New Dominican Vocations Video

The English Dominican Province has produced a new vocations video.  It's fantastic!  Check it out.



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Link to my vocation story

Getting lots of requests for my vocation story. . .why now?  Who knows!

Here's a direct link:  Fr. Philip's Vocation Story.

Please comment!

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You love me, therefore. . .

Hey!  Look!  A homily!  Remember those???

7th Week of Easter (F)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St Albert the Great Priory

At the moment of his testing in the Garden, Peter, as Jesus predicted he would, denies knowing the Lord three times and flees for his life. Peter must've been surprised by his failure of allegiance. After all, didn't his Master give him the steward's keys to the kingdom of heaven after naming him the Rock of the Faith? What sort of rock denies his Maker? What sort of leader retreats in front of those he leads? All that time with Jesus. All those lessons. All those moments of revelation, wonder, and friendship abandoned and denied in a panicked escape from certain arrest and possible execution. At the moment of his testing in the Garden, Peter contradicts his Teacher, speaks against his Master; and now, he's given the chance—three chances, in fact—to repent and try again. The first time: “Peter, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Twice more and we're told: “Peter was distressed that [Jesus] had said to him a third time, 'Do you love me?'” Distress?! Peter is distressed that his love for the Lord is being questioned? Does Peter's incredulity seem misplaced? Having denied even knowing the Lord, why is it too much to believe that he might not love the Lord? Jesus' examination of Peter's fidelity is perfectly just and necessary. To feed the Lord's sheep and follow him to the Cross requires more than bare words, more than mere intent. You must be led to where you do not want to go and die there for the glory of God.

Feed my sheep and follow me. These are the two commands that Jesus issues to Peter after he confesses his love for the Lord. Unspoken but clearly implied is the powerful, logical connector, “therefore.” Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Therefore, feed my sheep. Therefore, follow me. Because you love me you will provide for my people the food and drink they need for eternal life and you will follow me to the Cross and a death you do not seek. There is no time for panic, no place to run. You love me, I know this; therefore, come after me teaching what I taught and doing what I did. Lead my people out of your love for me—even as the Cross comes clearly into view—so that when you die you die for the glory of our Father. Our friends love me too and there is no greater love than to die for one's friends, to sacrifice all we know and possess to show those we love the way back to Love Himself. If they are lost, find them. Once found, feed them. And then, follow me.

Christ's command to Peter is his command to all of us as well. We say we love the Lord and though we may not recoil as Peter did at the Lord's wariness in accepting our claims of love, we know too well our failures and our flaws. If we are distressed when our claims to love the Lord are not believed, it is likely because we are shy in accepting what follows after the “therefore.” Feed his sheep? Yes, of course, but what about family obligations? Yes, but what about my money issues? Yes, but I have my reputation to consider? Follow him? Surely, yes, of course, but does he mean follow his line of thought? Or follow his example? Does he mean literally follow his footsteps? Do I have to die? Yes, you do. We do. Die to self. Die for others. Die for our love of him. Peter denies knowing Christ and therefore denies loving him. Without that love there is nothing to feed the sheep, no one to follow. Peter's love redeems his denial. And his death fed the Church. Now it's our turn to profess a sacrificial love for Christ and do what he commands.

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Texas Whirlwind

I've arrived in Irving, TX. . .well, I got here Saturday afternoon.  Things have been a whirlwind since then. . .thus the lack of blogging. 

It's gonna be a busy one, folks!  So far, I'm signed up for the Friday community Mass.  Will probably catch a Sunday Mass or two as well.

Last night, I went to WalMart with several of the friars.  Standing in line at the register I overheard two teenage girls talking about whether or not to get their noses pierced, "Like. . .not the big kind but like the really tiny sparkly kind."  The whole conversation sent me into a Despair Spiral, mourning the decline of our culture.  Then, out of the blue, one of the girls asks the other (I am not lying here), "Did you get that objectivism stuff yesterday?"  Response:  "Yea.  Ayn Rand.  It's an epistemology based on her rejection of altruism and religion."  OK.  Wasn't expecting that. 

Pray for me and my students. . .God bless, Fr. Philip

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Coffee Cup Browsing

No, Palin did not get the Paul Revere story wrong.  It's the media who think the Schoolhouse Rocks version is the whole truth.  Palin once again trips up the MSM.  They fall for her Dumb State College Girl routine every time. 

Wow. . .just. . .Wow.  The lefties in SanFran do not know their history.  Haven't we been told repeatedly that they're Ever-So-Much-Smarter than we are?  Apparently, they are also far superior in bigotry as well.

Uh oh.  Wards of the Greek Nanny State are upset with Mummy and Daddy.  They are demanding that the Rainbow Unicorns immediately begin producing goods and services for free.

St. Bono under fire for avoiding taxes.  Taxes--like rules, laws, morals, etc.--are for the Little People. 

Classic example of media bias:  Anglican clergy "defect" to the Catholic Church.  How about "converted," "came home," "moved," "switched," "transferred". . .???  "Defect" is probably the worse possible choice.

Another move to undermine the family:  12 y.o.'s making their own medical decisions. 

Slinking deeper and wider into our culture. . .

You will never leave the house drunk again!


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Miscellaneous Updates & Ramblings about Parish Life. . .

Doing my two least favorite things in the world today:  packing and cleaning.  Ugh.  Fortunately, I've managed to keep recent material acquisitions to a minimum.  Most of the books are going back to Rome to await my return. 

Though I really hate packing and unpacking, it affords me the opportunity to rummage through my stuff two or three times a year and clean things out.  I shudder to think what my room in Rome is going to look like after I've been assigned there for 25 years!  

My experience of Dominicans is that we are a messy bunch when it comes to our private rooms, but generally very clean and orderly when it comes to public rooms in the priory.  I know several friars, however, who are meticulously tidy; their rooms are practically showcases!  That can't be healthy.  :-)

Anyway, I fly out late Saturday morning for Dallas.  I'll be at the University of Dallas from June 6th-Aug 12th, teaching two classes:  20th Century Literature (mostly the modernist novel) and History of Christian Spirituality.  God willing, I'll take a drive to Mississippi to visit Ye Ole Parentals and Assorted Familial Relations.  Then on to Oxford and Rome. 

While I'm waiting for the first cup of coffee to kick in, might as well muse on my time as a parish priest.  Ninety percent of my time in the parish was fantastic!  Great parishioners, excellent co-workers in ministry, good experiences in the pulpit, at the altar, in the confessional, the hospital.  The people of St. Joseph's are simply Good People.  They went out of their way to be kind and welcoming to a newcomer.  Helpful, encouraging, engaged in God's work, just Good People.  Having the opportunity/challenge to preach regularly to a non-academic congregation helped me tremendously in honing the homelitic craft.  I can't really pinpoint what's different about preaching to Regular-Normal Catholics (i.e., Catholics in a non-academic setting), but there is a huge difference and this difference has been a lifesaver for me spiritually.  Another big difference btw parish life and university life is the chance to celebrate funeral Masses.  How many priests get six years into their priesthood before celebrating a funeral Mass? 

Two areas of parish life have been difficult, or worrisome.  First, the work schedule/being on-call everyday makes concentration almost impossible.  Just as I get focused on reading/writing, a call comes in for a priest to come to the hospital to anoint someone.  Or the doorbell rings or the phone rings.  It took me a few weeks to stop being annoyed by these "interruptions" and remember that I am here to serve God's people and not sit around reading books.  The other difficult element of parish life for a Dominican is the absence of a discernible Dominican religious life.  My time here at St. Joseph's has been largely indistinguishable from what a diocesan priest would experience as an assistant pastor.  With just two of us in the rectory, there's really not much community life beyond the evening meal and common prayer.  Basically, when Dominicans serve a parish, the parish schedule and pastoral needs trump religious life every time.  A larger community of friars would be able to shape parish life more effectively.  I wonder if this has been done in other places?  

Despite these two small adjustments, serving the Good People of St Joseph's has been a blast! 

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Live as if. . .

N.B.  This is one of those homilies that sounded fine when I wrote it. . .at 4.30am with three cups of Cafe du Monde coffee vibrating through my system.  Once I actually preached it, not so much.  Reading it again, definitely not.

6th Week of Easter (Th)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

For the last several days, we've been hearing how Jesus prepared his disciples for his inevitable death. Today, he tells them, “A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.” This teaching distresses the disciples, but it shouldn't. Jesus has said over and over again that he and the Father are one—their words, their actions, their intentions, all one and the same. Had the disciples understood this teaching they probably would not have been so distressed about his death. The incarnate Son can freely give himself to death, but the Father is eternal, utterly deathless and always present. Therefore, while the disciples can lose Jesus the man, they cannot lose the Son, a divine person “one in being” with his Father. Confused about what Jesus means by “a little while” but afraid to ask questions, the disciples struggle to understand, “What does this mean that he is saying to us?. . .We do not know what he means.” Because they fail to fully comprehend his teaching, Jesus has pity on their ignorance and prophesies, “. . .you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.” All our grief, every worry, all of our anxiety, and every burden is transformed into joy by the promise of the resurrection. The whole of the Easter season is designed to hammer into our too thick skulls that nothing of this world endures. Not its pleasures nor its pains. All of creation is redeemed and will be renewed, but the world—the enemies of God and His Christ within creation—that world will vanish forever. However, those who belong to Christ will endure, will always live again.

We have two problems here with the resurrection. First, we have difficulty living now as if we believe Christ's promise of the resurrection. Second, we resist the idea that we can suffer well knowing who and what awaits us. Both problems are problems of faith, problems with trusting God's Word. We are unable or unwilling to throw ourselves wholly into God's plans and surrender control of our destiny. We've learned too much about how to attain secular happiness, too much about the power of positive thinking, too much about how to live in a world that requires compromise and deceit. Our hearts and minds are focused on this world's horizons: a conflict-free marriage, well-adjusted kids, a comfortable bank account, a satisfying job. None of which is evil per se but none of which will ultimately fulfill our longing for God unless each is directed towards giving God glory by preaching His Gospel. Our daily joys and sufferings must glorify God. They must point to God, mark Him out as source and summit. They must serve as the means to our divine end lest they become traps to meet the Devil's needs. Whatever mourning we must do, whatever grief we suffer now will be transformed into joy in the light of our promised resurrection. If we can't believe this, we are lost before we even start the journey.

The disciples are confused, frustrated. They don't understand what the Lord is trying to teach them. He's told them everything that they need to know to survive in the world as his apostles, yet they are still frightened of his absence. What they cannot know is who and what they will become once he's gone. That bit of knowledge must wait until he's gone and the Holy Spirit sent among them. What is yet to be revealed is their lives in the Spirit. This they must live in order to know. And so must we. We can read, pray, attend Mass, and listen to homilies but until we surrender to God—wholly, without reservation—the promise of the resurrection is a myth, a pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by trick to make us behave. Until Christ's spirit of renewal burns through us, leaving us with a single heart and mind united to his Body, we are frightened, frustrated, and driven by fear. Live as if you are already resurrected. Live as if you see God face-to-face.

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Coffee Cup Browsing

Lefties happy to sign a petition calling for a ban on the free speech of conservatives.  Not even a little surprising.  When I was a leftie, I thought that free speech was a dangerous thing too.

Progressive rainbows and unicorns. . .a command economy requires possession of divine knowledge.  Not to mention divine goodness.

A former student of mine and current seminarian for Austin, TX, Sean DeWitt has posted a reflection of Sunday's gospel.  Check it out.

Why aren't The Poor of Britain joining the "Save Our NHS" protests in the UK?

English Dominicans visit a Recusant House in south Oxfordshire.  The way things are going for the faith in the UK, Catholics there might start thinking about keeping a few of these houses in prime condition.

A Clash of Loons:  KKK protests the Westboro Baptists.  Gotta love America!

Hilarious. . .this had me laughing for a while.

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Father, where are you going from here. . .?

. . .that's the oft-asked question these days!  Here's a rough schedule:

June 4th-Aug 14th --> Univ. of Dallas:  teaching summer classes in theology and literature

Aug 15th-22nd --> Mississippi:  visiting the parentals and assorted familial relations

Aug 23rd-Sept 31st --> Oxford, UK, Blackfriars to study for comps/visit my fav OP priory

Oct 1st --> back to Rome to take the Ph.L. comps and begin the Ph.D. (assuming I pass the comps)

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The Devil has a deal for you. . .

N.B.  This is an edited version of a 2006 homily.  Despite my misgivings, it was well-received at all three Masses I celebrated this weekend.  Go figure.  My guess is that since it's actually three homilies in one, there was enough in it to speak to just about everyone!  :-)

6th Sunday of Easter (A)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

Was it easier back then, I wonder, to believe in and to witness about Christ? “Back then,” of course, being during the first few decades after the resurrection. Was it simpler? You just believed, met Christ in the Spirit, and then ran around telling everyone what you now know: He is risen! And that was enough: he is risen. It had to be less complicated, less involved to be a follower of the Way way back then. Well, it wasn’t easier in the sense of having to run for your life every the temple guards or the Roman soldiers showed up. Then there were the crowds who weren’t happy about you blaspheming their elder gods when you preached the gospel. Not to mention the growing factions of Christians who split from the apostolic faith and polluted the Word with Egyptian occultism, Roman blood rituals, Greek mystery philosophies, and such nonsense. Oh yea, and then there’s that whole martyrdom business—arrows, blades, fires, crucifixions, drownings, mass murders by imperial decree. Belief itself was easier, I think. Though believing came at a much higher price than it does for us now. Of course, by “us” I mean, “western Christians.” Christians can still find the blade, the jail cell, the shot to the head in some parts of the world—mostly those places dominated by certain sects of Islam or a secular dictatorship. Still, reading the Acts of the Apostles you get the sense of a greater faith among the Christians, a brighter glory, a more urgent spirit of holiness and fervor than we sometimes experience now. Jesus had to know that the fire he kindled would burn hot for a while and then begin to settle into a warm glow before turning to ash altogether. How much more would his friends and their students begin to feel the pressure of family, friends, neighbors to return to the traditional ways once it became clear that he wasn’t coming back tomorrow or next week or even several years down the line. You would think that someone as smart as Jesus would have a plan in place to keep his Word burning down through the centuries. The Good News is: he did and that plan is called the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, our Advocate and Counselor!

Look at Philip in Samaria. The crowds paid attention to him because he “proclaimed the Christ to them.” He freed people from unclean spirits, healed the paralyzed, and “there was great joy in [Samaria].” So successful was Philip’s preaching there that “the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God…” They sent in the Big Guns, Peter and John, who “prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen upon any of them…” Philip had preached and healed and baptized, but Peter and John laid hands on these new members of the family, and “they received the Holy Spirit.” Notice here that though Philip brought the Word to Samaria, the larger Church—represented by Peter and John—brought the Holy Spirit. Look at Philip in Samaria! He went down to that city and the Samaritans paid attention to him. Why? Because he “proclaimed the Christ to them.”

Who then is this Holy Spirit? Go back a little while and remember the promise of Christ as he says farewell to his friends, “…I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth…” This is the first part of his promise. What’s the second? Jesus promises, “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” So, who is this Holy Spirit? Christ himself, that’s who: “In a little while the world will no longer see me,” Jesus says, “but you will see me, because I live and you will live.” If we live and he lives then it must be the case that we—all of us and Christ himself— we live together. What do we live in, together? The Holy Spirit! But then Jesus says, “…I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.” So, it’s not the Spirit but the Father we live in? Not quite. It is the Father and the Spirit that we live in…we live as Christ, the one who had made us sons of the Father through the Spirit. Do you see the picture here?

Now, who are “we”? We are children of the Father. We live in the Spirit. We are the brothers and sisters of Christ. Who is “we”? Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments…and whoever love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him…” “We” then are those among us who keep Christ’s commandments and love him. So, if we are those who love Christ, living in him, the Father, and the Spirit and live with them in love, then can we say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are Love? You better believe it! No, seriously, you had better believe it. Why? Because there is no way for us to abide with Christ other than this: to love God, love neighbor, love self in exactly the same way and to the same degree than we love God Himself. In fact, we cannot say that we love God while we hate our neighbor, while we hate ourselves. There is no room in a hateful heart for the love that gives us life in Him! 

How then you do you love God? This is not a rhetorical question. This is a question about your eternal destination. Most deeply, most basically, at the heart of everything you are and hope to be, ask the question: how do I love God? In what manner do I love God? Peter helps us here. He writes, “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.” Meaning, make the One who died for you, everything he is and everything he did, make him ruler of your very being, God of your thinking, your believing, your doing, your living and your dying. He must rule, or someone else will. Peter continues, “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope…” Why do you hope? Why are you hoping? Seduced as you are toward spending eternity with God, why do you trust? Directed as you are toward your perfection in Christ, why do anticipate? Why is following Christ in his passion, his death, and his resurrection a Good for you? Knowing that your answer might lead to ridicule, abuse, violence, even death, why would you tell anyone why you hope? Peter says, “For it is better to suffer for doing good…than for doing evil.” If it is God’s will that you suffer, it is better to suffer telling the truth; it is better to suffer while witnessing to Christ’s suffering for you, for us all. 

Jesus, looking at his friends, knows that such a witness will draw the darkest spirits, the most maligned accusations against them. He knows this because he himself knows that even his friends—those sitting in front of him—will betray him. If your friends will abandon you in your most painful moment, why would you expect those who never knew you, even your enemies, to hang around and help? Peter writes, “[Jesus] was put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the Spirit.” And so it must be for us as well. Given this truth, why do we stay the course to the Cross?

Don’t you think that it was easier back then? They were closer to Christ. They knew him flesh and bone. They heard him with their own ears, watched him with their eyes. They knew him in a way we never can. And yet, here we are. Gathered together in his name as his Body, offering his gifts on the altar of sacrifice, saying AMEN to lives bound to one another in charity. Here we are—loving him as he loves us so that he might reveal himself to us. What does he reveal? He reveals, he shows us that in his love, we too are Christ! We abide, live, move and have our being, we plan grow, thrive, harvest in his love; we work, play, sleep, eat, study in his love; we do everything we do, think everything we think, feel everything we feel in his love. It is no more difficult now than it was then. The Spirit moved then, and the Spirit moves now. The Spirit set them on fire then, he sets us on fire now. The Spirit gave them what they needed to explain their hope; he gives us now the words, the courage, the power to preach and teach our hope in him now. Yes, he suffered; so do we. Yes, he died; so do we. Yet he lives, and so do we…in him, with him, through him. We live as Christ.

It is no easier now than it was then. The Devil has a deal for you. Unclean spirits still plague us. Aren’t are tempted to surrender to our neighbors and say yes to this culture’s lust for death? Aren’t we ridiculed for our naïve faith in ancient tales of miracles? For believing that we need salvation from the stain of sin? For our hope that one day he will return in the flesh to take us away? Sure, of course, we are. The same spirit of despair, darkness, loathing, and destruction still haunts the Church. We must remain unmoved by this spirit of desolation. Love Christ. Follow his commandment to love. Remain in him, and he will remain in you. If He can change the sea into dry land and deliver His children from slavery, then he can give you the Word of Life to speak in His name. Keep your conscience clear and be ready. The Devil has a deal for you. He prowls like a hungry lion hunting for someone to devour. If you want to be the meat between the devil’s teeth, then let go of Christ, surrender to despair, abandon your friends in the Body, and run toward the easier choice of living without our Father’s rule, without His love. This is the freedom the world has for sale and the Devil is ready to make a deal just for you. He'll let you have this world's freedom for as little as your immortal soul. Tell him you are bought and paid for: the Advocate, the Paraclete owns you, body and soul.

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The world hates us. . .

5th Week of Easter (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

As persons wholly owned by God through our baptism in Christ, we are in the world but not of it. We live here, endure here, but we do not thrive here. Our full flourishing as creatures of a loving God comes when we see Him face-to-face. Until then, our principal joy is to share the Good News of His mercy to sinners. And as good as this news is, it is not always welcomed news. Jesus says to his disciples, “. . .you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, [therefore] the world hates you.” Why did the world hate our Lord and why does it hate us? To bring the Good News of God's mercy to sinners first requires that we identify the sinners, starting with ourselves. Pointing out sin and naming it as such is a tricky business to say the least. We risk being self-righteous, harshly judgmental, and becoming the enemies of human freedom. Announcing to a self-satisfied world that its virtues and vices are deficient in the eyes of God invites ridicule and persecution. And, frankly, there have been times when we have deserved all the ridicule and persecution we have received. When we have allowed our own gross failures to diminish the luster of our Lord's teachings, we have not only invited the jeers of the world, we have welcomed them. Thus Jesus' warning stands today, “No slave is greater than his master.” If we keep his word, the world will hate us as it hated him. If we abandon his word, the world will join us in our self-destruction. Either way, in this world, we lose.

But losing in this world is no evil thing. Nor does it have to be a painful fall. As Christ himself says, we may suffer for a little while, but our suffering, if properly endured for the benefit of others, will serve all the more to give witness to his sacrifice for us. Is this comforting? Maybe, a little. It doesn't matter. We were never promised comfort. We were given a commission and the authority to carry it out. We either accept this commission and its attendant authority, or we do not. If we do, then we can expect little more than opposition from the world and the threat of constant defeat while we are here. Thankfully, it is no evil thing to be defeated by that which we cannot endure, cannot, in the end, claim victory. Victory over death was won on the cross. Our task is to proclaim that victory come what may, come what will. If we keep his word, we abide in his victory and all the hate, persecution, and ridicule thrown our way will pass with the world into defeat.

Jesus tells his disciples that he chose them out of the world to be his own. This isn't the sort of choosing that the childish long for, the sort of choosing that marks us out as special, above the herd. To think we are somehow better b/c we are chosen is the Devil's temptation; his attempt to entice us to set ourselves aside as particularly holy or pure. None of us is chosen for our special purity, or our extraordinary righteousness. Christ calls to all those hearts and minds open to his Word, and we answer. Not so that we might be “better than” but so that we might be perfected out of our sin. The moment we believe our baptism confers on us an immunity to sin, we rejoin the world's passing and we welcome defeat. How do we call sinners to repentance and welcome them to God's mercy? By first bringing ourselves to repentance and welcoming Him into our lives as God and Father. If can't or won't keep his word, then we have no authority to witness to a world that hates us. No slave is greater than his master. Christ learned obedience through suffering. Are we listening to his word and suffering for the salvation of the world?

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R.I.P.

Earlier this week Sr. Therese Huong Do, OP was killed in Houston by a drunk driver.  Sister was on her way to teach a confirmation class.

Sr. Therese has a special connection to the Southern Dominican Province of friars. . .her brother, fra. Tan Do is a student friar of our province, currently studying in St. Louis.

Please pray for Sr. Therese, her family, and the young man who caused her death.

R.I.P. 

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Missing Kindle book

A kind HancAquam reader purchased a Kindle book from my Wish List recently. . .Bright of the Sky. 

I didn't get an email notification from Amazon about the gift, and they have no record of the book being purchased.  

So, if you bought this book for me, I didn't get it!  It's possible that someone saw it on my Wish List and bought it for themselves. . .which is fine. . .but it shows up on the "purchased" list under my List.

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Grazie. . .mille grazie!

A quick Mille Grazie to those who sent books on my birthday!  I hit 47 yesterday.  Mama Becky denies that I am that old. . .but the birth certificate does not lie.

The books were shipped to Texas, so official thank you notes will go out after I arrive in Irving on June 4th. 

God bless, Fr. Philip

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On being leaders in love

5th Week of Easter (F)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

Of all the strange things our Lord has said—and he's said some pretty strange things—the last command he issues to the disciples is probably the strangest of all. He commands them to love one another. And if that's not strange enough, he goes on to command them to love one another as he loves them. Not just any old sort of mundane love, not just to think good thoughts or say nice things. . .but to love each other in the same way that he loves each of them. Perhaps the only thing he could say to make this any stranger would be something like, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Of course, he does say this and this whole episode moves from the unusual to the outright bizarre. Now, you might be thinking that there's nothing all that unusual or bizarre about Jesus commanding us to love one another as he loves us, or that dying for a friend is the greatest sort of love we can give. As a Church, we've lived with these ideas for centuries, and we've heard them repeated and expounded upon countless times. But as members of the Church in the 21st century, we are the beneficiaries of a Judeo-Christian culture that lifts up divine love not only as an ideal but as a real possibility. Even when we fail as individuals and as a culture to love one another we recognize the obligation to do so, and we mark our failures as failures. What's so strange about Jesus' command to love one another is that he thinks that love is something that can be commanded. 

What if we were to act as though love was something we deserved, something we are entitled to. What if we engraved in our laws and civil customs the idea that each of us—in virtue of just being born—has the natural right to be loved by everyone else. Like the right to vote or the right to free speech, the right to be loved is now fundamental to the constitution of our republic. Would this reform comply with our Lord's command? Law-suit happy citizens would be delighted. Trial lawyers would certainly be delirious. But would love given under the threat of legal action really be love? Or would we eventually come to understand love in strictly behavioral terms? I could fake love by acting lovingly in order to avoid having to pay damages. We would have stacks of Supreme Court rulings detailing various tests for true love, complete with dissenting opinions objecting to the very notion that love can be quantified. Before the ink is dry on the Love Amendment, the Lord's command would be destroyed b/c we would have reduced it to a natural right, that is, a legal prohibition against not-loving. Yes, it would be a command but would it be what the Lord actually ordered? No, it wouldn't.

The Lord's command to love only makes sense if we are first his disciples and then his friends; only if we first sit at his feet to listen and learn and then become his companions on the Way. His authority to command us derives from our surrender to him, from our willingness to be commanded—our freely given consent at the beginning our discipleship to follow wherever he leads. That kind of surrender takes enormous amounts of trust and not only trust in him but trust in one another. We cannot obey the command to love God w/o loving each and every one of His children. In fact, we show our love for Him by loving one another. If you think that's easy, try it. Try willing the good for your worst enemy for just one hour. Will all happiness and joy for someone who has injured you most. Will all blessings and success for someone who loathes you, someone who would see you humiliated or destroyed. Even better, will every good thing for the one you would see injured or humiliated. Difficult? Oh yes. And thus the necessity and the wisdom of the Lord's command. Could we even begin to love w/o the love he has shown us? Would we even know where to start? He suffered death to show us the Way to love. We followed. Now, it's our turn to lead.

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Back in town. . .

Back in Ponchaoula!  I managed to lose my wallet on the shuttle btw Hobby and Bush.  The driver kindly returned to the airport to give it back.

I lost my cell phone at the retreat center.  Someone used my cell to text one of the friars on my contact list and told him that the phone would be at the front desk.  It never arrived.

We had a great time at the Assembly!

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Just say NO to idols

5th Week of Easter (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

Paul and Barnabus find themselves in an awkward situation. Having preached the Good News in Lystra and healed a crippled man, the two apostles are acclaimed by the crowds and mistaken for gods. When the priest of Zeus attempts to sacrifice an ox to them, Paul shouts, “Men, why are you doing this?” He tells them that they are just men come to proclaim God's mercy to sinners. He tells them that they must turn from their idols and offer worship to the living God, the one who “who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.” It's not too difficult to imagine that the crowds, especially the pagan priests, received this bit of news with some skepticism, even a little hostility. Here are two obviously powerful, gods-touched men who perform a miracle refusing to take credit for a miraculous feat and yelling at them that their centuries old religious traditions are deficient maybe even evil. Surely, the gods are testing the faithful, waiting to see if they will abandon Zeus and Hermes on the word of two wandering prophets. Paul tells the crowds that the living God has allowed these pagans “to go their own ways” and at the same time provided them—out of His abundant goodness—with many sure signs of His presence and purpose: the rains and fruitful seasons, nourishment and gladness for their hearts. Even with this revelation, the pagans are barely prevented from offering sacrifice to the Lord's ambassadors. Mistaking the sign for that which is signified, the pagans continue in their idolatry. Are we tempted to do the same?

The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council teach the Church that God reveals Himself to us through scripture, the person of Jesus Christ, and the witness of “created things.” Surrounded as we are and totally dependent upon the created things of this world, we are free to direct our worship to the things themselves or to the One who created them. We can believe that mountains, trees, rivers, animals, and the stars all stand above us as gods, or we can respect them as signs of God's presence, created windows through which we see and hear the Word Himself revealed. In this scientific and technological age, we might choose to honor creation in less religious terms, in less worshipful ways and still hold the things of the world above their Creator. We can deny the presence of God in His creation and believe that nothing exists beyond or above the material stuff of the universe. We can live out our lives believing that our dominion over creation was sealed by the coming of the scientific age and that our technology gives us certain if not absolute control over our destiny. If we make such a choice, choosing to center ourselves in the temporary matter of the world, we sacrifices our lives to that which cannot endure, cannot persist beyond its own destruction. We become idolaters, worshipers of the Signs of the divine and not the Divine Himself.

Most modern Christians aren't tempted to worship Zeus or Odin or Vishnu. These aren't the idols we set up on the altars of our daily lives. Our idols are less substantial, more subtle than the figures of ancient myth. If we are tempted to idolatry nowadays, we are tempted to offer praise and thanksgiving to our ambitions, our passions, and our prejudices. Rather than acknowledge the presence of Christ in the tabernacle of our hearts, we are tempted to place a selfish will or a libertine spirit on the throne reserved for our Lord. Even with the grace of baptism and the sustenance of the Eucharist, we will worship Worry and Vengeance if we believe that worrying and revenge will serve us better than surrender and mercy. Christ sends the Holy Spirit to teach us and remind us that idols of all kinds—whether they are made of gold or psychological distress—are made things and subject to death. Only the Lord of Life, the one who has conquered death, is worthy of our worship. Only He deserves our faithful attention and the sacrifice of our lives in His service.

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Away into the wild blue yonder. . .again.

I am off today to Houston to attend our Provincial Assembly.

Be back in Ponchatoula late on May 26th.

Pray for the Province of St. Martin de Porres!

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What Sisyphus Can Teach Us About Faith

5th Week of Easter (A)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

The king of Corinth was a clever man. He was also prideful and lived to lie to friend and foe alike. His pride and deceitfulness kept him in power and flush with gold. When given the chance, he would divulge an ally's secrets to a mutual enemy and reap the rewards of betrayal. It was only a matter of time before his hubris compelled him to expose the follies of Zeus and gamble his cleverness against the anger of a god. One day, believing himself equal to the gods, the king told the river god, Asopus, one of Zeus' secrets in exchange for a fresh water spring in his city. As punishment, Zeus ordered Death to chain the king in the Abyss. The king, ever-clever, tricked Death and escaped. When the king died, his wife did not observe the proper burial rites, so he ended up in Hades only to escape and return to his wife to scold her for being disrespectful. Fed up with the king's impertinence, Zeus ordered his spirit to bear an eternal burden. He was condemned to push a boulder up a hill. When he nearly reached the top of the hill with the boulder, it would escape his grasp and roll to the bottom. The king would have to begin again. . .for eternity. The king's name was Sisyphus. To this day, we use his name to describe an absurd task, or a futile burden that leads to despair. For some, Sisyphus and his fate serve as a warning against pride and deceit. To others, he's an absurd hero, a foolish solider in a war against tyrants. Who is he for the followers of Christ? Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” But how often do we lovers of Christ wallow in our burdens and make our troubles badges of honor?

Because he was a fool to challenge Zeus and because his punishment seems so familiar, so “right,” Sisyphus is a popular subject in modern poetry. The American poet, Stephen Dunn, in a series of poems starring our anti-hero, wonders what Sisyphus would do if he were forgiven his sins, relieved of our ridiculous task. In a poem titled, “Sisyphus and the Sudden Lightness,” Dunn gives us the man mysteriously absolved of his debt to Zeus and wandering the streets in search of a purpose. Dunn writes, “Sisyphus, of course, was worried;/ he'd come to depend on his burden,/wasn't sure who he was without it.” He peels an orange; pets a dog, keeps moving forward b/c he is “afraid/of the consequences of standing still.//He no longer felt inclined to smile.” Over time, Sisyphus realizes that he is no longer being punished b/c the gods have disappeared. He hasn't been forgiven; he's been abandoned. So, out of anger or frustration or maybe defiance, “He dared to raise his fist to the sky./Nothing, gloriously, happened.//Then a different terror overtook him.” Sisyphus has been his punishment for centuries. Now that the boulder and the hill no longer imprison him, who is he? The gods are gone and the history of his punishment is more ridiculous, more meaningless than ever.

Sisyphus' heart is troubled. He has been abandoned by his gods, and he no longer knows who or what he is. He was condemned to an eternity of futile labor. Had he come to enjoy that boulder and the hill? Had he come to believe that his punishment was not only well-deserved but actually beneficial to his soul? As followers of Christ, what would we tell him about pride and its punishment? About lying and the consequences of defying God? Would we tell him that he got what he deserved and that he should shoulder his burden w/o complaint? If so, then we have to ask ourselves: Do we see ourselves in Sisyphus, wallowing in our burdens, making our troubled hearts badges of honor? Are we freed men and women, liberated children of a loving God; or, are we prisoners to our self-selected and self-imposed punishments? It might not be polite to say or pleasant to believe, but those of us who lay claim to the kingdom of God too often see ourselves as lost, abandoned; forsaken and punished for our sins. Sometimes we see this so intensely, believe it so fervently that we become our burdens; we transform ourselves from forgiven souls with an occasionally troubled heart into constantly troubled hearts with souls we cannot trust are forgiven. After all, we deserve our burdens; we are entitled to our troubles and we would not know who or what we are if, suddenly, our sentences were commuted and we were set free. Who are you once you are unchained and your prison is destroyed?

Jesus tells his disciples that he is preparing himself for death. He is leaving them. Confronted by their overwhelming anxiety and fear, Jesus says to them, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.” He tells them that he is going to prepare a place for them in his Father's house. “I will come back again,” he assures them, “and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way.” Most anxious and skeptical of them all, Thomas, blurts out, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Can you hear Thomas' real question? He's really asking, “How can you abandon us? How can you just leave us here? Why are we being punished? We don't know the way!” Jesus says to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father.” You know the way. You know me, and I am the way. You know the truth and you know the life. I am the truth and the life. You have come to me, and in doing so, you have come to the Father. When I return, you will all return with me to the Father. Did his friends believe him? Do we believe him? If we think Jesus is lying, then we will never surrender our burdens, never give up the punishments for sin that we believe we deserve. If we trust in his word, then we will crawl out from under the anxiety and the despair; we will gladly, eagerly push aside all of our destructive guilt and self-recrimination. Finally, we will come to accept that we are not the sum total of our sins and the years we have spent in prison, but that we are the freed children of a loving God who waits for us to occupy the many rooms of His heavenly house. That's who and what we are: not guests or visitors but children, beloved sons and daughters come home, and come home for good.

Peter tells us more about who and what we are in Christ: “You are 'a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises' of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” We are a race—black, white, yellow, brown, red—a race of those chosen by God. We are royal priests, offering sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving on the altars of our daily lives. We are a holy nation—Americans, Russians, Japanese, Mexicans—a nation set aside to be a commonwealth of faith and reason in a world slowing going insane. And we are a people, a tribe, citizens and subjects of a kingdom that will never end. When we are who we were redeemed to be and when we do what we were redeemed to do, there is no time for us nor energy left in us for absurd burdens, futile punishments, or useless anxiety. 

Sisyphus, upon realizing that his punishment was at an end, and realizing that his gods had abandoned him, shook his fist at heaven, and “a different terror overtook him.” He was terrified of not knowing who or what we was without his burden, without his petty gods. If you are afraid of surrendering your worries and your labors b/c you believe that you deserve them, or b/c you fear that you will become lost, let Christ's words bang around in your mind for a while: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. . .I will come back again and take you to myself. . .”

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Anniversary

Please pray for me and my OP brother, Fr. Scott Daniels. . .we are celebrating the sixth anniversary of our priestly ordination today!

We were ordained at St Peter's Church in Memphis by Bishop Terry Steib, SVD.

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