Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 17, 2007
When the Pharisee, who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a Prophet He would know who and what sort of woman this is, who is touching Him; that she is a sinner.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
If you look over there, you see the statue of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, whose Feast Day was yesterday. On the other side you see the Sacred Heart of Jesus, whose Solemnity was on Friday and the 150th time that Mass has been offered since Blessed Pope Pius IX extended this Solemnity to the Universal Church.
Just two years before that, in 1854, he had declared the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. If you look on the back of your Miraculous Medal…and many of you faithfully wear the Miraculous Medal…you will see two hearts; one is the Sacred Heart and the other is the Immaculate Heart. The medal I am speaking of was formerly know as the Medical of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary and many people just call it by the common name, the Miraculous Medal.
In his short time as pope, Pope Benedict has referred to the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1854, as a Dogma for modern times. This declaration has been around for just over 150 years. Many would disagree and ask what the Immaculate Conception is; they would ask what a Dogma is. How sad, but this is the case. When you look at the 150 years in light of the 2000-year history of the Church, 150 years isn’t that long. In the same way, the teachings on Sacred Heart of Jesus is overlooked and ignored, but is a teaching for modern times.
When the Lord appeared over the course of several months to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in Paray-le-Monial, she was a faithful nun working in a convent in the south of France. She was someone who did not call attention to herself. When the Sacred Heart revealed Himself to her, she asked Jesus why He would choose her and the response He gave her would sound sadistic or cruel to some people. He said,
You are an abyss of ignorance and unworthiness, but my heart is so full of love for mankind in general and for you in particular that it cannot be contained.
On first blush, it really does sound hypercritical and mean, but how are you able to understand it if it came from the lips of Jesus Himself?
Those flowers around the Sacred Heart of the Immaculate Heart of Mary were given in honor of Charles and Mary Nyquist. Mary was a friend of many here at St. William’s, who died recently. Mary’s brother in law, Fr. Nyquist, during the homily at her funeral, mentioned that the error of our times is that we so often compare ourselves with other people instead of comparing ourselves to God, instead of comparing ourselves to Christ. I can compare myself with anyone on this earth and get the answer that I want, which gives me permission to do whatever I want to do with my life. But, when I compare my life to Christ, Who is the Son of the Father, then I come up with very different responses. It is like the Psalm which is repeated again and again,
I am a worm and no man.
If I think of myself the way God looks at me and the reality of me, then those words from the Psalm fit very accurately. But, it is so easy to fool ourselves and fool others by comparing ourselves with others instead of the teachings of Christ and comparing ourselves to Divine Love…Divine Mercy itself.
Something interesting happened recently. Let me give some background first. On June 6th we had the Feast of St. Norbert, who was born in the year 1082. You can place him right at the end of the 11th Century. He was born in the same area of the world where Pope Benedict was born. He was related to the ruling families of Lorraine and Germany so they were wealthy. His impressive good looks gained him speedy success. He was ordained as a sub deacon. Before the Second Vatican Council there were things called minor orders that led up to orders and in order for a man to become a priest he had to be a sub deacon, then a deacon, and then a priest.
St. Norbert was a sub deacon and he saw this as a means of opening the way to ecclesiastical honors and as a way of making the Church his “career”. Anyone who would want to do this has no business in the Church, then and now. Up to the age of 33, Norbert led the life of a worldly cleric, almost exclusively occupied with pleasure. He was a stinker! Before his conversion, his life was not based on God or His teachings, but was based on what Norbert wanted “right now”, me, myself and I.
One day when he was riding his horse, grace came to him; he was struck by lightening and thrown from his horse. I wouldn’t need God to tell me a second time. St. Norbert saw the Hand of God in this near scrape with death and he converted, becoming an instrument of reform in the Church. He founded the Norbertines.
St. Norbert was born almost one hundred years before St. Francis of Assisi and their lives are very similar. Today Pope Benedict left his comfy chair at the Vatican and flew by helicopter to Assisi. He is there today to celebrate Mass and visit the Churches, honoring the 800th Anniversary of the conversion of St. Francis. When we think of St. Francis we think of him during his life as a religious, and the good works that he did. But he was a stinker before his conversion and was similar to St. Norbert. Francis was wealthy, intelligent and good looking and then came very near to death. He then turned his life around. He did a “180”. I say that because so many people say that he did a “360”. According to geometry you would be going in the same direction then. It is a full circle. I don’t know much about geometry but I figured that out. St. Francis did a “180” and walked away from his former life.
Today Catholic Christians and non-Catholic Christians love St. Francis. They even love the statue of him we have out here that has no hands on it. Francis is universally loved and the Holy Father holds St. Francis up in his new book, Jesus of Nazareth. On page #79 of the book, the pope mentions that St. Francis did not want to found a religious order. He simply wanted to gather the people of God to listen anew to the Word. He didn’t set out to found a religious order like the scene from Lilies of the Field. No, he had no intention of doing this but he did. St. Francis and St. Norbert are very similar because God used them to reform the Church.
Again and again the pope points out that the teachings of Jesus are Good News; in fact at the bottom of the Gospel, we see it ends with Jesus’ journey from one town to another, preaching and proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God. Jesus IS the Kingdom of God. At the time of Jesus, emperors and kings would send out memos to their people about different things. Whether it was good or bad news, it was called good news. In other words,
“You WILL like this good news, won’t you?”
“Yes Sir, yes Sir!
Jesus went about in a very different way proclaiming the Good News; He is the Kingdom of God and the Good News. The pope points out that Jesus came to proclaim the Good News but, we are free to reject Him, and He is rejected all the time. Recently a bishop in this country called a Catholic politician, who identifies himself as Catholic, on the carpet. He said he went to Parochial Schools. I know many non-Catholics who went to Catholic schools and do not claim to be Catholic. Anyway, this politician attended a Catholic school.
He was getting up to speak in front of a large audience. The date was June 6th. . I won’t name this person, but a bishop had written about him earlier, comparing his stand on abortion to that of Pontius Pilate, who personally didn’t want to condemn Jesus to death but so many people wanted it he had to go along with them. This particular Catholic politician was going around telling everyone that he was Catholic and personally opposed to abortion but that he would never stand in the way of an abortion occurring. In other words, he wasn’t having mercy on the child in the womb awaiting birth. Isn’t that what abortion is? It is no mercy for the child awaiting birth.
This politician was at some money raiser and it was evidentially outdoors in a stadium or something like that. He got up to speak and was just about to dissemble, as politicians will do. For so many politicians, how do you know they are lying? Their lips are moving. The irrefutable test. This man was about to get up and answer specifically the comparison this bishop made to Pontius Pilate. It is interesting, “a” bishop, “one”, made this comparison and it is a correct comparison; it is apt to compare him to Pontius Pilate. So the man was going to get up and spread his lies. He approached the microphone and just as he was about to speak, lightening struck near by. Now, I know one person who is in charge of lightening, right? No, it is not TXU.
The lightening didn’t strike him and didn’t strike his horse because he wasn’t on one. But struck very near and blew out his microphone. The technicians started trying to get everything back together and the man steps back up to continue to lie when lightening strikes again. Now, I am 48 and this politician is obviously older than I am. He has seen the Wizard of Oz at least twice or three times. I don’t need a house to fall on me to recognize the hand of God. But, this man is going about and still spreading his lies and people are still contributing to his campaign. People will go and vote for this fellow.
We are free to reject the Good News, Who is Jesus Christ. We can say that the Good News of Jesus Christ is bad news. The fact is, we will be judged at the end of our lives. This judgment will come for famous people, like this politician and even for kings like King David, who didn’t confess his sins so God confessed them for him through the Prophet, Nathan. This judgment awaits you and me. The Pharisee in the Gospel today did not confess his sins, so Jesus confessed them for him.
When I came to your house you didn’t wash My feet, you didn’t give me a kiss, you didn’t anoint me.
Jesus is confessing the sins against his inhospitality. These are just the most recent sins, but the man is pretending to be without sin because he is comparing himself to this woman, who is a public sinner, a public sinner who obviously sins alone. Yea right! Uh huh! He knew all about her sins and it is interesting how the Pharisee could know all about them; perhaps he was participating in some of them. He was a Pharisee.
This reminds me of the parable that Jesus gave about the Pharisee praying in the temple with a tax collector, a public sinner. The Pharisee and the tax collector were in the temple at the same time. The Pharisee was standing at the very front, probably about where I am standing and the tax collector was in the very back in the cry room of the temple and he was there kneeling down beating his breast asking for God to have mercy on him because he was a sinner. Of course the Pharisee was at the front telling God what a great guy he was. The prayer that God heard was the prayer of the tax collector.
This Pharisee is doing exactly the same thing and it is interesting that in the second reading today from St. Paul, who himself was a Pharisee par excellence, had a similar “come to Jesus” moment on the road to Damascus. This is taken from the book, Jesus of Nazareth, at the end of chapter #3.
St. Paul takes and shreds those statements that Pharisees would make about observing the law perfectly. Who needs God?The Pharisee does not really look at God at all but only himself. He does not really need God because he does everything right, by himself. He has no relation to God, Who is ultimately superfluous, what he does himself is enough. Man makes himself righteous.
Examples of this would be St. Francis, St. Norbert, St. Mary Magdalene, as well as the woman in today’s Gospel.The tax collector by contrast, sees himself in the light of God. He has looked toward God, and in the process his eyes have been opened to see himself.
This is lifted right out of the second reading. We can’t force God to save us.So he (tax collector) knows that he needs God and that he lives by God’s goodness, which he cannot force God to give him, and which he cannot procure for himself.
St. Francis is an excellent model and the 800th Anniversary of his conversion celebrated today in Assisi makes it even easier. St. Francis was in the process of taking everything and giving it back to his father. He was there in the plaza in Assisi and was ready to take off the last of his garments when the bishop commanded him to maintain some of the clothing. St. Francis walked away from there without a penny to his name with little clothing and he began his life as one who was totally dependent upon God. St. Francis is the first man that we know of, after Christ, who bore the marks of the stigmata on his body. He was probably the first because in those 1100 years or so he was the first to ask for them. I still have not asked for them, but he did. He wanted to live so united to Christ, who was the model he used to compare himself and he wanted all of Christ. As St. John of the Cross would say,He (tax collector) knows that he needs mercy and so he will learn from God’s mercy to become merciful himself and therefore to become like God.
St. Francis was beginning this new life and while walking in the countryside he came upon a man who was terribly disfigured with leprosy. The flesh was literally rotting on his body and producing an odor, which would probably mean that the saint smelled him before he ever saw him. The hands of the man were particularly afflicted with rotting flesh and when Francis spied this man he did at first what you and I would do in most cases, he was going to turn away and go somewhere else. Francis realized what he was doing. He realized that he had been given an abundance of mercy and he was about to deny mercy to someone else. Francis did what you and I would do under similar circumstances; he approached the man and buried his face in the man’s afflicted hand, kissing them all the while. You know…the same thing you and I would do, right? As the pope said in his book,Accept nothing less than God.
The pope continues,He knows he needs mercy and so he will learn from God’s mercy to become merciful himself and therefore to become like God.
Just as Christ is the Son of the Father, we are connected to the Father through Christ.He draws his life from being in relation, from receiving all as gift.
He needs God and because he recognizes this, he begins through God’s goodness to become good himself.He will always need the gift of goodness, of forgiveness, but in receiving it he will always learn to pass the gift to others.
The Pharisee had no need of God’s mercy because he had the law. He judged himself to be righteous. I hear all the time that people call Catholics hypocrites. Even Catholics will call fellow Catholics hypocrites. That is true, especially Catholics who refuse to go to Confession. King David could have been called a hypocrite if he’d denied what God saw in his soul. The Pharisee was a hypocrite and God revealed to him his own sins. The same thing will happen to you and me. If you knew that tomorrow was your last day would you spend it in Vegas gambling and “seeing the shows” as they say? Or would you go to Confession? I know some people who would go to Vegas. They would want to live their last day with gusto. They would have lived a life so far from God that they would make a bad choice on the last day as they had chosen all along the way; gambling with their eternity. We should always compare ourselves to Our Lord and compare ourselves to His Sacred Heart and then that is when our sins become very obvious.
Today is Father’s Day and fathers are indeed the head of the family. If the family is Christian then there is a concrete tie to God’s family; they know that God wants them to be members of His family. It saddens me to say this, but so many fathers are picking up the paycheck without doing the work. Here is a little experiment. Over the next few months we have summer and you will notice at the lake, beach or swimming pool that more and more people are wearing less and less clothes. This is obvious. People say that it has really gotten bad today. No, bad was 1970; today it is beyond the pale.
I am specifically talking about young ladies. Today children, teens, and adult women are wearing fewer and fewer clothes. A father, who is a good father will not let his daughters or wife leave their bedroom without being properly clothed, and yet, small children, young ladies, who are teens, and adult women are going about with fewer clothes than last year. In ten years some will be walking around with nothing more than band-aids and make-up for their clothing. This is sad but it is the direction we are going and all of this is supposed to be good?
“Well, daddy, look at so and so. Honey, so and so wears…”
I remember a song on the 70s about the woman who wore mini skirts. She was the first teacher at her school to wear them and all the other teachers were talking about it. Now, that is blasé. It is very common. Do these young children and teens not have fathers? Where are their fathers? In the absence of their fathers, where are their grandfathers, uncles, neighbors, or friends? Why won’t they say anything about it? Do these people, who have daughters, not have sons? Jesus said once that if a man looks at a woman with lust in his heart, he has already committed adultery with her. That is a mortal sin. We have all these temptations walking around, are you not worried about your sons? Are you not worried about your daughters being temptations to other men? This is remarkable and yet, nobody talks about it.
“Well, you are just old fashioned, Father.”
I can counter that by saying that you are modern. If being modern means going around without clothes on, then I guess I am clothed and old fashioned. There are repercussions for this, but it is the same way when fathers allow things into their homes, the same things that grandparents never allow in the home. Things on TV and the computer appear, words are said that would never be allowed into the home, and fathers are going to have to answer for this if they have not led their children as they should.
The understanding of St. Francis was that everyone should hear the Word of God and then live by it. He didn’t want to found a religious order, he just wanted people to hear the Good News and turn from a worldly way of life and out of love, follow Christ. That means in our thoughts, actions, words and what we wear or DON’T wear. There is no case that could be made; you would be down there with the politicians who try to convince others that it is ok to favor abortion, to walk around with no clothes on, as you will find at any beach, pool, lake, mall, or on any street. This does have consequences. We are free to reject Jesus and His Good News, claiming that it is bad news.
Just like the Pharisee, who invited Jesus to dinner, there is Jesus sitting at the same table with Him but his heart is closed to Jesus as a guest and closed to Jesus as God. He doesn’t need anyone else because he is a god unto himself. What an opportunity he missed, and so it is with us. There needs to be conversions like that of St. Francis, which will radically effect what we say, do, think, and what we wear. Fathers need to step up to the plate and be fathers. If you don’t…I don’t wish you a Happy Father’s Day, because you are not being a father. We are called to be fathers, even to children who are not our own, and not just through adoption but by example; a word spoken to a friend, neighbor, and co-worker…
“You let your daughter wear that?”
We need to support fathers; it is something that is very needed today.
When the Pharisee, who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a Prophet He would know who and what sort of woman this is, who is touching Him; that she is a sinner.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen