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Audio is available for a limited time only.
Homily by:
Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
December 25, 2008
And the Word became Flesh and
dwelt amongst us and we saw His glory, the glory as of the
Father’s only Son full of grace and truth.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
I mentioned last Sunday that it was the anniversary of my
father’s death, six years ago. How fortunate I was to have
my father for forty-three years. Essentially fathers have a
very difficult job because it is so tedious, especially with
a son such as me. Having to repeat again and again and that
being objectionable to me again and again, I still didn’t
see the benefit of it sinking in. From time to time my
father would repeat things over and over. I thought, “Why do
we have to take out the trash?” Or, “I just took a shower
last week, what is all this about?”
But fathers understand and this is compassion from father to
son. After forty-three years with my father he knew that
he’d said it more than once and it made his passing a little
easier for him, knowing that he had said things over and
over to my siblings and me. He knew that we knew what was
expected of us and how we were to live the remainder of our
lives. If I go back and look over the days since he passed
away, the good days when I have listened to that advice or
the days that were less than ideal, those were the days that
I didn’t listen. I even surprised myself this morning. I
only got two or three hours of sleep and before I went over
to Quinlan this morning to offer Mass I actually made my
bed, and I live by myself!
Yesterday in the Divine Office, Psalm 103 was used for the
day just before Christmas. This is part of that Psalm.
As a father has compassion on his
sons, the Lord has pity on those who fear Him. For He knows
of what we are made; He remembers that we are dust.
Last Sunday on the front of the bulletin we had the
Christmas picture with the stable, the angels, St. Joseph,
Our Lady and the animals.
Our Lady had a beautiful cape with lots of left over
material, which is one of the specialties of this artist’s
painting. The material draped lavishly. All around Our Lady
is this beautiful cape folded expertly around her. But,
between Our Lady and St. Joseph, on the bear ground, is the
baby Jesus without a stitch of clothing. No swaddling
clothes! I have heard it more than once, “What is this?”
This is the kind of thing someone would be reported to CPS
for, right? You look a the picture and many mothers would
wonder why Our Lady didn’t just pick Jesus up and place him
on some of the extra material on her cape rather than being
on the bear ground. The artist put Jesus there for a reason.
Just as so many saints were approaching their final hours on
earth, desired to be taken out of their bed and placed on
the bear ground.
In the Divine Office yesterday the Prophet Isaiah is quoted
in chapter 51.
Shake off the dust, ascend to the
throne Jerusalem, loose the bonds from your neck O captive
daughter Zion.”
Shake off the dust! As I mentioned last Sunday, it is like
in one of those novels that is a mystery thriller and they
return to the scene of the crime. This is exactly what is
going on in this painting here before us…this mystery. It is
the Mystery of the Incarnation; Christ coming into the world
and while still remaining God, He becomes true man. In fact,
up until recently Christmas Eve has been a day of
abstinence. Catholics would not eat meat on Christmas Eve.
If you ate meat yesterday don’t worry, this has been a while
ago and for good reason. I heard about this so I had a tuna
sandwich for lunch yesterday. The reason that we couldn’t
eat meat on Christmas Day is because Christ came into this
world and He took “flesh” from the womb of the Blessed
Virgin Mary and became man. There is that line in the Creed
that refers to Jesus taking Flesh, “And the Word became
flesh”, and when we read that line today, instead of bowing
we will all kneel. St. John says it so beautifully.
And the Word became flesh and
dwelt amongst us, and we saw His glory, the glory as of the
Father’s only Son full of grace and truth.
Full of grace and truth…St. Augustine said in the Divine
Office yesterday that, truth has risen from the earth, flesh
from Mary. And justice looked down from Heaven; for man can
receive nothing unless it has been given him from Heaven.
Truth has arisen from the earth because the Word was made
flesh and justice looked down from Heaven because every good
gift and every perfect gift is from above.
Centuries ago St. Augustine uses in his preaching the theme,
“Truth has arisen from the earth.” The baby Jesus lying on
the bear ground is returning to the scene of the crime, the
original crime…the Original Sin. Remember in the Book of
Genesis that God created everything and then to crown
creation He took clay and molded and fashioned it and
breathed life into this and Adam was created and from Adam,
Eve. From these two first parents of ours came everyone
else. So, we know about the Original Sin. The word adama is
earth in Hebrew, and that is where we get the name, Adam.
Remember man that you are dust and
unto dust you shall return.
That is so pithy because it is so true. We are dust and that
is what we will be when God’s souls return to Him. The fact
is that the Church underlines this in different ways. For
example, today, at midnight last night, and the two Masses
yesterday we read different Gospels. It doesn’t make it easy
to preach on. Last night we heard the Genealogy of Jesus
Christ, in St. Matthew’s Gospel, tracing the ancestors of
Jesus all the way back to King David and then from there all
the way back to Abraham the same way that St. Luke does, but
Matthew goes all the way back to Adam to show the ancestors
of Christ.
If you look at the ancestors of Christ you will notice how
uneven they are. One of them being Ahaz, who was the
wretched king guiding the chosen people. He was so sinful
that he sacrificed one of his infant sons to a pagan god. He
is the one God used to hear Isaiah’s prophecy about
Christmas. Isaiah said,
Listen O House of Israel; is it
not enough for you to weary mean? Must you also weary my
God? Therefore the Lord will give you this sign; the Virgin
shall be with child and bear and Son and name Him Emmanuel,
a name which means, God is with us.
In that genealogy concerning so and so being the father of
so and so, we have Ahaz but right after him we have
Hezekiah, his son, one that was allowed to live and he was
an excellent king. So you see, it was very uneven going back
to Abraham. You also see gentiles; Ruth was not a Jew. You
see a gentile there in the genealogy of Christ mentioned.
This aspect of the father is to show that down through the
ages God kept His promise from Adam all the way to Our Lord.
God was planning to save man from the consequences of
Original Sin and that Christ was born into this world and He
took flesh. I know what you are thinking. “Yea Father,
everybody believes tha…t can we get on to some new
territory? We all know this!” yea, right!
People have been spreading lies about Christ from the
beginning. Remember in the Gospels right after Jesus is
crucified the soldiers conspire and take money to say that
someone came and stole the body of Jesus so that it would
discredit the Resurrection of Jesus? Very soon after the
Resurrection and the Ascension there were those who said
that Jesus really didn’t come in the flesh but appeared to
take on flesh kind of like a ghost.
Now, as St. Augustine wrote in that sermon I quoted earlier,
he says,
| Quote: |
| You would have suffered eternal
death had Jesus not been born in time. Never would
you have been freed from sinful flesh had Jesus not
taken on Himself the likeness of sinful flesh. You
would have suffered everlasting unhappiness had it
not been for this Mercy. You would never have
returned to life had He not shared your death. |
Again and again there is this emphasis of the Incarnation,
taking on flesh. So, abstaining from flesh on Christmas Eve
is a way of waiting for the moment when we would celebrate
Christmas and then the feast begins. Once Christmas fell on
a Friday and one of the friars told St. Francis and the
other monks around him that they should abstain from meat.
St. Francis said something along these lines, that if the
walls could eat that they would smear them at Christmas with
meat. It was a day to underline the Incarnation with this
method of abstaining from meat up until Christmas. It is a
way of saying, “Yes, He really and truly did take flesh.”
The place of the birth of Jesus is called Bethlehem.
Translated Bethlehem means, “House of Bread”. Just as God
gave the Israelites in the desert bread from Heaven, Jesus
is food for our journey. If Jesus did not really come in the
flesh, if He only appeared to take flesh like a ghost then
how can He give me His flesh to eat and how can He give me
His blood to drink? How can Jesus sustain me in my spiritual
journey through this desert of life? This is why you and I
should strive every day to do what our fathers tell us. I am
talking about good fathers. So many people have lost their
fathers at an early age or they don’t share at having a good
father. We know that if we follow the advice of a good
father that it will lead us to do the right thing. Just as
our fathers pass on before us and their advice is
intensified, guiding us even after their death, so much so
if God the Father, having compassion on us in sending us
Jesus Christ.
Oh, we can never say we didn’t know what we were supposed to
do and that God never told us; Jesus is the fullness of God
the Father’s revelation. There is no other way to Heaven
except by Jesus. In Jesus is all the truth of God the
Father. If only we would follow God’s Will the way Jesus
follows God’s will then we will follow Jesus all the way to
Heaven. That is his plan…Follow Me! Follow Him through this
valley to tears, this desert all the way to Heaven. We can
claim weakness and that this is too hard like the Israelites
did in the desert. We can say it is too difficult or that we
are not up to it. That is exactly why Jesus gives us His
Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in Holy Communion to sustain
us. He gave us Confession to help us if we are not in a
state of grace. To be in a state of grace means that we are
able to go to Communion and receive the Flesh of Christ and
drink His Blood; to be strengthened!
I remember once I met a couple that’d been married for fifty
years and had lots of kids and grandkids. Do you know what
they did for their 50th Wedding Anniversary? They had their
marriage blessed by the Church. What a wasted life; what
wasted moments, one after another for fifty years. When I
asked them why they had not gotten their marriage blessed
from the beginning…well…his mother didn’t like her.
Evidentially he wasn’t ready for marriage because he was
always worried about what mommy would think. A wasted life
is wasted because when one could easily return the practice
of the faith and receive Jesus on a regular basis and
doesn’t then the soul grows weak from not being nourished
with the Flesh of Christ.
As a father has compassion on His
sons, the Lord has pity on those who fear Him. For He know
of what we are made; He remembers that we are dust.
We know that He has told us everything and how we are to
live until He calls us to Him. This Feast today shows us
that He has pulled out every stop and has left nothing to
chance and has sent His own Son.
And the Word became Flesh and
dwelt amongst us and we saw His glory, the glory as of the
Father’s only Son full of grace and truth.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
Click picture to enlarge
Merry Christmas and Blessed New Year in 2008
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