Frighten the world!

NB.  Still w/o a 'puter, so here's a repost of 2012's homily for today. . .

5th Week of Easter (S)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Jesus drops a rather somber warning on his disciples, “I have chosen you out of the world. . .and the world hates you. . .[but] realize that it hated me first. . .If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” We know that the world persecuted Jesus, and we know that the disciples were persecuted as well. Despite the best efforts of the world to bludgeon, burn, crucify, and exile the Good News from its realm, the news got out, and we've been here for more than 2,000 years. Like a body infected with a deadly virus, the world reacts to the presence of the Church—attacking, repelling, isolating. But we're still here. Despite the best efforts of some in the Church to surrender to the world, to bring the world into the sanctuary, and give her away like a rare virgin bride, we're still here. We're still here not b/c we are deserving of preservation, b/c we're earned the privilege of God's protection. We're still here b/c Christ promised to be with his Church always. Because the world needs an ordinary means of receiving his Father's abounding grace. So long as the Church remains, the body of the world remains infected with the saving virus of the Good News. This is why the world hates us: they do not see any need for rescue. 

If you feel no danger, you very likely see no need for rescue. Sitting comfy and cozy on your couch, reading a good book, you would probably dismiss a neighbor who barges in yelling, “I'm here to rescue you from your comfy, cozy couch!” If you were kneeling in prayer in church, confident that all was right with your spiritual life, the rantings of a crazy friar from the pulpit about sin and God's love would be distracting but hardly alarming. However, if your world were collapsing, if your family, your nation, your civilization, all that you have come to rely on were spinning out of control, and someone offered you a way to leave that world behind, the first thing you would need to do is admit that your world was coming apart. You would need to see the destruction, hear the system tearing at its seams, feel the angst and anger rising. In other words, you would have to confess that the world you helped to build and operate was losing its soul, spiraling into a dysfunctional waste. If you make this confession, then rescue is possible. If you refuse, if you deny the truth, rescue is impossible, and you will grow to hate those who offer you a way out. 

 Christ's offer to rescue the world is an accusation. To say, “You need rescuing” is to say “You are in danger,” and I am in a position to help. The hardest part of being rescued is admitting that help is required. Why does the world hate Christ and his disciples? Because the Church sees the world in danger and knows that the only way to be rescued is to embrace Christ and leave that dangerous world behind. Leave behind contesting for social standing; compromising the truth to gain political influence; rutting with violence for the applause of mob; to leave behind self-righteous do-gooding, the easy hatred of imaginary enemies, and the lust for things and people. Christ's offer of rescue is an accusation, but it is also—if accepted—a vindication, a victory over the world, a win for those who would confess that they can only lose without God. No slave is greater than his master. If we are slaves of Christ, then we can expect nothing more from the world than he himself received. The rulers of this world fear another King, and they fear his followers. When the world stops hating the Church, we know that we have stopped preaching his Good News. Therefore, go out and frighten the world! 

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First World Problems

TOSHIBA keeps changing the estimated shipping date on my laptop. . .

They moved it from May 9th to the 6th and now back to the 9th.

Shoulda just gone to Best Buy like Fr. Mike suggested.  

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New Laptop: May 9th

Replacement parts + labor + lost productivity = Just Get a New Laptop!

So, I did.  Got a great deal on a Toshiba Satellite.  Almost half-price direct from the warehouse.

Should be here by May 9th. . .until then, it's ad-lib homilies.  

Gulp.

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RIP. . .laptop

I think the video card on my laptop died this afternoon. 

The screen just went black. It's been "jumpy" lately, frequently turning red.

Anyway, blogging and email will be slow until I can get a replacement card, or a new laptop.

Fr. Philip
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Love never compromises

5th Sunday of Easter 2013 

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 

St. Dominic Church, NOLA 

The traitor leaves the table and goes to complete his betrayal. Jesus watches him go; without a word, Jesus bears witness to his friend's treason. When the door closes behind Judas, our Lord turns to the remaining disciples and declares the beginning of the end, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.” Now. Immediately. At this moment. With Judas gone and the door closed, our Lord is given glory for his Passion: the Father's strength and the Spirit's fire—the divine majesty. With the Son of Man glorified, God is glorified in him. Amplified. Magnified. Made more brilliant. So elevated, he says to his disciples, “My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.” Can they see/feel the glory suffusing their teacher? Do his friends know that the traitor's departure started the countdown to Golgotha? Rather than accuse Judas, or flee to the desert, or shout a call to fight, our Lord issues a new command. Watching Judas leave the table, watching him go to sell his teacher and friend to their enemies, Jesus shares his glory with those who remain, who remain loyal: “Love one another,” he commands, “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” If we love one another, all will know that we follow Christ. 

Two disciples who love one another in Christ, Paul and Barnabas, travel through the churches of Asia Minor, strengthening the spirits of the other disciples and exhorting them to persevere in the faith. How do these two instruct the other disciples to persevere? They spread this bit of good news: “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” How is this any sort of good news? How is this truth supposed to strengthen the disciples, or urge them on to persevere in the faith? Wouldn't it have been better for Paul and Barnabas to encourage the others with smiling personal affirmations, or rousing songs about the wonders of achieving social justice? How about a few calming homilies on how wonderful we all are? Or how good it is that we can come together to be church? Paul and Barnabas reveal to the others a difficult truth: entering the kingdom of God is an obstacle course, a regime of hard choices, harder consequences, and frequent failures. These barriers to joining the kingdom are not God's doing. These barriers belong to the world. To enter the kingdom, we must overcome the world. And to overcome the world, we must love one another. That's the hardest truth of all. 

“Love one another” can heard as a glib slogan, a mushy motto meant to soothe a jagged conscience. It trips easily off the tongue, a nice catch-phrase that catches all the sentiments we tend to think will ease conflicts, dissolving differences into a numbing peace. When our Lord orders his disciples at the Last Supper to love one another, he does so after Judas leaves to betray him. He waits until the traitor exits the room to issue his last command. With Judas gone and the door closed, our Lord is glorified, raised up, given the honor due his impending sacrifice; and the fullness of God's revelation is made manifest in him; that is, at the beginning of his Passion and death, Jesus shines with whole glory of God, the full strength of the Father and the fire of the Holy Spirit. The treasonous disciple cannot witness this. Even had he stayed with the others, we could not see it. He does not love the Lord; he does not love his brother disciples. He loves worldly glory and riches, and so he is blind to the heavenly glory that Christ shows to those who choose to love him. Had he stayed, Judas would not have heard Jesus say, “Love one another.” The ears of a traitor are closed to loyalty and love, to faithfulness and perseverance. And b/c loving one another is its own hardship, betrayal come easily to those to who refuse to love. 

“It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” Paul and Barnabas spread a bit of good news throughout the churches of Asia Minor. This good news sounds a whole lot like bad news. And it would be bad news if these hardships were sent from heaven. But they are not. Look at the hardships that Paul and Barnabas themselves have endured: arrest, imprisonment, floggings, threats from civil authorities, denunciations from religious officials. Both apostles are martyred. Paul was beheaded at the order of the Emperor Nero. Barnabas was stoned to death by Jewish authorities in Cyprus.* Every hardship, every obstacle to their apostolic ministry comes from the powers of this world, or from those allied with them. So, Paul and Barnabas understand—with the bodies and souls—that the hardships of loving one another come by way of the world. They also understand that we overcome the world while standing in the glory of God, loving one another despite the world's obstacles, sharing in the divine majesty given to the Son at the beginning of his Passion and death. And by sharing in his Passion and death, we give God glory in our own hardships. 

All this talk of hardships, glory, death, and love seems a bit abstract, a bit airy, unsubstantial. Let's put some meat on these bones. We lay claim to an inheritance through Christ, a portion of the kingdom that he announced 2,000 yrs ago. As heirs to this kingdom, we are also its stewards, responsible for seeing to the growth and maintenance of all that God has given us. Traditionally, Catholics talk in terms of “time, treasure, and talent” when we speak of stewardship. And there's nothing wrong with that. However, there is a more fundamental sense in which all of us steward God's gifts. Look at Judas. What did he squander for 30 pieces of silver? Fellowship among the disciples; his relationship with Christ; his historical reputation as a faithful disciple. But more than these, he sold his soul; that is, he allowed the powers of this world to buy his integrity, his strength as a Good Man, a man of God. He used his friendship with Jesus to sell our Lord to his enemies. The powers of this world set a hardship for Judas. And he chose the easy work-around, the profitable dodge. In other words, he compromised the very thing that made him a man of God, worthy of trust. Judas accommodated himself to the spirit of the age and ended his own life with a noose. 

The spirit of our own age is busy setting hardships for us. Oddly enough, these hardships are not all that different from the ones Paul, Barnabas, Judas, and all God's children in the early Church tackled. They were tempted to dilute the Gospel with false religions. Compromise with secular power for material gain. Accommodate moral principles for the sake of social standing. Surrender their freedoms in the name of state security. And more than many lost their struggles with these temptations. More than many exhausted their strength, extinguishing the fire of the Holy Spirit in their resistance. Here's what we need to know now: when we love another as Christ loves us, we have no need for a gospel other than the Gospel of Jesus Christ; when we love one another as Christ loves us, we don't need material gain, social standing, or security from the state. Everything we need is given by God so that we might live wholly in His love. Judas did not believe this. Paul and Barnabas did. Judas died a traitor's death. Paul and Barnabas died as witnesses, preaching the Good News to the end. Love tells the truth; it never compromises or accommodates, nor do those who love one another. Jesus orders us, “As I [love] you, so you also should love one another.” His Passion and death began when the traitor left the table. Ours begins when we approach the table and dare to share in his last meal.

*Unfortunately, this is probably a legend, but it's the only info we have on his death.

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Will that be enough. . .?

4th Week of Easter (S) 

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 

St. Dominic Church, NOLA 

It's a bit unnerving for me to wake up this morning and read in the gospel: “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip?” I'm thinking: oh Lord, what I have done now?! What have I said or done to make Jesus think that I don't know him? I'm pretty sure that that list would be too long and too embarrassing to read aloud in public. I'd like to say that the “Philip” here isn't me. But he is me. What's worse: he's also all of you. Jesus' rather pointed question to Philip is a response to a request from Philip, a request any one of us could make: “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Would it? No, it wouldn't. Jesus knows this and so does Philip. And likely, we all know this too. How do we know that showing us the Father won't be enough for us? Well, being shown the Father has never been enough, has it? What is the Old Testament but the 5,000+ yr history of God showing Himself to His children and still we don't know Him? God gives it one more try in Christ Jesus. See him, know the Father. Great! Now, where do we go to see Jesus? 

Where do we go to see Jesus?! Have you been a Christian for so long a time and you still do not know Christ? The better question is: where can a follower of Christ go and not see Jesus? He sends us out into the whole world to preach the Good News. He send us out to heal the sick, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, free the oppressed, and forgive the sinner. He sends us out to bring in the stranger, the grieving, the poor, the meek. He send us out to plant the seeds of his word and deeds in every sort of human soil. We are sent out to overpower unclean spirits; to lift up those who are pushed down; to defend and nurture the least among us; to bear witness in body and soul to the sanctity of all life; and to make sure that there is no living sinner in the world who has not heard of the Father's freely granted pardon. Where do we go to see Jesus? “The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. . .whoever believes in me will do the works that I do.” Do you believe in Christ? Trust in him? Then do the works that he did so that your works may reveal the Father working in you. If you want to know the Father, then you must be Christ for others. Go do his works through faith, then look in a mirror. 

Will that be enough? No, it won't. The disciples travel with Jesus for three years. Day in and day out, they eat, sleep, walk, and talk with the Lord in person, sitting at his feet for personal instruction. And still they do not know the Father. What are they missing? They have yet to receive the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. What they are missing is the fullness of the Spirit, the Love that the Father and the Son share between them. Their knowledge is not yet on fire; what they know has not yet been kindled and set ablaze by the One Who will remain with them (us) until the end. Doing the works that Christ does, and doing these works in faith, shows the world both the Father and His Holy Spirit, both the One Who Creates and the One Who blesses His creation. To know God fully, to know Him perfectly, we must go to see Him face-to-face, which means we must live now—right now—as if we were seeing His face in every man, woman, and child we meet; heart, mind, body, soul we must turn toward Him and see, hear, think, and feel only Him, and through faith in Him accomplish everything that He has sent us out to do. Will that be enough? No, it won't. In the end, He reaches for us; pulls us up, and welcomes us to His family. Our job is make sure He finds us doing what His Son sent us out to do. 

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Way, Truth, Life

4th Week of Easter (F) 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 
St. Dominic Church, NOLA 

Jesus has just finished washing his disciples' feet at the Last Supper. He's given them a new commandment, and told them that he must leave them. Simon Peter wants to know where the Lord is going and why he can't come with him. Jesus responds by telling Peter that he will deny his teacher three times before the dawn. Seeing his disciples heartbroken and feeling abandoned, Jesus says to them, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.” What else is a broken heart but a soul that's lost its will to believe, its desire to trust? We're not witnessing a gaggle of teenaged girls moon over the latest pop star; or a bunch of men mourning the loss of a drinking buddy. The disciples are genuinely anxious about Jesus' departure. This group of hardworking men—men who've followed him all over the country—are devastated to learn that their teacher is leaving them behind. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus says, “I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.” If we don't know where he's going, how will we know how to get there? 

It's Thomas, the one who doubted the testimony of his fellow disciples, who asks the question we all want to ask, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Is it not enough that he's told us that he will be back for us? Is it not enough that he's gone ahead to prepare our places in his Father's house? No. Not nearly enough. We want to know where Jesus is going, and we want to know how to get there by ourselves. Why do we think we need this information? He's leaving us. He's just walking away from us and everything we've done together. How do we know he's coming back? Are we supposed to just believe that he's coming back? With no backup plan? No fail-safe in case things don't work out as planned? Jesus says, “You have faith in God; have faith also in me.” That's the backup plan: have faith. That's the fail-safe: trust in him. In other words, when it comes to believing in the One the Father sent to free us from sin and death, there is no backup plan. There is faith, and there is worry; trust and anxiety. If your heart is troubled, you have chosen worry over faith, anxiety over trust. And the Way before you is muddled, twisted by the smog of pride and the need to control. Do not LET your heart be troubled. LET your heart be free.

We don't need to worry about where Jesus is going. We already know. He's going to the cross. And then on to sit at the Father's right hand. We don't need to worry about how we will find him. He tells us, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” To get to the Father, we must follow the way, the truth, and the life. The way of Christ, the truth of Christ, and the life of Christ; becoming, along that Way, Christs ourselves. This means we are all heading toward the cross as well. And while on this trek to our deaths, we will doubt the testimony of our fellow disciples; we will deny Christ before the dawn and after; we will resist the urge to trust God's love for us; and we will beg the Lord not to leave us even though we know he must. (We can't follow behind a leader who will not move ahead of us.) While we stumble, fall, shove, and get back up to walk along the Way, we should hear Jesus say to us, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Yes, it's a choice we make to let our hearts be troubled or not. Choose faith and trust in God. Choose to put your faith and trust in Christ. We know all that we need to know to make it to heaven. But it is not knowledge that saves us. Faith brings us close to God. And faith in His Christ brings us closer still.

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Disobeying God the Father

NB. It's storming in Nawlins'. I'm feeling puny. The Spirit tried His best to rouse me. . .alas, no luck. Here's a Roman homily from 2010.

4th Week of Easter (W) 

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 

St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Jesus puts to rest any question about the source and summit of our salvation, any question about the only means available for achieving a face-to-face audience with God the Father: “Whoever believes in me…whoever sees me…everyone who believes in me…anyone who hears my words…whoever rejects me…does not accept my words…I did not speak on my own…the Father who sent me commanded me…what I say, I say as the Father told me.” There can be no question that Jesus himself is the exclusive path to our redemption; he is the only salvific show in town. If we want to spend a little more time unpacking this teaching, we can note the passion with which Jesus teaches. John writes that Jesus “cried out and said.” We can note that Jesus explicitly says that he and the Father are one; that believing in him is the same as believing in the Father; that as the Word sent by the Father, accepting or rejecting his words determines one's place in the light or one's condemnation to the darkness. We can note that Jesus says he is teaching nothing more or less than what his Father has told him to teach; and we can note that he makes this startling claim: “I know that [the Father's] commandment is eternal life.” If the Father's commandment is eternal life, why must we believe in Jesus? Isn't it enough that God has commanded us to live with Him in eternity? It would seem that God's commandment can be thwarted by our refusal to believe. 

For the sake of argument, let's assume that we want to refuse to obey God's commandment of eternal life. How would we go about about doing this? Jesus points out two ways to be disobedient: 1). we can hear his words, accept them, but fail to observe them, or 2). we can hear his words and reject them. When we hear his word but fail to live them, we are not condemned because, as Jesus says, “. . .I did not come to condemn the world but to save the world.” When we hear his words and reject them, we condemn ourselves according to his word; that is, his words stand as our judge and we are condemned to darkness because the Father, Jesus, and his words are all one. Lest we think that we can hear his words, accept them, fail to obey, and then escape the consequences, we must remember that God commands us to enjoy eternal life. Jesus says that he will not judge our disobedience. Why? Because our refusal to live out the words we have heard and accepted is itself a judgment, and we remain in darkness despite having glimpsed the light. There is nothing more he needs to do than to allow us to live in the eternal night we have chosen for ourselves. 

Why would anyone, having heard and accepted his words and knowing that God has commanded us to live eternal lives, why would anyone see the light of Christ and choose the darkness of disobedience? Well, there's the false sense of freedom that comes with making such a choice. There's the inordinate love of the transient things of this world. There's the desire to indulge our destructive passions—anger, revenge, hatred, greed. And then there's the obstinate refusal to believe, the persistence of voluntary doubt—willful disbelief. Like the child who closes her eyes and believes she is invisible because she cannot see, we choose darkness because we believe it hides us, protects us from judgment, nurtures our liberty. In fact, we are never more in danger than when we walk after dark. Jesus speaks these words of hope: “I came into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in darkness.” Though we may foolishly choose eternal night, we do not have to remain there. His coming among us is the dawn of salvation, our eternal healing from all the wounds that would drive us into hiding. All we need do is accept the medicine of his words and follow behind him, doing right now all that he did back then. 

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Brownskirt Tolerance in Europe

"The Church is intolerant in principle because she believes; she is tolerant in practice because she loves. The enemies of the Church are tolerant in principle because they do not believe; they are intolerant in practice because they do not love."  — Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange OP

Witness the fruits of Leftist Tolerance in Europe:

 
Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, Andre-Joseph Leonard is attacked by femi-Nazis* during a conference.  Note well the tolerance and love of intellectual diversity radiating from their contorted faces. You can just feel how much they want everyone to be free to just live their lives as they wish.

* Yes, femi-Nazis. Hitler's Brownshirts used exactly this sort of public intimidation to silence opposition voices.  He would send his bully-boys into pubs, theaters, universities, even private homes to start brawls so that the opposition would be forced to relent.  Worked well for him. . .for a while, anyway.

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No Church, No Jesus. . .

Yet another disappointment for the Hermeneutic of Rupture Pushers:

From Pope Francis' homily for the Feast of St George:  "And so the Church was a Mother, the Mother of more children, of many children. It became more and more of a Mother. A Mother who gives us the faith, a Mother who gives us an identity. But the Christian identity is not an identity card: Christian identity is belonging to the Church, because all of these belonged to the Church, the Mother Church. Because it is not possible to find Jesus outside the Church. The great Paul VI said: 'Wanting to live with Jesus without the Church, following Jesus outside of the Church, loving Jesus without the Church is an absurd dichotomy.' And the Mother Church that gives us Jesus gives us our identity that is not only a seal, it is a belonging. Identity means belonging. This belonging to the Church is beautiful. . .Think of this Mother Church that grows, grows with new children to whom She gives the identity of the faith, because you cannot believe in Jesus without the Church. Jesus Himself says in the Gospel: 'But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep.' If we are not 'sheep of Jesus,' faith does not come to us. It is a rosewater faith, a faith without substance. . .

So, prog Catholics, can we finally stop all that nonsense about obeying Jesus instead of the Church; or, believing in Jesus but not the Church; or, following Jesus but leading the Church?

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a poem: Ararat

Ararat

By Mark Doty
 

Wrapped in gold foil, in the search

and shouting of Easter Sunday,

it was the ball of the princess,

it was Pharoah’s body

sleeping in its golden case.

At the foot of the picket fence,

in grass lank with the morning rain,

it was a Sunday school prize,

silver for second place, gold

for the triumphant little dome

of Ararat, and my sister

took me by the hand and led me

out onto the wide, wet lawn

and showed me to bend into the thick nests

of grass, into the darkest green.

Later I had to give it back,

in exchange for a prize,

though I would rather have kept the egg.

What might have coiled inside it?

Crocuses tight on their clock-springs,

a bird who’d sing himself into an angel

in the highest reaches of the garden,

the morning’s flaming arrow?

Any small thing can save you.

Because the golden egg gleamed

in my basket once, though my childhood

became an immense sheet of darkening water

I was Noah, and I was his ark,

and there were two of every animal inside me.

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Don't let a crisis lead you through the wrong gate

NB. I'll say it before anyone else does: this homily is a borderline rant. Blame it on the afternoon espresso.

4th Week of Easter (M) 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 
St. Dominic Church, NOLA 

These anxious times offer us a huge selection of false gods to worship, a wide variety of robber-shepherds to follow. It seems that each new horror, each new disaster gives us another solution, another path to take out of our troubles. More legislation. Better enforcement. More surveillance. Better intelligence. More money. Better prevention. All of which, of course, means more state power if not better government. Rarely do we hear anyone with any authority—politicians, media-types, academics—suggest that the moral fiber of our culture is frayed and coming undone. Rarely do we hear anyone publicly suggest that the Newtown school massacre, or the Aurora theater shootings, or the Boston Marathon bombing, or the slaughterhouse of Philadelphia abortionist, Dr. Gosnell, no one ever seems connect these horrible events to a dark reality: as a culture, as a nation, as a people, we no longer look to God first as our moral compass; we no longer live believe that His love for us matters. When disaster strikes, our Betters turn to any and every solution imaginable: the law, medicine, psychology, education; they run through any and every gate opened to them. . .but one: the gate the Shepherd himself opens for us all. 

 Maybe it's our inherited pragmatic nature as Americans that sends us running after material solutions to spiritual problems. Or our need for quick and easy results that gets us rushing around looking for silver bullet answers. Or maybe we're just lazy and want someone else, anyone else to solve these problems for us. There's a pantheon of foreign gods waiting to grant our wishes, to lay out for us a whole range of fast and furious solutions. The problem with these solutions is that none of them really addresses the underlying cause of the problem. Why did those two brothers bomb the Boston Marathon? Your answer seems to depend on what remedy you want to impose to prevent future bombings? If you want more gov't control, your answer is: they bombed the marathon b/c law enforcement budgets are being cut. If you want to tar and feather all Muslims, your answer is: they bombed the marathon b/c Islam preaches hatred of non-Muslims. How about this answer? Evil is real, and its purpose is to annihilate life. The Shepherd holds open a gate for us to walk through, and that gate is called “Abundant Life.” Walking through any other gate held open by any other shepherd is robbery. It seems sometimes that our secular shepherds have led us through another gate entirely. 

If this is true—that we've been led through a gate other than the one marked “Abundant Life”—then, as followers of the One Shepherd, Jesus Christ, we need to stop bleating along behind these false shepherds and return to our Master for instruction. He walks ahead of us, and we follow him, because we recognize his voice. I wonder, do we? Or do we look to our secular leaders for spiritual instruction? Do we open our ears when they start calling us to surrender our principles, abandon our traditions, and kneel before their political agendas? If Jesus the Shepherd called his sheep to him, would we recognize his voice among the thousands that pretend to instruct us? The politicians, the academics, the pundits, the talking-heads on TV, the lobbyists, the partisan operatives, from among all those, would be hear Christ say, “Hey! Over here! Here's the gate to abundant life?” If you hear a voice preaching forgiveness, mercy, love, repentance, and obedience to God's word, that's his voice. If you hear a voice demanding vengeance, retaliation, bloodthirsty violence, and more and more secular control of our lives, that's not his voice. That's someone else's voice. The voice of a Robber and a Thief. Turn to the gate marked “Abundant Life,” and live this life abundantly in the love and mercy of Christ. 

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The voice of the Shepherd

NB. Deacons preaching this weekend. . .so, here's a homily from 2011:

4th Sunday of Easter (A)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

While in the studium—the Dominican version of seminary—the student brothers were often told that agricultural metaphors for the Church weren't all that “helpful.” For example, using images such as harvesting grain, planting seeds, plowing fields, pruning trees, etc. to talk about complex theological ideas like redemption, justice, etc. is virtually meaningless in our postmodern age. Our fussy, urbane professors were particularly hard on the sheep/shepherd metaphors in the gospels. They really got wound up about Jesus describing his followers as sheep. Sheep are dirty, stupid, and prone to being killed unless well-guarded. And it didn't help matters at all that those who guard the Lord's sheep—the shepherds, you know, the bishops—were exclusively male and celibate! By the time our enlightened profs were finished foaming at the mouth against the image of the Church as a bunch of filthy, ignorant animals led by an all-male cadre of celibate shepherds, we poor seminarians were quaking in our habits, silently vowing to never-ever speak about or even think about the Church in terms of the sheep/shepherd metaphor! Of course, one or two of us were farm boys so we knew one thing about sheep that our profs didn't: Sheep don't follow shepherds. No one leads a flock of sheep. Sheep are driven, herded by a skillful shepherd with a big stick and a pack of feisty dogs. Now that's an image of the Church that Catholics can understand! So, what are we to make of Jesus saying, “. . .[the shepherd] walks ahead of [his sheep], and [they] follow him, because they recognize his voice”? 

Well, by nature, metaphors are always imperfect, so we don't want to spend too much time dissecting the parallels between Christians and sheep, or between bishops and shepherds. Jesus' point seems to be that those who have chosen to follow him will know his voice when he speaks and obey his word b/c he speaks with a familiar authority. Jesus emphasizes his point by noting that those who love him “will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.” In other words, Christians do not hear, cannot hear in the voice of a false teacher, a false shepherd that familiar ring of authority that proclaims the authentic faith, the Real Deal of Gospel Truth. We could play with the sheep metaphor a bit and say that the voice of a false teacher, a false shepherd always sounds like a wolf growling with hunger even when it looks, smells, and acts like a lamb. Oh sure, the occasional individual sheep—the lapsed or lukewarm Christian—may be fooled, seduced by the hypnotic thrill of the wolf's promises, but the flock as a whole is never fooled, never taken in by a stranger's voice. Together, as one flock, we remember the Chief Shepherd's voice; we remember him saying, “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. . .I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” There is no other gate to the Father's eternal pasture, no other Shepherd for His faithful flock. Christ Jesus alone brings us to a more abundant life!

As faithful sheep, we should ask: how do we come to recognize the authoritative voice of our Shepherd? In his Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke gives us a clue. Peter stands with the Eleven and proclaims to the crowd, “Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Luke tells us that when those in the crowd heard this truth spoken, “they were cut to the heart. . .” Cut to the heart! Peter utters a simple sentence, twenty-one common words strung together, a declarative sentence that rings out over those gathered, seizes their attention with absolute clarity, and instantly convicts their hearts in the truth: the man Jesus, the one whom they crucified, is the Lord and the Christ long-promised by their God. Peter's pronouncement slices through their guilt; their recriminations; their religious and legal defenses; their logic, their doubts, and their fears. They were cut to the heart, that place in their souls where no lie can easily rest and b/c they recognize their sin, they ask, “What are we to do?” And Peter tells them what to do. “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. . .Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Among those who heard Peter preach that day were three thousand souls who accepted his message and were baptized. Those three thousand, once convicted in the truth and baptized in the name of Christ Jesus, would always recognize the voice of the Lord and his shepherds. A cut to the heart made by the sword that Christ himself yields is always deep and always permanent. It cannot be forgotten nor can it be mistaken for the mark of a stranger.

As men and women baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, we are deeply and permanently cut by the truth of the gospel. Christ's voice always rings true; the familiar authority of our shepherd is unmistakable, and we cannot be lead astray if we graze with his flock, the Church. The apostle Peter and his successors proclaim the central, abiding fact of our two-thousand year old flock: “God has made both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” That's the sound, the voice of gospel truth, the words and the spirit that cuts the hearts of all those who long to see their lives redeemed, who desire a life beyond this one, who know that they will be perfected only when they come to see their Father face-to-face at the foot of His throne. Do you recognize that voice? More importantly, can you speak with that voice and spread the good news it proclaims? Sheep may be dirty, stupid, and prone to being eaten by wolves, but we are no ordinary sheep! We belong to the Eternal Shepherd and the world is our pasture to cultivate for him. Having heard his call, it's time for us to answer.

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The Left's (failed) Eliminationist Narrative

De-coding and deconstructing the repeated failures of the Left's Eliminationist Narrative:

 

It started with Bill Sparkman [2009], the part-time Census worker who went missing and then was found dead, setting off an avalanche of mainstream media and left-blogosphere accusations that he was the victim of anti-government “right-wing” hate.  It turned out that Sparkman killed himself. . .

 

[. . .]

 

The Sparkman accusations were based on nothing more than a desire to demonize the newly formed and rapidly growing Tea Party movement as terrorists and un-American.  It was as if they were hoping for an act of Tea Party violence.

Yet there was a theory behind the madness, the Eliminationist Narrative created by Dave Neiwart of Crooks and Liars about an “eliminationist” radical right seeking to dehumanize and eliminate political opposition.

 

[. . .]

 

In the case of Sparkman, the accusations were just Another Failed Eliminationist Narrative.  And the Eliminationist Narrative would fail time and time again:

• James Holmes
• Jared Loughner
• The Cabby Stabber
• The “killer” of Bill Sparkman
• Amy Bishop
• The Fort Hood Shooter
• The IRS Plane Crasher
• The Pentagon Shooter

We can now add the Boston Marathon Bombing to the pile.  The wild speculation that there was a Tea Party or “right-wing” connection proved false.
 

 [. . .]

Rest assured, Good Readers. . .these repeated failures by the Left's Eliminationist Narrative to explain unfolding events will not deter their allies in the media from attempting to frame the next (God forbid) terrorist attack as the work of the ever elusive right-wing operative.

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Does this shock you?

3rd Week of Easter (S)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Jesus knows that his disciples are grumbling. They heard him say that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood to gain eternal life. They're grumbling b/c some seem to think that he means all this metaphorically. Like that time he talked about them being like sheep. Or that time he said they were all different kinds of soil that the seed of his Word fell upon. Some think this is all just a parable and that he's telling them that his teachings will sustain them if they will just treat his words like a daily meal, symbolic food to grow in wisdom. Others, the ones who were really listening to him, are disturbed. Deeply disturbed. Jesus didn't tell them that they must eat his flesh. He used the Greek word trōgōn. They must gnaw his flesh. Like a lion gnaws the flesh and bone of its prey. He knows that they are grumbling; so, he asks, “Does this shock you?” Now they are really worried. He continues, “The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” John tells us, “. . .many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer walked with him.” Metaphors, symbols, parables. None of these brings eternal life. Only the flesh and blood of the Lamb of God can feed a soul hungry for salvation. 

Our gospel reading this morning brings to an end the long lesson we call the “Bread of Life Discourse.” Jesus spends a great deal of time drawing together various lines of Old Testament thought and imagery to produce a picture of himself as the Lamb to be sacrificed for the salvation of the world. He pulls in the unleavened bread of Passover. He draws the exodus from slavery in Egypt and the manna that fed God's people in the desert. He colors his lesson with memories of exile, return, the bloody sacrifices of the temple. And then he concludes by shocking everyone with the most ridiculous claim, “Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life. . .” We get the sense that most of those following him were with him in spirit until he utters this, this utterly revolting, impossible sentence. Is there anything more unclean to the Jews than cannibalism? Even touching a corpse, or just being in a tent with one requires seven days of ritual purification! Did this idea of gnawing on his flesh shock some of the disciples? You bet it did. And many of them simply walked away, returning to the lives they had left. 

Watching many of his disciples walk away, Jesus asks the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” He knows that they do not want to walk away from him; he asks so that they can hear themselves say, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” They will need to repeat this truth, hear themselves speaking this truth. The trials that lie must be met with tremendous courage and strength, with a deeply held faith and a firm grasp on hope. “We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” This belief, this conviction cannot be sustained w/o substantial nourishment: prayer, fasting, fraternal love; the constancy of living day in and out in the knowledge that God's promises never fail. The lives we live right now cannot be lived in truth and goodness, cannot be beautifully lived without the Body and Blood that brings us to eternal life. So, we must gnaw his flesh and drink his blood. Metaphors, symbols, parables. None of these can bring life eternal. Only the flesh and blood of the Lamb of God can sustain us. Does this shock you? Do you too want to walk away? Or have you come to believe and are convinced that Christ is the Holy One of God? If so, prepare yourself for trials. And be prepared for the Cross. “The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life.” 

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