosary every day I remember what Our Lady of Fatima asked for. I start the Rosary making the Sign of the Cross, I kiss the Rosary, and then I remember John 16:23. Jesus says that whatever you ask the Father in His name it will be given to you, and so I ask.
” God the Father, in the Name of Jesus, please send me the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, please help me to pray this Rosary with attention and devotion. HELP ME TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE SPECIAL INTENTIONS OF Our Lady of Fatima. I pray for the conversion of poor sinners.”
Praying for poor sinners includes all of us.
"Do you see what hypocrites we are? As Catholics we are incredible hypocrites."
No we aren’t! Our Lady of Fatima asked us to pray for the conversion of sinners and the greatest sinner is here before you. Should that shock anyone? Shouldn’t you be praying for the conversion of sinners? Aren’t you in that number as well? I also pray for an end to wars and for peace in the world.
“Why pray…it is not going happen!”
Again, did you notice?
“God is dead and prayer is lame and useless; why bother! CLICK, CLICK, CLICK”
Right? After I pray for the intentions I have mentioned I move on to Our Lady of Lourdes and her intentions at Lourdes; for the sick, suffering, and the dying. There are always those who are sick, suffering and dying. I always ask too that my Rosary be prayed to bring greater honor to Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart. She stated at Fatima in 1917, that her Son wants greater honor given to her Immaculate Heart.
Do you know why we need vocal prayer? It is so you and I won’t grow lazy. Oh I know, we spend hours a day in prayer. Yea, right! What? Have you already drifted off? WAKE UP! Of course we don’t; we find every reason not to pray and yet the world depends on our prayers. The world needs conversion; it needed it in the past and it needs conversion right now! So many Catholics give themselves permission to be lazy when it comes to prayer and if we stay lazy then 2007 will be worse than 2006.
Let me give you an example. Back during WWII in Nazi Germany, Adolph Eikman got a promotion; he was made the Nazi in charge of all the people being deported to the death camps. Being German and being very organized, he organized many trains that efficiently and regularly deported many Jews, Catholics and Christians to the death camps, like Auschwitz and Dachau. Around 1943 a protestant pastor, Heinrich Gruber, who was representing a group of pastors, approached Adolph Eikman.
Up until that point there had been an understanding. The Jews who had served Germany in WWI, or their widows or children would not be touched or sent away to those concentration camps. In 1943 they decided that they were all going. You always start incrementally, right?
So Pastor Heinrich Gruber, a protestant pastor that represented other protestant pastors, approached Adolph Eikman with this proposal.
“Can we go back to the way it was where all of those Jews who served in WWI along with their widows and children won’t be sent to the concentration camps?”
Adolph Eikman turned him down and that was that.
In the early 1960s the Israeli Mossad, the secret service, discovered Eikman living in Argentina. He had an assumed name, which was now "Clement." This is amusing because clement means “merciful”. He was anything but merciful, being the one who would deport so many to those death camps. The Israeli Mossad picked him up and took him back to Israel. For months in 1961 they had his trial and it was televised. The new state of Israel wasn’t very old and this was the first time to televise; television wasn’t very old. I wasn’t very old either; I was just a couple of years old. Anyway, they televised it and guess who showed up as a witness for the defense? Pastor Gruber! He was called so he went before the court. He was asked to testify. The defense lawyer for Eikman, who was kind of like the defense lawyer for Saddam Hussein…Eikman and Hussein met the same fate, they both were executed. The defense lawyer for Eikman had Pastor Gruber on the stand and he asked Gruber,
“Did you try to influence Eikman? Did you as a clergyman try to appeal to his feelings? Did you preach to him and tell him that his conduct was contrary to morality?”
Of course the very courageous pastor had done nothing of the sort. His answers were embarrassing. In the final statement Eikman gave to the court he used Pastor Gruber as tall grass in which to hide. This is what he kept repeating.
“Nobody, nobody came to me and reproached me for anything in the performance of my duties; not even Pastor Gruber claims to have done so. He came to me and sought the alleviation of suffering but he didn’t actually object to the performance of my duties as such.”
That is the kind of faith that Pastor Gruber had; he was timid. He was a clergyman and a churchman, a man of the Word but he was a little afraid that the Word might not be strong enough, right? He didn’t want to give it all the gas because he thought that it wouldn’t pick up and go. Pastor Gruber was used by that Nazi years later. You can just imagine the shame that this brought upon him and his life’s work; a whole life’s work just flushed down the drain at that trial. Not Eikman but Pastor Gruber!
It is interesting to look back and find out how Eikman got to Argentina. A Roman Catholic bishop, Bishop Alois Hudal, who was working in Rome and was in charge of persons that had been displaced, made sure that Eikman and other Nazis made it to Brazil or Argentina as well as other places. Yes, a Catholic Bishop! Do you know that Bishop Hudal, God rest his soul, to the very end maintained that he was right in doing what he’d done?
Before WWII Pope Pius XII, Eugenio Pacelli had served with distinction as the Pope’s man, Pope Pius XI, who had sent him to Germany and he knew the German situation very well. Pope Pius XII said,
"Have nothing to do with the Nazis, except to excoriate them."
There were other bishop, priests, and lay people who went along with the Nazis but they were in the minority. Many bishops, priests and a lot of Catholic lay people distinguished themselves being against the Nazis.
There was a Bishop in Munich, a Cardinal Faulhaber, who again and again from the pulpit talked about Hitler and how wrong Hitler was in the things he was doing. Guess what? He was never taken and sent to a death camp! He named names and spoke out but was never sent to a death camp. Oh, it made Hitler mad, but he was “mad” anyway. Once, Hitler gave the order that all the statues in all the Catholic Churches that represented Jews had to be destroyed. In Munich Cardinal Faulhaber said,
“Absolutely not!”
That would mean they had to destroy Baby Jesus, Our Lady and Saint Joseph. I guess the angels could stay as long as they were Jewish angels.
“How can you tell?”
Of course they are not Jewish angels. No one destroyed these statues but of course, that would come years later in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. But Cardinal Faulhaber wouldn’t touch the statues; he knew the Word that had been entrusted to him and he spoke out.
There was a woman who’d gone to Israel to see the trial; she’d escaped Hitler’s Germany. Her name was Hannah Arendt and she was writing an article for the New Yorker Magazine in Jerusalem. She wrote a book called, “Eikman in Jerusalem.” This is what she observed, and writing about Eikman she said,
In other words he wasn’t a psychopath and he wasn’t crazy as so many would like to say. Nobody can commit evil today unless we say that they are unhinged in some way, right? Hannah Arendt, who escaped Hitler’s Germany, and who watched the trial years later said Eikman was a common and ordinary personality, “displaying neither guilt or hatred.” You see Eikman represents the classic case of someone who believed that God was dead. What do the archangels say?He appeared at his trial to have been just an ordinary common personality.
Eikman represented the other side. Without God and if He is dead then all things are permitted; everything is permitted and anything goes, even human experimentation. The Nazis and the Japanese were famous during WWII for experimenting on live human beings. Of course, this all sounds so far in the past why even bother, until you look at the back of the bulletin and you see that human experimentation and Nazi tactics continue.With God all things are possible.
You can read this story later, but there was a couple expecting a baby; the mother was eighteen weeks along and the technician and doctors, like zombies from some horror movie, started to moan and groan and say that the baby had Downs Syndrome and they “must” abort the baby. They continued to dog pile onto this couple and went so far as to tell this couple everything that could happen to a child with Downs Syndrome, hoping that they would abort the child.
What if you were just recently married and someone took you and your wife aside and told you everything BAD that could happen to you during marriage and they really rubbed your nose in it? You would throw them out of your home, right? Oh no! We have to take this from these great “high priests”, these medical technicians, doctors and nurses. Do they make so much money that they can now say who shall live and who shall die? I like this statement that they have probably used.
“Don’t you know that having this child…. it is very difficult to raise children.”
How did they get here? Right? These ghouls, these medical experts who evidentially have no connection to God…there is no way that they can say to this couple,
“In the name of Jesus Christ, abort this child!”
NO! They can’t! There is no case where they can invoke Our Lord or find a Commandment in favor of what they want to do. They even tell the couple not to go talking to people who have Downs Syndrome children because they would just paint them a rosy picture.
These people need conversion! You may think you are safe and don’t have these issues because all your kids are grown. Do you have a doctor? Do you have an ache or a pain? When you go into a doctor’s office they make you fill out that questionnaire, asking if this or that has happened to you and then they want you to name all your medical conditions and all the prescriptions you take. But, you don’t get to have them fill one out for you that asks them if they believe in God or if they believe it is ok to experiment on human beings. So, someone who is seeing you or someone you love could be one of these people who believe God is dead, everything is permitted and throw grandma from the train. Right? Everything is permitted so throw sister under the car! It is the merciful thing to do, right? Clement!
I read with horror today that in Germany…what is wrong with Germany? It must be all those years of living next door to France! [Laughter] Anyway, what happened to Germany? In Germany for two years this little boy has been receiving female hormone treatment. I won’t go into it, but he/she is going to continue this kind of treatment until the age of eighteen when the operations begin. They announced it two years after having started these injections. When you read the story you can’t help but ask how these parents can allow their child to be so experimented upon. We have no idea what the effects of such hormone therapy will have on someone so young.
“It doesn’t matter, they are just kids! They are not really human beings.”
What twelve year old isn’t confused once in a while? So, their answer is hormone therapy.
If you are shocked at this kind of human experimentation, what is embryonic stem cell research, except human experimentation in its most basic form? Last Monday was the anniversary of Roe V Wade, which said the child in the womb was just a tumor or piece of tissue.
The world is in need of conversion. They said that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. How many Catholics are just watching TV while the world falls apart?
“Why pray father, it isn’t going to do any good!”
Yea, that is what Jesus says,” Why pray it isn’t going to do any good.” NO! Jesus says,
Unless you repent you will all die in your sins.
Twenty years ago Pope John Paul II said that conversion is a constant demand of a Christian life. Jesus said in Luke 13,
Unless you repent you will perish.
So, we have to pray and we have to realize that our prayers are effective and that the Word of God will push back the shadows and darkness that seems to encompass us.
Friday, February 2nd, is the Feast of the Presentation in the Temple. Simeon, the old man, takes the baby Jesus in his arms and raises his eyes to Heaven and speaks to God, inspired by the Holy Spirit and compares Jesus to a light to the nations. That is the Light that St. Paul would take to Greece, Rome, and all points in between. He was taking the Light to the nations and the LIGHT is Jesus Christ. We have family members, neighbors, friends, and perfect strangers we run into but we don’t lift a finger. Just like Pastor Gruber…..we line up right behind him. We let someone else do the heavy lifting.
“Nobody ever told me it as wrong to do this.”
You know the Commandments! Nobody has to explain them to you again or draw you a picture; you know the Commandments from one to ten! You and I have to be the ones to speak whether it is painful or not, we have to speak because God expects it of us; otherwise we fade into the shadows and become tall grass for the Eikmans of this world to hide in. You and I have to use our prayers and the Word of God to shine the light of God’s Truth in this world, which is so desperate for conversion.
I will end with a story that shows you how sad it is today. Recently in Nigeria, the people of Nigeria were told that if they didn’t register to vote in the next election, not to come forward for Holy Communion. Nigeria! This is a very Catholic country and it is so important for them to vote that if they do not register to vote they are told not to present themselves for Holy Communion! They weren’t telling the people how to vote, but instead told them if they did not register to vote they were not to present themselves for Holy Communion.
There is a Cardinal Archbishop in this country and recently some spunky layperson approached this cardinal and interviewed him. This Cardinal Archbishop has in his midst a Catholic governor and Catholic mayor who are 100% pro abortion. CATHOLIC! Right! So this Catholic layperson interviewed this Cardinal Archbishop and asked him if he was going to do something about this. The Cardinal Archbishop, within the last month said this.
What an incredibly juvenile, lame thing to say! Isn’t that peer pressure? Doesn’t every parent hear this?But they are my friends!
“But my friends are doing it!”
The parent’s response is usually,
“If all of your friends jump off the edge of the cliff are you going to jump off too?”
If it is a boy they will say “yes”, right? [Laughter]
The next sound you hear is that Cardinal Archbishop’s entire life as a clergyman flushing itself down the drain.But they are my friends!
If you have friends and you have knowledge that your friends are doing something that is hurting them as well as others, like abortion, which takes a life and puts their souls in peril, you have an obligation to talk to your friend, relative, neighbor or the guy at work. Do you have so little confidence in God and the power of prayer and His Word?But they are my friends!
It is a good thing he lives far away! Yea, I am so tough. I understand the weakness in that Cardinal Archbishop and I have to pray more for his conversion. There are plenty bishops and cardinals that stand up for life, but this is an example of one who is just lying down in the road and letting “them” just run right over him!But they are my friends!
Our Lord is alive and He wishes to convert the world but, not everyone, including religious people, want to be converted.
When the people in the synagogue heard this they were all filled with fury; they rose, drove Him out of the town and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl Him down headlong.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
Transcribed by: DMW