33rd Sunday in ordinary Time 2008

[Fr.Paul Weinberger]

33rd Sunday in ordinary Time 2008

Homily by:
Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
November 16, 2008

After a long time the master of those servants came back and settled accounts with him.

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

Amen

Friday night I had the great honor to go to Web Hill Country Club, where the Knights of Columbus held their annual awards banquet. Every year I hear just a tip of the iceberg concerning what the Knights have been doing behind the scenes and what they have been able to accomplish, especially their charitable works. If I’d been here is the year 1999, I am sure I would have heard how this Council had contributed to a general fund that was preparing for the Jubilee Year 2000.

In 2000 Pope John Paul II was still alive and much of the attention was focused on the Vatican, especially at St. Peter’s or more directly, in front of the Basilica of St. Peter’s. The Knights of Columbus from this country gave the money necessary so that before the year 2000 arrived the entire façade, the front exterior of the Basilica had been cleaned and spiffed up to be ready for the Jubilee Year 2000. The contributions from this Council combined with the contributions of other councils could be seen in the wiping away of a lot of grime and soot that had accumulated over the years since the completion of the Basilica.

The dedication of St. Peter’s Basilica is Tuesday but we also remember the dedication of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls. When you look at St. Peter’s, as beautiful as it is, there were many men who were influential in the final design. The architects and artists are famous. The man who did the façade of St. Peter’s was named Maderno.

If you look at the cover of the bulletin you will notice that his is the name beneath the statue of St. Cecilia. In the year 1599, probably getting ready for the year 1600, a cardinal was making some changes and getting the Church of Santa Cecilia ready for the big year. To do this they had to open the tomb of St. Cecilia to make it more appealing to the visitors they were expecting.

When the tomb was opened the Holy Father was there and what he saw struck him. You see, our best estimate is that St. Cecilia was martyred for the faith around the year 230. It could have been fifty years earlier but the best guess is 230, which is about two hundred years after Christ. When the tomb was open centuries later, in 1599, it appeared that St. Cecilia’s body had just been placed there that morning. The Pope called in the best sculpture that he knew, Maderno. The pope didn’t have a cell phone with a camera on it so he gave Maderno the task of sculpting what he saw. The picture of this sculpture that is on the bulletin was taken by one of our parishioners, Stan Martin, when he went to Rome last year. It appears to be so lifelike and yet it is marble. You can see that Maderno copied exactly what he saw when the tomb was opened. The body of St. Cecilia is still incorrupt. I think this has a lot to do with her martyrdom and the reason for her martyrdom.

Before I go into that, look at her neck and you can see the fatal wound. You can also see how the early Christians arranged her body so carefully in the catacombs. Look at her left hand and you can see her left index finger that looks as if it is pointing. The right hand has two fingers folded back and the thumb and the other two fingers forward. The left hand with the single finger would be a Christian way of allowing St. Cecilia to speak to us even today. Our Christian belief is that there is One God. On the other hand we see the thumb and two fingers…. One God, but Three Persons. The two fingers that are folded back represent the two natures of Christ, who is True God and True Man. Just the posture of those beautiful hands preach something and they give us a hint as well as to why St. Cecilia would accept martyrdom when she had a way out.

St. Cecilia was a young woman of noble class in Rome and her husband and his brother along with a friend of theirs were arrested because they had buried some Christians, who’d been executed. The Romans would not allow that; they like to see their victims mistreated and had no respect for the human body. Again, these are the Romans of the Roman Empire toward the very end of its existence. No Roman citizen would be crucified; this was reserved for non-Romans. They would allow the bodies to remain, alive or dead, on the cross so that the birds of the air or the wild animals would take care of it, if you will. They had no respect for the body. So Cecilia’s husband, brother and a friend had all been arrested and were executed.

Now we come to why St. Cecilia was martyred for the faith. She was caught in the act of burying her husband, brother and friend. This is how St. Cecilia could have extricated herself; she could have gotten out of it because they gave her an option. If she had just gone to the prefect and in front of the people taken that thumb and finger and gotten a pinch of incense and put it into the fire she could have saved her life. That would have meant that she was publicly worshiping the Roman gods and goddesses. She wouldn’t do that because as a Catholic Christian she only believed in One God, Three Persons in One God. She believed that Jesus was both human and divine.

The body of St. Cecilia is with us to this day and her body still preaches to us. The Corporal Work of Mercy that St. Cecilia did in burying the dead still speaks to us about the great care and respect for the human body, even when the body is dead.

Let us look at the cover of the bulletin, at the picture above St. Cecilia. That little baby was born here in Greenville at Presbyterian Hospital. She was the daughter of Jesus and Maria Pena. If you don’t know this couple, they are poor as church mice. They have a son and daughter and now Milagros Guadalupe. Milagros in Spanish means, “miracles” and the name Guadalupe was give in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Maria and Jesus, the parents of this little baby have been tortured for the last five months. It was an unbelievably cruel torture by her doctors. They told her four or five months ago that the baby was dead and now she needed to have induced labor so that they could take care of things. They told her to “do the right thing.’ Doing the “right” thing is exactly the WRONG THING! Maria and Jesus would not comply. The incredible respect that Maria and Jesus have for doctors and nurses made their cross all the more difficult to carry because they were pressured, and the doctors put the pressure on big time.

Maria and Jesus prepared for the day that their baby would come into this world. We even taught Jesus how to baptize the baby should it not be possible for the baby to live very long. Everyone should know that in an emergency anyone can baptize as long as water is poured over the head of the baby while saying these words,

I baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

You have to pour the water each time, with each Name you proclaim. Last Monday morning Milagros Guadalupe arrived and then passed from this world. You can see that the people in the hospital took care to dress her beautifully for the little while she lived. Thanks be to God that these parents were not tortured even more.

I went to visit Maria and Jesus that day and I asked her how long her daughter lived. She told me the baby lived an hour. Now, Maria and Jesus are very poor as I said; how can you make someone very poor even poorer? You take away that one hour; rob them of that one hour. During that one hour these parents were able to hold their baby, their live baby, in their arms and tell her that they loved her. Milagros’ brother and sister did the same thing.

These poor people have enriched their children; the son and the daughter know that mom and dad love them so much that they will even suffer persecutions to have another son or daughter. Children today are very insecure because of many reasons. One reason maybe is because they see life so cheapened today by a culture of death all around us.

Peter’s Funeral Home stepped in and did a remarkable thing; they took care of the baby and donated everything because Jesus and Maria have nothing…no material possessions to speak of. Peter’s went so far as to work with the county and the county found a spot for the baby in the cemetery downtown. Thanks be to God! Good people working together found these things. On Friday we had the funeral; Maria had recovered sufficiently from the sicerian operation to be present at the funeral. I bet other funeral homes in the area have done similar things, but Peter’s didn’t speak of it. You should speak of it the next time that you have a chance to call them, write them, or be present at one of the funerals they arrange. Isn’t it amazing that something as big as a funeral can be taken care of when people work together? Now, Peter’s can’t do that with every funeral but they made room for a little baby and so did the cemetery.

Moving on…I mentioned last Sunday that the best pro-life president I ever knew was President Ronald Regan, but when he was governor of California he did something terrible. He sighed the most liberal abortion law. To his credit and as president, he often commented that signing that abortion bill and making it law in California was the greatest regret of his life. In 1983, as president, his ambassador, Alan Keyes, fashioned what became known as the Mexico City Policy. This meant that our tax dollars would not be sent out of this country to perform abortions in foreign countries. This had been done. President Regan, through Ambassador Keyes, stopped it. Now, the Mexico City Policy continued as a law until president Bill Clinton took office. For eight years the Mexico City Policy was rescinded. When George W. Bush took over as president he reinstated the Mexico City Policy. There is an executive order waiting on the desk of President-elect Obama; it is waiting to be signed to rescind the Mexico City Policy, allowing our taxpayer money to be used for abortions outside of this country. You can find information about that on the Internet.

There’s another executive order waiting to be signed by President-elect Obama, which will give forty million dollars of our taxpayer money to do abortions outside of the USA. It is independent of the Mexico City Policy but you can see how one has to do with the other. Forty million dollars can make a lot of abortions possible in this country but imagine how many can be done in really poor countries with forty million dollars. A lot of babies can be killed with forty million dollars of our taxpayer money. Doesn’t it make you proud to be a taxpayer?

There is another item waiting to be signed that will perhaps make it to his desk on January 20th. On July 17th of this year, Senator Obama said that on his first day as president the first thing he would do would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act. This means that girls in our country can have an abortion as early as age thirteen without parents or anyone ever knowing about it or being informed. To pay for these abortions…again, our taxpayer money. President elect Obama repeated his promise twice on July 17th.

Now, if you think that I am being the typical Fr. Paul, blowing smoke, partisan politics Fr. Paul… last week all of the bishops of this country got together in Baltimore and they sent a message to President elect Obama about the Freedom of Choice Act. One of the conditions of the Act would mean that everyone, every hospital would have to participate in performing abortions and the bishops in essence told Obama in their letter to him that if the Freedom of Choice Act is signed into law as he promised and Catholic hospitals are forced to join in killing the unborn then we will close every hospital in this country.

That is amazing and it sounds like something Fr. Paul just made up. Well, you know how he is?

Absolutely not!

Every Catholic Christian has to be a pro life Christian and there can be nothing we value more than life. You see, what St. Cecilia did was to show her respect for life from her point of view as a witness. Martyr means witness and she gave witness with her whole life and didn’t find an easy way out like dropping a bit of incense in the fire but in her heart think something different. No, it was His way or no way.

You and I have homework to do because I believe that this week, two months before January 20th, we have a lot of homework to do. Regardless of how you voted, every one of us has to do our bit. Do you remember what I said about the exterior of St. Peter’s and how beautiful it was for the Jubilee 2000? The Knights of Columbus in this area played a part in contributing to that beautiful work far away. You and I can write to our State Congressmen and women and those who serve in Congress on the national level, along with President elect Obama, imploring him to not rescind the Mexico City Policy and to not sign the bill sending forty million dollars of our taxpayer money outside this country for abortions, and to not allow the Freedom of Choice Act to see the light of day.

As I mentioned last Sunday, I am an abolitionist and I wish to abolish abortion. Get away from me if you just want to make abortion rare. No, I want to abolish abortion the same way people wanted to abolish slavery. This taking of the lives of the unborn is the cruelest form of slavery. I am sure that there are people here thinking that President elect Obama hasn’t even taken office yet and we need to give him a chance. No, give them, the babies a chance. They haven’t’ even fully come into this world yet. Give them a chance first and then anyone else who is walking around already, I will give them a chance. We have to get the order right.

I am so proud of Jesus and Maria. When they got this terrible news from their doctors, and what terrible doctors they are, they came and spoke to me, their Pastor. We talked about it and prayed about it. How many times do people make these decisions? On Thursday in front of the abortion clinic I tell people I never met that they didn’t even pray about what they were getting ready to do. The say they didn’t pray. I ask them if they talked to their parents and they say that they didn’t. Then they walk right into the clinic.

We live in a time where we have all kinds of money for all kinds of foolishness. Leona Helmsly died a while back and she was a very fowl thing, as women go. She used terrible language and was fowl in other ways. Helmsly was very wealthy and when she died she left the bulk of her estate to her DOG! This dig will be in the book of Guinness World Records as the richest dog after Lassie. The dog will also be in the book of world records for a second reason; I bet the first time the dog sneezes they are going to hook that dog up to life support and that dog, in human years, will live to be two-hundred years old. Do you know why? Because the lawyers, who are controlling that estate are going to make sure they get every dollar out of the fifty million. That little dog is going to be on life support and its little chest is going to go up and down and they are going to milk that estate for every penny.

We can find money for so many ridiculous things so why not find money for having children rather than killing them? There are a disproportionate number of blacks being killed by abortions and Mexicans right along behind them and we are going to let this go? You and I have homework to do. We have letters to write and phone calls to make. We only have two months. I believe that it is possible with prayers, letter writing, and phone calls; we can contact the people around Barak Obama and influence them and him to change these plans. But don’t listen to me, just go home and turn the TV and get back to business as usual. If you choose to do that, remember these final words of the Gospel.

After a long time the master of those servants came back and settled accounts with them.

And so it will be with you and me.

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

Amen