Why do you believe?

St. Thomas the Apostle

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Dominic Priory, NOLA

We've given Doubting Thomas the wrong nickname. We should call him “Denying Thomas.” His denial couldn't be clearer: “I will NOT believe.” He doesn't say, “Huh. Well, maybe, but I'll need a little more evidence to be sure.” He says, “I will not believe.” His denial sounds eerily modern, almost scientific in its demand for material proof. This must've shocked his fellow apostles. He's seen and heard everything they've seen and heard. He's been with Jesus almost from the start. Did he give any indication before this that he didn't believe his Teacher's revelations about his own mission? How he would die? Rise? Return and ascend? Maybe Denying Thomas' denial is prompted by grief or despair. Maybe he's distraught and just not thinking clearly. Regardless, he gets his material proof and comes to believe. But Jesus seems less than delighted at this turn of events: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” You can almost hear a disappointed sigh in there somewhere. Denying Thomas' story of conversion gives us an annual opportunity to closely examine the basis of our own assent to the Good News as handed-on by the Apostles. If asked, “Why do you believe?” what would you say? I've seen the wounds of Christ in the flesh? That would be amazing. . .and highly suspicious! Maybe you'd say, “This is the belief instilled in me by my family and reinforced by my social group.” OK. Less amazing, not suspicious. . .but meh. . .not exactly a rousing endorsement of a faith that, if rightly lived, promises persecution and death. Could you say, “I've experienced the life-giving grant of mercy for my sins”? Better. But deeply personal and difficult to translate for those for whom sin is an illusion. Another Thomas tells us that belief is the assent of the intellect to Truth w/o the need for empirical evidence. “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” This means that belief is dangerous. It requires commitment, a willingness to throw in w/o any material guarantees for eventual success or reward. It means taking on by witness alone the fullness of God's Self-Revelation and living one's life accordingly. No guide wires, no safety net; nothing but trust and the sure hope that you've bet on the right divine horse. Denying Thomas needed more than trust or hope. He needed proof. But we know that what needs proving, daily testing, is our faith.

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Courage, child!

13^th Week OT (R)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St Dominic Priory, NOLA

The Great Physician treats his paralyzed patient's paralysis as both a physical and spiritual dis-ease. Our Lord forgives his sins, and his body is freed to move as it should. This treatment is astonishing enough – certainly astonishing enough to infuriate Jesus' religious enemies – but what's more astonishing is what, or rather who, motivated the Lord to heal the paralytic in the first place. The man himself didn't ask to be healed. His friends asked for healing on his behalf. Seeing his friends' faith, the Lord says, “Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.” That this man is healed on the strength of his friends' faith is a great sign of hope for us. Not only are we freed to ask for healing for ourselves but we are also freed to ask for healing for one another, and to receive that healing regardless of who asks for it. This is how the Body, the Church, works – not as atomized individuals, floating around each to his own in a Just Me and Jesus relationship, but as a single, faithful organism pointed irrevocably toward a supernatural end. Are we suitably struck with awe that this healing authority has been given to us?

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Calming the Storm 2.0

13^th Week OT (T)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Dominic Priory, NOLA

We used to ask the Lord to protect us from “all anxiety.” Now, we ask to be “safe from all distress.” Both translations come from the Latin, ab omni perturbatione securi, from all perturbations, secure us. The aquatic perturbations scaring the disciples to death demonstrate in dramatic form the point Jesus has been making for some time in his public ministry – fear and faith are not compatible. Faith necessarily entails trusting in divine providence that all will work out as it should. Not necessarily how we want. . .how it should. And that level of letting go can create its own layer of anxiety and fear. Jesus reprimands his seasick students: “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?” The clear implication here is that faith overcomes fear. If you have faith, you won't be afraid. Or, better: faith transforms fear into courage. Thanks be to God, faith doesn't require us to abandon reason. Neither does it require us to abandon planning or taking precautions. What it does require is that we surrender control. Be reasonable. Plan accordingly. Take precautions. But at the same time surrender whatever control you think you have. The disciples freaking out didn't calm the storm. Their day-planners and Google calendars didn't calm the storm. All their preparations and precautions didn't calm the storm. Their fear, anxiety, distress – none of those calmed the storm. Jesus did.

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Calming the storm

13^th Week OT (T)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Dominic Priory, NOLA

We used to ask the Lord to protect us from “all anxiety” after the Our Father. Now, we ask to be “safe from all distress.” Both translations come from the Latin, ab omni perturbatione securi, from all perturbations, secure us. The aquatic perturbations scaring the disciples to death demonstrate in dramatic form the point Jesus has been making for some time in his public ministry – fear and faith are not compatible. Faith necessarily entails trusting in divine providence that all will work out as it should. Not necessarily how we want. . .how it should. And that level of letting go can create its own layer of anxiety and fear. Jesus reprimands his seasick students: “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?” The clear implication here is that faith overcomes fear. If you have faith, you won't be afraid. But is this true? Fr. John told us last week about a woman w/no mask at Mass. When he confronted her, she said, “Where's your faith, Father?” Faith doesn't require us to abandon reason. Neither does it require us to abandon planning and taking precautions. What it does require is that we surrender control. Be reasonable. Plan accordingly. Take precautions. But at the same time surrender whatever control you think you have. The disciples' freakout didn't calm the storm. Their calendars didn't calm the storm. All their preparations and precautions didn't calm the storm. Jesus did.

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Who does Christ say you are?

Peter and Paul

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St Dominic Priory, NOLA

I trust that if the Risen Christ walked into this chapel this morning, he would not need to ask a bunch of Dominican friars, “Who do [you] people say that the Son of Man is?” Presumably and most assuredly, we know. The more provocative question for us to ask him would be, “Who does the Son of Man say that I am, that we are?” I hope we would be disappointed and distraught if he said, “You are administrators and professors; religious hobbyists and social workers.” As Pope Francis has said more than once – Jesus did not die on the cross to establish a religiousy NGO. He died, rose, and ascended so that we might become Christs for the salvation of the world. That's a big job. But it's one we've all taken on freely. It is a day-to-day thing for the Body to bear witness and bring the Word to the world. Thanks be to God, we do not have to do the job alone. We have millions of other as yet imperfect Christs to lend a hand. So, if the Risen Christ walks into this chapel, and we ask, “Lord, who do you say we are?” Can he say, in all honesty and sincerity, “You are Christs, Sons of the living God”?

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Loving God is the Cross We Bear

13^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

AUDIO FILE

Scripture tells us that we live and move and have our being in God. Scripture also tells us that God is love. It follows then that we live and move and have our being in love, Divine Love. What this means practically is that our very existence – that we ARE at all – is a loving act of God. So, any person, place, thing, or activity that we say we love, we are able to love only b/c God loved us first. This is the point Jesus is making when he surprises us by saying, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” This surprising bit of apparent egoism from Jesus reveals a larger, more fundamental truth about who we are as creatures and what we are capable of. Because we are made in love and made to love, but are also fallen and often disordered in who and what we love, we can make idols of things; we can love other created things as if they were the sources of Divine Love. Therefore, we are not worthy of Christ; we do not take up our crosses; we fail to receive him when we choose to love things before we first love God. To get our lives properly re-ordered toward our eternal end, we must first love God, and Him above all.

 

When we love God first and above all else, all of our other loves make perfect sense. You love your parents, your spouse, your children. You love your neighbors, your co-workers, even strangers. You love your hobbies; you love your job – maybe? If these loves are properly ordered – that is second to and below your love for God – then loving these things become your way of loving God. Loving the things of this world in order to love God is how we avoid loving God in the abstract. Very few things are more damaging to your spiritual life than “loving God” in theory and then hating your neighbor in practice. In fact, hating your neighbor in practice IS hating God. In theory and in practice. We cannot get away from the necessity of willing the Good for all of God's children. Even trying to do so is spiritually damaging. How? Because you and I were created in God's love and re-created in Christ's sacrificial love, so trying to figure out a way to love God while hating our neighbor is just another version of hating ourselves. . .and God. That path does not lead to the Narrow Gate. 

 

The path leading to the Narrow Gate is straight and flat. Jesus says, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” How do you lose your life? And how do you lose it for the sake of Christ? You lose your life in baptism. You left the Old Man behind in the baptismal waters. Christ re-created you, a New Man, a New Woman, and you are now not only freed from sin and death but you are also gifted with the freedom to never sin again. In other words, you are free to love perfectly as Christ loves you. And that's how you lose your life for the sake of Christ. Loving perfectly. Loving in the proper order: God first, above all; then your brothers and sisters in Christ (“the little ones”) and then the things of this world. And here's where our dreaded crosses come into play. By loving the things of this world in light of God's love, we set ourselves apart. We set ourselves against the world b/c the people and things of this world want to be loved on their terms, by their own rules. And this makes us objects of scorn and abuse. On their terms and by their rules, love often means accepting sin; approving disobedience; and celebrating disordered passions. This we cannot do and live in properly ordered love. And b/c we cannot love as they want us to, we are called haters, bigots, much, much worse.

That's a cross we must bear. The temptation, of course, is to just surrender to the mob and love them as they want to be loved. But that makes us partners in their sin. Worse, it makes us traitors to Christ and the life he won for us by his death. Our witness to the world must come from our individual and corporate participation in Divine Love – not from race, class, gender identity, political party, sexual orientation, or any other ideological label that the worldly spirits use to divide us. It is no easy task to endure genuine rage and acts of violence when we stand with Christ and his re-creating love. But that is what we are called to. That is what we have vowed to do. We have upon us the prophet's task of standing firm in God's love and showing the spirits of this world that there is nothing mightier available to us that the saving mercy of our Father's love. He sets free. He saves. He makes right. And He gives life eternal. Properly ordered, loving God brings each one of us into the fullness of His righteousness and empowers us to go out there and bear witness to His truth and goodness. With Christ along, that cross is lightly carried and swiftly brought to victory.

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