Father Paul Weinberger, Pastor
St. William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
Easter Sunday
April 8. 2007
Brothers, if then you are raised with Christ seek what is above where Christ is seated at the Right Hand of God; think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
Last night at the Easter Vigil we heard the seven readings and then the Epistle and the Gospel. To my discredit and shame, before I knew about the Easter Vigil and the significance of it, I considered all of this overkill. The beautiful reading from last night from Genesis, Exodus, and Isaiah, so many books of the Old Testament show again and again how God has a plan for creation and for the crowning jewel of His creation…men and women.
The story of creation in the Book of Genesis and the Gospels are connected. It is very interesting when people say with such authority,
“What in the world can the Old Testament teach me? I live in America in the year 2007, so what in the world can the Old Testament be of use; it doesn’t have any connection to me at all.”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Recall a passage that was not mentioned at the Easter Vigil, when Our Lady and St. Joseph took Jesus as a young man to the temple in Jerusalem. As they were returning home they recognized that they’d lost Him. They’d been separated for three days and then Mary and Joseph found Him in the Temple. Down through the centuries the Fathers have seen this as preparation for Our Lady because she would lose Christ for three days but then He would be restored to her. This was a symbol of what was to come later with the death and resurrection of Christ.
Christ was in the Temple teaching the Elders. A young man teaching the Elders of the Temple? Amazing! Jesus said to them,
Did you not realize that I must be in My Father’s House?
The way that the Jews understood all of creation was that God, Who worked six days and on the seventh day rested, had built himself a house. It is not just our universe but also everything that is created. This the house that God built for Himself and He did it during those six days of creation and on the seventh day He rested to show us that He is not just concerned with work. On the seventh day He turned to man, His creation, as a Father, to see this creation that was created in the image and likeness of God. That is how Adam is described in the Book of Genesis. God created them, male and female in the image and likeness of God and on the seventh day God rested to be as a Father to His crowning jewel of creation.
In the Book of Exodus God leads the Israelites out of Egypt. We have heard this many times but of course it has nothing to do with me today in the year 2007. God led Israel into the desert, which sounds like a terrible place. It is a great place if you wish to be alone. God said again and again that He wished to be alone with Israel as a bridegroom is with his bride, so very intimate. Moses would speak intimately with God but the rest of Israel heard only thunder; they refused to do the necessary preparation to speak with God the way Adam and Eve spoke with God in the cool of the evening. In the Book of Exodus God spoke with Moses but all the Israelites heard was thunder. They failed to prepare their hearts to be able to hear Him.
Recall the famous scene in the Old Testament where Moses is coming down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments carved by God’s Finger on stone tablets. Why stone tablets? Because our hearts are stone when it comes to God’s Will, a Father’s Will, and our hearts are so often turned to stone and cold as a rock toward the Father, Who wishes to welcome us into His house. The intimacy with which God was turning toward Israel was rebuffed.
When Moses came down from the mountain he found that his older brother Aaron, had taken all the gold from the people. They begged him to take their gold and make a god for them to worship. He fashioned a calf, probably because there wasn’t enough gold to make a bull. The calf would grow into a bull. The reason for making a calf, a young bull, is probably because it was the most popular pagan god in all of Egypt. God had taken Israel out of Egypt but Egypt was still very much in the hearts of the Israelites.
When Moses came down he found that they were worshipping this golden calf. Now, a bull begins as a calf and a bull represented to the Egyptians, as is obvious to see, power and strength. Also a bull’s work is to make cattle. The fertility connected with this animal is obvious. The gold was very expensive and a treasure and represents money. So this golden calf represents power, sex, and money, which has nothing to do with America in 2007. Right? Try turning on the TV and not finding power, sex, and money. That is the Hollywood/Wall Street punch list, power, sex, and money. That is what Israel was worshipping, along with the sexual practices connected with that pagan cult, which they had observed in Egypt.
Moses threw the stone tablets down and they broke, right? You can look in the Old Testament and see that Moses was terribly enraged at what had been done in his absence. He was on top of the mountain fasting for forty days and nights, speaking with God face to face, and this is how the Israelites are treating God and all the work of Moses? Moses had to go back up the mountain again and fast for forty days and nights. I try fasting for four hours and you would think that no one has ever suffered so much, right? Try forty days and nights!
It is interesting that in the Old Testament, if a woman had been guilty of the sin of adultery like the one we heard a few weeks ago, and there were no witnesses, the penalty for this was to drink water mixed with dust. Now, this is for the sin of adultery with no witnesses. Moses took that golden calf and melted it down, ground it into gold dust, mixed it with water and had the people drink the gold dust and water. Their sin of idolatry was akin to a wife committing adultery against her husband. God called Israel to be intimately united to Him and His Divine Life - Grace- and the golden calf is how God was rebuffed.
The beauty of this day is that Christ leads us to the House of the Father. He doesn’t merely point the way but He takes our humanity and enters Heaven for the first time. Our fallen human nature, in Adam and Eve is raised up in Christ. The Divinity and humanity of Christ in the Mystery of the Incarnation are eternally united and can never be separated and that means that with the marks of the Crucifixion on Christ’s glorified body our human nature is in Heaven for the first time. The Lord had to lead us there by becoming sin for us. He who committed no sin or knew no sin allowed Himself to be as sin so that sin could die in Him and reign no more in us.
The beauty of this day is that Christ is starting the human family all over again. Abraham was promised that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky or the sand on the seashore. Christ fulfills that promise that God made to Abraham in the Old Testament. When we look at the Old Testament we can see how God was preparing a plan for our salvation and not merely to restore us to Eden, a paradise here on earth which you and I wish would happen. Instead He has something much better planned and that is to lead us to the House of the Father. We have to admit that we rebuff and reject our Lord and His attempts again and again when He treats us to such Divine Intimacy. It is called sin and it has a hold on my life as well as yours.
Over the Forty Days of Lent and the forty hours of Confessions I heard during Holy Week, I am amazed at how many people returned to Confession on a regular basis so that through the Sacrament of Divine Mercy, which His Son established on Easter Sunday they would not lose that intimacy with the Father. The first words out of the mouth of the Risen Christ were this.
The sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven. The sins you shall hold bound, they are held bound.
How many Catholics look at the Risen Christ and say,
“You got something else? Confession? Nah! You got something else in there?”
This is the first gift the Bridegroom gives to His Church, His Bride, on the day of His Resurrection and He is rebuffed even today!
Getting back to Holy Week and the forty hours of Confession and the Forty Days of Lent… so many people came to Confession. I heard Confessions from people who were evidentially moved by God to confess sins and do so in a generous spirit. God will not be outdone in generosity; when a soul humbles itself and comes into Confession to reveal hidden faults in such a generous manner, I tell you that God will not be slow in repaying the individual’s generosity. God cannot stand by and let one of us be more generous than He is with us. It just ain’t that way! I heard case after case after case over the last forty days of people turning from sin and turning back to God’s Will, like the Prodigal Son returning to his father’s house. If it can be repeated so many times from so many different backgrounds, in English and Spanish, which is all I can cover, then it is possible. Just because my heart may be hardened to God as my Father, doesn’t mean that all hearts are.
There is an ancient homily connected with this day and it is incredibly beautiful. When you think back to Adam and Eve, Moses, and everyone who lived before Christ, so many of them lived just lives but they could not enter into Heaven. The gates of Heaven had been closed by the sin of Adam and Eve and the place where they stayed, if you will, is called hell in the Creed. He descended into hell and on the third day He rose again from the dead. He descended to the place of the just who had lived good lives but couldn’t enter Heaven. He descended to lead them to Heaven. There are no throwaway people in the eyes of God but there are plenty of people who are not worthy of life according to modern American man in 2007.
“Oh, you are not productive so we will just get rid of you! You are taking up space so we will also get rid of you!”
In God’s plan no one is a throwaway.
This ancient homily is incredibly; Christ goes to call Adam and Eve to Himself.
There is a reference there to His Incarnation. The Divinity and humanity of Christ is eternally united and cannot be separated from His humanity and His humanity cannot be separated from His Divinity.Something strange is happening – there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.
He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all”. Christ answered him: “And with your spirit”. He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light”.
I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.
That is God’s plan for us.For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.
See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.
I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.
Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven.
“But I don’t have time for God’s plan, I have to work. And when I am not at work I have to be with my friends and family.”
If someone told you that they loved you more than God what are you going to do if that happens? You can always yell, “Taxi!” You can always RUN AWAY. Or you can say something like,
“Is this gun loaded?”
That is always a good one, right? When someone tells you that they love you more than God you think they are CRAZY! Yet, we say it all the time, maybe not with those words but with something like,
“I couldn’t make it to Mass because family came over.”
“Are they Catholic? Have they been to Mass”
“No!”
What are they, vampires? [Laughter]
“I can’t go into that Church. It is day light and they have crosses there and mirrors and everything.”
So they are saying that they LOVE THEIR FAMILY MORE THAN THEY LOVE GOD! Are they crazy? There are so many ways we say this in a seven-day period. God wants one day to be with us. He would walk in the cool of the evening with Adam and Eve and on the seventh day He rested.
Someone asked Deacon Ishmael where the donuts were this morning. I heard words I had not heard in a long time when the Deacon told the person,
“Well, Brookshire’s is closed today.”
I am 47 and as a kid there were lots of places closed on Sunday. I remember driving along and pointing out stores that were open. But today they are 24/7. Super this; super that, but nothing about God’s plan.
“Of course I don’t love YOU more than God but I do love my work, sex, power and money more than I love God.”
If I cannot bear to turn to God in prayer everyday, how can I bear an eternity with Him in heaven?
If I can’t just carve out time to rest in the Lord on Sunday and go to Church on Sunday and be intimate and united with God by hearing His word and worthily receiving Holy Communion, how in the world am I going to make it spending eternity with God in Heaven? Is there a light switch? Just before you die you are going to flip that switch? That is a temptation. Instead of living in this world as the image and likeness of God as we were created and according to the Father’s plan, living in His house this day and every day despite the craziness around us, we prefer the image of a lower animal like the Israelites in the desert. There is a lot of spiritual adultery that is committed by turning our back on God and turning to the world and loving creatures and creation more than we love the Creator.
That beautiful homily says,
That refers to the hell of the justified, not the hell where one is damned for all eternity. But, we could say that the Lord could say to us that He did not create us to be a prisoner in hell. Parents, who have seen their children leave like the Prodigal Son know that it is into the grip of hell that their children have gone. No one is brought to their knees faster than a parent realizing that their children are in such danger. In their prayers the parents say just like the words from the lips of Our Lord in the ancient homilyI did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell.
“We did not create you to be a prisoner in hell.”
This day is so great and has so much power that all who think the world, all of its attractions, and all of its pleasures have such an all powerful grip on thoughts, words, and deeds, should think of the eternal power unleashed on this day, when Christ Our Lord rose from the dead. His divinity united to His humanity broke the power of sin and death; He put sin and death to death so that He could lead you and me to Our Father’s House. This is a good day to make your way back to the Father’s House and so many have done that during Lent.
Brothers, if then you are raised with Christ seek what is above where Christ is seated at the Right Hand of God; think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
DMW