Cannot unmake what God has made

19^th Week OT (F)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

The Pharisees ask a technical, legal question. And they want a technical, legal answer. By asking the question the way they did, they reveal themselves to be religious bureaucrats at heart. They may have been trying to lure Jesus into a sectarian dispute btw rival schools of Jewish bureaucrats. Or they could've been asking the question in a naked attempt to trap him. Or maybe both. Regardless of their motivation, they represent a way of looking at God's Law that enslaves the human person rather than frees it. Jesus jumps over the bureaucratese of the question and goes to the theological center of marriage, reaching all the way back to the moment of creation by quoting Genesis: “...the Creator made them male and female and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” And because the man and the woman are made one flesh, he adds, “...what God has joined together, man must not separate.” Marriage does not result from a policy-decision or a court ruling or any enacted law. It is a creature of the Creator never to be unmade.

Now, being good 21^st c. Americans and Catholics, we are all likely running through our heads right now some of the reasons divorce might a good idea. Adultery. Financial/physical abuse. Abandonment. We can be experts at finding exceptions that give us what we think we want. To this Jesus says, “Moses allowed you to divorce...because of the hardness of your hearts.” IOW, Moses made divorce possible only b/c he knew that the human heart is always prepared to defy God's will. He set in place a procedure for unmaking what God had made. Now, the Pharisees have to argue about the terms of that bureaucratic procedure. And lose themselves in footnotes, definitions, distinctions, and precedents. All this policy minutiae keeps them busy, allowing them to set aside the deeper question: can we as creatures unmake what God has made? We can kill, certainly. Ignore. Redefine and reframe. But we cannot unmake. We cannot take something made and make it as if it were never made. Jesus' answer to the Pharisees on the question of divorce answers a whole host of unasked questions. He's taking us back to the moment of creation and showing us that everything that IS is for a reason, a purpose and nothing we can do can undo that. He's placing front and center the necessity of recognizing and acknowledging that for us there is no denying the Real.

That sounds all groovy and such. The Real. Who in their right mind denies The Real? No one. But we do it everyday, thus revealing that we are not always working with right minds. Think about how often you hear The Real defined away. Killing innocent life in the womb is called “reproductive health care.” Surgically and chemically altering a male body to appear female is called “gender affirming care.” Riots are called “mostly peaceful protests” and foreign wars are called “police actions.” And marriage gets a shiny new definition via judicial fiat. If marriage is just a sentence written in ink on paper, then divorce can be nothing less. Just as easily and arbitrarily re-created. But the question Jesus puts to us remains: can we as creatures unmake what God has made? No. We can make ourselves think we've unmade The Real. We can pretend and behavior accordingly. But the simple truth is The Real doesn't change just b/c we wish it away. Like God Himself and his merciful will, it remains. It remains for us to discover, explore, and obey. That's the way to peace. The only way to salvation.

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Getting started on humility

19^th Week OT (T)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

We spend the first 18 to 21 years of our lives rushing to grow up. All that “adult freedom” looks great on the childhood/adolescent side of aging. It takes about five years or so after reaching adulthood to realize that the grass is not only not greener but a lot more expensive and stress-inducing. After a mortgage, a full-time job, kids, monthly bills, a failing body, and all the social expectations around “adult behavior,” who wouldn't opt to return to childhood and just stay there? Well, we can't un-age ourselves, but we can return to the glories that make childhood spiritually rewarding. We can surrender to God's providence; give thanks for His gifts; and set ourselves on a path of obedience and humility. Jesus pulls a child into the middle of his disciples and says, “...unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.” I hope the disciples blushed at hearing this. They were worried about who would be the greatest in the Kingdom. Anyone worried about being great in the Kingdom has a ways to go in humility. So, how do they get started?

First, understand that being in the Kingdom and serving the King is never about you. That is, service is not about your preferences, your agenda, or your ego; nor is service your mission or your ministry. Our gifts are on loan to the Church from our rightful owner, Christ. Second, there is no place in service for ambition. If your heart and mind are locked on climbing the next step up the ladder, or landing a more powerful role, then your heart and mind belong to the world and its ruler. Third, you and I are owed nothing for our service. I don't mean we shouldn't be paid for our work. I mean, if “getting paid” is our primary reason for providing a service to the Kingdom, then we've missed the whole child-like obedience/humility point of being a child of God. Fourth, given all of that, we have to turn. We have to turn away from worldly notions of success and achievement. Ideas like “more and bigger is better.” More staff. Bigger buildings. More programs. Bigger salaries. More parishioners. Bigger budgets. The Kingdom is not WalMart. And our holiness is not measurable on the NASDAC.

Finally, we have to turn away from worldly attitudes. The death of innocence is not decadence but cynicism. No child or truly humble adult lives day to day in a fog of jaded negativity, mistrusting the motives of others and assuming the worst is inevitable. Why would a deeply cynical soul even want to serve another? Along with cynicism comes entitlement, wrath, victimhood, suspicion, and ultimately, pride. Pride, of course, is the demonic twin of humility, the delusional conviction that I can save myself from myself. Praise and thanks to God that our return to innocence is freely offered by Christ. Freely accept that offer and set yourself to making that save-living turn toward humility. We've been given everything necessary to head in the right direction. Jesus says, “It is not the will of my Father that even one of these children be lost.” Hit the brakes and make the turn.

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Deus providebit!

19^th Week OT (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Deus providebit! God will provide. That God will provide is as sure as the sun rising and setting. As sure as 2 + 2 always equaling 4. There can be no doubt. Why? Because it is the nature of God to order all created things toward their created end. That is, God created All and gave every created thing – in its creation – a final end, a telos. To create a thing and deny it an end is sadistic. Worse still is to create a thing, give it an end, and then deny it the means of achieving that end. Imagine God creating a human person, giving that person the telos of achieving perfection only by following the divine law, and then refusing to provide access to that law! He would be intentionally creating a rational animal who's unable to satisfy his/her deepest desire. Now imagine millions, billions of these permanently hopeless persons living together for 70+ years each over hundreds of generations. You'd have a planet populated by nothing but psychotics and sociopaths. But what would happen if all these persons were provided with the means to achieve their created ends and these means were imposed on them rather than merely offered? IOW, they had no choice in accepting and using the means provided. The result? They would be nothing more than animals. Squirrels, elephants, and cats have no choice in the fulfillment of their purpose. They are perfect as they are. No reason, no moral faculties. No moral faculties, no chance of refusing to pursue their purpose. No freedom to refuse their purpose, no chance of them failing to be perfect. Since we are created in the imago Dei – divine love – and re-created in the imago Christi, we are free. Free to pursue our telos and use the means God has provided. But we must do freed-part. Jesus could've simply produced that coin and handed it to Simon Peter. Instead, he sends Simon Peter fishing. Simon Peter could've balked and taken a nap. Or pitched a hysterical fit at having to work for the coin. Or laughed and called Jesus crazy. If he had done any of these things, he would not have the coin. Jesus provides the coin. But Simon Peter has to freely choose to go get the coin. So, Deus providebit. God will provide. He provides the end. The means to achieve that end. The freedom to accept and use the provided means. But He will not compel us to cooperate. Why? Because He loves us. And because He loves us, we are free.

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To the point of excess

18^th Week OT (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

Pre-novitiate Retreat, GP, TX

You can't start a project by counting what you don't have. I can't sit down and start composing a homily by listing out all things I don't have on hand. The list would be too long to contemplate! I start with what I actually need and inventory my supplies. Something to write with; something to write on – preferable something portable; lectionary texts; some quiet time to pray, then all the rational and physical faculties necessary to write in the language I know well. What I don't have could fill several stadiums. Worrying about that list will paralyze me, and the homily never gets written. Think about those hungry people waiting on Jesus and the disciples. They hear the disciples tell Jesus, “ALL we have is five loaves and two fish.” ALL we have. IOW, we don't have 5,000 loaves and 5,000 fish. Stomachs start to rumble. Jesus, knowing what happens when a little is blessed, says, “Bring me what ya got.” What happens? A little becomes a lot. Everyone is fed. And there are 12 baskets of leftovers. When we start with what we have, add praise and thanksgiving to the gift, God multiplies in abundance. Even to the point of excess.

Traditionally, we've read this miracle as a foreshadowing of the Eucharist. And it is that. But the Eucharist itself is “a pledge of future glory,” a foreshadowing of our eternity in the presence of the Beatific Vision. You and I are just what we have. No more, no less. If we start our life in Christ by listing off what we don't have, we spend that life in scarcity. Religious life is just one way God gives us to add together all we have and all we are to build abundance. With that abundance, we give Him thanks and praise for our gifts and watch them multiply. What I don't have is given by another. What I have is given to someone who lacks. And that exchange of gifts is basis for the Eucharist. But none of this is possible w/o the abiding presence of God and our eagerness to receive Him into our lives through surrender and thanksgiving. The hungry crowd takes and eats the blessed fish and loaves. Their hunger, their willingness to receive and bear witness to the miracle feeds Christ's mission. The Word spreads. More follow. And there are so many gifts given that there're leftovers. Contemplate on what you have. What you have been given. Give it all away to make room for God's abundance.     

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Lying is never pastoral

St. Alphonsus Liguori

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Wheat and weeds. Sheep and goats. Good fish, bad fish. Parables like this one can make moderns – esp. Western moderns – squirm a bit. They just sound so primitive, so absolute and potentially dangerous. They require us to think about what makes weeds, goats, and bad fish bad. Who sets the standards for good and bad? Who makes the judgment between the two? Can we really say that the goats deserve to be thrown into the fiery pit and the weeds burned at the edge of the field? The bad fish are thrown away. Do they have no value at all? What about love and forgiveness? Surely, Jesus expects us to love and forgive those who are headed toward the flames! He does. He absolutely does. He also expects us to recognize and respect the principal property of love: freedom. He does. The Father does. The Spirit does. Love – true, liberating love – cannot be coerced. It cannot be imposed. It must be chosen. Freely given and freely received. So, when Jesus says that the weeds and goats are tossed into the fire and the bad fish are thrown away, he's saying that he loves them in their freedom to be what they've chosen to be.

Now, of course, real goats and weeds and bad fish don't choose to be what they are. But human beings – rational animals – do choose to turn themselves into those sorts of beings who resolutely reject divine love. IOW, they choose the fiery pit. And putting them there honors their choice. As wildly irrational as that choice seems to us, it is their choice. Our discomfort (?) with that choice in no way allows us to tell them that their choices have no consequences. Doing so may make us feel better about their choice and their destination, but we have to remember that lying is never pastoral. Telling the goats and weeds among us that no one ever goes into the fire, or that the fire is a primitive myth; or that b/c God loves everyone, He would never allow them to be burned – telling them any of this is lying. It's lying to soothe our discomfort with a truth Christ himself clearly teaches. Whatever squeamishness we may have about the reality of eternal damnation should be settled by the knowledge that such a fate is freely chosen. And freely honored. Our mission is live lives wholly given to Christ the Good Shepherd, bearing witness to his mercy and showing – in word and deed – that choosing divine love is the only sane choice. 

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Like produces like

St. Peter Chrysologus

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Squirrels never give birth to dolphins. Dolphins never give birth to possums. And humans never give birth to oak trees. Like produces and re-produces like. Old School Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy – the basic intellectual structure of Catholicism – teaches us that this is b/c squirrels, dolphins, possums, and oak trees have a nature. That which makes a thing the kind of thing it is. Knowing a thing's nature tells you what it is and its telos, its end, or why it is. The nature of the human person is rational animal. To be a thinking, deliberative, and therefore, moral animal. When our nature is perfected, we only make moral choices that advance us toward our end – God Himself. The fruit we bear is the fruit of righteousness made possible by the grace of God and our free cooperation. Without God's grace, our fruit is rotten. Without Him, we can do nothing good. Jesus says, “. . .every tree is known by its own fruit.” Fig trees produce figs. Oak trees produce acorns. By nature, rational animals produce other rational animals. But it is only by cooperating with God's grace that we as rational animals make the good choices that lead us back to God.

But why should we cooperate with God's grace? Paul writes to the Ephesians, telling them that God – “who created all things” – has a “plan of mystery,” one hidden from the past, a plan Jesus was sent to reveal in the light for all to see. Those who receive this revelation of God's mysterious plan are collected together and called “the Church.” And it is the telos of the Church to preach and teach God's plan to the world, so that the “the inscrutable riches of Christ” might be made known. The first of these riches is a “confidence of access [to the Father] through faith in [His Son].” We should cooperate with God's grace not only to have access to the Father but also b/c doing so repairs our fallen nature and makes it possible for us to make those choices that bring us closer to our end – eternal life in the Blessed Trinity. Like produces and re-produces like. Good works done in grace produces and re-produces good works done in grace. Good works done in grace give glory to God. Thus bearing witness to His help and further revealing His plan for mankind. This is how and why we preach and teach. This is according to the eternal purpose accomplished in Christ Jesus. 

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Take and eat

17^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

We don't have to do a close reading of this Gospel miracle to figure out what's going on: God is providing for those who follow Him. This is the consistent story of salvation history since the Word was breathed into the void. Everything created – you, me, planets, atoms, everything created – is provided for and held in being by God Himself. From a story about feeding a mass of people from a child's meager offering of fish and bread, we get a much more profound story about how God the Father gives us what we need. We need food, shelter, and clothing to survive. But surviving isn't enough. We need to thrive. We need to be perfected. Made truly fully human and returned to the source of our being. The story we heard read this morning – John's version of the feeding of the 5,000 – retells a familiar story that's been told again and again through the centuries. When God's people need Him, when they recognize their need and turn to Him, He is always there, providing in abundance everything required for surviving and thriving in the created world. What we need most is God Himself. And we have Him in abundance right here and right now in the Eucharist.

That God provides for us is evident in the fact that we are here. We exist. That's basic. Beyond mere existence, we are in a chapel giving Him thanks and praise for His many gifts. Most especially His gift of sacrificial love in Christ Jesus. His gift of salvation. We will give Him praise and thanks for our families and friends; our vocations as husbands, wives, religious, and priests. For our careers and what wealth we may have. We could go on and on listing out all that we have to be thankful for. But what we can most thankful for is all that we have not yet received. All that has been given but not yet taken in and put to use. The people Jesus feeds with fish and bread are filled at that moment. But soon enough they will be hungry again. Will they follow him all over the countryside, hoping and waiting for another miracle? Maybe some will. If they are paying attention, they will understand that God's providence is not dependent on a single miracle or even a series of miracles. That He provides is His nature. He always provides. He always gives and gives and gives. He Himself is The Gift He gives. And we are His created gift-receivers. The question is: are we receiving His gifts as He gives them?

The people who eat the fish and bread in John's story have in front of them real, tangible evidence of God's love. They have food to touch, to smell, to taste. Can they touch, smell, and taste their salvation? Can they handle, see their redemption from sin and death? Can we? We might say that we can feel forgiven, or that we can feel the burden of sin lifted. And that's a good thing. But do we live day to day, hour to hour in that freedom? Or do we permit the memory of sin to lock us down with imaginary chains? Maybe we give shame, anger, the need for vengeance permission to dominate, to suffocate our growth in holiness. Maybe we prefer to wallow a bit in past hurts, long ago slights, and a fear of the scarcity of grace. Are you receiving God's gifts as He gives them? Those hungry people took the fish and bread and ate their fill. They didn't hesitate. Their hunger to be fed overwhelmed whatever qualms they might have had and they ate. What qualms do you have about being fed with all that God has to give you? What's stopping you from being fully free in Christ Jesus? The Enemy will use whatever you have to keep you hungry, angry, vengeful, lost, and near death. Take and eat. God will that you thrive. And He gives you everything you need. 

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Don't be too quick to pull the weeds

16^th Week OT (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

I was once a weed in the wheat field of the Church. As a novice for the province back in 1999, I took the habit fully committed to the idea that the Church must be revolutionized to fit the modern world. I supported all the usual agenda items: women priests, non-sexist language in the liturgy; popularly elected bishops; getting rid of all the supernatural junk cluttering up our theology, etc., ad. nau. I remember telling a senior member of the community that I thought it was ridiculous that a local group of religious sisters had to depend on male priests to say Mass for them! Just ordain a few sisters and be done with it! I had a fever for change. Well, I got better. That's a long story for another time. My point here, and I think Jesus' point in the Gospel, is this: do not be too quick to pull the weeds. Why? Because doing so might damage the wheat. He's warning his disciples about the temptation to permanently exclude sinners from the Kingdom before the final judgment. Weeds cannot, of course, magically turn into wheat. But sinners most certainly can gracefully turn into saints.

Now, I'm not saying that I don't still have some weedy characteristics. I'm not yet a saint. Any of the brothers here can bear witness to my occasional lapses into weediness. Like any other follower of Christ, I have good days and bad. And that's the core of the parable. While we live, we can change. If you are uprooted on a bad day and thrown into the burn pile, who's to say tomorrow wouldn't see you permanently transformed into productive wheat? Only God knows. But what about the damage weeds do to the healthy crop in the meantime? True enough, weeds deplete the available food and water for the wheat. But God's grace is boundless and always available. Weeds can block the sunlight, overshadowing the wheat. True. But nothing can block the light of Christ from reaching the sinner...except the sinner himself. Weeds can give a false impression that the harvest will be abundant. Also, true. But, in the end, at harvest-time, the weeds will go into the burn pile and the harvest will be the harvest. That's God's business. Not something we need to worry about. What we need to worry about is making sure we're in the constant state of being transformed into the best wheat God made us to be. The weeds will take care of themselves. 

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Seeing ain't Seeing

Ss. Joachim and Anne

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

What are the necessary conditions for the possibility of sight? That is, what must be true of me if I am going to be able to see? First, I'll need eyes. Then, an optical nerve. Finally, an occipital lobe with the help of the parietal and temporal lobes in the brain. All of these need to be functional to one degree or another. Then, I'll need something in the world capable of radiating and/or reflecting photons. All of this combined gives me all I need to see. Now, what are the necessary conditions for the possibility of Seeing; that is, what must be true of me if I am going to See – to See in the way the prophets and the righteous long to See? Jesus doesn't give us a detailed explanation for this kind of Seeing. He doesn't lay out the necessary conditions, or list off any minimal criteria. But it's fairly obvious that being a prophet and a being righteous person isn't enough. Being able to glean the will of God in the present moment isn't enough. Being in right relationship with Him under the Law isn't enough. Something more is required. That something more is the reception of grace, taking into oneself the gift of God Himself. Knowing and loving God in the person of Christ Jesus surpasses knowing about Him like a prophet or loving Him like a follower of the Law.

Jesus says that seeing him is to See the Father. Physically seeing Jesus is spiritually Seeing the Father. This is the advantage the disciples have over the prophets and the righteous. Their “seeing” is mediated by either knowledge or the Law. Our “seeing” is mediated by the Incarnated Word, God the Son. They are counted righteous by doing their duty. We are made righteous by receiving the gift of God Himself. In the sacraments, in prayer, in doing righteous deeds; in acts of mercy, love, and forgiveness; in growing in holiness, we take into ourselves the One Who saves. And we become the One Who saves us. Then, we are those who radiate/reflect the light of Christ for others to See. It's not enough that we See. We must also be the condition for the possibility of others Seeing. We must be Seen.

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Can you drink the chalice?

Feast of St. James
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great, Irving

Mama Zebedee is on a mission! She's out to secure positions of power for her sons in the coming Kingdom. Clear-eyed, purpose-driven, and shameless, she surveys the political landscape and decides that her boys deserve to be the right and left hand of Christ the King. The other disciples balk at this brazen request. We don't know how the sons themselves react. Maybe they put her up to it. Or maybe they're behind her, whining with embarrassment, “Mommmm...!” Regardless, the request is made. And Jesus, either exasperated or just surprised, answers: “You have no idea what you're asking for!” And why doesn't she or the sons or the other disciples understand this self-serving petition? Because they have yet to grasp what the Kingdom of God is or how it will operate. In their minds, Christ's kingdom will be like every other kingdom on the face of the Earth – a purely political entity that governs through legalized violence, taxes, laws, and the exercise of worldly power. Because they do not understand, Jesus attempts to clarify the issue for them: “Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?” They reply, “We can.” They don't get it. But they will.

We know how things end for James and the other apostles. They die bearing witness to the Gospel. Only John makes it to a natural end. Had they known how things would turn out, they might've reconsidered their commitment to Christ. As it is, they stick to him, claiming their readiness to drink the cup he drinks. That chalice – the cup he drinks at the Last Supper – is the chalice of his destiny; that is, a sign of who and what he is for the salvation of the world. Jesus is referring to Ps 11 and the Biblical notion that “drinking the allotted cup” is to accept what God has planned for you. Christ's allotted cup is to die in sacrificial love for the redemption of sinners. Can the Sons of Zebedee and the other disciples accept their own cups? To be prominent in the Kingdom of God means to die while serving the lowest among us. There is no worldly power or prestige or wealth or celebrity attached to serving the lowest. There is be no pomp or parades propping up an inflated ego, or grand monuments marking the faux achievements of a hollow king. If you will be great in the kingdom, you will be small in the world. And being small in the world means losing the Self in surrender to God and becoming His perfect instrument of mercy.

Keep Christ's Cup squarely in mind this year. We are quickly falling into another Presidential election. The Enemy is excited b/c he gets to tempt us with the lie that God's kingdom can be and will be established on Earth if – and only if! – we vote for the Right Person. Paradise on Earth is always just one more election away, just one more politician in office. If we could only get Our Guy or Gal in office, then all would be well. It won't be. It can't be. For the simple reason that the Kingdom is not of this world. We must do our duty as faithful followers of Christ and participate as citizens. Vote, pay taxes, obey the law. But none of that means that we believe the lie that paradise is possible before the second coming of Christ. “Put no trust in princes,” the Psalmist says. Nor politicians nor bureaucrats. “Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.” Ever heard a politician use that as a campaign slogan?

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