Say it and be free

32^nd Week OT (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Why is it so difficult to forgive someone who's sinned against me? Jesus plainly says that I should forgive. Even seven times in one day! That's a lot to ask. What if forgiving the sinner leads him to believe that his sin is really not a sin? Or that the sin didn't hurt me? What if he sees my forgiveness as a sign of weakness and decides to take advantage of me? Or he's encouraged to sin against someone else in the same way? I've forgiven him, but I don't feel like I've forgiven him. What if I'm still angry about the sin? What if I can't move on? What if. . .what if. . .what if. All day long. . .what if. Jesus says, “If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.” He says nothing about how we ought to feel about forgiving the sinner. He sins. You rebuke. He repents. You forgive. End of scene. Jesus says nothing about about how forgiveness might prevent future sins. Or how forgiveness might change the nature of sin. He says, “If he sins seven times in one day and repents seven times, then you should forgive him seven times.” All of the what if's change nothing about sin or forgiveness. For the sake of your peace and his, it must be done.

Now, the what if's don't go away simply b/c you've followed Jesus' orders. They hang around and needle you with worry. Of course they do! The Enemy isn't happy about all this forgiveness flying around willy-nilly. So, there's the temptation to brood over the sin; to wallow in the hurt the sin caused; to nurse the anger and a need for revenge; to question motives and suspect plots. Before you know it, you've sinned; the cycle starts all over. And the Enemy smiles. Here's how to wipe that smile off his face. You control nothing beyond how you choose to react to someone sinning against you. You cannot control how the sinner receives your forgiveness. You cannot control whether or not he sins again. The only thing you can do is determine how you will react to the sinner. Forgiveness frees you both. Why would you want to cling to his offense? Why would you choose to fall into disobedience along side him? The what if's and whatabout's are irrelevant. How you feel about forgiving him is irrelevant. How much the sin cost you is irrelevant. The most freeing sentence in the English language is: “I forgive you.” Say it and enjoy your freedom. 

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You CANNOT serve two Masters. . .

31^st Week OT (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

We cannot serve two Masters. Jesus doesn't say, “You may not serve two Masters.” He says, “You cannot serve two Masters.” Serving a Master is an exclusive gig. You serve, or you don't. If you are serving Jack and Jill, then you are actually serving neither. Jesus' point here is that you are serving God or you aren't. There is no in-between. Loyalty divided is no loyalty at all. This absolutist choice is imposed by the nature of the Enemy. Evil is the absence of the Good. Evil is nothing. And nothing is absolute. It's no-thing. As such, no compromise is tolerated. No accommodation with God is possible. The best we can say about evil is that when – in moments of weakness – we choose to serve evil, we're telling ourselves that we are doing Good. We're doing something that we think is Good. In that moment, we cannot serve God. So, we make a choice from the start, to serve God and Him alone. This means that we put on the mind of Christ, follow him, and stick as close as we can to one another in the Church. When we inevitably fall, we return as fast as possible to God's service, admitting our sin and receiving His mercy. What we don't do is assume that our mistaken view of the Good is the truly Good and demand that the other members of the Body accept our foolishness as true. At that point, we are serving the Enemy. If we consistently choose to see Evil as Good, we become servants of Folly. We become fools. For the sake of our eternal lives, it is far better to become fools for Christ and serve the Father as the Son served us. 

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Why be generous?

31^st Week OT (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Why are we called to be generous to those who cannot or will not return our generosity? Why – for example – go out of your way to help a neighbor who's lost everything in a house fire? Or help a family in another state who's never had much of anything to begin with? Right at the very bottom of the virtue of generosity is a simple truth that is too easily ignored: nothing belongs to you, nothing belongs to me. WE BELONG TO CHRIST! If you and I have taken on the mind of Christ; died and rose again in his death and resurrection; and now we lay claim to our inheritance to the Kingdom, then everything we are and everything we have belongs to God. Everything we have and are is for our use, sure. But it all belongs to God first. He gives it all to us, and we receive it all as a gift. This includes material stuff, talents, challenges, and even life itself. Christian generosity then, properly understood, is best practiced as a radical detachment from the things we use. In religious life, we call this poverty. And poverty, like generosity, is a spiritual exercise that develops our awareness of how deeply and permanently we are dependent on God. So, why are we called to be generous to those who cannot or will not return our generosity? Because doing so is evidence that we know and understand that we are who we are and that we have what we have only b/c God has chosen to love us into existence and to bring us back to Him when this pilgrimage is done.   

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Details matter: so repent!

31^st Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

I spent most of my early adult years teaching literature to college students. When it came to teaching them how to read poetry, esp. modern and contemporary poetry, I usually failed miserably. Eliot, Stevens, Lowell, and Levertov are acquired tastes, admittedly. But teaching short stories was always a hit. Plot, characters, action, dialogue. These the students understood and loved. A good story does a lot of work. And when read in full, so does the reader. But when the reader reads a story with a lesson already in mind, or reads the story in order to prove a point . . .well, then the story is no longer doing its work. This is why I told my students back in the day: details matter. Pay attention to the details not just the broad strokes of the narrative. Case in point, the Story of Zacchaeus. The broad stroke here is that Jesus invites himself to stay at the house of a wealthy tax collector, a traitorous sinner. The finger-wagging moralists in the crowd condemn Jesus for staying with a sinner. The moral of the story is: Jesus ate with a sinner, therefore, the sinner's sin is not really a sin and moralists are horrible people for noting that sin is sin. Not quite. Remember: details matter. And the missing detail here is that Zacchaeus repents and does penance.

Not only does Zacchaeus repent and do penance, he actively, eagerly seeks the Lord out, going so far as to climb a tree to see him. (More on that tree later. Details matter.). Jesus sees Zacchaeus in the tree. What causes the Lord to notice him? The story doesn't say. Zacchaeus doesn't shout or wave. Luke write, “When he reached the place, Jesus looked up. . .” Maybe Jesus felt Zacchaeus' eagerness to see him. Maybe he just spotted a grown man sitting in a tree and thought, “I need to meet that guy.” But notice – details matter – Jesus calls him by name. Jesus already knows who and what Zacchaeus is. And calls him down from the tree by name. Knowing himself that he's a sinner and knowing now that Jesus knows he's a sinner, we might expect Zacchaeus to reluctantly climb down and slink over to Jesus dejectedly. Instead, “[Zacchaeus] came down quickly and received [Jesus] with joy.” Why is Zacchaeus joyful? Does he think Jesus is going to affirm him in his sin, giving him a thumbs-up b/c he steals from his own people? Tell him to keep on stealing b/c stealing is a legitimate lifestyle choice? No. Zacchaeus is joyful b/c joy is an effect of love. And Christ is the embodiment of divine love.

This is the detail the finger-wagging moralists in the crowd misses. They are scandalized b/c they see a rabbi polluting himself by visiting with a sinner. What they don't yet get is that Jesus is no ordinary rabbi. He cannot be made unclean by associating with sinners. In fact, he makes the unclean clean again. All he needs is for the unclean to want to be clean. And Zacchaeus radiates the desire to be made clean again. His desire to be made clean is so intense that he pledges to donate half his wealth to the poor and repay any extorted taxes four-times over! How does Jesus respond to this act of contrition? Details matter! He says, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham.” IOW, Z. has shown himself to be a true son of the Covenant through repentance and sacrifice. Jesus continues, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” Jesus seeks out the lost and saves those who want to be saved. If no one is lost, then no one needs to be found. Zacchaeus is lost in his sin; he seeks out the Lord; the Lord sees a sinner and calls him to himself. Zacchaeus repents and now he is saved.

Details matter. So, we need to talk about that tree. This is perhaps the only gospel story where a plant aids in the salvation of a sinner. Zacchaeus climbs the sycamore to escape the crushing crowd and watch Jesus pass by. But this is no ordinary tree. The sycamore is a species of fig. It has heart-shaped leaves; grows only in rich soil; and produces fruit year-round. The ancient Egyptians called it the “Tree of Life” and used its timber for royal coffins. It was a measure of wealth and prestige. Ancient readers of this gospel story would know all this, so they would smile and nod knowingly at the symbolism. Zacchaeus climbs the Tree of Life to seek out the Son of God. The sycamore points us to the tree in the Garden of Eden; the building of the ark; the wood of the Cross; and the timber to be used in the making our own coffins. Zacchaeus wants to live in Christ, to be redeemed in the Covenant, so he takes refuge in the Tree of Life, and is found there by his Savior. Details matter. First, he saw Jesus. Then Jesus saw him and called to him. Then came joy from love, repentance of sin, and recompense for sin. The details of characters, setting, etc. might change, but the plot of our salvation story never changes.   

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Competing for glory

30^th Week OT (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Competing for the highest seat of honor at the table is evidence that you may be entertaining the sin of vainglory. Now, contemporary American dining etiquette doesn't recognize “seats of honor” at the table. So, we might think about this parable in terms of competing for unmerited attention in class, or showing off in an attempt to make our co-workers look bad. Closer to home, we might think about it in terms of the temptation to “out religious” our brothers and sisters at Church – kneeling longer, genuflecting more deeply, perfecting our Pious Face; the sort of religious theatrics that not only lead others to think of us as holy but also ward off any close scrutiny of our sinfulness. How many of us have taken communion in a state of mortal sin b/c we didn't want our friends to think we were. . .in a state of mortal sin!? We'd rather commit an additional mortal sin than be seen as anything but saintly. That's vainglory. The problem with vainglory is that it is a lie; that is, it's seeking glory for oneself based on a falsehood. The falsehood that lies at the bottom of vainglory is that my gifts, my talents, everything that makes me special is My Doing. My achievement. All of my successes – academic, athletic, romantic, economic, spiritual – are solely due to my intelligence, my diligence, and my physical prowess. This is a lie. And this lie, Aquinas tells us, leads to a host of other sins – “disobedience, boastfulness, hypocrisy, contention, obstinacy, discord, and love of novelties” (ST.II.II.132.5). Jesus teaches us to combat vainglory with humility. Seek the lowest seat. He's not saying pretend that you aren't gifted, or don't use your gifts publicly. He's saying don't take credit for creating your gifts. Don't seek praise for yourself b/c of your gifts. Instead, give glory to the One Who gave you your gifts. God alone assigns seats at the Wedding Feast. So, competing for the best seat is not only pointless, but it also causes chaos in your spiritual life. In effect, loving praise and seeking it out is a form of idolatry, a form of self-worship: I deserve this praise. Not God. I'm entitled to this attention. Not God. That is a surefire way of rejecting your invitation to the Wedding Feast, a guaranteed way of getting many opportunities to practice gnashing your teeth and rending your garments. Seek the glory of God. Give glory to God. And Him alone.

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"Meh. I've got work to do."

30^th Week OT (Th)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Jesus is busy healing, casting out demons, and preaching the coming of his Father's Kingdom. IOW, he's doing what he was sent to do. His words and his works draw the attention of this world's powers, and he's warned that those powers are both curious and threatened. Nothing new here. He's freeing those trapped in spiritual poverty from the bonds of sin and death. So, of course, the worldly powers see him as a dangerous man. They would have us forever dependent on merely human wisdom and works for our survival, always helpless and easily controlled. But Jesus' mission and ministry is to show us that we can be sons and daughters of the Most High, heirs to His Kingdom, and free from the misery of an imperfectible Law. The consummation of his mission and ministry must take place in Jerusalem – the unrepentant city where God's prophets go to die. Thus, when warned that Herod wants to kill him, Jesus says, in essence, “Meh. I've got work to do.” Today, tomorrow, the next day, he has work to do. So do we. Unsurprisingly, it's the same work that Christ did – showing those enslaved in spiritual poverty that they do not have to live on the scraps tossed to them by their “Betters.” They are invited to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. But before they can attend the feast, they will need new garments; a new heart and mind; a renewed spirit of courage. They will need to be recreated in the image and likeness of him who is fully human and fully divine – Christ Jesus. They will also need to know and understand that becoming Christ has its consequences. There is the peace of his constant presence. And the constant presence of opposition and trial. There is always A Herod out there wanting to kill them. Or to put them back into slavery. Or to silence them for good. But none of that matters ultimately b/c they will be free. What matters ultimately is that they are free. Free to rejoice, to preach, to love, to forgive, to bless. Free to thrive in the Spirit and grow in holiness. Free to shout, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” And free to mourn at the foot of the Cross on Calvary. No longer mired in the spiritual poverty of the world, we are free to be who and what we were recreated to be – ministers and missionaries of the one sent to set us free.

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Wide Sin, Narrow Gate

30^th Week OT (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

I've fallen off the ship into the icy sea. The crew throws me a life jacket. I say, “No, thank you.” And drown. You're diagnosed with an easily treatable form of cancer. Your doctor offers you a cure. You say, “No, thank you.” And die. We are sinners. As such, we are destined to an eternal death after death. God throws us a life jacket in the form of His Son. He offers us a guaranteed cure for our disease. But we say, “No, thank you.” The wailing and the gnashing of teeth begins. Who killed me, you, us? The sailors, the doctors, God? No. I did. You did. We did. Jesus is asked, how many will be saved? Only a few? A great multitude? Will everyone be saved? The answer is: as many as choose to be saved. Yes, the gate is narrow. And we need to be strong to pass through. But think of it this way: the size of the gate is inversely proportional to the size of our accumulated sin. The wider our sin, the narrower the gate. Souls who have chosen pride, anger, injustice, violence, and disobedience will find a paper-thin opening. Souls who have chosen freedom in Christ, freedom from sin and death will find a gate as wide as the Father's love for His children. He wills that we all be saved. He also wills that we choose – freely choose – to be saved. Choosing to be saved entails a conversion of heart and mind, choosing to turn back to God, and living lives bearing witness in word and deed to the mercy and love we've been given. When the sailors haul me back on deck, I say, “Thank you.” When the doctors save your life from cancer, you say, “Thank you.” When we find ourselves at the Wedding Feast, having chosen Christ, sitting beside the angels and saints, we say, “Thank you.” Our rescue, our cure, our salvation is not an entitlement nor is it a contest. It's a gift. Freely given, freely received.    

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Fungus & Seed

30^th Week OT (T)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

The Kingdom of God is like a seed and a fungus. A seed sprouts and grows. A fungus multiplies and spreads. The tiny mustard seed can grow into a 9ft plant. Just a pinch of yeast can leaven a lot of flour. Both do their natural work unseen. They do their best work when nurtured and cultivated. Like the seed and the fungus, the Kingdom is unseen, powerful, and diffusive. So our preaching of the Kingdom is best done in a similar way. If we think of our preaching as a way of conforming the Word to the World, then we become agents of the World not the Word. That's not our charge. If we think of our preaching as a way of confronting the World, as a way of disputing with the spirits of the World, we end up in a bloody fight. We are not a militia or a political party. How much better would it be to think of our preaching as a kind of sowing, sowing the Word like mustard seeds and watching the plants flourish where they land. Or dosing the flat, unsalted flour of the World with the yeast of the Word and letting it all come to life. If our preaching is a kind of sowing, then we aren't all that worried about neat rows, straight lines, or orderly patches. We reach in, grab a handful, and fling! Where the seeds and yeast land may be random or perfectly patterned. What matters is the soil. And that the soil is seeded. As preachers of the Word, our job is to give every kind of soil the chance to produce good fruit, to give every bit of flour the opportunity to rise. We do this by shedding the Word as naturally as seeds grow and yeast leavens. By diligently – and maybe even wildly – flinging the Word wherever we walk.

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Know yourself to be a sinner

30^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Sirach and Paul assure us that our God is faithful to those who live their days in humility, in humble service to the proclamation of the Word. He hears and answers the prayers of the lowly and rescues those who serve His will. How do we become lowly? How do we bind ourselves to His will and live out our days in His service? Jesus offers a parable. Two men go to the temple to pray. One is a Pharisee; the other a tax collector. The Pharisee believes himself to be righteous by his deeds. The tax collector knows himself to be a sinner and cries out for God's mercy. Which one leaves the temple justified, made just by God?

The question here is not: which one is a righteous? The Pharisee is self-righteous; the tax collector is made-righteous. The question is: which one leaves the temple justified; that is, which one is made just before God by God? My question gives away the answer. We already know that the Pharisee's prayer in the temple is useless. First, to whom does he pray? Jesus says, “The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself. . .” He praises and thanks himself. He is his own god. Second, how does he pray? He praises himself for not being a sinner; he gives himself thanks for “not being like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous.” And lastly, how does he think he made himself righteous? “I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.” Works. He believes that pious works – w/o mercy, humility, or love – make him righteous. Now, we know that the tax collector leaves the temple justified. Instead of praising himself for not being like other men, the tax collector does the only thing a truly self-aware sinner can do: he throws himself into the hands of God and cries out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, a sinner!” Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

So why would any sane Christian fail to cultivate humility? We know the vice that opposes the virtue of humility is pride. What is pride? Pride isn't about taking pleasure on one's achievements, or claiming that one's nation, state, or team is particularly wonderful. Being proud of your children for academic and athletic awards isn't the sort of pride that thwarts humility. True Pride – the sort our ancestors put in first place on the list of Deadly Sins – is the erroneous belief that we do not need God; that we do not require His help b/c we are perfectly capable of saving ourselves from sin and death; that we are not only capable of saving ourselves but that we prefer to save ourselves. Pride leads us to believe that working for social justice and equality will save us; that holding the right beliefs and attitudes will save us; that saying the right prayers in the right order the right number of times will save us; that giving money to the Church, to charity will save us. Pride insists that we are each self-sufficient, independent, and absolutely alone. And that with these superlative qualities, we can become god w/o God. The serpent says to Eve, “when you eat [the forbidden fruit] your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods. . .” That serpent's name is Hubris.

Pride leads us away from God, so how do we overcome it? Like the tax collector at prayer in the temple, there's only one way to triumph over the self-righteousness that pride instills in us: throw yourself on God's mercy! Why is this the only way? B/c only God Himself can make you righteous; only God Himself can bring you out of sin and death and restore you to your rightful place in His Holy Family. He gives us His only Son, Christ Jesus, as the only means, the only Way, back to Him. And with the Holy Spirit pushing us toward perfection, pouring out for us and into us gift after gift after gift, we accomplish all that God commands us to accomplish for His greater glory. The Pharisee's good works are just that: his good works. Yes, tithing and fasting and praying are all perfectly wonderful spiritual exercises. But before a spiritual exercise can be efficacious, there must be a relationship of love established btw the human heart and Love Himself. Fortunately for us, God Himself initiated this relationship at the instant of creation, installing into every human heart and mind the gnawing need to seek Him out and live with Him forever. To think that I can satisfy this need for myself is Pride distilled into the darkest, deadliest poison.

Luke tells us that Jesus addresses his parable to a very specific audience: “. . .to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.” We can't help but make the connection btw self-righteousness and hatred. Self-righteousness – born, bred, and nurtured in pride – rejects the necessity of loving others; it leads us to deny the need for mercy, forgiveness, trust in others. If I can make myself righteous, why do I need you? Or God? Or the Church? If my social justice causes and good works and charitable donations are enough, why bother with humility? Why bother with all that “love your neighbor” nonsense? Why bother? Sirach answers: “The one who serves God willingly is heard. . .The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds.” Paul answers: “I am already being poured out like a libation. . .I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.” How do we answer? We throw ourselves on the mercy of God, confessing our sins, knowing that the Lord hears the cries of the poor – the poor in spirit, the truly humble, those most in need of His care, and those most willing to take into the world His re-creating love.

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Nothing is free. . .except grace

29^th Week OT (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Getting “something for nothing” seems like a trap. It's a favorite dodge of politicians. Free healthcare. Free tuition. And, btw, your taxes are going up. Salesmen like this one too. Here's a free microwave for buying a car. Oddly, a microwave-sized “service fee” appears on the bill at checkout. Clerics discovered this dodge early on. Sure, God's grace is free. Absolutely! All you have to do to get it is attend Mass once a week; go to confession once a year; behave yourself in thought, word, and deed; and be as publicly miserable as possible to show everyone that you are a terrible sinner. Obviously, nothing the gov't gives you is ever free. You paid for both the car and the microwave. And grace that comes with strings attached isn't grace. Paul writes, “Grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” Christ's gift to us is his life, death, and resurrection. What can measure such a gift?

Nothing. No thing, at least. Nothing created. And nothing anything created can say, do, or think. Christ's gift to us is freedom from sin and death. With that freedom we can still choose sin and death. And we often do. But there is nothing we can do before he gives us our freedom to earn our freedom. No amount of prayer, fasting, or alms giving increases God's love for us. No amount of sin, no matter how terrible, decreases God's love for us. He freely loves us according to His nature. We choose whether or not to receive His love and make use of His gifts. This is why Jesus says – twice –, “I tell you, if you do not repent, you will perish...” Why would he tell us to repent if we were not free to repent? Repentance cannot give us grace to repent. “Repent first, then I'll make it possible for you to repent.” That's nonsense. Repentance is our reception of an already, always given grace. That's freedom. And it's free. It's free to you and me b/c Christ paid the price of perfecting our human nature on the Cross, according to the measure of his gift. If you are stuck in sin and death, here's a question: why? Why are you choosing to be a slave to that which cannot and will not save you?     

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