Nothing is free. . .except grace

29^th Week OT (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Getting “something for nothing” seems like a trap. It's a favorite dodge of politicians. Free healthcare. Free tuition. And, btw, your taxes are going up. Salesmen like this one too. Here's a free microwave for buying a car. Oddly, a microwave-sized “service fee” appears on the bill at checkout. Clerics discovered this dodge early on. Sure, God's grace is free. Absolutely! All you have to do to get it is attend Mass once a week; go to confession once a year; behave yourself in thought, word, and deed; and be as publicly miserable as possible to show everyone that you are a terrible sinner. Obviously, nothing the gov't gives you is ever free. You paid for both the car and the microwave. And grace that comes with strings attached isn't grace. Paul writes, “Grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” Christ's gift to us is his life, death, and resurrection. What can measure such a gift?

Nothing. No thing, at least. Nothing created. And nothing anything created can say, do, or think. Christ's gift to us is freedom from sin and death. With that freedom we can still choose sin and death. And we often do. But there is nothing we can do before he gives us our freedom to earn our freedom. No amount of prayer, fasting, or alms giving increases God's love for us. No amount of sin, no matter how terrible, decreases God's love for us. He freely loves us according to His nature. We choose whether or not to receive His love and make use of His gifts. This is why Jesus says – twice –, “I tell you, if you do not repent, you will perish...” Why would he tell us to repent if we were not free to repent? Repentance cannot give us grace to repent. “Repent first, then I'll make it possible for you to repent.” That's nonsense. Repentance is our reception of an already, always given grace. That's freedom. And it's free. It's free to you and me b/c Christ paid the price of perfecting our human nature on the Cross, according to the measure of his gift. If you are stuck in sin and death, here's a question: why? Why are you choosing to be a slave to that which cannot and will not save you?     

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The recipe for martyrdom

St. Ignatius of Antioch

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Ignatius of Antioch, writing to the first century church in Rome, asks his brothers and sisters in Christ not to rescue him from martyrdom: “I plead with you: show me no untimely kindness. Let me be food for the wild beasts, for they are my way to God. I am God’s wheat and shall be ground by their teeth so that I may become Christ’s pure bread…Do not stand in the way of my birth to real life; do not wish me stillborn...Let me attain pure light. Only on my arrival there can I be fully a human being.” Now, hearing this, we can embrace his plea as a confession of heroic faith, or we can dismiss it as self-destructive fanaticism. 21^st c. Americans are trained to hear deeply held and fervently voiced expressions of faith as delusions, or, at best, romantic drivel. Cynicism and ironic distance can make it all too easy to hear a bit of comedy in Ignatius' plea. I mean, surely, he's joking, right? He wants to be chewed up by lions so he can become Christ's true bread? Seriously? The answer is: yes, yes, he does. Does the fact that someone could believe so deeply, so fervently make us uncomfortable? Well, it should. Because we are called to that same depth and fervor.

Whatever we may think of his literary talents, Ignatius' plea makes perfect sense when read along side the Gospel. As the kids say these days, “He understood the assignment.” Fall to the ground. Lose your life. Serve and follow Christ. Die. Produce good fruit. The recipe for martyrdom. A recipe for bearing witness to the mercy and love we ourselves have received. We know that we cannot give what we do not have. But do we understand that we must give all that we have? Why? Because everything we have and are is given to us. Our lives, our faith, our hope, everything is first given to us by God. And our mission and ministry is to give it all away. To imitate Christ in passing along to others all the gifts God has given us. Most especially the gift of sacrificial love, the gift of Christ himself. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. It is unlikely that any of us will be eaten by lions in the Coliseum. But we are nonetheless called upon to flourish where we are planted. Ignatius' blood has fallen on Irving, TX; on UD; and St. Albert's Priory. On you and me. We are well-watered. And it is time to bear witness and give back all God has given us. 

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