28th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2008

[Fr.Paul Weinberger]

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2008

Homily by:
Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
October 12, 2008

The king said to him, 'My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?' But he was reduced to silence.

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

Amen

Consider these two cases, which involve driving on the interstate. Someone from Greenville has to go into Dallas for a medical emergency of some kind with a family member or someone else, and they borrow your car. They head down and get on I-30 and they drive along until they see a sign that says, “Entering the City limits of Texarkana.” Now they were sincerely on their way to Dallas and pray God you didn’t loan them your gas card too. But they have gone the wrong direction, haven’t they. Texarkana is the opposite direction. That is case #1.

Case #2..Anyone who has ever driven in a car or driven a car on the interstate, at one point or the other you’ve had what is called “a close call.” Maybe you were doing everything right but you can’t see everything. Maybe you were texting and eating and drinking or eating, drinking or texting and putting on make-up. Women too! All of a sudden someone in the car screams at you very loudly to look out. Or, they even screamed and grabbed the wheel, and because of that your lives were saved. There would have been a head on collision with a big truck and everyone would have died. I have been in that scenario, where people have said that to me and at first I am just a little mad. But I am so fortunate and get over it reallly quick because they just saved my life. If someone holds it against you for yelling, at least you are alive. Right?

These two scenarios help us to understand this Sunday, “Respect Life Sunday.” I don’t like “Respect Life Sunday” because some people may think, “Oh good! Respect Life Sunday is over; it is in my rearview mirror!” Fifty-one Sundays and weeks where it is forgotten? NO! It is tempting for some I guess.

Lets look at the readings for today. About the readings, in case you don’t know, the readings we use at Holy Mass are programmed. What we use here is being used in all the other Catholic Churches around the world.

Ju vill use zese readings.

We don’t have a choice and that was my best German voice. We don’t have a choice and we have to use the readings that have been programmed from day to day. This business about this king…

, 'My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?'

I can hear some tongues clacking or clicking.

”What a mean king!”

Yesterday morning, not the Vigil Mass for today, but Saturday morning had their been a morning Mass, this is the reading you would have heard, Galatians 3:22

Saint Paul said, “For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus. For all of you who are baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

The business about this wedding garment…that is right, the wedding garment is Christ. In Romans 13, St. Paul says,

Put on the Lord, Jesus Christ. Make no provision for the flesh in regards to its lusts.

This guy arrived in front of the king and he wasn’t properly clothed. Everything was prepared and all he had to do was put on Christ and he didn’t. He wasn’t alone. The last lines say, and Jesus is the one saying this, that many are invited but few are chosen.

Last Thursday I went to the abortion clinic and to tell you the truth, I would rather be anywhere on earth than in front of an abortion clinic. I am no hero or saint. I have been a priest 19 years and have only been there about five times. Yea, real hero, sure! But I would rather be anywhere else. I met some people that I have never met before, never seen before, from different cities, countries, and walks of life. It seems that I know a lot about them.

For example, two people pulled up, who were from very far away. The abortion clinic is in Dallas near downtown and these two spoke only Spanish. I walked up to them. I am of course in my cassock and have a ten-foot pole with a five-foot banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Patroness of the Unborn. I introduced myself and asked them their names. Her name was Alma. I said, “Alma, what a beautiful name!” If you don’t speak Spanish, Alma means, “soul”. I continued speaking to Alma and again I said, “Alma, what a beautiful name, and just as you have a soul your baby has a soul, just like you have a heart, which is above the heart of your baby.” Notice how I am going in to make the sale. Right? I am using what she has given to me and we begin to speak.

Alma tells me in front of her significant other, (boyfriend) they are not married, that he was the father. She said her doctor sent her here to deliver this baby and I said, “No Alma, the doctor didn’t send you here to deliver this baby; this is an abortion clinic and if you deliver a baby at three month it will die.” She kept saying that this is what the doctor told her and I said, “But Alma, the doctor also told you that you could also just go to bed until you deliver this baby, didn’t he?” Sssssssssssssssss…silence! Again and again this conversation was punctuated with silence just like in the Gospel. I turned to the father of this child and ask him a yes or no question and looking him right in the eye he said to me, “Yes.” I told him that he had just lied to me because when I asked him the question we were looking right at each other and he said, “Yes.” Parents and grandparents, you do this all the time with your children and grandchildren. You don’t have to be Dr. Laura.

So, I am talking to people that I have never met and told them that they prayed for a sign from God. I pointed to Our Lady of Guadalupe and said, “Here we are.” I do not live in Dallas; I live fifty miles away from here. What do they need for a sign, an Archangel landing on the hood of their car to be convinced? I am the biggest speed bump that they ever encountered. What fascinates me is that all they would have to do is walk around me, and if they did that I wouldn’t tackle them.

I continued talking to them and I said, “Look, you are paying for this just like Judas Iscariot.” I am throwing everything at them. Maybe these statements and questions sound mean to you but what you’re not hearing is the refrain. Like in the Responsorial Psalm there is a refrain. I kept saying things like, “In the Name of Jesus, please let us help you. We have free help so let us help you. In the Name of Jesus, please let us help you.” In the end they decided to go in.

I reminded Alma that the doctor said she could go to bed for the rest of the pregnancy and deliver the baby. She was carrying the baby low and it was causing pressure and pain. She told me that she couldn’t go to bed because she had three other kids. I said, “Alma, when they find out what you have done to their brother or sister, they will hate you the rest of your life.” Isn’t that mean to say that to her? Isn’t it interesting; saving a life is mean and taking a life is charity in this mixed up world.

There is a lot of judging going on when it comes to abortion; we are not supposed to judge other people, right? We are five or six weeks now into a very difficult time in our country. I am not talking about the election but the banking crisis. I have friends, parishioners, and relatives, who have really been hurt. Their retirements have been put in jeopardy.

I remember hearing Senator Schumer from New York a few weeks ago say that what caused this banking crisis was the home mortgage. Now, how many parents would listen to their son say that they didn’t break the window; it was the baseball. Yea, it jumped up into that window, right? The home mortgage, a docile creature all these years all of a sudden spun out of control like a Tasmanian Devil and did this to us. The good thing about this is that we are going to know names, places, amounts and everyone involved. It wasn’t the mortgage; it wasn’t the baseball but real people. I am glad that we are going to have an accounting. It may take a long time but we will know! Of course they say that we will be paying this for a long time.

You probably agree with some or all I have said about the banking crisis. We can judge that but we’d better not judge human life. No, if you judge one you judge the other too. But judge in the hopes of getting people’s attention so that lives will be saved.

Getting back to last Thursday... Alma and her significant other went in and had the abortion. There standing on the sidewalk was a man about fifty years old and his daughter about twenty-five to thirty. They walked past us. The nicest ladies are there helping on the sidewalk and passing out information. They ask if those going in the clinic would like the free information and the people walk by in silence. The man and his daughter went into the abortion clinic. They stayed in the clinic about fifteen minutes, but it was really crowded that day. Can you imagine sitting in that waiting room across from other people and no one is talking about what is going on back there or up there? Yet, every one knows what is going to happen. Right? So, this man and his daughter came out on the front porch. Now, I made the best guess that I could and that is that he was a Christian and so was she; and they are well off too. He is an Anglo or Caucasian, distinguished looking, white hair cut nicely, fancy sunglasses, and you can tell that his wife takes care of him. Those blue jeans had a crease in them that, I bet if he took them off you could stand them up on their own. His shirt was nicely pressed too. This man and his daughter have means; they have money.

When they came out on the porch I was about as far away from them as those first flowers there. I couldn’t go up on the porch because I would be arrested. I started to talk to them and kept saying things like, “In the Name of Jesus, please let us help you. In the Name of Jesus, please pray about this.” But then I’d say other things but that is the refrain that kept coming back. I also said, “Please, you have a mother’s heart and a mother protects her child. You, you are a father and you have a father’s heart…protect your child and your grandchild.” After a few minutes they turned around and faced the entrance, the doors of the clinic.

The doors have that special film on it so you can see into the clinic but it gives a reflection of what is outside. I placed myself where the banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe is on their front door and they are looking right at her. Like two kids in a time out they turned around and faced the door, which is just a few feet from them. They stood like that for about fifteen minutes but she could only take so much so she went in and he was left outside, leaning on the side of the porch, facing me as if nothing is bothering him and not saying a word. I started to tell him things about himself and his daughter. I told him that he didn’t pray about this, just like I told Alma. I told him that his daughter was in there and for him to go in there and get her out and spend a day and pray about what was happening. I asked him again, in the Name of Jesus to let us help them. Nothing!

You know, that Second reading today mirrors what the Archangel said to Our Lady at the Annunciation.

With God all things are possible.

I told the man that. I said to him, “If you are a Christian then you believe that. If you don’t believe that then you are not a Christian.” Again… silence from this man. Excuse me, silence from this individual, because I am calling his manhood into question and I am calling his fatherhood into question because we were just two men standing outside talking, or hoping to talk. Right? I told him that what he was doing that day is not what a father does. I told him that if he did this then he was no father and that he is just the guy that drives her somewhere and pays for something but he is no father because a father protects his child.

Father Paul, that is a terrible thing to say!

Abortion is always terrible! There is never a case when abortion is not a terrible thing

If you look on the front of the bulletin at the bottom, it says that Jesus teaches that there is never a reason, zero, not a single case, where abortion can be considered or used.

But Father, what about in the case……

ZERO

Now you may think that this is something that I have just cooked up. Absolutely not! It is a three-legged stool; Jesus tells us this and the Scriptures tell us this as well as the tradition to interpret those Scriptures. The teaching office of the Church tells us this. No, the people, who say abortion is allowed, have been making it up from the beginning. This has been the constant teaching of the Church going all the way back to Jesus Himself and if it was important to you and you are really scratching your head about it, you could look it up too.

The man at the abortion clinic is going nowhere. He is going nowhere but down. His body language was interesting. He was leaning against the post but slowly and over time the man was sinking on the front porch until he was in a squatting position. He stayed there for quite a long time. I began to tell him what this would do to the relationship between his daughter and him. These are two people I have never met. I told him that she would resent him or hate him the rest of his life for what he was doing. I could hear him saying, “What do you mean? I brought her here; I am paying for this. This is what she wants.” My personal opinion is that his wife told him to do this. That is my personal opinion. It could be true or false.

Now, if you are thinking otherwise and thinking that this moment at the abortion clinic is going to draw them closer and deepen their love, you are wrong. The first document written by Pope Benedict, Deus Caritas Est, which means God is love, states that there is only one love in the world and that is Jesus. Genuine love is Jesus and anyone who has genuine love is participating in that genuine love. A father who is helping his daughter abort his grandchild is not genuine love and it will only separate them.

I have been a priest over nineteen years and I have heard women, who have been taken to the clinic by a parent say again and again how they resent that intervention by mom when they were fourteen or fifteen or whatever. They carry it with them until they take it to God, to the Holy Spirit.

This situation went on and on as I have described and I won’t go into the rest but I did tell the man a few other things and then finally had to leave. I told him that one day he would die and so would I, and that he can’t go before God and say he was not warned. I told him that this could now be a close call for his daughter and him. I asked him again to go in and take her out of the clinic but he didn’t. The last thing I told him before I left is that I disagreed with everything he was doing at the time but that I would pray for him every day of my life. I had to leave because if I had not left I would have had to go up there on the front porch and not telling what would have happened, and they would have arrested me and then you would have been off the hook. I left.

In the bulletin you see that the Council of Catholic Bishops say that we have a close call with abortion in our country right now, FOCA. There is a letter I have provided in the bulletin for you to read also. But, lets stick with this from the USCCB.

There is a young woman in our parish that turned seventeen last week. She has always wanted her ears pierced but her parents always said no. Last week they agreed that since she was seventeen that she could do it if she wanted to. They gave her the money, she went to the mall to get her ears pierced and mom gets a phone call. Mom had to drive to the mall and sign a piece of paper and stay with her daughter, while her ears were pierced? Just two holes, one and one. Now, what FOCA says and what can be law in this country as early as January 20, 2009, is that any young lady, no matter what her age or what term of pregnancy she is in, can get an abortion without mom or dad knowing and without a judge’s permission. If she doesn’t have the money don’t worry, taxpayer money will be used. Don’t believe me, this is the memo from USCCB.

Now, this young lady, who had her ears pierced, her father is a pediatric anesthesiologist. He will not participate in an abortion but thanks to FOCA, any doctors, nurses, or medical personnel who object will be forced.

Well that is ridiculous, Father.

This is from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and it was a real surprise to me when I read it on October 3rd. This is amazing, but I want to end because I know I have kept you a long time. But, as terrible as this financial crisis is, what I find more terrible is that there are probably some people here in Church or possibly not, but there are people in this Church, who are more concerned about the loss of their money through the banking crisis than they are about the lives of fifty million Americans, who are no more due to Roe V Wade and legalized abortion in this country.

If we do not put on Christ we will suffer the repercussions. If you read this Gospel then you understand that this is the time our thoughts, words, and deeds must be that of Christ. Christ does not send you or me into an abortion clinic to do this. It is as simple as that. This could be nothing more than a close call; it makes our hearts race and we have to make sure that we do what we can so that it is not put into law as early as January 20th, or we will have much to mourn.

The king said to him, 'My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?' But he was reduced to silence.

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

Amen