Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
October 21, 2007
Jesus told His disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary...But when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
The cover of your bulletin is an image of St. Luke the Evangelist who wrote this gospel and he is painting a picture of the Blessed Mother. St. Luke is the purported author of a very old painting that I believe is in Rome at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. The image on the bulletin appears to show Our Lady posing but perhaps instead of saying that she is posing it would be better to say she is praying. St. Luke is probably praying that he not mess up this painting. St. Luke's Feast Day was last Thursday.
Now go to page two in the bulletin. I mentioned page 2 a couple of weeks ago. The documents listed on page two of the bulletin are the five documents that are important in determining what goes on here at St. William's. Look at number one, Novo Millennio Ineunte and then down below number five it says that John Paul II's January 6, 2001 letter is called On the Beginning of the New Millenium and it states "each parish each Sunday is to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as well as a daily Mass during the week...and that there should be a lived theology of the saints and that the people should be made aware of the saints again and again...Each parish should also be a genuine school of prayer." He also insisted throughout that document that we as Christians should daily contemplate the Face of Christ. The three major themes in Novo Millinneo Ineunte are that each parish should have a lived theology of the saints, that parishes should be genuine schools of prayer and we should contemplate the Face of Christ.
The Holy Father, John Paul II, canonized more saints during his pontificate than all the other popes combined. It is not to say that during his time that there was a saint factory in Rome. That is not it at all. This holy father was telling us that saints can come from all walks of life. Up until that time certain nations had a preponderance of saints. Now you didn't have to be Italian to be a saint. Though so many saints are Italian. Pope John Paul II opened it up to the variety that we see today. Now we can see the variety of nations and backgrounds of many saints.
Yesterday I was talking to the CCD kids during class and it was a second installment on the Rosary for the kids. It is necessary to have a second, third, fourth and fifth installment on the Rosary for kids because what goes in one side goes out the other. Parents hear things like, "What do you mean you want me to take out the trash? I don't remember hearing that."
So anyway, we are going over the Rosary because October is the month of the Rosary and I was talking about Saint Bernadette in 1858. She and two others went out to look for some firewood and bones to burn in the fire at home. If you lived in those Pyranees Mountains between France and Spain you would look for anything that would burn in that long winter. She got separated from the others and she thought she heard the wind. But being from the country she believed in testing; trust but verify. She looked up at the trees and the leaves were not moving and then she looked over at the side of the river bank and there above a grotto was a beautiful lady standing there. St. Bernadette never referred to her as the Blessed Virgin Mary. She called her "Aquero", the beautiful lady.Then subsequently, the church investigated and yes this indeed was, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Next year is the 150th anniversary of those apparitions in February and March 25th, when the beautiful lady identified herself as " I am the Immaculate Conception". When Saint Bernadette meets the beautiful lady and the beautiful lady has something in her hand, it is the Rosary. The Lady then begins to make the sign of the cross with the Rosary. Saint Bernadette then reaches into the pocket of her skirt and retrieves her Rosary and does the same. She prays the Rosary with the Beautiful Lady and that is how Saint Bernadette's encounter with the Virgin Mary started with the Rosary. Oh how jealous I am of Saint Bernadette, but there is nothing stopping me from also contemplating the Face of Christ! That is what the Rosary is. It is simply the meditation on the life of Christ, there is nothing stopping me from meditating on Christ by praying the Rosary today and I am sure that the Blessed Virgin Mary is praying with me. Try getting that through to kids, today. You have to be creative, you have to be persistent.
I remember in the seminary the young men that were being trained to be priests. I remember a group of us who liked to pray the Rosary and so every once in awhile just to be on our toes we would call for a Rosary check, which meant you had to pull your Rosary out of your pocket. Well where is your Rosary? And of course us being other men we would never let them live it down, if they didn't have their Rosary with them. Saint Bernadette didn't say to the Beautiful lady "Oh wait right here, I will go back and get my Rosary." She had the Rosary with her. Parents and Grandparents need to do something as creative as that.
The Rosary is a way for parents and grandparents and spouses to pray together. Now the other day I was listening to EWTN radio. About 6 weeks ago I heard Father Benedict Groeshel give an interview with Doug Keck. It was from the basis of that interview that I bought a book for one paragraph, called Drama of Reform. The rest of the book is good too, but I bought it for one paragraph. See Father Benedict was the spiritual director for Mother Teresa. He also worked for Terrence Cardinal Cook and after he passed away he began promoting the cause for the canonization of Cardinal Cook. He is also one of the founders of a religious order called the Capuchin Friars of the Renewal. That is what this book is about. Father Benedict who is a psychologist and believes in God and you can not presume today just because someone calls themselves a Christian and is a psychologist and they believe in God. I am serious. But he does believe in God and he has a lot of experience in counseling men and women, religious. Men and women that would be brothers or sisters or priests in different orders. I have to be descriptive in this way because children these days don't see friars, brothers, sisters as we saw them as kids.
Father Benedict, talking about religious life in this country, once commented during a conference that the majority of the religious life in this country is dead. It was like someone who is standing and has been shot in the heart and we are just waiting to see if the body falls to the front or to the back or crumbles to the ground. That is not a very nice assessment but it is accurate. It is not pleasant to think along those terms but it is religious life in most religious houses but for a few. Mother Teresa's houses would be an exception. Father Benedict goes on to say,
Fraternities and sororities are something that people happen upon in college, right? Then once out of their system they move on. However, Father Benedict is comparing religious orders today as ephemeral as a fraternity or sorority.I must say very simply that amid much denial and camouflage, hemming and hawing about the signs of the times, I must say that most religious communities at present are fraternities or sororities of individual lay people who in varying ways struggle to observe the content of the vows they took long ago.
Most members of religious orders are not unfaithful but their communities are lost in the woods. Many have come to resemble secular institutes yet often lack the focus and fidelity these possess.
A secular institute would be like the lion's club or rotary.
Today happens to be the anniversary of my Aunt Mary's death. My Aunt was a very avid bowler and if she happened upon another avid bowler you would need to move out of the way or you would be knocked down like a bowling pin.
So Father Benedict is comparing those in religious life with those in secular institutes. You get two people in rotary who don't even know each other and they could talk for hours. Father Benedict is saying that the people in religious orders may indeed have a common interest but they do not have the fervor.
A small number of orders do preserve much of the discipline and identity of religious life but so tentatively and apologetically that they fail to attract vocations because they are so intimidated.
It is as if someone approached a religious who was wearing his habit and frowned. The religious apologizes. What if a husband apologized in front of his wife for wearing his wedding ring? It doesn't go over in religious life either.
Please turn to that first reading. Joshua, no doubt, sounded the charge when he attacked the Amalekites. Moses and Aaron and Hur are up on the mountain. Moses says,The old proverb is relevant here. If the old trumpeter sounds an uncertain note who will follow?
I will be standing on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.
So there is Moses up on top, with Aaron and Hur, and Joshua with the Israelites attacks the Amalekites. As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amalek had the better of the fight.
So you see what happened? It was good news, bad news.
Moses' hands, however, grew tired; so they put a rock in place for him to sit on.
The good news is that they found him something to sit on. The bad news is that it was a rock. Aaron and Hur then supported his hands. Now read there about what happened to the staff of God. Did he throw it on the ground? He probably didn't lean it against a tree. There weren't many of those in that area which is mostly a desert. Where do you think that that staff of God, that walking stick, was? Now Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other. Have you heard those words before?
Father is knocking the ambo repeating "Where have I heard those words before?
One on one side and one on the other. Right? At the Crucifixion. There was one thief of one side and one thief on the other.
Now to keep Moses' hands raised they had to sit him on a rock and probably put the walking stick/Staff of God, behind his neck and put his hands over the Staff. Then Aaron and Hur could raise his hands. You probably get the picture that that looked a lot like the way Jesus' hands were placed on the beam yet without the nails, of course. Think of it, as long as his hands were raised the Israelites won. And so it is with Christians when as disciples we raise our hands in prayer, as we are called to by Christ. The fact is that we must turn to a lived theology of the saints in order to understand how each home and each family, along with the parish, can and must be a school of prayer. Because if family life is not permeated with prayer then it is merely a secular institute. It is merely a collection of individuals to help pay the bills, repair things and guard the house. Marriage is much more than that. If spouses don't pray together then isn't that a secular institute.
Looking at St. Francis of Assisi, from the book A Drama of Reform, Brother Anthony Marie is quoted and he quotes the earliest biography of St. Francis at the time right after St. Francis has given everything back to his father and the Bishop of Assisi has just walked away. From page 111 of A Drama of Reform,
After having changed in mind but not in body St. Francis retired for a short time from the tumult and turmoil of the world and was anxious to keep Jesus Christ in his inmost self.
He was anxious to keep his soul on fire for the Lord. You take a candle and cover it so it won't be blown out by the wind. So what did he do?
He was accustomed to enter into a cave near the city where he would pray to his Heavenly Father in secret.
Here is that cave imagery again. Somewhere I remember a cave...Bethlehem?
There he consulted God alone about his holy purpose. Praying with all his heart that the eternal God would guide his way and teach Francis to do God's Will. He endured great suffering of soul and many thoughts came to disturb him. He repented of his sinful past. When he left the cave he was so exhausted from his struggle that it seemed that one man had entered the cave and another to have come out.
Now let me pick that apart a little. This is from the earliest biography of St. Francis and you can't possibly get a copy of that. Those are just for priests. Of course not! A lived theology of the saints is promoting reading the lives of the saints and look how beneficial that is.
Francis endured great suffering of soul when he prayed. You mean that I am not just the only one who gets disturbed when I pray. If you sit down to pray get ready to be attacked. You are going to think of all the things that need to be fixed and all the reports that need to be finished and all the recipes that need to be prepared for next week's menu. When you sit down or kneel down to pray and all of these things, distractions come flooding in, you think it is just you. No, it happened also to St.. Francis and it also mentioned that he repented of his sinful past. Like St. Augustine, St. Francis, before he converted was a stinker. He repented of his sinful past.
St. Anthony of the Desert of Egypt heard the gospel preached one day in church and followed what God was telling him. He took everything he owned and sold it, gave the money to the poor, then moved out of the city into the desert where he found a tomb that was unused and moved it. So he sold everything, gave the money to the poor and gave away all of his comforts and lives in a grave. He starts to pray and the devil starts fighting with him. The devil was beating him up. If you don't see prayer as a battle like Moses up there on his perch on the mountain you must realize that Our Lord sees it this way.
Once a month each friar takes a day or two for what we call Hermitage, a time of silent prayer, away from our noisy neighborhoods. God can be found in many places but as Elisha and the prophets experienced God is found in the silent whisper in the depths of our heart.
Deacon Davis is not here today because he is on retreat. Last week Deacon Ishmael did the same. We have to continually return to a place of silence in order to be recharged and redirected in prayer, raised up and transformed. We don't see things as Christ does and we can talk ourselves out of a lot. We can talk ourselves out of the need to pray.
Remember last Sunday and the story of the ten lepers. Last week nine out of ten lepers who were cured did not return to give thanks to Christ. Let's listen in to their conversation. They are walking toward town and number ten peels off and says he's going to thank Jesus. The other nine are continuing on their way and saying to one another how long it has been since they have taken a hot bath and how God doesn't want them to thank Him. Another one might have said that it has been such a long time since he has seen his family and that God doesn't really want him to turn back around. Look how nine out of ten were wrong. Jesus recognized that only the foreigner returned to give thanks. .So if we look around nine out of ten of our friends or family members are not praying don't feel consoled.
I remember going to Europe with Aunt Mary and we went to Ars where I purchased the statue of St. John Vianney. We also went to Lourdes. And I remember praying at Ars and Lourdes with Aunt Mary. Those moments when we pray with others stand out in our minds as treasures. Jesus expects us to be praying.
Parents, here is the secret to praying with your children. START. Wow that was a big secret. How do you teach your children the rosary? You pray the rosary. And again if you haven't done so yet hand your child or grandchild a rosary and ask them to show you how to pray it. See how they do. Work with them. We can't just presume they know this. Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity of them to pray always without becoming weary.
Page 17, from Pope Benedict's, Jesus of Nazareth,
They were going to Confession and saying their sins out loud.Descending into the water the candidates for Baptism confess their sins to be rid of their burden of guilt.
If you open the New Testament and pick out all of the times Jesus prayed there would be hardly anything left. He was always praying. So is it a wonder that His mother prayed? And try to figure out your story about going before Jesus at the end of your life and convincing Him of why you don't pray. You might want to use a mirror to practice so that you will look really convincing.What did Jesus do in this same situation? St. Luke, who throughout his gospel is keenly aware of the prayer of Jesus and portrays Jesus again and again in prayer. St. Luke tells us that Jesus was praying when He received Baptism.
I know what our excuse is. It's carpal tunnel syndrome from the remote control. We need to put down the channel changer since we have no time to pray. I don't care how many of our friends and family do not pray. Tthe expectation of Christ is there. It should matter to you. It matters to Jesus!
Jesus makes the connection from the first line of the gospel to the last.
Jesus told His disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary...But when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen