Homily by:
Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
February 17, 2008
Jesus took Peter, James, and John, his brother and led them up a high mountain by themselves, and He was transfigured before them.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
It is now a week and a half since we heard the words, “Remember man that thou are dust and unto dust thou shall return.” It is a time when many people are tempted to review their progress or lack of progress and give up, or for those who haven’t started and have remorse and give up. Absolutely not! Don’t give up! Evaluate? Yes! Give up? No!
The Gospel today is on the Transfiguration. This grouping of the Apostles; Peter, James, and John should be familiar to us. You recall that last Sunday on the back of the bulletin there was a beautiful meditation by Mother Teresa. The Agony in the Garden is the First Sorrowful Mystery and Jesus took with Him Peter, James, and John. He said to them, and by extension, to you, and me.
Stay awake and pray that you may not be put to the test; the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
How beautifully Mother Teresa draws the parallel that as Jesus started to pray.
If you have read this, she went on to mention how many graces are ours through making a Holy Hour and visiting Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. I spoke of this at length last Sunday. Mother Teresa notes the graces of conversion.He began to sweat blood and the agony that He suffered was the realization that the Holy Eucharist would be rejected by so many and appreciated by so few. He saw down through the ages how He would be left alone, spurned, and avoided by men in so many Tabernacles in the world.
Our Lady of Lourdes’ message to St. Bernadette and by extension to us was to
Pray and sacrifice; do penance for the conversion of sinners.
Don’t leave this all to the Blessed Mother; she is asking for our help and cooperation.
Jesus came back after He gave those instructions to Peter, James, and John, and He found them asleep and He said to them,
Could you not stay awake and pray for one hour?
They were so overcome with grief. Yea, that is a good line.
Today after a week of prayer, sacrifice and giving to the poor, you and I should recognize, as Fr. Hardon said, we live in a world, which is living under the error that the world is eternal. We live surrounded by people who believe that the world is eternal. Yes, people believe concretely or passively that the world is and always will be. No, the world is changing and time is how we represent change. There is no change or time in Heaven; God is eternal and God created the world. But people who are handsome, beautiful or powerful surround us and we are very much influenced by them to believe in small ways and in large that the world is eternal.
It seems like every time someone in Hollywood comes out and says they believe in reincarnation, like Shirley MacLaine, who believes this, people go ga ga over this. What? I should be grateful that someone believes that God wants me to work a “double shift” or a “triple shift”, and that God is that cruel? Yet, people just fall all over themselves to get autographs from these kinds of people.
We live surrounded by people, who tell us the same things over and over again, and then when they come to the end they just start over like a loop. These things I can summarize in the following way; politics, sports, sex, power, and money. Once the news gets to the end of those and the pleasures connected with them, of course, then they just start over with; politics, sports, sex, power, and money. Imagine picking up a newspaper without those five elements.
“Hey! Who left this blank piece of paper here?”
Right? That is what you’d have. Or can you imagine a popular program on TV that doesn’t have these five elements in them? Our attention is drawn to believe the lie, that the world is eternal. The world is not eternal; the world is passing away. “I” is like saying, “What part of ‘Remember man that thou are dust and unto dust thou shall return.’ don’t you understand?”
We have Abraham in the First Reading. In the Pope’s new book, “Jesus of Nazareth” the Holy Father mentions a tale that is carried down through the centuries by the Rabbis concerning Abraham. Abraham was told by God to take Isaac, his only son by Sarah, to a mountain He would point out and there sacrifice him. A very sad, elderly Abraham took his beloved son to Mt. Mariah, which is the mount that God pointed out. The Rabbis hold throughout the centuries that their destination was Jerusalem. But, of course, God would not allow Abraham to sacrifice his son, but it didn’t mean that for forty days that Abraham wasn’t in turmoil about what was ahead for them. The Rabbinic tale mentions that God sent an angel to accompany him and the Rabbis write that the reason Abraham could hold it together was he spent his time admiring the beauty of that angel.
It is probably not too different from the time that the young lady on top of the Pyrenees Mountains, 150 years ago had a vision of Our Lady, a vision of Heaven. The words of Our Lady were very clear when she said she did not promise happiness in this life, but only in the next. St. Bernadette had eyes as big as saucers and her eyes took in someone greater than an angel sent by God…the Blessed Mother, God’s own mother. St. Bernadette would suffer much the rest of her life, but she would be faithful the rest of her life through that suffering.
Let’s focus in on that with this Transfiguration because we are so easily led and misled by those in the world to believe that this world is eternal. The Fathers of the Church down the centuries have mentioned that this Gospel of the Transfiguration is a way that Jesus in a sense exposed just a little of His Divinity for His Apostles to view, so that when the scandal of the Cross would come upon them, they would not be conquered and despair like Judas did, and that they would support each other and be faithful to the end. It is like going into a darkened room on a sunny day, and opening a curtain just a little and the sun beams through. This is how St. Matthew’s Gospel describes the Transfiguration. Jesus would show them that He knew full well what lay before Him. He knew that He was walking into an ambush; He was not surprised or tricked like Adam and Eve were last Sunday in the First Reading. It is very important that we recall this, that God gives them this glimpse of His Divinity to support them.
People say all the time that they don’t have time to pray. In fact of all the things we don’t have time for is prayer, which is number one on the list. We have time for the world and everything in it; we just don’t have time for eternity. Time will not satisfy the human heart. In fact, if you look at the back page of this bulletin there is a paragraph I want to draw your intention to.
If I had been there I would not have shouted, “Give us Barabbas.” Or “Crucify Him.” That is what I would like to think and that is probably what you would like to think too. Many Christians prefer a criminal to Jesus and this is a fact. Many professed Christians in 2008 prefer to admit criminals into their living room rather than turn off the TV, telephone, music, and computer; and make a Holy Hour from home, uniting their heart with the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Tabernacle. Look what Mother Teresa writes next.Therefore, who could tell the sorrow, who could measure the bitter pain of what Jesus felt when He came before Pilate? For there, people preferred a hardened criminal to the gentle Savior shouting, “Give us Barabbas…crucify Him”, because they did not understand the depth of His love. The failed to recognize God in the form of man as today so many fail to recognize the real presence of Jesus in the form of the Sacred Host.
We are not made for time, but for eternity, and I don’t care how many logs of time we throw into the fire, it is not going to be enough to help us. We are made for eternity and God alone is that which will satisfy the human heart. As St. Augustine said,Again, in so many Tabernacles of the world Jesus is left alone and forsaken because people prefer the pursuit of empty pleasure to the sweetness of Our Savior.
For they do not know the depth of love that awaits them there, a love that alone fulfills the longing of every human heart.
That beautiful hymn that we started Mass with, the last two verses mention, “abide with us, remain with us Lord so that through this life of suffering over past an Easter of unending joy we may attain at last.” There is a point to it. Stay with us Lord…”if I can fit You in.” We don’t have time! Yet we have time to listen to everyone else on the phone, even numbers we don’t recognize. We have time to listen to newscasters. “What does Wolf Blitzer think about this?” We even have time for…Oprah.Oh Lord, You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.
Father pauses a minute and bows.
[Laughter]
And her show lasts how long? One hour!
“I don’t have time to pray or make a Holy Hour because I am so absorbed by this world and the pursuit of politics, sports, sex, power, money, and all the pleasures that go with it; that I don’t have time for eternity or for Jesus, but I am with you Lord, I am with you.”
We will not be able to withstand the scandal of the Cross; the cross will be too heavy for us because we have not turned to the Lord and made a Holy Hour. Like Abraham on his way to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, and was supported by the angelic messenger, we have someone infinitely greater, eternally greater than the angels, and He is the Son of God Himself. This is not some pipe dream. Did you notice that in the Gospel today it mentioned that Moses and Elijah are even recognized by St. Peter?
While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them.
They weren’t just imagining it. If the cloud was just in the imagination it would not cast a shadow on the ground. And then a voice said,
This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.
Listen to Him right after you listen to the world, and guess what, you never have time to listen to Him if all the time is taken up with these urgent things, and we are told to chase our tails to allow criminals into our own living rooms. Talk about politics! The fact is that this is the menu that the world serves up because the prince of this world has this same old recipe and we never tire from going to the trough of these five things when we could be in the presence of the Lord.
Even if you cannot make it to Church, you can make a Holy Hour at home. Our Lord asks you and me,
Could you not stay awake even for an hour?
It is in my own self-interest and every time it is my self-interest, I put me first. Jesus said to stay awake and pray so that you may not be put to the test. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
’Father, that doesn’t apply to me.”
Oh really? Well, the last week and a half, how are you doing? Right! With prayer, fasting, and giving to the poor, how are you doing? “Stay awake and pray so that you may not be put to the test” shows us how the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
Jesus took Peter, James, and John, his brother and led them up a high mountain by themselves, and He was transfigured before them.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen