Heart, mind, strength

31st Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Our Lady, Star of the Sea

Audio File

With All Saints and All Souls, the Church has heard much about love of late. If you think we've heard too much about love, remember: God is Love; so, when we speak of love, we speak of God. Can the Church hear too much about God? Can we be reminded too often that we live, move, and have our being in Love? Preaching to the assembled people of God, just before they cross the Jordan into the Promised Land, Moses enjoins the people: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Not only are we reminded that we live, move, and have our being in God; we are enjoined—commanded—to return His love with every act, every thought, every word, with every breath we take. Knowing that we are loved is not enough. Believing that we are loved is not enough. What is enough? That each one of us becomes God's love in flesh and bone; that each one of us rises and sleeps, eats and works, prays and plays soaked through with the spirit of God. Take these words to heart: “The Lord our God is Lord alone!” And the Lord our God is love. 

Moses commands, and Jesus agrees: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. . .” Resting at the center of our being, the heart holds all our passions. Every emotion we feel—sorrow, joy, fear, anger—starts in the heart and moves us to action. Sorrow moves us to mourn. Joy moves us to give thanks and praise. Fear moves us to run. Anger moves us to fight. By themselves, our passions are neither good nor evil; they are what they are and no more. Sorrow can move us to mourn or move us to violence. Fear can move us to run or move us to laugh. By themselves, our passions can tell us nothing about what is right or wrong, about what we ought to do or not to do. When Moses commands, and Jesus agrees, that we must love our God with all our heart, they are commanding us put love at the center of our being. Love must rule sorrow. Love must rule fear, anger, and joy. Without exception, love must rule the heart, control the passions, and advise the will. When we fail to love God will our whole heart, we allow passion to eat away at our reason; we invite evil into our lives; and all the mortal sins that damn us—murder, adultery, fornication—all those acts of disobedience that leave us separated from God, they all become too easy. And then, living apart from God seems normal. There is nothing normal about living in rebellion against the Lord God! 

So, Moses commands, and Jesus agrees: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your mind. . .” If your passions play about in your heart, then your intellect works away in your mind. Every thought, every moment of thinking is done by the mind using reason. Like the passions, the intellect is a gift from God—a gift we are to use in deliberating on the moral choices before us, the intellectual choices presented to us. And just like the passions of our heart, the intellect working in our mind can become disordered, unfocused, confused. When Moses and Jesus command us to love God with our whole mind, they are commanding us to focus all of our intellectual power, all of our mental faculties on the task of making sure that no one and nothing controls how we think, how we deliberate, how we reason before we first give our minds in love to God. If love must rule sorrow, anger, fear, and joy, then love must also rule reason as it works in the mind. Otherwise, we will choose to believe a lie; we'll be taken in by the Liar himself; and find ourselves thinking along with the princes of this world instead of the Prince of Peace. With love ruling both the heart and the mind, we are souls closer to God and closer to His perfection. 

But what about strength? Both Moses and Jesus tell us to love God with our whole strength. Heart, mind, strength. Strength is a physical, mental, or psychological power that we wield to accomplish a task. Think: a strong mind, a strong heart, a strong back. Strength is also the power we use to resist physical, mental, or psychological pressure. Think: strength of character, strength of purpose, moral strength. When we put our strength—all of our strength—into loving God, His love becomes our strength, and nothing that nature, man, or the Devil himself can throw at us that will break us. This spiritual strength is our firm, steadfast conviction that God abides by His promises; that He has never failed His people and He never will; that the God Who freed Moses and His people from Egypt and pulled them through the desert to the Promised Land will even now—5,000 yrs later—stand by His covenant and see us blessed, protected, and flourishing under His care. With all your strength—mind, heart, soul—love God. The Lord Who will stand you up and nothing will knock you down. 

Let me—for a moment—play spiritual director, confessor. When I search my own heart and mind, and when God's people come to me as their pastor, I see a lot of failure; a whole lot of weakness; and even more outright disobedience. I recognize in these souls all my own failures and weaknesses. All brought and paid for by my disobedience. Whether the sin is lack of charity or impatience or infidelity, whatever the sin is, the gnarled root of the sin is always the same: failure to love God. I hear Jesus say to scribe in this evening's gospel, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And I think to myself, “You know all that stuff too, Philip. How far are you from the kingdom of God?” What does this scribe know that I don't? What is he doing that I'm not doing? Mark tells us that Jesus saw that the scribe “answered with understanding.” But surely understanding the commandment to love is not enough to get closer to God! When we understand, we “stand under,” meaning we place ourselves underneath, in submission to. This is an act of both the heart and the mind, an act of strength that defies pride and arrogance. When we fail to love God, we fail to understand—to place ourselves in submission to—His will for us. There is nothing for us to do but fail without the power of God's love moving us to love Him.

Think for a moment about your trials and your temptations. I bet you that you—like me—can trace every single trial you've suffered, every single temptation you've fought to a moment when you allowed passion to rule, or your reason to get confused, or your strength to waver. And every one of those times can be traced even further back to a moment when God was not front and center in your life; when your love was given to something or someone less than God Himself. Our worst failures to hear God and listen to Him come when we decide that we no longer need His love, or when we decide that something or someone else is more deserving of our love—the bottle, the dollar, the job, the neighbor's spouse, my reputation. What are the chances that a dollar will get me into heaven? Or a well-padded resume? Or a long list of sexual partners? These aren't love. None of these will love me into the kingdom. Christ and him alone is the key to the kingdom. He is love given flesh and bone; love nailed to a cross and risen again from the grave; and now he sits at the right hand of the Father and calls to our hearts and our minds and our souls to join him at the heavenly banquet. When you hear that call, your heart will leap, your mind will clear, and your soul will rejoice b/c love calls to love, deep to deep, and, if you will to be strong in His presence, you will answer back: I love you, Lord, my heart, my strength. 

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Priesthood Sunday (a belated homily)

NB.  The deacons are preaching at St Dominic this weekend.  I'm preaching at Our Lady Star of the Sea.  That homily will be up later today.  Below is a homily for Priesthood Sunday* from 2005. It's one of the first I posted on HancAquam.

 

31st Sunday OT (Priesthood Sunday)

Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, Univ of Dallas

Wow. I know of no other way of expressing my amazement at tonight’s readings. Wow! On Priesthood Sunday we get these readings. One from the prophet Malachi, delivering a dire warning from the Lord to his priests: “If you do not listen, if you do not lay it to heart, to give glory to my name…I will send a curse upon you and of your blessing I make a curse. You have turned aside from the way, and have caused many to falter by your instruction.” Again, I say, Wow! We have another from Paul describing his apostolic work among the Thessolians: “We were gentle among you…with such affection for you, we were determined to share with you [the gospel and our every selves] so dearly beloved had you become to us…Working night and day in order not to burden any of you, we proclaimed to the gospel of God.” Wow. And then we have Jesus denouncing the Scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy, their failure to minister according to their own teaching, and an admonition to his disciples to avoid the destructive example of these men in their own ministry. Instead, Jesus teaches, “The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Wow.

I can say without fear of contradiction from any of my brother priests: these are not the readings we would have chosen to preach on on this Priesthood Sunday! But I will go out on a limb here too and say: these are the readings we—my brother priests and I—most need to hear. We have an warning from the Lord that our teaching, our manner of life, our public ministry, all bear on the integrity and authenticity of the witness we claim to make to the world.

We have a picture of selfless service to God’s people, a determination to preach and teach the gospel, an affection for the brothers and sisters given to us by God to care for—a striking image of the apostle caring for his kin in Christ like a nursing mother cares for her children. And we have the Lord Himself drawing a stark constrast btw the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Scribes and the necessary humility of his own students.

What’s absolutely clear in this teaching is that the Christian priest utterly fails in his ministry when he turns his ministry into an opportunity to promote his ego, to glorify his personality, to satisfiy his own needs, to celebrate with his cult of fans, or to place himself as master above those he serves. This is a failure to listen, a failure to take to heart the vocation of service, a failure to give glory to God, to walk the narrow way, to preach and teach what Jesus preached and taught, and a failure to honor his ordination covenant, the covenant every Catholic priest makes when he kneels before the bishop to receive the Holy Spirit: the covenant to be for God’s people a man ordered to sacrifice and to serve in persona Christi Capitis—in the person of Christ the Head of his Body.

I started my priesthood just five months ago. I started my life as a Dominican five years ago at the beginning of the scandals. My brothers and I sat at table every morning in the novitate and the studium and read the headlines. I remember gathering for a meeting with our student master in St Louis and talking frankly about the future of the priesthood and our place in the Church as men ordained to be servant-leaders. Our overwhelming sense of disgust, betrayal, dire disappointment, and anger constantly threatened our vocations. We seemed to teeter on the verge of an exodus. We waited, holding our breath, for the tension to break and the departures to begin. No one left. We all stayed. Scandal did not kill this harvest!

What does the Body of Christ need from its priests in the 21st century? The Body needs now and tomorrow what it needed yesterday, last year, and 2,000 years ago: men ready, willing, and able to take on the person of Christ in priestly ordination and lead His church by an exemplary life of selfless service to others. More than ever the Church needs men who will put aside private political agendas, personal philosophies and theologies, idiosyncratic visions of ecclesial reform and revolution and take on the yoke of Christ that has been handed down to us through twenty centuries by men and women blessed of God with graces beyond measure.

We need men unafraid of obedience, fearless in the face of growing secular opposition and internal dissent, men deeply commited to prayer, who live lives in humility (or who are eager to learn how!); we need men who can say, “I don’t know it all, I can’t learn it all, I need as much help as I can get, I need your help, and we all need the Lord’s help.” And we need men who will preach and teach what Jesus preached and taught. If he will stand in the pulpit to preach and stand at the altar of sacrifice to pray, he must be a man ready to say, “Do not look at me to see Christ, look through me.”

Jesus teaches us this evening that the ministry of the Christian priest is founded on a life of integrity: a seamless garment of thought and action given to the service of others for the greater glory of God. He denounces the Pharisees and the scribes for teaching one thing and doing another, for heaping onto their people burdens that they themselves will not take on, for seeking honor, prestige, and titles for the sake of ego and public display. Jesus directs his disciples to watch these hypocrites carefully so that they will learn how not to serve his Church, how not to lead in his name. The call from Jesus to lead by service is the call to seek humility in the face of the temptation to be lauded. It is the call to act in the full knowledge that one does not serve out of acquired or practiced talents, but out of the pure gift of love, the invitation to dwell in the divine life. Paul writing to the Thessalonians describes perfectly the ministry of the apostle sent out to be Christ for others. He tells his brothers and sisters that they have received from him “not a human word but, as it truly is, the word of God, which is now at work in you who believe.”

The work of the priest, the work of all Christians priests, ordained and royal, is to speak the word of God for others to hear, to bring that word into their own lives so that there is no discrepancy, no hypocrisy btw word and deed, and to toil with affection for one another.

On this Priesthood Sunday, we have a warning, an example, and a lesson. Listen, take them to heart, and give glory to God’s name.  

* Priesthood Sunday was last Sunday, Oct 28th.

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Don't wait. . .love now!

Feast of All Souls
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Many of the homilies that Catholics hear on the feast of All Souls leave the distinct impression that heaven is overpopulated; hell is vacate; and purgatory is just a silly medieval myth. Much will be made of Dante's overbearing influence on how we think about the nature of the afterlife, and everyone will be assured that God leaves no one behind. That last part—about God leaving no one behind—is true. He doesn't. What's left out, however, is the fact that we are perfectly capable of leaving ourselves behind, and that God will honor this choice. God won't leave us behind, but He will allow us to leave ourselves. Jesus says, “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me. . .” No one who comes to Christ will be rejected by him. However, no one who chooses to reject him will be hog-tied and frog-marched into heaven against his/her will. Love can be commanded; it cannot be coerced. The saints chose Christ's love. The damned chose pride's conceit. The souls we pray for this evening chose Christ's love for themselves but did not love as he loved them. Now, they wait to be made pure as he is pure.

Following Christ is not a part-time job or a weekend hobby. It's not an experiment, a fling, or a stepping stone while seeking something better. When we choose to accept Christ's love, we also choose to love as he loves us—sacrificially, without conditions. He says that he will reject no one who comes to him. And if we choose to be part of his sacrifice, and benefit from his love, then we must also choose to freely grant that same benefit to others. In practical terms, this means that we do not get to pick and choose whom we will love nor do we get to sort through the crowd electing some for salvation and rejecting others. As faithful followers of Christ, we love indiscriminately so that those who are tempted to reject Christ might see in us the good spiritual fruits that result from coming to him and believing in him. If anyone—at the last day—rejects Christ and chooses instead to live separated from God forever, do not let it be said that they rejected Christ b/c we failed to love as Christ loves us. Failures in charity can be large and small. Large failures kill charity outright. But most of our failures to love as we ought are small, driven by petty passions or slight hurts. It's these little weaknesses, these venial lapses that keep us within reach of heaven but outside our grasp. 

All our years are spent desiring God. When we realize that it is God whom we desire most, we come to Christ. And we spend the rest of our years being pounded into perfection by trial, temptation, victory, and the sure knowledge that we are not alone. Very few leave this life having both reached for and grasped heaven's perfection. We celebrated their victories yesterday. Most of us will likely die with a small stain or two on our baptismal garment. After death, without the limits of a body, we see more perfectly Him whom we have sought all our lives; yet, b/c we are not yet stainless, we cannot join him. The difference btw seeing Love more perfectly than we ever have before and knowing how we have failed to love as we ought is what we call the “pains of purgatory,” the pain we experience as a soul perfectly loved by God but not itself perfectly loving. In purgatory, we do not experience the duration of time but rather the intensity of our failures as we freely surrender them to God. As each failure is washed clean, our desire to join Him intensifies. Rather than wait in purgatory to love as Christ loves us, come to him now and believe his Good News, accepting as your own his mission to reject no one, to leave no one behind. In both small ways and large, love as Christ loves you. 

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Homily for All Saints (audio file)

Audio File for:  "You can stand among them," homily for the Solemnity of All Saints

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Go to Mass today!

A reminder to you all:

Today is the Solemnity of All Saints. . .

A holy day of obligation.

We are celebrating 4 Masses today at St. Dominic's: 7.00am, 8.30am, 12.15pm, and 6.00pm.

Y'all come!
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Message (and books) received. . .

My thanks to an anonymous Book Benefactor for sending me two books:  Meaning of Grace and Companion to Existentialism!

Yesterday was not an "up" day for me, so receiving these books served as a much-needed spiritual booster shot.

Fr. Philip
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You can stand among them

Solemnity of All Saints
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Audio File

“Beloved, we are God's children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed.” So writes St. John. What do we know about what we will become? “We do know that when [what are to become] is revealed we shall be like him. . .” We will be like God. How is this possible? “. . .for we shall see him as he is.” To see God as He is, face-to-face, is to become like Him. John writes, “Everyone who has this hope [—to see Him face-to-face—] makes himself pure, as he is pure.” Those who lived with the hope of living forever in the presence of God's glory; those who have become all that they were made to be; those who have gone to see God face-to-face—these, we call “saints.” Both named and unnamed, both those still with us and those who rest in Christ—that “great multitude. . .from every nation, race, people, and tongue,” all the saints of God, testify before the throne in heaven and among us here and now that “salvation comes from our God. . .and from the Lamb;” therefore, we are blessed to exclaim along with them, “Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power, and might be to our God forever and ever!” 

“See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.” So writes St John. And we are children of God. Made so by God so that we might become saints through Christ. First, we were loved into existence out of nothingness; then, we were loved into freedom through mercy; then, we were free to love so that Love Himself might be perfected in us; then, and only then, were we shown, if we will it, how to take a place among the blessed: die to self. Take up your cross. Follow Christ. The poor in spirit; the meek; those who mourn; the clean of heart; the peacemakers; all those who hunger and thirst for righteous—all are among the blessed, the saints, because they desired nothing and no one more than they desired Christ. Christ is who they all most wanted to followed, most wanted to be. And they died for love as a sacrifice for many. Whether they died by the sword, the firing squad, by poverty and obedience; by wearying service; or surrender to solitude, they died first to self. Picked up their cross. And followed Christ. 

We celebrate this solemnity for all God's saints. Those named and unnamed, that “great multitude. . .from every nation, race, people, and tongue,” both those still with us and those who rest already in Christ. But we don't celebrate their lives and deaths b/c they need us our prayers and attention. We celebrate all the saints of the Church b/c we need to. And not simply b/c they stand above us as examples of holiness; and not just b/c they are pioneers for us along the narrow Way; and not only b/c we need their heavenly help before the throne of God, but b/c they are now who we can become if we will to become more than children of God. What we will become has not yet been revealed. But we know this: whatever we become, we will be like God for we will see Him as he is, face-to-face. And in seeing Him face-to-face, we will be made perfect as He is perfect. We celebrate all the saints of God's holy family so that we never forget where we came from (dirt and ash) and where we might end (among the blessed). All the angels and saints, along with the Blessed Mother and our own St. Dominic, proclaim before the throne of God: “Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power, and might be to our God forever and ever!” If you will it. . .die to self. . .take up your cross. . .and follow Christ, you will stand among them.

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10 Questions about Zombies

What is a Zombie?

What is the Zombie Apocalypse?

What is the Best Z.A. Preparedness Plan?  

What is the Best Zombie Movie? 

What is the Best Zombie Novel? 

What is the Best Zombie TV Show?  (Like you have to ask. . .)

What is the Best Weapon Against Zombies? 

What is the Best Fragrance to Wear for the Z.A.?

What do Catholics Think of Zombies?

What Good Are Zombies to the New Evangelization?
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Free Catholic Books

The Year of Faith is upon us. . .

Lots of suggestions floating around out there for celebrating the Year of Faith.

As a Dominican friar and bibliophile, I have one to add to the growing list:

READ MORE BOOKS!

The link above will take you to a site with links to dozens of free Catholic classics.

May I direct your attention to the Church Fathers.  Our Patristic sources are particular favorites of Pope BXVI.

Enjoy.
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Among the freaks and lunatics. . .again.

NB.  I have the vigil Mass for All Saints this evening. . .homily to be posted later today. Here's a 2010 homily on the gospel for today's Mass.  

21st Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Blackfriars, Oxford U.

Some see it as a door. Others see it as a path. Jesus says it's a gate, a narrow gate. Flannery O'Connor's creation, that paragon of 1950's white rural middle-class Protestant respectability, Mrs. Turpin, saw it as a bridge. She stands at the fence of her hog pen, the pigs have gathered themselves around an old sow: “A red glow suffused them. They appeared to pant with a secret life.” She watches them 'til sunset, “her gaze bent to them as if she were absorbing some abysmal life-giving knowledge.” Finally, ready for the revelation, Mrs. Turpin raises her hands and “a visionary light settles in her eyes.” A purple-crimson dusk streaks the sky, connecting the fields with the highway: “She saw the streak as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast horde of souls were rumbling toward heaven.” Mrs. Turpin is surprised to see not only poor white trash on that bridge but black folks too. And among the “battalions of freaks and lunatics,” she sees her own tribe of scrubbed-clean, property-owning, church-going people—singing on key, orderly marching, being responsible as they always have been. We might imagine that it was a distant relative of Mrs Turpin who asked Jesus that day, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?”

Some say it is a door or a path. Some think of it as a key or a tabernacle. Jesus says that it is a Narrow Gate, a gate so narrow that most won't have the strength to push themselves through. There will be some on this side of the gate and some on the other side. Most of us imagine that we will be on the right side of the gate when the master of the house comes to lock the door. We will be on the inside listening to those on the outside plea for mercy, shout out their faithfulness, and cry for just one more chance. We will be on the inside when the master shouts at those on the outside, “I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!” When we hear this brutal rebuke, do we flinch? Do we beg mercy for those left outside? Do we try to rejoin them in a show of solidarity?

These questions matter only if we have gathered the strength necessary to squeeze ourselves through the gate. If we are weak, exhausted, apathetic, or if we really are evildoers, then staying on this side of the gate, away from the table of the kingdom, probably seems more attractive, easier to accomplish, not so much sweat and tears. Do we really want to be part of a banquet that excludes so many? Do we want to lend our support to a homeowner who crafts a narrow gate for his front door, knowing that most will not be able to enter? We may be lazy or stupid or just plain evil, but we would rather suffer righteously with sinners than party self-righteously with the saints!

Mrs. Turpin's distant cousin is insistent, however: “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” Jesus never answers the question. Rather than giving a straightforward yes, no, or about one-third, he moves the question away from the number of those to be saved toward the method by which they will be saved. Those who are saved are saved b/c they have used their strength to push through the Narrow Gate just before the Master locks the door. How many are saved? Don't know. Who are these people? Don't know that either. What happens to those who didn't make it through? Wailing, grinding teeth, and being cast out. Despite all their pleas, they are cast out.

Is there anything for us to do now in order to build up our strength for that final push through the Narrow Gate? Anything for us to do to fortify ourselves for that last surge, that last run at the battlement's gate? We read in the letter to the Hebrews: “. . .strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.” This is a call to righteousness, not just the sort of uprightness that comes from following the rules, but the righteousness that comes from calling on God to correct our infirmities—our drooping hands and weak knees—so that what is lame is healed and not made worse by time and trial, not left to become disjointed. Our rush through the Narrow Gate is not a test of physical strength, nor is it a marathon of virtue. The narrowness of the gate is a test of our determination, a trial against a tepid heart and irresolute mind. The narrowness of the gate challenges the sharpness of our focus on being among the blessed who will be called upon to sacrifice everything for Christ's sake, everything for the love of just one friend. It is not enough that we have been to dinner with the Lord; that we have shouted his name from a crowd; that we have witnessed his miracles, praised his preaching, memorized his teaching, or invited ourselves to recline at his table. It is not enough that we are respectable, well-educated, middle-class, religious, worthy citizens of a civilized nation. We might manage to squeeze our respectability, our diplomas, our tax forms and churches and passports through that Narrow Gate, but none of these will assist in the squeezing. Yes, we will likely end up on Mrs Turpin's bridge, heading into the clouds with all the other freaks and lunatics, but we will end up there b/c we have placed ourselves at the mercy of God to forgive us the sins that impede us, that slow us down, and all but guarantee that we do not make the gate in time.

Mrs Turpin sees her own people on that bridge. Somewhat bewildered by the strange company of white trash and black folks, her tribe of middle-class church-goers nonetheless sing on key: “Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.” Perhaps what will get us through that Narrow Gate is the willingness to have everything that seems so vital, so necessary, so absolutely true. . .to have all of it burned away.

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New Rosary

Here's a pic of my new rosary. . .made by the holy Dominican nuns of Summit, NJ.

My thanks and blessings to the Good Sisters!

Be imitators of God

30th Week OT (M)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Paul writes to the Ephesians: “Brothers and sisters, be imitators of God. . .as [His] beloved children. . .live as children of light!” Now, either Paul thinks very highly of the Christians in Ephesus and decides to praise them; or, he figures that they're a hopeless cause anyway so he might well set the bar as high as he can. Be imitators of God? Living as children of the light is tough enough, but living as imitators of God? That seems. . .ummm. . .extreme, even for Paul. Not known for his restraint when it comes to preaching the Good News and living the gospel, even Paul would have to admit that creatures—especially rational creatures—would do well to set their spiritual goals a little closer to “being good” and not so close to “being God.” Of course, he's not suggesting that we go off into the void and create a universe from nothing; or populate a planet using nothing but dirt and a rib; or terrorize a slave-owning tyrant with ten deadly plagues. Basically, all he's saying is that we should imitate—in our impeccably imperfect fashion—all those divine attributes in which God excels—love, mercy, compassion. Maybe, just maybe, Paul isn't being so unreasonable after all. 

Paul opens this section of his letter with an admonition: “Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.” That should sound familiar to those who pray the Our Father on occasion. He continues with this blockbuster: “Be imitators of God, as beloved children. . .” So, as the well-loved children of God, we are admonished to imitate God's moral excellence as only those who have given themselves to Him as children can do. Then he writes, “Live in love.” How? “As Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering. . .” We live in Christ's love by imitating the love that led him to offer himself in sacrifice for our sins. This can only mean one kind of love: agape. That kind of love that demands personal sacrifice. To make sure that we all understand that he's being deadly serious here, Paul adds, “Immorality, impurity, greed must not even be mentioned among you. . .no obscenity or silly or suggestive talk.” When we speak, it should be to give God thanks. Thanks for what exactly? For showing us how to love one another in sacrifice; to love one another as Christ does, to the point of surrendering our lives to make one another holy. 

Paul's admonishment that we live as imitators of God would be ridiculous if we had to do so out of our own moral goodness. Our fallen human nature bends us to self-preservation rather than generosity. But it's not out of our fallen nature that we think, speak, and behave. We are dead to this world but risen with Christ. As such, we are both human and divine—imperfectly so, just yet—but nonetheless participants in the dual nature of Christ as his adopted brothers and sisters. We can imitate Christ. Without him we can do nothing good. Since we do good things all the time, we know that we must do those good things with him. When we love, we participate in Love Himself. When we are merciful, we participate in Mercy Himself. When we show compassion, we participate in Compassion Himself. Every single time we imperfectly think, speak, or behave like Christ, we participate in Christ himself. We were once darkness, but now we are light in the Lord. What light we shine comes from Christ through us. And that's the job we vowed to do: to be living, breathing lamps for the light of Christ in a world of darkness. So, as beloved children, go, be imitators of God! 

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Thanks. . .and a disappearing act

My mendicant thanks to Kathleen H. of VA for sending me Christ-Centered Biblical Theology.

Also, my thanks to the anonymous Book Benefactor who sent me Carpathia and Primate Behavior. 

NB.  I keep changing the format/colors/etc. of the blog b/c I'm trying to get the nav bar to show at the top.  It's disappeared again.  Very strange.  It shows when I use I.E. and it shows when I use Firefox on my office computer.  Gggrrrrrr. . .

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"Take courage. . .Jesus is calling you"

30th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Audio File

Looking out over the crowd gathered here this morning/evening, I wonder: why are you people here? Is it duty? Habit? Did mom and dad drag you out of bed? Maybe you aren't sure why you're here. I'd say you're here for the fellowship; for a time and place away from the secular world, for a chance to visit with God in prayer; to make a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; to hear the Word proclaimed and preached; to offer Christ on his altar. Like Bartimaeus, we are here, waiting on a roadside for the Son of David to pass. We are blind, crippled, proud, cold-hearted, angry, anxious, lost in sin. But we’re here. We are the disciples on the road. And we are Bartimaeus, shouting to the Lord for his gifts! We are here to receive courage and strength and mercy. We are here because we heard the call, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.” And now we hear him say to Bartimaeus and to us, “What do you want me to do for you?” Stop right now and answer that question—in the silence of your heart and mind—answer the question: what do you want, what do you need Christ to do for you?

So, here we are. Standing in a crowd on the road that leads out of Jericho. Someone said that Jesus and a big group of his disciples were headed this way. We want to see this guy b/c we've heard about his miracles and his brawls with the Pharisees. Maybe he'll exorcise a demon or turn some water into wine! He's getting close. The shouting is getting louder and folks are starting to push into road. Somebody yells out, “It's Jesus of Nazareth!” Then Bartimaeus, the blind beggar who's always hanging around, jumps up and start wailing, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” We try to shut him up b/c he's always ranting on about one thing or another. Jesus hears him and says to one of his guys, “Call him.” The disciple goes over to the crazy old coot and says, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.” Bartimaeus jumps up and runs over, and Jesus asks him, “What do you want me to do for you?” I'm thinking: I wish he'd ask me that question! A sack of gold coins would be nice. Maybe a better looking wife. Or a big herd of cattle. What does Bartimaeus say, “Master, I want to see.” Well, for a blind man, sight is a treasure. Jesus answers him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.”

So, here we are. Sitting here in St. Dominic's Church. Two and many more are gathered together in Christ's name, and he is with us. He's here in the Blessed Sacrament. He's here in his priest and his people. And he asks us the same question he asked Bartimaeus: “What do you want me to do for you?” In the silence of your heart and mind, what do you say to him? Before you settle on your answer, let's pay a little more attention to what Jesus says in response to Bartimaeus' request. Bartimaeus wants his blindness healed. Jesus says to him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Notice: he didn't say, “Your faith has healed you,” or “Your faith has restored your sight.” He says, “Your faith has saved you.” Bartimaeus receives more from Christ than his sight; he receives salvation, wholeness, a complete repair of his broken relationship with the Father. In that one declaration, Bartimaeus is made righteous before God and brought into the holy family as an adopted son, a brother to Christ, and co-heir of the Kingdom. He could not see what he was made to be in Christ, but he believed and called out to Jesus in faith. He receives God's freely offered gift of mercy to sinner. And now, he sees clearly and follows Christ along the Way.

What do you want, what do you need Christ to do for you? Before you settle on your answer, let's pay a little more attention to another part of Jesus' response to Bartimaeus' request. When Bartimaeus asks Jesus to heal his blindness, Jesus says to him, “. . .your faith has saved you.” Notice: he doesn't say, “Your begging has saved you,” or “Your persistence has saved you.” He says, “Your faith has saved you.” Setting aside for a moment the fact that Jesus is the Son of God, how does he know that this blind man he's never met has faith? Bartimaeus confesses his faith in Christ when he shouts, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” Naming Jesus “the Son of David” is his confession of faith. Every Jew knows that the Messiah will be the son of David, and asking Jesus for his compassion is a sign of trust. Bartimaeus believes that Jesus is the Christ, and he acts on this belief, uniting his heart and mind into single public confession that saves him and heals his blindness. In thanksgiving for the gift of sight and salvation, Bartimaeus “followed [Christ] on the way,” not only tagging along with the other disciples but also following his teachings and living as Christ for others.

A blind man is saved by his faith in Christ. Others are healed of their disabilities, their diseases, and their demons. All by faith in Christ Jesus. By faith we are saved, brought into righteousness with God, and made holy. This “faith-stuff” is pretty powerful, uh? What is it exactly? We use the word all the time. We're urged to have faith. Share faith. Rely on faith. Defend the faith. Keep the faith. And we seem to know what we're talking about. We've all heard the famous definition of “faith” from the Letter to the Hebrews: “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” Augustine says that "faith is a virtue whereby we believe what we do not see.” Dionysius says that "faith is the solid foundation of the believer, establishing him in the truth, and showing forth the truth in him.” St Thomas Aquinas assures us that all of these definitions are true, and then adds his own: “to believe is an act of the intellect assenting to the truth at the command of the will” (ST II-II 4.5). My heart (will) commands my mind (intellect) to give its assent to the truth. This is the human act we call “to believe.” Faith, then, is the virtue (the good habit) of willing myself to believe the truth, especially the truth of the Good News that God freely grants His mercy to all sinners. This habit of trusting God's mercy forms the foundation upon which is built everything that I am and everything that I will become.

If you will to be healed; if you will to be whole; if you will to be made righteous; if you will to see and hear and speak the Good News, then you must also will to believe in the truth that Jesus, the Son of David, is the long-promised Messiah, the Christ. And you must will to act on this belief and confess it whenever possible. What do you want, what do you need Christ to do for you? If your faith is weak or shallow, if your faith is lukewarm or fleeting, ask Christ and receive from him the courage and the strength to stand up, to stand firm, and to stand out as a beloved child of the Father: a child washed pure of sin and death; a child graced in mercy, blessed by hope, and gifted with every good gift given under Christ. The Psalmist has us sing, “The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy!” The Lord has done great things for us. And when we give Him thanks and praise for our lives, our family, our friends; for our salvation through His Christ, and for our faith, we are filled with joy. So, take courage; get up, Jesus is calling us to join him along the Way, on the way back to his Father's house, to His joy and to His peace.

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Repentance: the first good fruit

29th Week OT (S)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Pastors and theologians of every stripe and flavor immediately recognize the questions that the crowd poses to Jesus: why did God punish the Galileans using Pilate's sword? Why were those poor people killed when the tower fell on them? Generations of Jews had been taught that God directly or indirectly punishes the nation's infidelity to the covenant with foreign invasion, plague, enslavement, or some other tragic ordeal that pushes them to repentance and back to fidelity. So, it's only natural that Pilate's massacre of Jewish worshipers in Galilee and the accident at Siloam provokes raises questions about what these people had done to deserve punishment. Unlike some modern pastors and theologians, Jesus resists the temptation to find a scapegoat for these disasters and focuses his attention on the need for both personal and national repentance, saying, “Do you think that those Galileans or those killed at Siloam were greater sinners than anyone else? They weren't! I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” The clock is ticking; the calendar is advancing month by month, and the day to be weighed and measured is coming. Repentance is our first good fruit. 

To drive home his point about the need for repentance, Jesus tells the crowd a parable. A fig tree has failed for three years in row to produce a single fig. The frustrated owner of the orchard orders his gardener to cut it down, saying, “Why should it exhaust the soil?” The gardener begs the owner to give the tree one more year, promising to nurture it. He says, “[I]t may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.” The owner relents and grants the fig tree one more year to produce good fruit. If that fig tree could talk, it might follow the example of the crowd and ask Jesus, “Lord, Why were the other fruit trees cut down while I was spared?” Jesus would answer, “You're missing the point, Fig Tree, and wasting your time asking why you were spared. Get busy producing good fruit. You've got one more year before the ax falls!” If that fig tree is smart, it will do everything it can to cooperate with the gardener and give the orchard owner the good fruit he wants. Pondering esoteric questions like “Why me?” diverts time and resources away from the final goal: produce repentance and return to fidelity! 

In August of 2005, I was living in Irving, TX, serving in campus ministry and teaching at the University of Dallas. I'd been a priest all of three months. You might remember a little natural disaster at that time called Hurricane Katrina. Dallas took in hundreds of refugees and the university housed as many of them as we could. The question everyone needed to ask was: why did God allow Katrina to cause such destruction to good ole Catholic Nawlins'? Some said that God punished NOLA b/c of the debauchery of Bourbon St. Some said He wanted to disrupt the homosexual party known as Southern Decadence. Others said that God was demonstrating His disapproval of the Catholic Church. All of these miss the point entirely. Katrina was a weather disaster that produced both natural and supernatural fruit—some good, some bad. The message of Katrina was crystal clear: the clock is ticking; the calendar is advancing month by month, and the day to be weighed and measured is coming. In fact, very natural disaster, every terrorist attack, every house fire, murder, fatal car accident, fall from a ladder, case of terminal cancer, or still birth sends a bright, shiny message: we live on gifted time, a reprieve from death counted in days, in hours; therefore, repentance must be the first good fruit that we produce. 

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WWJD? Set the world on fire!

29th Week OT (F)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Recently, I saw a poster on Facebook that read: “Remember—when someone asks, 'What Would Jesus Do?' Freaking out and throwing tables is a viable option.” The poster has a line drawing of Jesus. . .freaking out and throwing tables. When we wonder whether or not anger is an acceptable Christian response, we think of Jesus in the temple courtyard, thrashing the moneychangers. What gospel scene do we imagine when we wonder about the acceptability of feeling and showing frustration and impatience? May I suggest this evening's gospel? Jesus accuses the crowds of hypocrisy b/c they continue to hesitate in accepting the truth right in front of their faces. They can read the signs of an impending storm. And they can read the signs for a sunny day. So why can't they see that he's come to fulfill the Law and free them all from sin? Just a few verses before today's reading, we read Jesus saying, “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” Impatient? Frustrated? Well, what would Jesus do? He'd set the world on fire. 

Lest you think Jesus is threatening an actual conflagration, let me quickly point out what he says immediately after this, “There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!” Baptism here refers to his sacrificial death on the cross, the sacrifice that must occur before the world can set ablaze with the Holy Spirit. If his reference is a little obscure, his feelings on the issue aren't. He's frustrated, impatient. And the dumbstruck crowd milling around him isn't helping matters much. Keep in mind: he's anxious to be about the business for which he was sent—our salvation. So the reluctance of those who listen to him to accept their own redemption must be extremely aggravating. As understandable as his frustration might be, why does he accuse these poor people of hypocrisy? When they see a cloud in the west, they know it's going to rain, so they scramble to prepare for a storm. They see the sign and act on it. Here he is—a living, breathing sign of the Father's mercy—and most of them just stand there gawking at him. A few want more evidence. Some even demand miracles. Fortunately, there were no tables or moneychangers in the crowd that day! 

New Orleans is populated by hurricane experts. We know how to interpret the weather in the Gulf, but we know how to interpret the present time? We do, even if we sometimes forget that we do. Let's be reminded. The present time is a gift from God. Let's call it a Saptiotemporal Gift, the divine gift of space and time in which we always live and thrive. As a gift, the present time—right now—is the only moment we have to acknowledge our total dependence on God and give Him thanks for giving us life and keeping us alive. Every second we are alive affords us the opportunity to renew and reinforce our gratitude to God; every second we're alive grants us the chance to receive His mercy and grow in holiness; every second we're alive Christ dares us to set this world on fire with his Good News. We can interpret the present time b/c for us (as followers of Christ) the past, present, and future all come together in one explosive moment of all-consuming grace: the doors of heaven are slammed open, and we are set on fire by the glory of God's love for us. One Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all. What would Jesus do? He would die so that we all might live. 

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Martha Stewart decorates the altar

Q:  Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are coming up soon.  My parish always decorate the altar and sanctuary like something from Good Housekeeping.  Is this allowed?

A: I'm assuming here that you're talking about what I call "Martha Stewart Liturgical Decoration;" that is, a big nest of pumpkins and gourds in front of the altar, or one of those paper fan turkeys sitting on top of the tabernacle, etc.  

Here's what the General Instruction on the Roman Missal says (italics mine):

73. First of all, the altar or Lord’s table, which is the center of the whole Liturgy of the Eucharist, is made ready when on it are placed the corporal, purificator, Missal, and chalice. . .

Even money or other gifts for the poor or for the Church, brought by the faithful or collected in the church, are acceptable; given their purpose, they are to be put in a suitable place away from the Eucharistic table.

305. Floral decoration should always show moderation and be arranged around the altar rather than on the altar table.

306. For only what is required for the celebration of the Mass may be placed on the altar table: namely, from the beginning of the celebration until the proclamation of the Gospel, the Book of the Gospels; then from the Presentation of the Gifts until the purification of the vessels, the chalice with the paten, a ciborium, if necessary, and, finally, the corporal, the purificator, the pall, and the Missal.

In addition, arranged discreetly, there should be whatever may be needed to amplify the Priest’s voice.

The bottom line here is that the altar represents Christ in the center of his Church and is not to be used as a decorating platform for seasonal holidays or miscellaneous objects associated with a feast day or a parish group. 

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There are no Christian Zombies!

29th Week OT (W)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Since I was old enough to hold a paperback novel, I've been fascinated by doomsday stories: end-of-the-world wars, plagues, alien invasions, zombies, that sort of thing. And if our movies and TV shows are any indication, I'm not alone in this fascination. Movies: 2012, Independence Day, Transformers, 28 Days Later, Day of the Dead. TV shows: Revolution, Last Resort, Falling Skies, Terra Nova. All of these plot the end of civilization and the survivors' struggle to re-establish a semblance of order. I'm sure that social psychologists could tell us why we love to contemplate the destruction of all we know. A fresh start always seems like a good thing. However, as followers of Christ, our first concern is not this world but the next; that is, we are principally motivated by God's promise of eternal life not by our chances of rebuilding a better-run kingdom in this life. So, Jesus says to his disciples, “You must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” 

In most of the movies, TV shows, and novels about the end of the world, folks are somewhat prepared for their destruction. The world's scientific community or the military warn the U.N. that the asteroid is coming, or that a viral epidemic is spreading like wildfire. Being animals, we humans react predictably: hoarding food, weapons, medicine; locking ourselves behind gates, in bunkers; fleeing to the hills. When disaster strikes everything we've ever believed in—law/order, equality/freedom, sharing/caring—dissolve, and we revert to behaving on survival instinct. We might be prepared to survive as animals but we never seem to be prepared to thrive as especially rational animals. When Jesus urges his disciples to be prepared for the coming judgment, what does he want them to do? Well, he's not telling them to buy out Dorignacs' bottled water supply, or raid Walgreens' antibiotics cabinet. Cleaning our guns and stocking up on ammo won't prepare us for our judgment. Our Lord is urging his friends and us to be prepared spiritually for the day when he returns to weigh our deeds against his commandment to love. “Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds [. . .] distribut[ing] the food allowance at the proper time. . .” IOW, happy are those who stay prepared for judgment by obeying God's law of charity. 

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes about “the stewardship of God's grace” that has been given to him for the benefit of Christ's church. He's describing his particular authority as an apostle to teach and preach the Good News. But he is also describing more generally a gift that all the baptized have received; namely, the responsibility of all believers to manage and distribute the divine gifts that we have received through Christ. We are heirs to the Kingdom and executors of God's will. And as such, it is our sacred duty to see that the truth, goodness, and beauty of God's mercy is freely and widely distributed. To carry out this duty, we must be righteous—in right relationship—with God through Christ every moment of every day. Our scientists, engineers, and soldiers cannot give us the date of Christ's return. Nor can our theologians, scripture scholars, or even the Holy Father. In fact, we've already received the only warning we're going get: “You must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” Righteousness comes with obedience to the first commandment: love God, love neighbor, and love self. For Christ's sake: Love. 

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What Matters to God

29th Week OT (M)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Is Christian poverty a means or an end? I don't mean the sort of poverty that you inherit from your family, but the sort of poverty that a Christian chooses in obedience to Christ. Not destitution or random economic ruin. But the deliberate selection of “being poor” as a response to our Lord's teaching in this morning's gospel. Is that kind of poverty a means or an end? This may sound like a question for nerdy theology-types, but it was a burning question in the Middle Ages, a hard-fought and sometimes bloody battle between two newly minted religious orders—the Dominicans and the Franciscans. The little friars of St Francis argued that poverty is a worthy goal in and of itself and not merely a means to another end. The sons of St Dominic argued that poverty—like chaste celibacy and obedience—serves as a practical means to an evangelical end: the preaching of the gospel. Eventually, the Holy Father—Pope John XXII—silenced the argument by telling both sides to shut up and get on with their ministries.* A wise decision. Why? Because both sides were somewhat missing the point: what matters is what matters to God. 

We all know that storing up treasures on earth will not get us into heaven. We all know the saying, “You can't take it with you.” A seat at the Lord's table can't be bought with gold or stock options. Jesus tells the crowd the parable of a man who wants to tear down his barn and build a bigger one so he can store his harvest. A bigger harvest, safely stored will prompt the man to congratulate himself, “. . .you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!” Then God comes along and reminds him of a hard truth: all things in the world pass away, including his foolish life. To whom will all his stuff belong once he's dead? “Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God.” Thus, the question we should be asking has nothing to do with whether or not poverty is a means or an end. The question is: what matters to God? 

Paul reminds the Ephesians that they were once dead in their sins; that they once lived among the disobedient in the desires of the flesh; and that they were all “by nature children of wrath.” Now, they are living, obedient children of God. How? “For by grace you have been saved through faith. . .” By trusting God and receiving His gift of mercy, they are saved. What does this transformation of the Ephesians tell us about what matters to God? It tells us that God is merciful. That it is not His will for us that we live in the darkness of sin. That He loves us despite our transgressions. And that He is willing to abandon His justice in order to show us His mercy. What matters to God is that we are brought back to life through His Christ. That we are raised up with Christ and seated at the harvest table for all ages so that “he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace to us. . .” This is what matters to God. Not gold or stock options or trophies. What matters to God is that we see the “immeasurable riches of his grace to us” and that we in turn share these riches with those who have yet to see them. Poverty—whether a means or an end—strips us bare of pretensions, exposes us to examination, and submits us to the judgment of the world so that we might be witnesses to all that God has done for us. For by grace we have been saved through faith. If you believe that this is true, how do you show the world the riches you have received through Christ?

* This is by necessity a highly truncated and conflated account of what happened.  The controversy spanned almost 200 yrs. and focused more on the OFM's desire to live poverty in a radical way.  More info here.

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Audio File for 29th Sunday OT Homily

Audio File for "First & Last," homily for the 29th Sunday OT.
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First & Last

NB.  This is a repost from 2006.  No lame excuses. 

29th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Audio File

Think about how we avoid discomfort, suffering, and death. To avoid discomfort we have invented air conditioning, bucket seats, padded shoes, thermal underwear, and even complex social manners to avoid awkward moments at parties and in public restrooms. To avoid suffering we have invented philosophies that deny evil, political utopias where no one is rich or poor, and religions that believe suffering is as an effect of desire and so we must eliminate desire. To avoid death we have invented material immortalities: surgeries, pharmaceuticals, diets, exercises, genetic therapies, nanotechnologies. To avoid death we have also invented ways of creating and re-creating ourselves out of death, or beyond it—the beautiful immortalities of art, literature, monument, heroism, memory, music. 

How much of our daily living is about avoiding discomfort, suffering, and death? Better question: as members of the Body of Christ, heirs to the Father’s Kingdom, are we called to avoid discomfort, suffering, and death? Is this part of our ministry as disciples, as apostles? When is sacrificial service NOT about discomfort, suffering, and death? 

Isaiah sets us up to understand exactly how suffering—willingly taking on pain for a godly purpose—is essential to sacrificial service: “If he gives his life as an offering for sin…the will of the Lord shall be accomplished through him. Because of his affliction he shall see the light in fullness of days; through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear.” Note these three: “if he gives his life,” “because of his affliction,” and “through his suffering.” And note the progression: the Lord’s servant freely offers himself for the sin of others…he sees the light in fullness b/c of this sacrificial service…and through his suffering—his willing acceptance of our sin for a higher purpose—the servant brings many to righteousness. He justifies us before the Lord. In other words, because he was discomforted, b/c he suffered, b/c he died, we do not have to. We are instead comforted, free of anxious worry, and we may live eternally. 

So, if this is true—and it is—why then do we still work so hard to avoid discomfort, run so fast from suffering, and dodge the death of repentance so arduously? We do not want to be last. We are creatures of Firsts—first across the line, at the top of our game, highest score, fastest time, strongest lift, best grade, first prize, deepest soul, lightest spirit, hardest body…all to weaken, all to weaken and fade, all to weaken and fade and die. Dust. Shade. Snap of an echo. Gone. 

Who wants to be a servant? Who wants the work of serving others? There is no glamour there, no applause, no dramatic ovation or spray of roses. It’s humble grubbing, embarrassing effort that makes someone’s life better but it just gives me wet armpits, dirty hands, a sore back, and a logjam on my own housework or my DVD watching. Surely, it is better to be served; better to be first and not last; a Master and not a slave. It is! 

If you will be in this world and of it, then you are morally obligated to pursue the best, the first, the highest. To be in and of the world is to be in and of the virtues the world holds up as Good. To be otherwise is suicide. You must honor the bottom-line. Praise efficiency. Worship at the altar of productivity. Practice winner-take-all competition. Lose the losers. Appeal to no power mightier than civil law. Here’s your bumper sticker: “If you have yours, I can’t have mine.” You must celebrate my needs as my rights, otherwise you are oppressing me. You must also celebrate my wants as my rights, otherwise you are hating me. Requiring me to serve others is just you trying to control me with guilt. I don’t do guilt. My adult spirituality is an eclectic weaving together of the best elements of a variety of religious traditions—none of which require anything of me, especially not sacrificial service! If you will be of this world and in it, you must conform to its virtues: work-pride, self-avarice, power-lust, gift-envy, success-gluttony, failure-wrath, and soul-sloth. Play with these worldly virtues or risk their opposing vices: ignored in modesty, disrespected for generosity, mocked for purity, taken for granted in kindness, ostracized for abstinence, laughed at for mercy shown, and hated for one’s holy industry. 

If you will be great among the Lord’s disciples, you will serve. If you will be first among the apostles, you will be a slave to all. 

The pain that Jesus endured on the cross did not and does not save us. The beatings by the Roman soldiers, the betrayal of his disciples, the political backstabbing wheeling-dealing of Pilate—all of these caused Jesus pain. This pain did not save us. Pain is not redemptive. Isaiah heard the Lord say, “If he gives his life as an offering for sin…the will of the Lord shall be accomplished through him.” If he gives. James and John ask Jesus to be honored in his kingdom. Jesus says to his honor-seeking disciples: “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink…?” They say, “We can.” We can drink the cup that you, Lord, drink—the same cup that Jesus later prays will pass him by! For the Servant’s pain to be redemptive, for Jesus’ pain on the cross to be redemptive, it must be suffered, that is, “allowed.” It must be taken on with a will and directed to the benefit of others. To wallow in pain is to wallow in pain. Nothing more. To take up pain in the service of others, to designate pain as a sacrifice, to make it holy by giving it away for a holy end—that is suffering! And this suffering mocks the Devil. It scrubs the world clean. It rotates the unholy virtues of pride and greed and blesses them as humility and generosity. 

Discomfort is eased. Suffering is avoided. Death is delayed. We will invent and re-invent human civilization after human civilization in order to ease our discomfort, to avoid our suffering, and to delay our deaths. And we will lift up and parade the secular virtues to justify our refusal to take on service for others. But is this what we as Christians are called to do? Are we called to avoid discomfort, suffering, and death? No. We are called to transform discomfort, suffering, and death; to make each into the good habit of being Christs for others. We are called to turn discomfort into the luxury of humility; to turn pain into the art of redemptive suffering; to turn death into a witness to everlasting Life! 

Our Lord did not die on the cross so that we might be blue ribbon winners or gold medalists. He died on the cross to show us how to be the friends of God. How to be servants to one another. He gave his life as a ransom for many so that we will know how to give our lives as a ransom for many more. 

What does your life stand for? What do you represent in the world? Whom do you serve? Here’s a question for you: will you die for me? For that guy behind you? For your next door neighbor? If you will give your life as an offering for sin, the will of the Lord will be accomplished through you. And because of your affliction you will see the light in fullness of day. Will you be small in the kingdom of God by dying to pride and greed in the service of others? Or will you insist on being great among the Great of the World and in the end find yourself among the Great who proudly rule the smoldering trash heaps of Gehenna? 

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Liberal Fascism, or the meanness of being Nice

A book recommendation: Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. 

I've been reading this book off and on since it was published in early 2008. It rested among my stored books for four years and now sits on my nightstand. It's not at all what you might think.

Basically, Goldberg argues that the Left in American politics is a "kinder, gentler" form of European fascism. He delves into the history of the movement, starting with Mussolini, and marks out how fascism is a thoroughly leftist ideology. 

He also traces the history of how fascism became associated with the political Right in the U.S. He quotes liberally from 1930's fascist propaganda, noting that many American Leftists at the same praised Mussolini and Hitler for their forward-looking grasp on economics and social engineering.

He's quick to say that he's not claiming that American Leftists are Nazi's, etc. But he does draw some frightening parallels between fascistic "mass movements" in pre-WWII Europe and the student movements of the 1960's and current "identity movements" on contemporary campuses.

I'm not a political philosopher or historian, so I can't judge the truthfulness of his claims in these areas. I can tell you that as a reformed Leftist, many of his claims about the "politics of meaning" and "identity politics" are spot on.

Back in the Big Easy. . .

Made it safely home from my visit with the OP Nuns of Mt Thabor. . .

L to R:  Sr. Maria, Sr. Anne, Sr. Joseph, Sr. Agnes, and Sr. Martin.

Had a great time praying, studying, and laughing with these holy women. 

Among the good discussions and good food. . .there was a rather unusual event:  at dinner on Thursday afternoon, eight young deer bounced passed the dining room window!  How do I know it was unusual?  It caused eight Dominicans to stop eating and talking for a whole five seconds!  :-)

I am looking forward to returning to Michigan and spending more time with the Mighty Nuns of Ortonville.
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3 reminders about confession

A reminder to all those who frequent the confessional:

Just tell Father your SINS.

If you find yourself saying, "Father, I need to give you a little background. . ."  STOP.  No.  You don't.  If background is necessary, the priest will ask for it.  Otherwise, assume none is necessary.

Just tell Father YOUR sins.

If you find yourself saying, "Father, my husband/wife/children/neighbor/co-worker. . ."  STOP.  This is your confession and yours alone.  There is no such thing as vicarious confession.

Just TELL Father your sins.

If you find yourself saying, "Father, I don't know if X is a sin but the moon was full and my car ran out of gas. . ."  STOP.  No explanations.  No excuses.  No reasons why.  No doubts, dodges, or dissembling.  Just TELL.

In all cases, under all circumstances, regardless of intent:  assume that if more info is needed, the priest will ask for it.  Otherwise, just tell Father your sins.  

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Going to Mt Thabor!

Leaving Tuesday morning for a three day retreat with the Dominican nuns of the Monastery of Mt. Thabor.

I'll be giving talks on BXVI's Deus caritas est and enjoying the company of the sisters!

Will be back to blogging Saturday morning (20th).

Fr. Philip Neri, OP

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Unnecessary Signs

St. Teresa of Jesus
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Last night, up for the second time, I was shown a truth about my world I had never thought to question. There just about three feet from the floor, hovering in mid-air, is a small glowing object. I stare for a moment, without my glasses, in the dark, and think for just a second that perhaps the Lord has sent an angel to tell me something amazing. As I contemplate this greenish-yellow glow, thinking about revelations, dreams, and prophecies, I am suddenly struck by the truth of what I am seeing, but there it is, as plain as an October moon, and I realize with a nearly blinding clarity: my toothbrush glows in the dark! Then, just being me, the question arises: why would anyone think to make toothbrushes glow in the dark? Stumbling back to bed, I chuckle myself to sleep wondering what we would look like if our teeth glowed in the dark.*

Strictly speaking, my “vision” of the glowing toothbrush was a discovery not a revelation. Its discovery was accidental and has no meaning beyond what I can give it in a homily about seeking after signs of God’s presence. As a divine sign my glowing toothbrush fails what we can call here the “From Test;” that is, my toothbrush shining in the darkness on the sink cannot be said to be “from” God. We cannot say that a glowing toothbrush made by a creature reveals much about God. Signs point the way and make present that which they signify. Divine signs point the way to God and make His presence knowable to those who desire to know Him. 

The crowds are understandably both curious and worried about Jesus’ claims to be the Son of God. They approach him and make a reasonable request for a sign. Traditionally, those claiming to be “sent from God” provide signs that point to God’s presence and make Him knowable. Those in the crowds are likely pious and certainly curious, and therefore understandably seek some indication from this rabble-rousing preacher that he is who he claims to be. Show us a sign. Jesus’ response is unexpected and harsh: “An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it…” We have to wonder why Jesus is being so stubborn. We know he is capable of miraculous deeds. Why not show these folks what they need to see? 

Jesus says that no sign will be given to them “except the sign of Jonah.” Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and nights, so the Son of Man will be “in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.” Jonah is expelled from the whale and goes on to preach repentance to the decadent citizens of Nineveh. They repent and return to God’s favor. So Jesus too, expelled from the grave and risen from the dead, will be a sign to the crowds and a sign to us that Jesus is indeed who he claims to be. Jesus goes on to add that on the day of judgment, “the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, b/c they repented at the preaching of Jonah…” Needing no other sign than the earnest preaching of an honest prophet, the citizens of Nineveh return to God. 

Here we are in the second decade of the 21st century, can we be counted an “evil and unfaithful generation” seeking after signs? What signs do we seek? Crying statues? Marian apparitions? Bleeding Hosts? Yes, all of these and many more. But do we need these signs? We do not. We have a magisterial Church, her sacraments, a divine guarantee against defeat, and pews packed with priests, prophets, and kings. All of these speak with one voice to say what is good and what the Lord requires: “Only to do the right and love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

*I should've noted earlier:  this incident is true. . .but it happened back in 2006 when I first preached this homily.

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Gaudet Mater Ecclesia!

from Blessed John XXIII's opening address to the Second Vatican Council, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia:

[. . .]

The greatest concern of the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously. That doctrine embraces the whole of man, composed as he is of body and soul. And, since he is a pilgrim on this earth, it commands him to tend always toward heaven.

[. . .]

 

In order, however, that this doctrine may influence the numerous fields of human activity, with reference to individuals, to families, and to social life, it is necessary first of all that the Church should never depart from the sacred patrimony of truth received from the Fathers. But at the same time she must ever look to the present, to the new conditions and new forms of life introduced into the modern world, which have opened new avenues to the Catholic apostolate.

[. . .]

The salient point of this Council is not, therefore, a discussion of one article or another of the fundamental doctrine of the Church which has repeatedly been taught by the Fathers and by ancient and modern theologians, and which is presumed to be well known and familiar to all.

For this a Council was not necessary. But from the renewed, serene, and tranquil adherence to all the teaching of the Church in its entirety and preciseness, as it still shines forth in the Acts of the Council of Trent and First Vatican Council, the Christian, Catholic, and apostolic spirit of the whole world expects a step forward toward a doctrinal penetration and a formation of consciousness in faithful and perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine, which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another. And it is the latter that must be taken into great consideration with patience if necessary, everything being measured in the forms and proportions of a Magisterium which is predominantly pastoral in character.

[. . .]

The Holy Father's point here is that the apostolic faith does not and cannot change.  However, how our faith is presented can and should change so that it might be more effectively preached and taught.  

Nowhere in the documents of Vatican Two do the Fathers of the councils radically alter any fundamental Catholic doctrine or dogma.  

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You are lacking one thing

NB.  Our deacons are preaching this weekend. . .so, here's a repost for this Sunday from 2006.

28th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, Irving, TX

Here’s what I know to be true about everyone in this church, everyone who can hear my voice right now, here’s what’s true about you: you desire to know God, you long to be touched by His spirit, you want more than gold, silver, or cold hard cash to be in His presence and to know his healing grace. How do I know this? There is no other reason for you to be here. No other incentive or reward to come to this place this evening than to encounter the living God. If you are here—and you are—then you are here b/c the Holy Spirit has thumped your ear, kicked you in the rear, or maybe even two-by-foured you upside the head. You are here b/c you know that you will not be filled, will not be settled, will not be gentled or graced or rested with anything or anyone less than the One Who made you. No gold, no silver, no cash, no love, no job, no amount or kind of power will slake your dry thirst, feed your yawning hunger, or tame your wild longing for our Father’s love. He is our beginning and our end, our source and our finish. And nothing shortens His love for us or diminishes His mercy to us. He knows what we need more than air to breathe and water to drink and He is here to give us all that we need. And this is why we are here.

So let me ask you: what riches do you put between you and our Father’s love for you? What possesses you and holds you back? If Jesus looked into your eyes and said to you: “You are lacking one thing for eternal life.” What is that one thing?

The rich young man asks Jesus how he might inherit eternal life. Jesus patiently recites the commandments given to Moses. The young man tells Jesus that he has observed the Law all his life. And then in an moment that deserves its own gospel, Jesus looks into the young man’s heart, loves him, and with this love sees the gaping hole in the young man’s soul—the lack, the longing that defines him. Jesus sees the young man’s enslavement to things. What the young man lacks but desires is poverty. Freedom from stuff. Freedom from ownership. He has many possessions. He is possessed by many things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bring your lack to Him and do what needs to be done to follow Him.

Here's Fr. Lawrence Lew, OP homily for today's readings (H/T: Matheus)
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The Year of Faith & You (Updated)

WHEREAS, the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI has declared that the next 12 months shall be a Year of Faith;

And WHEREAS, our Supreme Pastor has encouraged the use of social media to promote the teaching and preaching of the Gospel worldwide;

And WHEREAS, Yours Truly is one of the many Catholics who make use of social media to spread the Good News;

HERE is a question:  what specifically can HancAquam do for you in this Year of Faith?

UPDATE:  Let me be a little more specific:  what sorts of posts can I write to help you better understand, live out, and spread the Gospel?

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