Are you ready to do a great deed?

[NB.  The deacons are preaching at St Dominic's this weekend.  I'm celebrating the vigil Mass today at Our Lady Star of the Sea.  This parish, I'm told, is used to slightly longer homilies.  So. . .]

16th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Our Lady Star of the Sea, NOLA

Brothers and sisters, it will come as no surprise to you to hear it said, though being reminded of the fact never hurts, that God has done great things for us. He has done great things to us. And—if only if we will—He will also do great things with us! This bit of Good News is not news to us b/c we have long lived in the light Christ. No, not always perfectly, for sure, but living in his light most of the time is always better than living in the darkness all the time. And if, on those occasions when we are all too ready to listen to the enemy whisper, and if, when we listen, we hear what we want to hear, and do what we want to do, Christ's light always shines through that darkness to show us a smooth and level path back to the righteousness that is ours as heirs as the Father's kingdom. But you know this already. None of this is surprising. None of this is news to those who walk the way of love, behind the Lord, carrying a cross, looking forward, looking upward, looking beyond, beyond this world to the peace that passes all understanding in the world to come. If we know all this already, why do we need to hear it announced again? Well, the Good News of Jesus Christ might not be news to you. But it might be news to somebody, and that somebody is waiting to hear from you that he or she is profoundly loved, sacrificially loved, redemptively loved by the same God Who spoke the Word of Love into nothingness, and established by His love everything that is, everyone who is; and that same God holds by His love everything that is, everyone who is in being. Do not say—b/c you cannot say—that the Creator and Sustainer of all that is does not love you. He abandoned His Son to death for you, so that you might have life and have it abundantly, eternally. God has done great things for us. He has done great things to us. And—if only if we will—He will also do great things with us! Paul reminds the Ephesians of one great deed accomplished in the flesh of Christ. Christ, Paul says, is our peace. He made Jew and Gentile one, breaking down the walls of hatred and hostility, and abolishing the law with its divisive commandments. Why? So “that he might create in himself one new person in place of the two,” thus establishing peace, reconciling both Jew and Gentile with God, in his body and through the cross, putting that ancient enmity to death by his death. Is this a great deed we are prepared to imitate? To put an end to hatred and hostility through the faithful practice of sacrificial love? 

Let me be frank with you. Maybe even a little blunt. If you found the courage once upon a time to lay claim to your inheritance as an adopted child of the Father, and you found the time and energy to reap the benefits of God's abundant graces and His mercy, and you found the strength to walk this far along the crucified way, then you have the courage, the time, the energy, and the strength to present to this fallen world a mind and body formed in the likeness of Christ; a ready voice to speak the Word of Mercy and Truth to sinners; and the hospitality necessary to welcome into this family every leper, every tax collector, every prostitute, every politician, every Pharisee and scribe that crosses your path. You have everything—b/c it has been given to you—everything you need to live and die in love for the sinner, announcing the Good News of Jesus Christ to anyone with ears to hear, and—most importantly—you possess the power to grant mercy to all those who have offended you, showing them and reminding yourself that you too are a sinner in desperate need of receiving God's forgiveness. Anyone here w/o sin throw a stone, a hymnal, a shoe. Who isn't in need of mercy? Someone out there falsely believes that their loving Father, their Creator, does not love them, and they are angry, hateful, hostile, driven by despair, and quite possibly armed to the teeth. Can this lost soul look to me, to you, to all of us and see the face of Christ shining back at him, shining out the love that saved us from a darkness that never ends? If not, you and I, the whole Church have failed, miserably failed to be who and what we were re-created to be. We are a den of liars and thieves, deceiving ourselves and stealing from God souls that rightfully belong to Him alone. We cannot fault the world for its hatred and violence if we harbor in our own hearts the despair that feeds hatred and violence. If there is room in the soul of the Church for nurturing despair, disobedience, dissent, then there can be no room for Christ. We must be empty so that Christ might fill us up. We must be empty so that God's love fits perfectly, fully, and overflows and overflows and overflows. We must ask ourselves as individuals and as a Church: what takes up space in our hearts and minds that deprives us of the room we need for Christ? Truly, honestly can we pray with the Psalmist, “The Lord is my shepherd; there is NOTHING I shall want”? If we are busy wanting what has not been given, then we are too busy to love as we ought. 

You have heard it said: God has done great things for us. He has done great things to us. And—if only if we will—He will also do great things with us! The apostle Mark tells us in his gospel account that Jesus and the disciples are overwhelmed by the crowds and decide to jump a boat and escape across the sea. When they arrive on the other side, they discover that the crowd has followed them. Jesus surveys the masses before him and, Mark tells us, “[Jesus'] heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.” Note well the connection Jesus himself makes btw “lost sheep” and the need for instruction. Note well that it is compassion that motivates our Lord to teach these lost sheep “many things.” Out of his loving-kindness for the lost souls who follow him around yearning to know his truth, Jesus teaches them all that they need to know to live righteous lives; he teaches them all that they need to know to live in peace with one another and to live with justice for the least among them. We might want to ask here: what exactly does he teach them? To answer that we would need to spend several hours reading all four gospels! Or, we could look again at Paul's letter to the Ephesians and recall that Christ creates in himself one new person to replace both Gentile and Jew, thus establishing peace, thus placing the divine order over the natural order, thus dissolving the hardened hearts of accidental neighbors, so that both Gentile and Jew are reconciled with God, in his body, through the cross, and finally putting to death an ancient enmity that benefits no one but the Enemy and his legions. All that Christ teaches the lost sheep that day on the beach is tightly packed into one tiny word: love. No, not romance. Not being sweet like your mama said to be. Not indifference or passion or overwrought emotion. Rather, agape. Charity. Caritas. That Love Who spoke His creating word over the void and yanked into being all existing things. That Love Who spoke to the patriarch Moses and inscribed His commandments in stone. That Love Who spoke to Abram and made an everlasting covenant with a people not yet born. That Love Who spoke to His covenant-nation through the prophets and called them back to fidelity. That Love—agape, caritas—Who sent His holy spirit to the virgin, Mary, and gave to His creation a savior, a Son, to fulfill the obligations of the old covenant and establish a new covenant with a universal nation, a universal people. 

When Christ teaches the crowd on the beach, he says much and more but he exudes in his person and mission just one word: love. Packed tightly into that one little word is the salvation of man, the redemption of creation, and the whole promise of the Old Covenant: you are My people and I AM your God. When we do and say and think as we have vowed to do, say, and think, we too exude in our person and mission the healing power of Christ love. And nothing—not hatred, violence, anger, oppression, greed—nothing vile, nothing that abides in darkness or feeds on despair can withstand the creating and re-creating majesty of Holy Love! God will do great deeds with us. He will accomplish through us works mightier than the princes of this world will allow. When I fall, you continue on. When you fail, I will try all the harder. When both of us stumble—and we will—there will be brothers and sisters there to pick us up and move us along. We are one Body, reconciled in his flesh and blood, so that the Good News of God's love will always have the hands, the feet, the mouths, the hearts and minds of a holy people, a nation renewed to speak the Word of Truth and accomplish the righteous deed. Jesus tells the disciples to come away and rest for awhile. Well, break-time is over. There are lost souls out there and possibly in here that need to see and hear us acting and speaking in love. So, I will ask again: are you, are we prepared to submit ourselves in obedience to the law of love and put an end to hatred and hostility in our families, our parish, our ward, our city, our Church? Are we ready—through the faithful practice of sacrificial love—to forfeit the demands of pride and surrender the need for vengeance? If those of us sworn to love one another cannot/will not readily agree to reconciliation in the Body, how will those souls already swimming in hatred and violence ever see the light for rescue? The Church, the Body of Christ, demands nothing more from us than everything we are—the whole person, all that God has given us for his greater glory. We grow tired. But that's why we are here. We grow frustrated with our own failures. But that why we're here. We aggravate one another like siblings do. But that's why we are here. Take all that you receive here and go out there. Take Christ, the first Son of Love, take him out there and show the lost, the lonely, the hateful, the hostile, show them all that he has done for you and yours. Show them his light, show them a way home.

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With a text, or without? That is the question!

At 5.30 this morning the USCCB lectionary webpage indicated that today is the memorial of Mary Magdalene.  

I prepared a homily on the proper readings for the memorial.

When I got to the Missal in church, I realized that the USCCB webpage was wrong.  So, my homily was useless.

Tossing aside the text of the prepared homily, I solidered on with an improvised homily on what it means to say "Christ has fulfilled the words of the prophet."

After Mass, four different parishioners told me that it was my best homily ever.  One, a literary sort like myself, very excitedly said, "Father, I'm praying that your printer breaks down, or you spill remoulade sauce on your keyboard!"    

From all this, I take it that some would rather have an off-the-cuff homily than a prepared text.

So, there may be some experimentation in my homiletic future!

___________________

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Mercy IS a Sacrifice

[NB.  Feeling puny today. . .so, I'm borrowing from myself for today's homily.]

 

St. Appollnarius

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Like the sniping political operatives that they are, the Pharisees attack Jesus and his merry band for violating the Sabbath Law. Their crime? Some of the disciples absentmindedly pick grains of wheat and snack on them during a lesson. When the Pharisees pounce, Jesus—ever the scholar of Jewish history and the scriptures—remind them that David and his friends went into the temple and ate the bread of offering. Then he lowers the boom: “If you knew what this meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned these innocent men.” This is a triple accusation. The Pharisees do not know their own history. They do not understand mercy or sacrifice. And they have condemned innocent men. Of course, their most egregious error is their failure to recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah. Had they done so, they would have known that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, thus making their condemnation of the disciples into a chance to show mercy. So, what does this scene tell us about the relationship btw mercy and sacrifice?

We might be inclined to conclude that the two are opposed. Jesus says that he prefers one to the other, therefore, we can either show mercy or offer sacrifice. The Law requires sacrifice, but Christ requires mercy. The two are incompatible. But this can't be right since Christ is the fulfillment of the Law. In the City of God, Augustine clears it all up for us. When Jesus quotes Hosea, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” Augustine writes, “. . .nothing else is meant than that one sacrifice is preferred to another. . .mercy is the true sacrifice. . .All the divine ordinances. . . concerning the sacrifices in the service of the tabernacle or the temple, we are to refer to the love of God and our neighbor” (X.5). In other words, every act of mercy is a sacrifice, an embodiment of the love God has for us and a demonstration that we love Him in turn. To set aside judgment and condemnation in favor of mercy is the sacrifice God desires from us. 

What might be confusing here is that we seem to be using the term “sacrifice” in two different senses. When Jesus says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” he uses “sacrifice” to mean “the ritualistic slaughter of an animal in the temple by a priest according to the Law.” This is not the sort of sacrifice the Lord desires. Augustine gives the term “sacrifice” its contemporary meaning in the context of Christ's fulfillment of the ritual Law of animal slaughter. That is, he goes to the root of the word and discovers that sacrifice is what we do when we love the sinner and show him/her mercy. For Augustine, following Christ, without love, the sacrificing priest is just a butcher and his sacrifice is just killing. What makes “showing mercy” a sacrifice is our giving up on the prideful need to sit in the Lord's place as judge and executioner of His justice. When we show mercy to a sinner, we first acknowledge our own sinfulness and confess the need to be forgiven. None of this means that we're to be “soft on sin” or make a habit of excusing disobedience! It means just the opposite. Only a sinner needs mercy. Only a sinner can be called to repentance. 

Jesus tells the Pharisees that they are in the presence of something greater than the temple, something more fundamental, more vital than the Law. They are in the presence of Love Himself, mercy-made-flesh. Had they acknowledged this truth, their desire for sacrifice would have turned to pleas for mercy. And their accusations to songs of praise.

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Say NO to a Grand Bargain on Marriage!

Brilliant essay by Robert George of Princeton on the "inevitability/right side of history" rhetoric used by same-sex "marriage" pushers to pressure the rest of us into believing that we are cultural neanderthals for opposing their radical social experimentation.

[. . .]

The fundamental error made by some supporters of conjugal marriage was and is, I believe, to imagine that a grand bargain could be struck with their opponents: “We will accept the legal redefinition of marriage; you will respect our right to act on our consciences without penalty, discrimination, or civil disabilities of any type. Same-sex partners will get marriage licenses, but no one will be forced for any reason to recognize those marriages or suffer discrimination or disabilities for declining to recognize them.” There was never any hope of such a bargain being accepted. Perhaps parts of such a bargain would be accepted by liberal forces temporarily for strategic or tactical reasons, as part of the political project of getting marriage redefined; but guarantees of religious liberty and non-discrimination for people who cannot in conscience accept same-sex marriage could then be eroded and eventually removed. After all, “full equality” requires that no quarter be given to the “bigots” who want to engage in “discrimination” (people with a “separate but equal” mindset) in the name of their retrograde religious beliefs. “Dignitarian” harm must be opposed as resolutely as more palpable forms of harm.

As legal scholar Robert Vischer has observed, “The tension between religious liberty and gay rights is a thorny problem that will continue to crop up in our policy debates for the foreseeable future. Dismissing religious liberty concerns as the progeny of a ‘separate but equal’ mindset does not bode well for the future course of those debates.” But there is, in my opinion, no chance—no chance—of persuading champions of sexual liberation (and it should be clear by now that this is the cause they serve), that they should respect, or permit the law to respect, the conscience rights of those with whom they disagree. Look at it from their point of view: Why should we permit “full equality” to be trumped by bigotry? Why should we respect religions and religious institutions that are “incubators of homophobia”? Bigotry, religiously based or not, must be smashed and eradicated. The law should certainly not give it recognition or lend it any standing or dignity.

The lesson, it seems to me, for those of us who believe that the conjugal conception of marriage is true and good, and who wish to protect the rights of our faithful and of our institutions to honor that belief in carrying out their vocations and missions, is that there is no alternative to winning the battle in the public square over the legal definition of marriage. The “grand bargain” is an illusion we should dismiss from our minds.

[. . .]

George makes an excellent observation: early 20th century eugenics programs and abortion "rights" were framed by the Left as "inevitable evolutions" in science and reason.  Eugenics has been soundly defeated and abortion is well on its way to becoming a stinking political albatross gracing the throat of every Leftist in America.  

Please! Read the whole thing and share it.

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On being a mule for Jesus

15th Week OT (Th)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Isaiah prays, “The way of the just is smooth, O Lord; the path of the just you make level.” By following Christ, we have chosen to walk the way of the just and our path is scraped smooth, made level by the Lord. For us, he fills the potholes; he flattens out the hills so that our pilgrimage along behind him is no burden, nothing and no one stands in our way. Can any one of us claim that our journey along the way has been free of bumps and bruises, free of aches and pains, and the occasional head-on collision? Can any of us claim that we have never encountered a nearly insurmountable obstacle along the way? The Lord has smoothed and leveled the way to Him, but the ways we must travel through this world remain as potholed, as steep, and as dangerous as ever. So, Jesus makes this invitation: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. . .For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” When we choose to become beasts of burden in the fields of Christ, we do the work but he leads the way. And if we follow his lead, we learn all we need to learn to make this world's steep climbs and potholes level and smooth. 

The first thing we must notice about becoming beasts of burden for Christ is that we choose this way of life. No one sells us into slavery to Christ. We are not born as yoked pilgrims. Even if our parents gave us to Christ as children, at some point along the way, we deliberately choose to stay yoked and working. Having freely chosen the burden of working for Christ and with him, we are obligated to learn all that he has to teach us. And like all students everywhere, we sometimes see our instruction as an intrusion, something to be rebelled against, thrown off. It's a beautiful day. There's fun to be had. Friends call for our attention. And here we are: yoked, strapped in, and following behind the Master, pulling a wagon for Jesus! But we chose this yoke. We freely elected to be yoked. Why? Maybe we believed Jesus when he said that his yoke is easy and his burden light. Maybe we calculated the cost/benefit of being easily and lightly yoked and decided that the benefits outweigh the costs. Or, maybe, we recognized in Christ our only chance to live just and holy lives and jumped at his offer to become his beasts of burden. Regardless of our motivations, we chose this. We sold ourselves to the Lord and now we serve as wagon mules for Jesus! 

Before us, all the way to the Lord, the way is level and smooth. No potholes to dodge, no hills to climb. Behind us, a light load and a patient driver. The yoke we wear doesn't chafe. And yet, all too often for our own good, we feel bound and restricted, locked-in, and oppressed by our work. We know this road. We know every inch, every pebble, every stray blade of grass. The view never changes—always forward, toward another weigh station. How did go from sinners who gladly accepted the yoke of Christ to Christians who balk at the kindest command from our driver? When Jesus invited us to take on his easy yoke, he made it perfectly clear that his yoke is a tool for learning, an instrument for teaching us to be just and holy. If the way appears potholed and steep, it's b/c we have stopped learning, closed ourselves to being taught. Like a stubborn mule needing bridle and bit, we have rebelled against our freely chosen yoke and decided that being a sinner freed to sin is easier, lighter. Have we learned all that Christ has to teach us? Have we graduated from his school of virtue? When are we just enough, holy enough to liberate ourselves from his yoke and walk alone? If we sometimes see the way as potholed and steep, it's b/c we no long choose to learn from Christ. With Christ, as his beast of burden, his student, nothing stands in our way. No road is too rough, no hill to steep. Without him, we are just stubborn mules. 

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The saving power of a childlike faith

15th Week OT (W)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Our Lord declares to his apostles and to us that he comes among us to slash the bonds of sin and bring peace btw heaven and earth, btw God the Father and His fallen creatures. With the bonds of sin forever cut, those who claim their freedom in Christ will find themselves uncomfortably set apart from those who choose to remain slaves to disobedience. The peace he establishes btw heaven and earth disrupts whatever temporary, worldly peace we might hope for in this life. Christ's explosive entrance into human history as a squalling baby and his bloody exit as an executed criminal uncovers a divine plan for creation's redemption. That plan can only be revealed. It cannot be deduced from evidence, discovered by exploration, or guessed at by chance. What God has hidden, no man may find. . .unless God Himself shows the way. In the presence of his apostles, Jesus praises the Father, saying, “. . .for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.” The sword Christ wields against the bonds of sin creates another division: those who trust their own judgment and those who trust the way of the Lord. 

We might rightly wonder why learning and worldly wisdom prevents us from seeing and following the way to God's hidden truths. Knowing is not trusting. If you tell me that you trust your spouse's fidelity b/c your private detective lets you know what he/she is doing all day, every day, I would say to you that you might know that your spouse is being faithful but you do not trust his/her faithfulness. If you tell me that you trust in God b/c scientists now know that the laws of nature have an intelligent designer, I would say to you that you might know that there is an intelligent designer but you do not trust him. Knowing is not trusting; knowledge is not faith. Faith is freely invested, freely endowed. Faith is recklessly given, surrendered. Trust that results from evidence, experiment, exploration is not trust. At most, it's a feeling of confidence, a provisional grant that assures you. If your faith is based on the testimony of miracles, apparitions, locutions, based on anything other than the apostolic witness of the Church and your own experience with the power of Christ's sword to sever the bonds of sin, then your trust is not trust; it's knowledge. And knowing is not trusting. Knowledge is not faith. 

Does this mean that knowledge has no place in the life of faith? Absolutely not! It means that all that we come to know we know as those who have given their trust to God. It means that we begin with faith, a childlike trust in God, and then we walk His way to a more profound Truth, to those truths that take us behind and beyond the knowledge that reason alone acquires. Worldly learning and wisdom cannot reveal God's truth, but they can both supplement, lend strength to all that God has revealed. The trap we must avoid is the belief that knowing all there is to know about creation tells us all there is to know about the Creator. If—in some possible future—we come to know the most fundamental elements and operations of the universe, exhaust every scientific tool we have in the exploration of matter, energy, force, motion, space, and time, and uncover the unifying law of nature, we have learned no more about trusting God than a child learns by loving his mom and dad. Loving God is knowing God. If you will know God, then love Him and love all that He has created. No matter how much we might learn, how wise we might become, nothing can replace the saving power of faith. 

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Praising the Idols of Death

What do you get when you cross narcissism, postmodern nihilism, elitist feminism, and the worship of the idols of the Culture of Death?

You get this woman:

Since I was 12 I’ve had an unappealing, didactic distrust of people with the extreme will to live. My father’s parents were Holocaust survivors, and in grade school I received the de rigueur exposure to the horror—visiting geriatric men and women with numbers tattooed on their arms, completing assigned reading like The Diary of Anne Frank and Night. But the more information I received, the less sympathy the survivors elicited from me. Each time we clapped for the old Hungarian lady who spoke about Dachau, each time Elie Wiesel threw another anonymous anecdote of betrayal onto a page, I eyed it askance, thinking What did you do that you’re not talking about? I had the gut instinct that these were villains masquerading as victims who, solely by virtue of surviving (very likely by any means necessary), felt that they had earned the right to be heroes, their basic, animal self-interest dressed up with glorified phrases like “triumph of the human spirit.”

I wondered if anyone had alerted Hitler that in the event that the final solution didn’t pan out, only the handful of Jews who actually fulfilled the stereotype of the Judenscheisse (because every group has a few) would remain to carry on the Jewish race—conniving, indestructible, taking and taking. My grandparents were not excluded from this suspicion. The same year, during a family dinner conversation about Terri Schiavo, my father made the serious request that should he fall into a vegetative state, he would like for us to keep him on life support indefinitely. Today he and I are estranged for a number of other reasons that are all somehow the same reason. 

The ONLY redeeming element of this woman's post is the combox feedback.  There, my confidence in the goodness of humanity is restored.

H/T: MCJ

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Fr. Hollywood may not ad-lib. . .

Many liturgical ad-libbers and revolutionaries invoke the ever-malleable "Spirit of Vatican Two" to justify editing the text of the Mass to suit their personal whims.  

What do the actual texts of the Second Vatican Council say about ad-libbing the liturgy?

From The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum concilium):

III. The Reform of the Sacred Liturgy

[. . .]

A. General Norms

22. 

1.  Regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church, that is, on the Apostolic See and, as laws may determine, on the bishop.

2.  In virtue of power conceded by the law, the regulation of the liturgy within certain defined limits belongs also to various kinds of competent territorial bodies of bishops legitimately established.

3.  Therefore no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.

Therefore, no priest has the authority to ad-lib a liturgical text.  The Fathers of the Council make no exceptions for "pastoral concerns" or "cultural adaptations."  

Add.: One of the things I find interesting about the whole "Spirit of Vatican Two" excuse is that it seems that the Spirit inspired the Council Fathers to write X in the council documents but now inspires interpreters of those texts to believe that He really meant not-X. 

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The bloodied tool of mercy

15th Week OT (M)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

If Christ makes us worthy to preach his Good News, he also prepares us for the consequences of doing so. Sending the apostles into the world to spread the Word of his Father's mercy, Jesus lays bare the most painful effect of taking on his apostolic mission, “For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother. . .and one's enemies will be those of his household.” Such division is not the purpose of his coming, but it is the inevitable consequence of cutting the bonds of sin. He says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.” With the sword of salvation, the Christ severs us from our ancient servitude to sin and brings a peace that surpasses all understanding, a peace between the Father and His adopted children. With such a peace between heaven and earth firmly established, conflicts among those we love most can become pitched battles, bloody wars of attrition. Thus, fairly warned, we set our eyes on the victory Christ won on the Cross and work to merit the unearned trust he invests in us to see his mission accomplished. 

Why does taking up one's cross and following Christ turn a father against his sons, a mother against her daughters? Why does becoming an apostle of the Good News threaten to undermine friendships and make us an enemy in our households? Jesus not only warns us about this possibility, he tells us why it will happen, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. . .” How often do we hear challenges to the faith that sound something like this, “If you really loved me, you would accept me as I am”? “If you were truly my friend, you wouldn't call me out for doing this”? “If you were serious about having a good workplace environment, you would just shut up about religious stuff”? How often are we called upon—in the name of love—to cease our apostolic mission and submit to the world's idea of peace? How often are we lectured about the divisiveness of our “black and white morality” and told to just accept that life is really “all about the gray areas”? How often are we threatened with exile from polite society, family, friends if we stand firm against the prevailing winds of cultural decay, political corruption, and religious persecution? The peace Christ establishes btw heaven and earth inevitably brings conflict btw those who are vowed to his mission and those who see themselves as targets of that mission.

Can we preach the Good News without a fight? It seems that we are fated to fight the rulers of this world if we will preach the Good News. Refusing to concede that Christ has already won the war on the Cross, the angels of rebellion and corruption believe that they still have a chance of winning. We know better. They lost the moment they rebelled against their Creator, so there's no saving a spirit lost to perdition. However, no man is lost while he still lives. Where a human will still holds sway, we have a chance to be heard and seen. What must we say and do to be convincing? Always and everywhere, without concession or hesitation, we must speak the Word of truth, that God's mercy is eagerly, freely available to anyone who will receive it. Always and everywhere, without concession or hesitation, we must show that Word of truth, that God's mercy is eagerly, freely given to anyone who needs it. It is not enough to proclaim free access to mercy. Mercy must be shown. We cannot fight on the world's terms. We do not belong to the world. We belong to Christ. The Cross he carried is the Cross we carry: a weapon of mass redemption, the bloodied tool of mercy. 

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Audio file: 15th Sundy OT

Here's the audio link to today's homily, "Not one of us is ready."
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Fr. Hollywood says, "Make it new!"

As a way of indirectly answering a few questions I got while teaching last week, here's a repost from 2010 on modern liturgical abuse. . .

In the early 20th century, the American crypto-fascist ex-pat poet, Ezra Pound, issued a three word manifesto that came to define the modernist movement in poetics:  "Make it new."  Reacting to what he saw as the calcified conservativism of formal verse in the West, Pound urged poets to strike out into unexplored poetical territories and bring to the art of the image and line the perpetual revolution of novelty for novelty's sake.

Pound's orders were faithfully followed by his loyal troops and the hydra-headed monster of modernist poetry laid waste to traditional versification.  The influence of his revolution of novelty was not limited to the arcane practices of poets.  Novelists, dramatists, artists, musicians, dancers, architects, all heard the call of "make it new" and went about deconstructing centuries of subtle, complex beauty with the fierce simplicity of the single, powerful image. 

As any Catholic who has witnessed the dissolution of our faith's liturgical heritage can attest, Pound's revolution had no respect for the Church or her treasures.  The central document outlining the Second Vatican Council's plan for liturgical renewal, Sacrosanctum concilium, was snatched by Poundian revolutionaries in the Church and used to dismantle the 500 year old tradition of worship in the Catholic faith.  Pope John Paul II, and to a much greater degree, Pope Benedict XVI, have mitigated, if not yet entirely reversed, the lasting damage done to the liturgical heritage of the Church by insisting on the organic development of liturgy and the need to read the Council documents with a hermeneutic of continuity.   What remains of the Novelty Revolution lies mostly in the misplaced creative efforts of priests and religious who, for whatever reason, see it as their vocation to make sure that the Church's worship remains "relevant" and "up to date." 

By placing relevance and novelty above organic development and continuity, liturgical Poundians ignore the historical and ecclesial nature of the liturgy and privilege their subjective cultural assessments above the real spiritual needs of their charges.  The widespread phenomenon of liturgical abuse is an insidious form of clericalism that encourages those with clerical power to use that power to inflict their private preferences, political agendas, and ideological quirks on congregations powerless to stop them.  Though Catholics have seen a dramatic decline in liturgical abuse in the last twenty-years, abuses still occur, and in some places, abuses are the norm.

Liturgical abuse comes in three varieties:

1).  a misplaced emphasis on the immanent at the expense of the transcendent

2).  the elevation of the purely intellectual at the expense of the affective/experiential

3).  an emphasis on the local at the expense of the universal

(NB.  there is absolutely nothing wrong with the liturgy expressing the immanent, the intellectual, or the local.  The problem is an emphasis on these aspects at the expense of their balancing opposites.)

Immanent vs. transcendent

In reaction to the over-clericalization of the medieval liturgy, Poundians worked hard to redirect our liturgical attention to the presence of the divine among us.  Initially a necessary reform, this redirection quickly became a foil for all-things-transcendent.  The most notable example of this abuse is the almost-disappearance of the notion of the Mass as a sacrifice.  In order to displace the over-hyped role of the priest, Poundians turned the Mass into a communal meal, distributing the larger portion of the priest's role to the community and making Mass all about bringing the community together.  We still see this happening in the unnecessary use of communion ministers; the priest refusing to use to presider's chair; folksy language used to replace liturgical language; and the illicit use of gender-inclusive language.

Intellectual vs. affective

Many older Catholics lament the demise of traditional devotions after Vatican Two.  In an effort to bring our undivided attention back to the celebration of the Mass, Poundians waged war against devotional practices.  Seen as private, affective luxuries, devotions were railed against as willful acts of rebellion against the need to build community through individual "active participation" in the Mass.  Modernist innovations in the secular arts always required some knowledge of the theory that produced the art.  Pollock's paintings only make sense if you understand what he is trying to do in the context of traditional painting techniques.  Poundian liturgical revolutionaries were quick to dismiss criticisms of their innovations with ringing calls for more catechesis--more education would somehow diffuse the overwhelming discomfort most Catholics felt when confronted with disruptive, alien liturgical practices.  We still see the intellectual being privileged over the affective in abuses like monologues on the meanings of liturgical symbols; an insistence on equating stark, barren sanctuaries with "noble simplicity"; the deconstruction of traditional church architecture as a way of embodying ideas about the nature of community; and the dumbing down of liturgical language so that immediate cognitive understanding trumps the more profound experiences to be found in elevated language and ritual.

Local vs. universal

As part of the effort to undermine a universally told story about the faith, Poundians began emphasizing the need for more and more local options in the celebration of the liturgy.  Citing the Council's call for inculturation, the "Make it new" crowd attacked the notion that our liturgical worship connects us to a historically-bound narrative of God's Self-revelation; in other words, their novelty revolution would not tolerate a liturgy that privileged tradition as the clearest lens through which the Church understands her historical relationship with God.  Building on the growth and spread of subjectivity and relativism, the Poundians latched onto a rarefied notion of the local church ("this church-community") and opposed it to the universal Church as the most authentic expression of catholic identity.  This move allowed them to argue for more and more specificity, more and more idiosyncratic innovations in how the liturgy was celebrated at the parish level.  It quickly became commonplace for parishes to be identified by their "worship-style," and even Masses celebrated at different times within the same parish were described in terms of style.  This abuse is most clearly seen in so-called ethnic parishes where attempts are made to accommodate the dominant culture of the parishioners (Latino, African-American, Vietnamese) at the expense of the universal story of our faith. (NB. not all cultural accommodation is necessarily an abuse; abuses are almost always perversions of allowable uses.)

Liturgical Poundians are on the decline.  Like their counterparts in literature, the excesses of novelty for novelty's sake have proven that the revolution has no underlying principle of restraint, no intrinsic limits.  What counts as "new" is itself subject to the whims of those deemed avant-garde enough to define the term.  Poundians have been rightly criticized for becoming staid, predictable, and highly orthodox in their privileging of a late-20th century liturgical aesthetic. Anyone who has clashed with a professional liturgist knows that the principles they espouse are as plastic as they need to be to justify the preferred worldview of the liturgist.  Rubrics, magisterial documents, liturgical law, tradition, all form a  repugnant canon to those who see it as their sacred ministry to shape the liturgical lives of the less enlightened.

Though it is not entirely clear that young Catholics will embrace the ancient liturgical tradition of the Church in large numbers, what is clear is that the age of experimentation is over.  Novelty for the sake of novelty is an exhausted project.  Deo gratis!

P.S.  Here's another post on how to address liturgical abuse in your parish.

___________________

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Not one of us is ready (Audio file added)

15th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Audio file (from the vigil Mass)

Before God got a hold on him, Amos was a sheepherder and a tree surgeon. Before God found him on the road to Damascus, Paul was a lawyer and a zealous persecutor of Christians. Before Jesus walked past Matthew, he was a tax collector; James, John, Peter were fishermen; Luke was a doctor. What about Mary? She was a teenaged girl betrothed to Joseph. We have a prophet, twelve apostles, and the Mother of God. From who and what they were before hearing their call, all these ordinary people became extraordinary players in even more extraordinary events. Amos is called to chastise a corrupt priest of the royal court. Paul is called to cease his persecution of Jesus' followers and become one of them. The other apostles are all called to leave their ordinary jobs, to become students of the Master, and give their lives to the preaching of the Good News. And Mary, a virgin girl, is called to become the woman who bears Christ into the world. By the Word of our loving God, ordinary people—just plain folks—are pulled out of the tedious minutiae of just getting through another day and fashioned into instruments of the Divine Will and set out to accomplish a divine purpose. If God will use shepherds, fishermen, a doctor, and a virgin girl to complete His work, why wouldn't He use you, use any one of us? 

If called upon to serve a divine purpose most of us would probably react the same way most of the Biblical figures reacted: Who me? Why me? I'm just a bank teller, a cashier, a stay-at-mom, a fast food cook! I'm just a high school graduate; I barely passed my religion classes; I don't like to speak in public; I'm a Big Sinner, probably the Biggest! Given enough time, we could find a thousand and one reasons to avoid being called, a thousand and one excuses not to do whatever ridiculous and potentially embarrassing job God wants us to do. And if we couldn't find the one thousand and second excuse, we'd make one up! Alright, maybe I'm projecting here, maybe I'm telling you more about how I reacted to the call than predicting how you might react. But my point should be clear: when pressed into divine service, quite a few of us truly believe that we are unworthy of the honor, unfit for the job. And we're right to believe it. We are unworthy, unfit to do God's will. . .that is, until He makes us both worthy and fit, until He gifts us with all that we need to accomplish the work He's given us to do. To the shepherd Amos, He gives a prophet's voice. To the Pharisee, Paul, He gives a motivating vision. To Peter, John, James, Andrew, all the apostles, He gives knowledge, wisdom, and authority. And to Mary, He gives a sinless start. What gifts has He given you so that you might complete His work? 

Paul writes to the Church in Ephesus, assuring them that he is absolutely confident that they have received their gifts from God and that they have the will and fervor necessary to use those gifts in God's service. When he writes his letter to the Ephesians, Paul is a prisoner of the Roman Empire and from his prison cell he preaches the gospel of freedom in Christ. He shouts out God's Word across the known world. Amos, a sheep-herder and dresser of sycamores, is sent by God to prophesy to Israel. Angrily confronted by the priest, Amaziah, and ordered to leave the temple, Amos says, “I was sent by God to speak His word.” And Jesus, calling the Twelve together, sends his friends into the world, giving them authority to command unclean spirits, to preach and to teach. A prisoner, a sheep-herder, a tax-collector, a handful of fishermen, a doctor, and a few ambitious corporate climbers—all chosen, all taught, all sent to do one thing: speak the Living Word of God in spirit and in truth so that the heirs of the Father might know that their inheritance is at hand. Not one of these apostles or prophets goes willingly. Not one goes without apprehension. Not one of them leaves to do God's will without believing that he is unprepared, unworthy. But they go b/c they trust that God prepares them and makes them worthy to bring His will to completion. 

As baptized men and women, we have already accepted the call from God to be His apostles, to be those who go out and preach His gospel in word and deed. As the Body of Christ together in this building, we are here to say “Amen, so be it” to God's charge that we become Christs where we are. And though we may believe ourselves unprepared and unworthy, we are nonetheless vowed to do exactly that. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul takes the time to describe to his brothers and sisters the origin and flowering of their work as heirs to the kingdom. His detailed account of their creation in love and their recreation in Christ's sacrifice is not just pretty theological rhetoric. His goal is to open their eyes and ears to the truth of their identity as ones who have been picked out, selected to do the job God has given them to do. Do you feel unprepared? Who doesn't? Nonetheless, you are a daughter of the Father, an heir. Are you unworthy? Who isn't? Nonetheless, you are a son of the Father, an heir. Are you a prisoner? A shepherd? A fisherman? Probably not. Are we without tools? Training? Experience? Maybe. Nonetheless, we are sent. The only important question now is: will we go? Or will we wrack our brains to invent that one thousand and second excuse to leave God's gifts untouched and go on with the tedious business of just another day? Or maybe, we are willing to pick up His gifts and do His will there's something or someone stopping us. Amos is threatened by a priest who invokes both divine and worldly power. Paul is threatened by imperial Rome. The apostles are threatened by temple, empire, and the rulers of this world—priests, soldiers, and demons. Though threatened from every direction by every force available, Amos, Paul, and the apostles go out anyway and do what their Father has commanded them to do. 

Who or what is stopping you? The government? Your spouse? The kids? Your job? If so, listen again to Paul, the prisoner of Rome: “In [Christ] we were. . .chosen, destined. . .so that we might exist for the praise of his glory...In [Christ] you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, [you also] were sealed with the promised holy Spirit, which is the first installment of our inheritance. . .” What worldly power can un-choose you? What relationship do you enjoy that trumps your inheritance as a child of the Father? What deficiency in training, moral purity, motivation, or intelligence can defeat the promise of your baptism? “In accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us,” we are free from every deficiency that limits us, holds us back, or fights to defeat us. His grace, His gifts are lavished upon us and in harmony with these gifts we are forgiven our transgressions and sent out as apostles to give testimony to the freedom we enjoy as God's possessions. So, if we are timid or lax or afraid of doing what we have already promised to do, then it is more than past time to ask for strength, determination, and courage. There's work to be done, God's work. And when we do this work with the Holy Spirit, we are more than merely capable; we are made worthy, fit, and thoroughly prepared. In truth, we are truly blessed. 

___________________

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On becoming a heretic

Excellent take-down of that WaPo story on dissident catechists who refused to sign a fidelity oath in the Diocese of Arlington.

One observation that had me cheering:

[. . .] Based on years of reading Post coverage of the many doctrinal battles between liberal and conservative Episcopalians, it appears that it absolutely crucial for conservative Episcopalians to obey their liberal bishops (and everyone heads to secular courts if they cannot work things out), but it isn’t terribly important for liberal Catholics to obey their conservative bishops, even when those bishops are acting in obedience to that Bishop of Rome guy. 

During my many years as a Episcopagan--yes, that's how I identified myself--, I argued that it was crucial for traditionalists in the Episcopal Church to obey the revisionist decisions of the democratically elected General Convention.  

The Holy Spirit was always Do Something New and we couldn't allow obstinate worshipers of nostalgia to prevent us from Moving Forward.  The very idea that 20th century Christians would look backwards for inspiration was abhorrent.  

Every decision of the GC that opened up the church to Our Future, every vote that brought us closer to the Wonders of Full Inclusion made me tingle all over! 

It wasn't until I heard that the Great Process of Revision was leading us to discussions about scraping the Book of Common Prayer in favor of a three-ring binder that I began to question the Wisdom of Permanent Theological Revolution.  

When I sheepishly pointed out to my fellow revolutionaries that the Great Process endangered the one thing that all of us--revisionists and traditionalists--revered, the BCP, I was told that the BCP is oppressive, exclusive, narrow, and a tool of racism/sexism/homophobia.  Not only must we revise the BCP, we must destroy it to serve the Permanent Revolution!  

My friends in the Church, the ones who had preached disobedience to authority and the glories of diversity, difference, and full-inclusion, shut me down and beat me with demands for silence. I learned that diversity and difference really means "diversity and difference that agrees with our agenda."

That's when I put on my swimsuit and came across the Tiber.  And on this side of the river, I found more than a few Episcopagans disguised as Catholics.  They did little to actually hide themselves and behaved exactly like my former friends.  

They rail against institutional authority while using their institutional authority to shut down opposition. They decry the abuse of power while abusing their own power.  They cast themselves as The Oppressed while happily opposing anyone who disagreed with them.  And they snark against the shadowy workings of Old Men in Rome while working in the shadows as a clique all their own.

Thankfully, the Roman Catholic Church isn't run like a parliament, so their revolutionary fervor rarely causes much long-term damage.

___________________

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Is that wolf I smell?

14 Week OT (F)
 Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Dominic Church, NOLA

Wolves. Sheep. Serpents. And doves. There's a veritable Noah's Ark in the gospel this evening, a whole zoo's worth of critters living in Jesus' imagination! In the wolf, there's a predator's singular focus on his prey and the cold cruelty of instinct. In the sheep, there's a docility, an innocence, a need to be protected. Serpents are cunning, calculating, and dangerously patient. Doves are gentle and pure. Jesus says that he is sending us as prey among the predators, so we must learn to be both shrewd and gentle, both cunning and pure. How do we manage that? When we are handed over to be prosecuted for treason or heresy, we need not worry about what we will say in our defense. Jesus assures us, “You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” But if we will be given what to say in our own defense at the moment of greatest need, then why must we like both the serpent and the dove while living as sheep among the wolves? If the Holy Spirit will defend us, and use our voices to do so, then we must be prepared to hear His Word. Before we can speak, we must listen. 

Sheep are notoriously stupid animals. Too stupid to learn much of anything. Wolves are much, much more intelligent, but they are largely driven by predatory instinct and not very obedient. So, Jesus is sending us to live as stupid prey animals among intelligent predators. But we are to be shrewd and gentle. Serpents have a rep for being sly, patient, manipulative, so they would probably make good students but dangerous friends. Doves don't exactly inspire wonder with their smarts, but they are beautiful, and they have a history of showing up at just the right time. Since the Spirit of the Father will be given to us when we need Him, our serpentine cunning and dove-like gentleness aren't really meant to be primary defenses against the wolves. Our primary defense is the Holy Spirit! Shrewdness and gentleness prepare us to receive the Spirit of the Father and to speak His Word. So, our hearing must be astute, and our listening docile—ready to be taught. To receive His Spirit requires docility, and to speak His Word in the Spirit requires ingenuity. To receive His Spirit requires the peace that comes with obedience, and to speak His Word in the Spirit requires the courage, trust, and fortitude that only He can give. 

Wolves will never fear sheep. Nor stop hunting them. So, sheep will always need a shepherd to protect them. The Holy Spirit is our protector, and if we will hear Him speak to us, we will grow in obedience, docility, and faith. This doesn't mean that we should nurture stupidity or timidity and dumbly wait to be rescued. It means that we throw ourselves into the source of Truth itself—God Himself; learn all we can learn about Him from Him; and then, commit ourselves to relying wholly and alone on His care. Are we resolved to being preachers of the truth and teachers of our apostolic faith? Are we fully given over to being wily promoters of God's justice and glowing examples of His mercy? Some of the sheep in the flock smell faintly of wolf. Jesus warns us that there will be those among us who seek to divide the flock, separate off the vulnerable as easy pickings. The Spirit of the Father will never speak with the voice of a hungry wolf, or a sneaky snake. He chooses His sheep—sheep who are prepared with His abundant help to speak His Word, and see it done. So, we listen with sharp ears and docile hearts, ready to learn. That is how we will endure. 

___________________

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On the Scandalous State of Catholic Catechesis

Thanks to the archdiocese's Office of Religious Education, I've been teaching basic and advanced certification class for catechists these last few weeks.

Without exception, the veteran teachers in these classes have been attentive, curious, hard-working and. . .surprisingly. . .just a little upset.

Upset!?

Yes, just a little upset.  Maybe surprised is the better word.  In every class so far, I've been told that the information we're covering is largely new to them, or the theology we're using to explain the teachings of the Church is one they've never heard before.

What are you teaching these teachers, Father?!

The Catholic faith.  Plain and simple:  nothing more than the apostolic faith contained in the Creeds, the liturgies, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  Granted, my spin on these is decidedly Dominican-Thomistic, but we are using the most basic texts available to explore what the Church teaches about prayer, the sacraments, and worship.  

And. . .the teachers have found much of what the Church teaches to be. . .surprising.  In every class so far we've had a student-initiated discussion that starts with, "Father, I've been teaching CCD for ____ years and no one ever told me _____!"

Any student of mine from the past knows that the focus of my classes is always the text in front of us.  What does the text actually say?  Why does the text say this?  Why does it say what it says in this specific way?  

Deliberately set aside are questions of personal experience and feelings. For example, in discussing the Real Presence, we look at the relevant paragraphs from the Catechism, etc. and spend our time "unpacking" the language used to teach the truth of Christ's sacramental presence in the Eucharist.  

How we have experienced the Real Presence, or how we feel about the Church's teaching on the Real Presence is entirely irrelevant to the truth of the teaching.  In the initial stages of learning about God's Self-revelation in the Eucharist, our personal take on the revelation matters not one iota.  

Why does this old-fashioned method of closely reading texts cause surprise/wonder among veteran catechists?  They have been taught to teach in a way that privileges experiences and feelings above intellectual content. Are experiences/feelings important to learning the faith?  Absolutely.  But we have experiences of the faith, feelings about the faith.  In other words, the object of our experiences and feelings is the faith, and, in the absence of intellectual content, we are abandoned to do nothing more than tell stories and emote.

When you combine a 40 year legacy of institutional intellectual dissent with an experiential/emotive pedagogy, you get The Current State of Abysmal Ignorance about the Faith. You get a roomful of veteran catechists who are surprised/upset to learn that they never understood the Church's teaching on the basic truths of the faith b/c they were never taught the faith. 

You also get the occasional catechist who rejects the most basic teachings of the Church and even opposes the notion that the Church has the right and responsibility to teach the faith.  

Case in point:  the Diocese of Arlington recently asked its 5,000 volunteer catechists to sign a declaration of fidelity to the Creed and the magisterium.  Four volunteers refused to sign and resigned.  These women get points for having the integrity to resign.  What's interesting is how the reporter describes one woman who refused to sign the absurdly obvious declaration:

Kathleen Riley knows her beliefs on the male-only priesthood and contraception put her at odds with leaders of her church. But as a fifth-generation Catholic who went to a Catholic school and grew up to teach in one, Riley feels the faith deeply woven through her.

Riley's beliefs do not "put her at odds with leaders of her church."  Her beliefs put her at odds with the apostolic faith. But b/c she feels the faith deeply, her rejection of the Church's ancient teaching on the all-male priesthood and the evil of artificial contraception should not disqualify her from teaching Catholic children their tradition of faith, a faith that cannot be sliced up into discrete parts and digested individually. There's no disputing that Riley feels the faith deeply.  But what exactly is she having feelings about?  What is the object of her emotions?  It can't be the faith b/c she doesn't accept the truth of the faith.

The rest of the article trots out all the wearying cliches professional dissidents use to justify their continuing opposition to the Church:  "conscience," "abuse of authority," "polls show most Catholics ignore church teachings," "the bishops vs. the Holy Spirit," ad. nau.  But at the root of the catechetical problem is the widespread rejection of the idea that the faith has intellectual content that can be handed on and the elevation of personal experience and feelings about the faith to the Chair of St. Peter.

___________________

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Go find the lost sheep. . .

St. Benedict
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

If you are confused after hearing the gospel, please don't think that you are alone! The same teacher who told his disciples to go out into the world and preach the Good News. . .the same teacher who healed Gentiles in the presence of those disciples; talked to an unclean Samaritan woman and fussed at his disciples who told him not to; and even sat down at table with tax collectors and prostitutes over the objections of his disciples. . .the same teacher who set himself the task of breaking just about every purity law on the books and earned for himself a reputation as a dangerous heretic and madman. . .this same teacher is now sending those same disciples out as apostles to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom, and he says to them before they go, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” After violating so many Jewish taboos, why is Jesus suddenly so squeamish about his apostles preaching to pagans and Samaritans? Jewish officialdom has rejected him, so why waste time and energy preaching to those who have heard the Good News and said, “No, thanks”? God promised the Messiah to the Jews. And so, to the lost sheep of Israel are the apostles sent. 

How do we reconcile Jesus' words and deeds during his public ministry with his parting orders to the newly minted apostles? The Lord knows something that his apostles do not: the apostolic ministry to preach the Good News will not end when the last of them dies. In fact, their preaching ministry as apostles won't truly commence until the Holy Spirit arrives and sets the whole bunch of them on fire! Given the Lord's inclusive words and deeds in their presence; then, his instructions to limit themselves to the Jews; and then, the Holy Spirit's inspiration to set the whole world on fire with his Word. . .we can safely assume that Jesus isn't limiting their ministry, he's concentrating it; that is, with a truly daunting task ahead of them—evangelizing every living creature—the Lord focuses his apostles on a workable task: just preach to the Jews. If we think this for a moment, it makes perfect sense. Who is better prepared to hear that the promises made by God through His prophets have been fulfilled in the coming of Christ Jesus? 

Hosea sets the scene for us. The nation God gave to His people is decadent, luxurious, ripe to the point of being rotten. The more it prospers under His blessing, the more it turns away from Him to idolatry, erecting altars and pillars to alien gods. They blame their spiritual adultery on political turmoil, and Hosea asks, “Since they do not fear the Lord, what can the king do for them?” Then his prophesies, “Sow for yourselves justice. . .break up for yourselves a new field, for it is time to seek the Lord.” And it is time for those who belong to the Lord to seek His lost sheep; thus, Jesus sends his apostles to those who are in most urgent need of the Good News, those who know the Covenant of Abraham yet live as if Abraham never spoke to God. Peter, James, John go to the lost sheep of Israel and along the way they find more and more lost sheep needing a shepherd. The Holy Spirit will not let them leave these all alone, so the Word—like a wild fire—spreads. And the people of God, those adopted as His children, grows and grows, beyond the lost sheep, into a nation of priests and prophets, a body of apostles sent out to find and rescue the lost, the wounded, those thrown away, anyone who desires to be loved as a creature created in the image of God. Go out, then, and show the world that no one is too small, too poor, too idolatrous, too decadent, too sinful to be called unworthy of the Father's saving mercy! 

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Confessions. . .

OK! OK! OK!

I confess. . .

Had class this morning at St Catherine of Siena. 

Went to the archdiocesan office to pick up a roster.

Came home and had lunch.

Took a nap.  OK!  Took a longish nap.

And didn't write a new homily for this evening's Mass.

I recycled one. . .sorta. . .I edited one, and it wasn't very good the first time I used it.

Happy now?
___________________

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Audio file for homily: 14th Sun OT

Recorded today's homily at the 5.30pm Mass. . .

An amazing lack of faith?
___________________

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An amazing lack of faith?

14th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Audio File Download

We have just heard read one of the most disturbing sentences found in the New Testament. Left unexplained, this sentence could undermine the legitimacy of the Church, cause irreparable harm to the faith of billions, and hand our enemies the spiritual equivalent of nuclear bomb. This astonishing sentence is almost casually presented, composed with a dangerous indifference to how it might damage Christ's credibility among his future followers—those like us—who will read it and be tempted to despair. That we have not succumb to despair, that the faith of billions has not been harmed, that Christ's credibility has not been damaged is a testament to our ancestors in religion, the men and women who wrestled courageously through the centuries with the demons of doubt, worry, and spiritual cowardice. Mark tells us that Jesus goes home, and he is rejected as a prophet by his hometown neighbors. They doubt his power by questioning his credentials, “Isn't this guy just a local boy?” And they were offended. “So,” Mark casually writes, “[Jesus] was not able to perform any mighty deed there. . .” The Son of God, the Messiah, was not able to bring his Father's mighty power, His reconciling mercy to Nazareth! The Christ is rendered powerless to perform might deeds in his own hometown. 

How does Jesus react to this failure? Mark tells us, “He was amazed at their lack of faith.” That's a charitable description of how the hometown folks greeted their native son. Jesus goes to the synagogue and teaches his Father's Word. Those who hear him teach are astonished by the power and authority of his teaching. But rather than open their hearts and minds to the truth of the good news, they allow Jesus' familiarity, the fact that he is homegrown to confuse their judgment. They recognize his power—“What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!”—yet they cannot see the hand of the Father through the fog of their contempt. Instead of obeying—listening to—the Word proclaimed with divine authority, they choose to doubt, “Where did this man get all this? Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and are not his sisters here with us?” And b/c they choose to be offended rather than enlightened, they cannot trust; they cannot receive the gift of God's mercy and so no mighty deeds can be accomplished. The Nazareans in the synagogue are astonished by Jesus' teaching and Jesus is amazed by their lack of faith. Despite all the astonishment and amazement flying around, without faith, mighty deeds cannot be done. 

Does it seem somehow wrong to you to say that Jesus is rendered powerless by those who doubt him? What sort of god can be stripped of his power to perform miracles by a doubting crowd? All this sounds too much like the myths of ancient Greece where the gods were only as powerful as their worshipers' faith. When the followers of Zeus lost their faith, Zeus' power began to fade. If Jesus is truly the Son of the everliving God, then his power comes to him in virtue of who he is not by way of the faithful. What authority do we mere humans have to render him powerless? The answer: none, none whatsoever. Our faith or lack of faith in no way affects God's ability to do what He wills. However, as our loving Father, He wills that we come to Him in love and not by force. He pours out His love, mercy, hope, all that we need to come to Him freely, but we must come freely. He gives us His love. We freely receive His love. And then, His love is a gift. And it is only a gift when we freely receive it. In other words, for mighty deeds to be accomplished in our lives, we must believe in and place our trust in the promises He has made to us as our loving Father. Doubt, fear, worry, any sort of disobedience, tempts us to suspicion and short circuits our faith. How do we cooperate with God's grace while doubting, fearing, worrying about whether or not He loves us and cares for us? 

We don't; we can't. . .cooperate with God's grace, that is, while worrying, etc. If I had to define doubt, fear, and worry, I'd say that these are spiritual anxieties, diseases of the soul bought on by a lack of faith in God, by the absence of the good habit of trusting that God has fulfilled His promises. When we fail to practice a virtue—a good habit—we tend to find ourselves indulging in a vice—a bad habit. What does the vicious habit of failing to trust in God look like? We could point out our sins, our acts of disobedience—the big lie, the small theft, the vicious gossip, the lustful look. We could also point out all the things we have failed to do—a work of mercy, a hurt left unforgiven, a falsehood left unchallenged. We could also point out the absence of blessings in our lives: where are my friends? My family? My loving neighbors? Any one of these or all of them might show us what the vicious habit of unfaithfulness looks like. But these are just symptoms of a more insidious problem, mere indications that something much deeper is profoundly wrong. What lies beneath our sins, our omissions? 

 We are tempted to say, “Well, it's a lack of faith!” OK. But faith itself is a gift, the technical term is “infused virtue.” God infuses in us from the instant of our conception the good habit of trusting in Him. We are gifted with the ability to trust Him even before we are born. So, how do we end up lacking in something that's bonded to our DNA? We don't. We can't. We can no more remove faith from who we are as persons than we can recode our DNA at will to become crawfish or dinosaurs. When Mark notes that Jesus is “amazed at their lack of faith,” he means that Jesus is stunned by their unwillingness to cooperate, to work with the gift of faith that his Father has given to them. Jesus' friends and neighbors have faith as a matter of being human; they are simply unwilling to set aside their pride and work with the seed of trust already planted in their hearts. What lies beneath their stubbornness, urging them toward vicious suspicion, is the Enemy whispering, “You don't need faith; you just need a little sweat and some old-fashioned determination, and you can live your life just as you please. You can have it all on your own. You don't need God. In fact, here's a little secret: you can become a god without God!” That whisper echoes down to us from the Garden and it sounds very much like the hissing of a serpent. 

You can become a god without God. All you need is enough money, enough influence, enough power, enough celebrity, enough freedom from your created nature. . .and voila!. . .you're a god, a being beyond the merely human, beyond the mewling herd. And all this transformation will cost you is your soul and along with you soul goes your personhood, your humanity, and your place in the holy family as an adopted child of God. Why do we sometimes find it so difficult, even repellant, to cooperate with God's gift of faith? Because when we cooperate with His graces, we freely accept that everything we have and everything we are is a gift from Him and we are thus totally and irrevocably dependent on Him. We call that dependence humility—the good habit of knowing that and acting on the truth that we are dust, from our origin to our end, we are dust. BUT! We are dust gifted with the freedom to believe and trust in our Creator. And when we believe and trust in our Creator, mighty deeds are accomplished in His Name and for His greater glory. 

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You eat, you go home!

 I swear. . .



. . .I've never been to this place!
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Bringing to mind all that is missing

13th Week OT (S)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

John's disciples find Jesus and ask him, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?” Good question. I wonder why they want to know. Are John's disciples looking for a teacher who's not dragging his students through the desert and serving them nothing to locusts and honey? Or maybe they're disguising a spirit of prideful competition with a question about discipline? Team John is more disciplined than Team Jesus, so tell: why are your players so spiritually lazy, Jesus? Or maybe, and probably, they simply want to know more about Jesus' understanding of how and why we fast. Whatever their motivations for asking the question, Jesus does what he always does when asked to explain himself. He doesn't. Instead, he takes the question as an opportunity to push the questioner further along and under and shows him what lies at the bottom of his query. What lies at the bottom of this question about fasting? From Jesus' response, we can see that there is a connection btw fasting and mourning, a link of btw feasting and living. There is no need for the wedding guests to fast while the groom is still with them. We feast while he's with us, and we fast after he's gone. 

If it is true that we feast while Christ is with us, and we fast after he's gone, then what do we do if he is both with us and not with us? The Church has thrived for centuries w/o Christ walking and talking among us. We live in the days after his death, resurrection, and ascension. So, we fast in mourning. However, b/c Christ sent us the Holy Spirit and established his Church, we know that he is always with us, whenever and wherever two or more are gathered in his Name. So, we feast in celebration. Being faithful citizens of New Orleans, we understand all-too-well the connection btw living and feasting. We do both quite well! What better way to give God thanks for His generous gift of human life than to tuck into some jambalaya, biscuits, and bread pudding? But what is the link btw fasting and mourning? One of the most memorable culinary events in the life of a family occurs at a funeral. We eat at funerals as if carbs and sugar will dry up our tears and bring the dead back to life. The line that Jesus draws btw the fast and the funeral seems a bit twisted if not downright knotted up. It helps to remember that both fasting and mourning brings to mind all that is missing. 

Bringing to mind all that is missing for Christians is about more than mere remembering. Memorials are common markers for noting people and events. We memorialize war heroes, literary giants, athletes. Photo albums, keepsakes, tombstones bring to mind both the living and the dead. For the disciples of Christ, fasting brings to mind both Christ's presence and his absence; both his life and his death. When we fast, we recognize—thing about again—our dependence on God, our adoption as His children through Christ. And we remember—become members again—of his Body, the Church. When we fast from food, we fast for a memory and that memory is made present, made real. When we fast from whatever it is we are fasting from, we fast for a reason, a purpose and that reason is to mourn, to lament the absence of all that is missing. Christ is not with us, so we fast. Yet, he is always with us, so we feast. We cycle through the year fasting and feasting, remembering and recognizing that he is gone, he is here, and he will be among us again. At the bottom of the question about fasting lies humility—our absolute dependence on God. Without Him, there would be no feasting at all. 

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You're a sinner? Welcome to the Church!

13th Week OT (F)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

I trace the call to priesthood back to 1981 during a high school trip to Mexico. The road I took to the Dominicans and ordination was long, pot-holed, twisted, and plagued by dangerous temptations and even more dangerous choices. Allowing the romance and idealism of youth to overwhelm good sense, I ran that road with my eyes closed and my mouth open. Though never doubting my vocation, I often and intensely resisted God's not-so-gentle prodding toward priesthood. Among the reasons for delaying the decision for 17 years was my obvious unworthiness for the office. There's no need for details, but let's just say that my life before the Dominicans would have made the young Augustine blush and the soldier Ignatius flinch. Very little about who I was back then indicated that God could use me to serve His people as a Dominican friar and priest. I imagine that the tax-collector, Matthew feels much the same way when Jesus comes along and says, “Follow me.” And I imagine that most of you jump a little when Jesus says, “Hey you, sinner! Come on, we've got work to do!” You want to resist. Rattle off your sins. Tell him how unworthy you are. How dumb or inarticulate or shy you are. He knows all that already. My advice: just go. He's not going to stop calling just b/c you won't answer. 

One way of looking at the Church is to see her as a collection of those who are called to serve in spite of their obvious unworthiness. The Church is a hospital for the sick not a spa for the healthy. In fact, we're Christians because we're also sinners. Coming to Mass is hardly scandalous behavior even though all you people are sinners! Jesus himself socializes with sinners and gets called out for doing so. What's the big deal? Sick people need healing, so Jesus is going where he's needed. But when Jesus eats with prostitutes and tax-collectors, he's doing more than just scandalizing the self-righteous scribes; he's making himself—a rabbi—ritually unclean. More to the point, Jesus is sacrificing his standing as a ritually clean teacher of the Law so that he might reach those who most need to hear word of his Father's mercy. When the scribes object to his ministry in the messy lives of these sinners, Jesus says, “Go and learn the meaning of the words, I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” What God wants from us is for us to give His mercy the use of our bodies here on earth. Our words, deeds, thoughts—all from each of us. And that's our sacrifice: to set aside our doubts and worries about being worthy of Christ and just follow Christ! 

But, Father, I'm not very smart. I'm not in a state of grace. I'm not good with words. People don't like me. I'm too shy. And Jesus answers, using the favorite word of my teenage nieces, “Whatever.” OK. So, you're a dumb, shy, inarticulate and unlikeable sinner. Peter denied even knowing Jesus. Matthew was a traitor to his people by collecting taxes for the Romans. Paul killed Christians as heretics. Judas sold Christ to his enemies. And the whole lot of disciples ran like rabbits and hid when their beloved teacher was executed. So, whatever, dumb, shy, inarticulate, and unlikeable sinner. Welcome to the Church. Now, get to work! That's our sacrifice: give up sinning AND give up using our sins as an excuse not to do what we have been called to do. Jesus was willing to sacrifice his religious standing as a rabbi in order to bring God's word of mercy to the dredges of Judea. Can we find the courage to sacrifice our excuses for not being bodies for God's mercy? Forgiven sinners should be the first to shout to the rafters: we're forgiven, all of us are forgiven! 

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Coffee Cup Browsing

Nuns on a Bus received funding from atheist Soros.  Keep up the great P.R., sisters!

Another fake "hate crime."  It's time to repeal these laws against UnGood Think.

John XXIII was not the revolutionary that Cafeteria Catholics think he was.

Priorities: CA circles the economic bowl, SanFran Dem proposes law to further weaken the family.

What the Court decision on ObamaCare did and did not say is constitutional.  Excellent. 

Wait!  I thought the Catholic Church was the enemy of science and medicine?

To wit:  a report from the Modern Science/Ancient Faith Conference.

Some good news about priests:  The 10 Most Amazing Priests!

Nine recent violations of our religious liberties. Remember: even when they lose, they win. Making the faith seem "extreme" is a slow process.  Every attempt is a win for the Enemy.

Woman who thanked B.O. for ObamaCare was a plant.  Figures.

10 suggestions for Catholic evangelization via social media.

On the need for clear distinctions:  liberation theology and the newly appointed chief of the CDF.  

Man Candles: a review.  Having an uber-sensitive nose, I'm a fragrance freak.  Maybe I need to look into these candles.  Do they make them votive-sized?
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Smash the Scale!!!

I didn't weigh in yesterday.  Decided to suspend the Wednesday weigh-ins for a couple of weeks while I adjust to a lower carb diet.  Nothing drastic!  Just cutting a few servings of bread, pasta, etc.

Maybe in two weeks I can climb on The Scale and be surprised.

Fr. Philip, OP

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Are you an intercessor?

13th Week OT (Th)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

The folks in the crowd are struck with awe when Jesus says to the paralytic, “Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home," and he does! Matthew tells us that the crowd “glorified God who had given such authority to men.” As praiseworthy as this demonstration of divine authority is, there's something else going on in this story that deserves more attention than it usually gets, something that we might just breeze over in a hurry to get to Jesus' confrontation with the scandalized scribes. What moves Jesus to heal the paralyzed man? Is it the man's obvious faith? No. Is it Jesus' compassion for his disability? Nope. Matthew tells us that Jesus entered the town, “and there people brought to him a paralytic lying on a stretcher. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, 'Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.'” Our Lord is moved to heal the man's paralysis because the people who brought him to be healed believe in and trust in Jesus' authority to forgive the man's sins and restore him to wholeness. We aren't told whether or not the man himself is faithful. Whether he is or isn't doesn't seem to matter to his healing. Jesus forgives and heals the man because his friends have faith; and out of love for him, they ask that he be healed. Thus, we are shown the power of intercessory prayer and the need for God's faithful priests to be intercessors. 

As a faithful priest, do you intercede for those in need? When we are baptized into the Body of Christ, we are made priests, prophets, and kings to serve one another in love so that God's love in us might be made perfect. Only a tiny percentage of God's priests are ordained as servant-leaders. The overwhelming majority of Catholics serve God and His people through their baptism as members of the Body. As baptized priests, you share in the ministry of the ordained priesthood by mediating, sacrificing, and interceding. You mediate God's presence as a living sign of His love and mercy. You sacrifice yourself so that you might grow in holiness. And you intercede for those in need. The special ministry of the baptized priest is exercised not in what you do but in where you do it: in the world, wherever you find yourself at any given moment. You are an intercessor at Wal-Mart, at home, at work, in your car. Those faithful souls in the crowd lift the paralyzed man onto his stretcher and carry him to Christ, confident that the Lord will forgive him his sins and bring him to wholeness. They offer his sins to Christ in sacrifice, and Christ makes him holy. It is because they believe and trust in the authority given to Christ that the man is restored. 

So, how do you go about interceding for others? Is there a formula or a liturgy for interceding? Yes and no. Yes, there is a formula and a liturgy for intercession. We call it “the Mass.” We even have a rite within the Mass called “the Intercessions,” or the “Prayer of the Faithful.” This is your chance to turn your full, conscious, and active attention to those in need and to bring them into the sacramental presence of Christ for his forgiveness and healing. So, yes, there is a formula and a liturgy for intercession. And, no, there isn't. Anytime, anywhere you lift up a broken soul—using any words that move you—anytime, anywhere you offer in sacrifice the hurt, the despair, the wounds of another, you mediate (stand between) that person and God, interceding on their behalf as a priest of God. By offering them up, both you and the one you offer grow in holiness and God's love is made just that much more perfect in you. You are—we all are—members of One Body, the Church, and we all share in the intercessory priesthood of Christ. Your priesthood is strengthened here, and tested, tempered out there in the world when you intercede for those in need. Therefore, make your faith into a steel blade and keep it sharp on the whetstone of prayer.

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