Stop. Turn around. Come home.

3rd Sunday of Lent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA

Men do not like to stop and ask directions. Husbands, fathers, brothers – all men would rather wander lost in the wilds than stop at a 7-11 and ask the clerk how to get to where they are going. It's probably a primal fear of showing weakness during the hunt, a fear of admitting that our testosterone-enhanced ability to sense true north is defective. Given enough time, the Man assures his Woman, the Right Way will be revealed, and he will follow it to the promised destination. For her to nag him about stopping for directions, he insists, is a sign of mistrust, an admission that she doesn't trust him. But even scarier than the prospect of asking for directions is the possibility of having to turn around and start over. Turning around means that his inability to find the way has been made worse by a mistake, a mistake that can only be fixed with a new beginning. As sensible as this sounds, you must remember that turning around and starting over raises the chances that the worst possible outcome might come to pass: he gets lost again. Isn't it better to wander lost, endure a little embarrassment, and eventually find the way than it is to start over and risk losing the path all over again? Jesus answers, “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will perish.” Turn around and start over. If you are lost, it is better to go home and set out again.

Why is repentance hard? Most of us would say that actually giving up our favorite sin is the most difficult part. But before we can give up our favored sin, we have to admit that this sin is a sin, a deliberate act of disobedience against God – otherwise, there is no good reason to give it up! We know that lying, stealing, cheating on a spouse is wrong, but we can be quick to rationalize the sin if it has a “good outcome.” It was small lie to help a friend. I stole from a greedy insurance company. My spouse really doesn't care if I cheat. If the harm caused by our sin is less than the imagined good that results from it, we might consider it wrong but not Really Wrong. This sort of moral reasoning makes sense in a world where we measure good and bad as a delicate balance between pleasure and pain, harm and help. If more people are helped than harmed then we judge an act good. If not, we say our actions were bad. In this world, our goal is to cause more pleasure than pain. Starting over makes no sense because any pain we might cause is easily balanced by causing an equal amount of pleasure. Steal from the insurance company and give the money to a charity. Cheat on a spouse and then volunteer to cook dinner for a month. The idea of true repentance never enters the equation because there is no Right Way from which we might stray.

In a world where there are no objective moral standards, no gods to offend, no eternal consequences for good or a bad behavior, weighing harm against help is undoubtedly an excellent method of moral reasoning. For Christians, no such world exists. Our world, the world created by a loving Father, redeemed by His Son, and infused with the Holy Spirit, is a world of objective moral law and eternal consequences. And there is most certainly a god to offend. For us, the reality of sin and necessity of repentance is as real as trees, rocks, and the air we breath. There is no escaping the possibility, if not the probability, that we will get lost on the Way, that we will falter in the work we have vowed to complete. If sin looms large in the Christian heart so does the opportunity for repentance and the assurance of forgiveness. There is no shame in admitting defeat, turning around, doing penance, and making a fresh start. Even so, we are sometimes inclined to resist the call to repentance and persist in failure. Like the husband, brother, father who will not admit that he is lost and refuses to ask for directions, we stubbornly hold out hope that we will find the Way on our own. This is a lonely, frustrating, and ultimately futile means of finding our way back to God.

When Jesus is told about the Galileans murdered by Pilate, he asks the crowd, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! . .Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means!” Then he makes his point: “But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” So, we're to think that b/c these people failed to repent, God allowed them to be murdered by Pilate and crushed by a tower? No. Jesus point is that they died suddenly, unprepared. Who imagines being killed in a riot or flattened by a collapsing building? Death comes for us all. . .so, turn around and get back to God. It's better to admit defeat in your stubborn refusal to ask for directions than it is to find yourself dead and unrepentant.

Fortunately for us, while we live, God waits for us to return. Our Father is patient. Death is not. Jesus bears this truth out in the parable of the barren fig tree. Ordered to chop down the tree that bears no fruit, the good Gardener asks the Owner for a reprieve. Give me and the tree one more tree to bear fruit. I'll cultivate the ground, fertilize it, and take care of it. If – in one year – it bears no fruit, then I will chop it down. The natural end of the barren fig tree is postponed by the intervention of the Good Gardener. He looks at the poor tree and sees hope. Hope for a harvest brought about through his loving-care. So Christ – our Good Gardener – sees us. We are given the years, days, months we have left to bear good fruit. If – in the end – we fail to produce, fail to repent and return to God, we go into death the way we went through life: without God. As I said, fortunately for us, while we live, He waits for us to return. Three weeks into Lent, are you bearing the good fruit of repentance? Are you going out into the world and being Christ wherever you find yourself? Are you fasting, praying, sharing your talents and treasures with those who need them most? Are you bearing witness to and giving God thanks for His great mercy? Don't let yourself fall to the Gardener's ax b/c you failed to bear good fruit. Don't be too stubborn to turn around and come home again. It is better to admit defeat in your pride than it is to find yourself dead and unrepentant.

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Love and Truth Cannot be Parted

2nd Sunday of Lent 2016
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA

You have heard it said – by pastors, preachers, confessors, teachers, the Pope, and even your mama – you have heard it said that God loves you. And indeed He does. He can do nothing else for He is Love. Our heavenly Father is not a being that loves us most of the time, or on occasion, or only when we deserve it. Love is Who He is and What He does – eternally, without conditions, and for a single all-encompassing purpose: to change those who will receive His love into a holy people. The question – does God love me? – should never cross your mind. Why? Do the logic: God is Love. You live and move and have your being in God. Only existing creatures are capable of asking questions. “Does God love me?” is a question, therefore you exist. Therefore, God loves you. To put that a bit more succinctly: that you (an existing creature) can ask the question at all means that God loves you. So, please retire the question of whether or not God loves us. If He didn't, He would not exist and neither would any of us. There is a question about God and love that we must ask, and ask daily: do I love God? If so, what purpose does my love for God serve? On Mt. Tabor – in the presence of Peter, James, and John – the transfigured Christ gives us the answer. We love God for the same reason He loves us: so that we may be made holy.

Since we've retired the question of whether or not God loves us (He does and can do nothing less), and we already know why He loves us (so that we may be made holy), and we've answered the question about why we love God in turn (so that we may help God make us holy), let's ask a more practical question: how do we help God make us holy? That is, what do we do/think/say/feel on a day to day basis that assists God's love for us so that we are actually growing in holiness? Loving God, yourself, your family and friends, your neighbors, and even loving your enemies is easy in the abstract. It's easy to sit back and radiate an aura of loving care; it's easy to say, “I love my neighbors and all my enemies;” it's easy to think sweet thoughts about the poor, the persecuted, and the sick. It is far more difficult to get out there and perform loving acts; to perform forgiveness; to show mercy; to treat everyone you meet – at church, at the bank, at the office, in traffic – to treat everyone you meet as another soul deeply in love with God and eternally loved by God. This is why the Church has always bound faith and works together: our loving works demonstrate our trust in God and our trust in God is made real in our loving works. When we fail to love, we confess these failures as sins in thought, word, and deed. So, how do we help God make us holy? Well, first, we understand that loving God and those He loves is not simply an abstract, intellectual exercise; next, we understand that love is a behavior – like driving or walking or getting dressed. To love is to see, hear, think about, and treat yourself and everyone else the way God Himself treats us all. With kindness, compassion, dignity, patience, and forgiveness. Do this and you grow in holiness. You become more like Christ. You are transfigured.

Becoming more like Christ is we have vowed to do. But we need to hear this: loving God, self, and everyone else – becoming more like Christ – is dangerous. Dangerous how? Besides Jesus' promises of persecution, trial, and death for those who follow him, we can point to the forty days he spent in the desert being tempted by Satan. We too are tempted to play the Devil's Games with sin and death. The Devil always takes God's gifts and tweaks them ever-so-slightly and then presents them to us infected with his poison. God's love and His command to us to love is no different. With God's love and His command to love comes His truth and His command to obey the truth. Love and truth cannot be separated. When we love intensely, we dwell intensely in the truth. And when we tell the Truth we always express love. The Devil plays on our desire to love by pointing out all the ways we appear to fail at love. He accuses the Church of not loving women b/c we truthfully name artificial contraception, abortion, and sterilization evil. He accuses us of hatred b/c we truthfully call sex outside of a sacramental marriage evil. He accuses us of not loving orphans b/c we cannot place them in homes with two fathers or two mothers. He accuses us of not loving non-Christians b/c we truthfully teach that Christ is the only name under heaven through which all are saved. What Satan is tempting us to do, want us to do, is sever truth from love and love without truth. This we cannot do b/c our Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. We follow him so that we may be transfigured, made holy in love and truth.

Satan and the world he rules teaches that “Love” is to be practiced without Truth. Love w/o truth is nothing more than poor-mouthed tolerance or indifference, an emotion that feels good to emote but ultimately leaves those who live it living a lie. Godly love is always true. Never a lie. True love is always gives the glory to God. Never to man. Love always carries us to goodness; never to evil. Love always binds us in obedience; it never frees us to be disobedient. Godly love always heals, always cleans, sometimes hurts, sometimes cuts away. Love never winks at sin, shrugs at injustice, or ignores the poor. Love always looks to Christ, his church, and his Mother. Love never uses the bottom-line, the convenient, the practical, or the efficient to destroy God’s creatures, especially His unborn children. Love always encourages spiritual growth from faithful experience. Love never gives license to novelty for novelty’s sake nor does love trust innovation for the sake of excitement. Love can be a terrible whirlwind, a bone-shattering blow, a heart-ripping loss. But love always builds up in perfection, grows in wisdom and kindness; love attracts questions about eternal things, and discourages attachment to impermanent things. The love that Satan and the world he rules wants to settle for is a passion for indifference, permissiveness, choice w/o consequence, and, ultimately, death.

Will you be made holy? Let's ask that differently: do you will to be made holy? If you will to become a well-oiled, surgical tool for God’s Word, you will love as He loves you. You will speak the truth and only the truth; you will spread goodness and only goodness; you will honor beauty and only beauty; you will correct error, confront sin, expose lies, forgive all offenses; and you will build up his Body with works of mercy and open the doors of your faith to the stranger. And you will remember – if you will to be made holy – that you are not alone. God is with us, and who can stand against Him?

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Dominicans in the South

If you have been a faithful reader of Domine, da mihi hanc aquam over the years, please consider giving to the 1216 Campaign.

The 1216 Campaign is the province's annual appeal for funds to help us continue our preaching ministry in the South.

By far our largest on-going expense is the education of our younger friars in St. Louis, MO.

Clerical student brothers spend an average of six years in studies before ordination to the priesthood. 

Co-operator student brothers spend the same amount of time in studies before entering full-time ministry.  

We need your help!

If you can help, please do. If you do help, please put my name in the box labeled "Request Made By."

God bless, Fr. Philip Neri, OP

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Love calling us into vast distances

Province of St. Martin de Porres 2016 Lenten Reflection

Saturday of the 1st Week of Lent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Deut 26:16-19 / Ps 119:1-2, 4-5, 7-8 2 / Matt 5:43-48

"It is also good to love: because love is difficult . . . it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances." - R. M. Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, no. 7, 1904.

Love ain't easy. I mean, the sort of love that demands that we not only think and will the good of another but that we also do the good for them. It is difficult enough sometimes to love those we are hard-wired to love - mom, dad, brothers, sisters, our children. And those we have chosen to love - friends, wives, husbands. But for Christ to lay on us the near-impossible task of loving those who hate us, who seek to hurt us . . . well, that is just sacrificial.

And it is meant to be a sacrificial demand, a demand that requires sacrifice. What do we have to sacrifice to will and do the good for our enemies? At the very least, we must sacrifice the very notion that we can have enemies. Others can hate us. Seek to harm us. We may be enemies for them, but they can only be enemies for us if we return their hatred and seek to harm them.

Jesus denounces the habit of loving only those who love us in return. He asks, "Do not the pagans do the same?" Lent is a time of repentance and sacrifice. What better season to examine closely not only who we love but also how we love? Ask yourself: what is specifically Christ-like about the way I love? Is my love nurturing my growth in holiness? Is my love leading me to daily conversion, to the Way of the Cross?

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Don't play the Devil's games. . .

1^st Sunday of Lent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA

If you'll listen carefully, I'm going to reveal to you – tonight only! – the Guaranteed to Work Every Time Father Philip Neri Secret to Resisting Temptation. But you have to listen 'cause you might miss it. That's what our 1^st Sunday of Lent Gospel reading is all about. . .resisting temptation, or rather not resisting temptation b/c there's nothing there to resist. There! Were you listening? Did you catch the secret? If not, don't worry, we'll come back to it. Our Mother, the Church, knows us well. She knows that just a few days into Lent and we are all already regretting our freely chosen penances. I think Lent must be the Devil's favorite liturgical season b/c he gets to prance around dangling forbidden goodies in our faces, trying to catch us out like carps on a hook. BUT if we listen carefully to Luke's telling our Lord's desert adventure with the Devil, we learn the secret of how to beat the King of Hell at his own game. Here's the secret again: nothing belongs to the Devil. . .he has no power to give us anything or to take anything away. Anything he can tempt us with already belongs to God, and as God's heirs, to us. The secret to resisting temptation is: don't. Don't resist. Don't play the Devil's Game of spiritual tug-of-war. Christ defeated Satan on the cross for us. Lent is our time to act like the spiritual winners we are!

Have any of you ever played tug-of-war with a dog? The dog fetches a stick. You take one end and pull as hard as you can while the dog growls and snorts and tugs in the opposite direction. Let's say, the dog wins, pulling the stick away from you. Then what happens? He trots over to you and offers you the stick again. If you are playing this game with a bulldog or a Labrador Retriever, the game can go on all afternoon. But what's the game. . .for the dog? The game is not Get the Stick and Win. For the dog, the game is Get the Human to Tug on the Stick. As long as you're picking up your end of the stick and pulling, the dog wins. The only way you win this game of Get the Human to Tug on the Stick is by not playing. Whether your efforts in the game are half-hearted and weak or manly and majestic, if you pick up the stick and pull. . .from the dog's perspective, you lose. Just to be clear: in this analogy, your dog is the Devil. The stick is the temptation the Devil uses to get you to play with him. And you. . .well, you're you. The moral of the analogy: if you never play with the Devil, you can never lose.

Jesus pretty much lays it all out for us during his forty days in the desert. At first it might appear that the Devil is tempting Christ with food, power and wealth, and pride. Not so. The Devil is using food, power and wealth, and pride as the stick, trying to get Jesus to play a devilish version of tug-of-war. Jesus doesn't pick up the stick. Why? Because he knows that everything the Devil is offering him already belongs to his Father. The Devil has nothing to give. The Devil tips his hand when he says to Jesus, “I shall give to you all this power and glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish. All this will be yours, if you worship me.” And there's the trap. The Devil is a liar. Nothing has been handed over to him. . .except what we ourselves have freely handed over to him in exchange for . . .well, in exchange for nothing. When we choose to play the Devil's tug-of-war, we lose. What does he win? He keeps us occupied with playing his games, so we aren't praying, fasting, giving alms. We aren't preaching and teaching the Good News. We aren't bearing witness to the Father's infinite mercy. What are we doing instead? It would appear that we are mightily resisting temptation, growing in holiness. In fact, the Devil has us hooked like a carp.

I know all this sounds odd. Almost exactly the opposite of what we've always been told about how to confront the temptation to sin. But look at our example in the desert, Christ. He's not writhing around on the ground, trying to fend off the smell of freshly baked bread. He's not drooling at the prospect of ruling all the nations on earth. He's not puffed up with pride, knowing that he has an army of angels ready to defend his life. Christ doesn't resist these temptations b/c he knows that there is nothing there to resist. The Devil is a liar and thief. And he exposes his own lies when he offers Jesus the world in exchange for his worship. What the Devil wants is for us to play his games and turn our inheritance to his service. He cannot make bread. But he can tempt us to turn food, water, shelter, etc. to serve his diabolical ends. He has no wealth or power, but he can tempt us to turn our wealth and power to his ends, using them both to undermine the Father's kingdom. The Devil has his own army of angels, but they serve him out of fear and self-loathing. They chose at the moment of the creation to worship him instead of their Creator. What did they get in return? Nothing. That's what we get when we play the Devil's games.

So, what do you do when the Devil comes around making promises in exchange for your time and energy as his minion? Remember what Paul writes to the Romans: “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart for, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” You have the Word on your tongue. Speak it! Jesus is Lord! What does the Lord do when the Devil presents his non-existent temptations? He quotes Scripture. Why? Not b/c Scripture is some sort of magical spell that repels the Devil, but b/c Scripture speaks the Truth, the Word. And the believer is made bold and strong in the Word. As heirs to the Father's kingdom, his sons and daughter by adoption through Christ, we have everything we need to come to our perfection. We have the victory of the Cross over sin and death. We don't have to sin; we don't have to die. We have the sanctifying presence of the Holy Spirit sent to us at Pentecost. We have the guarantees of the sacraments. We have Christ's promise that his Church will never be defeated. We have all that need. There is literally nothing no-thing in the created universe that the Devil can offer us in exchange for our allegiance. Nothing. Because nothing is all he has.

So, how does the story of Christ's forty days in the desert end? Luke writes, “When the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from [Jesus] for a time.” For a time. He'll be back. He always comes back. If and when he visits you, remind him that he has nothing, that he is nothing. Lay claim to Christ's victory on the Cross. And do not play his game.

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Ash Wednesday: humility & mercy

Ash Wednesday 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Remember that you are dust! Remember that we are impermanent, transient, just passing through and passing away. From the moment we are conceived, we are dying. And the time in between is our time to receive the gift of eternal life -- a permanent, imperishable life lived in the presence of God. Catholics have never shied away from the truth of mortality: we are here temporarily. But also know that dying is not our purpose, our reason for living. We are given breath so that we might give to God the praise and glory due His name; so that we might sow and harvest the fruits of His Word among His people. Our mortal task is to give our hearts, minds, and hands to the cultivation of our Lord's love. Remembering that we are dust, remembering that we are passing through and passing away is at once a call to pay attention to the work we've been given and a reminder that each of us works on a deadline. While you pray, fast and give alms during the next 40 days, rise and rest giving God thanks for everything He has given you, for everything that you are, and for everything you can become with His mercy.

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Do not be afraid of The Deep!

NB. Not preaching tomorrow. . .so, here's one from 2013.

5th Sunday OT 2013
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church/Our Lady of the Rosary

When it comes to doing His will, God pays careful attention to our faithfulness, our strength, our perseverance. He smiles on our hope, our humility, and our willingness to sacrifice for others in love. These He nurtures toward excellence and rewards with perfecting graces. When we fall short of being faithful, strong, hopeful, or humble, He hears our petitions for assistance and help will arrive. However, when we try to excuse our failures, or justify our unwillingness to serve, or claim some sort of debilitating brokenness, we get the booming chirping of celestial crickets. Nothing. Or, if we are being particularly stubborn, we get the kind of help that Isaiah, Paul, and Simon Peter get. We get all of our excuses handled by divine intervention, and our mission as apostles grows in proportion to the intervention required to fix us. Our Lord says to his Church, “Put out into the deep!” Do we obey and plead for his help? Or do we wail excuses? Are we fearful and plead helplessness? Or are we faithful? Jesus says to Simon Peter, and to us, “Do not be afraid.” Leave everything and follow him. 

Our readings this morning/evening bear witness to three biblical legends: Isaiah, Paul, and Simon Peter. All three find themselves confronted by the glory of the Lord; all three hear His call to service; and all three serve up pitiful excuses for their initial failure to receive God's commission. Isaiah, upon seeing the glory of God, wails and whines in fear of death b/c no sinful man may see God and live. Paul reminds the Corinthians that he was “born abnormally” as an apostle and is not fit to be an apostle b/c he persecuted the Church. And Simon Peter fails to believe that Jesus will be able to help him with the catch. When he pulls up his full-to-bursting nets, he falls at Christ's feet, wailing, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Each of these men starts out as a pitiful sinner—a coward, an enemy of the Church, and a weary unbeliever. However, having wailed their excuses, God takes all that they are and graces them with all that they need to become a prophet, a preacher, and an apostle. The Lord wills that they “put out into the deep” of this world and fish for souls. He fixes their brokenness and multiplies the gravity of their mission in proportion to the blessings they require. Each one is astonished by the Lord's generosity. And in gratitude receives his godly commission. 

Christ says to his Church, “Put out into the deep!” Do we obey and ask for his help? Or do we wail excuses? We could, like Isaiah, spend copious amounts of time and energy nursing our sins, crying over our failures, and raising these up to God as excuses for our inability to go out into the world as apostles for the Good News. How can we bear witness to God's mercy when we ourselves are so dirty with sin? Or, we could, like Paul, see ourselves as “abnormally born,” that is, brought into the family of God from another church or another faith, and then claim that our unusual entrance into Christ's body disqualifies us from being proper preachers of the Gospel. I wasn't raised in the Church, what can I do for the faith? Or, we could, like Simon Peter, live as weary unbelievers, ever doubtful of Christ's power, and then ashamed of our unbelief when he shows us what he can do. I denied Christ too many times, I'm unworthy of serving him as an apostle! We could refuse, deny, demur, disbelieve, and beat ourselves up. But Christ says, “Do not be afraid! Leave everything and follow me.” Leave doubt, leave self, leave sin, leave the past. Leave it all and follow me. 

Isaiah leaves his history of sin behind when the seraphim purges his mouth with the ember from God's altar. Paul leaves his history of vengeful persecution of the Church behind when Christ appears to him on the Damascus Road. Simon Peter leaves his long and stubborn history of faithlessness and betrayal behind when he is consumed in the fire of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Isaiah hears the Lord ask, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” Purged of his sin, Isaiah shouts like a schoolboy, “Here I am, send me!” Paul sheds the scales from his eyes and receives his commission to bring the Good News to the Gentiles, confessing, “. . .by the grace of God I am what I am.” And Simon Peter, upon seeing the haul in his nets, confesses his unbelief, and receives from Christ himself an encouraged heart that will grow large enough to receive the love of the Holy Spirit. Each abandoned his history of disobedience; each leaves behind every obstacle, every trial, every excuse; and each follows the Lord in His will to become prophetic and preaching legends for God's people. They put out into the deep, and brought to the Lord a great haul of souls. 

Time and physical distance are no measures for Christ. His words to Peter on the boat are spoken directly to us, each one of us: “Put out into the deep. . .do not be afraid.” As this world grows older and its spiritual and moral foundations become more and more fragile, our hold on things true, good, and beautiful seems to grow more and more precarious. We don't need to recite the litany of sins our culture of death revels in. It's the same list Isaiah, Paul, and Peter knew so well. It's the same list that ancient Israel and Judah knew. It's the same list the serpent wrote in the Garden and the same list men have been carrying around for millennia. That list tells us how to degrade and destroy the dignity of the human person, the image and likeness of God that each one us shares in, the imago Dei that makes us perfectable in Christ. It is the mission of the Enemy to tempt us into racial suicide, to kill ourselves as the human race by separating ourselves—one soul at a time—from our inheritance in the Kingdom. The Deep that we are commanded to evangelize is at once both the individual human heart and the whole human community. And lurking in that Deepness is both Eden's serpent and Christ's cross, both the voice of rebellion against God and the instrument of sacrifice for God. Christ says, “Do not be afraid.” 

Whether we find the serpent or the cross or both dwelling in the Deep, we must not be afraid. The serpent was defeated the moment he chose to rebel. Sin and death were crushed from eternity before the first human walked upright. So, we can meet the serpent without fear. We can also meet the cross without fear b/c it is through the cross that the serpent is defeated. When we put out into the Deep of the human heart and the human community, there is nothing there for us to fear. Our job is a simple one: fish. Cast nets with service, humility, mercy, and joy. Bait our hooks with all the gifts we have been given to use for the greater glory of God. Leave behind bitterness, resentment, jealousy, and wrath. Follow Christ in strength, persistence, faithfulness, gladness, and sacrifice. Leave behind worry, doubt, fear, and hostility. Follow Christ in thanksgiving, rejoicing, praise, and courage. Now is not the time for cowardice. Now is not the time for waffling or compromise. We have our orders: put out into the deep! Risk, challenge, venture out. Hold fast to Peter's boat and cast your net wide and deep. Isaiah, Paul, and Peter made their excuses before God. He smiled and made them into prophets and preachers. So, go ahead: make your excuses. And watch God do His marvelous work through you.

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On carrying a cross

St. Agatha
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Notre Dame Seminary, NOLA

Paul writes to the Corinthians, “God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise…” and so here we are – the Foolish – to listen to Jesus say to us just a few days before the start of Lent: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Fools, indeed. But Happy Fools. IF we are foolish in the wisdom of the Cross, the wisdom what it means to haul such a grotesque thing onto our backs and carry it about. Our Crosses are not daily burdens, large or small; they are death, the always closing up of one’s life in sacrifice. To carry your Cross daily is to daily carry the cross of your transience, your impermanence; your cross is sign of surrender to mortal being and a spit in the face of despair – one final foolish loogie spat in the Devil’s eye! Our crosses make us both victim and king. At what point in Jesus’ life is he both Suffering Victim and Conquering King?

Carrying your cross is not a task like washing the car or doing the laundry. It is not a burden like taxes or daily reading quizzes. Nor is the cross meant to be a sign of pride or shame, something we find a way to excuse or explain, or something to brag about. A properly carried cross rests on the shoulder and pinches the skin just enough, rubs the bone just enough to keep vivid in our hearts and minds the ministry we do as we trudge along behind our Lord. We follow. That’s what we do: we follow. Doing as he does, preaching as he preaches, teaching as he teaches, healing as he heals. . .dying when he dies. This is not a job. It is a love. Paul reminds us, “Consider your calling, brothers and sisters. . .It is due to [God] that you are in Christ Jesus…” It is because we asked to carry our cross with Christ that we are allowed to do so. 

 

What do we carry when we carry our Cross with Christ? Variously, “the cross” has been described as sin or physical disabilities or a bad marriage or some sort of addiction, something that unavoidably weighs on us, makes it difficult for us to walk a straightened path. This is too small. How will shouldering the “burden” of an addiction or a mental illness save my life for eternal life? How do I lose my life to save it if my cross is an inordinate love of Krispy Kreme Chocolate Filled Chocolate Covered doughnuts!? Our inordinate desires, illnesses, sins, disabilities – all of that and more attach to the Cross when we lift it to our shoulders. But they will all die with us. None, however, will survive our transformation into the Christ – perfect God, perfect Man.

Jesus reveals four steps or movements in joining oneself to the Saving Cross. He says, first, “If anyone wishes to come after me;” second, “he must deny himself;” third, “and take up his cross daily;” and, fourth, “follow me.” Knowing what you know about the life, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, do you wish to go after him? If you do, then you deny yourself, renounce yourself; that is, surrender to an inevitable, mortal death; cease flirting with the temptation to become God without God. Now, pick up your death as a Cross like Christ’s and live daily with no fear of dying alone or without purpose. Freed from the suffocating burden of dreading death and what comes after, follow Christ! You have lost your life by embracing daily a sacrificial death. And whoever loses his life for Christ’s sake will save it.

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Confrontation: sacrificial love

NB. Composed most of this one in 2010 in Rome. Never preached it before tonight. . .

4th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA

So, Jesus is busy making friends again! Like prophets before him, he tells people what they don't want to hear. By proclaiming that Isaiah's prophecy of the coming of the Messiah has been fulfilled in their hearing, Jesus challenges those gathered in the temple to believe that he is the Messiah. Instead, after he insults them, the crowd tries to lynch him and then runs him out of town. He walks unharmed through the riot and goes away. Why do these people reject Jesus' claim to be the fulfillment of God's promise to send a Messiah? Two reasons: 1) Jesus is a local boy, and we all know that “no prophet is accepted in his native place;” and 2) Jesus' use of proverb, “Physician, cure yourself,” indicates his refusal to perform a showy miracle to confirm his identity. What does he do instead? He throws down a challenge and a rebuke. In essence, he says, “God's own people have always rejected His prophets, and look at the results. He graces Gentiles before Jews and you people never learn.” Ouch. BUT Jesus is a uniter not a divider; he's a peace-bringer not a trouble-maker He's all about harmony and consensus and living within the tensions of difference. Well, tell that to the screaming lynch mob. They might disagree. So, should we look to him and his prophetic style as a model for our own witness of the gospel?

Confrontation has its place in speaking the truth. The prophets of the Old Testament were known and feared for their unwavering commitment to speaking God's message even in the face of torture and execution. Kings dodged them when possible, summoning them to court to answer for their alleged treason only when necessary. Prophets were notoriously stubborn and seemingly self-righteous. Add to this the fact that prophets tended to be well-known local boys and you have the makings of a good sitcom. Is it any wonder then that the prophets of old resorted to confrontation when dealing with the cold-hearts and closed-minds of a nation's rulers? Sometimes the shock of hearing the truth spoken aloud is enough to cure the deafness of the worst sinner. And sometimes it isn't. Sometimes you have to smash through a wall when the door is barred. On these occasions, it's wise to get as far away from the condemned nation as possible. Why? Because quite possibly the scariest thing a prophet can say is: “Behold, you will suffer the consequences of your hard heart!” It's time to run.

Unfortunately, these days, it seems that every corner, every cable channel, every church/mosque/temple has its own prophet proclaiming the coming apocalypse. Like a flock of squawking crows, these folks fly around the world squeaking and squealing warning us of imminent local destruction and the inevitability of global disaster if we don't change our ways. They have adopted the confrontational rhetoric of the wildest biblical prophet. Do we listen? Some certainly do. Most don't. Confrontation oft repeated quickly becomes annoying harassment. Those ominous crows start to look and sound like Chicken Little's. What's missing from their squealy prophesying is Godly love, a sincere concern for the common good. What's missing is the divine authority that Jesus himself uses in the temple to announce his arrival as the Messiah. His authority is the power and glory of the most excellent way, the way of sacrificial love.

This leads us to the big question: can sacrificial love be confrontational? Take an example. Anyone who has ever marched in a pro-life demonstration or prayed outside an abortion clinic will tell you that the counter-protesters and the escorts can be vicious. For them this isn't just about freedom of choice and left/right politics. They hate us. Passionately hate us. You can expect that groups on opposite ends of the political spectrum to get feisty, maybe even a little rowdy, in the midst of a march. But the bile and venom spewed by pro-abortion activists at pro-life folks goes well beyond the kind of anger that normal politics generates. Why? The choice to have an abortion is intensely personal; it goes to the very core what most Americans think of us their untouchable autonomy in deciding what's best for them. An unwanted pregnancy attaches unwanted responsibilities and necessarily limits a woman's choice of options. But even more than this, pregnancy places a woman in the natural mode of motherhood and all that that implies. At the very core of motherhood is sacrificial love, giving oneself wholly to another. When pro-life marchers remind abortion advocates that the fetus is a person, a being deserving of love, those who would call the killing of this person a moral good react with unadulterated rage. They know the Church is right. And they must cultivate a self-righteous wrath in order to drown out their guilt. The gospel message of love used by the pro-life movement to stubbornly resist compromising with the culture of death shames them into hatred. Denied a convenient salve for their seared consciences, the venom flows and they fall more securely into the Enemy's hands.

It should be shockingly clear to the Church by now that our best witness to the culture of death is sacrificial love. Paul writes, “Love is patient, love is kind. . .it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” With some we can reason. With others we can demonstrate. But some we must simply love. Bearing up under the burden of hatred, believing solely in the power of mercy, hoping in the promises of the Father, and enduring insult, persecution, and trial, we must not be satisfied with merely presenting the truth of the gospel, flashing cue cards and murmuring sound bites. What will heal a seared conscience cannot be logically deduced and crammed onto a bumper sticker. Slogans on placards are easily refuted by other slogans on placards. What cannot be refuted is an act of love done in sacrifice, a willing act of surrender done so that another might be see the truth. Paul reminds us what we know by faith, “Love never fails.” Even as the prophet feels the sword cut into his flesh, he knows that he has succeeded in touching a conscience burned by hatred and malice. His persistence in telling the truth is not ended by death but rather vindicated by it, shown to be the undeniably divine power it truly is.

When he proclaims to the people in the temple that Isaiah's messanic prophecy has been fulfilled in their hearing and subsequently chastises the crowd for their unbelief, Jesus causes a riot. He holds up before the people their dishonesty, their faithlessness, their charred consciences. He shows them that they know he is telling the truth and yet still refuse to hear it spoken. For them to believe such a proclamation changes everything – uproots centuries of tradition and belief, revolutionizes everyday life, forces them to make a choice and live by it. Rather than surrender, they riot and pour out the hatred and malice of those who have seen the corrupted state of their souls. How does Jesus respond? He dies on the cross for them. If we will be his Church, we must be prepared to do nothing less. The march for life is a march to the cross, not for ourselves but for those who will not see, will not hear.

*Before I entered the Church in 1996, I volunteered as an abortion clinic escort. I can tell you -- they HATE us.

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Preachers need wisdom and humility

Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, OP

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Notre Dame Seminary, NOLA

Thomas Aquinas: philosopher, theologian, scripture scholar, university professor, composer of hymns, jurist, consultant to Popes and councils, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, and, of course, every seminarians' favorite title, Dumb Ox! Before he wrote the Summa contra gentiles and before he wrote the Summa theologiae, and before he composed the Tantum Ergo and the Pange Ligua, and before he was named a Doctor of the Church and gifted the Church with a theological foundation that still breathes 742 years after his death, before all of these and more. . .Thomas flourished as a Dominican friar, a preacher. And everything we wrote, taught, sang, and studied he did for the sake of preaching the Gospel. For the Dumb Ox, preaching endured as that without which his commentaries, hymns, treatises, and books turned to straw. For us, the fruits of his contemplation constitute a body of human wisdom unsurpassed in subtlety, complexity, and depth, and gift us with the means of both perfecting ourselves and our preaching. Underneath Thomas' preaching, supporting his mission and ministry, stands the slender straws of wisdom and humility.

On the nature of wisdom, Thomas writes, “According to [Aristotle] (Metaph. i: 2), it belongs to wisdom to consider the highest cause. By means of that cause we are able to form a most certain judgment about other causes, and according thereto all things should be set in order…Accordingly, it belongs to the wisdom that is an intellectual virtue to pronounce right judgment about Divine things after reason has made its inquiry…”(ST II-II.45.1-2). More simply put, wisdom is that habit of mind that seeks to discover and study the final causes of all things and put these things in their proper order given their final cause. Therefore, Wisdom does not enlighten us like some occult swamp-spirit that flits around waiting for the right moment to sting. Nor does Wisdom live among the tacky tomes of Retail Gnosticism that litter the shelves of B&N. These “wisdoms” – little more than leftover paganism muscled-up with psychobabble – these wisdoms gift the weak ego with a shot of faux courage and urges the newly self-anointed guru to adore him or herself. But from the wisest teacher of them all, we know that: “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” 

 

When we acknowledge that we live and move and have our being in God, when we humble ourselves, we participate in His wisdom. When we participate in His wisdom – seeking the final causes of all things – we enter contemplation and prepare ourselves to share the fruits of our contemplation. And when we share the fruits of our contemplation, we preach the Good News. When we study, we prepare to preach. When we pray, we prepare to preach. When we minister, we prepare to preach. When we rest, we prepare to preach. For Thomas, and for us if we hope to grow in holiness, preaching endures as that without which our papers, our essays and presentations, our teaching and our research turns to straw. Whether we preach from the pulpit, the street corner, the dining room table, or the classroom lectern, our vowed task remains: to go ad gentes – among the peoples – and proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ. Our Father freely offers His mercy to sinners, seducing the sinner into salvation. If we will, we live and move and have our being as His mercy-filled instruments.

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Just how hard-headed are you?

From 2008. . .

Conversion of St Paul
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Albert the Great and Church of the Incarnation

I was hit in the head with a brick once. My brother threw it at me right after I threw two bricks at him. Once, while helping dad put up a barbed-wire fence, the tightly wound end unwound and smacked me across my face. I’ve been bitten several times by the emotionally unstable. Various bodily fluids thrown at me and on me. I’ve been in only one serious auto accident and numerous accidents with chainsaws, axes, lawnmowers, my ’69 Pontiac Executive, and a widely swung two x four to the jaw. I had to help physically restraint a police officer once while a psych nurse got a needle full of Haldol in his hip. I’ve watched patients in the trauma ward die. And then come back to life with a little help. I’ve seen beautiful black puppies slaughtered and dressed for food in a Chinese market. And I watched a Japanese family eat a raw fish while it still breathed. I even had to help a nurse suture a self-inflicted wound on a male patient. Let’s just say his “manhood” was telling him to do bad things, so he, well. . .snipsnip. Once, I was within days of dying from a blood-staph infection. Not once during any of these highly dangerous, highly emotional, deeply life-changing events, never did I hear a voice or see a light telling me to preach the Good News to the whole world. Then, again, I’m not (and have never been) Saul the infamous persecutor of the Church; nor Paul, the missionary apostle to the Gentiles. Maybe it is the case that Paul is a little less hard-headed than your average Mississippi farmboy.

Paul, well on his way to Damascus, is knocked to the ground by a flash of light and blinded. In his darkness, he is persecuting the Church—eyes and heart closed—; he arrests, jails, tries, and imprisons members of Christ’s Body. Ananias is told to go look for the blinded persecutor and teach him the faith. Ananias objects, saying that he has heard that Saul is an infamous enemy of the Church. But the Lord says to him, “Go, for this man is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles…” Ananias does as he is ordered, finding the blinded Saul and offering him the baptism of water and spirit. Once his sight is returned to me, his vision of the Church is radically changed. Now, he preaches Christ and him crucified.

All of this serious machination to get Paul on our side has a larger and better purpose than simply winning a hard one for the team. Without the benefit of Jesus’ one-on-one instruction that the other apostles received, Paul must do what the other Eleven were commissioned to do,”Go into the whole world an proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” That’s a good commission. But did it require being bodyslammed by a burst of light and then several days of blindness lived among Jewish strangers? It did. Why? Mark’s gospel is elegant in its simplicity and lack of subtly. Paul, like the other disciples and like ourselves, is charged with preaching the Good News. Whoever believes and is baptized is saved. Whoever refuses to believe or to be baptized is condemned.

At this point in the Christian narrative, this is not a happy-clappy message best delivered by recently scrubbed professors of theology or neatly styled media pastors. The weight of this choice is best delivered—in its stark, uncompromising simplicity—by someone who never believed it before but now, but because of a direct revelation from Christ himself, knows beyond the logic of language and speech that the Gospel message is terrifyingly true. Paul met the Message in the burst of light but he came to believe in Christ in his blindness. Blind, crippled, dependent on strangers for his daily care, and newly commissioned to abandon everything, everything he has ever known to the good, true, and beautiful, Paul sees with new eyes, stronger eyes and he is fortified against the lazy hearts and minds of those who would fall so easily back among their former ways, clouding the truth, burying the tough stuff under bushels of alien philosophies and favorites sin—all the foreign fruit that will rot too soon and soon enough.

All who heard him were astounded because he had been chosen from the world to go out, witness to the saving power of God, and bear through his witness the everlasting fruit of the Father’s Word.

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Are you ready to believe. . .by Word and Deed?

2nd Sunday OT 2016
Fr. Philip Neri, OP
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA

The party's in full swing. The couple is properly married. The band is jamming away. The food is hot and plentiful. Then disaster strikes! They run out of wine. This is how we know this isn't a Catholic wedding. Mary, knowing what knows about her son, approaches him and says – probably in that tone that mothers use when they want you to do something but don't want to ask, “They have no wine.” Jesus responds, “Woman, how does your concern affect me?” [Every time I read this, I cringe. Being a good southern boy, if I called my mama “woman,” I'd regret it. . .after came to.] Bravely, Jesus continues, “My hour has not yet come.” What? That's a lame excuse not to help the host with his wine shortage. Except that it's not an excuse. Jesus' “hour” is the moment he reveals himself to be the Christ. The second he reveals his identity as the Christ, the countdown clock to Golgotha starts ticking. Is he ready to reveal himself just to keep the party going? Is he ready to start his long, painful walk to the Cross? What's more, are his disciples ready to follow him? Are we?

We know that Jesus is ready to reveal himself. He changes six jars of water into wine. The head waiter is impressed and compliments the groom for serving his best wine last. About this miracle, John writes, “Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory. . .” Changing water into wine is just the beginning, the first among many signs that reveal the glory of Christ. Though this story seems straightforward enough, there are a few odd moments that deserve attention. If his hour had not yet come, why did he perform a sign that would start his clock ticking? A clue to answering this question comes in the last bit of the reading. John writes that Jesus performs this sign to reveal his glory and b/c of the sign “his disciples began to believe in him.” If his disciples “began to believe in him,” then we have to think that they didn't believe in him before he performed this miracle. Setting aside for a moment how you can be a disciple and not believe in your teacher, what does it say about the disciples that it takes a miracle to get their attention? Just how hardhearted are they? How closed minded do you have to be not to believe in a teacher you've freely chosen to follow? Maybe they believed him but were just not ready to follow him to the Cross. . .

Here's a question for you: how do you prove that you really believe something? For example, if you say that you believe in God, how do I know that you believe in God? If belief is just a matter of saying or thinking, “I believe X,” then I have to believe that you believe. But what if belief required more than just a matter-of-fact assertion? What if belief required both a matter-of-fact assertion about belief AND a demonstration of belief? In other words, when you say to me, “I believe in God,” my response would have to be, “Oh really? Show me.” What would you do? How do we act out a belief? I know this seems like a weird question to ask, but it's a question that Christians have been asking one another for centuries. During the Roman persecutions of the Church, Christians identified themselves by refusing to offer incense to the statues of the Emperor. Christians serving in the Roman legions were tortured and executed for treason b/c they would not pledge themselves to Caesar. Martyrdom is possible today in Nigeria, the Sudan, China, North Korea just by going to Mass. In the E.U. and increasingly in the US, you can lose your job, your children, and your business for living the Christian faith. What if belief required you to sacrifice everything, up to and including your life? Would you say you believed?

Jesus knew all too well where he was headed. And he knew what would happen to those who freely chose to follow him. He never made a secret of the consequences of believing in him and acting on that belief. He goes out of his way to detail the ugliness that awaits his followers. It's almost as if he wants to discourage people from becoming disciples! Maybe this is why he seems to reply to Mary so rudely, “My hour has not yet come.” Maybe his love for the disciples causes him to hesitate before showing them a sign of his glory as the Christ. Deep down, he wants to spare them the trials of living righteously in a world in rebellion against his Father's rule. Showing them a sign of his glory—like changing water to wine—means moving their hearts and minds from being devoted to him as a holy teacher to following him as their Savior. That's a big move, a Huge Move! A move that will eventually lead all of them to martyrdom in blood and fire. Mary seems to understand her son's hesitation, so she doesn't push him to reveal himself. Instead, she leaves the decision to him, saying to the servers only, “Do whatever he tells you.” And b/c he knows that the mission of the Christ is to die for the sins of the many, he tells them to bring him some water so that he might begin his ministry of signs in Cana.

Are the disciples ready to follow Christ to the Cross? Are we ready to follow him? That move from being devoted to Jesus as a holy teacher to following him as a Savior is a big move, a huge move. It's the difference btw being a hardworking student of a great teacher and being a fellow-worker in ministry eager to share both his glory and his tribulations. I think most of us are ready to say that we're ready to follow Christ. In theory, the whole scenario looks good, even healthy: repentance, forgiveness, penance, love, mercy, hope, good works, all tied together in the sacraments and supported by a vibrant religious culture. The disciples don't have this kind of external support. They are Jewish heretics. Their religious culture sees them as cultish, separated from family and friends, unclean. Thus they are nearly overwhelmed when the ascended Christ sends the Holy Spirit among them at Pentecost, flooding each one of them with His passionate fire for spreading the Word. In their darkest hour, they are given Divine Love, unmediated by law or prophets, undiluted by age or tradition. We are given this same Love: the Spirit to believe, trust, love, show mercy, do good works, to repent, and grow in righteousness. Like the disciples, we too come to believe and believe by word and deed.

Our challenge as faithful followers of Christ becomes clearer and clearer every day. It's not our mission to defeat the world with holiness. The world is already defeated. It's not our mission to save the world with prayer. The world is already saved. It's not our mission to bring justice and peace among the nations through our good works. That's done too. Our mission is to live our lives as witnesses to all that has already been done by Christ. To live holy lives b/c the world is defeated. To live prayerful lives b/c the world is saved. To live lives doing good deeds b/c Christ's justice and peace lives already in us. We live lives of holiness and prayer, and doing good works not to change the world but to show the world all that has already been done for it. Christ gives one sign after another that shows his glory and the glory of the Father among us. All we can do is point to that glory with word and deed, and urge the world, “Do whatever he tells you.” That's enough to get us close to the Cross. But to get all the way to the Cross, we must be ready and willing to sacrifice. . .everything. To show the world the glory of Christ, we must believe—by word and deed—and be ready to die for love.

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Coffee Cup Browsing (Tues)

Ted Cruz is not a team-player. . .given the congressional GOP, that's a good thing!

Hillary under investigation for public corruption. . .

Is fracking making us greener?

Five common "facts" that aren't facts at all. . .


Francis explains "who am I to judge?" comment.

"That's what the other eleven people are for. . ."

Sweden caught covering up rapes by "refugees". . .


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Coffee Cup Browsing (Sun)

When ideology trumps science. . .from the Left. 

Racial segregation making a come-back. . .with black support.

What B.O. doesn't cry about. . .

Sean Penn finally does something worthwhile for the world. . .

Is "objective knowledge" possible? (Hint: it's a loaded question!)

Anti-cop, anti-veteran, anti-Christian movie bombs at the box office.

B.O. forcing Little Sisters to choose btw their faith and their ministry.

The system itself is the problem. . .hmmmmmm. . .

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