Choose the largest measure

Ss. Timothy & Titus

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

The world teaches us to be victims and hold grudges. There is no more powerful claim in our culture at the moment than “I am the victim here!” There's real, worldly power in being aggrieved. For every grievance there's a just and equitable remedy to be found. More often than not, that remedy is some sort of public punishment meant to deter future offenses. What that remedy is really about, of course, is control. The power to subjugate, exile, or execute one's opponents. It's about vengeance and domination. This is not the Way of Christ. The world wants us to think in terms of oppressor and oppressed, slave and master. Christ teaches us to think in terms of brother and sister, family and servant. We serve because we are gifted with divine love and that love – by its very nature – is diffusive. If we are loved, then that love must be shared. The most immediate way of sharing divine love is to imitate divine love in the act of forgiveness. To forgive is to relieve another of his/her debt to you. You eagerly and sincerely surrender your status as a creditor in favor of willing the Good of another. If you cannot bring yourself right now to forgive in name of divine love, then start by forgiving for your own sake. The measure you use to measure will be used to measure you. If your measure is stingy and mean, then your capacity to receive forgiveness will be stingy and mean. Think of the act of forgiveness as a stretching exercise. The more and more easily you forgive – the further you stretch your mercy muscles – the more and more easily you are able to receive forgiveness. Generally, our reasons for not forgiving others are really just excuses to cling to our sense of having been offended. My dignity. My pride. My position. My status as a victim. None of which matter in the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. In the divine economy, both the creditor and the debtor become richer when a debt is forgiven. Both the creditor and the debtor are freer, better equipped to grow in holiness, and more able to move on toward Christ. God has forgiven us. From all eternity, we are free from sin and death. That's a debt that cannot be repaid. All He asks of us is to be instruments of diffusion, little nodes of dispersion for His divine love. Our measure must be as large as God Himself. That's the measure we want and need when comes our turn to be measured.           

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There is only Christ

3^rd Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Do you belong to Paul or Cephas or Apollo? To Trump, Biden, Obama, or Cruz? Do you belong to JPII, Benedict, or Francis? Or are you a pre-VC2 Catholic or a Spirit of V2 Catholic? Maybe a Traditionalist or a progressive? A New Mass or Old Mass Catholic? A recent survey of some 4,000 American priests concluded that younger priests are more conservative than their older, more liberal brother priests. You will search in vain for a definition of liberal and conservative in the survey. The author of the survey dodged every request to define the terms in a recent interview. As a priest-formator, seminary professor and spiritual director for 11 years, I'd say that the survey is absolutely correct. But I too would struggle to define my terms. What is a “conservative Catholic,” a “progressive Catholic”? For that matter, what does it mean for a follower of Christ to say, “I belong to Paul” or “I belong to Apollo”? Being a follower of Christ means that one has heard Jesus say, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand,” and followed him. It means one has received an invitation from God to become a “fisher of men.” Why follow the sheep when you can follow the Shepherd?

I don't need to go into detail about the division and polarization in the contemporary Church. It almost perfectly reflects the division and polarization of the world. If this isn't a scandal, I don't know what is. And I confess my own contributions to the problem. I am as likely as anyone else to use secular political terms to describe Catholic partisans. And I encourage seminarians and young priests to lean heavily toward the more traditional side of churchy disputes. My training as a Thomist and a Stoic prevent me from embracing Traditionalism in all its polyphonic and lacy grandeur, but I'll also grab a silk chasuble (even fake silk) over a burlap chasuble every time. I confess all this to make sure you understand that I know that I am part of the problem. The preacher preaches to himself first! The Father's prophetic Word on our current mess is clear: those who follow Christ confess that they follow Christ. Not the Democrats or the Republicans or the progressives or the Traddies. But Christ. And Christ alone. I belong to Christ. And that means I can belong to no one else. Follow the Shepherd not the sheep.

So, does following Christ mean that we cannot also be a progressive or a Traddy or some other adjectival add-on? No, it doesn't. But notice how English works. Adjectives modify nouns. So, if I say I am a “BXVI Catholic,” then I have used BVXI to modify Catholic. If this means that I have read, understood, and accepted BXVI's understanding of what it means to follow Christ, then fine. I am following Christ (first) in the manner of BXVI (second). However, if it means that I have given my allegiance to a partisan camp for the sake of being identified as a partisan of that camp, then not so fine. Why? Because being a partisan is what matters to me here, not following Christ. If being a progressive is more important than being a Catholic, or being a Traddy is more important than being a Catholic, then you are saying, “I belong to Progressivism” or “I belong to Traditionalism.” Is Christ divided? Was Obama or Trump crucified for you? Did LGBTQ ideology or the Constitution suffer for you? Were you baptized in the name of JPII or Francis? No, of course not. Nor is it the flesh of politicians or popes or theologians that you eat this morning. We eat Christ this morning, so it is to Christ that we belong.

Matthew reports that Jesus moves into the area of Galilee and “from that time on, [he begins] to preach and say, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'” Not the kingdom of Progs or Traddies or Democrats or Republicans. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. And it's time to repent. To turn away from the sins of divisions and parties in the Church, away from laying claim to this or that ideology as a modifier for our faith. It's time – beyond time! – for us to return to Christ and him alone and do the job we've agreed to do: fish for the souls of men and women who desperately want to be free from sin and death. Only Christ can free them, free us. The politicians can create programs. Popes and bishops can create processes and policies. Ideologues can create the illusion of secular utopias or perfectly ordered Christian societies. But only Christ can rescue us from sin and death and make us partakers in his divine life. If you will receive the gift of eternal life, you will order your life first to Christ. Everything else – family, friends, neighbors, politics, religion – everything else will flow naturally from your fundamental relationship to Christ. For salvation, there is no Trump or Biden or JPII or Francis or Progressivism or Traditionalism. There is only Christ. Why follow the sheep when you can follow the Shepherd?

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