A reading of the holy gospel, the good news according to Saint Luke. On leaving the synagogue, Jesus entered the house of Simon. Simon's mother-in-law was in the grip of a very severe fever, and they interceded with Jesus in her behalf. Jesus stood over the sick lady and addressed himself to the fever, and, it immediately left her. She got up at once and waited upon them.
At sunset, everybody who had people sick with any kind of disease brought them to Jesus. He laid his hands on each one of them and cured Demons departed from many of them saying as they did so, you are the son of God. Jesus rebuked them and did not allow them to speak because they knew that he was the Messiah. That's very curious. I always wonder about that.
The next morning, Jesus left the town and set out into the open country. The crowds followed him in search of him. And when they found him, they tried to keep Jesus from leaving them. You know why they didn't want him to leave. He was an asset curing the sick, chasing out demons.
It's very helpful to have somebody like that around. But Jesus said to the crowd, to other towns, I must announce the good news of the reign of God because that is why I was sent. And Jesus continued to preach in the synagogues of Judea, And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
There's a sentence in the reading we had this morning from Saint Luke which always strikes me as about as humorous as anything in the New Testament, and it doesn't have a lot of humor. And that is, here's a sick woman, very ill lady, lying in bed. And her household's all around her. They're concerned about the dear person. So when Jesus comes, they ask him to do something for her.
And notice that it says Jesus addressed the fever, and the fever left her. Now here's the punch line. And then it says, she got up from the bed and waited upon them. You'd think that they would have said, Look, sit down. Can't we get you a cup of cold water?
Don't you need something for your cold feet? Don't you want this? Don't you want that? She gets out of her sick bed and then she waits upon That would not be in line with the NOW today, I don't think. They would rather disapprove of that.
But that's a very significant commentary upon the place of women in the Old Testament. And everybody knows the place of women in the twentieth century is so immensely improved. Everybody knows that. Anytime I read this, think of Oscar Wilde's play, She Stoops to Conquer. Of course, you know, the whole thrust of that play is that just as Saint Monica, keep Saint Monica in mind, that dear lady, how subservient to all appearances she was to her husband, how almost a slave she was to her son.
And yet, when the game was over, who came out on top? Who got everything she wanted? Money. She got her husband's conversion. She got she had she raised up an illustrious son.
She was ambitious. She wanted her son to be tops in every way, and he was. When he went up to Milan, he could have become almost anything in the way of the, Roman Empire. He had it made. And but above all, what she wanted for him was that he should be baptized and become a decent, god fearing Christian, and she got that.
She died a very happy woman. You see, when you talk about leadership, it's a very delicate term. How do you lead? How? I remember reading Mitscher's Centenary.
That's one of his best in my humble estimation. I'm not a great favor of his. But anyway, in Centenary, that's a book he wrote for the anniversary of the United States, And he gives a history of The United States and its development. And he emphasizes in there, one of the chapters, about all I remember the book, he emphasizes there how in The United States, how in its development, how it was for the most part women who carried culture West. That in these little rural areas, and almost all of it was rural, West Of Cumberland, you had it was it was little pockets of women who had the leisure, who had the energy, who had the ambition, who had the foresight, who had the basic interests of their children at heart, who brought in speakers, who brought in musicians, who set up opera houses, who started libraries, who started schools, who brought in the Chautauqua.
He points out that it was largely due to the women who did this. You see, they're anonymous, we don't know their names. And I have seen, it's a peculiar phenomenon, how often you have a group of women who see some kind of a need and they move, they move to satisfy that need. And the first thing you know, they get in a manager and it usually turns out to be a man. You saw that, for example, in our when we had Catholic colleges run by nuns.
The movement was to bring in men, presidents. Doctor. Donovan, for example, in Webster Groves in St. Louis. He was one of the first.
Nuns built the hospitals, they financed the hospitals, they managed the hospitals, and then they brought in, to manage it, men. Don't ask me how that goes, but that's the way it was. And I don't know whether it's true anymore. You see, the point I I don't know what point I'm trying to make, but it seems to me we've underestimated the contribution of the leadership of women. It isn't that they just get out get out of bed and serve.
They lead. They lead. After all, it's very significant, very significant that the first miracle of our lord was at the direction of his mother. Who's running the show? Who's in the saddle?
Who's got the reins in their hands? She says, anything he tells you, you go ahead. Don't bother what he says. Just do what he tells you. You know what happened.
They had more wine than they knew what to do with and of a very good quality. I like that too. Not an inferior brand. So that this gospel reading today, besides all this mysterious business about the demons recognizing Jesus and Jesus saying, don't you tell anybody. That's awfully mysterious.
That these demons should recognize him as the messiah, and so many good people did not recognize So today I would like to pay tribute in the echo of Saint Monica to all these anonymous ladies down the centuries. And it isn't that we're speaking in the perfect past tense, we're speaking in the present tense. Because when you talk about leadership, when you talk about the thrusts which have pushed culture, which has pushed the best things of life, don't underestimate the part that women played in these movements. Now, in many instances, it is not too obvious. It is not too obvious.
She stoops to conquer is a very good picture of the situation. Barry wrote a play. I forget the title of it. James Barry. And he brings this point out, how he has a minister in England who is very ambitious, who has married an intelligent woman, and every speech he writes, he discusses it with her.
And, of course, he he does mount the rungs of the ladder of success. And when he gets up near the top, his ego takes over, and he knows he doesn't need her anymore. So he lets her trail behind, and you know what happens? He comes down the ladder. He never even he did not appreciate who was behind the scene, who was giving the spirit to his speeches.
He didn't know it. It's a great play of Barrett. Anyway, I like that phrase in this gospel today. And it's a an opportunity that we have, as I say, within the shadow of Saint Monica, the mother of Saint Augustine, to pay tribute to all these anonymous women down the ages who have built up their families, who had their family's welfare at heart, who had given of themselves beyond anything one can imagine. This is no exaggeration, and we're forgetting that this day.
We're forgetting what women have meant because all we're talking about, they wanna be equal to men. As a friend of mine said, I don't wanna be equal to men. I do not want to surrender my superiority. In the name of the father, the son, the holy spirit. Amen.