Father Paul Weinberger, Pastor
St. William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
17th Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 29, 2007
And I tell you, ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
You may recall that this picture was on the front cover of the bulletin before and was very much enlarged. You can see it now in the context of the great Church surrounding this, the Portiuncula Chapel. This is Our Lady of the Angels Chapel and the great Church built around and over it. This is the Chapel that St. Francis said he loved to pray in most. We just celebrated the 800th anniversary of his conversion.
St.. Francis is depicted up on the façade of that little chapel and above at the peak is Jesus and Our Lady with angels surrounding them.
Chapel can be viewed here
http://www.porziuncola.org/image/porziuncola.jpg
The reason St. Francis gave for his desire to pray there the most, in the little chapel, is because Our Lady and the angels loved to visit there very frequently. That is true of this Church as well. With the addition of the Blessed Sacrament in the Tabernacle right there, Our Lady and the angels are constantly in attendance in this Catholic Church and in every Catholic Church in the world. When you and I are not worshipping Our Lord in the Tabernacle Our Lady, the angels, and the Heavenly Host of saints are worshipping Christ. They are adoring Him. So, this Church is also a place where Our Lady and the angels and saints love to frequent.
This is called the Portiuncula and it is connected with an indulgence. You can find out more about the indulgence on the backside of the page. An indulgence is a remission, in the eyes of God, of the temporal punishment due to sins, which have already been confessed but have not done sufficient penance for them. We carry those with us after we die and then Purgatory will be necessary. Wouldn’t it be great to have this plenary indulgence and in a sense, erase the board before we die? You might be wondering if this is possible…IT IS!
The story tells us that on July 16, at night, St. Francis was praying as he knelt before the Altar in this Chapel.
He was asking for something very great, but he actually asked, and he was asking this for people he would never meet. I have never met St. Francis but I hope to one day. He was interceding for people he didn’t even know. The story says,An extremely bright light shone all about him. In the great splendor, Jesus and Mary appeared with a multitude of radiant angels. They bade St. Francis to ask for whatever he thought best for the salvation of souls. Francis replied, “Since it is a miserable sinner who speaks to you Oh God of Mercy, he asks You to have mercy on his brothers, who are burdened with sin, and he asks that all those who repentant, cross over the threshold of this place receive from You oh Lord, Who sees their torment, pardon for their evil deeds.”
His prayer would be answered; he was assured, however the fulfillment of it would have to be sealed by the pope.
Hence…the connection with the indulgence. And, despite what anyone says, there is no payment for any indulgence whatsoever and there has never been indulgences paid for with the Church’s permission. I know though, there is just no convincing some people. This indulgence sounds too good to be true but it is true and it is by the Grace of God. St. Francis is the one who interceded on behalf of miserable sinners, like myself.
In the First Reading, Abraham is interceding before God. Did you notice how he described himself?
Abraham spoke up again, “See how I am presuming to speak to my Lord though I am but dust and ashes.”
Abraham is interceding on behalf of the innocent, should there be any innocent in Sodom and Gomorrah. This was a wretched place of public sinners and many private ones no doubt, but Abraham is concerned for people he doesn’t even know just like St. Francis, who was concerned. I like Psalm #137.
I will give thanks to You oh Lord with all my heart, for You have heard the words of my mouth. In the presence of the angels I will sing your praise.
That is St. Francis in this chapel of Our Lady of the Angels singing the praises of God, praying in such a way that so many others benefit from his asking, knocking and seeking, just as Our Lord says in the Gospel today.
Last week I went to the hospital and there was a man there from Carthage, Texas. He is over 80 and moved here because of his illness. His children are here. I went into the room to visit him and I was so impressed with the sermon he began to preach to me. It was on the Rosary. He pointed to the Rosary at his bedside and said,
“You know, I have been praying that Rosary since 1950. Do you realize the promises of Our Lady for those who pray the Rosary every day?”
Well, I am loving this! It is great to hear. He goes on to talk about the Promises of Our Lady and the 5 First Saturdays and that these need to be put into the bulletin. Well, look on the back of the bulletin at the bottom and you will see the Five First Saturdays, and the Nine First Fridays are no slouch either. Look at #12; talk about “life” insurance; Eternal Life Insurance!
Our Lady is not pushing us to buy an indulgence; like any good mother the Church is Mother and Teacher and like any good mother, She is pushing us to pray. The Blessed Mother is also pushing us to pray. Last Sunday we heard words that still sting in my memory like a lash.
Martha, Martha you are anxious and upset about many things; Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be denied her.
A little pop quiz here. I mentioned last Sunday that if today were not a Sunday we would be celebrating the Feast of St. Martha. Gotcha! OK? Having heard the words of Jesus to Martha, I am sure you were just as moved as I was moved. Have you started praying more, even five or ten percent more? It is an interesting question is it not? If the Word of God does not move us, which is alive and strikes at the heart then what are we, ecclesialistical doorstops just taking up space like speed bumps in the road? At least the speed bump and doorstop serve a purpose. What is all this about?
The prayer that Our Lord gives us today in this Gospel is not window dressing. This is not something to help you sell your house. This is the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, and it takes pride of place because it is from the lips of Our Lord. Look at the beginning line of that Gospel. Jesus was praying in a certain place and when He had finished one of His Disciples said to Him,
Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his Disciples.
How did we get this prayer, the Lord’s Prayer? Someone asked Jesus or prayed to Him, if you will, to teach them to pray. It was someone who was seeking, knocking, and interested in praying. Since Sunday is dedicated to the Lord, we know that is not just wind; it is true. It is not my day and it is not your day, it is the Lord’s Day and this is the Lord’s Prayer. You can easily go to St. Matthew’s Gospel and look up the longer and more extended version of this prayer. It is kind of like St. Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 6.
When you fast, when you pray, when you give to the poor.
We hear this on Ash Wednesday. What is Jesus saying about praying? He says that when you pray; don’t pray like the scribes and the Pharisees, the people who pray in public getting their reward right then. You are to go to your room and close the door and pray to your Father in private. Your Father sees what no man sees and He will reward you. In a sense, the picture on the front of the bulletin represents your room. The room that Jesus talks about in St. Matthew’s Gospel is the room of the soul. It has a door that God could open but never will because He is very respectful. The door opens from the inside. You can see that door represented here in the picture of Divine Mercy. Jesus is before a door and there is His Divine Mercy. Jesus is not the point man for a swat team, who is going to knock in the door. The door has to be opened from the inside. Go to your room and close the door and pray to your Father in private and the Father who sees what no man sees will reward you.
Just think about how much power is given to us, is placed in our hands so that we can intercede on behalf of others. When people ask us to pray for them and we assent to pray for them that doesn’t mean we let it go in one ear and out the other, it means we pray for them.
Another pop quiz…Do you remember about 4 or 5 weeks ago I made mention of the historic document that was published by Pope Benedict. It is a letter to the world imploring people around the world to pray for the evangelization of China so that the Gospel will be preached to over a billion throughout China. In the last month or so have you done any of that?
“Well, we did have Chinese food and we did pray before and after.”
That is good when you pray before and after meals but praying grace before and after meals in a Chinese restaurant is not praying for the evangelization of China. There are over one billion people in China that I don’t know and I will never know, who need my prayers and I need to ask. God is so ready to answer our prayers. It sounds too good to be true, but it is true or Jesus is lying to us and He is not lying because He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
In his book, Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict has a chapter on the Lord’s Prayer. Now, some areas of this book are easier to read than others. If you go to the chapter on the Lord’s Prayer you will find that it is easy to read. This is a beautiful book and very beneficial. In the chapter on the Lord’s Prayer the Holy Father makes this final point.
The pope makes many points about this prayer that is so familiar but it is right under our very nose and we don’t notice it or recognize the words even though they are so profound and from the lips of Our Lord Himself. The pope writes in that chapter about how we are children of God but we are not ready and we don’t come instantly prepared; we have to be transformed like St. Martha, whom I love after she’d been transformed. I couldn’t stand St. Martha when she is cleaning the pots in the kitchen and trying to manipulate her sister to come and help her. No, I wouldn’t want to live across the street from her at that time but I love the way she was transformed…a passive construction to show exactly what must happen to you and me and it is going to be through prayer.Because the Our Father is a prayer of Jesus it is a Trinitarian prayer; we pray with Christ through the Holy Spirit to the Father.
The pope makes mention in that chapter on the Lord’s Prayer that,
As I said we are not ready made children of God; we are not right off the rack.This (the Lord’s Prayer) gives the concept of being God’s children a dynamic quality
Christ is our model and you and I must imitate him.We are meant to become so increasingly by growing more and more deeply in Communion with Jesus. Our son ship turns out to be identical with following Christ.
Last Sunday I mentioned something that Fr. Dubay said and this was that our work is not our prayer. If you were told this, it is wrong. Fr. Dubay is an expert in the spiritual life and his book, “Prayer Primer”, is an excellent book if you want to know more. The Gospel today says that Jesus was praying in a certain place and then He teaches; so He is praying and then teaching. He prays and then He performs miracles. He prays and then He chooses His 12 Apostles. There is a pulse like a heartbeat in Jesus that we can indeed recognize and it is obvious in hearing the Gospel proclaimed each Sunday and reading the Bible, that this is the model of Jesus Christ. We cannot deny any kind of credibility before God that we didn’t know; there has to be this pulse, this beat, this prayer and work, not just work! That is descriptive of how we are in the grip of the world; work is so appealing that prayer is put off to the side and shelved. This is our pulse many times…work, work, work, and then some more work.
If you are in the hospital and don’t have that beat, the in and the out, when the nurse comes in if she just sees a flat line she gets very nervous as they all do when patients have a flat line on the screen and there is no pulse. Doctors get very nervous and start to run around talking to other doctors and nurses. Spiritually speaking, if there is no pulse there is no life and if there is no life, it is not by God’s design. God revealed His Son to all of us so that we might imitate His Son. If there is only work, work, work, you cannot blame it on the Father, His Son, or the Holy Spirit.
My mom is sitting here on the front row and with just a shake of her head can confirm what I am about to say. My mother was very near when my brother was born. His birthday was yesterday. He was born forty-seven years ago and is just a year younger than I am. My parents must have had something in mind; when we were growing up they chose the smallest room in the house and gave it to my brother and me to share and then they closed the door. I guess we were supposed to take up watercolor or finger painting, but it was more like the WWF. Right? Every day my parents had to tell us to stop fighting and we would, but when they were out of earshot or the ten-second rule applied…they were gone for ten seconds… then we started back up. What do you expect from two boys inside a small room with the door closed. Fortunately my brother and two sisters still speak to me today. It is amazing how my parents endured this because it had to be repeated every day.
Somehow, in my immaturity during those eighteen years, we thought that this was ok even though mom and dad would tell us not to fight… and then there were the whippings. The fact is that it hardly penetrated; it was an immature paradox. If my brother and I were to be at it the same way at forty-seven and forty-eight…. of course, he might win his first one. [Laughter] My brother is a big guy. The thing is that we don’t expect that out of adults.
There is certain hypocrisy when we know something and we have to be told again and again. We take it for granted that children are maturing but as adults we know that our model is Jesus and that He prayed and worked. He is the model to follow and yet, we are not asking, seeking, or knocking; we are not following Jesus.
I am sad to say, in speaking with many families over the years, so many of them do not pray together. Somehow there is a Geneva Convention that says that at the end of the day people just drift off to their individual rooms, mutter a few words before their head hits the pillow and God is just so tickled with the fact they don’t do more. What happened to the family Rosary? It died before it ever got started and yet, in pride of place the Our Father is included before each decade. The family Rosary is something that definitely needs to be in every home.
We can’t be satisfied with some spiritual life support, which really isn’t life support at all. We grow tremendously weaker and weaker without prayer and Our Lord does everything but stand on His head. You leave that for St. Peter. The Lord tells us again and again to pray and gives us the prayer, which goes unused. In a way, this is obvious.
The other day I got a call from a very nice family in this parish and they needed a favor. They wanted to borrow some chairs and tables because they were having family over and they wanted to defend themselves…I mean they wanted to use them for an outdoor get together. They told me they would bring them back clean and unbroken. I know this family and they would bring them back promptly, clean, and unbroken. Over the last three years people have asked to borrow tables and chairs a million times and every time I have said the same thing and that is “No”, because they need to be here and accounted for; they are not mine but belong to the parish. I was thinking about how hard it would be to say “no” to this family. We recall what the Bible says,
]If you, as wicked as you are know what to give your children…
Well, the same goes for me. I was trying to think about how to get through this when another good family made the same request. Now, everyone wants to support families. By this time I had come to the conclusion that, if I have said “no” for the last three years, if I say “yes” to these two families, how can I keep from being a hypocrite? I can’t!
“Well, what if we do it in the middle of the night when all are asleep and we back the truck up, and with signs, ala Hogan’s Heroes, and then we load the chairs and table and whisk them away. No one would ever notice or know they were gone and we could have a secret stash of tables and chairs for this purpose. We have those tunnels; you know... every Catholic Church comes complete with a tunnel system, right?”
Please! No moral law would be broken; no table or chair would be broken so what is the problem? I would still privately be a hypocrite. I have enough to deal with every morning when I get ready for my day, looking at him in the mirror.
The fact is that Jesus reserves His most harsh rebukes for the scribes and Pharisees; they know what to do and they act as though they have never heard it before. They couldn’t put two and two together and acted incredibly dense. Again and again Jesus calls them hypocrites. I would say that if you and I continue in not making progress concerning our prayer life then we run the risk of being private or public hypocrites because we know Who our model is; Jesus is the model. He even prayed with both hands and feet nailed to the cross,
Father forgive them, they know not what they do.
This is part of what the Holy Father mentions in that chapter on the Lord’s Prayer. He says,
St. Matthew chapter 5 he says,We must therefore let Jesus teach us what “Father” really means. In the discourses of Jesus, the Father appears of the source of all good, as the measure of the perfection of man.
I don’t like that, but it is a direct order; love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Pop quiz! Did you pray for your enemies today?But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your Father, Who is in Heaven. For he makes His Son rise on the evil and on the good.
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them.” Us! We are included in the “forgive them”.The love that endures to the end, which the Lord fulfilled on the cross in praying for His enemies, shows us the essence of the Father.
How profound and direct. Saint Martha would be so enchanted with this.St. Luke specifies the good gifts that the Father gives. He says, “How much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” This means that the gift of God is God Himself.
Here is the zinger in this quote. The good thing that He gives us is Himself. Now please look at your Gospel text for today. The last line says,The gift of God is God Himself.
If you then who are wicked know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in Heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.
Have you asked? In the last twenty-four hours, have you personally invoked the Holy Spirit, praying for Him to help you? Have you done this directly? You begin to see how necessary this Gospel is for us to take seriously. If somehow we think we are called to be public hypocrites then I am sorry, if you want to be a public hypocrite then go to Hollywood or Washington; they seem to congregate in those two places. Enough of public hypocrisy! Enough of private hypocrisy!
The Lord wants to bring His family together. The pope makes a point about the word “our” in the Our Father. The word “our” also gives us the key to understanding the words that come next, which are, “Who art in heaven.” With these words we are not pushing God the Father away to some distant planet, rather we are testifying to the fact that while we have different earthly fathers, we all come from one single Father, Who is the measure and source of all fatherhood.
We don’t pray and we don’t get, we don’t ask and we don’t find, and we don’t knock and the door is not opened. Do you know what happens then? In our weakened condition we shake our fists to the Heavens because He didn’t read our minds. Oh, He read our minds; He’s just asking us to seek. The people, who don’t ask, seek, or knock and are so mad at God, are everywhere. They go on Oprah or Dr. Phil and they blame their parents or their pastor or the Catholic Church.
“I used to be a Catholic!”
CLICK! That is what you should always do when someone says they used to be Catholic. Why are you watching that garbage anyway?
The fact is that people who do not pray end up being anxious and upset about everything from the paper in the puddle to the Poodle who is puddle-ing and to the tire that is flat. Everything is designed to make them have a bad day and it is like St. Martha at her worst and on steroids. We have to live with these people, or, we are these people. We are not revealing to the world the prayer that should be guiding our actions.
The Lord says again and again,
And I tell you, ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, the one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen