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	1st Reading
	Psalm
	2nd Reading
	Gospel
	Written Transcript of Homily
	Footnotes

Today, after the 10 o clock Mass, I’m going to be starting a bible study series..

We’ve been announcing it, and it’s a little sudden... but I”m gonna be beginning the Great Adventure Bible study which is ( ? ? ?) Produced, and it’s called “The Great Adventure”, but the way I do it, it’s like wandering around the desert...but the way I do it, I get a little off track half the time..

But, that’ll be after the 10:00 Mass, probably around 11:15 people can come get a cup of coffee.

It’s aimed at the Parents especially, for the Religious Education kids, but everybody’s welcome.

It’s a little Heaven in the room off the Harbor’s wall, and if there are too many people we’ll go downstairs.

I doubt there will be too many people, but...

We’ll see.

You may have noticed I kind of push Bible study a lot..

That all of us say “oh that’s a fine thing, but, bible study is kind of obscure” and it’s not something most of us are use to from our background.

You know, really it wasn’t pushed the way it should have been when we were kids.

And well, you read the bible, you read sections of the bible, but the mythothical approach to bible reading, well...for most of us, it probably wasn’t apart of our childhood.

I came from an unusual parish, it was our, in the 50's, our pastor was very big on bible study and bible history.

Why study it?

I mean, why such an emphasize, I mean... go to mass, try to be a good person, hear the bible read..

 
Why.. Why become a fanatic about the bible?

Very simple..

The prayer of the pagan..

And most of us Christians.

As we begin life, “Lord, give me what I want.”

Whereas the prayer of the mature Christian, “Lord, teach me your ways.”

That our life with Christ is about learning the mind of God.

Because we find ourselves, at least I Fin myself, fighting God

I want this, I wanna do it this way, this is what’s right, and God... how come you can’t see my eminently point of view, amen.

Have you ever gotten into a fight with God?

I think if you ever looked at your life closely you’ll find most of your life is an argument with God.

And as I’m always telling you... God has this problem, he thinks He’s God.

When I encounter God, I have met someone who cannot be bargined with, reasoned with, bought off, bribed.

Have you ever tried to bribe God?

Seriously.

You must have heard the story of the little boy who kneels by his bedside and says, “God, if you get my parents to get me that bike for Christmas, I promise you I will go to Church everyday for the next two– ahh...maybe not...I promise, God, that if I get the bike for Christmas, I will take out the garbage every night without fighting my mom for the next two–ahhh...hmm...”

So then he runs into his mother’s bedroom, gets the statue of the Blessed Virgin, wraps it up in brown paper, ties it up with string, puts it under the bed, and says, “Alright, God, we’ve got your mother. And if you expect to see her again...”

Hah..

They laughed.

It’s early.

Don’t you do that?

Maybe not that radically

You know the, I don’t know a retailer in Chicago area who does not have a closet full of little plastic status of st. Joseph..

Seriously.

The Jewish ones...

The Protestants, they’ve got St. Joseph.

You’re suppose to bury St. Joseph in the backyard, upside down, and he doesn’t like it, and he doesn’t like it, and he’ll sell your house so you dig him up.

That’s the super stistion.

We bargain with God, we try to get God to do what we want, by hook or by crook.

And remember God has this problem, He thinks He’s God.

So, it’s a good idea instead of ramming our head against that wall, to figure out how God does things.

To go with the flow, as it were.

It would be nice if there were like a manual on explaining how God does things.

Well, there is, it’s called the bible.

Today is a really good example.

That verse “The stone which the builders had rejected has become the cornerstone of the building.”

“The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

This is a verse which is repeated.

I actually counted it out..

1, 2 3, 4 5....6...

It’s mentioned I think 6 times in the bible, it comes from Psalm 1:18.

Psalm 1:18 is one of the praise psalms, they sang it especially at the, at the passover, the ( ? ? ) the praise psalm.

And it’s a funny kind of psalm.

Cause they got lots of differnet things in it, it says

“Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord”

Now a Jew, when he heard one line from a psalm, an ancient Jew had the whole thing memorized.

So, you mention one line, and the whole psalm kind of when through your mind.

When I say to you, “blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord”, we say that at the Mass.

That’s apart of our Jewish heritage. 

And when we say it, we’re also saying in effect, the stone that the builders rejected.

Well it’s mentioned in the gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Luke.

It’s mentioned in the Book of Axes, it’s mentioned in St. Paul’s letters to the Romans, it’s mentioned also in St. Peter’s first letter.

This was a real important verse for the early Christians.

And it was an important verse for the Holy Spirit

If God says something 5 or 6 times in the bible, you better believe He wants you to hear it, so..

What’s he saying?

Well, first of all, very interesting...

Calvary, the place where Calvary and the tomb of Christ were, and still are, was originally a ( ? ? ). And they came on a clump of rock, a big huge clump of rock, it was a... I don’t know,maybe 30 by 30 feet, 20 feet high..

And it was too soft to use for building purposes, so they dug around it.

And eventually that (? ??) Got filled in and it became a garden and they dug tombs in it.

And they had an execution place there.

The maccabees and then the Romans had a crucifixion place there.

It was calvary.
 
And either on this little hill, or near it, they would crucify criminals.

And that was where Jesus was crucified.

And the apostles understood immediately that Calvary was the stone rejected.

And it’s become the cornerstone for a whole new kind of temple.

There you go.

What we reject... is usulaly what God wants.

Is this true in your life?

Isn’t this true in your life?

Think of the good things that happened in your life.

There were things you weren’t expecting.
 
Now think of the bad things in your life... in my life at least, there were things I had to have.

You know?

I always got a kick out of young people when they fall in love in High School, you know..

It’s an odd thing in high school...

Girl’s pray for some guy to take to the prom

Guy’s pray for a certain car.

I don’t know, but that’s what young American girls and boys pray for.

Now, picture the young girl praying for the young guy, “Lord, please, I wanna take this guy–I want this guy to take me to prom”

Well, eventually God gets sick of hearing it, and grants her request.

And then three to four months later she’s saying, “oh God, get me out of this mess”

Ever had that happen in your life?

I gotta have it, I gotta have it.

Oh, Lord, why did you give this to me?

Well.. We do that with God

But there are things that come into our life that are just blessings.

We weren’t expecting them and they were the best things that happened to us.

Grace is what’s given, sin is what’s taken.

Grace is what’s given, sin is what’s taken.

That, in our life, we find that we can trust God only by trusting Him.

We can only learn to trust God by trusting Him.

And those things that I want...

Are often the worse thing for me

And there are things that I reject.

Our sources of blessing and grace.

That’s a biblical principle.

That’s one of the way God works

God surprises you with blessing.

That’s a principle, a biblical principle.

The stone rejected by the builders.

Now that particular ( ? ? ) was used to ( ? ? ) stone to rebuild the temple after they came back from exile.

And the temple had been rebuilt by Herod, it was a magnificent building.
 

And in the entrance in the inner shrine

There was a, there were two pillars, and they were gold plated, and up these pillars there was a vine.

And the size of the grapes, they were solid gold, the grapes...

They were the size of a softball..

And an honorable work as to donate one of these grapes, or leaves, or part of the vine..

And this gateway, this doorway, was maybe 50 feet tall, it was an unbelievable thing.

Jesus said once, “I’m the true vine”

In other words, these golden googall, it’s nothing.

I’m the true vine, and Israel is the true vine. 

Okay, I’m gonna get a little complicated..

I hope you’re still awake, are you awake?

Because it’s going to get very strange.

We are in a crisis in this Country, have you noticed? 

I mean, it’s an economic crisis, it’s a moral crisis... it’s just...it’s just, don’t you dread waking up to look at the newspaper??

Lord.. What is it today?

You know, we are in a crisis.

The illegal immigration problem is way down

Nobody’s coming because.. There’s just not he jobs.

We’ve got trouble.

Well, lets look at it from the eyes of biblical principle.

God has a cause and an effect.

I have a theory, it’s kind of a hairbrain theory, and I’m looking at my watch, I don’t wanna go too long..

When I was a kid... in another century, when the wooly mammoth roamed..

Do you remember Sundays?

You went to Church, you went home, you had the laying out of food, and that’s what you did.

You couldn’t go shopping on Sunday, because nothing was open in this Country, believe it or not.

For those of you more recently arrived, you couldn’t buy anything on a Sunday.

Gas stations weren’t even open, if I recall..
It was just, Sundays were dead.

Dead.

IT was great.

Well.... have you looked recently at the Ted Commandments?

You got idolatry, you’ve got adulatory, you’ve got murder..

And you’ve got resting?

I mean, think of this, you’re forbidden to commit murder, or to commit idolatry, or to lie...

And then there’s one commandment that says you gotta rest?

There’s a commandment that says you have to rest.

You hear the joke, wouldn’t you like someone to say “you go to your room and you go take a nap!”

Wouldn’t it be nice now, if s–

Well, there is someon telling you that, it’s God

But somebody sued and decided they wanted to keep their store open on Sunday, and made their point to forbid stores to be open , to have laws that forbid comers on Sunday .

Well, there were.. They were violations of separation of Church and State on Sunday

And so, gradually, a store opened.. Then the store next to it opened because , well the first store was getting all the business then well in a year or two everything was open.

Sunday  for us, read the Catechism, is a Sabbath

we stopped honoring God’s call to rest.

Well why is that a rule in the first place?

Why is it a rule in the first place?

Because ther is something more important then money!

I know this is a dangerous thing to say before collection, but there’s something more important than making of money!

When we stopped honoring the Lord..

One day a week

Our society began to collapse

And the crisis we find ourselves in now is a crisis of money, isn’t it?

How did we get into this mess?

We got into this mess by raising a generation, the thought of what I own makes me rich.

I gotta have the car, I gotta have the house, I gotta have the perks, I gotta have the jewelry.

Whether I can pay for it or not, I can put it on my plastic.

You and I both know people

Whose every credit card is maxed out, they’re living in a mini mansion, and they can’t afford to eat beans.

We buy and we buy and we buy

Because as a society.. We renounced the Sabbath, we   renounced the biblical principle! 

There is something more important than money!

And wer’e in a mess

But you know, far more seriously, far more horribly...

A lot of you are immigrants, ( ? ? ?) Immigrants, why did you come here?

Well, to make a little money

Well, that’s not a bad thing

Because you wanted to make a little money because you had it bad in the old Country, and you didn’t want your kids to suffer like that

That’s not a bad thing

That’s not a bad thing

But soon we forgot that we are making money so our kids can have a decent life, and possessions and property became the gold, rather than the means

Now this may sound far fetched , but I really believe our refusal to honor the biblical mandate to rest...

Is ultimately responsible for abortion

I believe that

Because the principle that nothing is more important then the making was it, President ( ?? ) who said “The business of America is business, and the business of a Catholic is giving life.”

You see?

That when we turn our backs on real wealth, that is the love of God and the love of our families.

I mean, really, who could have seven or eight kids now?

Don’t be ridiculous.

Both parents have to work to pay for the SVU’s and the driveway to the mini mansion

and kids, you drive them there, you pick them up there.

There’s never a quiet moment

Who could have seven or eight kids now?

Well..we have gotten into this idea that we must work and work and work.. And there is never a point where we get together and say “Behold, how good and how pleasant when brotherend will is at one.”

There is never a time when we sit down together and enjoy one another’s company

Our goal has become the making of money, whereas the Catholic, the goal is the giving of life.

That’s our goal as Catholics, the giving of life, because that’s God’s plan that Jesus becomes the first of many brothers and sisters.

We, who are Catholic, have bought into the American harisiy, the American lie.. That the most important thing is the making of money

Our crisis is all tied together

There is a verse in the scripture that says “Be still and know that I am God”

I can’t be still, I gotta go to work.

Behold!
The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone!

We reject human life... and the society cannot long endure the fights with God, even about thte giving of life... when the Israelites came into cannon, God Told them to destroy the society that they encountered, and when you read the bible, you are going to be shocked!

Because God gives the commandant to the Israelites to destroy whole societies, why would a Good and Merciful God do that?

Because there comes a point... when a good and merciful God has had enough

And the societies that met Israel and Cannon, where societies sacrificed their children for an economic well-being, they would sacrifice their own children for their own crops and the property for the rains

We are a society that has taken to the sacrifice of children, for the sake of prosperity.

I’ve never met a person who’s had an abortion except for economical reasons.

It’s too much time-consuming, too much work..

I’d have to quit my job.

How am I going to take care of this kid?

I’ve never met a person who’s had an abortion except for economical reasons.

So we have become the society
 of the Cannonites who sacrificed their own children for economic well beings.

I never sacrificed a child, no , but what are you doing to make sure it doesn’t happen?

I will end now, and with one, one line... God planted a vineyard, a true vineyard, not golden grapes, not golden leaves

But a vineyard of His people, you and me.

And then He sent someone, we’re reading the Gospel, to take the rents.

And they killed those whom, master of the vineyard sent.

So Jesus says “What do you think they will do?”

To those wretches.. Who defiled the vineyard of the Lord, he will put them to death.

And lease His vineyard to other tenentes
 
That’s when jesus said, “did you never read the scriptures , the stone that the builders rejected became the cornerstone”

Therefore I say to you! The Kingdom of God will be taken away from you!
And given to a people who will produce it’s fruit

You cannot fight God, you cannot fight God

If God is said that you must cherish your children, that you must take a day in which to be alone with your children, a day of faith, and family

If God is said riches do not consist of possessions but in the giving of Life, well... you cannot fight God

So let us pray that in a Country we siest in fighting God, and we learn what He has said

And that we understand that His way is Right and what he Gives is Good and what I take is wrong

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.