Competing for glory

30^th Week OT (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Competing for the highest seat of honor at the table is evidence that you may be entertaining the sin of vainglory. Now, contemporary American dining etiquette doesn't recognize “seats of honor” at the table. So, we might think about this parable in terms of competing for unmerited attention in class, or showing off in an attempt to make our co-workers look bad. Closer to home, we might think about it in terms of the temptation to “out religious” our brothers and sisters at Church – kneeling longer, genuflecting more deeply, perfecting our Pious Face; the sort of religious theatrics that not only lead others to think of us as holy but also ward off any close scrutiny of our sinfulness. How many of us have taken communion in a state of mortal sin b/c we didn't want our friends to think we were. . .in a state of mortal sin!? We'd rather commit an additional mortal sin than be seen as anything but saintly. That's vainglory. The problem with vainglory is that it is a lie; that is, it's seeking glory for oneself based on a falsehood. The falsehood that lies at the bottom of vainglory is that my gifts, my talents, everything that makes me special is My Doing. My achievement. All of my successes – academic, athletic, romantic, economic, spiritual – are solely due to my intelligence, my diligence, and my physical prowess. This is a lie. And this lie, Aquinas tells us, leads to a host of other sins – “disobedience, boastfulness, hypocrisy, contention, obstinacy, discord, and love of novelties” (ST.II.II.132.5). Jesus teaches us to combat vainglory with humility. Seek the lowest seat. He's not saying pretend that you aren't gifted, or don't use your gifts publicly. He's saying don't take credit for creating your gifts. Don't seek praise for yourself b/c of your gifts. Instead, give glory to the One Who gave you your gifts. God alone assigns seats at the Wedding Feast. So, competing for the best seat is not only pointless, but it also causes chaos in your spiritual life. In effect, loving praise and seeking it out is a form of idolatry, a form of self-worship: I deserve this praise. Not God. I'm entitled to this attention. Not God. That is a surefire way of rejecting your invitation to the Wedding Feast, a guaranteed way of getting many opportunities to practice gnashing your teeth and rending your garments. Seek the glory of God. Give glory to God. And Him alone.

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"Meh. I've got work to do."

30^th Week OT (Th)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Jesus is busy healing, casting out demons, and preaching the coming of his Father's Kingdom. IOW, he's doing what he was sent to do. His words and his works draw the attention of this world's powers, and he's warned that those powers are both curious and threatened. Nothing new here. He's freeing those trapped in spiritual poverty from the bonds of sin and death. So, of course, the worldly powers see him as a dangerous man. They would have us forever dependent on merely human wisdom and works for our survival, always helpless and easily controlled. But Jesus' mission and ministry is to show us that we can be sons and daughters of the Most High, heirs to His Kingdom, and free from the misery of an imperfectible Law. The consummation of his mission and ministry must take place in Jerusalem – the unrepentant city where God's prophets go to die. Thus, when warned that Herod wants to kill him, Jesus says, in essence, “Meh. I've got work to do.” Today, tomorrow, the next day, he has work to do. So do we. Unsurprisingly, it's the same work that Christ did – showing those enslaved in spiritual poverty that they do not have to live on the scraps tossed to them by their “Betters.” They are invited to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. But before they can attend the feast, they will need new garments; a new heart and mind; a renewed spirit of courage. They will need to be recreated in the image and likeness of him who is fully human and fully divine – Christ Jesus. They will also need to know and understand that becoming Christ has its consequences. There is the peace of his constant presence. And the constant presence of opposition and trial. There is always A Herod out there wanting to kill them. Or to put them back into slavery. Or to silence them for good. But none of that matters ultimately b/c they will be free. What matters ultimately is that they are free. Free to rejoice, to preach, to love, to forgive, to bless. Free to thrive in the Spirit and grow in holiness. Free to shout, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” And free to mourn at the foot of the Cross on Calvary. No longer mired in the spiritual poverty of the world, we are free to be who and what we were recreated to be – ministers and missionaries of the one sent to set us free.

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Wide Sin, Narrow Gate

30^th Week OT (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

I've fallen off the ship into the icy sea. The crew throws me a life jacket. I say, “No, thank you.” And drown. You're diagnosed with an easily treatable form of cancer. Your doctor offers you a cure. You say, “No, thank you.” And die. We are sinners. As such, we are destined to an eternal death after death. God throws us a life jacket in the form of His Son. He offers us a guaranteed cure for our disease. But we say, “No, thank you.” The wailing and the gnashing of teeth begins. Who killed me, you, us? The sailors, the doctors, God? No. I did. You did. We did. Jesus is asked, how many will be saved? Only a few? A great multitude? Will everyone be saved? The answer is: as many as choose to be saved. Yes, the gate is narrow. And we need to be strong to pass through. But think of it this way: the size of the gate is inversely proportional to the size of our accumulated sin. The wider our sin, the narrower the gate. Souls who have chosen pride, anger, injustice, violence, and disobedience will find a paper-thin opening. Souls who have chosen freedom in Christ, freedom from sin and death will find a gate as wide as the Father's love for His children. He wills that we all be saved. He also wills that we choose – freely choose – to be saved. Choosing to be saved entails a conversion of heart and mind, choosing to turn back to God, and living lives bearing witness in word and deed to the mercy and love we've been given. When the sailors haul me back on deck, I say, “Thank you.” When the doctors save your life from cancer, you say, “Thank you.” When we find ourselves at the Wedding Feast, having chosen Christ, sitting beside the angels and saints, we say, “Thank you.” Our rescue, our cure, our salvation is not an entitlement nor is it a contest. It's a gift. Freely given, freely received.    

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Fungus & Seed

30^th Week OT (T)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

The Kingdom of God is like a seed and a fungus. A seed sprouts and grows. A fungus multiplies and spreads. The tiny mustard seed can grow into a 9ft plant. Just a pinch of yeast can leaven a lot of flour. Both do their natural work unseen. They do their best work when nurtured and cultivated. Like the seed and the fungus, the Kingdom is unseen, powerful, and diffusive. So our preaching of the Kingdom is best done in a similar way. If we think of our preaching as a way of conforming the Word to the World, then we become agents of the World not the Word. That's not our charge. If we think of our preaching as a way of confronting the World, as a way of disputing with the spirits of the World, we end up in a bloody fight. We are not a militia or a political party. How much better would it be to think of our preaching as a kind of sowing, sowing the Word like mustard seeds and watching the plants flourish where they land. Or dosing the flat, unsalted flour of the World with the yeast of the Word and letting it all come to life. If our preaching is a kind of sowing, then we aren't all that worried about neat rows, straight lines, or orderly patches. We reach in, grab a handful, and fling! Where the seeds and yeast land may be random or perfectly patterned. What matters is the soil. And that the soil is seeded. As preachers of the Word, our job is to give every kind of soil the chance to produce good fruit, to give every bit of flour the opportunity to rise. We do this by shedding the Word as naturally as seeds grow and yeast leavens. By diligently – and maybe even wildly – flinging the Word wherever we walk.

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Know yourself to be a sinner

30^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Sirach and Paul assure us that our God is faithful to those who live their days in humility, in humble service to the proclamation of the Word. He hears and answers the prayers of the lowly and rescues those who serve His will. How do we become lowly? How do we bind ourselves to His will and live out our days in His service? Jesus offers a parable. Two men go to the temple to pray. One is a Pharisee; the other a tax collector. The Pharisee believes himself to be righteous by his deeds. The tax collector knows himself to be a sinner and cries out for God's mercy. Which one leaves the temple justified, made just by God?

The question here is not: which one is a righteous? The Pharisee is self-righteous; the tax collector is made-righteous. The question is: which one leaves the temple justified; that is, which one is made just before God by God? My question gives away the answer. We already know that the Pharisee's prayer in the temple is useless. First, to whom does he pray? Jesus says, “The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself. . .” He praises and thanks himself. He is his own god. Second, how does he pray? He praises himself for not being a sinner; he gives himself thanks for “not being like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous.” And lastly, how does he think he made himself righteous? “I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.” Works. He believes that pious works – w/o mercy, humility, or love – make him righteous. Now, we know that the tax collector leaves the temple justified. Instead of praising himself for not being like other men, the tax collector does the only thing a truly self-aware sinner can do: he throws himself into the hands of God and cries out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, a sinner!” Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

So why would any sane Christian fail to cultivate humility? We know the vice that opposes the virtue of humility is pride. What is pride? Pride isn't about taking pleasure on one's achievements, or claiming that one's nation, state, or team is particularly wonderful. Being proud of your children for academic and athletic awards isn't the sort of pride that thwarts humility. True Pride – the sort our ancestors put in first place on the list of Deadly Sins – is the erroneous belief that we do not need God; that we do not require His help b/c we are perfectly capable of saving ourselves from sin and death; that we are not only capable of saving ourselves but that we prefer to save ourselves. Pride leads us to believe that working for social justice and equality will save us; that holding the right beliefs and attitudes will save us; that saying the right prayers in the right order the right number of times will save us; that giving money to the Church, to charity will save us. Pride insists that we are each self-sufficient, independent, and absolutely alone. And that with these superlative qualities, we can become god w/o God. The serpent says to Eve, “when you eat [the forbidden fruit] your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods. . .” That serpent's name is Hubris.

Pride leads us away from God, so how do we overcome it? Like the tax collector at prayer in the temple, there's only one way to triumph over the self-righteousness that pride instills in us: throw yourself on God's mercy! Why is this the only way? B/c only God Himself can make you righteous; only God Himself can bring you out of sin and death and restore you to your rightful place in His Holy Family. He gives us His only Son, Christ Jesus, as the only means, the only Way, back to Him. And with the Holy Spirit pushing us toward perfection, pouring out for us and into us gift after gift after gift, we accomplish all that God commands us to accomplish for His greater glory. The Pharisee's good works are just that: his good works. Yes, tithing and fasting and praying are all perfectly wonderful spiritual exercises. But before a spiritual exercise can be efficacious, there must be a relationship of love established btw the human heart and Love Himself. Fortunately for us, God Himself initiated this relationship at the instant of creation, installing into every human heart and mind the gnawing need to seek Him out and live with Him forever. To think that I can satisfy this need for myself is Pride distilled into the darkest, deadliest poison.

Luke tells us that Jesus addresses his parable to a very specific audience: “. . .to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.” We can't help but make the connection btw self-righteousness and hatred. Self-righteousness – born, bred, and nurtured in pride – rejects the necessity of loving others; it leads us to deny the need for mercy, forgiveness, trust in others. If I can make myself righteous, why do I need you? Or God? Or the Church? If my social justice causes and good works and charitable donations are enough, why bother with humility? Why bother with all that “love your neighbor” nonsense? Why bother? Sirach answers: “The one who serves God willingly is heard. . .The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds.” Paul answers: “I am already being poured out like a libation. . .I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.” How do we answer? We throw ourselves on the mercy of God, confessing our sins, knowing that the Lord hears the cries of the poor – the poor in spirit, the truly humble, those most in need of His care, and those most willing to take into the world His re-creating love.

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