Authority, obedience, conscience

Chair of St. Peter

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

What's wrong with the Church? Why can't the bishops get their act together? How much obedience do we owe this Pope? I hear these kinds of questions a lot. I heard them in 2001 when JPII was Pope. And in 2010 when BXVI was Pope. And pretty much just yesterday while Francis is still Pope. Who is asking these questions seems to depend a lot on who is sitting in the Chair of St. Peter! The questioners change. The Popes change. But the questions themselves never do. It's always a problem with authority, obedience, and freedom of conscience. If Your Guy is sitting in the Chair, then authority/obedience is the bedrock of the Church. If not, then freedom of conscience is the foundation of right religion. The folks preaching freedom from BXVI in 2010 are the same ones preaching obedience to Francis in 2025. And the ones preaching obedience to BXVI in 2010. . .well, you get the idea. Unfortunately, for both camps – that's not how religious authority works. Here's what Christ has to say, “I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” That's the authority we submit to in obedience.

And what does this authority entail? Christ says, “I will give you [Peter] the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.” IOW, Christ appoints Peter as his royal steward. His caretaker and vicar. This means that “whatever [Peter] bind[s] on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever [Peter] loose[s] on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” We all know this to be the authority of the Holy Father to govern the Church and to define the faith and morals of believing Catholics. Are there any limits to this authority? Yes. These limits are canonically defined by the First Vatican Council in its declaration on papal infallibility. But more importantly, the Holy Father's authority and our obedience are defined in terms of charity – the governing theological virtue. Charity requires the presumption of grace; that is, charity starts by assuming that the one in authority is governing in accord with the faith handed to the Apostles. The alternative is to assume a lack of grace and suspect deception. Grace cannot thrive in a mind ruled by constant suspicion. The whole point of giving us Peter as our rock is to dispel any nagging doubts about what is and is not in accord with the apostolic faith. Christ knows what he's doing. And he knows Peter. . .better than we ever will. So, trusting Peter is trusting Christ.

American Catholics are often Protestants at heart. We live and breathe the individualist, freedom as license, pick and choose consumerist religion of modern Protestantism. And it doesn't help that we've had five decades of moral theologians telling us that the job of conscience is to invent personal truths. Peter makes a world-changing declaration of trust: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That's not Simon Peter's “personal truth.” It is The Truth. And on this Truth is the Church founded. And b/c he revealed this Truth, on Peter himself is the Church founded. From Peter and his confession is the whole of the apostolic faith handed on. We celebrate the Chair of St. Peter to be reminded that the faith we profess is a guarantee of victory against the works of the netherworld. But that guarantee is good only when we hold steadfast to the trust Peter expressed to Christ and his disciples. We are saved as a Body. Not as free-floating individuals picking and choosing what we believe. So, who do you say the Son of Man is? Say it with Peter: “[He is] the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

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What's blinding you?

6^th Week OT (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

At first go, Jesus fails to heal the blind man fully. It's an easy-to-miss moment. It takes a second attempt to get the healing right. What's happening here? Is Jesus running out of juice? Was he distracted? Most ancient commentators read this story as a symbol for “gradual enlightenment”; that is, a symbolic story pointing to Jesus' bit-by-bit revelation of his mission and ministry to the public. In the same way that the blind man's healing doesn't happen all at once, Jesus' self-revelation as the Messiah doesn't happen all at once. Fair enough. But I'd wager that there's another reason for the failed first attempt at a cure. The blind man isn't fully prepared to be healed. Notice that the blind man is brought to Jesus by his neighbors. He doesn't approach Jesus himself. Notice too that it's the man's neighbors who ask for healing. Not the man himself. If he's been blind since birth, he knows no other way of being. He's more than just used to being blind. Being blind is who he is. Being cured will not only allow him to see, it will radically change who he is. It's possible that Jesus' first attempt at the cure fails b/c the poor man is scared to death of being able to see. Who will he be if he can see?

Read this way, the story is symbolic of our reluctance to let go of our darkness and embrace the light. What if I like my darkness? What if I AM my darkness? It's familiar and comfortable. I know how to navigate in the shadows. Allowing Christ to heal me fully means that everything changes! It could mean losing friends, alienating family, changing jobs. It could mean a shift in my politics or the way I do business. Being healed in Christ Jesus obligates me in ways I can't even begin to imagine right now. And then there's the whole Church Thing – going to Mass, going to confession, being a volunteer, donating money. Yeah, so, the first try doesn't take. We see indistinctly. Better but still blurred. What becomes clear – between the first and second try – is that we cannot remain in darkness when the light is our calling. When being free from sin and death is how we were made to be. Sin and death are unnatural. Not according to our nature. The comfort we feel in darkness isn't comfort. It's just familiarity. We've gotten used to it. Now we are being dared to receive Christ's healing and live in the light. What familiar darkness is holding you prisoner? What's making you blind?  

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Your reward is great already

6^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

The promise of heaven and the threat of hell for good behavior or bad behavior is really all about social control. It's about using the promise/threat of an afterlife to keep us in line while we're still alive. Pie-in-the-sky, fire and brimstone – all that nonsense. I believed this lie when I was younger; that is, I believed the lie that heaven and hell were just fables told to keep us peasants under control. Back then, in my twenties, I thought everything was about power and control. Who has it? Who suffers b/c they don't? Who benefits from the system of religious myths and rituals? Now, have ecclesial and political authorities used religion as a means of social control? Sure. Anything humans touch can and will be twisted to an evil end. That a hammer can be used to murder doesn't mean that hammers are morally bad. That the Beatitudes can be used to pacify the angry masses into believing that things will be better in some fictitious heaven – well, that doesn't mean we are not blessed when we follow Christ and work toward being perfected in him. “Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.” Better yet: rejoice and leap for joy for your reward is – right now – already great!

We make a big mistake when we assume that we must wait for heaven to receive our reward for being faithful followers of Christ. Sure, the fullness of our reward will be great then – no doubt! – but we start sharing in the Kingdom we've inherited even now. What is the Mass but a foretaste of the heavenly banquet? What is confession but a glimpse into the Father's mercy? What is baptism and confirmation but our first steps as heirs and members of the holy family? Marriage makes the married couple a sacrament of Christ's love for his Bride, the Church. And the sacrament of anointing brings us directly into the healing power of God. Jesus preaches the Beatitudes not to pacify us deprived peasants into a compliant citizenry but to show us that our suffering now shapes us into perfected vessels for his gifts. But. . .we must suffer well. We can suffer now with an eye on some distant reward. Or, we can suffer now, suffer well, and benefit immediately from how we choose to suffer. The sacraments help. Prayer certainly helps. Good works always increase merit. But nothing beats loving sacrifice in bringing us close and closer to our perfection in Christ.

There are two components of loving sacrifice: surrender and gratitude. Together these two result in obedience. Not mere compliance. But obedience – truly loving God, listening to His Word, and following His will. Surrender is about coming to know a simple truth: I am not in control. Never have been. Never will be. I was thrown into this world by my parents. I wasn't consulted. No one asked for my permission to be born. I didn't get a choice in my race or sex or anything else for that matter. Yet – here I am. At some point, I started making choices. And at that point, I started thinking (falsely) that I was in control. The sum total of my choices up until I surrendered proved to be...less than spectacular. MUCH less than spectacular, in fact. At death's door from an internal staph infection at 34yo, I chose surrender. I let go of the wheel. Did I occasionally snatch it back? Yes. Did I successfully drive my life toward Christ when I did? No. Ended up in a ditch every time. Age helps surrender b/c age helps you see the Real as it is...not as you want it to be. Think of surrender as your first sacrifice. Your intellect and will upon His altar, your contrite heart and mind raised up and given over to be made holy. A sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

Giving thanks is harder than we sometimes imagine. Saying “thank you” is an admission of dependence. It's a confession of needing help. Once you've surrendered, once you've offered your heart and mind in sacrifice, the help you need is abundant and freely given. Turning your prayer life toward gratitude deepens your humility, and you begin to understand what Jesus means when he preaches about being blessed. Blessed now, blessed then. Always blessed in thanksgiving. The deeper you grow in humility, the easier obedience becomes. You learn a new habit, or rather, you relearn an old habit in a new way: faith. It's not just trust anymore, or hope, but a still, grounded, rock-solid certainty that God's promises will not be fulfilled. BUT...they have already, always been fulfilled and you participate fully in them. That's blessedness this side of paradise. And with that blessedness comes the driving need to bear witness to the gift you have been given, the gift you have freely received. When you do, when you bear witness, you offer loving sacrifice. And you grow closer to Christ. Blessed are those who die to self in surrender and gratitude and become Christ for another. 

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Time to be contagious

5^th Week OT (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Getting Catholic holiness right in a libertine world can be a challenge. For e.g., picking out the Catholics at an office Christmas party or 4^th of July cookout with co-workers could be a betting game. Are the Catholics the ones not drinking? Not necessarily. Not smoking or dancing? Maybe. But that's no sure-fire indicator. Dressed modestly? Who knows? You can't tell much about someone's holiness from their casual behavior, clothing choices, or venial habits. They would have to be out, loud, and proud about their holiness for you to notice. . .and then they could be accused of hypocrisy! Holiness is never in-your-face aggressively proud. It's never a display for public consumption, or carnival act for an adoring crowd. Holiness is simply being Christ where you are to the limits of your capacity. Jesus speaks of holiness in terms of cleanliness and uncleanliness. These are terms defined by the Mosaic Law. What you eat, touch, associate with, or even go near decide your level of clean. You become unclean through contact with something or someone unclean. Your uncleanliness is then a source of infection for others. And so on. Being unclean is contagious.

Jesus wants his holiness – our holiness – to be contagious. So, he says that what goes in cannot make us unclean. What goes in – food, drink – cannot determine moral worth or ritual purity. It all ends up in the sewer anyway. If holiness can be measured, it's measured by what comes from the heart and mind in word and deed. What's said and done by a heart and mind given over to Christ signals holiness. And fruitful holiness is always humble. Never loud, out, and proud. Humility is the honey to self-righteousness' vinegar. We might prefer that the Rules of Holiness specify permitted and forbidden behaviors. Like children who need enumerated rules, we find it easier not to have to guess about what is good and evil. But hearts and minds vowed to Christ already know that love comes first. Willing the Best, who is God, comes first. And then forgiveness, mercy, faith, hope. Surrender and thanksgiving. None of these go into the body to make it clean. All of them, however, come out of the body and soul – immediately contagious, ready to propagate. Think of yourself as Jesus' Patient Zero. And go infect someone with Divine Love!   

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More sitting, less worrying

St. Scholastica

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

The Devil rejoices when you worry. He wants you to be anxious. Why? If he can convince you that your worrying can actually change things in the real world, then he can keep you focused on trying to be God. While you're trying to be God – changing the world with your magical worry – you will fail to recognize that you have become your own idol. Worry, spiritual anxiety is the liturgy we use to worship Self. For e.g., Martha is fretting about Mary while Mary is contemplating Christ. Martha is wasting time and energy trying to control Mary, trying to will her into helping her with the chores. Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen the better part. Now, we could conclude from this that sitting in silent contemplation of the Lord is objectively better than being up and about doing stuff for the household. But notice that the issue here is not contemplation vs. action. The issue here is Martha's anxiety. Could Martha serenely contemplate the Lord while serving? Could Mary be in the throes of worry while sitting quietly next to Jesus? Yes to both. But the Enemy has convinced Martha that whining to the Lord is a good way to control Mary. And controlling Mary is a good way for Martha to worship herself. In the real world, Martha isn't serving the Lord; she's serving herself, her true god. That she is “worried and anxious about many things” is evidence of her idolatry. Now, before we conclude that Martha is some sort of horrible person – keep in mind – Martha loves Jesus. She has acknowledged him as her Lord. And she believes that bustling around fetching him tea and biscuits is evidence of her devotion. Notice what's missing. She is focused on service as service. She is focused on doing just for the sake of doing. She has forgotten why she serves. Could Martha serenely contemplate the Lord while serving? Of course she could. Why doesn't she? Because she sees her service as an end in itself. The point of service – for her – is to serve. She has forgotten that loving the Lord is the point of service, loving Christ and giving him the glory is the goal. When Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen the “better part,” he is not telling her that active service is inferior to contemplation. He's telling her that being at peace in his love is better than worshiping the Self with anxiety. So, if you find yourself “worrying about many things,” try handing those things over to Christ and sitting at his feet instead. IOW, choose the better part.

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I belong to Christ

St. Agatha

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Everything word you just heard read is foolishness. And Jesus sounds the fool for speaking them. At least, that's how the world hears him. The world wants to hear that the things it loves – self, wealth, popularity, power – that the things of the world ultimately matter. And if there is nothing beyond death, then the world is right. If there is nothing more to being a rational animal than genetic survival and a chance at social standing then, again, the world is right. And Jesus is a fool for saying otherwise. However, if there is something more, something more fundamental to being a human person, to being a creature made in the image and likeness of God, then it's the world that's foolish, and Jesus is a prophet. Paul writes to the Corinthians, “God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world...to reduce to nothing those who are something...” God chooses the foolish, the weak, the lowly, and the despised to show the wise, the strong, the lofty, and the adored that everything they treasure is – in the end – dust. Set against eternity, everything made is temporary. Only a fool trusts what can pass away.

So Jesus teaches a better way. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him. As easy as that sounds, we know it isn't. Even if we are determined to be fools for Christ, the way is difficult. We're flesh and blood. This means we're dependent on the things of world to survive. We're social animals. We need family and friends. We're intelligent and curious by nature, so we explore and learn. We make things, use them to make other things, and it is too easy to become attached to the things we make. It's even easier to think of ourselves as the things we make. We can become idols who make other idols. Little gods worshiping ourselves. So, Jesus says again, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.” Just three seemingly simple commands to turn us toward the eternal and away from the temporary. To turn us back to the One Who made us and remade us in Christ Jesus. When the temptation comes to make this world your temple, as yourself, “What profit is there for [me] to gain the whole world yet lose [myself]?” Then answer: I belong to Christ.

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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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