Father Paul Weinberger, Pastor
St. William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
16th Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 22, 2007
Martha, Martha, you are anxious and upset about many things; only one thing is required. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be denied her.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
If today were not a Sunday we would be celebrating the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene. Next Sunday, were it not a Sunday, we would be celebrating the Feast of St. Martha. St. Mary Magdalene…St. Martha. The reason I say this is because there are those who will say categorically that St. Mary Magdalene and the sister of St. Martha are not the same person. They can say it but they cannot prove it; they can huff and puff but they can’t prove it. It appears that by the placement on the calendar of the Church so close together, looks like the Church isn’t all too certain that St. Mary Magdalene is not the sister of St. Martha.
St. Mary Magdalene is so beloved for so many reasons. She didn’t need a second look at Christ; when she saw Him and was healed by Him, she never took her eyes off Him and placed them on someone else. We call that sin, when we look for someone just a little better than God. St. Mary Magdalene was the first witness of the Resurrection in the accounts of Easter Sunday so; Our Lord shares this esteem for St. Mary Magdalene. St. Mary Magdalene is separated from Abraham by centuries. He is a very old man and she is a young woman, and so they are separated in many ways. Please look at the opening lines of the First Reading from the Book of Genesis.
The Lord appeared to Abraham by the terebrinth of Mamre, as he sat in the entrance of his tent, while the day was growing hot.
Abraham, wandering in a desert is going to look for shade and water. An oasis is obviously where he stopped. He had good intuition and that is why at this point he was a very old man and his wife Sarah was well advanced in age, past the childbearing years.
The Lord appeared to Abraham and there is Abraham on the floor of his tent in the heat of the day. Indeed, the heat of the day is the time when anyone of Abraham’s age could easily take a siesta but Abraham knows he is in the presence of the Lord and is very attentive. Don’t get any ideas about taking a siesta right now because I can see every one of you. [Laughter]
Looking up, Abraham saw three men standing nearby.
Down through the centuries the Church has held that this is a symbol of the Trinity. The Lord appeared to Abraham and now we see this image of the Trinity visiting him. Isn’t that the desire of the soul, to have God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit take up residence in the soul? Abraham, an old man sitting on the floor at the entrance of his tent, jumps into action all of a sudden. I am 48 and were I in that position it would be difficult for me to jump up and get into action; maybe if the tent were on fire I could do it. But, Abraham does! We see that action follows contemplating and it is an action guided by and toward the Trinity. Abraham is motivated by what he has experienced there with the Lord and he turns to the service of the stranger.
At the end of the First Reading, the unexpected, the fruit if you will, Abraham is so generous with God in the way that he serves these three strangers in the heat of the day and the most compromising of times. You have to be crazy if you go outside in this heat but Abraham did serve the Lord and at the very end of the First Reading one of the strangers said to him,
I will surly return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will then have a son.
Now, the fruit of contemplation, the action guided by contemplation, we see in this First Reading. Again, so many things separate St. Mary Magdalene and Abraham but there is the same contemplation going on in each of them. Mary sat beside the Lord listening to him speak. Now, I love St. Mary Magdalene but I really love St. Martha. In this reading we see St. Martha as someone I wouldn’t want to live across the street from in her current configuration. She would probably always be calling the police on me, or something like that, right? She would have perfectly trimmed hedges, her floor would be spotless, and none of the ladies in town would speak to her.
Compare this Martha to St. Martha at the time of the death of Lazarus, her brother. He got sick and could have lingered, so that meant that Martha and Mary had to take care of their brother. He died and had to be buried and after burial there were people coming by to pay their respects. At the same time they would say,
“We heard Lazarus was ill so we came to see him. You get better! Hey, what is that cooking in the kitchen, it smells great. We can stay.”
So St. Martha, at the time of the sickness and death of Lazarus had undergone a great transformation. It is kind of like taking time lapsed photography of a rose bud and showing it coming into full bloom. That is exactly what we see with St. Martha; she is tight as a bud here in this reading, but she blossoms into a beautiful flower of faith; a tigress and someone who is very strong in her faith. Probably by the time Jesus arrived four days after Lazarus died, she would probably have like to throw things at Him. But, St. Martha has grown and has been transformed. It has got to be the passive…”has been transformed”, and what is the source of that transformation if not Our Lord? Here Our Lord begins to teach St. Martha as He obviously had been teaching Mary, who sat beside Him listening to Him speak.
Martha, Martha, you are anxious and upset about many things; only one thing is required. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be denied her.
This in no way resembles St. Martha much later, just before the Passion of Christ and the death of Lazarus as well as the resurrection of Lazarus by Christ. She has really been listening and leaned in to the feet of Christ.
The posture of St. Mary Magdalene is that of a disciple. The teacher would stand or sit and a pupil would sit at the feet of the teacher, so even the posture there is equal to the posture of Abraham seated and listening to the Master.
Last week I heard on the Radio 910 am, a program on EWTN. Evidentially around 9am in the morning Fr. Corapi has been preaching. I like to hear him but I don’t hear him enough. Every time Fr. Corapi speaks he has to use that fifteen-syllable word that we all know…HELL. When he says it there are fifteen syllables and it makes your skin crawl. Fr. Corapi really has to work that in and he is correct in doing so. On the program I heard he was telling a story about St. Padre Pio. Many people are very close to Padre Pio and they love this saint, who, like St. Francis had the wounds, the stigmata on his body. He died in 1968 when I was around ten years old. He spent much of his life in the confessional.
Fr. Corapi mentioned a story about this woman who went to Confession to Padre Pio. Just a side note…isn’t it interesting how we love to hear about the confession of others but so many Catholics just don’t like to go. It is for them like someone is passing them an horderve.
“No thank you, I am allergic.”
We say “no thank you” to confession for ourselves but we love to hear about the Confession of others. There is something wrong there. Anyway, we have this information from the woman herself; Padre Pio could not reveal it because a priest cannot reveal anything about a Confession. The woman says she went to Confession to Padre Pio and she knew that he was a man that could read hearts and souls. There were no secrets. She went into Confession and Padre Pio jumped up and ran her off, telling her to get out. You can just hear Fr. Corapi embellishing this.
The woman returns later, whining and crying and wanting to know why she was so mistreated. Padre Pio told her that when she entered the Confessional that he’d immediately had a vision of her two sons in hell because she had never said “no” to them. Parent’s and grandparent’s ears perk up when they hear that story because they can understand the temptation of saying “yes” all the time to their children. But, this is not reality is it? This woman knew that a front row seat in hell could not be finessed; once in hell you are there for all eternity. The woman had a great sadness descend upon her through St. Pio, even before her confession ever began.
Parents amaze me in the Confessional. Many times I might ask if they have children and I hear,
“Well, no! Well, yes, I mean, but they are grown.”
What is with the sputtering of no then yes? What are they on, the witness protection program? What is this? When your kids are grown, this is exactly when they really need your prayers the most, right? That answer is so universal in Confession. Parents understand that there are no other parents who take their place and so they have to pray and sacrifice to get their children to Heaven or to keep them out of hell, which is a better way to say this.
St. Paul did not have biological children but he had Spiritual Children and so should we all have Spiritual Children, every one of us! You don’t just have the luxury of just raising your children. That is something that we are given to do anyway and we are invested in it. But remember the Good Samaritan from last Sunday? We have to help other people raise their children, so we have Spiritual Children as St. Paul did. In the Second Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, he is writing to his Spiritual Children and this is in the Divine Office today. Listen to him describe his life in a desert, like Abraham, who is in a desert.
Brothers, we do not wish to leave you in the dark about the trouble we had in Asia. We were crushed beyond our strength, even to the point of despairing of life.
It sounds like he nearly committed that unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit, which is despair. He was crushed even to the point of despairing. This sounds familiar to parents, right?
We were left to feel like men condemned to death so that we might trust not in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead. He rescued us from that danger of death and continues to do so. We have put our hope in Him, who will never cease to deliver us. But you, you must help us with your prayers so that on our behalf God may be thanked for the gift granted us through the prayers of so many. [
Prayer…prayer is obviously something we should be doing. Look at the back of your bulletin, there are ideas for people who claim to be bored. The word “bored” has been on the lips of children since the 1950s.
“I’m bored”
There is a good reply to that on the back of the bulletin. Today a mother said that when she hears that her child is bored she tells them that they don’t have a chore to do. All of a sudden they aren’t bored anymore. That is the quickest cure for boredom, chores. Who has time to be bored; we have to say our prayers everyday and say them well, not like this.
Fr. Paul starts to pray the Hail Mary and all the while is looking all around and looking at his nails etc.
What is that? Is that a manicure or a prayer? Do your work well! Number 3 says to help a friend in need. You say you don’t have time? That is because of the worship of television. Admit it! Television has got us and it hurts so much that we don’t have time. If you throw in the computer, as you should, then we don’t have time for prayer and barely have time for work because of this slavery. Look at the rest of the list and you see how prayer should be guiding the rest of our day. By the time you finish the list it is tomorrow. Then you start over again and say your prayers well.
For those interested, the list that Fr. Paul is describing can be viewed below the homily.
Saint Mary Magdalene should inspire us to see boredom as an improper response to anything. When someone says they are bored, get this list off the fridge and go down a few notches. They won’t be bored but will be busy.
If you watch EWTN you may have heard of Fr. Thomas Dubay, who is a frequent visitor. He has written a book called, “Prayer Primer”, and is published by Ignatius Press. You can see it is not a phone book or the size of War and Peace. He speaks about people who see prayer as “boring”. Take this prayer, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; there is no prayer greater than this prayer. This is what he has to say.
Like that is a meaningful comment. What does meaningful mean? People say the Mass is not meaningful to them or that they get nothing out if it and find it boring. Father Dubay says,Everyone is not a saint. One of the most common excuses we hear from people who are lukewarm, tepid about attending Mass, who easily and with little or no regret omit their Sunday obligation is this complaint, “It is not meaningful to me.”
“As soon as Jesus cleans up His act and gets this to be the perfect Sacrifice then I will come.”These alleged reasons are not considered by the one complaining to be problems or defects in themselves, rather they are conceived as something wrong with the Eucharistic Sacrifice itself.
Argh! If you are going to say that kind of thing, please stand far away from me. I mean, lightening striking…..anyway. Can you imagine someone saying they are bored, or,
“Yes Lord, what I meant was I was bored in the presence of the Living God.”
You can just hear Fr. Corapi saying, “GOD”, right? It is another fifteen-syllable word. In that Tabernacle is the Living God and in just a few minutes God will come to this Altar and I am bored? We have to see that we are so absorbed in the world and it’s pleasures.
Martha, Martha, you are anxious and upset about many things.
When we are foreigners to prayer and when prayer is so distasteful to us, we fight it like an animal caught in a trap. If this describes your attitude to prayer then you almost need to see it like one of those fire alarms that say, “In case of fire, break glass.” You have to see St. Martha in you and Jesus saying to you,
Martha, Martha, you are anxious and upset about many things; only one thing is required. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be denied her.
Who is the better part? Jesus is the better part! It is not sufficient to attend Mass on Sunday and think that it wraps up your 168 hour a week obligation. No sir, that is just getting you in the game for the rest of the week in prayer. Prayer is so important and is to us like the very air that we breathe. If you don’t pray your soul doesn’t breathe, you don’t have a pulse and spiritually you are either close to death or dead. I know that is a terrible diagnosis but would you rather be lied to? If you want to be lied to you can get the next plane to Washington. Plenty of people there will be in line.
Father Dubay points out something that many people are lied to about concerning prayer. On page #131 he speaks about what people are told by priests and retreat masters.
It is like telling someone that they are already a Christian and so if they don’t pray it is fine. In response to the priest one could say,It sometimes happens that a confessor or retreat master, when questioned about time pressure problems and the curtailment of prayer, will give this pat answer. “Well, just make your work a prayer and all will be fine.”
“I am so glad to hear that because I don’t have any money and I can’t pay for this retreat.”
The retreat master might say,
“Get out of here! You make me sick! You are eating this food and using these rooms and you are not paying?”
I see; we take retreats very seriously but the prayer stuff is optional. That is so lame. Fr. Dubay points out that work is not prayer. That is why in all of St. Benedict’s Monasteries there is carved in stone in Latin, “Ora et labora”, “pray and work”. They weren’t flipped. If you take page eight where the tips for those who are bored is listed and take the first and second items everyday and you flip them then guess what…you never get to #2. If you invert #1 and #2, “do your work well”, you will never get to say your prayers. That is why prayer is something to which we return throughout the day. Prayer has to be something apart from work, and Fr. Dubay points out that if you study the life of Jesus, His own life distinguishes His long and habitual times in solitary prayer from His works of teaching, healing, and forming the Apostles. There were specific, long vigils of prayer followed by incredible activity, like we see in the First Reading concerning Abraham.
Take a look at St. Martha; in this Gospel she is a tornado of activity and that is the greatest description, a tornado with lots of movement and plenty of destruction. Look at her prayer, which is an example of prayer that is not a prayer.
Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.
It is like telling Jesus,
“Lord, I need that and that and oh, you missed a spot over there.”
That is our prayer when we are not praying. We just tell God what to do.
“And pick up my cleaning!”
The Trinity says to us,
“Is there anything else you would like for us to do?”
This is St. Martha’s attitude before her big transformation.
St. Teresa of Avila is someone held up as a tower of prayer and contemplation. She reformed the Carmelite Order and a lot of those sisters were like geese, hissing at her. They hated the reform because they were going to spend more time praying. Why join the convent if you don’t want to pray? St. Teresa spent about the first twenty years of her life in a time-out on prayer. She realized what she was doing and God touched her soul and led her to some incredible heights of contemplation.
Contemplation is not just for women in a Convent or men in a Monastery or priests who don’t have a life. It is for all of us and if by this time you have not experienced contemplation, don’t give up and don’t despair but begin right away. I can’t say to get to work because that would nullify everything I have just said. [Laughter]
Fr. Dubay points out what contemplation is and what it is not. He says,
Like Yoga!Before we sketch briefly about contemplation we must insist that it is very far from an oriental state of impersonal awareness produced by techniques and methods.
The Buddhist and Hindus have these meditations where they empty their minds and whole beings of everything so that they can stay empty. That is totally against the way we meditate. Christians meditate in a way that empties us of ourselves so that Christ can fill us and not so that we can remain empty like some parking garage without cars. Christ is the goal of our every prayer. Fr. Dubay says,Thus it should not be confused with Buddhist or Hindu exercises.
I have heard many people say,Contemplation is not introspection dwelling on one’s own inner life, our own feelings and thoughts. Our contemplation is not simply thinking things over nor is it more or less strong emotional feelings about God and religious matters.
“I get up in the morning I put on the coffee and get the newspaper and go out on the patio. I like to look at the birds singing and watch the grass and flowers grow, or watch the crickets piling up into huge mountains after the rain. And, that is my prayer.]
We have had so much rain that the crickets were taking over and when extermination began, we had piles of crickets everywhere. They’d even begun to fight Fr. Paul for the microphone during the homily.
First of all, it is great that you haven’t turned on the television yet; that is good. But the coffee, paper, and enjoying the birds are not prayer!
“Yes it is!”
No! Flag on the field…that is not prayer, it is appreciating nature, which is on the way to prayer somewhere but, was Abraham having a highball when the Lord appeared to him in the tent? No, he wasn’t having a cappuccino or anything like that. That is not what contemplation is. This is what contemplation is.
Meditative prayer involves reading, thinking, imagining, drawing conclusions and conversing inwardly with the indwelling Trinity. Contemplation is none of these things, rather contemplation is a real awareness of God, desiring and loving Him, which we do not produce but simply receive from Him when we are ready for it.
“Oh, I am going to contemplate now! Lets get on the labyrinth.”
NO! It is not something we can produce like sausage.
“How many pounds of contemplation do you want?”
“Well, I don’t know; I feel pretty holy today.”
We don’t produce it; God gives it to us.
Notice that there are no “feelings” there. People say that they don’t pray anymore because they don’t “feel” anything. Right! Bored in the presence of the Living God. Father Dubay goes on to say,There are no images, ideas, or words. In the first stages what God gives is usually a dry desire for Him, that is with little or no feelings or it is a gentle, delightful, awareness of His presence.
Brief? Brief! Short…brief!Both of these two types of awareness are brief.
“Let me see..I will pencil in contemplation today, get a haircut and then have lunch. I can do fifteen minutes of contemplation.”They are just there, not produced in a human manner. They cannot be had whenever we want them.
No! They cannot be had whenever we want them! What Fr. Dubay says next is so important and this is of great service.
This is what happened with St. Mary Magdalene.No methods or techniques can produce them. When we have lived the Gospel generously in our state in life, and this includes fidelity to meditative prayer, God begins to grant this superior type of communing with Himself.
Formal or memorized prayer still has a place. Memorized prayers are like going out on a cold winter’s day and starting the car, warming it up. Formal or memorized prayer is necessary. Take the Angelus for instance; when you get up in the morning, at noon, at 6pm, and at midnight if you are still up, say the Angelus and then get to bed! What are you still doing up so late? Anyway, those are formal memorized prayers and still have a place.
Then we have meditative prayer. See the baby Jesus behind me; He is holding the Rosary and Our Lady is holding the baby Jesus. The Rosary is a meditation on the Gospel, which IS Jesus. Jesus IS the Kingdom of God. I don’t care what people tell you or have told you about the Rosary, if they tell you anything other than what I have just described, they are wrong! Instead of carrying a Bible around in your pocket or purse, the Rosary is a meditation on the Gospel.
So, we have stairs ascending to contemplation, which are formal prayer, meditation, and then we dispose ourselves to doing nothing else, nothing more or nothing less than placing ourselves at the feet of God and saying,
“Lord, I am here in your presence.”
If God wants to move you, He will. If God wants to speak to you, He will. You are disposed to hearing Him. Parents really need this for their children. All parents think that their children are going to bury them and yet sadly the reverse happens. Last week a family from Dallas went down to Mexico with their four kids. They were visiting family and went to the beach on vacation. The youngest of the four kids, a nine-year-old boy dove into the pool and never came up. He died! A nine-year-old boy brought back here on the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel
Parents know that the children they have are so precious that at any moment they could pre-decease them. So, parents have to focus on their children with prayer to get them to their eternal reward. Parents have to pray because children are always trying something. I talked to a grandmother yesterday and she told me a story about her grandson that she is keeping for the summer. He came in and told her a whopper. She said,
“Brandon, that is a lie!”
Brandon said,
“How did you know?”
He didn’t tell her she was wrong but wanted to know how she knew because he didn’t want to walk into that one again. [Laughter] The fact is prayer helps parents to prepare their children in a way nobody else can. If you are not praying for your children, I guarantee you that no one in Washington is! There is no one else who prays as intently as parents who pray for their children.
When you can, pray and pray well. When I talk to people it is amazing how many parents don’t pray the Rosary with their children. If you have a radio or TV, tape the Rosary and at your convenience, play it back. Tape the nuns at EWTN; you hear a purity in their voices that is lacking in the world. You can pray the Rosary with fifty or sixty women, who are dedicated to God and His service. Pray with your children and grandchildren because they grow up in the snap of a finger and then you will kick yourself for not having done this more often.
The fact is that formal and meditative prayer is getting us ready for contemplation, which is sitting at the feet of Jesus and if He wants to speak a word Heart to heart He will. If you decide that none of this applies to you then just be a tornado of activity and spin out of control. You will spread death and destruction around you.
Martha, Martha, you are anxious and upset about many things.
I don’t want to be around a Martha like that. I love St. Martha at the end of the Gospel of St. John but I wouldn’t give you two cents for this neat freak cook we read about today. She was transformed by contemplation and she learned from Jesus by sitting at His feet. Martha was transformed.
Martha, Martha, you are anxious and upset about many things; only one thing is required. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be denied her.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
Tips for Anyone Who Claims to Be Bored; Who Has Time to Be Bored?
The following are good pointers to remember during the summer months, while you are at home or work or on vacation. These “bullet points” will help everyone. Encourage others to consider this list as well.
EVERY DAY:
*Say your prayers.
*Do your work well.
*Do something for a friend or neighbor in need.
*Go to Church and attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on Sunday.
*Make a Holy Hour at least once a week, i.e., sit or kneel in Church, in the Divine Presence.
*Attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass during the week if possible.
*Modesty in dress, language, and entertainment.
*Pray the Rosary each day, with your spouse and family.
*Pray the Rosary with Mother Angelica & the Sisters, on TV or Radio 910AM
*Study your Faith.
*Read good books.
*Visit the sick on your block or in a local hospital or nursing facility.
*Watch less TV, then taper off to even less TV.
*Watch more EWTN.
*Memorize your prayers from your CCD prayer book.
*Go to Confession and take your kids - grandkids.
*Make a visit to Church, alone or with your family and light a candle.
*Tell Our Lord and His Blessed Mother each day that you love them. Imitate their lives.
*Practice patience when driving.
*Wean yourself from video games or the computer.
*Give up smoking and offer it up for the poor in the world.
*Study the Saint for whom you were named and begin imitating your Saints virtues.
*Pray the “Angelus” each day, when you get up, again at Noon, and again at 6pm.
*Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet at 3pm.
*Fridays abstain from meat and offer it for an end to abortion.
*Forgive grudges as you wish to be forgiven. Offer it up as reparation.
*Take a nap!