Are you an evildoer?

12^th Week OT (Th)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Lord, did I not go to Mass everyday? Did I not send my kids to Faustina/Highlands/UD? Did I not give to the Dominicans' renovation fund? Did I not daily pray the rosary/the Office/the Divine Mercy chaplet? Did I not go to confession weekly and always do my penance? “I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoer.” Harsh. Evildoer? How does going to Mass, giving to the Church, and praying everyday make one an evildoer? Jesus replies, “. . .only the one who does the will of my Father. . .will enter the Kingdom of heaven.” But giving, praying, and repenting are all included in the will of the Father! True. But on what sort of foundation are building your spiritual home? If your foundation is “doing good stuff” to get to heaven, then you might be doing stuff for selfish reasons. That's a weak foundation. If you are “doing good stuff” to be seen doing good stuff. . .well, that's almost no foundation at all. Maybe you're doing good stuff out of guilt. Or from a sense of obligation b/c you have been given so much. Or b/c you're too shy or embarrassed or lazy to say No to doing good deeds. There are as many bad reasons to be virtuous as there are people who try to be virtuous for bad reasons. Jesus says that the wise man builds his house on solid rock – an unchanging, timeless, immovable foundation. By nature, mere human motives for virtue are temporary. We want congratulations. We want recognition. We want to feel “good” about ourselves. We want, we want, we want. Want dies with the person. What you want goes with you into the grave. If Jesus is to come to know us and we him, then our spiritual house must be firmly built on eternal rock. Sounds good. But what does it mean practically? Practically, it means that our “good deeds” must be motivated by nothing more than a need to give God glory. We pray, give, work, teach, preach – everything we do from writing checks to the OP's to sending the kids to Catholic schools to being considerate to others in traffic, everything must be done for no other reason than to show the world the wonders of the Father's love and mercy. To not only appear to be but to actually be distributors of God's truth, goodness, and beauty. A water hose doesn't think about why it is delivering water to the garden. A car doesn't consider its motives for taking you to the pharmacy. But you and I, we are rational animals, so we must ponder our motives for doing good. And when we do, our motive has to be: this gives God glory; this good deed points to God's generosity, to His greater love, to His truth. Why? The only reason we have anything at all to give is b/c God gave it to us to give away in first place. We all have what we have – wealth, power, intelligence, education, organizational skills – whatever we have, we have it all only b/c God wills that we give it away and point back to Him as our source. For Himself, He doesn't need the recognition or the glory, of course. But those whom He wills to be free from sin and death do need to see how He works in our lives so that they can allow Him into theirs. The rock solid foundation for our spiritual homes is sacrificial love: giving it all away for no other reason than it was all given to us by God to be given away. Do this, then he will declare to us solemnly, I have always known you. Come to me, you good and faithful servants.

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Taste the pie

12^th Week OT (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

My maternal grandmother, Milly, made the best chocolate pie in the Mississippi Delta. Maybe in the whole state. Let's say all attempts by aunts, cousins, and second-cousins to duplicate her prize pie fail miserably. There's a written recipe. But it wasn't written by Milly. No one knew who composed the recipe, but it is obviously wrong. Over time, lots of sweet tea, and wasted ingredients, the aunts, cousins, and second-cousins compose a recipe that even the oldest members of the family would agree is authentic. Finally! We have the Real Thing captured on paper never to be altered. Mama Milly's Famous Chocolate Pie had reached it culinary perfection. And no pie could rightly be called Mama Milly's Famous Chocolate Pie unless it tasted like it came from her kitchen. The pies her generation of aunts made were fed to the next generation. That generation fed their pies to the next. And so on. We know a pie is the real deal b/c we have family members who remember. When a fake Milly pie makes an appearance, we know it immediately. Even if it tastes better; it's not a Milly pie. And the pie maker is false. We know the baker by his/her pies. Beware false bakers!

Jesus tells us to beware false prophets. Since false prophets rarely – if ever – advertise their duplicity, how do we know they are false? By tasting their pies. Or, as Jesus puts it, by judging their fruits. Good trees produce good fruit. Bad trees bad. So, is the prophet's fruit good or bad? This could be asking whether or not his/her prophecies are fulfilled. Does the prophet prophesy accurately? Or, we could be asking whether or not the prophet prophesies in a way that brings about unity, peace, hope, and holy guidance. Bad fruit brings about: division, turmoil, despair, panic – all leading to a loss of faith. Our history as a Church is jammed packed with false prophets, bellowing about one impending disaster or another. What they all have in common is a lack of trust in God's providence for his Church and a spiritually unhealthy fascination with when All This comes to an end. God sends prophets our way for just one reason: to tell us we have strayed and need to get back on track. He's in control. His plan has always, is now, and will always win out. Nothing changes that. Not war, natural disaster, dumb politicians, or corrupt Church leaders. If you're paying attention to your growth in holiness then you know we are off course. You know we are barreling toward the last guardrail and the brakes don't work. That's been true since three seconds after Christ ascended into heaven. And this is why God wills that through our baptism into the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus we are all made prophets. Priests, prophets, and kings. What David and Elijah and John the Baptist and Christ Himself were by birth, we are made by water and the Spirit. Our great challenge is to be authentic prophets for the God's call to repentance from sin. So, if you want to make Mama Milly's Famous Chocolate Pie, you'll need real chocolate, heavy cream, lots of real sugar and butter, and a tub of lard for the crust. Try it with skim milk, Stevia, and Crisco, and you'll wear the shame of being a false baker. Real bakers, like real prophets, only use real ingredients. And they only produce good fruit.

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Pretty but poisonous

12^th Week OT (T)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

It doesn't really matter what religion you follow as long as you are a good person. I'm spiritual but not religious b/c organized religion is too limiting. There is only one mountain but many paths to the top. Besides, in the end, everyone goes to heaven. So, who cares what faith you follow? OK. Jesus says, “How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.” As good Catholics, we know that universalism and religious indifferentism are heresies. Long condemned heresies that pop up regularly like mushrooms on a cow patty – pretty but poisonous. That these dangerous bits of bumper sticker theology still appear is obvious. But why do they continue to plague us? What is it about the human person that needs to believe them? Part of it is pride – making myself into my own god. If I'm my own god, then I get to write my own scripture and invent my own theology. Another part of it has to do a failure to understand the nature of truth. Two contradictory statements claiming to be true cannot both be true. Jesus says that his is the only name given under heaven for the salvation of mankind. If we believe this to be true, we cannot at the same time hold that the name of some other god is also salvific. Another part of the motivation for heresies like indifferentism and universalism is the laudable desire not to cause offense. It's just not polite to tell people they're going to hell b/c they don't follow Christ. No socially well-adjusted person wants to defend that claim at the Sunday barbecue! But I think the deeper problem is that we've made religious belief into an intensely private, intensely emotive, highly personalized way of being right about something. When it comes to religious belief, you cannot tell me I'm wrong; therefore, I am always right. Politics used to be like that. No longer. Everything personal is political nowadays. All we have left to always be right about is religion. But as Christians, as Catholics, we aren't allowed to fall back quietly on the motto the “Your truth, my truth” nonsense and relax. Our faith is rational; that is, it is explicable, defensible, demonstrably true, and comprehensive. Our faith isn't a boutique filled with carefully curated, handcrafted treasures designed to please and delight. It's a total worldview. An all-encompassing mindset that informs and guides every thought, word, and deed. It's The Way to think about, talk to, and walk back towards God. Does our faith provide us with knowledge of every truth? No. Nothing in the Tradition tells us which interpretation of quantum physics is the right one. Nothing in revelation or Church teaching tells us whether Whitman or Dickinson is the better poet. Tradition, revelation, Church teaching are all bent toward helping us to respond to God's salvific love and mercy. So, what we know about that response is that it must come through Christ. It must come freely. It reveals our trust in God through our words and our deeds. And on the Last Day, what gets us through that narrow gate is a face shining like a mirror, reflecting Christ's own face back to him. Not the Buddha's face. Or Mohammad's. Or Vishnu's. Christ's. His is the only name and the only face that saves.     

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