Love is cruel, possessive, & easily angered

4^th Sunday OT: Jer 1.4-5, 17-19; 1 Cor 12.31-13.13; and Luke 4.21-30
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Paul Hospital and Church of the Incarnation

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A Reading from the Unholy Gospel of St. Narcissus…

Praise be to me and me alone!

My wretched Slaves and convenient Tools, you have heard that love is patient and kind, forgiving and humble; that those who love seek the good for the Other and rejoice in the truth. You have heard many things about the world that will not serve you well. And among these is the foolish sentiment that love is anything but Selfishness writ large across the Ego—a passion that will not be saddled and ridden like a domesticated tiger but loosely bridled and allowed its furious run. Love is impatient for love in return. Love is cruel because it must end. Love cannot be generous or polite. It is a passion, obsessive, possessive, and rude. Love is a grandiose tale, a violent power, a torrent of abusive lies aimed at your tender heart. Love has a temper and most certainly nurses hurt. Love will bear nothing, believe nothing, hope nothing, and endure even less. Love fails. My face in a gilded mirror tells the truth of love: distrust, despair, delusion. Love is vengeance on the weak for being vulnerable to need. Need nothing, want nothing. Be strong! And heal yourself. Enlighten yourself. Give yourself peace. Save yourself. Build idols to your silenced need and keep control. Finally, Slaves and Tools, remember and act: love is a desperate ruse, a way to see you bowed. If you must love, love my god…love Me.

This is the Gospel of St. Narcissus!

If I wanted to preach an unholy homily on the vices of love, I couldn’t do much better than to proclaim this gospel of St Narcissus and point out to you that, though we would deny the truth of this passage if pressed, most of us have experienced love as our impious saint has described it. Hurt. Loss. Aggravation. Passion given but not returned in kind. There is often a disordered feel to the way we love, a shaky balance to the way we will the good for the other. And why? When we love, why do we sometimes sense the presence of our unholy evangelist and his nasty gospel of ego-bloated cynicism? Paul is clear: love is the greatest spiritual gift. Love is a gift. A passion with which we are graced. Think of a green tea bag releasing its brew into a cup of hot water. God diffuses His love through us, infusing us with the best routine, the most excellent exercise of doing the good for everyone around us—the virtue of charity.

In an act of astonishing charity, Jesus stands in the synagogue, reads the messianic prophecy from Isaiah, and tells those listening that he is the Messiah of Isaiah’s prophet vision. They are amazed at his graciousness, at his generosity in revealing who he is. But they quickly turn skeptical when they realize that Jesus is a local-boy-made-prophet. His credibility teeters on the edge of the crowd’s fickle attention as Jesus attacks before he can be attacked. Essentially, he says, “Now I bet you’re gonna want me to do some miracle for you to prove who I am. Prophets are never accepted in their own hometowns.” He cites Elijah in Sidon and Elisha in Israel as prophets who were sent to lands and peoples other than their own to perform miraculous healings. Prophets wander, yes; but they wander at God’s command, His initiative—not their own! In effect, Jesus is refusing to prove to them through miracles that he is who he says he is. He is, therefore, a blasphemer and a rebel. The crowd pushes him to cliff to send him to his death. But Jesus safely passes through them and leaves Nazareth never to return.

Consistent with Jesus’ reluctance to prove anything with supernatural performances, he instead calls on those who hear his words to listen carefully to that spot, that space, that empty room in their souls where he would dwell, to listen carefully to their God-gifted desire for a divine life, to their God-gifted longing for healing, to their God-gifted need for rescue…to listen to his word, and let his Word call them to him. It is Love Himself to calls to their (and to our!) emptiness, our desolation, our grief, and frustration. No miracle can prove the satisfaction one feels at having been made clean, washed pure. No miracle will confirm or deny the electric truth of having been touched by the creating and re-creating Word of the Father—to see and hear and feel and smell the undiluted passion of our God for His creation, to taste His body and blood and know that Love became one of us, died as one of us, rose from his grave for us; and now, with wholly perfected charity, he sits in judgment on our obedience and on our yet to be quenched thirst for eternal joy.

Love judges you…so, be found at the time of judgment loving, rejoicing, believing, hoping, enduring. Love never fails us and we cannot fail in Love.

But we do fail without Love. Paul says that we are just noisy gongs without love, meaningless racket. That without love we gain nothing from our poverty and willing surrender. And the scariest of all—even with faith enough to shift mountains, we ARE nothing without love. Gifts of tongues, wisdom, knowledge, prophecy, all these gifts will cease; they are incomplete, partial-- “when the perfect comes the partial will pass away.” Like a racing wind, what we do and say and build and write without love will pass into the heated desert and evaporate. Faith, hope, and love will remain “but the greatest of these is love.”

Do you hear the gospel of Christ or the gospel of St. Narcissus? Which do you follow? Is your life in the faith joyful? Does being a follower of Jesus make you happy? Do you feel compelled to serve others? Can you release fear and anxiety and throw yourself on the promises of God? Are you angry, afraid, impatient, cruel, rude? Do you take your spiritual lessons from day-time TV and practice the saccharine self-help arts? Are you a spiritual athlete running to holiness under your own power, bypassing the weaker brethren and waving with self-sufficient pride as you pass? Do you believe that you invent your truth? Your right and wrong? Do you gamble against hope? Look for evidence to believe? Endure b/c failure is socially embarrassing? When your priest preaches on love, do you think he’s weak or liberal or mushy theologically? Do you think he ought to spend more time telling those sinners over there to Stop It! But Father, there are politicians, bishops, theologians, Catholic professors who need to be called out for the scandals they’re causing! No doubt. Can they look to you for a good example of how to love themselves back toward holiness and truth? Or will they learn from you, from me how to be quick-tempered, brooding, rude, and unloving?

If you know everything there is to know; if you ooze wisdom from your skin; if you prophesy in the Holy Spirit with 100% accuracy; if you sell everything, give the money to the poor, and surrender completely to God, running around butt-naked and broke; if you do all this and you do not love—you have gained nothing b/c you are nothing.

To be loved by God is life; to love b/c He loved us first is living. And so, preach this gospel: our God never fails—bear all things with Him, believe all things in Him, hope for all things from Him, and…endure, endure, endure. God never fails. God is Love. Love never fails.

Bold Lambs Among the Wolves

Ss. Timothy and Titus: 2 Tim 1.1-8 and Luke 10.1-9
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory and Church of the Incarnation

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Good morning, Lambs! And if there are any wolves here dressed in lamb’s wool, good morning to you as well! Our Lord has sent us, the Lambs, to bring to those who need him his freedom and care. He has sent us out to bawl and bark the Word of the Father’s mercy to us—to frighten the spirits of illness and turmoil, to unnerve and expose the agents of spiritual slavery and vice. Our Lord has sent us out as teachers of a powerful Way, and charged us with not only talking about him and his Good News to others but he has also charged us with being him and his Good News for others. It is not enough to whisper the stories of his healing miracles or sing the stories of his travels with his merry band of brothers. Our Lord did not send us among the wolves to teach them history or biography; he did not send us among the unbelieving to entertain them with scripts and skits. We are sent out, cast away like ripening seed, to spread like kudzu and crab grass, a sincere faith, a confident trust in the truth of the Father’s gift of mercy.

And it is for this reason, Lambs, that I remind you to stir into flame the gifts of God that you have received through your baptism, the graces of the Spirit that came to you in your dying and rising again in Christ. Paul teaches Timothy that God did not give the Apostles a spirit of cowardice but one of power and love and temperance. Through the imposition of his hands on Timothy, Paul laid on him a spirit, a trust, a commission, a witness; he laid on Timothy’s heart and mind a new way of being Timothy in the world, a more perfect Way of being Christ for others and all. And there is no room in the Christ-crowded heart for cowardice or guile, for ignorance or deceit, for flinching from hardship in His service or running from surrender to His will.

Therefore, do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord! Go on your way and proclaim the marvelous works of our God to all the wolves, all the unclean spirits, all the sick, injured, lost, beaten, imprisoned, and cast-out; to all the beautiful, the rich, the wise, the well-connected; all the overeducated, the comfortable, those captive to their stunted religious imaginations and those deluded by error and dissent. Take nothing with you but the Spirit given you b/c there is nothing you can take along that matters more than Christ himself. What you need is given as you need it, provided out of the abundance and generosity of those to whom you bring the Word. Bring your witness to them and listen to their witness to you. What you might need most at that moment is a Word of power spoken to your fainting heart…

For this reason, I remind you to stir into flame the gifts of God that you have received through your baptism! Timothy and Titus, made bishops by the laying on of hands, received the gift of ecclesial leadership—teaching, preaching, governing—and they spread the seeds of Christ’s Good News everywhere their beautiful feet took them! Not all of us are called to be bishops. Most of us are called to do something far more difficult: to be Christ where we find ourselves; to be powerful witnesses to the transformative power of love and mercy; to be lambs speaking the truth among wolves who demand that we lie in order to live peacefully among them. Praise God that you have been made clean, washed spotless and bright in the waters of baptism. Praise God that you have not been given a spirit of cowardice but rather a spirit of power and love and temperance. Praise God for His banquet table, His altar of thanksgiving, where we eat and drink all that we need to do what He has asked to do and to be who He has made us to be.

Do not be ashamed of your testimony among the wolves! Shout out what Christ has done for you and dare the wolves to bare a single fang in defiance of that truth. We owe the wolves nothing but truth, b/c in the end, it’s all we have to give them.

Day of Penance for Roe v. Wade

Day of Penance for Violations Against Human Dignity Caused by Abortion (GIRM 373)
Philippians 4.6-9 and Matthew 5.1-12
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

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Is there anyone here this morning who wants to be among the damned? Anyone? Anyone here who wants to wallow in cynicism, grievance, betrayal, or viciousness? Anyone? OK. Anyone here this morning who wants to celebrate falsehood, injustice, ugliness, or disease? Anyone? No? OK. Anyone here this morning who wants to be among the blessed? Anyone here who wants to revel in hopefulness, forgiveness, friendship, and virtuousness? Anyone where this morning who wants to celebrate truth-telling, justice-making, beauty, and health? Anyone? Good! Because today we observe a Day of Penance for those violations of human dignity caused by abortion. And we must start by repenting from any inclination to understand the human person as a means; any inclination to treat one another as merely objects for use any inclination to live together in cynicism, malice, or irrational prejudice. To be blessed, we must be a blessing and do what is honorable, just, pure, and gracious…and always in the name of God for His greater glory. Turn from the disobeying our Father’s command that we love one another as He loves us, as He loved us first, and make your life about the excellence of self-emptying service!

You might ask: Father, why are you yelling at us about repenting from abortion? We’re solid pro-lifer’s! I don’t doubt this. So, let me answer your question with a question: why are we, the pro-life Church, observing a Day of Penance in reparation for the devastation of abortion? The answer: if we don’t, who will? Who will stand up to repair this gaping wound in our social body? Who, if not the Church, will offer sacrifice for the healing of this horrific disease?

You raised your hands when I asked who here wants to celebrate beauty, justice, and health. How do you celebrate God’s beauty in creation? His justice in our social order? His health in your spiritual life? Irrelevant questions to the repentance at hand? NO! If you, a faithful Catholic, one who deeply desires the peace of Christ, cannot honor the fullness of human dignity— the sacredness of all life, the intrinsic value of human labor, our right to be free from violence and intimidation (personal and political)—if we cannot honor the fullness of human dignity, then we cannot celebrate God’s beauty, His justice, nor can we expect His health. And what’s more, we cannot hold others to a standard we’re unwilling to meet.

Abortion sits at the center of our cynical culture as a devastating failure to love, an idol to convenience, expediency, and self-indulgence. To the degree that we as Catholics have contributed to this failure to love, especially in our failure to love the women who have chosen abortions, we must repent. There is nothing gracious, lovely, pure, or true about cynically judging women who have chosen abortions. And there is nothing blessed about dismissing the killing of a child with an appeal to privacy rights or religious tolerance. Love requires us to speak the truth. And when we fail to speak the truth, we must repent. The truth is: abortion is the direct killing of innocent life. We may never call this violation of human dignity good. The truth is: the Way to forgiveness and peace is always open, always free, and we, as self-identified Christs-for-Others, we must serve as eager ushers on the Way. We cannot at once hope to be blessed and refuse to be a blessing.

You are to be hungry for justice. Clean of heart. At peace. Kind. And you must be ready, always ready to speak a word comfort in truth. You have been shown mercy, therefore, show mercy in thanksgiving. And be blessed.

Can you say, "I am Christ"?

3^rd Sunday OT: Neh 8.2-6, 8-10; 1 Cor 12.12-14, 27; Luke 1.1-4; 4.14-21
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Paul’s Hospital, Dallas, TX

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If I were to ask you this morning: who are you? How would you answer? Most of you would give me a name. Bob. Sue. Gladys. Some of you would add a job or career description: George, an accountant. Barbara, a nurse. Some of you might even throw in a relationship descriptor. Linda, clerk and mother of three boys. Harold, postal worker and grandfather. What else could you add? Your hometown; your parish; a bit of family history; maybe a quick medical run-down. All of these descriptors—name, job, relationships, history—all of those pick us out of the herd, I mean, they identify you as you. These are differences about us that distinguish us from them, you from me, me from them and so on. Oh, and you would likely throw in there somewhere that you are a Christian. So, let me ask: who are you as a Christian? How does this descriptor pick you out, make you different?

The reading from Nehemiah tells us something about what it means to be a faithful member of a faith-filled group. Ezra, a priest, brings out the book of the law and reads aloud. The assembly—men, women, children—listen to the law being read. We read twice in the space of four lines that the assembly is made up of men, women, and children old enough to understand. This group is picked out not by sex or age but by its attentiveness to Ezra’s reading of the book of law. They hear and listen. And then Ezra shows them the book, opening the scroll “so that all the people might see it.” They stand. And with one voice—as a people—they raise their hands, shouting “Amen, amen!” They bow. They prostrate. They fall to the ground on their faces. They weep. And then they receive instruction from Nehemiah himself. He tells them not to weep for today is holy; instead go feast because rejoicing in the Lord is their strength.

Pay careful attention! Those faithful people—men, women, children—gather; listen to the Word read aloud; receive instruction; accept an invitation to a great feast; and together they hear: to give glory and praise to the Lord, to offer Him rejoicing and thanksgiving must be their strength! Let me break that down for you: rejoicing in the Lord is how we must endure; giving God thanks and praise is how we must persevere. This is not muddling through til we die. This is not just one step after another until we drop. Today is holy to our Lord! Rejoice, give thanks, praise His name and continue on: persist, stick with it, keep going. Weep, rage, laugh, cuss, pitch a fit, flop around on the ground screaming if you must—but it is in rejoicing that you will find the strength to endure.

Those who survive while praising the Lord stand out. Those who succeed while praising the Lord distinguish themselves. But what does this have to do with being Christian? Paul writes to the Corinthians that the church is one body with many parts; one body made up of Jews, Greeks, slaves, and freed men who are no longer Jews, Greek, slaves, or freed men. Because they have all been baptized into one body and because all have drunk of one Spirit, what they were before is no more. Now—together—they are Christ’s body, working at Christ’s work, praising his Word, healing his people, feeding the hunger, finding the lost, enlightening the ignorant, together being the hands and feet of Christ. These former Jews, Greeks, slaves, and freed men survive and succeed b/c they stand out as living, breathing, fleshy machines of mercy and service, blood and bone engines of charity and freedom. They drink from one Holy Spirit, give body and soul to the only Son, and offer filial obedience to one Father. They know Christ and they know his will and they do his will to become Christ.

If I were to ask you this morning: who are you? How would you answer? Would answer, “I am Christ”? Can those words fall from your lips w/o blushing, w/o qualification? For you, for me, for any of us to admit—“I am Christ”—we must first know who Christ is. We must answer the question: who does Christ say that he is?

Luke’s gospel this morning teaches us that Jesus is the anointed one; the one upon whom the Spirit rests; the one chosen to bring joy to the poor, liberty to slaves, sight to the blind, and to set free those oppressed. We know this b/c Luke reports that Jesus goes to his hometown synagogue on the Sabbath and reads aloud from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah a description of the Messiah. When he has finished reading the passage, he sits down. All in the synagogue are watching him. He says to those gathered, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” He says to them (in effect), “I am the Christ, the Anointed One from the Lord.” Can you imagine the surprise? The anger? The shock and awe? The relief? What did those who heard this proclamation think? Here is a hometown boy who reads from Isaiah’s prophecy a description of the Messiah and then claims that in hearing the description read aloud that the prophecy is fulfilled! This man is the one promised by the prophets? Can you listen and not believe?

And notice that it is in hearing Jesus read the prophecy that the prophecy is fulfilled. Open ears. Open eyes. Listen, see. Remember the people gathered before Ezra to hear the law read, to see the book opened. They hear, listen, see, and rejoice, finding their strength in praise: Your words, O Lord, are spirit and life! They find their strength and we find ours.

Who are you? Will you say, “I am the Christ”? Does this identify you as a Christian? Does this proclamation pick you out as someone wholly given to God? Does it make you queasy to admit such a thing? It’s a big job being a Messiah. Huge job. But your part is one part in the Body of Christ. Your part is the one part you are alone are gifted to complete. You, like the rest of us, will shine out the face of Christ to all who will listen and see. You will do it uniquely. And in so doing, God’s love will be perfected in you. Will you get it wrong sometimes? Yes. Fail? Yes. Refuse to be Christ for others? Of course. And so will we. We will ignore the poor, teach falsehood, fail to free captives, leave the blind blind, the lame lame. We will embarrass the Church, dissent in order to commit our favorite sins, blow off our tradition and history, ridicule legitimate authority. We will sin. And when we do, we then become the blind in need of sight, the lame in need of healing, the captives in need of freedom, the oppressed in need of liberation. In sin, we become those for whom the Christ came.

There is one Body, many parts. One Christ, many christs. Who are you? Who will you free today? Who will you heal? Who will you feed, clothe, comfort, visit? The Spirit of the Lord is upon you because He has anointed you to do His work. Find your strength in praising the Lord. Stand out as men and women given wholly to God. And serve the broken, the lost, and the fallen. Be a Christian. Better yet: be Christ!

The Work is Bigger...

2^nd Week OT (F): Hebrews 8.6-13 and Mark 3.13-19
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Serra Club, Church of the Incarnation

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Jesus summons those whom he wants and they come to him. So simple. Jesus calls; we answer. He asks; we reply. He orders; we obey. We have from him direction, purpose, limits, and identity. We have from him a mission, a ministry, authority, and truth. His Spirit is among us, together with us, here now to hold us up, to bring us to fruition and harvest and to see us work at his work—imperfectly, incompletely, yes!—but to see us work at his work together despite our shortfalls, despite our mistakes, and despite our sometimes Belly-Button views of the world. You correct my errors. They pick up our slack. We get done what she can’t. She manages what he refuses to do. And I handle the stuff no one else will. And all of us together get it done; we complete the work Jesus has given us to do. None of us alone can do what Christ has asked all of us to do together.

Jesus knew this, so he called twelve of his disciples and appointed them apostles. He turned students into teachers with a call and gave them the authority—the legitimacy, the power, the clout—they needed to get out there and preach, to get out there and bring not just a word of healing but actual healing, not just a word of reconciliation with God but actual reconciliation. They were not empowered to deliver a message about Christ; they were empowered to deliver Christ himself. We hear their names listed so that we know that twelve men were called, twelve actual persons were summoned to the mountain. Not mythic figures. Not heroes from misty history. Not personified virtues or angels. But men. Meat and bone men with fathers and mothers and siblings and nationalities and careers. Men with stories, with pasts and with present problems. Jesus wanted these twelve to walk his Word around the world. And they did. Together.

The reading from Hebrews this morning makes it perfectly clear that the new covenant, though a declaration of the obsolesce of the old covenant, is still a covenant with a people not a person, with a nation not a citizen: “I will put my laws in their minds and I will write them upon their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” One God, many people. One God, many priests, many prophets, many kings. All those priests, prophets and kings—all of us!—will accomplish the Lord’s work in the world working together. One Body in Christ. Christ’s most excellent ministry, as mediator for us before the Father, is a ministry to us as his body and for us as his brothers and sisters. He mediates a better covenant with better promises but still a covenant with the nation, the race, the Church.

The work we have been given to do here—the promotion of vocations to the priesthood and religious life—is precisely the work Christ accomplished in calling the apostles. Christ summons those whom he wants. We help those summoned come to him. This is not work for one man, one woman, one priest. It is not even work for a small group of talented men and women. What WE take on here is the work of the Spirit in drawing out the vocation, the call, and strengthening the hearts of those called to climb that mountain to Christ for their mission. This work of ours is bigger than me. It’s bigger than the UD Serra Club. It’s bigger than any one bishop or any single pope. This work of strengthening the called to answer Yes to God is the work of the Church—all the priests, prophets, and kings; all the baptized and all those with open eyes and open ears. None of us alone can do what Christ has asked all of us to do together.

Whatever it is that distracts you from your holy work, put it on this altar. Sacrifice it. Give it up to God. And get back to work!

Would you shout for Jesus?

2^nd Week OT: Hebrews 7.25-8.6 and Mark 3.7-12
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, University of Dallas

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Would you be one of those pressing Jesus on the lakeshore? Would you be one of those clamoring to touch him, to have him glance at you, speak to you? Could you throw yourself into the mob and ride the rushing bodies to Christ? I think most of us would say that we wouldn’t be part of an adoring herd chasing Jesus all over creation. We wouldn’t toss our dignity and decorum into the wind so easily and become squealing groupies! But then again, we have 21^st century medical science—surgeries, MRI’s, CAT scans, medicines, bone replacements, organ transplants—we have the advances of technology and social psychology to comfort our herd-fears, our pack anxieties. However, we still fear death. We still grow unsteady and weak in the face of debilitating disease and injury. The human need for care and healing is as fundamental to our nature as speech or touch or passion—perhaps this need, this desire for wholeness and health is basic enough, powerful enough to rush Christ and risk crushing him; desperate for comfort or cure, we find that dignity and decorum are luxuries for the healthy, the well-cared-for and that leaping and pushing and crying aloud are the necessities for the diseased and the neglected.

What do the diseased and neglected recognize in Jesus? They see what the unclean spirits see: the Son of God come among them. Inhabiting the ill and malformed bodies of the sick, the unclean spirits know who Jesus is and announce his coming. But the time is not right and the Christ cannot be heralded by demons, so Jesus warns them to silence about his identity. Regardless, they recognize that he is the wholeness and health that comes to destroy their broken and ailing lives. That he has done this repeatedly during his ministry only lends credibility to their demonic fear and it should lend strength to our faith, our trust in God’s promise of Final Healing.

Who can bring about this Final Healing other than the one High Priest, Jesus Christ? Who can intercede for us more faithfully before the throne? Who can offer a more efficacious sacrifice for our sins than Christ Jesus? No one. Hebrews reads, “He has no need to offer sacrifice day after day[…]he did that once for all when he offered himself.” We have a high priest who is at once Priest and sacrifice, priest and altar. He is the one who sacrifices and the one sacrificed—“a death he freely accepted.” He is the mediator of a better covenant put into practice with better promises. And knowing this, yes, we would chase him to the lake’s edge and jump for his attention.

We were not made for death but life and the fear of death is the best sign we have that life, abundant life, is our greediest desire, our most aching want. And at the same time we know that disease and injury and anxiety mark us as mortal, temporary—for now—temporary creatures of frail stature and limited ability. Leaping and shouting for Christ is what any us would do when faced with the chaos of illness or the devastation of injury. We would cry to our High Priest for mercy, for help and healing. And why not? Christ is always able to save those who approach the Father through him. He lives forever to make intercession for us. So, leap, shout, shove, press in, reach out, clamor away for the Lord, calling to him in your need, “You are the Son of God!”

Bottomline Holiness

St Anthony, abbot: Ephesians 6.10-13, 18; Matthew 19.16-26
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

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We’ve all heard the story about the bored student sitting in class, wanting nothing more than to get out in the sunshine and run. The teacher drones on and on and on and finally the bored student—in total exasperation—asks the bottom-line question that clears through all the distraction and clutter of learning. In Adultese the question is: Is this going to be on the test? Translated into Teenagerese the question is: I'd rather stick a hot poker in my eye and spend eternity screaming into the abyss than sit here for another second listening to you drone on about stupid stuff I don't need to know anyway so just tell me what's going to be on the test so I write it down and memorize it and please stop torturing me with what if's could be's maybe's and you really have to think about that's and just give me the facts so I can give them back to you on the stupid test and for pity's sake get to the point and let us go! Now, I don’t know about you, but I never said such a thing in class. I was and am a school geek. But we all know the sentiment: get to the point, tell us what we need to know, and move on.

The RYM in Matthew’s gospel is in a hurry. He asks Jesus, “What good must I do to gain eternal life?” Jesus answers with what seems like an annoying rhetorical question about who is good and then gives the guy his bottom-line answer. Jesus says, “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” The RYM asks the teenager question: “Which ones?” Whadda mean, “Which ones?!” Translated into Teenagerese this question is something like: Ok stop with the philosophical muttering and weird religious speculation and just give me the formula, the prayer, the sacrifice, or the whatever it is that gets me into heaven because I'm a bottomline kinda guy and your cryptic zen puzzles are annoying me and making me think and I just wanna know how not to go to hell so please Jesus tell me what's going to be on the Test at the End so I can spit it back up and get my eternal A+. Jesus, being a good teacher, tells him which of the commandments he must observe and the RYM says (in effect), “Been there, done those. What else?” Jesus, ever the one for surprise and difficult demands says, (in effect), “Sell all of your stuff, give the money to the poor, then come, follow me. This is just how you start on your perfection.”

Not a good answer for the RYM b/c, well, he’s rich and young after all. So he goes away sad. And then Jesus tells his disciples that it is hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. Why? Probably b/c riches incline one to cling to them, making it difficult to follow Christ in a life of poverty. It’s not the having that’s the problem; it’s the clinging. Remember: you become what you worship. Cling to temporary things and you become a temporary thing. Easily bought and sold, easily lost. Cling to Christ and his work and you become Christ to do his work.

The temptation, of course, is the path of least resistance. Just tell me, Father, what I need to do! Bottom-line it for me, padre! The truth is: holiness is work, hard work and there are no shortcuts. I could tell you to throw on scapular or pray a novena or sing a litany to St. Jude and all of those would be fruitful. But none of them will substitute for following Christ in his work—healing, feeding, clothing, visiting those in need, those who need our help and want our company. There’s no magic spell to holiness, no Instant Win scratch-off card that guarantees you heaven. If you want to be perfect, unclench your heart, move your feet on Christ’s way, lift your hands in prayer, attach yourself to nothing temporary, rather, give yourself to eternity. And listen again to Jesus: “Give what you have to poor, come, follow me.”

Water to wine, Life to living

2^nd Sunday OT: Isa 62.1-5; 1 Cor 12.4-11; John 2.1-11
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Paul’s Hospital, Dallas, TX

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To each of us is given a manifestation, an expression of the Spirit—given to each so that each might be of service to all. Different gifts, same Spirit. Different graces, same Spirit. Different workings for God’s glory, same Spirit in the work. The Spirit diffuses His gifts among us like a rich perfume carries through the air, touching one soul and moving to the next, settling into the life and work of this one, unsettling the comfort and security of that one; the Spirit shakes the firm, calms the anxious, bolsters the weak, tests the strong, brings peace to the violated and justice to unjust. Each of us and all of us are given a way to manifest the Spirit of the Lord; all of us and each of us is given a gift that expresses the love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father, a gift that expresses their love to you, to us so that we can then show those we love, those we work with and play with and live with, so that we can show them that they too can, if they will, they too can be gifted by God, graced in the Spirit, and that they can make their lives a benefit to others for God’s greater glory.

Have you forgotten your gift? Maybe I should ask first: what is your gift? How has God graced you? How are you an expression of the Spirit’s wisdom? If you can’t answer this, allow St. Paul to help. Have you been given trust in the Lord? A faith in His promises and power? An ability to heal the sick, the anxious, the lost? Have you been given the will to do great works in His name? Wealth to fund charity? Health to spend your life telling those who have not hear the Good News the Good News? Can you see and hear the signs of the times, know where we have gone wrong, and teach us the Way of the Lamb? Do you have the courage—the strength of your redeemed heart—to stand up and say, “This is the Way!” Can you see and hear the movement of the Spirit? Can you distinguish between what the Lord has calls us to do and the Devil tempts us to do? Are you graced with the ability to discern that which will kill our souls and that which will nourish us? Can you speak to us so that we understand, witness to us so that the wisdom of the Spirit makes sense to us, is useful to us, and gives us what we need to be better children of the Father? Who are you in Christ? What do you know that we need to know? What can you do that the rest of us can’t? Your gift from God is your gift to us.

Think! What is your gift? How has God graced you? How are you an expression of the Spirit’s wisdom? Have you forgotten your gift? Do you ignore or reject what God has given you to share? How can we proclaim the marvelous deeds of God; praise Him for His abundance; rejoice in His treasure if you hide, if you shrink from your inheritance? Think! What do you need from us? What gifts do we have, what graces have we received that you need? You see, none of this—this biblical journey, this history of healing in Christ, this struggle towards holiness—none of this makes any sense at all if we don’t do it together, if we don’t do it for another. One faith, one baptism, one Lord. But countless gifts! Infinite graces. Like stars in a desert sky. Like drops of wine at a wedding.

Mary says to Jesus at Cana, “They have no wine.” They do not have what they need to celebrate God’s blessing at this wedding. They do not have what they need to make this religious ritual into a righteous party! Jesus answers to his mother, “My hour has not yet come.” It is not yet time for me to reveal myself as the one sent to unlock the treasury of God’s grace. It is not yet time for me to preach the Good News, to teach the truth of the Way. You can almost see Mary pausing to consider this, waiting for just a moment before she says to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Jesus decides that this IS the hour to reveal his ministry and mission and he tells the servants to bring him six jars of water. The water becomes wine. That which gives us life becomes that which makes life a celebration. That which brings us into the Body of Christ at baptism becomes that which will feed us as his blood after he leaves us.

Jesus reveals his glory in this miracle and in so doing reveals the beginning and the end of his public ministry. He graces the wedding guests with the gift of fine wine as he graces us with the gift of his saving blood. We are washed clean and welcomed in with water. And we are kept clean by his blood and well-fed with the food of his heavenly banquet. The disciples begin to believe not b/c Jesus has shown them some magic trick, some sort of Houdini illusion that wows the great unwashed. They begin to believe him b/c they see what he intended them to see: his Father’s generosity, his Father’s abundance, and the wisdom of the Spirit that reveals to them the course of their calling—to follow Christ, to teach and preach what he teaches and preaches, to follow him to the cross and their deaths as faithful witnesses to his gospel. Magic tricks cannot move us to martyrdom. Illusions cannot feed us through trial and suffering. The disciples believed and we believe b/c Jesus revealed his glory—showed them and us the majesty and power and bright-mercy of his Father. His gift to them and to us is eternal life and every gift we need between now and his coming again, every gift we need to perfect—to sharpen, hone, to polish—those graces the Spirit blesses us with right now.

Have you forgotten your gift? What is the Spirit’s grace for you? What lies or stands or crawls between you and your inheritance? Do you will not to hear the Good News? Do you refuse his love out of fear, hatred, panic, desperation? Willful ignorance is disobedience—simply saying NO to the Word, refusing to listen. If you will not be the Spirit’s tool, God’s instrument of mercy and love, then what will you be? Will you serve Self and worship the mirror? Will you feed hatred and bile and grow bloated on vengeance and anger? You become the idols you worship. Blind, deaf, mute, lame, leprous, gushing blood, demon possessed, dead…forever.

With Christ, we are no longer called Forsaken or Desolate. We are no longer counted among the lost, those shadows of souls that haunt the graves of their lives. We are no longer without names, without crowns, without a nation or tribe. We are Children of the Most High, crowned a royal priesthood for the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; and we are nation of gifted prophets, graced apostles and witnesses to the transforming power of the Body and Blood of Christ. His gift to you is eternal life. Your life now belongs to Christ. Live it as Jesus lived his among us; live it as a daily offering, a hourly oblation to God. We are espoused to the Bridegroom and our God rejoices in us. Let Him turn Mere Living into a jubilant celebration. You are His Delight! Delight Him in return by being His gift to others. Announce his saving works among all peoples and proclaim his marvelous deeds!

To be healed is to be obedient

1^st Week OT(F): Hebrews 4.1-5, 11 and Mark 2.1-12
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

PODCAST!

The source of our sickness is disobedience. What ails us, what dis-eases us, what stirs our peace and hacks at our trusting foundation is our failure to listen, to attend to the Word, to receive and collect in the Good News—all of the Good News not just the safe, cheery bits—all of the teachings of Christ, to bring them in, tend to them, and harvest their powerful fruit for our holiness, our witness, and our mission. Without the food of the Word made flesh, the truth of the faith, we are left to starve on a junk food diet of wishful thinking, emotive fantasy, destructive curiosity, and, finally, religious disobedience—an adolescent tantrum of the heart and mind that rebels against truth b/c knowing the truth is a step toward being freed from the slavery of sin, a step toward being made a slave to Christ. To be healed is to hear the Word spoken to your disobedience—to hear him and listen!

From Hebrews we read: “…we have received the Good News just as our ancestors did.” We have heard the same message, heard the same covenant, received the same law as did those who came before us in faith, “but the word that they heard did not profit them, for they were not united in faith with those who listened.” To be “united in faith with those who listened” is precisely what we mean when we use the word Tradition to point to some teaching that defines us as Catholics. We are able to stand here in Irving, TX in 2007 and reach back 100, 500, 1,000, 2,000 years and lay our hands on an ancient wisdom—not just information or knowledge, not just data and figures—but true wisdom, faithfully lived, sometimes messy, sometimes difficult, but always humane, always a record of honest struggle, a record of hard won holiness in spite of mistakes, in spite of error and sin and the heart’s failure. Our Tradition—Christ’s teachings—held in his Body, the Church, our Tradition is the record of our faith-family’s obedience. Everything we are and everything we have as Catholics is what they heard and it is what we are hearing even now.

We are united in faith with those who listened.

Yesterday our preacher was a leper. Today he is a man paralyzed. Lowered through the roof of the house where Jesus is teaching, the man is healed b/c he listens to the Word spoken to him. Not just hears but listens—takes in, welcomes in the Word. Hears and obeys. And notice too that Jesus saw the faith of those who brought the man to him. The man is brought to Christ by a crowd of saints, a crowd of those who listened. And it is their faith, the trust of the communion that moves Jesus to speak his healing Word.

Jesus, demonstrating to the scribes his authority as Lord, begins this healing miracle by saying to the paralytic, “I say to you…” You. Just you. Attend to my voice, hear my words, and obey. Listen. “I say to you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home.” He hears and obeys—healed by a compelling Word of mercy, the Word who forgives his sins and brings him to faith, making him one of those who listened.

In your dis-ease, your paralysis, to whom do you listen? What word do your obey? You have (freely given) God’s revelation of Himself in scripture, in the magisterial interpretation of the tradition, in creation, and finally and uniquely in Jesus Christ. Who God is to us and for us is right there. What you need loosed can be loosed. What you need bound can be bound. Just listen: Child, your sins are forgiven!

Stony face = Stony heart?

1^st Week OT (Th): Hebrews 3.7-14 and Mark 1.40-45
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

Podcast

The hardened, unfaithful heart forsakes the living God. What does this mean? What is a hard heart? What is an unfaithful heart? Unlike leprosy, the hard, unfaithful heart is not a medical disease, not a physical condition; it is a spiritual malady, an injury to the covenant between child and the Father, a wreck made of one’s most loving kinship, one’s most desirous bond. An hardened heart cannot beat; a stone pumps no blood. Lifeless, rock-dead, a rigorous heart resists the pliant Spirit, repels the ointments of mercy and love, and fossilizes, grows moss and becomes the cold, moist home of worms and chittering beetles. In less colorful language, brothers and sisters, a hardened heart is deaf to God’s Word, mute to His witness, blind to His wondrous deeds, and numb to the fire of His love.

A stony heart can be made flesh again. How? “A leper came to him and kneeling down begged him and said, ‘If you wish, you can make me clean.’” Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out his hand to the man and said, “I do will it. Be made clean.” Jesus wills that we be made clean. He wills that we be perfected, that we have bold, fleshy hearts pumping blood and Spirit, surging his Father’s love through the Body, pounding into the skeleton and tissue and sinew of his Church the truth of His power, the life of His Way, the health and wealth of His law seared into the muscle of our lively hearts. Be made clean.

And leap and laugh, rejoice and praise God and please, please, please: Look and sound healed! What does your scowl witness to? What does your gritted and grim frown say about the power of God to heal? How do we know that your heart is free when your face is trapped in a penitential grimace? When your words are sour and fuming? When your deeds are selfish and disobedient? The refusal of the Christian to be joyful at his/her redemption is a sacrilege, a willful failure to make one’s life a living sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. The Holy Spirit says, “Harden not your hearts in rebellion against my ways.” There is no rest for us there. There is no solace in resistance to the purifying fire of love. And there is no gain for the child of God in refusing to shine out His love, in failing to make one’s every breath, every move, every thought an act of thanksgiving for His mercy. I’m not saying you have to be a grinning idiot to be a good Christian. I am saying that your face, your countenance, your demeanor is a powerful witness to others. What are you saying about God’s presence in your life when you stand perfectly still, perfectly silent? Does a hardened, unfaithful face give voice to a hardened, unfaithful heart?

The healed leper is our saint to imitate! Without shame or hesitation, he begs Jesus’ mercy. He asks to be healed. He is made clean by Christ’s compassion. And what? He mopes around frowning? No! He “immediately publicizes the matter,” spreading abroad his healing at Jesus’ hand. In fact, his witness is so powerful that our poor Savior is forced to flee into the deserted places b/c “people kept coming to him from everywhere.” Driving Jesus into the desert! Now that’s good preaching!

Do not rebel against God’s joy. Do not resist His purifying love. Do not thank Him for His mercy with a penitential grimace. Instead: rejoice! be glad! welcome His passion for us! receive His love, and thank Him by looking like you’ve been redeemed, by acting like you’ve been saved from the fiery pit. Can people point at you and say, “He/she is a friend of Christ”? If not, harden not your hearts and beg for Christ’s cleansing touch.

Two brief reviews

I received two books in the mail recently from Doubleday...both by NCR(eporter)'s John Allen, Jr.

All the Pope's Men

The Rise of Benedict XVI

I will recommend both as good introductions to difficult subjects: the workings of the Vatican Curia and how God's Rottweiler became Pope Benedict XVI.

Let me say now: I have no love for the NCR. IMHO, it's a rag. And it stands for almost everything horribly gone wrong in the post-VC2 Church. Now, having said that, let me say this--we have a saying in Mississippi about those we don't particularly like. We say, "I wouldn't p*** on him if he was on fire." (You have to imagine the accent!). This was my feeling about John Allen up until just recently. His positive response to the negative criticism of his Ratzinger biography added a huge amount of credibility to his side of the scale for me. So, when I opened the box and found these two books, I didn't immediately bless them with holy water and chunk them in File 13.

All the Pope's Men is the more interesting of the two. The chapter titled "Vatican Theology" is the worth the price of the book. The chapter on the sexual abuse scandals is also quite good. He has two sections outlining the problems the church in Rome has understanding the church in America and vice-versa. The chapter also includes a handy chronology of events for those keeping track. I was very impressed with the section on proposed reforms. Allen manages to fairly navigate this mind field. He reminds us that the great Dominican, Yves Congar, wrote of Church reform: "The great law of a Catholic reformism will be to begin with a return to the principles of Catholicism"(309). Allen adds by way of commentary: "Authentic reform always stresses the need to sentire cum ecclesia--'to think with the Church.' It is a project to be carried out in cooperation with the pastors of the Church, never in struggle against them"(309). Amen, brother!

The Rise of Benedict XVI doesn't entirely avoid the predictable American political descriptive categories that we've come to expect from the MSM when they talk about the Church. Typically, the newly elected Holy Father is seen as a president or a prime minister who is being swept into office with a mandate for change and eager to kick butt and take names of his political enemies. Allen manages to avoid the worst examples of this oversimplification. He still indulges a bit in the media habit of presenting liberal reformers as "progressive" (and therefore "good") and curial officials as "reactionary" or "conservative" (and therefore "bad"). You can come away from this book thinking that the Roman Church teeters on a razor's edge of root and branch revolution but for the unfortunate election of a pious German scholar to the Chair of Peter. Allen's sense of fairness prevents him from being taken in too deeply by these silly, lefty propaganda sound-bites. I was very disappointed in the last chapter of the book. Allen predicts a few areas that will be challenging to the Holy Father. He predicts that B16 will be troubled by the likes of the CTSA and its habitual dissident nagging. And that he will be worried silly by the slowly growing extinct "progressive Catholic women" (a.k.a., "feminist nuns"). Naw, I doubt it.

Be Yourselves the Word Made Flesh

The Nativity of the Lord 2006: Isa 52.7-10; Heb 1.1-6; John 1.1-18
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation

PODCAST!

The Word speaks and everything is. The Word names everything that is “Very Good.” On stones, the Word etches wisdom and truth and promises His human creatures abundant blessings, strength, prosperity, and children like the stars. Wild men wander out of the desert to speak the Word again and again to bring back to memory and mind promises made and received, vows of obedience and fidelity, a covenant of identity, power, singular divinity. The Word of the Law and the Prophets recites for us a litany of loving deeds—miraculous acts of mercy, rescue, healing—deeds done for us, and repeats with near-chant solemnity His promises of salvation, fidelity, holiness, belonging, love, peace, fruitfulness, and friendship. The Words calls. Whispers. Bellows. Pleads. Bargains. Threatens. Cries. The Word came to what was his own, but his people did not accept Him. And so, the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we saw—finally!—His glory.

What have we heard of this Word? What have we seen? We hear the cry to repentance and holiness, the cry for justice and peace. We hear the promises of eternal healing and glory. We see the reparation of disease and injury, the repair of sin’s ruin among us. We see the blessings of God’s hand in our lives, the abundant flood of riches—for some: health, wealth, education, children, loving family, a perfecting vocation; for others: gifts of intelligence, influence, generosity, strength to persevere, patience, peace; and still others: gifts of music, speech, art, wisdom, counsel, true holiness and insight. We hear the rustling Word moving in hearts spacious with joy, emptied of anxiety and fatigue, and the whispered invitation is clarion-clear: become my children! I became a Child among you so that you might become my children.

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we see His glory. The Nativity of the Lord celebrates a unique event in human history, a miraculous intervention in space and time—Bethlehem some 748 years after the building of Rome: the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son takes on human flesh—one person, two natures: human and divine. The Word at creation, the Word of the lawful stones and the prophets, the Word of the whirlwind, the pillars of fire and dust, the Word of destruction, and the Word spoken to Mary, our Mother; this Word, the Son of God, becomes the Son of Man and lives here among us. The Christ Child has arrived. Infant Grace, Infant Mercy is here. We see and hear his glory as the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth and ready to fulfill for us His promise of salvation!

Are we ready to hear this promise? Ready to reach and grasp the covenant that will save us? Our history with God has not been an exemplary story of careful attention and compliance! As a race we have been willfully ignorant, prideful, disdainful of being taught, and violent with God’s prophets. And we have been sacrificially generous, gracious, truly humble, and welcoming to the stranger and the outcast. It is this spark of charity, this flicker of holy light in our history that speaks to our readiness for the promises of God. A readiness, by the way, that is fundamentally a readiness to love and a readiness made ready only b/c God loved us first!

If you will stand to receive the promises of God in His Son’s birth among us as Man, you will stand ready to receive the promise of your own godliness, that is, you will stand ready to become God with God. Our salvation is no mere rescue mission, no simple matter of healing the God-Man rift. The purpose of the Incarnation is our divinization. God became Man so that we might become God. The purpose of the Incarnation is our transformation into the Christ Child, our transformation into the Anointed One for the mission of preaching the Gospel to the world. If the Son became flesh to reveal the Father, then flesh, once healed, is revelatory of divinity, that is, made ready to show out Christ. The Son did become flesh to reveal the Father. Your flesh is healed in baptism—freed from sin, no longer bound to disobedience and angst. Therefore, you, O Healed Flesh!, you reveal the Father!

If you think your job as a Catholic is to show up here for Mass, drop a check in the plate, and shake Father’s hand on the way out…stop right there and consider what you do here this morning: you will come forward and eat the flesh of Christ, drink the blood of Christ and you will pledge to go out into the world as Christ to be Christ for everyone you meet! Christmas, the Mass of Christ’s Birth, is most certainly a celebration of our Lord’s nativity, but it is also a celebration of our birth as Christs for his mission of grace and truth. You see, this Mass can’t be just a matter of remembering some ancient event, some legend or myth; it can’t be about simply calling to mind again a pleasant childhood story of barn animals, shepherds, and a little drummer boy! This Mass is your Nativity. You are born as Christ b/c Christ took on flesh in birth. Your flesh. You hands. Your feet and tongue and eyes and ears. Your gifts for his mission. From his fullness we have received grace upon grace, gift upon gift, goodness upon goodness, a beautiful completion and a stunning perfection polished for loving everything into eternal life.

The Word made flesh is Love made with bone and blood, mercy given stature and weight. We celebrate a singular event this morning, a one-time grace in history—the sending of the Son among us as Man. We also celebrate a daily event, an hourly grace: our own persistent transformation into Christ, our magnificent fight to be born as Christ, to see and hear His Word rustling in our hearts—a determined murmur or a dramatic call or a silent pause—to see and hear His Word occupying the tabernacle of our one desire: to be filled, satisfied with His presence; all our longing for love and peace, given freely; hunger assuaged, thirst slaked, gnawing need emptied; to breath His glory and to be free. Our one desire: to be free as His slaves.

And the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us and we see His glory! The Christ Child is here. Infant Grace, Infant Mercy is among us. Full of grace and truth He is here. History bends to account for this miracle of giving, this wonder of the Father’s gift of His only Son to us. Make your lives wonders around which history must bend; miracles around which all the stories we will ever tell must flow. With Christ, be the true light which enlightens the world. Go out and be yourselves the Word made flesh.

On Havin' Your Needs Met in Church

While home for Christmas I saw a public service announcement for a local TV's stations website. There were several of these through the morning, each highlighting a different section of the site. The one that caught my attention was the PSA about the site's "Faith & Traditions" page. The pitchman, a local Methodist minister, gave a ferverino about the search for meaning and the necessity of being "open to the spirit" in this search. He then went on to mouth what I took to be the site's slogan, "Find a place of worship that meets your needs." This, I thought, is exactly the problem. How do most of the people listening to this PSA determine their spiritual needs? My own experience as a Wandering Eclectic Spiritual Seeker tells me that this really means, "Find a place where nothing is demanded of you, everything is given to you, and anything you desire is affirmed as a natural right." How would this PSA sound to your average American if this milksap had said, "Find a place of worship that teaches the truth of the Gospel"? No doubt we would hear the agonized wails of indignant offense echoing across the golden plains. Why? Because that simple sentence defies the current program of religious indifferentism that is plaguing the American church...and I mean all believing Christians here not just Catholics! The idea is to level all claims to religious truth to a common denominator of something like "transcendental affect," or "feelings about something Bigger Than Me" and then make the claim that this Something is the same for everyone. Apparent differences are only superficial. And the truly enlightened will ignore these differences as bothersome to the Grand Project of Uncritical Tolerance. Now, do we need to tolerate different religions? You better believe it. Does "tolerate other religions" mean "all religious are basically the same"? Nope. Not even close. Don't be fooled by appeals to tolerance. Everyone wants to be tolerant. But "being tolerant" does not mean "being uncritical." We can live with religious difference and not hold that those who differ from us religiously are essentially identical in religious belief. My own family is a perfect example of this. My parents are born and bred Baptist and Methodist. I am the only Catholic in my family. My best friends are various forms of Unitarian-Wiccan-Socialist-Technologists. Don't ask. I love my family and my friends, but it is simply not required of me or them that we sacrifice one iota of our "faiths" in order to sit down and enjoy each other. So, when some milksap Catholic DRE or theologian or preacher or priest tells you that we have to "rethink" the notion of truth in order to include obviously contradictory claims about the truth, offer him/her an all expense paid vacation to some remote island...just long enough for the bishop to hire a believing Christian--yes, a Partisan Catholic!--to take their place.

Getting pregnant

Advent Dec 20: Isa 7.10-14 and Luke 1.26-38
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

PODCAST!

If you have ever prayed for a sign, you know the agony that comes with waiting. There, in a moment of desperate need, you reach out to God, ask for some glimmer of direction, some flicker of guidance and there you sit, tittering right on the sharp edge of panic waiting for something, some indication, some signal or notice and growing more and more anxious, wondering if this or that noise, this or that pattern of birds or leaves or clouds were random or did you hear a word in the racket or read a word spelled out in feathers or branches or vapor, hoping that maybe just maybe there is some slight nod to your tangled knot in a kind word from a neighbor or is she an angel announcing the glory of the Lord, handing you that sealed envelope, that precious celestial telegram with large, curly-que letters, written, obviously, by the hand of God Himself, reading, “Here is my will for you…” and now you have to think the whole thing is a circus, a comedy of divine errors b/c God’s will for you is not what you expected, not what you had hoped; the signal is garbled or maybe the ink of the heavenly printer smeared and the message is now lost to the will of chance, gambled away, sadly (of course!) in a bet against what God wants for you, will have from you and your sign is empty of meaning b/c you can’t read or won’t read the billboard of the Father’s Will that flashes bright red and orange all day, everyday, right in front of your face, blaring too in sonorous notes of cool memory, imagination, and prayer: “The Lord is with you. Do not be afraid. You are favored by God. You carry Jesus like an ark. The Holy Spirit has come upon you, therefore, the Word you carry is the Son of God. Since nothing is impossible for God: carry His Word, let him grow in you, and then bring him out for the world to honor as its Savior. His sign to you is your pregnant faith, your expectant trust in His promises. That you hope for a sign of His will for you is your sign of His will for you. Otherwise, why do you wait?” So, rather than ask, where is my sign from God?; ask, where is my trust that His will will be done for my greatest good? If you will be God’s servant, pray: “May it be done to me according to His word!”

Trusting a person not a process

Advent (December 18): Jeremiah 23.5-8 and Matthew 1.18-25
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory

PODCAST!

The way that we go about trusting God is very different from the way our pagan neighbors go about trusting nature. For one thing we trust a person, Jesus Christ, and we trust his promises to us. Those who embrace all manner of secular or neo-pagan or merely materialistic spiritualities trust…what?...patterns of material behavior or repeatable lab tests or cycles of the stars and moon in their seasons? Surely you can see the sense in their ways? What is more convincing than the evidence of your eyes and eyes? Just look! And you will see that fall turns to winter turns to spring turns to summer and so on. Injections of medicines cure diseases. We’ve been to the moon using our observations of the stars and our gravitational math and thrust. But is it proper to say that we “trust” these? Do we invest hope in mathematics, medicines, astronomy? Do we trust things in themselves? Or do we just expect them to work as advertised? And then put our frustrations with failure on those who urged us to hope in things?

Emmanuel! God is with us! That’s faith. That’s trust. To hold that God is here with us, present with us and for us is trust. This means that we will pray and offer sacrifice because we are faithful people, trusting people, believing that the Lord has come and is coming. He is with us and coming again. Mary gave birth to him once under a star and now all of history and all of faith and prayer and honor and need pulls him to us, loving him into our lives moment by moment, growing his hands and feet and gospel tongue, giving him a voice that speaks Chinese, English, Spanish, Latin, Malay, Russian, Greek, Swahili, Aramaic, Navajo, and all the DOS codes! He will square dance, sing, play all instruments, excel at every X-Box game, read good poetry, romp around in the sandbox, drink good bourbon, love bread pudding and his mama; he will preach and teach and heal; and he will break us…again.

He will break us by demanding from us what he demanded from us before—Hear me, do as I say, I am Emmanuel, God with You, take up your cross, follow me, drink of my cup, be a slave who follows his master to his end. But do not fear: I am with you.

Jesus comes to us in Bethlehem under a star. Unrolling behind him are the books of the prophets. They bear his footprints. He rode those prophecies in Mary’s womb, treading each line, each syllable, reading every detail and knowing every time he did, he was reading his biography. From before Creation, the Son stood with the Father and knew. Emmanuel. God is with us. He is with us in our creation. In our re-creation. He is with us in our falling and in our getting back up. Jesus comes to us in Irving under another star. And out behind him are the books of the prophets, the witness of the apostles, the blood of the martyrs, our own words, deeds—spoken and left unspoken, done and undone.

Joseph believes b/c an angel comes to him in a dream. Why do we believe? Why do we trust this person, Jesus Christ? We are made to need God. We are made to love and to be loved. Joseph almost did the right thing by divorcing Mary. Then God called on him to do the Gospel Thing and love her instead. God soothed Joseph’s fear and said, in effect, I am with you. You have a mission, Joseph—care for Mary and your son, name him Jesus. This Joseph does and we honor him as Christ’s father.

The way that we go about trusting God is very different from the way our pagan neighbors go about trusting nature. We trust the person, Jesus Christ. We are made to love and when God is with us, we love perfectly. Trust will not move a cynical tongue. So, speak the Word today: Our Lord has come! And he is coming soon! Prepare the way of the Lord…

Firm and Patient or Mushy and Impatient?

3rd Sun of Advent: Isa 35.1-6, 10; James 5.7-10; Matt 11.2-11
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Paul’s Hospital, Dallas, TX

[NB. I wrote this homily using the readings for Advent Year A. I don't know why. Duh.]

MUCH IMPROVED PODCAST!

Delta nights in December are always cold. We drive back home from our grandparents’ home on Christmas Eve. My little brother, Andy, and I would play Find Rudolph. We crane our necks backwards looking up through the Pontiac’s back window, pointing at every blinking red light and shouting out, “There’s Santa! I see him!” And I remember either mom or dad saying something like, “Naw, that’s not him. He’s going in the wrong direction” or “No, his sleigh is bigger than that.” Rather than discourage us, this sure bit of detail made our hearts firm in the certainty that Santa was coming. There was no doubt b/c he made an appearance every year w/o fail. The promise of his advent was never broken.

Clockwork. Tides. Sunrise and set. Seasons. Promises. Advent. Make your hearts firm and wait for the coming of the Lord! The Spirit of the Lord is upon us! Be patient and go tell everyone what you hear and see…

Even though he had met Jesus in the womb—both of them in the womb!—John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask Jesus this question: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” Jesus, never one to shrink from a chance to witness to his Father’s power and might, preaches. He says, Go and witness to John what you have heard and seen. Go tell him that the blind see. The lame walk. The lepers are made clean. The dead are raised. And the poor have been told the Good News of God’s mercy. Is this an answer to the question? Jesus doesn’t say “Yes, I am he” or “No, keep on looking.” He says instead, Be a witness to what I have said and done. Testify to my words and deeds, proclaiming to my herald John all those things that confirm my anointing as the Promised One of God. Jesus charges John’s disciple with the mission of evangelizing John himself! The Herald, the One Who Comes Before needs to hear and see what the witnesses of Christ have heard and seen.

The testimony of a firm and patient heart given under the Spirit outruns the crowd-pleasing drama of a prophetic message every time. John knew who Jesus was. But he needed a witness. He needed evidence from just one heart and mind turned to Christ by Christ; a heart and mind expectant, poised on the edge of inviting grace, ready to fall freely, without clutching law, binding custom. John is everyone who must told, must be shown what Christ has done, is doing, and will do.

Therefore, make your hearts firm and wait for the coming of the Lord! The Spirit of the Lord is upon us! Be patient and go tell everyone what you hear and see…

What is the difference between a firm heart and mushy heart? A firm heart draws its power from the undeniable presence of the Most High. A mushy heart squeamishly borrows its meager pulse from ideas or emotions about the Most High. A firm heart loudly, proudly pumps the blood of holiness to every extremity. A mushy heart conserves its blood for the small work of mere piety done in fear. The biggest difference: a firm heart will draw other firm hearts, other muscular believers who put Christ at the center of their lives, who dream and work, sleep and play, grow and fall and get up again with the name of Jesus on their lips. A mushy heart attracts rot, decline, debauchery, false witness, rebellion, vanity; a mushy heart attracts and feeds smug, self-righteous dissent.

Wait, firm hearts, be patient! After all, what did you come to see? To hear? Did you come here to have your ears tickled and your eyes dazzled? Should we all stand and sway like limp reeds in the wind, pushed and pulled by every sweep of the clouds across the religious grasses; or, should we all get on the floor this morning moaning, lifted and felled by every weight or care or featherlight hurt?

When your heart is mushy and impatient where does it take you? Resentment? Fury? Violence? Self-indulgence? Blaming others? Paranoia? Sometimes I believe we worship in a Church that lifts up and coddles our basest wants, our most fickle flights of imagination and fantasy. We want maximum results for minimum effort, the grandest product for the most meager labor. We want the barest possible spirituality, the thinnest skin and bones of a way to heaven and we want nothing to block our choices, no one to count our sabotage of the faith in our disobedience. Make it light and airy, Father, basic, sugar-dipped, honey-spoken, and cheap. Mushy hearts revel in bleeding out pabulum, oozing out 100% nutrition-free jabber.

When your heart is firm and patient where does it take you? Gratitude? Trust? Peacefulness? Generosity? Responsibility? Full maturity in Christ? The Church is the Body of Christ ready for war against the flesh of this world—not our bodies, mind you! But the bloody raw meat of disobedience and violence that drives this culture, that’s the flesh of this world; our bodies are temples of the Spirit!—The Church, equipped as the Body of Christ, must be ready for battle against the monsters of this culture’s failed modernist experiment. Your firm and patient hearts must battle: the all-consuming impatience of technology to improve us; the drive by science to turn our children into lab rats; the suppression of Christian free-speech and worship by dogmatic secularists; the death of the rational mind in the academy and in our public schools; the rule of relativism in political debate; and, the fear of the stranger that sometimes clutches the firmest, most patient heart…and squeezes.

What did you come to this desert to see? A prophet? More than a prophet! You came to hear and see a witness. Let the Church testify in her clockwork seasons. The telling and retelling of promises. The party of the advent of the Lord.

Prepare the way of the Lord in your heart. He will come to rest for a moment and then stir. Shake. Stomp around and push. If it is a lazy spirituality we want go to Barnes & Noble and spend $30 on a Mother Goddess Tarot Card Ouija Board and do whatever it tells you to do. Trust me: it will never tell you to do anything you don’t already lust to do. But if you want this faith, this journey, this Way and you want it now and forever, then prepare his way, make ready the mansions in your heart, the palaces of your mind—the Lord is coming, ready to heal, ready to clean, ready to lift you up. But your witness—what you have heard and seen—must be told, must be spoken. Mushy and impatient hearts grow mold, stinky fungus and shed no blood. If John the Baptist needed a witness, how much more does the world need your witness. No one is interested in your lack of perfection. Everyone is interested in your encounter with Christ! Behold, the Judge is standing before the gates. Be firm and patient. Let him hear your testimony, let him see your trust in his promise of eternal life. And let Him rewind and play again your resistance to this world of disobedient flesh and malignant spirit.

Rejoice then and go tell those who must hear the Good News of salvation: the Messiah has come! And he is coming again! The promise of His advent will not be broken.

Petulance, Pretension, and Playing to the Mob

2nd Week Advent (F): Isaiah 48.17-19 and Matthew 11.16-19
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Serra Club Mass, Church of the Incarnation


We demand that the Pope change the rules on the use of artificial birth control. He does and then we shout for changes in gender exclusion in marriage. The Pope allows gay marriages and we shout for women priests. The Pope allows women priests and we start protesting for gender equity in the College of Cardinals. The Pope gives us 50/50 male to female in the College and we shout for his resignation b/c he is so unresponsive to the voice of the people! Or maybe b/c he’s turned soft…

This is the reward of those who play to the crowd, hoping, in vain, that the crowd can be persuaded or lead or bought off to give its allegiance to the truth. Not likely. Jesus makes this very point this morning: “Your generation is like a bunch of kids playing in the street. You whine when we don’t dance to your favorite music and you whine when we don’t cry when you play your funeral dirges. You call John the Baptist demon possessed b/c he doesn’t eat or drink. And I come among you eating and drinking and you call me a glutton and drunkard.” Jesus is frustrated b/c he’s having to confront again and again the invincible ignorance of the crowds who clamor for glamour, that is, crowds who are following him and gathering about him who want to be see the miraculous done for their amusement. Some will believe, some will remain unbelieving, and most will tag along to see the show, perhaps hoping that something of Jesus’ healing power will pour over and travel to visit their ailments. They were there and we are here.

To what shall we compare this generation? Hyperactive rabbits? A computer with hundreds of lines running in and out? A cyborg with technology stuck in every hole? Needy children on too much sugar? We seem to climb about, swinging away, growing and eating, but left deeply hungry and thirsty in the absence of the Divine. I mean to say that God is always here with us, of course, but that his presence to us is spiritually fruitful only when we invoke His name, go get His gifts to us, and use them honorably in service to others. This generation—yours, mine, or the ones to come—best honor Christ by following his Way; forget the manipulation and craft; we can best use his grace by putting it in front of us to clear our path to Him, to open the Way, to allow His wisdom to be vindicated in us by wisdom’s good works.

The children in the market are petulant, proud, and probably a bit bored. They play their music for reaction, for reflection, or maybe just plain ole for fun. And so too the crowds. They gathered around Jesus for all sorts of reasons. Some pure. Some private. And some for simple delectation. Why do we gather around Jesus in 2006? What draws us to him? Surely he radiates power and we are always ready to vibrate at that hum. Is it his life-philosophy: personal sacrifice for public good? How about his teachings on peace or marriage or eternal life? Do we gather to be seen? To be in control, in charge? To be attention-seeking servants? How ready are you to serve w/o recognition?

Perhaps we do well to keep the words of Isaiah firmly in mind: “I, the Lord, your God, teach you what is for your good, and lead you on the way you should go.” Ministry is God’s work. You and I are the subcontractors; we’re the hired help. Apparently, we work for a glutton, a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Not company we can boast about. But this is the company that will see our souls before the Throne of the Most High.

If divine wisdom is vindicated by her works, then rank foolishness is celebrated by our pretensions: “if you would hearken to my commandments, your prosperity would be like a river…”