9th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2008

[Fr.Paul Weinberger]

9th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2008
Homily by:
Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
June 1, 2008

Jesus said to His disciples, “Not everyone, who says to me “Lord, Lord”, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only the one, who does the Will of My Father in Heaven.”

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit

Amen

I got back yesterday from Nebraska. I’d gone up for the ordination for the four deacons, men who were ordained priests yesterday according to the Extraordinary Form or the Traditional Latin Mass as many people know it. It was absolutely beautiful. Some of that was in peril the day before the ordination.

David Rodriguez, a member of our parish and who is serving over in Alabama for Mother Angelica as a Knight of the Eucharist… he is not yet in religious life but he helps tremendously over there…is now known as Brother Juan Bernardino. He and Brother Philip attended the ordination in Nebraska as well. The two brothers had met the FSSP from Nebraska when they, the FSSP went to Hanceville to offer the Mass on September 14th.

Brother Juan, Philip, and I went out to the neighboring town the night before the ordination for a pizza. There on a large screen was a huge storm moving in. Lincoln, where the ordinations took place is just 80 or 90 miles away from Grand Island. There is a great contrast; Grand Island and everything surrounding it was red on the radar and it moved from the south through Grand Island and to the north and east. Lincoln stayed green on the radar screen. Red bad, green good! This meant that Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos was able to arrive in Lincoln by plane and arrive there for the ordination the following day to ordain these men, which I understand was televised. It was just beautiful.

I was able to visit the seminary there; the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter has a seminary just outside of Lincoln, named for Our Lady of Guadalupe. One of the priests was telling me that at the very beginning when they were designing the seminary the architect met with one of the priests on the site. Now, if you look at this Altar and notice how flat it is but can think of something flatter then you are thinking of Nebraska. Colorado got all the mountains; I understand that Iowa has rolling hills. Nebraska is flat but the fraternity must have found the only hill in Nebraska and built the seminary at the top of the hill.

When the architect met with this priest to start mapping things out a terrible storm came. There were tremendous winds and a lot of lightening. Gee, it sounds like Thursday night when I was in Lincoln. After the storm the architect commented on how severe the storm had been and the priest told him,

“Now you see what you are up against. You are going to have to build a seminary that can withstand that kind of harsh treatment.”

Three sides have been built and the forth side is being added now. They are going down to solid rock to put the chapel in and they are going to close the last side of the cloister to finish the seminary buildings. As Our Lord said, it is wise to build your house on rock and that is what they are doing.The seminary is named for Our Lady of Guadalupe.

That is an image of Our Lady over there. It is not an exact replica but very close. You have seen the exact replica that we have of Our Lady’s tilma that is in Mexico City. Almost five hundred years ago she left her image and it is the only time in the history of the world that she has left her image. You see her hands folded in prayer the way our hands should always be folded at Mass. I have said many times, “Fold your hands.” Parents have to say this too. But, Our Lady is a great model of how we should fold our hands.

If you look at the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe you will notice that just below her hands are the two ends of a sash that goes around her. Any woman who has ever been with child knows that the reason the sash is placed so high is because she is expecting a child. So when we see Our Lady of Guadalupe we are seeing Our Lady and her Child; we are seeing Our Lady and her Son. This is why Our Lady has a special place in salvation history; she gave birth to Jesus Christ, but as special and as true as that is, she is to be revered more so because of the way she followed Christ completely in accord with the Will of God. She could have sinned but she chose never to sin. Now, considering Our Lady of Guadalupe, just beneath her heart beat the Sacred Heart of Jesus for nine months before His birth at Bethlehem.

Friday, on which the men were ordained, was the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In the back of our Church and on one side is the window of the Sacred Heart of Jesus with the crown of thorns going through it and flames coming out of the top. On the other side is another heart with pink flowers and a sword descending into the heart. That is the Immaculate Heart of Mary. After Vatican II these two days we put side by side so that we could see two hearts beating as one. Yesterday was the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, May 31st, so that was observed and not the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin featured the Gospel, which occurred just after the Annunciation. The angel has just told the Blessed Mother that she was to conceive a child through the power of the Holy Spirit, who would be truly the Son of God and the Son of Mary. With such news and the news concerning her cousin, who has now advanced in years, Our Lady immediately went to St. Elizabeth’s side. St. Elizabeth would be the mother of St. John the Baptist. Mary went to help St. Elizabeth and the Gospel mentions that the Holy Spirit inspired St. Elizabeth and she beautifully proclaimed the presence of Our Lady and St. John proclaimed the presence of Jesus by his leaping in her womb. Jesus was only present in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary hours or perhaps days and yet, as the precursor of the Lord St. John is recognizing and calling attention to the Lord.

Today mothers understand what a great honor it is to be so close to their children those first nine month, even against the dominant culture that says it is only a child when the child is wanted. No, for a mother to carry a child so near to her heart is to do something that men cannot do and will never be able to do naturally. I don’t care what science does, it won’t be natural if a man gives birth to a child one day. Good mothers understand that just beneath their heart beats the heart of their child or children. The intimacy of expecting a child is something that only women can treasure. Of course, good fathers contribute but mothers cherish this pride of place and an example for us is the Blessed Mother. Her heart beat in unison with the very Heart of Jesus and her life was always in perfect accord with the Will of God, even at the foot of the cross. As difficult as it would be to stay at the foot of the cross, she would be nowhere else because that was what the Will of God demanded of her.

If you happen to have the calendar at home, the beautiful calendar that was sold earlier in the year you will see that June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

This calendar can be purchased HERE

There is a beautiful picture of the Sacred Heart with the Twelve Promises of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary and to us. To read those promises and to recognize that the only One, Who could grant such promises is indeed granting us those tremendous spiritual favors. The First Friday is this week and every month we have the opportunity to stop the way we have been going astray and reorient our lives according to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

In the back of the bulletin I have provided a news article for you to read. “Woman Wakes Up After Family Says Goodbye” The woman suffered two heart attacks and had no brain waves for 17 hours. Her heart stopped and she had no pulse. In the article you can read about the miraculous recovery of this woman. Now, isn’t that what the Church is recommending to us every First Friday? In a sense, we are to begin again.

A lady, who is a member of our parish went in for surgery and because of difficulties with the heart they stopped it so that later they could start it again with a regular rhythm. I think I know their technique; they showed her the bill before they got started. [Laughter] But they waited five minutes to restart her heart and that had to be the longest five minutes for the people around her. They got her heart started again and she is doing fine, thanks be to God. That is exactly what the Church is recommending to us, whose hearts do not beat in accord with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

On the front of the bulletin is a picture of the end of the Corpus Christi procession and you can see that the center of the photo is the Monstrance and inside the Monstrance is the Sacred Host. This is the Fruit of the Mass, Jesus Himself, His Sacred Heart poured out for us in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Every month we get a chance to reorient our lives, thoughts, and decisions to be in accord with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, because the tendency in us is to believe that we have the cap, t-shirt and coffee mug, so God has to let us into Heaven. This is too easy a trap to fall into and many do. It is tempting. I know a man that is not a member of our parish and lives far from here. He goes to daily Mass and by my estimation, he will not enter into God’s Heavenly Kingdom unless somehow someone gets across to him that his eternal life is in great danger.

But how can that be Father, he goes to daily Mass.

I don’t just go to daily Mass, I offer daily Mass now for nineteen years and I have a guarantee that I am going to Heaven? Of course not! So, we see this First Friday and devotion to First Friday and its tie to the Sacred Heart as a chance to stop what we are doing, in a sense, our natural desires for this world, in order to focus on the Heart of Christ. If only I do it for today and wake up tomorrow and do the same thing, you see how one day after another is like one heartbeat after another, linked together to form a life so that the Sacred Heart of Jesus is presented to the entire world through us. This is to build a life on solid rock. Every click of the mouse, every channel changed, every thought crossing my mind, every word, if it is centered on the Sacred Heart of Jesus then I am in good company.

The Blessed Virgin Mary, being the biological mother of Jesus is so special but it is easily dwarfed by her moral unity with Christ. Everything she said, did, or thought was in complete accord with the Sacred Heart of Jesus and that is possible for us as well if we would only make good use of the time we have here on earth. Receiving our Lord in prayer and in the Sacraments flows into acts of mercy toward those around us but the tendency is so great in us to presume that we are worthy of Heaven because we have used the Name of God and it has worked. That just tells you that the Name of God is so powerful that it can even work miracles in the hands of those who are very much against what that Name is about. The man said to Jesus,

Lord did we not prophesy in Your Name, did we not drive out demons in Your Name, did we not do mighty deeds in Your Name?

In Spanish the translation is,

Then He looks them in the face and says, “I will declare to them solemnly, I never knew you. Depart from me you evildoers.

To focus on the Sacred Heart of Jesus in this month of the Sacred Heart is to build a spiritual life on solid rock, imitating the supreme example of Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart.

In the Name of the father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
Amen