San Martin de Porres

Happy feast day to all my brothers and sisters in the Province of St. Martin de Porres!

St. Martin is one of the Order's more fascinating saints:  medic/healer, animal-lover, tireless worker among the poor, and bi-locator.

Icons of Martin depict him in the (now defunct) Dominican habit of a lay brother. . .

Note that his capuce (hood) and scapular are black rather than white.  The lay brother habit was suppressed in the 1960's by General Chapter. . .much to the consternation of many of the lay brothers!

My province maintains Martin's shrine at St Peter's in Memphis, TN.

A prayer for the intercession of St Martin:

To you Saint Martin de Porres we prayerfully lift up our hearts filled with serene confidence and devotion. Mindful of your unbounded and helpful charity to all levels of society and also of your meekness and humility of heart, we offer our petitions to you. Pour out upon our families the precious gifts of your solicitous and generous intercession; show to the people of every race and every color the paths of unity and of justice; implore from our Father in heaven the coming of his kingdom, so that through mutual benevolence in God men may increase the fruits of grace and merit the rewards of eternal life. Amen.

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Four Reasons to Ignore Jesus' Command to Love

A repost from 2006. . .

St. Martin de Porres: Philippians 4.4-9 and Matthew 22.34-40

Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP

Serra Club Mass & Church of the Incarnation

Here are a few reasons why we should ignore Jesus’ command to love one another. Oh, “loving God,” by the way, is fine b/c that’s mostly an abstract sort of thing that doesn’t really require us to do much beyond saying that we love God. It’s not like the God-lovers glow or anything. OK. Back to the reasons to ignore Jesus:

1). Love is messy and it makes you act stupid: as a passion love is fine, but when indulged it turns the lover into a hopeless mess and promotes really dumb decision-making. Take Jesus, for example. Because he indulged in loving us, he ended up a real mess on a whipping post and nailed to a cross. He could’ve stopped the blood bath at any point and gotten off that brutal carnival ride, but he didn’t. He died for us instead.

2). Love is expensive: show me one act of love that is free, and I’ll show you some land near 114 that’s prime for a catfish farm. Love always seems to have a price. What’s the point of willing the Good for others when it will likely lighten your wallet, cost you a gallon of gas, or force you to spend several minutes of your life doing something charitable. Again, let’s look at Jesus. Was his act of love for us free? Well, OK, free for us! That’s fine. But it cost Jesus his dignity and his life. Expensive, indeed.

3). Love requires us to focus too much on others: it would seem that the basic point of love is to fawn all over other people, wait on them hand and foot, and pretend to be all about their needs and their hurts. It’s all about them, them, them! What about me?! I have my needs and my hurts and my wants and me, me, me…Perfect example of this problem: Jesus tells his little band that if they want to be first they have to serve others! What is that? What kind of logic is that? To be first I have to be last, willing to sacrifice prestige, place, honor, and power in order to SERVE! Jesus does this for us—again—but look at his conclusion. Great for us. Not so great for him.

4). You have to lie when you love: not that lying is a problem when you have to do it, but loving is doubly difficult b/c to keep people liking you you have to tell them what they don’t want to hear. You can’t “love” if you make people uncomfortable or if you say unpleasant things to them. It would seem that charity requires us to lie in order to keep the peace. Being peaceful is more important than speaking the truth. Obviously! Didn’t Jesus say that he came to divide with a sword, to both cut the bonds of sin and to split apart families and friends? Is that what love does when it forces you to tell the truth? Who thinks that’s good? He spoke the truth and ended up dead. Not a good example of peacekeeping.

I’ve given you four good reasons why loving one another is a problem: love is messy and makes you do dumb things; it is expensive; it requires you to focus too much on others; and it makes you lie. All good reasons to forget about love. And this is why Jesus doesn’t just suggest that we love one another or hint at the possibility of loving one another. He commands us to love. Commands. Do it! Love is the greatest commandment b/c our relationship with God depends on it. We cannot understand what God is saying to us through the prophets if we fail to love. And we cannot know what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, and excellent if we will not love. What’s worse: we cannot know anything of Goodness, we cannot imitate God, we cannot become Christ if we will not love.

It’s command. Not an argument or a suggestion or a caption for a child’s poster. It is a command, an order. And if you will be more than you are, if you will be made perfect in the Father’s love, you will love—Him, us, yourself and you will rejoice in the Lord always b/c He loved you first…and loves you still.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing (No Politics Edition)

Perfect Man/Perfect Woman. . .and Santa Claus.

Not so conspicuous consumption as theft deterrent

Are you a Zombie?  Take the quiz!

An Italian boy's confession

Facts about pirates you didn't know

So that's why traffic is so slow this morning. . .

Grad student's worse nightmare!

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The Way of Blessedness

I wasn't sure if there would be an English Mass this morning at the university.  So, I got up anyway and wrote a homily just in case.  Turns out, no English Mass.  Oh well. . .here it is anyway:

Solemnity of All Saints

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Ss. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

The saints of God—those named and unnamed, those still with us and those who rest in Christ—that “great multitude. . .from every nation, race, people, and tongue,” all the saints of God, testify before the throne in heaven and among us here and now that “salvation comes from our God. . .and from the Lamb;” therefore, we are graced to exclaim along with them, “Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power, and might be to our God forever and ever!” 

When the Father gave us the desire to praise Him, He gave us the gift of our salvation. St. John writes, “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.” That we are children of the Father is proof enough that we are loved, yet this is only the means to our final end: “. . .we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed.” And it will not be fully revealed until we stand with all the saints before His throne. Now, we live now in the hope of seeing Him as He is, trusting in His promises, all the promises He sent to us in the body and blood of His only Son, Christ Jesus. Who Christ was and is is exactly who we will become. That is the promise from which all His promises flow. Our task is to work with the gifts He has given us to make ourselves pure as he is pure. We do this by following the way of blessedness.

Jesus teaches the crowd the way of blessedness, not only showing them the way itself but showing them their destination as well. The poor in spirit; those who thirst and hunger for righteousness; the meek, the merciful, the clean of heart; the peacemakers and the persecuted—all of these are heirs to the kingdom, to be comforted, satisfied, and called the children of God. Being blessed is the both a gift and a task. All of us are given all that we need to flourish. But God's gifts are useless if we do not take them up and put them to work. And if our work is not to become an exercise in vanity, we must use our gifts for no other reason than to praise of God for his generosity. All the saints—all those we honor today—show us the way to distill our lives into the pure, Christ-like work of bringing God into the world for the salvation of the world. The men and women of the Church who have gone before us and shine in heaven do not radiate their own light. They reflect the Light of the One Who made us and re-makes us in Christ. If we will join them, we will pick up their gifted works, exhaust our own gifts while we are here, and leave behind a world populated with many more of the Father's children, with many more who long to see the face of their God.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

Man dies from caffeine overdose.  No, it wasn't me.  I don't think I can overdose on caffeine. . .been a grad student for too many years.

That non-partisan/non-political "Restoring Sanity" rally in D.C. yesterday featured placards showing GOP leaders with Hitler mustaches.  Hmmmmm. . .

Enraged mobs in Toronto frighten their "Betters" by electing a mayor who promises to undo years of elitist-leftist nannying.  Oh, the horror.

Geez. . .these people have no shame:  Alaska CBS news station is caught on tape conspiring to invent a "child molester scandal" for the GOP Senate candidate, Joe Miller.  These folks are dreading Tuesday.

A follow-up from the indomitable Breitbart:  Ouch! 

MoveOn.org lefty does the mature thing and apologizes for choking AZ Tea Party member.  Politics can get hot. . .and violent.  Good on him for acknowledging his mistake!  We need more of that in American politics.

Drag show sponsored by Jesuit university.  No comment. 

This is uber-creepy:  aliens and their ships appearing in religious art. . .from 400 yrs. ago!

Do demons exist?  As a matter for theologians, yes.  As a matter for philosophers. . .well, let's just say that the question is ambiguous and the answer more so.  We can say that demons exist and we can say that they are fallen angels. . .but it becomes a ginormous task to talk about demons in any way that makes sense outside theology.

How secure are those electronic voting machines?  We can put a man on the moon, but we struggle to find a secure, private way for citizens to vote. . .

Pro-aborts doing the Devil's work in Argentina.  Predictably, the national secular media do not cover the story.

From the pyramids to LOLcats:  on the venial uses of the brain

Scientists vs. engineers in the race to take over the world

Today's encouraging message!

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What ails ya? (A Request for Help)

Ideas for a third book have been bouncing around in my spacious head for some time.  One idea in particular has struck me as both useful and fun to do.

But I need your help. . .

In the combox, using a word or two, list off what it is that makes you spiritually uneasy, or gives you trouble in your life with Christ.

For example: anxiety, disbelief, grief, and timidity. 

I can come up with all sorts of things, but the book will be more useful if there's input from y'all!

Mille grazie. . .

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Halloween, 1989

In 1989, I lived in a large antebellum house with six other grad students.  We made Animal House look like Amish Sunday school.  This was how I dressed for that year's Halloween party.  NB.  This was about eight years before I became Catholic.

We called this costume, Felonious Vampire.

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Photographic proof that I used to be skinny!

This pic was taken in Changsha, China on Nov. 30, 1990. I was at the railway station waiting for a train to take me to Shanghai where I would catch a flight to the U.S. Over the approx. six months I was in China, I lost 50lbs. My parents picked me up at the airport in Memphis and our first stop was Mrs. Winner's Fried Chicken! Needless to say, that I found that 50lbs within a few months. Sigh...

Oh, and I had one haircut while I was there. . .yea, I know.

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The silence of the wolves. . .

30th Week OT (F)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Ss. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

Rules, regulations, laws are all attempts to express the most basic principles of a civilization. Traffic laws are meant to embody the need for everyone to drive safely. Food safety laws express a common concern that we are not killed by what we eat and drink. If a traffic law required a driver to speed through a school zone, or a food safety law required soda makers to dose their drinks with poison, we would all agree that these laws violate the fundamental principles they were created to express. In the Church, we have canon law, rubrics for liturgical celebrations, moral precepts, and dogmatic definitions—all designed to express the first commandment of Christ to his disciples: love God, neighbor, and self with the whole of one's body, mind, spirit, and strength. None of the Church's rules or regs mean a thing if they fail to help us follow the law of love. For example, Jesus confronts the scholars and Pharisees with a chance to condemn him when he heals a man on the Sabbath. When asked if he should break the Sabbath law by curing the man, the scholars and Pharisees remain silent. Rather than protest or argue, they simply keep their mouths shut, choosing instead to watch and wait to see what Jesus will do.

What does Jesus do? He responds to their uncaring silence with a miracle. He heals the man and asks, “Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern, would not immediately pull him out on the sabbath day?” Again, the scholars and Pharisees remain silent, “unable to answer his question.” Why are they unable or unwilling to answer? It never seems to have been a problem for them in the past! If they were to admit that they would rescue their sons or their oxen on the Sabbath, then they would be admitting to the possibility that the Sabbath laws against work are not absolute. If they were to admit that they would leave their sons or their oxen to die, then they would be revealed to be cold-hearted legalists. The first choice makes them lawbreakers. The second choice makes them moral monsters. That they seem to understand these choices is a sign of hope that they not wholly lost to love, not wholly given over to the brutality of bureaucratic minutiae.

The freedom we enjoy as children of God is the freedom of those who know and understand that we were created by divine love and re-created by that love incarnated as one who walks among us as one of us. Christ came to us as the Word made flesh not the Law made flesh. He came to us as the first principle and culmination of his Father's plan for all creation: to bring us back to the One who is Love. No law or regulation or dogma can supersede its fundamental intent, its ultimate purpose. The fundamental intent, the ultimate purpose of Christ's life, death, and resurrection is our salvation. If we must heal on the Sabbath in order to give witness to God's love, then we heal on the Sabbath. We are slaves to divine love and obedience to this master is our salvation.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

Mark Shea links to a great vid that explains how ObamaCare will fund abortions.

CCHD seems to be moving toward reforming itself.  "Policies and mechanisms" are only as strong as the people charged with enforcing them.  If the review panel is independent of the organization's bureaucracy and appointed by bishops, then maybe this will be a move in the right direction.  We'll see.

This column on next week's election pretty much sums up my own feelings on the state of American politics in 2010.   Extra points for referencing the Coming Zombie Apocalypse.

Wow. . .MN Democrats are putting their 19th century anti-Catholic Know-Nothingism on public display.  I hope MN Catholics who vote Democrat are paying attention to this.

Voting fraud already starting in NV. . .voters complain that their ballots were marked for Harry Reid even before they started voting. 

Dominican nuns [sic] to acquire the JPII Cultural Center in Detroit.  Hey, sisters!  If you decide to turn the place into a school, let me know. . .I may know a fellow Dominican who can teach for you.

Great article on why you shouldn't give a dime to UNICEF this Halloween.  Bonus points for using the title of a Flannery O'Connor short story as the post title.

Vid that appears to show a woman chatting on a cell phone. . .in 1928!  Prolly not.  No cell towers back then.  Obviously, she's using a communicator from her Temporal Displacement Pod.  Duh. (H/T:  fra. Auggie)

Remember that GOP congressional candidate that the MSM reported was go around calling for armed revolution against the gov't?  Well, not so much. 

Just in time for Halloween. . .A Catholic Field Guide to the Undead! One small quibble:  the post's author quotes C. S. Lewis. . .the idea that Lewis expresses in the quote is not a proper Catholic understanding of the human person.

Lesson for the day:  even evil people can get good grades, or something.

The difference btw how cats and dogs think about their owners.

I know what you mean! You can only milk a dead cow once.
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Thank God that's over. . .

Just got word. . .

I PASSED FRENCH!!!

Coffee Bowl Browsing

Do your consumer brand choices match your partisan politics?  The top ten brands for the Dems and the GOP.

Bees beat computers. . .shows you how far we still have to go on the road toward artificial intelligence.

The New Elites and the Tea Party. . .self-affirming ideological homogeneity among our "Betters."   For the N.E.'s diversity is only skin deep. 

The Tea Party is more of an "attitude movement" than a strictly partisan, political organization.

Those leaked WikiLeak documents from the DoD reveal that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction. 

Back when universities were first invented (by the Church, btw!), professors were paid directly by their students.  If a prof wasn't doing his job, he had no students and no income.  Maybe we should consider returning to this model of higher education.  Oh, and there was no such as tenure!

Astute observation on the faux tolerance of NPR:  Conservative FOX had no problem with Williams working for liberal NPR; yet, liberal NPR couldn't tolerate him working for conservative FOX.  My own experience in academia and religious life bears this out:  liberals are very tolerant of those who believe exactly as they do.

Catholic bloggers "aim to purge dissenters" from the Church?!  Wow. . .I had no idea that bloggers had so much power. . .I feel lightheaded, kinda woozy and warm!  There's no need for Catholic bloggers to purge dissenters from the Church. . .Mother Nature is doing it for us.

Undercover vid of New Jersey teachers' union bosses partying hearty.  If this goes viral, be sure to put yourself near something large and solid. . .it's gonna get messy.  (NSFW:  strong language)

Excellent news out of Dallas:  Bishop Farrell getting high marks for turning the listless diocese around!  Vocations are up, thanks to Fr. Rudy Garcia, vocations director.  U.D.'s School of Ministry gets a mention. 

Middle East Synod turns into anti-Israel rally.  I had breakfast with a member of the synod yesterday morning.  He spent the whole time regaling me with stories about Israel's mistreatment of Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular.   The final document of the Synod contains condemnation of Israel's West Bank occupation.

Notre Dame post-B.O.:  drop of $120m in donations.

10 Annoying Habits of the Smartsphone User.  Only 10? 

Hey, whaddya know?  Jesus does save!

So, two Russian cops and a goat are waiting for the bus. . .

It's What's For Breakfast

Job application. . .I'd hire him just to keep things interesting.

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Mercy is hard

30th Week OT (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Ss. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

Our wounds are not healed by ideas or intentions alone. A gun shot wound really can't be healed by mercy as such. Neither can cancer, mental illness, nor addiction be treated by something as purely conceptual as love or forgiveness. Healing requires both intentions and acts. Imagine going into an emergency room with a broken arm and having the doctor stand over you while he intends to treat your arm! At some point, you're going to say, “Doc, are you going to do something?” How bizarre would it be for him to respond, “I am doing something. I'm thinking about healing you”? My guess is that you'd rather have his bad intention so long as he actually worked to fix your arm. In the abstract, mercy is easy. Doing merciful deeds is a little more complicated.

Jesus shows us how to be merciful by ridding a woman of a diseased spirit—an eighteen-year burden that has her bent over, making it impossible for her to stand erect. How exactly is this merciful? Relieving the sick of their diseases is in itself merciful. But Jesus goes one step further by healing her on the Sabbath. Rather than obeying a strict interpretation of the law that forbids work on the Sabbath, Jesus obeys the higher law of love and relieves the poor woman of her burden. Predictably, someone objects to this illegal act and calls Jesus out as a lawbreaker. Jesus' indignant retort to this charge humiliates his critic. He calls them hypocrites! Why shouldn’t this daughter of Abraham be set free on the Sabbath from Satan’s bondage? The gathered crowd “rejoiced at all the splendid deeds done by him.” And so they should: Jesus lifts from this crippled woman’s back not only the burden of a crippling spirit, but the burden of Law without Mercy as well. 

Paul picks up this teaching in his letter to the Ephesians. He writes, “Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ. Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us. . .” This doesn't mean that we are to become lawless lovers of some abstract deity. It does mean that we love first and follow the law accordingly. If we can't love, we can't follow any law that's based on love. In much the same way that abstract notions like mercy, forgiveness, and charity become real only when enacted, our love for God must be embodied, made real through our whole humanity—word, thought, and deed and not simply limited to “good intentions.” Our psalmist this morning puts it succinctly: “Behave like God as his very dear children!”

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On St Dominic & the miracle of the cornbread

I've had a couple of requests for more info on the painting of St Dominic that appears above in the blog header.  I hate to admit it. . .but I just googled "Order of Preachers" and found it somewhere out there in the intertubes ether.  The "Please pass the cornbread" subtitle is just me being redneckish.

The Rev. Br. Lawrence Lew, OP of the English Province has a great post on the painting on his blog, Contemplata aliis Tradere.  Since I can't figure out how to link to this post, I will reproduce the story:

One of the most famous miracles involving St Dominic happened in the Refectory of San Sisto, which still exists, and the story is recounted in the Vitae Fratrum of the Order of Preachers and a painting of the event often adorns Dominican refectories:

"When the brethren were still living at the Church of San Sisto and formed a community of about one hundred, Blessed Dominic one day sent Brother John of Calabria and Brother Albert of Rome into the city to beg. From morning to noon, they went from house to house, but all in vain. As they were returning home without anything, they passed by the church of St. Anastasia where they met a woman who had a great love for the Order. Seeing that they had received no alms, she gave them one loaf of bread, saying, "I would hate to see you return empty-handed." They thanked her for the bread and continued on their journey home. Soon they were met by a handsome youth, who earnestly begged an alms of them. But they explained that having almost nothing for themselves, they could hardly give anything to him. As he continued to press them, they said to one another, "How far would a loaf of bread go with us? Let's give it to him for the love of God." No sooner had they given him the bread than he disappeared so quickly that they did not even know in what direction. When they reached the priory, the first one they met was Blessed Dominic who already knew, by a special revelation, all that had happened. He smiled and said, "I see you have nothing, my children," and they answered, "No, father." Then they hold him what they had received and of the beggar to whom they gave the bread. But he said to them, "It was an angel of the Lord. Nevertheless, the Lord will feed His servants. Let us go and pray." After they said a brief prayer in the church, he told them to summon the community for their meal. But they reminded him, "Holy Father, how can you tell them to come, when we have nothing to serve them?", and he answered, "The Lord will feed His servants." But when they continued to dilly-dally, he called Brother Roger, the procurator, and ordered him to call the brethren to the refectory, because the Lord would provide for His servants. So they set the tables and, when the signal was given, the community entered the refectory. After the blessing of the meal by Blessed Dominic, the brethren sat down and Brother Henry of Rome began to read. At his table Blessed Dominic joined his hands in prayer. Then the promise he had made through the Holy Spirit began to be fulfilled, for, in the middle of the refectory, there suddenly appeared two handsome youths from whose shoulders hung, in front and in back, two beautiful baskets filled with bread. Serving the youngest first, they began, one on the right and the other on the left, to distribute to each of the brethren one whole loaf of bread of marvelous appearance. When they reached Blessed Dominic and gave him a loaf, they bowed and disappeared. No one to this day knows whence they came or where they went. Then Blessed Dominic said to the brethren, "Come, brethren, eat the bread which the Lord has sent you."

Then he told the brethren who were serving to get some wine for the brethren. But they answered, "Holy father, there is no wine." Then filled with a prophetic spirit, Blessed Dominic told them to go to the wine-cask and draw off the wine the Lord has put there. They went and found the cask filled to the top with wine. Drawing some off, they served it to the brethren. And Blessed Dominic said, "Come, brethren, drink the wine which the Lord has sent." Thus they ate and drank as much as they needed that day and the next and the day after. When the meal was over, he ordered that all the unused bread and wine be given to the poor, because he did not want anything to remain in the house. But for those three days he sent no one out to beg, because the Lord was supplying them with bread and wine from heaven in abundance. Later the blessed father gave the brethren a beautiful sermon exhorting them never to lose their trust in God's providence, even in the direst need.

Later on, Brother Tancred, prior of the brethren, Brothers Odo and Henry of Rome, Brother Lawrence of England, Brother Gaudio, Brother John of Rome, and many others described this famous miracle to Sister Cecilia, who was living in the convent of St. Mary in Tempulo, and to other nuns. To them they gave some of the bread and wine, which they kept for many years as relics."

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

Former NPR news analysis, Juan Williams comments on his firing. But don't worry about Juan; he ain't hurtin'.  Oh, and it's OK to fire Juan b/c he was a "lawn jockey" for FOXNews. Oh, and there's a move afoot to defund NPR.  'Bout time too.

So, if Juan gets fired for speaking his mind as a news analysis, why didn't NPR fire Nina Totenberg for saying that God's justice could mean that Jesse Helms will get AIDS.

Wow. . .great political ad.  A Chinese professor lectures on the fall of great empires, including the USA.

League of Women Voters debate moderator upset that the audience "forced" her to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  Very telling.

Greed eyed monster:  more reasons for women not to take The Pill.

New seminary for the Archdiocese of Washington!  Hey, I wonder if they could use a slightly used but still energetic English/philosophy/theology professor. . .hmmmmmm?

The "Muslim Dances on High Altar" vid has been making the rounds of late.  No doubt:  dancing on an altar is not something we can dismiss as a prank; however, it appears that the man is mentally unstable.  If so, then he can't properly be called a blasphemer. 

WaPo story confirms that Eric Holder's DoJ is refusing to pursue voting rights violations committed against white voters.  So much for a "post-racial" administration.

Some advice for those thinking about a graduate degree in theology.  Best advice:  don't let the shininess of a faculty star lure you into a blackhole.  Better advice.

With my luck, this will happen at my funeral.

Cute vid. . .caution:  likely to cause diabetes.

Movie cliches. . .yup, that's about right.

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On conscience and the magisterium

The relationship between an individual's conscience and the authority of the magisterium is often easily confused and intentionally distorted.   

Let's start with a definition:  "Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed. In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right. It is by the judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law. . ."(CCC, no. 1778).

Conscience "perceives and recognizes" moral truth.  Contemporary Catholics often seem to believe that conscience is the ability to choose freely among available moral options.  So long as I preface my choices with something like, "In good conscience, I believe. . .," I am safeguarded from error.  This is false.  Conscience is not the ability to magically turn an evil choice into a good choice.  Conscience is what helps us to perceive the Good and recognize that Good in making moral choices.

When I walk into a bookstore, I perceive and recognize items that we call books.  I do not walk into a bookstore and choose to perceive the books as squirrels and recognize them as squirrels.  If I do this, I am in error.  Announcing my erroneous judgment about the books with, "In good conscience, I perceive and recognize this collection of paper and cloth bound pages of printed material as squirrels," does not magically transform the books into squirrels.  

Catholic teaching holds that the morality of human acts is as real as the books in a bookshop.  Calling the intrinsically morally evil act of abortion "good" is the same error you make when you call a book a squirrel.*  Conscience empowers you to perceive and recognize abortion as evil.  If you do not perceive and recognize abortion as evil, then you are either ignorant and need to be instructed, or your conscience has been twisted into folly by sin and you need both instruction and confession.

The Church's role in conscience formation is to present the truth of the faith.  Ideally, a Catholic will immediately perceive and recognize the truth and act accordingly.  But because we have been mislead for a generation or two about the nature of conscience, many Catholics fail to perceive and recognize moral truth when they see it.  Basically, we have been told for decades now that conscience makes truth, or that conscience assigns truth value to moral acts according to subjective, private standards of judgment.  This is how we end up with pro-abortion Catholics, pro-same sex "marriage" Catholics, pro-torture Catholics, pro-women's "ordination" Catholics, ad. nau.  These Catholics have falsely perceived and falsely recognized moral truth and misused "conscience" as a defense of their errors.

To repeat:  conscience perceives and recognizes truth; it does NOT create truth. 

Tom Krietzberg at Disputations has a very good post on how Aquinas' thoughts on conscience have been misunderstood and misused to push the Free Choice notion of conscience.

*Of course, the eternal consequences of these two errors are not the same.

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Coffee Cup Browsing

Wards of the French Nanny State throw violent temper tantrums.  Poor things are being told that they have to work until they are 62!  Evil, evil Nanny State.  And now, they don't even get all those tourist dollars/euros/pounds/sheckels.  That should help the economy.

Speaking of tantrums. . .Pelosi's flying monkeys in the House are dousing any fantasy she may have had about being Speaker again.

The Anchoress on "The Credentialed Gentry and the Unpersuaded Yahoo."  This puts me in a terrible bind.  I'm a member of both the credentialed gentry AND an unpersuaded yahoo.  Oops.  I'm pretty sure the other members of the CredGen would kick me out if they could.

Excellent article on how materialists fundamentally misunderstand the notion of free will.  Take time to read the whole thing.

Damien Thompson wonders:  "Is this the start of a civil war in the Church of England?" 

Now we're talkin'!  Catholic pub opens in Rome

WaPo and the AP completely rewrite their O'Donnell Church and State story w/o issuing a correcction.  Predictably, the lefties wanted to hear her deny that there is a "wall between church and state," so when she asked her opponent if such a thing is found in the 1st Amendment, they jumped on her like a pack of rabid Credentialed Gentry hunting a wounded Yahoo. 

Prof. Jacobson fisks the original story for all he's worth.  Also, how did that wall btw church and state get there in the first place?  Interesting back story that includes the KKK!

More race-hustling from the NAACP.  BTW, the link has a list of links to all the black GOP and Tea Party backed candidates running for office in the mid-term elections.  For a bunch of racists they should do have a lot of black folks on their side.

Explaining what happened to Vatican Two btw 1965-85.  Good article.  In seminary we were told over and over again that the published documents were products of a liberal majority that (mistakenly) felt the need to compromise with reactionary factions.  Therefore, any "traditional language" could be dismissed b/c it was in the document only as a way of appeasing the ecclesial neanderthals.  Fortunately, none of us bought this ruse. . .but we kept our mouths shut just in case speaking up against the prof turned into a "formation issue."

Two kinds of human beings. . .which one are you?

Find a genie in a bottle?  Be careful what you wish for. . .

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Making known the inscrutable riches of Christ

29th Week OT (Wed)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Ss. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

Jesus tells his disciples that they must be prepared for his unexpected return. That's just a little strange. How do you prepare for an unexpected return? There is only one way: always be prepared! You might think that Jesus is warning us that he intends to pop out from behind the sofa while we party and yell, “Gotcha!” The threat of his sudden appearance is supposed to keep us on our toes, ever vigilant against a surprise inspection from Big Daddy in the sky. However, the parable he tells is more about faithful stewardship than it is about being constantly on guard for surprises. Think of it this way: you can be a faithful servant b/c you are scared of getting caught being unfaithful, or you can be a faithful servant b/c you ARE a faithful servant. This is the difference between being stunted in your spiritual growth and being spiritually mature. Peter asks Jesus if his initial warning is meant for the disciples alone or for everyone. Jesus answers with a parable about stewardship. As is usually the case with parables, the answer is not black and white. Yes, stewards are the ones left in charge of the household, so it's pretty clear that Jesus is talking to those he will leave behind to oversee his Church. However, in baptism, each of us is made a steward of God's grace for the benefit of everyone else. So, is the initial warning to always be prepared meant for the disciples or everyone else? The answer is both. All of us must always be prepared for the Master's return. In fact, we are charged with fulfilling the duties of the stewards of God's grace as if the Master never left us. The spiritually immature Christian await his return with some measure of fear, some sense of foreboding that a severe beating is on the way. The spiritually mature Christian knows that the Master never left, that he is with us always and all we do in his name is done in his presence. As sinners we have been entrusted with more than deserve. Having been made stewards of God's grace we are entrusted with the responsibility of preaching “the inscrutable riches of Christ. . .so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the Church to the principalities and authorities in the heavens.” No small task! But not a burden either if we do our work in the knowledge that Christ is always with us, always abiding in the Body as our daily bread, the hour to hour source of all that is good.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

The problem of evil as presented on a few popular TV shows.  Confession:  I'm a big fan of all things vampirish in the movies and on TV.  The Good vs. Evil plot lines resonant with my Catholic soul!

And speaking of evil. . .there are only six Catholic priests in the U.S. who perform exorcisms?

Handy summary and outline of the VC2 document, Gaudium et spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World).

The VFW fires its PAC board after the board endorsed Pelosi, Reed, and Boxer. 

Hypocrisy Alert:  Dems take twice as much foreign money as the GOP.  Of course, the Dem's hypocrisy here doesn't absolve the GOP.

CA firefighters who were forced to participate in a "gay pride" parade win their harassment case on appeal.  The decision of the appeals panel was unanimous. 

If this doesn't make you laugh. . .well, check your pulse.

Peace in our time!

A new terrorist threat:  Al-Gebra.  Bomb those @#$% back to the Roman numeral days!


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Stranger in the living room

Feast of St Luke

Fr Philip Neri Powell, OP

Ss. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

Imagine: you're at home near the Sea of Galilee. . .quiet morning. . .you are building a fire in the oven, or sharpening your kitchen knives. . .the children are tending the few animals you share with the neighbors. . .you can hear some men down the street readying their nets for the day's fishing. . .it's going to be another very hot day. Just as you move toward the back garden to check on your children, an unfamiliar voice booms out from near the front door, “Peace be to this house!” Who could be visiting so early? No one was expected today. You turn the corner and see two middle-aged men, one is standing and one is squatting next to your youngest child, quietly talking. The men are obviously travelers: they are covered in dust, barefooted, no knapsack, nothing to indicate where they are from or where they are going. The one squatting stands to greet you, saying, “We are sent by the Lord as a lambs among wolves.” For just a second or two you stare, mouth open, eyes wide. . .what do you say? What do you do? 

Luke tells us that there are two possibilities for those who are greeted in this manner: receive the men, feeding them and offering them shelter; or, do not receive them, refusing them the hospitality that strangers customarily enjoy. Being a pious person, properly raised in the religious traditions of your people, you offer them food and water. They smile and the older man lays his hands on your head, offers a prayer for healing, and says, “The kingdom of God has come near to you!” You know instantly that these men are indeed sent by the Lord and that you have been blessed. But what do they mean when they say that the kingdom of God has come near to me? Has King Herod been overthrown by the Zealots? Have the Romans been driven out? Has the Temple in Jerusalem been destroyed? Maybe the prophet Isaiah has returned to proclaim the arrival of the Anointed One! Seeing your distress, the younger man says, “Peace be to this house.” Then you understand. . .peace now rests on your house; the Lord God does indeed rule. His kingdom has come near, and His peace rules.

When we go out as lambs among the wolves to proclaim the nearness of the Kingdom of God, we go as bearers of His peace. No fear, no anxiety, no concern for consequences or trials or persecution. In our words, our bearing, our deeds, in the way we think and pray and preach, we are the sons and daughters of the Lord's peace. When we proclaim the nearness of His kingdom, do we exude His peace? Do we look and sound as though we hold His peace? Live it, breath it, carry it with us wherever we go? When we enter a house, do we bring His peace with us? No worries. No fear, no concern for consequences. Reveal the kingdom of God and just rest wherever He sends you.

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Movie stars at the Angelicum

Yesterday after lunch, I went to the front of the university and watched Robert DeNiro and Monica Bellucci film a scene from an upcoming Italian movie, Manuale d'amore 3.  

The Church of Ss. Dominic and Sixtus is frequently used by movie companies for wedding scenes, e.g. When in Rome.  The director of the DeNiro/Bellucci film were using the official front entrance of the Angelicum to film a hospital scene. 

Filming was very slow.  They would film for about 20 seconds, then cut and stand around for ten minutes.  Repeat.  Deadly dull. 

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

ObamaCare closing down Catholic hospitals.  Can't say we didn't predict this.  Maybe this new book will become a best-seller by 2012.

No Brainer. Glenn Beck:  assault on teen in NYC was more than anti-gay; it is anti-human.  The imago Dei embodied by every human person is inviolable and must be respected.  Period.

From 2006:  The Myths of Hurricane Katrina. . .the article debunks many of the media myths about the causes of hurricane damage in NOLA and the gov't's response to the disaster. 

Sex crimes prosecutor reviews episodes of Law and Order:  SUV.  I quit watching L&O years ago b/c it became a vehicle for lefty talking points.  However, being a Legal Fanboy, I appreciate her analysis of the legal issues that the show brings up.

Fr. Z. dissects silly Newsweek article on St. Hildegard.  Be very suspicious anytime you hear a feminist lauding the courage of a female saint who bucked the authority of the patriarchal Church.  Among OP's this happens all the time with St. Catherine of Siena.  Nine times out of ten, the saint is being quoted out of context and the specifics of the alleged "bucking" are conveniently hidden. 

Siamo in Italia!  The Vatican's office of evangelizing cyberspace doesn't have internet access.  The procurator of the priory told me once that he hired a local company to repair some broken floor tiles.  When the workers didn't show on schedule, the procurator noted their tardiness to an Italian friar.  The friar responded, "Padre, it has only been three months!" 

CAUTION!  Bishop caught being a bishop.  DO NOT read near any Spirit of Vatican Two dissenters.  Have oxygen and smelling salts ready if they happen to glance over your shoulder.

A large mountain Jew

Border patrol kitty is on the job!

Ahhhhh. . .free hugs.

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The Smallest Dignity

Saint Teresa of Jesus

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

Glory, grace, splendor, worth, nobility—all synonyms for “dignity.” We use words like person, individual, soul when we talk about humans beings. Human dignity then is something like the worth of the individual, the grace and glory of a soul, the splendor and nobility of a person. In Christian theology, we don't use this kind of language to describe the social standing of a person, his/her rank or class in society. When we talk about the dignity of the human person we do so only to reference the image of God that each of us bears, that reflection of the divine that each of us embodies as creatures of a loving God. Whatever nobility, grace, and grandeur we bear as His children, we bear it as a gift, an endowment from the Father's limitless abundance. When Jesus tells the disciples that nothing escapes the notice of God's providence, he is reassuring them that they are never alone, never abandoned, never lacking what they need. If He cares for the smallest sparrow, how much more does He care for us?

To say that nothing escapes the notice of God may seem threatening to some. It could bring on a sense of paranoia about being observed by the ever watchful eye of an all-powerful being. But Jesus isn't trying to scare us into obedience nor is he trying to warn us to be good boys and girls b/c God is watching and listening. Our Lord knows that preaching the Good News comes with dangers, first among these is the threat of persecution for his name's sake. He knows first-hand that opposition to the gospel is fierce, immediate, and often deadly. Yet he reassures his disciples that any opposition—no matter how fierce—can only touch the body, never the soul. God alone cares for both the body and the soul. Therefore, if we will set ourselves against either the world or its Creator, we are wise to choose to stand against the world and preach the Good News without fear, without hesitation.

Paul writes to the Ephesians that we are God's possessions. That we are sealed with the Holy Spirit promised to us. That we are chosen “so that we might exist for the praise of his glory.” We exist to praise His glory. And in praising His glory we are dignified, made glorious, made worthy. By preaching the Good News—with opposition or without it—we offer the greatest praise we can offer. Do not be afraid. If our Father loves the smallest sparrow, how much more does He love us?

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More server problems

The new university server decided yesterday that I cannot access my Yahoo email account.

So, if you've left a comment recently, it won't appear until the server changes its mind.

If I owe you an email. . .well, be patient.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing (in breve)

Annnnnd. . .we're back!  The university server came on-line late Tuesday night.  Last night a thunderstorm knocked it out.  And now. . .for now. . it is up again.  So, before we lose access again, here's a short CBB:

More reasons to send your kids to the University of Dallas!  Do UD'ers party?  I've heard rumors that they do (wink-wink). . .as a UD prof, I can assure you that they study as hard as they party.

What do hippies, hobos, and Tea Partiers have in common?  They all resist the evils of collectivism b/c they believe that human beings are best treated as innately free individuals.

Even as he fulminates about the Chamber of Commerce allegedly using donations from foreign companies, B.O. seems to "forget" that he did the same thing in 2008.  Memory is one of the greatest tools in fighting the faux-outrage of the hypocrites in our Ruling Class.

NY Election Board misses deadline for sending absentee ballot to our troops overseas.  As the Instapundit notes, "'Accidents' happen."  

P.S.  STILL no word on the French exam. . .sigh.

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Making the rules unnecessary

28th Week OT (Wed)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

Our Lord is unrelenting in his condemnation of hypocrisy, particularly the hypocrisy of those who wield religious authority. He says to the Pharisees, “Woe to you! You are like unseen graves over which people unknowingly walk.” Not only does he accuse his opponents of being dead and rotting in the ground, but he also accuses them of leading their unwitting followers into uncleanliness, impurity. Thus the hypocrisy of each Pharisee is both a personal and a public failure. When spiritual leaders fall, those who follow them fall as well. Jesus concludes his indictment of the Pharisees and scribes with a pointed accusation, “You impose on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them.” Here lies the kernel of their hypocrisy: though they follow the Law to the letter, they do so only for the benefits that come with being seen doing so. They do not intend to see justice done nor do they love God; their only purpose is to lift themselves up and bask in the admiration of their followers. Therefore, Jesus says to them three times, “Woe to you. . .”

How do we avoid the temptations of hypocrisy? Paul writes to the Galatians, “If you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law. . .If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.” Paul is not giving us permission to live lawless lives, wildly following every impulse, every appetite. He is challenging us to do something far more difficult than living the letter of the Law. Rather than scrupulously obeying every jot and tittle of the rules, we are called upon to fulfill the Law; that is, we are freed by Christ to live out the purpose of the Law, the underlying intent of the rules. For example, you can be meticulous in driving the posted speed limit and still believe that the other drivers deserve to be run off the road. You can come to Mass daily and still seek vengeance on your neighbor. You can quote canon law on the rules for fasting, follow those rules, and still remain a glutton in your heart. Despite a perfect driving record or a lifetime of perfect Mass attendance, you can still harbor hatred, anger, selfishness, and rivalry. Following the rules is no guarantee of a pure heart. But a pure heart makes the rules unnecessary.

Christ came to fulfill the Law. As his Body, the Church, we are vowed to preach his Word. So, we share the fruits of that Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If we will lead in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.

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from an internet cafe on the via Nazionale. . .

The Angelicum's server was shut down on Wed. the 6th in order to replace it. 

Because this is Italy, this process will take an entire week.  Apparently, it never occurred to anyone that waiting until the week before classes start to overhaul the univ. server is not the best idea.

So, no posts until Wed. the 13th at the earliest.  I'll eat a pig raw if they have the work done by Wed. 

Oh. . .I forgot to mention:  it looks like I passed the French exam.  Several friars have congratulated me on passing. . .however, no one in the department has notified me yet.  Makes no difference in my timetable anyway.  I couldn't get the license exam material prepared in time to take the exams, so I'll be returning to the US on Dec 18 for Christmas break and then moving to a priory somewhere in the US.  I'll come back to Rome in Oct 2011 and take all the license exams and complete the doctoral seminar. 

Oh. . .I forgot to beg:  I haven't begged for books lately.  Now that I am back in Rome. . .the Wish List has been updated.  Check it out.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

An omen?  Presidential seal falls off the podium during B.O.'s speech.   Heh. . .even the symbols of his office are running from him.

Couldn't agree more!  Be specific about warnings of terrorist threats or be quiet.

ROTC programs are needed at our nation's universities.  Universities extol their racial, cultural, ethnic diversity but that diversity rarely extends to ideology/politics.  U.S. campuses are nearly monolithically leftist, especially among the faculty. 

Catholics who complain that our bishops play politics with communion. . .play politics with communion.  This is beyond despicable.

40% of the Supreme Court cases this term are appeals from the notoriously liberal 9th Circuit.  So, what's the learning curve on the left coast?

Fr. Z. links to a. . .I don't know what to call it. . .a "musical" setting for the Gloria.  All I can say is:  NOT if I'm the presider! 

B.O. cut a secret deal with hospitals to drop the public option in his grab for domination of the health care system.  And here I thought Big Medicine was the problem! 

Franciscan friar botches basic theology:  no, pets do not go to heaven.  The fact that all of creation will be redeemed does not mean that all of creation will go to heaven.  There may be some sort of "doggy heaven," but it is not the Beatific Vision that God's human creatures will enjoy.  This sort of Oprah-ish theology sentimentalize serious spiritual issues.

Anna "Red Boots" Arco notes that the Proto-Nazi, Patriarchal, Dissent-suppressing Rottweiler of God, Pope Benedict XVI wants an empowered laity.   Hmmmm. . .sounds like he's trying to pull a fast one.   Can we really trust someone who wears red footwear?  Oh, wait. . .

Call me a modernist, revisionist heretic, but I just can't work up the energy to get worried about questions like this.   My student master used to ask me every time I complained about the craziness of our seminary professors, "Philip, is this the hill you wanna die on?"  No, not even close.

Lefty lawyer defends the Pope!  Obviously, someone bought him off. . .

He-Man does disco. . .I'll never be the same.

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Par lay voo fron-say?

Aight. . .the French exam is done! 

I got a paragraph from Merleau-Ponty's essay, "Cezanne's Doubt."  It was slightly less convoluted that the Descartes passage from June but still a challenge to translate in 30 minutes. 

I looked up a published English translation and my poor attempt at rendering the French. . .well, leaves something to be desired.

Many thanks for all the prayers and encouragement. 

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So, here's the deal. . .

Geez, I have really messed up this time!

Yesterday the philosophy dean tells me that the university secretary has been trying to reach me all morning.  When I turned in my thesis back in June, I failed to include a C.V. and a pic.  I also failed to turn in the 20 page paper on my oral exam topics.  This paper is due ten days before the oral/written exams for the license.  I didn't understand the implications of this failure at first.  Then it hit me:  the license exams are THIS WEEK!!!  Great. . .so I have a twenty page paper to write before Thursday's exams.  Oh, and the thesis defense is Saturday.

Just to add to my stress:  the French exam is today not Wednesday.  For some reason known only to God and His angels, I listed the exam for the 6th in my diary.  

These screw-ups happened for two reasons:  1). all this scheduling info is on the university website in English and Italian; however, the process for completing the requirements is available only in Italian. . .and it is incredibly confusing; 2). I have always had a very weird relationship with time; that is, I find it difficult to conceptualize step by step processes in a temporal fashion.  The only way I have ever managed this flaw is to write out a process in my own words.  

Is there such a thing as Temporal Dyslexia Syndrome?

Needless to say, I am panicked. 

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Coffee Bowl Browsing (is back!)

Ladies and Gents, I give you the secular wisdom of England's Brights. . .when you don't believe in God it is much, much easier to pretend to be one yourself.

More on those terrorists threats/warnings for Americans living in Europe.  I'm gonna ask Mama Becky for a .38 holster for Christmas. . .Santa will bring the .38.

. . .and a warning about Islamic ideology:  Islam is more than a religion; it's a political revolution.

Tea Party produces video that depicts the murder of children, grandmothers, teachers who disagree with their small gov't/fiscally conservative philosophy.  GOP and other groups affiliated with the T.P. largely silent.  Oh, wait. . .

Final exam or no final exam?  I've been teaching college students for almost 25 years.  Lots of lessons learned in that time.  Probably the most important lesson:  exams do not work.  In my courses at U.D., I give students five comprehensive essay questions one week before the scheduled exam period.  On exam day, I randomly assign each student a question.  Students report that they spend more time studying for this sort of exam precisely b/c they know what to study.  I absolutely hate GOTCHA exams!  Oh, and "hoop jumping" exams are worse. . .

And speaking of loathsome academic practices. . .students are given class credit for attending that Lefty rally in D.C.   Did Beck have to bribe people to attend his rally?

ACORN nemesis, James O'Keefe issues a statement on the CNN "prank" that has him roasting over conservative coals. 

No one walks into Mordor!

The truth about birthdays:  a somewhat cynical view.

The future. . .a slightly more distant one.

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Rome!

I managed to dodge any terrorists who were lying in wait btw Oxford and Rome!

There was a 20something Middle Eastern guy sitting across from me on the plane.  I didn't think much about it 'til I noticed Arabic script tatooed on his arms.  That made me just a little twingy.  Then I noticed that he was wearing a band new Ramones tee-shirt! 

My laptop had to be reconfigured for internet access at Blackfriars, so it is not configured for the Angelicum network. . .which means who knows how long it will be before regular posting begins again. 

Anyway. . .mille grazie for the prayers!

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Commies and unions and Marxists, oh my!

Finished packing and now waiting for Lauds. . .I ran across a lot of blog coverage of the Lefty rally in D.C. yesterday.  Here's a link for good pics of the participants, including socialists, communists, Black Panthers, slavery-reparationists, American flag desecrators, assorted anti-family groups, lots of union people, lots and lots of anti-Tea Party folks.  

N.B.  1). the trash they left behind for real workers to clean up and 2) the sheer inanity of the signs.  My fav:  "More Education Means Less Republicans!"  Um, that's fewer Republicans, Einstein.  

Check here for a comparison btw the cleanliness of the Beck Rally and the trash heaps left by the Left.   Very, very telling.

Heh. . .Gateway Pundit caught C-SPAN using a photo from Glenn Beck's rally in a story about the Lefty rally.  Good catch. 

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On to Rome! (Or maybe not. . .)

Great, just great. . .woke to find this blaring at me:

US to tell US citizens to be vigilant in Europe (AP)

So, to pack or not to pack?  That is the question!

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Tea Mug Browsing

The Senate couldn't pass a budget before it adjourned. . .but it found the time and the votes to pass another Nanny Law.

Is the current state of European society and politics the future of America?  I don't think so.  Europeans have a much more optimistic view of gov't than we do.  They see gov't power as something to be used for the common good.  Generally, Americans see gov't as a necessary evil. . .and act accordingly.

Does poverty cause terrorism?  No.  Extremist, irrational ideology causes terrorism.

Andrew Breitbart asks O'Keefe for an explanation of CNN "prank."  Yea, good idea.

Computer virus attacking Iran's industrial base contains Jewish/Biblical references?  Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

WOW!  Just. . .wow.  While the Tea Party is being vilified for its angry rhetoric and falsely accused of political violence, the eliminativists of the Eco-fascism movement are threatening to kill your kids if you don't Go Green.  "With No Pressure, the environmental movement has revealed the snarling, wicked, homicidal misanthropy beneath its cloak of gentle, bunny-hugging righteousness."   Um, isn't this sort of like members of a certain religion who murder those who refuse to convert?  Expect total silence from the MSM. 

Oh, the irony!  The soldiers defending the Union are coming more and more from the South.  The east and west coast are vastly underrepresented in today's all-volunteer military.  So, while the libs from the coasts are screaming about their rights and entitlements, its the Good Ole Boys and Gals (by and large) who are actually manning up and making sure those rights are protected.

Shame, shame. . .Dem senator Babs Boxer fails to pay the day laborers she hired to hold signs outside a debate with her GOP opponent. 

Fr. Robert Barron on "Dumbed Down Catholicism."  Dumbing down the faith is worse than outright lying about what the Church teaches.  Lies can be detected as such and rejected.  Dumbed down teaching allows falsehood to sneak in and soothe the anxious conscience.  Half-truths are just stealthier lies.

Three words you never expected to see in combination:  Geriatric. Segeway. Crusader. 

Me too!   "Sometimes I'll look down at my watch three times and still not remember what time it is."

The Corporate B.S. Generator. . .this also works for internal committees set up by religious orders and bishops' conferences.

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Going back to the playground (Repost)

A homily for the memorial of the Little Flower reposted from 2007:

Little Flower: Isa 66.10-14 and Matthew 18.1-4*

Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP

St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

First, we have the Kroger Child who starts screaming at the door, screams from the mangos and hot dog buns all the way through picnic supplies and dried pastas and on to organic juices, candy bars, and trashy gossip magazines at the register. Then we have the two little girls, five and seven, who sit quietly through the 7.30 Sunday Mass, run up to me immediately after, hug my legs, and thank me for being a priest. And then you have the hundreds of neo-natals in ICU’s across the country; the kids at Family Gateway and the Merilac Center w/o parents or homes; the fifty children on CBS’ latest “reality show,” living w/o adults in a “Lord of the Flies” scenario, complete with readily available tribal make-up and hundreds of cameras; we have the children in our lives, these here, those at home, in school, the ones we see only in pictures from our own kids. . .and then we have those who show us how to get into heaven. Jesus says to his disciples: “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Perhaps it is time we turned to the playground again.

You have to imagine the scene clearly. Jesus is praying quietly by himself. His disciples, the twelve and probably a few others, all grown men in their thirties and forties, approach Jesus expectantly. He opens his eyes, takes a deep breath, and waits for the question. And what cosmos-quaking question do these students of the Anointed Messiah ask their master? What is the nature of peace? Of mercy? How do we live abundantly in poverty? Hunger? No. They want to know who among them will be the greatest in heaven. Ah, it’s about ambition, about being the alpha-dog. You can almost feel the heat from Jesus’ embarrassment and perhaps just a degree or two of his anger. Jesus—no doubt thinking: how do I get through to these thick skulls I’ve chosen to be my apostles?—calls over a child and stands the child in the middle of the group. There’s a tense silence among the nipping canine-disciples, an expectant hush as they wait to hear what incredible nonsense Jesus will try to teach them this time; and Jesus says, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” I see dumbfounded stares, dropped jaws, disappointment, confusion, all flavored with a bit of frustration and anger. Children!?

Yes, children. Jesus sets a child among them and anoints the child as their exemplar. He puts two conditions on entering heaven in this passage: 1) we must turn and 2) we must become like children. Turning makes perfect sense b/c as adults we would have to make radical changes, turn-a-bouts, in order to arrive back at where we started—innocence, humility, a sense of wonder. Turning is conversion, flipping over, stopping and going in reverse, facing the other direction. What does it mean for us to become like children? No doubt Jesus is pointing out the desirable qualities of a first-century Jewish child. Respect, humility, willingness to serve, eagerness to learn, docility in obedience—all of the qualities we would associate with “good kids.” He is also lifting up in this child those qualities that we sometime leave behind as adults: imagination, wonder, a perfect sense of awe, that ability and willingness to look at the world and live wholeheartedly in joy, overflowing gladness and a complete lack of pretension.

Jesus is telling us that we must become a particular kind of child. We must become small, little; without worldly ambitions, without aggressive pretense or a need for secular approval. He is telling us that we must become who we truly are already: creatures of a Creator, children of the Father. We are to be students, apprentices of charity and grace, interns of eternity. As adults of the twenty-first century, we must become the children of the first. If we would be the greatest, we must be who we truly are: the least. To do this we must turn and turn and turn. Always turning back to our heavenly Father. What else can His favorites do?

*These readings are proper for the saint's memorial.

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