Fr. Paul Weinberger
St. William’s Catholic Parish
Greenville, Texas
12/4/05
Second Sunday of Advent
But according to His promise we await new Heavens and a new Earth in which righteousness dwells; therefore beloved since you await these things be eager to be found without spot or blemish before Him at peace.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
…to be found without spot or blemish, to be found immaculate. We begin at the beginning because last week we began the First Sunday of Advent, four Sundays before Christmas so we begin with the Immaculate Conception without spot or blemish as the second reading from the Second Epistle of St. Peter states so clearly. We are awaiting new Heavens and a new Earth and the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the beginning of the new Eve; Jesus is the new Adam.
Adam and Eve produced children biologically and they are our first parents. Sad to say that through them sin and death entered the world. They opened the door to all of our woes and pain. Christ is the new Adam and the Blessed Mother, the Immaculate Conception is the new Eve and their children are spiritual through Baptism; through rebirth in Baptism we are born into the new family, which Christ is beginning after the Original Sin. Centuries went by and we couldn’t put it back together again but from the very beginning it was promised that the Lord Himself would make things right.
On the front of your bulletin you will see a picture of a stained glass window. You can look at it today when you leave the Church. This is Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. She was formerly known as “Our Lady of the Religious Goods Store”. When we had the religious goods store back there, the window was in that room. Now she is “Our Lady of the Cry Room.” The big cry room back there is now where this beautiful window is. There are things in this window that harkens to the very beginning, the First Book of the Bible and also the Last Book of the Bible, just like Our Lady of Guadalupe up here in the front.
In the last Book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, there is a passage that says,
And a great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
Well, that is obvious with Our Lady of Guadalupe, who is clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet. Her mantle has stars all over it. In the picture on the bulletin of the stained glass window, the Immaculate Conception has the moon under her feet; above her head is a blue area with stars. Of course a stained glass window doesn’t work without the sun…so she is clothed with the sun. The vine behind her is interesting because it is a reference to Christ.
I Am the Vine and you are the branches.
The little slippery critter down there is the serpent from the First Book of the Bible, Genesis. Then the fruit of the tree from which Adam and Eve ate is also there. You see something there from the First Book and something there from the Last Book of the Bible. This is the window of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is the new Eve and Christ is the new Adam as I said earlier.
If you look inside your bulletin on page four and five, Wednesday night and all day Thursday there are Masses for the Holy Day of Obligation. There will be four Masses here at St. Williams and one in Quinlan at Our Lady of Fatima. If you turn to page seven it says,
Please note that Pope Benedict has granted a Plenary Indulgence to all who attend Mass on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Holy Father suitably wishes to mark the 40th Anniversary of the close of the Second Vatican Council.
The Second Vatican Council said many things but it addressed in particular the Church in the modern world. The Council did everything but stand on its head to try to get the message across that there is a call to holiness, which extends beyond priests, deacons and men and women religious. This call to holiness extends to all people; it is a universal call to holiness and this is the theme, if you will, of the Vatican II. Yet, this is a surprise to many people today.
The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the life of one who was totally dedicated to a life of holiness; she became the mother of the Messiah, she became the mother of God and so we are going to look into the Immaculate Conception today as we begin the new year in the year of the Church, the Second Sunday of Advent.
Another way of saying “Immaculate Conception” is the abbreviated way that St. Maximilian Kolbe used when he called her the “Immaculata”. In Mexico they call her “La Purisima”, the “Most Pure”. The Most Pure, the Most Immaculate, or like St. Peter says,
Without spot or blemish.
In the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception the Church teaches that from the very first moment of the very first minute in her life in the womb of St. Anne, the Blessed Virgin Mary was free of all spot or blemish and did not have the Original Sin as every child of Adam and Eve had or have because of the first or Original Sin.
Now, it is interesting to look at the First Book of the Bible because before they sinned and blew it for the rest of their children, so to speak, God use to walk with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening, we are told in the book of Genesis. What a beautiful picture, the thought of communing with the Lord and walking with Him in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the evening. There was nothing separating Adam and Eve from God and we call what does separate us from God, sin! So this is before the Original Sin when there was a beautiful and original innocence to Adam and Eve.
When God came to His mother, He chose the best of mothers. To understand the Immaculate Conception we have to admit some things that aren’t altogether too nice. A lot of people are prejudiced against the mother of Jesus and it is really not rational. There are Catholic Christians and non-Catholic Christians who are very good people in many ways but they come to a roadblock when it comes to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is as if they knew her in grade school and she was always two-faced or something like that; you know, some longstanding grudge that they have against her. Maybe they were neighbors and she never returned their mixing bowl…who knows. But there are men and women who have no time and give no place to “what’s her name.” Yea…you mean the “Mother of God” and the “Mother of Jesus”; Jesus is God and she is the Mother of God.
I am going to back up. Do you remember the conversation that Jesus had with His Apostles? He said to them one time in a rhetorical question,
Who do people say that I Am?
And they replied,
Some say that You are John the Baptist, others say you are Elijah and others say you are one of the prophets.
Then in a question that was very pointed and there was nothing rhetorical about it, Jesus asked,
And You? Who do you say that I Am?
Simon Peter, St. Peter piped up and said,
You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
St. Peter did not merely flip to the answer key in the back of the book and look it up. Our Lord Himself says,
Blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah. No mere man has revealed this to you but My Father in Heaven.
Then Jesus goes on to give him the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven and say that Peter was the Rock on which He was to build his Church. Do you know that there are people today that don’t even like to consider St. Peter because St. Peter was the first or the Chief of the Apostles and then he had a successor and another one, and of course we know the name of the two hundred sixty-fifth Successor of St. Peter, Benedict XVI. So, there are people who are Bible-based Christians who won’t even consider that St. Peter had a primacy among the Apostles and Our Lord attributes that selection to His Father in Heaven. By St. Peter getting it right when he said,
You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,
When there was no answer book that contained the answer for them, He attributes it to His Father in Heaven.
Now, let's consider the Immaculate Conception. Remember last week we gave out Miraculous Medals and most people got one. We handed out many of them. That was the medal that Our Lady requested be struck. On November 27, 1830, one hundred and seventy-five years ago she made this request. Some people can twist this and say what a vain thing for her to have done, put yourself and have it reproduced and placed all over the world. Again, if you are trying to paint her in a bad light you will have to work day and night and you will never succeed.
Our Lady, at 140 Rue du Bac, in Paris, revealed this to St. Catherine Laboure and the medals were struck and millions have been received them around the world. That was the second time she appeared to St. Catherine, a Daughter of Charity. At this time she appeared to St. Catherine she was also seen holding something that appeared to be a ball, as though she was about to serve volleyball, right? But it is the same kind of ball you see the Infant Jesus of Prague holding, the ball is an orb, which represents everything that has ever been created. What the Baby Jesus holding the orb represents is that from the very beginning He was King of the Universe. He didn’t have to wait until he turned ten or fifteen or twenty-one to be King; He was King from the beginning.
In Paris at the same time and day she appeared to St. Catherine Laboure, the Blessed Mother was holding a ball part of the time; a small golden globe between her hands. Our Lady told St. Catherine that the globe represented the entire world, including France and every person. I love this apparition, even Our Lady is poking fun at France; look this globe represents the entire world, EVEN FRANCE! [Laughter] With this message Our Lady opened St. Catherine’s heart to embrace the entire world.
I really didn’t care for that statue but of course they didn’t call me when they were decorating that chapel at 140 Rue du Bac in Parish; maybe they will next time. I really didn’t care for the statue until I studied it while I was there and looked into the facts behind the apparition. What the statue was representing is that every grace and every blessing has been placed into the hands of the Immaculate Conception. I know what I have just said are terrible fighting words for the people I have been mentioning earlier; the people who have no place for the Blessed Mother, but think of this the next time you open your Christmas Cards or you send them out and you see the picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary holding the Child Jesus for the first time at Bethlehem.
When the child was born 2000 years ago, the child wasn’t allowed to just lay in the dust, oh no! The first hands to hold the Baby Jesus were those of the Blessed Mother. The Baby Jesus is the gift of God the Father to all of us; we were in terrible need of a messiah since the time of Adam and Eve and the Blessed Mother held Jesus in those hands of here. Now it has never happened to me but I would guess that the longest time in the life of any mother is the time after the birth of a child until that mother is able to hold her newborn baby. Talk about one day being a thousand hours. Every minute is probably like a thousand years waiting to hold that baby. Women say this all the time and for good reason; they have carried that baby for nine months and they wish to hold the baby in their hands.
The Blessed Virgin Mary was the same way, her hands held the very Son of God. Jesus Christ is every blessing and every grace that God the Father has given us and when He was born, He didn’t stand up and He didn’t walk around and take care of himself, he was cared for by His mother, so get over it and work on it. She held in her hands every grace and blessing. Now, when you think that is a privilege that should be given to no person, if you receive Communion today either on the tongue or in your hand…oh yea…if you want to take this stuff seriously, which of course we do! That is the very Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Holy Communion. Our Lady was given the charge by God, she was chosen by God; what do these people think, that there was a cake walk and she was the last one to sit down in the chair? Look, she won; she is the mother of Jesus? [Laughter] If God could choose His own mother then He would choose the best of mothers. He chose only the best of mothers.
Nine months before the Virgin Birth, the Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Blessed Virgin Mary and announced this good news. He remarked about the purity of her soul, that she was without spot or blemish saying,
Hail, full of grace!
The Blessed Mother accepted the mission of being the mother of the Messiah saying,
I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to Your Word.
A better more exact rendering of handmaid would be slave.
I am the Lord’s slave.
She placed herself in the Hands of God as a tool is placed in the hands of a master and workman, who is expertly skilled. The Blessed Mother said she was the Handmaid of the Lord, the slave of the Lord and all the power, blessing and grace, meaning Jesus, was placed in her hands that day in Bethlehem when the Virgin Birth at Christmas occurred. So, people who have difficulty with this really need to go the full circle. If you believe this but not this, this or this, I have no understanding of that unless it is a willed experience because it is very clear.
The Blessed Virgin Mary has been given a mission and she is to give that grace to all. In fact the apparition at 140 Rue du Bac when she requested that the Miraculous Medal be struck, the apparition continued to unfold according to St. Catherine and the fingers of the Blessed Virgin were covered with rings, which in turn were covered with beautiful gem stones. Rays of ravishing light began to shine from these stones and St. Catherine asked what the beautiful stones were that emitted such wonderful light. As I said last week, the Blessed Mother told her that they were the graces she would give to anyone who asked for them. Some of the stones were dark and not emitting the beautiful rays. When St. Catherine asked her about the dark stones the Virgin told her that those represented the graces that she would give but no one has requested them.
The Blessed Virgin Mary wishes to extend grace upon grace to all who will serve God; He has chosen her for this mission and it is hers to dispense grace upon grace. Just as she is the new Eve, Christ is the new Adam.
Take out your papers and you will find a loose one. There are two saints that I refer to on this sheet, Maximilian Kolbe and St. Faustina Kowalska. Just so you know I am not cherry picking two very obscure saints from way, way, way back, these two saints lived at the same time in the same place, Poland. Pope John Paul II canonized both of them. He canonized St. Maximilian in 1982 and St. Faustina in the year 2000. We are not talking ancient history here. St. Faustina died just before WWII and St. Kolbe was a martyr at Auschwitz in 1941.
Look at the top of the paper. Shortly after his ordination, St. Maximilian wrote to his younger brother, who was also a Franciscan.
The most deadly poison of our times is indifference, religious indifference. Its victims are found not only among worldly people but in our own ranks as well. And this happens although the praise of God should know no limits, let us strive therefore to praise God to the greatest extent of our powers.
He is telling his brother that there are plenty of Franciscans who are religious and indifferent; they are lukewarm. He also recognized that it was his mission to combat religious indifference. He had pondered long over the story I told last Sunday about the secular Jew, Alphonse Ratisbonne, who at every opportunity mocked the Catholic Church and her teachings; even the Blessed Virgin Mary! He did this year after year and it was kind of like Saul of Tarsus when he was persecuting the early Church. Our Lady appeared to Alphonse at the Church of San Andrea delle Fratte in Rome and his life would never be the same. He begged forgiveness and converted to the Catholic faith going on to be a priest in the Holy Land and started two religious orders.
St. Maximilian saw the connection with his conversion and the Miraculous Medal; in fact he referred to the Miraculous Medal as “Our Lady’s favorite bullet”. I didn’t even know she carried a gun! [Laughter] It is Our Lady’s favorite bullet because she always gets a bull’s eye with the Miraculous Medal. St. Maximilian Kolbe took the Miraculous Medal and started something called the Knights of the Immaculata. The program for the knights was simple; it was to conquer all souls for Christ through Mary. Each Knight was to dedicate himself to Mary Immaculate, the Immaculata, La Purisima, and become a tool for her use.
Again…hum…a tool for her use; as if she is going to have some kind of nefarious use. Think of that beautiful sculpture at St. Peter’s that is on the right as you enter; that beautiful Pieta carved by Michelangelo. We see Our Lady and on her lap is the dead Christ just taken down from the Cross. Michelangelo did not coax that out of a piece of stone, he hammered it with hammer and chisel; a hammer and chisel in the hands of a master, produced a masterpiece.
So, here we have Mary Immaculate being the tool; we are placing ourselves in the hands of Mary Immaculate as a tool for her use.
Each Knight of the Immaculata was charged to work for the salvation of all souls, in particular, the enemies of the Church, not to seek them out to kill them but to convert them. Each member wears the Miraculous Medal and daily prays the simple prayer inscribed on it.
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee, (Adding the words) especially enemies of the Church and those recommended to you.
Everyone here who received a Miraculous Medal needs to get to work, right? Right! This is such a beautiful way that is so simple and so direct.
”You mean all of us can participate in the mission of the Church; it is not just for the priests, bishops, deacons and men and women religious?”
Again, the 40th Anniversary of the close of the Second Vatican Council recalls the Universal Call to holiness that everyone is charged with in the Church.
On the bottom of your paper please note the paragraph taken from St. Faustina’s diary. No, I didn’t sneak into her room and get this, it is published. Her diary has been published and every paragraph has been numbered. You are looking at paragraph number 445, and like that gruesome scene from the Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson…you know, the scourging of Christ by the Roman soldiers who worked in teams of two and alternated so they could really give Him a terrible beating? A scourge is a series of whips and at the end of each whip is a metal fitting with a hook that eats into the flesh and then tears the flesh away; it is a terribly gruesome thing.
So, the first part of that is a revelation of the Divine Mercy to St. Faustina. Just to let you know, St. Faustina is the one Our Lord appeared to, which produced the devotion represented by this large picture hanging on the front of this pulpit, the Divine Mercy. To show you what tremendous power the Holy Father considered the Divine Mercy to have, he did something that some people are still shocked about. Just a few years ago, Pope John Paul II named the Sunday after Easter Sunday, Divine Mercy Sunday because of the revelations of Jesus to St. Faustina. It is unprecedented in the history of the Church.
In this vision, St. Faustina is watching as Christ is scourged. The Lord said to Faustina,
”I suffer even greater than that which you see.” and Jesus gave me to know for what sins he subjected Himself to the scourging; these are sins of impurity. Oh how dreadful was Jesus’ moral suffering during the scourging. Then Jesus said to me, “Look, look and see the human race in its present condition. In an instant I saw horrible things; the executioners (the Romans) left Jesus and other people started scourging Him. The seized the scourges and struck the Lord without mercy. These were priests, religious men and women and high dignitaries of the Church, which surprised me greatly. There were lay people of all ages and all walks of life. All vented their malice on the innocent Jesus.
It goes on and you can read that and meditate upon it. Let me make a few comments on this. The human race shouldn’t be in such pitiful condition after receiving the Messiah; before the Messiah we could understand but after the Messiah? Uh uh! And concerning high dignitaries of the Church; you can’t be a high dignitary of the church unless you are a bishop. The sins of impurity, which people today dismiss so dogmatically, mean so much to Our Lord and to his suffering.
You see again, the Immaculate Conception, she is without spot or stain and you and I are not the Immaculate Conception…something to ponder. S. John the Baptist had to prepare the people for the coming of the Messiah. The Gospel says,
John the Baptist appeared on the desert proclaiming a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. They were going out to be Baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.
The first reading says “Comfort My people”; the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is attempting to do exactly that while at the same time, calling us to repentance, calling us to change just as she called that wretch, Alphonse Ratisbonne to repentance and conversion. There is hope for me too! This is tremendous; I have no idea why there is so much hatred for the very Mother of God, the Immaculate Conception. She managed to make it through with a perfect score as the most faithful follower of Christ and somehow my day is ruined? The Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary refers to her as the “highest honor of our race” and if we begin with the true teaching of the Immaculate Conception, God’s choice for the best mother, the new Eve, she will not lead us to sin and death as Eve did along with Adam. Christ, the new Adam and the Immaculate Conception, the new Eve will lead us to grace upon grace in this life and to eternal happiness and eternal life in Heaven.
But according to His promise we await new Heavens and a new Earth in which righteousness dwells; therefore beloved since you await these things be eager to be found without spot or blemish before Him at peace.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
