Do whatever he tells you

2^nd Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Jesus transforms what we need to live into what we need to live well. Water into wine. Why? He does this to announce – in word and deed – the beginning of his public ministry. He lays claim to his divine Sonship. He shows the wedding guests and all of us that he comes to change survival into celebration, to change “just getting by” into thriving on God's abundance. In the next three years, Jesus transforms the Law of stone into the Law of love; he transforms the sacrifices of the temple into the one sacrifice of the cross; he transforms suffering and death into joy and everlasting life. The Wedding at Cana is transformed from just another nuptial celebration into the unique sign of Christ's Sonship and serves as the beginning of his wedded life to the church! The physical miracle of water changing into wine is also a sacramental sign, evidence of God's grace working in the world to seduce us and draw us into the life of the Spirit, a life of holiness. Why does Jesus do as his Mother asks? Simple: the wedding guests need wine for the celebration. And we need his body and blood to live and thrive. Are we, are you ready to be transformed – sinner to saint – by the power of Christ's healing touch?

Jesus' first move into public ministry happens at a wedding? Off choice. But if we take the miracle at the wedding feast of Cana as a sign that God wants us to celebrate and thrive and not just get by and survive, we come closer to understanding the nature of the Church as Bride. Where do we find the bond of love and self-sacrifice? Where do we find the clearest declaration of God's intention to bring us back to Him? Where do we go to receive His blessings and to give Him thanks and praise? The one Body, the Church, His Bride. We find all these – love, self-sacrifice, blessing – we find them all here. . .among brothers and sisters, among the worst and least of God's children, among the best and greatest of His saints. Jesus doesn't reveal himself as the divine Son to a clique, or a secret society; nor does he hoard his power and dole it out sparingly. He spends it. . .extravagantly, at a party. He creates a luxury and helps the guests enjoy God's abundance. Think of Mary Magdalen and the expensive perfume oil she pours out on Jesus' feet. Think of the 5,000 who feast on a few fish and a few loaves of bread. Think of the hundred-fold harvest reaped from a single seed. Think of the Cross and the expense of your redemption, Christ's blood poured out. For his Bride, the Bridegroom desires joy, peace, prosperity. And above all, holiness.

Jesus transforms what we need to live into what we need to live well. Water into wine. He transforms who we are right now into who we were always made to be. Sinners into saints. His public ministry starts at Cana. With a miracle. It ends – apparently – on a bloodied cross. With an execution. But the miracles do not end there. They continue for another 2,025 years. Yearly, daily, even hourly. Right up until [time] on Sunday, January 19, 2025 at St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX. And they will continue so long as you and I “do whatever he says.” And what does he say? “Fill the jars with water.” A practical task, easily done. Literally. But as a sign, a sign of his Sonship, “fill the jars with water” is much, much more than an order to perform a job. It's an order to prepare that which will be transformed. It's an order to set the stage; to get ready; to provide your life to become everything God created you to be. He will not transform you w/o you. He will not make you into Someone Holy w/o your cooperation. He will wait until your jar is filled.

Ordinary Time – ordered time – is all about filling your jar. It's about the daily, mundane work of getting ourselves ready to go from ordinary water to extraordinary wine. From sinner to saint. This is the time we perfect our obedience. When we do whatever he tells us. When we speak to the Father, giving Him thanks and praise. When we bear witness in word and deed to His mercy. When we love, forgive, deny the self, take up our cross, and follow him. This is the time when we set aside the need for control, the need to be right, the need to dominate. And instead admit that we need to surrender, to unclench a heart and mind pinched with anxiety and worry. We need to celebrate our victory in Christ and walk away from the fight we were never meant to fight, a fight that ended with the Empty Tomb. Are you, are we ready to be transformed? If not, there's time. Fill your jar. With fervent prayer. Daily acts of mercy and kindness. Moments of intense surrender to the Father's loving care. And...do whatever he tells you.

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Hey, you asked!

St Anthony, abbot
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great, Irving

I'm one of those “bottom-line” types of people. Just tell me straight up what I need to know. Save the polite preface, skip the weasel words, and just Say It, whatever It is. When I'm teaching, I like discussion and what-if's and not really knowing exactly where we're going. But in everything else, especially things like practical problems to be solved and questions to be answered, I want concision, clarity, and precision. I appreciate the RYM for asking the question he wants answered, “Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?” Jesus, not known for his crystal clarity, answers in a typically teacherly fashion, “Why do you ask me about the good?” Great. Here we go. Answering a question with a question. Making me think. Making me question my assumptions. Just tell me the answer so I can repeat it on the exam at the Last Judgment! Then, he does, “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” Now we're getting somewhere! A concrete answer. Something to do. Then comes the spiritual nuke: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor...Then come, follow me.” Hey, buddy, you asked.

The RYM seems to be in a hurry. He asks Jesus the question he wants answered. Jesus answers, “Keep the commandments.” The RYM asks another question: “Which ones?” This question translates into: OK stop with the philosophical muttering and weird religious speculation and just give me the formula, the prayer, the sacrifice, or the whatever it is that gets me into heaven because I'm a bottom line kinda guy and your cryptic zen puzzles are annoying me and making me think and I just wanna know how not to go to hell so please, Jesus, tell me what's going to be on the Test at the End so I can spit it back up and get my eternal A+. Jesus, being a good teacher, tells him which of the commandments he must observe and the RYM says (in effect), “Been there, done those. What else?” Jesus, ever the one for surprise and difficult demands says, (in effect), “Sell all of your stuff, give the money to the poor, then come, follow me. This is just how you start on your perfection.”

Not a good answer for the RYM b/c, well, he’s rich and young. So he goes away sad. And then Jesus tells his disciples that it is hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. Why? Probably b/c riches incline one to cling to them, making it difficult to follow Christ in a life of poverty. It’s not the having that’s the problem; it’s the clinging. Remember: you become what you love. Cling to temporary things and you become a temporary thing. Easily bought and sold, easily lost. Cling to Christ and his work and you become Christ to do his work.

The temptation, of course, is the path of least resistance. Just tell me, Father, what I need to do! Bottom-line it for me, padre! The truth is: holiness is work, hard work and there are no shortcuts. I could tell you to throw on scapular or pray a novena or sing a litany to St. Jude and all of those would be fruitful. But none of them will substitute for following Christ in his work – healing, feeding, clothing, visiting those in need, those who need our help and want our company. There’s no magic spell to holiness, no Instant Win scratch-off card that guarantees you heaven. If you want to be perfect, unclench your heart, move your feet on Christ’s way, lift your hands in prayer, attach yourself to nothing temporary, rather, give yourself to eternity. And listen again to Jesus: “Give what you have to poor, come, follow me.”

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Epiphany: what has been made known?

Epiphany of the Lord

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

OLR, NOLA

What has been made known? That's what an epiphany is – the event, the moment when the unknown is made known. When the obscured is clarified. The Magi find the Christ Child in Bethlehem; pay him homage as their King; and gift him with treasures proper to his station. What do their visit and their gifts make known to us? Paul shares the Magi's revelation with the Ephesians: “...the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” He adds, “[This mystery] was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed...” For centuries, the Jews waited for the arrival of the Messiah. He was their Savior, their long-promised salvation from sin and death. Even after Christ's birth and the start of his public ministry, even after his sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the dead, some still held to the cherished belief that the Messiah came to save the Jews and them alone. The Magi – priests and astrologers from the East, Gentiles to their bones – reveal a different mission for the Christ Child: he comes to save us all. Gentiles and Jews alike.

The Magi – knowing who and what the Christ Child is – prostrate themselves and open their treasures to him. Having submitted themselves to his kingly rule, they depart, leaving Herod to wonder where his potential rival for royal authority rests. Now, with Baby Jesus napping in Bethlehem and Herod fuming in Jerusalem, all of humanity is thrown into the daily existential drama of choosing a King. To whom do we submit? A prince of this world? Or the Prince of Peace? A temporary king in a temporary kingdom? Or the eternal King of the whole universe? Herod will go on to reveal the corruption at the heart of his kingdom. He will order the slaughter of all male children two years old and younger. He will sacrifice the lives of babies for his power but move not one inch to sacrifice himself for the sake of another. Christ too will go on to reveal the majesty and power of his Father's Kingdom. He will sacrifice himself for our sake, giving his life – human and divine – on the Cross for the salvation of his people. The epiphany shows us that Gentile and Jew alike can be saved by the Christ. It also shows us how to live in a world ruled by Herods. What must we do?

Remember who you are! You are members of the Body of Christ. You are coheirs to the Father's Kingdom. You are partners in the mission and ministry of Christ Jesus. Two thousand years ago, the Word became flesh and lived and moved among us. At your baptism, you too became the Word made flesh. You live and move and have your being in the Word. Who you are is the Word. Incorporated into the Body, you inherit a kingdom and become a partner in that kingdom's rule. You have chosen Christ as your King. Yet! Herod rules the world. And we know that we cannot serve two Masters. So, we live in the rule of a Herod but under the rule of Christ. To accomplish this exhausting task, we are given – weekly, even daily – the Body and Blood of our King to sustain us. We are given him who saves us, strengthens us, blesses us, and brings us to our perfection in him. Remember who you are. And remember what you have vowed to do. The Magi revealed the Christ to us. Now it's our turn to reveal the Christ to the world. With every thought, word, and deed, wherever you happen to be, whatever you happen to be doing – reveal Christ as your King. Show his mercy. Show his love. Repeat his offer of salvation from sin and death. Make him known. You are given the strength and courage to accomplish this. Do it!

This Mass will end like every other Mass you've ever attended – with a final blessing and a dismissal. These two small bits of liturgical action signal to most that it's almost time to head home for lunch/dinner and catch a football game on TV. But if you pay attention, you'll hear and experience something more profound than an ending. You'll hear and experience a beginning. The final blessing grants you God's favor and lifts you up in your pursuit of holiness. It sets you apart from the world, consecrating you to a specific purpose: to be Christ in the world. So consecrated, you are dismissed, sent out. You are given a charge, an order for your work as a Christ. The last words you hear exhort you take what you have received in this Mass and share it with the world. We find comfort in the regularity of the liturgy – the predictability of the responses; the order of the rites. We find strength and courage in the readings and in knowing that Christ is truly present on the altar. We may even enjoy the fellowship we find here. But we were not saved from sin and death to live comfortable lives in a church building. We were saved to be sent out. We were saved to be bearers of the Good News.

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Are you ready?

4^th Sunday of Advent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Just three days from now, we will celebrate the 2,024^th anniversary of the coming of the Son of God into human history as a child. Just three days to finish up our preparations. Just three more days of waiting. Are you ready? I don't mean here: are you ready for all the Christmas events you've got on your calendar? I don't mean: have all the gifts been bought, wrapped, and put under the tree? I don't mean: have you purchased your Honey Baked Ham and soaked your Christmas pudding? I mean: are you ready for the coming of Christ into the world? His coming as the Christ Child and as the Just Judge? Set aside for a moment the Christmas-y elements of December's end and consider the end for which you were made by the Father and remade in Christ Jesus. Are you ready? If not, you have today and two more days to get ready. What do you have left to prepare? What's left undone? Perhaps you're missing out on the joy of Christ's birth and return. Maybe – unlike John in his mother's womb – you're anxious, fretful, or just plain blah. Now's the time to remember that joy is an effect of love and godly joy is an effect of divine love!

This Christmas will be my 60^th Christmas. Like most grown up kids I love the gift-giving, the feasting, the extra fancy liturgies. But I do miss gathering with my mom's huge Mississippi Delta family. All 50 something of us. And the quiet Christmas Eves with my dad's mom and dad. Just the six of us at home. I've celebrated Christmas in several US states and three foreign countries. My favorite presents over the years: a kid's doctor bag, complete with stethoscope and syringe. An LED digital watch. A check for tuition. A Jerusalem Bible. And my grandfather's annual one-size-fits-all gift of a crisp $100 bill. I miss taking my mom shopping for the family's gifts. She hated shopping, and it was my job to keep her on task. It was also my job to keep the Christmas Eve menu under seven dishes. Left alone, she'd cook enough food for four Christmases! At 60yo, and mom passed away, my job now is to sit back with my dad and watch my four great-nephews – all under 5yo – tear my brother's house apart. And laugh. The pics we take year to year all look the same year to year. Well, we get fatter, grayer, and the boys get taller and louder. Nothing else seems to change. I wouldn't have it any other way.

But that's Christmas. What did I do to prepare? And what do I have left to do? Being a Dominican friar means I've spent the last three weeks praying the Advent Offices and celebrating Advent Masses. All the language is about the arrival of Christ; preparing for Christ; waiting, anticipating, expecting. Scripture points out the ancient prophecies of his identity and his mission and how he will come again. If we've been paying attention, we know just how extraordinary the Incarnation really is. How unique in human history it is for God to take on human flesh and bone. If we've been taking in the Spirit of divine love, we know the joy of his arrival. We know the relief of being freed from sin and death. We know what it is to be remade in the image and likeness of the Christ. To be offered the Father's mercy and adopted into His holy family. We feel the charge of being Christ in the world for the salvation of the world. And we can work and rest and pray knowing that our labor is always made light and smooth in the presence of the one who died for us. If you're not ready, don't worry. Getting ready is a matter of a moment.

Today and two more days. When the family gathers, give God thanks for his holy family and their fidelity to the Word. When the Christmas feast comes out of the kitchen, give God thanks for the feast of the Eucharist and the Wedding Feast in heaven. When the Christmas gifts get handed out, give God thanks for the gifts of the Magi to the Christ Child and his gift to us on the altar. When the children tear into their presents, give God thanks for John's joyful and rambunctious witness to Jesus from his mother's womb. And when everything is eaten and unwrapped, and everyone is stuffed and ready to sleep, give God thanks for sending His Son among us so that we might join Him at the end of the age. If you're not ready, there's time. His birth, life, death, and resurrection serves human history from all eternity. He is always being born, always living, always dying, and always rising. So, it's never to late to jump for joy!       

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Birth and return

3^rd Week of Advent (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

During our monthly lector's meeting last night, the friars discussed two articles about the physical and spiritual effects of social media on the brain. To boil it down: social media leaves us reactive and isolated. “Reactive” in that we come to expect a “frictionless achievement of gratification” by sacrificing depth of knowledge for superficial information. And “isolated” in that we sacrifice real person-to-person relationships with “transitory and stylized transactions severed from...belonging.” IOW, social media leaves us anxious and frustrated with the day-today realities of just getting along with other embodied souls. If we struggle to just “get along,” how much more difficult – if not impossible – is it to actually love one another in a culture founded on digital ephemera? Advent is all about waiting on the birth of the Christ Child and the return of the Just Judge. The key words here being birth and return. Coming into the world through another person and coming back into the world as a person. The Real World of Real People, Places, and Things. Not the pixelated imaginary of two-dimensional space. Jesus was conceived, born, lived, and died. He is Emmanuel, God-is-with-us.

Matthew gives us Jesus' genealogy. He has a long family history. 42 generations. He has distant relatives with names and histories of their own. He was born in a real place. To a real woman. Who is betrothed to a real man. And all of this is prophesied by Isaiah 800 years before the Nativity. The early Church fought against an army of heresies that denied the reality of Jesus' humanity. For close to 500 years we weren't convinced that Jesus was a real person – flesh and bone and blood. And even after we settled on an orthodox Christology, vast segments of the Church held tightly – for another 500 yrs. – to the error that Jesus couldn't really be “like us in all things but sin.” Or that he was exactly like us – a creature of the Father. This might all seem like an academic exercise best left for the classroom, but how we understand the person of Christ grounds how we understand ourselves as persons who are becoming Christs. If Christ was just a god, then there's no hope for us. We are not gods. But if he's just a man, then we are perfect as we are being merely human. Advent teaches us to wait for the birth of God-is-with-us. Emmanuel.

And if God-is-with-us, then we are with one another in Him. Never alone. Never isolated. Our prayer, our worship is never “transitory and stylized transactions severed from...belonging.” And the wisdom we inherit from our ancestors in faith is never just the “frictionless achievement of gratification.” We do not and cannot surrender deep knowledge of God for superficial information about God. Advent teaches us that remaking ourselves in the image of what we ourselves have made is the stupidest form of idolatry. Christ is born. And he will return. Until he does, he is with us.

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Do Christ's enemies hate you?

34th Week OT (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Jesus is an excellent teacher. But he's a terrible salesman. Instead of playing up the advantages and rewards of following him, he says, “They will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons...You will be hated by all because of my name...they will put some of you to death.” WooHoo! Sign me up! NB. he says all this to the crowd, not just to his close knit circle of disciples. IOW, he's publicly telling everyone who's listening that joining him might land you in jail or the grave. He's a little vague on why this might happen – “because of my name.” Apparently, those who join up don't actually have to do much of anything to be hated, jailed, and possibly killed. Just being associated with him is enough. When all this happens – the hated, jailed, and possibly killed stuff – we're to allow him, Jesus, to give us the words of our defense. And our “adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.” Again, he's little vague on how he'll defend us, thus adding to the less-than-attractive invitation to join his merry band. But join we have. So, our question this morning: do you follow Christ in such a way as to rile up his adversaries to hate, jail, and possibly kill you?

According to Open Doors, a watchdog group for Christian persecution, there are 350m Christians currently living in 50 countries that actively persecute followers of Christ. Of those 50, 35 are predominately Muslim countries. Other persecutors include paranoid dictators, communists/socialists, drug cartels, and religious nationalists. What they all have in common is that they see Christ as a threat to their power, wealth, and religious beliefs. As well they should. Because that is exactly what he is. A threat. Not a military threat, like an invading army. Or an economic threat, like global capitalism. But a spiritual threat. Christ threatens the spiritual foundations of their power, their control. He threatens their disordered passions and their nihilistic ideologies. Their subjugation of the the dignity of the human person and their utilitarian abuse of individuals and marginalized groups. The Gospel Jesus preaches is the Good News that we are free from sin. Free from fear. Free from the works of darkness that build up a culture of death and exploitation. When everything you are and everything you have is grounded in the miserable suffering of others, then the Good News is the worst news and you fight it tooth and claw. No wonder they hate Christ and his.

Back to our question: do you follow Christ in such a way as to rile up his adversaries to hate, jail, and possibly kill you? Given the global stats, we might be excused for failing to be persecuted. Might be. But we aren't. We are charged with being a thrown-wrench in the mechanics of the Enemy's power. This means telling the Truth. Diffusing Goodness. And celebrating Beauty. It means living openly as breathing sources of mercy. It means loving whatever persecutors we may have, and showing them that what God has freely given us is freely given to them as well. There can be no competition for the Father's infinite love. The race is run. It's won. And we are all victors in his victory.

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Spiritual athleticism is NOT the Way

St. Margaret of Scotland

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

I served the first three years of my priesthood right here at UD. 2005-2008. I was a campus minister and professor of English and theology. After three months of hearing confessions, I realized that some (maybe most?) Catholic UD students suffered from a form of Pelagianism. How so? They seemed to believe that God only loves them when they were sinless, thus making holiness possible w/o grace. IWO, in word and deed, they believed that grace was earned by being sinless. This is heresy. Plain and simple. Here's the truth: there is literally nothing you and I can do to beg, borrow, steal, or earn God's love. And there is literally nothing we can do to make God cease loving us. God is love. He is love by nature. Who He is is Love. God isn't someone above and beyond love Who loves. He isn't a super powerful human-like being Who loves this but not that. To be God is what it is to be love. We cannot beg, borrow, steal, or earn God's love b/c we cannot beg, borrow, steal, or earn God Himself. If God were to cease loving me, I would cease to exist. In fact, all of reality would cease to exist b/c God would cease to be love in failing to love me. So, how do you know – with absolute certainty – that God loves you? Easy. Do you exist? If you say, Yes, then God loves you. Freely, absolutely, unconditionally.

Now that that question is settled, we can move on to the more complicated question: do you love God? God loves b/c He is love. You and I are not love. We participate in His love (b/c we exist), but we are not love itself. IOW, we can sin. We can fail to love as we ought. This is where our problems start. One way of experiencing my sin is to feel or sense that God has stopped loving me. In the presence of Perfect Love, my imperfect love feels like divine abandonment. It feels like God has set me aside. Then, in my desolation, I start trying to earn back God's love with penances and prayers, sackcloth and ashes. We turn to moral perfectionism. Maybe if I am an absolutely morally Good Boy/Good Girl – forcing myself to commit no sins – God will love me again. We turn to liturgical athleticism. Maybe if I kneel longer, pray slower, add six more daily devotions, and wear three more scapulars, God will love me again. We start comparing ourselves to Those Other Sinners. Well, at least I am holier than him. He never goes to daily Mass! I do. Surely God loves me now. The Devil eggs us on in our vain efforts to win God back. Why? B/c all these efforts work to keep hidden from us the one truth we find hard to accept: God's love for us is absolute, free, and unconditional. Nothing can keep God from us. But we are more than expert at keeping ourselves from God. Our love for Him is almost always relative, bound, and conditional. So, Jesus says, “I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.” What did he tell us? God is love. He – Christ – is in God's love. And we remain in His love by following His commandments. What is his command? “Love one another as I have loved you.” And how does he love us? Freely, sacrificially. If you want a spiritual challenge, something to really put your faith to the test, forget the religious theatrics. Forget the idea that it's remotely possible for God to stop loving you. Drop the heresy that you and I can change God through pious deeds. Instead, go to your family and friends and ask for their forgiveness. Then, forgive them in turn. That's how you start and live your life in Christ.

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Don't give beer to snakes

St. Albert the Great

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Albertus Magus is in trouble with the Prior. In a fit of experimental zeal, he's taken some of the brothers' beer and fed it to a snake. The inebriated serpent escapes Albert's cell and is terrorizing the less scientifically curious friars by flopping around like a...well...like a drunken snake. For the sake of weak hearts and a calmer convent, the Prior forbids any future experiments with alcohol and snakes. We don't know what hypothesis Albert was testing empirically, but it was not done merely for the sake of curiositas. Albert – teacher of Aquinas and future doctor of the Church – was exercising the virtue of studiositas, the rightly ordered acquisition of truth with the whole of reality in view. Curiositas is an excess of the virtue of studiositas, leading one to attempt to acquire truth in a disorderly manner, or to grasp at only partial truth for the sake of another vice. Albert's drunken snake might appear at first to be a prank or a misguided attempt at acquiring scientific knowledge. However, we know that Albert believed that knowing something about creation is to know something about the Creator.

When we look for and find the first causes of the Real, we look for and find Wisdom. In a purely natural world, we might say that wisdom is knowledge plus experience. Wisdom is a long familiarity with what works. When we put God in the picture, we have to expand our definition. We have to look beyond what works and look for why what works works. This “why” is the core of knowing a thing scientifically, knowing its causes. And knowing the causes always leads us back to the First Cause, God. Sirach puts it beautifully: “Like a Mother [wisdom] will meet [the one practiced in the law], like a young bride she will embrace him, Nourish him with the bread of understanding, and give him the water of learning to drink.” When we want to come closer to God, we don't usually think of science as a viable method. But St. Albert did. By exploring – in an orderly fashion – created things, he found the ordered causes and effects of creation. Built into these created things is the divine purpose, a final cause, a telos. This telos is to give glory to God by being exactly what God made them to be. Nothing more or less. Be the perfect snake. Be the perfect rose. Be the perfect human person. Flourishing in one's final cause is the glory of God made manifest.

As unusual as it may sound, we can come to know and love God by knowing and loving His creation. Such knowledge and love will be imperfect, of course, but along with Scripture and our relationship with Christ through his Church, we can have all we need to realize our final cause. All that stands in our way is the disordered desire to be God w/o God – Pride. Pride fuels curiositas, leading us to think that we know what we cannot know. That our own efforts – unaided by grace – can coerce God into loving us more. Even as we work overtime to earn God's favor, we reject the very gifts He gives us to love Him by loving one another. It's a form of madness! To think that you or I can do something as a creature – as a made thing – to do something to make God love us. When we are only here to think that in the first place b/c He already loves us! St. Albert explored the created world and saw and heard and touched Divine Love and poked and prodded all the made things and found God in the perfectly ordered causes and effects of providence. He spent his life tracing causes/effects. Each cause is a psalm and every effect a prayer. He shows us how to be perfectly human by showing us how to be perfectly loved. Joy abounds where love is abundant.

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Votin' ain't prayin'

34^th Week OT (Th)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

One utopia after another has fallen to pride, greed, and violence. Robespierre's France. Stalinist Russia. Maoist China. Pol Pot's Cambodia. Castro's Cuba. Hitler's Germany. The human impulse to establish the perfect society seems deeply embedded in our DNA. What these murderous regimes really are is nothing less than perversions of our supernatural desire for the Kingdom of God. But we are impatient. So, we reach for the Kingdom of God w/o God. And we get Kingdoms of Men w/o godly rule. Pope Benedict XVI warned us not to “immantentize the eschaton,” that is, don't try to bring the fulfillment of salvation history – heaven – into the present age. We are not capable, right now, of governing ourselves or others through the radical demands of sacrificial love. We can serve the poor, the hungry, the sick and injured, the hopeless and abandoned. But cannot eliminate poverty, hunger, and disease through merely human effort. Inevitably, these efforts create brutal regimes that systematically grind down human dignity and spit on the imago Dei. Jesus says that the Kingdom is among us. So, we wait for Christ's coming again and the fulfillment of the Kingdom.

That we cannot create a perfectly just human society is no excuse not to try. Nor is our inability to be perfectly just an excuse to be unjust while we wait for the Kingdom. For now, we turn to God's mercy and the power of forgiveness to be as just as we can be. When we show mercy and forgive, to the best of our ability, we edge closer and closer to the perfection of the Kingdom among us. But even then, we wait for Christ. And we are on guard against the many false Kings that pretend to the throne. During this last election cycle, the friars probably grew tired of my constant refrain: “Brothers, put no trust in princes...or princesses!” No politician can save us. No policy or procedure or committee can save us. Certainly no party or ideology can save us. If asked, “Do you believe that President X or Governor Y can save you?” 100% of us would say no. But do we behave as if that no were true? Watching reactions to the 2024 election results – both good and bad – makes me wonder. Politics isn't religion. Voting is not praying. Winning is not salvation. Nor is losing damnation.

The Kingdom of God is among us. And you are a subject of the rightful King to the degree that you remain wholeheartedly committed in word and deed to the great work of bearing witness to His mercy. Your task – and mine – is to be agents of the King in subverting the rule of the worldly powers. Our subversion comes in the form of speaking the Truth. Diffusing Goodness. And celebrating Beauty. If you've never thought of yourself as a guerrilla fighter or a saboteur, well, perhaps it's time you start. What else could you be as follower of Christ?

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Why will you drink the Lord's cup?

29^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

The Sons of Thunder ask Jesus for a favor. He listens to their request and says, “You do not know what you are asking.” Hearing this quiet rebuke, do the Sons blush, shamefaced? Do they withdraw their impertinent request? Maybe they bristle and double-down by insisting that they deserve this honor. Or make the argument that – practically speaking – they are the best men for the job. Mark doesn't record their reaction, so we are left to speculate. Had they been paying attention to their Teacher, they would've never made the request. Just before this tense scene, Jesus laid out his future for the disciples: “...we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and hand him over to the Gentiles who will mock him, spit upon him, scourge him, and put him to death, but after three days he will rise.” Is this the future they want? If they follow him, this is the future they will get! So, Jesus rebukes their favor, saying, “You do not know what you are asking.
Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” They answer, “We can.” I like to think that their voices trembled in fear...just a little.

It never hurts for us to remember that we have committed ourselves to a Way of Life that ends in sacrifice. If your faith amounts to a consoling story of Being Good and landing in Heaven, then actually living the faith in the world is going to be rough. If the cup you drink is filled with sentiment, fluffy angels, weeping statues, and avoiding being naughty, then the Cross is going to come as a big surprise. James and John have it in mind that sitting at the right and left of Jesus is about power, influence, and prestige. Few of us share this delusion. But we may have our own fantasies to dispel. Maybe we think that following Christ is a guarantee perfect health. Or a promise of material wealth. Or the perfect middle-class family lifestyle. Some seem to believe that their faith in Jesus is a ward against having to think rationally, or actually participate in the life of the world. For others all this is just a respectable place to be on a Sunday morning. Good for business and way to keep the neighbors from talking. I dare say that whatever the case, the Cross is going to come as a surprise for us all. Despite everything the Lord has said, despite our long history as a Church, it will be a Big Surprise.

At this point, you might be thinking, “Wow. Father didn't get his coffee this morning!” Not true. I did. It's just that this Gospel scene always brings to mind my motives for belief. Why am I doing this? “This” being “being a Catholic; serving as a Dominican friar and priest.” And then I start to think about the motives you might have for doing this. For being Catholic, for being here at St. Albert's for Mass, for following Christ in an increasingly insane world. For being a novice friar just starting religious life. There are as many motives as there are people to have them. No doubt we all have a story to tell about our faith. How we came to it. How we keep it. How we win and lose day-to-day. And then I remember James and John and their ridiculous request and Jesus' sad rebuke. Can you drink the cup I will drink? IOW, can you hang on the Cross I will hang on? We say we can. We wouldn't be here if we couldn't say we can. But can we? Not as long as our faith is little more than a family-imposed requirement, or a social nicety, or a middle-class American habit. No one eagerly goes to the Cross for those reasons. The only reason to hang with Christ on the Cross is b/c you have become Christ and that's just how it ends. For him, for you, for the Church.

On Wednesday this week I'll teach the novices that homilies are supposed to be exhortatory. Encouraging. Yes, they can be challenging. Should be challenging. But above all, they must be encouraging. Like a coach at half-time during a tied game. So, where's the exhortation? Whatever your motivations for being here, for being a follower of Christ, know that Christ is with you. And not only Christ but his Church as well. We do none this alone. Even if you see yourself as a lone sheep among the wolves, you are not alone. You are part of a Body. James and John wanted – foolishly – to be at the head of the body. Jesus put them in their rightful place. Serving. That's where Christ should find us when he comes again. Serving. Take your gifts – that which brings you joy – and put them at the service of the Body. That's how God perfects us. Through the gifts He's given us. Each gift, every gift works together to bring the whole Body closer and closer to perfection. When it comes time to go to the Cross, you will go with the millions who have gone before. And once there you will greet the millions who follow after. Hold fast to your faith, praying, “We can. We can drink this cup.”

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Love God and do what comes supernaturally

28^th Week OT (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

“Licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness...” Paul says that these are works of the flesh. Works that indulge our appetites in a disordered fashion. These works keep us from entering the gates of eternal life. Not only do they prevent us from finding eternal unity with God, they also poison our witness here on earth and give scandal to those we are sent to serve. If we devote ourselves to the works of the flesh privately while bearing witness to Christ publicly, we become “unseen graves.” We become hypocrites. Jesus charges the Pharisees and scribes with weighing down God's people with burdens they themselves refuse to carry. But why should it matter that the Pharisees and scribes fail to follow the rules they impose? If following their rules makes me holy, why should I care if anyone else follows them? Jesus' point is that the rules don't make anyone holy. They are superfluous burdens. And the evidence for this is that the rule-makers don't follow their own rules! What makes us holy is the love of God and our love for Him. So, love God and do what comes supernaturally.

Now, it's this kind of wishy-washy “just love God” talk that makes us cringe. Maybe we don't want to admit it out loud, but we like the rules. We want the boundaries of good/evil. Clear, crisp lines that mark off right and wrong. If we're being totally honest, we love these black and white rules – most especially when they are applied to those sinners over there. Can you see the hypocrisy starting to creep in? If we talk about holiness purely in terms of loving God, then how do we know that everyone else is loving God in the same way I am? One way is to say “doing X and not doing Y” means you love God. That's what the Pharisees do. Pay your tithe of mint and rue and that means you love God. Don't work on the Sabbath and that means you love God. What happens over time? Doing X and not doing Y is taken to be “loving God.” Nothing more, nothing less. Jesus says no. It is not only possible but quite easy to do X and not do Y and still fail to love. Love of God and neighbor must come first and then everything you do and say and think follows. What you do, say, and think is evidence of your love. Or your failure to love. And the truest test of love is mercy. How quickly do you forgive? How sincerely do you will the best for others? How deeply do you desire that Christ be fully known by all? How much at peace are you in the world?

The Pharisees and scribes are hypocrites b/c they invent and then impose useless measures of what it means to love God. They don't follow these rules b/c they know the rules are useless. Christ has freed us from the works of the flesh, including the impulse and temptation to play at being holy for the sake of appearances. He has freed us from the need to sniff around others, searching for sin. He has freed us to love. So, love and do what comes supernaturally!      

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Trust needs no evidence

28^th Week OT (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Jack comes home from work two or three times a week reeking of another woman's perfume. He “works late” frequently and seems to have lost interest in his marriage. The last straw is the way he hides his cell phone away so his wife doesn't see the texts he receives after hours. Seeing all these signs, Jill hires a PD to gather evidence of Jack's infidelity. After a month of following him around town, the PD reports to Jill that Jack is not having an affair. She sighs in relieve and says, “I knew he wasn't b/c I trust him completely!” This tells us that Jill does not understand the meaning of “trust.” If she “trusts” Jack after the investigation, it's b/c she has conclusive evidence. That's not trust; it's knowledge. She knows that Jack is not having an affair. If she had trusted him, she would have never hired the PD. Which comes first in the life of Christ: faith or evidence? Do we trust Christ and then understand the evidence in the light of faith? Or do we look for evidence and then decide whether or not to believe? The crowds want a sign. They want evidence that Jesus is who he says he is before they believe. Jesus says, “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah.”

Of course, the sign of Jonah is Christ's three days in the tomb and his defeat of death in the resurrection. That's The Sign. The only evidence we need to believe. Believe that and the rest follows. Don't believe it and nothing else can or will follow. To say that faith comes first is not to say that only faith matters. God gave us reason to understand what we believe. But reason alone cannot get us to faith. Why? B/c reason alone never requires us to trust. What saves us is our participation in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ – our own partaking in the sign of Jonah that Jesus says is the only sign we need. So why do we clamor after additional signs? Locutions and apparitions? Why do we think we need something else to demonstrate the rightness of our faith? Well, why does Jill send a PD after Jack? She suspects that her trust is misplaced. She worries that she's been duped. She needs more. If you need more than the sign of Jonah to trust our Lord, you can certainly look for that more. Whatever it is. But know that that more is not really more. It's all you have. It's not faith or trust or belief. It's evidence. And that evidence quickly becomes your god. You become a follower of proof rather than a follower of Christ. And proof cannot save you. Paul says it plainly, “For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.”

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Don't be possessed

28^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

What riches do you put between yourself and our Father’s love for you? Here's the scene: the rich young man asks Jesus how he might inherit eternal life. Jesus patiently recites the commandments given to Moses. The young man tells Jesus that he has observed the Law all his life. And then in an moment that deserves its own gospel, Jesus looks into the young man’s heart, loves him, and with this love sees the gaping hole in the young man’s soul—the lack, the longing that defines him. Jesus sees the young man’s enslavement to things. What the young man lacks but desires is true poverty. Freedom from stuff. Freedom from ownership. BUT he has many things. And most importantly, he is possessed by those many things.

So, knowing that the young man seeks eternal life and knowing that he desires to be free of these things, why doesn’t Jesus just free him from his possessions? Why not cast out the demons of avarice and liberate the young man from his bondage? Jesus does exactly that. Jesus tells him as precisely as he can: go, sell your stuff, give to the money to the poor, and follow me. His exorcism is complete. But you see, an exorcism is effective only on those willing to be freed from their demons. The young man desires to be free. But he doesn’t will it; he doesn’t act. And so he remains a slave to his possessions. Jesus offers him control over his greed, control over his stuff, and instead, at the words of exorcism, the young man’s face falls and he goes away sad to remain sad all his days.

Here’s what you must understand about desire. Desire is at once longing and lacking, hungering and not having. To desire love is to long for it and to admit that you don’t have it. Jesus looks into the heart of the young man and sees his brightest desire, his strongest lack, and he loves him for it. But we cannot be a slave to two masters. You cannot give your heart to two loves. We must be poor in spirit so that we can be rich in God’s gifts. We must be poor in spirit so that there is room for Christ, room for him to sit at our center and rule from the core of our being. This is what it means for us to prefer wisdom to scepter and throne; to prefer wisdom to health and beauty; to account silver and gold as sludge. In wisdom, all good things come together in her company.

This is the point in the homily when I am supposed to exhort you to give up your earthly attachments. Exhort you to surrender your chains: your inordinate love of cars and money and gadgets and sex and drugs and rock and roll…But you know all that, don’t you? You know as well as I do that none of that is permanent. None of that can substitute for the love of God and the grace of his mercy. None of that will bring you happiness. It is ash and smoke and shadow and will never – despite the promises of luxury and attention – will never make you happy. You know this. I don’t need to tell you that nothing created can do what only the Creator can – give you a permanent love and life everlasting.

But let me ask you again: what riches do you put between yourself and our Father’s love for you? What possesses you and holds you back? If Jesus looked into your eyes and said to you: “You are lacking one thing for eternal life.” What is that one thing? My guess is that not many of us are held back by expensive possessions. Not many are held back by lands and jewels and gold reserves! Not many of you are suffering under the weighty burden of Gucci, Prada, Christian Dior and Yves St. Laurent!

Let me ask a different set of questions. Let’s see how many hit home. Are you rich in a fear that God doesn’t love you enough? Are you unlovable? Are you so rich in sin that a righteous God couldn’t possibly forgive you? Are you so rich in self-sufficiency, self-reliance that you don’t need other people? So rich in a personal knowledge of God that you don’t need others to reveal the Father to you? Are you so rich in divine gifts that you don’t need the gifts of others to make it day to day? Or maybe you’ve stored up your wealth in good works and can survive without grace for a while? Maybe you don’t need Jesus to look you in the eye and love you because your grasp of the theological and moral constructs of the human experience of the Divine are enough. Are you burning through your life on the fuel of self-righteous certainty – the false assurance that you’ve got it right all on your own (objectively and absolutely) and that there is nothing else for you to learn and no one competent to teach you? Are you so wise? Are you angry that no one else notices your wisdom? Does your desire for piety and purity bring you closer to your brothers and sisters in Christ, or is this desire an excuse to keep them at a safe distance? Is your public holiness also a private holiness, or is it a pretense that hides a furious lack of charity?

Let me ask the hardest question: what do you fear? More often than not we are slaves to our fears not our loves and we can dodge public responsibility for our fears. We cannot dodge Christ: no creature is concealed from him, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account.

Despite these gard questions, I’m not worried. Not even a little. Here’s what I know: we desire to know God, we long to be touched by His spirit, we want more than gold, silver, or cold hard cash to be in His presence and to know his healing grace. We are here b/c He loved us here and we got off the couch, off the computer, off the cell phone, and we made it here this morning for this reason and no other: we cannot be happy w/o Him and there is no better or messier or more graceful place to find Him than among His mongrel children at prayer. Bring your lack to Him and do what needs to be done to follow Him.

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Let the angels do their job

St. Jerome

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

We can separate the good fish from the bad – the fat catfish from the bony gator gar. We can keep the good fish and toss the bad back. That's a decision we make according to our culinary needs and tastes. It's not likely that anyone will along and dispute our choices. Small bass go back into the water. Big ones go on the wall as a trophy or into the skillet as supper. What happens when we extend the Good Fish/Bad Fish analogy to the parsing of souls at the end of the age? We can come away thinking that it's my job and yours to figure out who gets thrown into the bucket as good souls and who gets thrown away as bad. But here's where the analogy breaks down – as all analogies inevitably do. Fishermen separate good and bad fish. Angels separate good and bad souls. The analogy is about the separation of good and bad, not who does the separating. Fishermen are not angels. And neither are we. The standards we use to decide which fish to keep and which fish to toss back cannot be translated into standards for weighing souls. That's why the job at the end of the age goes to the angels. They are not burdened with our limited vision and animal prejudices.

For your growth in holiness and the maintenance of your graced soul: let the angels do their job. At the end of the age. Right here, right now, your job, my job is to serve as a kind of bait for any fish that might pass by. By word and deed, we serve as a lure, as an attractive enticement to taste the Good News...and maybe even take a big bite. What self-respecting soul sees a sour face, hears a harsh word, or feels a building judgment, and thinks: Yeah, I'll bite! If – as bait – we radiate potential condemnation to the fiery pit of Gehenna, then who will bite the hook? The Lord's bucket could be empty on the last day. And that means we have failed as bait. What happens to useless bait? Rather than trying to do the angels' job, do yours: be joyful tabernacles of the Lord's presence. Meet anger, pride, lust, despair with peace, humility, chastity, and hope. Meet ignorance of God with knowledge of His love. Meet the shame of sin with a word of mercy. And remember: the angels do the separating at the end of the age. Not me. Not you. Pretending to do the work of the angels just might get you a lesson in wailing and grinding of teeth.  

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How do Catholic witness?

Padre Pio

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

I grew up in a world dominated by Southern Baptists. Not the suburban, semi-professional kind of Baptists, the almost non-denominational sort who are happy to live and let live. No, my Baptists were in-your-face evangelizers. The kind who would invite you over for a pizza party and then announce that we all had to go to church before dinner was served. The kind who'd take you aside and talk to you in whispers about asking Jesus into heart as your personal Lord and Savior. All this sales pressure naturally rubbed my introverted disposition the wrong way, so I went off to college and got baptized in the Episcopal Church – where Jesus was rarely mentioned! When I finally swam the Tiber at 33yrs old, I was happy to see that the Catholics weren't much into the whole We're the Sales Team for Jesus thing either. Catholics were happy to let their deeds do the witnessing. Out in the bigger world, this sort of witnessing bears much fruit. Hospitals, pregnancy centers, Catholic Charities, KoC – all and more speak volumes about the faith. But how do Catholics bear witness to the faith in a place like the very Catholic UD? How do Dominican friars witness to one another?

You might think that a place like UD or men like OP friars don't need to be witnessed to. We have the faith. We have daily access to the sacraments. We have Christ in the tabernacle and we carry him with us everywhere we go. We've got Cistercians, Opus Dei, Regnum Christi, LC, Dominicans (friars, sisters, and laity), FOCUS missionaries, seminarians, hundreds of lay faithful, and even the Jesuits! What more do we need to grow in holiness? Well, we need what every other sinner needs: constant, faithful witness to the love of the Father and His freely offered mercy. When OP friars profess simple and solemn vows, we ask for God's mercy and the mercy of the brothers. Giving and receiving this mercy is the only way any of this works. The light we refuse to hide under a vessel is the light of forgiveness. Grudges, slights (imagined and real), the desire for revenge, self-righteous anger, and the dark works of Pride prevent us from shining that light. Take a moment and ask God to reveal to you who it is you need to forgive. Who needs to see in the dark with your forgiving light? We bear witness by being Christ's instrument of mercy to sinners. And we start closest to home.

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