Surrender to Providence

23^rd Week OT (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Four Blessed are you's and four Woe to you's. Old English profs like myself call this parallelism. We love this literary device b/c it allows us to do that other thing we love: compare and contrast. Taking these eight Blessed's and Woe's together, we can figure out what Jesus means by “holiness.” Holiness is not about piety; that is, you can behave piously and remain comfortably among the accursed. Who was it that described the Pharisees, in all their pious finery, as “white-washed tombs”? Nor is being holy about morality; that is, you can successfully avoid every immoral thought, word, and deed that tempts you and still remain entrenched among the accursed. Does Jesus ever bless a good moral act in his sermon on blessedness? Nor is being holy about assenting to the truth of dogma; that is, you can memorize the Catechism and the Bible, recite them both w/o error in front of the Blessed Mother; swear you believe every word, and still find yourself playing among the accursed. Even the Devil can quote scripture. Having said all that, being pious, morally good, and orthodox are all necessary to growing in holiness but none of them (nor all of them together) is what it means to be holy. Holiness (blessedness) is principally about how we choose to suffer – that is, how we choose to understand and act on the pain and deprivation we experience while separated from our Father. Who does Jesus say is blessed? The poor, the hungry, those who mourn, and those who choose to experience their mortal deprivations for the sake of his Name.

And why are these folks blessed? What's so holy about being poor, hungry, mournful, and persecuted? There's nothing especially holy about any of these conditions as such. What's special about being poor, hungry, etc. is that each of these conditions offers the ones who endure them the chance to see beyond their earthly limitations and rely completely on the loving-care of God. They are given a clearer vision of what it means to be humble before the Lord than those who might rely on their wealth and good name for comfort. We are all called to holiness regardless of our state in life or the condition of our lives. Any one of us might choose to suffer poorly and attach ourselves to the bottle, the casino, the needle, or some other false god. Or we might choose to avoid pain and deprivation by causing others pain and depriving them of their due. True holiness entails genuine piety, righteous words and deeds, and right belief about the faith. But the next step beyond these necessities is choosing to throw ourselves completely and w/o hesitation on the loving-care of God. We call this abandonment to divine providence humility. The truly humble are already among the blessed.

If you have tried it, you know that surrendering to providence is no easy maneuver. Being attached to this world makes surrender simply difficult. But if you are attached to this world by wealth, comfort, mortal loves, and the applause of the world's ruling powers, then surrender is almost impossible. Why would any sane person surrender financial security, family/friends, and civil influence for the chance to suffer well for Christ? Well, all those attachments die when you do. An attachment to Christ lives forever. So the choice is stark: attach yourself to the temporary and become temporary. Surrender to the eternal and enjoy eternity. As Paul says, “...the world in its present form is passing away.”

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Are you ready to be a witness?

23^rd Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Jesus heals the man's deafness and his speech impediment and then orders him to be silent. In fact, he orders everyone who witnesses the healing to be silent about what they saw. Mark notes, however, “...the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it.” Two questions: why did Jesus order them to be quiet about the miracle? And why did they disobey? Our interpretative tradition answers the first question this way: Jesus did not want to be seen as a magician, a local crank who went around performing for crowds. Healing miracles drew a lot of attention, and he didn't want to draw the wrong sort of attention, i.e. the Jewish religious authorities or the Romans. The second question is answered like this: the crowds disobeyed b/c they had nothing to lose by bearing witness to the miracle. They didn't understand the purpose of the order, or they maybe they thought Jesus was being falsely humble as part of his act. There's nothing quite so juicy as a bit of forbidden gossip! These answers are fine as far as they go. But something else is going on here. Namely, the healed man and the crowds were not prepared to be proper witnesses to the fullness of the Gospel. IOW, the Gospel is more, much more than having one's ailments cured. They weren't ready, and their disobedience proves it.

The next question is pretty obvious: are you, are we ready to be witnesses to the fullness of the Gospel? The fullness of the Gospel. Likely, some of us are ready to bear witness to the reality of sin. Others are more than ready to give testimony to the power of prayer. Most of us will stand up and lay claim to being Catholic, but will we do so when doing so means losing family, friends, our livelihoods, and maybe our lives? We can be quick to witness to the political realities of being Catholic: pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, pro-social safety net. And we can be just as quick to witness to the moral implications of the Gospel: go to confession; no sex outside the marriage bed; no transgender stuff; modesty in dress. All of these are indeed Catholic and worthy of being witnessed to. But taken together, they do not make up the fullness of the Gospel. They are bits and pieces, fragments loosely sewn to the whole cloth of the Gospel. But the Good News of Christ Jesus is deeper and wider than our human morality and our local politics. The Good News is about bearing witness to Christ by becoming Christ.

We are made and remade to become Christ. But we cannot become Christ on our own. The imperfect cannot bring itself to perfection. Only perfection can draw the imperfect to its completion. If we are going to become Christ, we must do so with Christ. This is the lesson Adam and Eve missed when they disobeyed God in the garden and gave in to the serpent’s temptation to become gods without God. They believed the lie that it is possible for that which is incomplete to bring itself to completion. They ended up naked, exiled, in pain, and eventually dead. And yet we are daily tempted to throw our spiritual well-being into the boxing ring of ridiculous theories and practices in order to achieve our perfection without resorting to Perfection Himself. How many Catholics believe voting for the right guy/gal is going to save them? How many believe they are morally right simply because they take the right positions on moral issues? That being registered in a parish is good enough to thread the Narrow Way? Or giving up caffeine during Lent is a sufficient path to holiness? All of these can derive from the Gospel, but – even taken together – they are not the Gospel's fullness.

We are visited daily by the serpent. Our ears are tickled by the sibilant promises of obtaining divinity w/o obedience, w/o sacrifice, w/o suffering, w/o our dark nights. We know, however, that to become Christ, we must take up his cross and follow him. The credibility of your witness rests squarely on the degree to which you are willing to surrender your imperfection to His perfecting love, and to the degree to which you are willing to share the Good News of his perfecting love by behaving in the world like one who is being polished to reflect the Father’s glory. There is a road to walk, a Way to travel, and there is a difference btw talking about walking that road and getting on your feet and walking it. If Jesus were to heal you, would he ask you to spread that good news? Would he look into your heart and mind and see a son or daughter who's willing to be obedient, self-sacrificing; one willing to suffer well for the truth and beauty of the Gospel? Or would he tell you to keep quiet b/c you are not yet – not yet! – prepared to bear witness to the fullness of all he has to offer? If you're not ready, hear again what Jesus says to the deaf and dumb man: “Be opened!”

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