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Sunday Homilies
by Father Paul Weinberger
Latin Rite
Greenville, Texas
Text of the Homilies are posted below usually no later than Friday of each week; if you have any comments or questions please send an email to the
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Homilies are also available in
audio usually no later than Tuesday of each week.
Listen to the Homilies Weekly
Solemnity, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Available in
audio only
Listening
time: 17 minutes
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the
infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the
Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Blessed
are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord
should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your
greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for
joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to
you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
21st Sunday in Ordinary
Time 2008
Listening Time:
17 minutes
Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the
Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed
are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not
revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
Listen
20th Sunday in
Ordinary Time 2008
Homily by:
Father Paul Weinberger, Pastor
St. William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
August 17, 2008
The woman said to Jesus, “Have
pity on me Lord, Son of David, my daughter is tormented by a
demon.” But Jesus did not say a word in answer to her.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
This woman has great faith. I have been a priest nineteen
years and have served in a lot of parishes. Several years
ago, far away from here, a woman came to see me. I’d never
seen her before and I haven’t seen her since. She was like
this woman in so many ways but she had lost her faith. She
was very angry with God. Like this woman, she was actually
screaming and crying out in pain. She’d just lost her only
child, a daughter of 15 years. We can sympathize and our
hearts are full of compassion for someone in such an
instance.
As I sat there listen to this spill out of the woman I began
to ask her a few questions. I asked her about herself and if
she had any other children. She admitted that God had sent
her five children and each one had been aborted. I did the
best I could to help her realize that God had prepared her
for the shock of this moment by sending her five other
children, who would be here to console her had she not
aborted them. I know it sounds very cruel, but this woman
was at the point of cursing God. It was God’s fault. No it
wasn’t!
I listened to the EWTN radio station the day before the
Assumption and Fr. John Corapi, who has a doctorate in
Sacred Theology, was speaking. You have heard him speak. He
was talking about abortion as a demonic act. The woman in
the Gospel is saying that her daughter is tormented by a
demon and in no way can we say that abortion is from God.
However, about ten years ago I heard Whoopi Goldberg scream
into a microphone at a rally, that not only was abortion
good but it was from God and that He wanted it to be used.
So, we have no idea what children today hear about abortion.
We presume that nobody would ever say that but she said it
with every fiber of her body, screaming into the microphone
at a crowd that was going crazy in agreement. This is not
demonic?
The woman in the Gospel today is so concerned about her
daughter that she has gone out of her area of comfort. She
is a Canaanite woman and we remember that they were the
people dispossessed from the land. They were moved off the
land that Israel occupied. The Canaanites didn’t want
anything to do with the Jews and vise versa. The language
that is used here, the image of a dog…perhaps you have been
walking along the street minding your own business when some
dog the size of a pony runs up to the fence and as it is
running it is barking and barking. That is when you need to
call 911. It could give you a heart attack. That is how this
woman is in the Gospel today. She is straining every muscle
and every fiber is strained to get the attention of Jesus.
She is walking toward Him as she screams for mercy for her
daughter. This has to be repugnant to her because she is a
Canaanite and He is a Jew.
When you go home today look up the Gospel just before this
one and you will see that Jesus has been speaking with the
Pharisees, who will not give Jesus the time of day. They are
the experts of the law and they will have nothing to do with
Jesus even though they are of the same race and are Jews as
Jesus is, if you will. The Pharisees will have nothing to do
with Jesus but here is a Canaanite woman, a foreigner and
she is running toward Jesus. She is leaving her homeland to
seek Jesus as Jesus leaves His homeland to seek her out.
By the time this woman hears that Jesus is in the area and
turns to walk toward Him, Jesus is already walking toward
her, the way God in His grace helps us to grow in our faith.
This woman is like the sea in last Sunday’s Gospel, when St.
Peter began to walk on the water. Jesus calmed the wind and
the sea and in the span of this short Gospel this woman is
drawn to silence. She is probably screaming inside. Jesus
does something here that appears to be cruel; He did not say
a word in answer to her.
Many times over the years I have heard people say that they
pray to God but He doesn’t listen or doesn’t seem to be.
There are two options; you can pray to God or pray to the
“other team”. There is no third option. I mean, you can go
out and hug a tree or pray to a mountain but it is still
option number two, ok? You can pray to God or pray to the
other team and I don’t consider number two an option.
So, Christ treats this woman in this way for a reason. God
has His reasons.
August 15th is the anniversary of VJ Day, Victory in Japan.
Many people say that it is August 14th. They forget the
international dateline. But it was August 15th in Japan when
for the first time in the history of Japan the Emperor got
on the radio and announced total and unconditional surrender
of Japan to us, to the allies. It was amazing; it was the
feast of the Assumption.
In “A Song for Nagasaki” or “The Bells of Nagasaki”, Dr.
Nagai makes mention that as a young man he’d converted from
being a pagan to being a Catholic Christian. Later he
married. His wife could trace her ancestry all the way back
to August 15, 1549, the day that St. Francis Xavier brought
Christianity to that last island in the chain of islands
that make up Japan.
On August 15, 1945, there was the answer to a prayer. Dr.
Nagai, who was the Dean of the radiology department at the
University of Nagasaki was not a man given to
sentimentality. Being a scientist he looked at things
straight on with no agenda. He remarks about how the people
of Nagasaki, himself included, would take turns, keeping
someone constantly at the Cathedral praying for an end to
the war and that peace would be restored to the world and to
Japan. They were praying around the clock for many years for
this intention.
On August 9, 1945 when the first target was clouded over and
the bomb was dropped just above the Cathedral of Nagasaki,
which is named for Our Lady’s Assumption, he saw it as an
answer to a prayer, that there had been a long silence. Many
people in this country had been praying for an end to the
war but it seemed as if God had not been listening. It is so
easy to appear able to read God’s mind when we haven’t a
clue. This silence needs to be considered because of the
temptation to say that God isn’t listening or that He
doesn’t care about us.
This is from one commentator speaking briefly on this sacred
text, this Gospel.
| Quote: |
| By definition, the Sacred Text
cannot elaborate on this moment in which the
creature feels rejected by her creator. Along with
the woman we can simply listen to the silence,
certainly with impatience yet not without reverence.
Silence has an authority all it’s own and especially
when divinely appointed, and we must allow it its
rights even when it frustrates our own expectations.
We must allow silence to wash over us and enfold us.
God’s self-manifestation in emptiness can go on
indefinitely until God chooses to create something
within it better than emptiness. But we must be
convinced that our many words are never better than
God’s silent emptiness in us. We must not be
panic-stricken; we must not begin at once to fill
the silence with our own noise. God’s silence in us
is one of the choicest works of His grace. |
What is Jesus doing here with the woman in the Gospel? He is
allowing her faith to grow. Think of a flat tire you are
airing up. You have to wait until the air fills the tire and
lifts the vehicle. Jesus is allowing the silence for His
reason and He knows best. Just with what we have experienced
in prayer we tend to think we are experts in prayer and when
we don’t get something from God we pretend that it is
broken. It is like going to a Coke machine to buy a Coke and
there is someone there that just put money in but the Coke
isn’t coming out so the person…it is a man…begins to bang on
the machine and start tilting it and maybe curse. I don’t
know how that will help. So you are thinking that maybe you
should just get a drink of water. How many people in prayer
do the same thing?
I don’t pray anymore; God
never answers my prayers.
It must be very difficult living with you!
Many times in Confession a child will tell me that it has
been a month since his/her last confession and have only one
sin. It is a miracle…another saint in our midst. It is the
fault of the parents if they don’t prepare their children
for Confession. If you don’t prepare them they come in with
the one sin theory. Sometimes I ask them if they pray
everyday and they say, “Yes.” And then I ask again if they
pray EVERYDAY and they say, “Well, not everyday.” What is
this, cross-examination? Again, children probably just have
their noses in the TV listening to these lawyer shows and
then they become little lawyers in the Confessional. So, “Do
you pray every day?” becomes an exchange of two or three
back and forth.
Parents have to be very patient praying with their children
and teaching children about God and how He has His ways. He
is always listening to us. Even if there is a time between
our prayer and whatever happens, blessed be God! It is like
your wedding vows, which say “In good times and in bad, in
sickness and in health.” When my prayer is answered…blessed
be God! When my prayer is not answered…blessed be God! It’s
not, “It is broken, and God is not there.” All of those are
temptations against faith and we see how willing and ready
God is to increase our faith.
This woman has done more than the Pharisees ever would do
with Jesus. She is making a spectacle of herself; everyone
knows she is a Canaanite. But she is making a spectacle of
herself because of her daughter and her condition. She falls
down at His feet and pays Him homage in public. Jesus
remarks about her faith.
Woman great is your faith; let it
be done for you as you wish.
These comments, which could be considered insulting to the
woman, are not insults but they are testing her faith.
“I was sent only to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel.” But the woman came and did Jesus
homage, saying, “Lord, help me.” He said in reply, “It is
not right to take the food of the children and throw it to
the dogs.”
This woman was not deterred; she is a mother and she is
storming Heaven with prayers for her daughter.
The woman said to Jesus, “Have
pity on me Lord, Son of David, my daughter is tormented by a
demon.” But Jesus did not say a word in answer to her.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
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