A Mississippi Mystic

Being a Dominican friar and a philosophically-inclined poet-theologian (geez), I am at once intrigued and put-off by those who claim to experience mystical visions. My first thought upon hearing that some peasant child in Ussbackistan is having visions of the Blessed Mother is: Not another one! However, I immediately click over and read all about it. 

Out of the blue, a HancAquam reader and frequent commenter alerted me to a visionary from my own backyard, a Home Grown Mississippi Mystic, and his story is remarkable:

Claude Newman was an African American man who was born on December 1, 1923 to Willie and Floretta (Young) Newman in Stuttgart, Arkansas. In 1928, Claude’s father Willie takes Claude and his older brother away from their mother for unknown reasons, and they are brought to their grandmother, Ellen Newman, of Bovina, Warren County, Mississippi. . .

Read the whole thing!

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Is your heart a Sacred Heart?

Sacred Heart of Jesus 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 
St. Dominic Church, NOLA 

Thus says the Lord God, “I myself will look after and tend my sheep. . .I will rescue them. . .I will lead them. . .I will bring them back. The lost I will seek out. . .the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal.” And we are glad to hear the Lord say that He will look for the lost, rescue the endangered, and mend the broken. We are especially glad to hear these promises when we find ourselves among the lost, the sick, and the wounded. Not only does God do all that He promises to do, He does more. Much more. “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” To find, to heal, and to mend, you need someone to be lost, sick, and injured. But Christ died for us “while we were still sinners.” Before we repent, before we confess, before we seek his mercy and absolution, he dies for us so that we are able to repent, confess, and seek his mercy. How is this possible? “The love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. . .” Because he surrenders his sacred heart on the altar of the Cross, our hearts are made sacred in the fires of the Holy Spirit! If your heart will be like Christ's, you too will surrender to the Cross. 

What does “surrender to the Cross” mean? And how is it done? If we think of surrendering as the coward's faint way of avoiding injury and death, or if we think of it as a desperate last resort before total defeat, then surrendering to anyone or anything is a failure. But if we accept in all humility that nothing is ours, that no one is ours; that all, everything belongs to God and we just make use of what He gives us, then surrender is nothing like a defeat or a failure. It's the first and last victory of a war we never have to fight. If nothing and no one truly belongs to us, then what do we have to give up? What is there left for us to sacrifice? Well, our sins are ours; we certainly own those. No. The Son is made flesh so that he becomes sin for us. Even our sins belong to God. Only He can forgive them, and He's done that already. So, what do we surrender? We hand over to God all that we think belongs to us; all that we imagine we own. Jesus said on the Cross, “Not my will but Yours be done.” We surrender to the Cross by freely offering to God what belongs to Him already. He doesn't need our surrender, but we need to surrender so that His will might become our own. 

How does God find us when we are lost? Heal us when we are sick? Lead us when we wander off? All trick questions! There is never a second of our lives when He isn't finding, healing, and leading us. The question is whether or not we are free enough from our attachments to Self and Things to be found, healed, and led. Whether or not we have given over all the weights and burdens and trials that work so hard to snuff the fire of His Spirit in us. Why do we insist on carrying our junk when He has already taken from us? Why do we demand to be punished for sins that were forgiven 2,000 yrs ago? Why do we invite tests and temptations when the war against both ended with a victory on the Cross? Christ's sacred heart split and bled out so that we might have access to the Father through His Holy Spirit. That access—our way in—remains open, has never closed, and will never close. But we cannot fit through if we are stuffed to the gills with pride in Self and bent over clinging to tons of stuff. Are you free to be found, healed, led, mended, rescued, and loved into the presence of the Most High? God knows where you are, but He will not find you unless you will to be found? He will not lead you or heal you unless you freely choose to be lead and healed. Unlike the dumb sheep of the gospel, we can choose to be livestock. And unlike the sheep of the gospel, we can choose to be freed by the Sacred Heart of Christ. 

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as terrible as an army with banners

I confess: I'm not a big fan of Chesterton. (GASP!) I know, I know. . .50 lashes and no dessert for a week.  

I find his style just a tad. . .what?. . .contrived? The rapid-fire parallelisms, the easy rotations of adjectives to make a cute point: "It's not that X is Y, but Y is X."

I dunno. Whatever IT is, it isn't found in the quotation below, a quotation from his famous book, Orthodoxy: 

Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners. 

Here he's offering a critique of Stoicism, a philosophy that could seduce me so easily. . .being an Introvert and all.  He urges Modern Man to worship anything but his Inner Light b/c worshiping the Inner Light too quickly becomes Self worship. If you can't/won't worship the Lord your God, then worship cats or crocodiles. . .anything but one's Inner Light.

Oh. Why am I posting this quotation?  It will very likely appear in this Sunday's homily.

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Doctrinal Homily Outlines

The USCCB's new document on preaching, Preaching the Mystery of Faith, teaches:

". . .the homilist of today must realize that he is addressing a congregation that is more culturally diverse than previously, one that is profoundly affected by the surrounding secular agenda and, in many instances, inadequately catechized. The Church’s rich theological, doctrinal, and catechetical tradition must therefore properly inform the preaching task in its liturgical setting. . ."

To help with this seemingly daunting task, Kevin Aldrich runs a blog called Doctrinal Homily Outlines. 

Check it out and use with abandon!

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Loving Neighbors = Loving God

9th Week OT (Th) 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 
St. Dominic Church, NOLA 

The scribe who asks Jesus for the first commandment gets a two-fer. He not only recites the first commandment, he teaches its meaning for us mere mortals. To answer the man's question, Jesus quotes the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone!” This familiar proclamation of God's sovereignty is enforced by the admonition, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,” soul, mind, and strength. If the God of Israel is Israel's lord alone—that is, Israel has no other gods—then the hearts, minds, souls, and strength of Israel's people cannot be divided among various and sundry deities. Everything we've got goes into the love and honor we give to God alone. If Jesus had stopped here, no one listening to him would've been all that impressed. He's simply reciting what every child in the nation learned as a matter of course. What Jesus does next is unusual. He recites a verse from nineteenth chapter of Leviticus as a corollary to the first commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” What does loving God alone have to do with loving our neighbors? 

Lest we think that Jesus just added that verse from Leviticus as an afterthought, listen again to how he ties the first commandment to the second, “There is no other commandment greater than these.” Both commandments are great, no other commandments are greater. I said earlier that adding the quotation from Leviticus in the context of the scribe's question is unusual. The first commandment Jesus quotes is from a lengthy commentary on the 10 Commandments found in Deuteronomy. The second law is a quote from Leviticus, found in a list of various rules for good conduct. Immediately after the rule about loving your neighbor as yourself, Leviticus admonishes against interbreeding different species of animals and against planting fields with different kinds of seeds. Obviously, there's a big difference in the OT btw two laws that Jesus quotes. One is the first commandment of the 10 Commandments, the other is just one of many various rules of conduct. By bringing the two together and dubbing them the Greatest Commandments, Jesus gives practical, real-life force to both. Loving God means loving our neighbors; loving our neighbors is how we show that we love God. There can be no merely abstract or conceptual love for God. If you don't love your neighbors, you do not love God. 

We might not be all that impressed by the originality of this combination—we've heard it before—but the scribe is very impressed by Jesus' teaching. He's so impressed that he praises the Lord, noting that loving God and neighbor is “worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Jesus sees that the scribe understands the connection btw the two laws and says to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” Do we truly understand how loving God and neighbor is worth more than all of our sacrifices, all of our prayers? What is sacrifice and prayer but an expression of our love for and faith in God? We are only able to love b/c God loves us first. When we love one another, we participate in the divine love that God Himself gives us. In effect, we are the rational, flesh and bone means of God loving His creation. A failure to love is more than just a personal flaw, it's a failure to take part in the divine life we have vowed to live. We call it by the innocuous name “lack of charity,” but lacking in charity can cause the death of the soul; it's a mortal sin, a mortal wound to our relationship with God. This is why Jesus calls these two laws the greatest commandments. Violate them and risk an eternity excluded from God; obey them and see yourself ever closer to the Kingdom of God.

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Dogs of God Bark the Gospel!

NB. Adapted from 2008.

St. Boniface (Readings for the Memorial) 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 
St Dominic Church, NOLA 

One of the Vesper’s petitions from the Commons for Martyr’s goes something like this: “Lord, hold us fast to preaching the gospel even in the face of opposition, persecution, and scorn.” Christian preachers are often tempted to let go of the Gospel when confronted by entrenched opposition. Like water seeking the fastest and easiest route downhill, preachers are coaxed toward taking the most direct path to the dilution of Christ’s teaching and, ultimately, a betrayal of the Spirit that animates us. We see and hear this when preachers begin preaching a Prosperity Gospel—Jesus wants you to be rich!—; or when they begin preaching a Zeitgeist Gospel—Jesus wants us to “fit in” with our times so we can witness from within;—or when you hear the Gospel of Identity Politics—being American, Black, Gay, Male or Female, Left or Right is preached to be more important than being faithful to Christ. All of these, of course, are dodges, ways around the difficult demands of what Jesus teaches us to be and do. They allow us to sift out the hard stuff and celebrate that which most tickles our bored ears. True martyrs (not self-appointed martyrs) present us with an extraordinarily hard reality: they believe the Gospel and die proclaiming it. Could we do the same if called upon to do so? 

St. Boniface, an eighth-century English Benedictine bishop and martyr who served as a missionary to Germany, wrote to a friend, “Let us be neither dogs that do not bark nor silent on-lookers nor paid servants who run away before the wolf…Let us preach the whole of God’s plan…in season and out of season.”* Though this sounds benign enough, Boniface died doing it, or rather died because he did it—he barked and refused to be hired as a religious P.R. man for Zeitgeist, Inc. Paul found himself in a similar position. Paul reports in Acts that he was seized by the Jewish leaders in the temple and almost killed because “[he] preached the need to repent and turn to God, and to do works giving evidence of repentance.” Should we be shocked that Paul would find himself the target of the powers-that-be? Not really. Jesus warned his disciples that they would follow him to the cross if they persisted in preaching his word. And it is persistence that most often gets the Gospel preacher and believer into trouble. 

Jesus says, “A hired man, who is not a shepherd…sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away…” The wolf attacks the sheep, killing one or two and scattering the rest. Why does the hired man run? Jesus says, “This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep.” A preacher hired by Zeitgeist, Inc. will do the same—cut and run when it looks as though the wolves of persecution, opposition, and scorn come bounding down the hill. The good shepherd will stay and fight. And though he will never lose, he may sometimes die. 

There’s almost no chance that anyone here this evening will be called upon to die for preaching the Gospel.** In the U.S. in the 21st century, the Zeitgeist has learned more subtle ways of tempting us away from the Good Shepherd. Perhaps the most powerful temptation comes from the devil of freedom, or more accurately named, the devil of choice. Dangling before us the illusion of unfettered choice in a marketplace of unlimited options, the devil of liberty coaxes us with a powerful sense of entitlement, a sense of being owed our comfort, our liberty. And so, we stand dumbfounded in the Wal-Marts of religious goods and services, the Winn-Dixies of spiritual options, and we pick and choose. I will preach mercy but not justice; love but not responsibility; forgiveness but not sin. I will preach heaven but not hell; faith but not obedience. With a shopping cart full of our hodge-podge choices, we check-out and pay with our souls, and then go out preaching a gospel half-bought. If our souls must be the currency with which we purchase a spiritual good, let that purchase be our eternal lives with Christ. As the Dogs of God, we can do nothing less than die while ferociously barking the Gospel just as Jesus taught it.

* from the Office of Readings, St. Boniface

** I wrote that sentence in 2008.  Five years later. . .I'm not so sure anymore.

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10 Homilies for Audio Download

Per a reader's request. . .10 homilies recorded in 2012/2013 here at St Dominic Church:

The Spirit of the Lord 

Most Holy Trinity Sunday

First & Last

Get Some Beautiful Feet

Are you prepared for radical transfiguration?

Where's Your Courage?

Go Out into the Deep

Give From Your Poverty

Tribulation & the Second Advent

A Time to Measure
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We don't live rent-free in God's head

Charles Lwanga and Companions 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 
St. Dominic Church, NOLA 

Jesus uses the parable of the wicked tenants to retell the story of Israel's turbulent history with God. In a tidy paragraph or so Jesus manages to summarize: 1) the essential relationship btw God and Israel (owner to renter); 2) the repeated failure of Israel to live up to the terms of the lease agreement (refusing to turn over God's share of the harvest); 3) their abuse of God's agents sent to procure His share (rejection of the prophets); and 4) their abuse and murder of the God's son in an failed attempt to steal his inheritance (the Passion and death of Christ). Sad but true: the tenants' behavior probably doesn't shock us. We're all too used to hearing about this sort thing from our fellow human beings. What should shock us, what I hope shocks us, or at least baffles us a little, is God's apparently relentless drive to get His people to hold up their end of the Covenant. Given their repeated fall from His grace and their stubborn refusal to accept His Word, why does God—over and over again—lift them back up, set them back on track, and bless them abundantly despite their disobedience? Why does He do this for us? For you? 

The one word answer here could be: love. He loves us. True. God is love, so it is His nature to forgive and bless. And His patience with our disobedience is surely a by-product of His loving nature. But if forgiveness were just about His love for us, then why do we care if we've sinned against Him? I mean, if we know that He will forgive us everything we do, why does sin bother us? A big part of the answer here is that we love God, so disobeying Him can be painful, spiritually harmful and we feel it. But there's another element at play here that we might not readily call to mind. God's patience with our sin presupposes that we are rational animals; that is, He's patient with us b/c He knows that we are capable of responding to His love rationally, deliberately. Given time with His divine gift of love, we can reason our way out of the habit of disobedience; we are capable of learning not to sin, learning to receive His grace, and working with those received graces to come closer to His perfect Love. Over time, we come to see that sin is not only a violation of divine love, it is also an irrational reaction to the divine word, the Law of Love that Christ himself gives us. The wicked tenants are wicked b/c of their greed, but their greed—given the generosity of the vineyard owner—is irrational, not just illogical, but unreasoning. 

We have long since lost any sense at all that irrational thinking or behavior is a sin. In fact, in our postmodern culture, right reason is considered oppressively patriarchal. “Logic” is not longer logical and “reason” is just an evil way to suppress the glories of emotions. But as followers of Christ the Logos, we are partakers in the divine life, the life of the Blessed Trinity that provides Rightness, Order, Reason, and Truth to the whole of creation. If the wicked tenants had exercised their minds rather than their passions, they might've come to their perfection w/o the threat of death hanging over their heads. Can we say the same? Why do we wait for that nagging sense of guilt to drag us into the confessional? Why do we persist in habitual sin, knowing what it does to our growth in holiness? Why do we refuse to bend our necks to most reasonable rules and treat our freedom in Christ as a license to sin? We can blame passion. But let's put the blame where it belongs: we are being irrational. Not only are we not “feeling right,” we're not thinking right, preferring to indulge the animal part of our nature and letting the rational part wither. Fortunately, God's love for us entails being patient with our thick heads. So, while we enjoy His mercy, let's work on our right reason and make the deliberate choice to live in His love rationally. 

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Coffee Cup Browsing

Not good at all:  riots in Turkey. One of the few Muslim-dominated democracies in that region. 

Yup: ". . .when a scandal is systemic, ideological and focused on political ends, it will not just magically end."

Big surprise: orders to local IRS offices to target conservative groups came from D.C.

IRS: $50,000,000 for 220 conference in two years.  

"Private faith" threatens religious influence on our culture.

Francis quoting Paul VI: ". . .you cannot advance the Gospel with sad, hopeless, discouraged Christians. You cannot."

SNAP Prez caught with hypocritical hand in the perverted cookie jar. 

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“to impress the vastness of [His] love more firmly upon the hearts of the faithful…”

NB. Deacons are preaching this weekend.  Here's a version of a 2005 homily that I've reposted a few times over the years and actually preached last year at St Dominic.

Solemnity of Corpus Christi (2012)
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA   

These are a few of my favorite things: Buttermilk dripped and deep-fried chicken. Butter beans with bacon and onions. Garlic mashed potatoes with chicken gravy. Greens with fatback and vinegar. Squash casserole, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole with a pecan and brown sugar crust. Deviled eggs. Warm biscuits. Homemade, cast-iron skillet cornbread with real butter. Fresh yeast rolls. Pecan pie. Chocolate pie. Mississippi Mud Cake. Bread pudding with whiskey sauce. Can you tell I’m a true blood Southerner?! Each of these and all of them together do more than just expand my waistline and threaten the structural integrity of my belt—each and all of them together make up for me a palette of memories, a buffet (if you will!) of powerful reminders of who I am, where I came from, who I love, who loves me, and where I am going. Second perhaps only to sex, eating is one of the most intimate things we do. Think about it for just a second: when you eat, you take into your body stuff from the world—meat, vegetables, water—you put this stuff in your mouth, you chew, you taste and feel, you smell and swallow, and all of it, every bite, becomes your body. This is extraordinarily intimate! We are made up of, literally, built out of what we eat. If we eat and drink Christ this morning, whom do we become?

What does it mean then for you, for all of us to eat the Body of Christ and to drink his Blood? Thomas Aquinas answers: “Since it was the will of God’s only-begotten Son that men should share in his divinity, he assumed our nature in order that by becoming man he might make men gods.” God became man so that we all might become god. In Christ Jesus, we are made more than holy, more than just, more than righteous; we are made perfect as the Father is perfect. Wholly joined to Holy Other, divinized as God promised at the moment of creation, we are brought to the divine by the Divine and given to participate in the life of God by God. We are brought and given. Brought to Him by Christ and given to Him by Christ. We do not go to God uninvited, and we do not receive from Him what is not first given. Therefore, “take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my body, which will be given up for you…” And when you take the gift of his body and eat, and when you take the gift of his blood and drink, you become what you eat and drink. You become Christ. And all together we are Christ for one another—his Body, the church. In his first encyclical, Deus caritas est, Pope Benedict, writes, “Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians. We become 'one body', completely joined in a single existence. Love of God and love of neighbour are now truly united: God incarnate draws us all to himself. We can thus understand how agape [divine love] also became a term for the Eucharist: there God's own agape comes to us bodily, in order to continue his work in us and through us”(14). 

Thomas calls the Eucharist the sacramentum caritatis, the sacrament of love. The Eucharist is not a family picnic or Sunday dinner. We’re not talking about a community meal or a neighborhood buffet. All of these can and do express genuine love for God, self, and neighbor. But Thomas is teaching us something far more radical about the Eucharist here than the pedestrian notion that eating together makes us better people and a stronger community! The sacramentum caritatis is an efficacious sign of God’s gift of Himself to us for our perfection. In other words, the Eucharist we celebrate this morning is not just a memorial, just a symbol, just a community prayer service, just a familial gathering, just a ritual. In Christ, with him and through him, we effect—make real and produce—the redeeming graces of Calvary and the Empty Tomb: Christ on the cross and Christ risen from the grave. Again, we are not merely being reminded of an important bible story nor are we being taught a lesson about sharing and caring nor are we simply “feeling” Christ’s presence among us. We are doing exactly what Christ tells us to do: we are eating his body and drinking his blood for our perfection, for our eternal lives. And while we wait for his coming again, we walk this earth as Christs! Imperfect now, to be perfected eventually; but right now, radically loved by Love Himself and loved so that we may be changed, converted from our disobedience, brought to repentance and forgiveness, and absolved of all violence against God’s will for us. 

Thomas teaches us that God gave us the Eucharist in order “to impress the vastness of [His] love more firmly upon the hearts of the faithful…” How vast is His love for us? He gifted us with His Son. He gave His only child up to death so that we might live. And He gave us the means of our most intimate communion with Him. We take his body into our bodies. His blood into ours. We are made co-heirs, brothers and sisters, prophets and priests; we are made holy, just, and clean; we are made Christ, and having been made Christs, we are given his ministries, his holy tasks: teaching, preaching, healing, feeding. This Eucharist tells you who you are, where you came from, where you are going. It tells you why you are here and what you must do. And most importantly, this celebration of thanksgiving, tells you and me who it is that loves us and what being loved by Love Himself means for our sin, our repentance, our conversion, our ministries, our progress in holiness. . .

Do not fail to hand on what you yourself have received: the gift of the Christ. Our Holy Father, Benedict, writes, “Faith, worship and [ethics] are interwoven as a single reality which takes shape in our encounter with God's [divine love]. Here the usual [distinction] between worship and ethics simply falls apart. 'Worship' itself, Eucharistic communion, includes the reality both of being loved and of loving others in turn. A Eucharist which does not pass over into the concrete practice of love is [essentially broken]”(14). Therefore, walk out those doors this morning and present yourself to the world as a sacramentum caritatis. Walk out of here a sacrament of love—a sign, a witness, a tabernacle, an icon—walk out of here branded by the Holy Spirit to preach, teach, bless, feed, eat, drink, pray, to love, and to spread the infectious joy that comes naturally to a child of God! 

A Southern blessing: as your waist expands to fill the limits of your belt, so may your spirit grow to hold the limitless love of Him Who loves you always.

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Group pic

The Dominican friars of St Martin de Porres (USA)! 

(Well, those who came to the recent assembly in St Louis anyway. . .)

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No Bobbing and Weaving!

Justin Martyr 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 
St. Dominic Church, NOLA 

The Pharisees and scribes—finally fed up with Jesus' teaching and disruptive behavior—ask Jesus a straightforward question: “By what authority are you doing these things?” “These things” includes using a whip to clear the temple area of moneychangers. Why would his enemies care by what authority he causes a near-riot in the temple? It would seem that Jesus' behavior alone is enough to discredit him in the eyes of the crowd. So, why ask about his authority? There is a long history among God's people of prophets being sent to straighten out the messes caused by the ruling religious elite. The Pharisees and scribes do want to discredit Jesus on religious grounds, but they also want to make sure that he's not a real God-sent prophet. They both want to know and do want to know who he is. This ambivalence leaves them teetering btw action and inaction, btw their religious power and the anger of the crowd. When challenged by Jesus with a simple question, the elites fall back on a time-honored political dodge. They answer, “We don't know.” They do know! But they don't answer b/c the consequences of doing so are just too much to bear. For us, “we don't know” is never an answer to the question of Jesus' identity. He is the Christ. Then, now, always. 

The Pharisees and scribes claim not to know whether or not John's baptism is of divine origin. Maybe they don't know, strictly speaking, but they do have an opinion on the question. But because they are afraid of the crowd and even more afraid of who Jesus might be, they claim ignorance. This is a dodge pure and simple. You can almost hear the groaning and jeering of the crowd when they start to bob and weave. We can guess is Jesus is pleased with this dodge b/c he's not yet ready to fully reveal his identity. Their “we don't know” allows him to dodge their original question, thus preserving the Messianic secret for a while longer. That secret—that Jesus is the Messiah—has long since been revealed, so we cannot honestly say, “We don't know by what authority Jesus did all those things.” By what authority did he teach, preach, heal, admonish; by what authority did he choose the apostles, commission them, send them out; by what authority did he establish the Church, invest her with his own authority, and preserve her from error? We can't say that we don't know. We can't safely dodge these questions. There's no crowd waiting to riot if we answer incorrectly, but there is the sin of deceit and the possibility of scandal if we start to bob and weave.

If Jesus is who he says he is—and he is—then certain truths follow naturally from this single truth. If Jesus is the Christ—and he is—then the Church is his body working in the world; Francis is the successor to Peter and Christ's steward on earth; the Church mediates divine grace to her members; all the baptized are each a priest, a prophet, and a king; the Eucharist is true food and true drink, and so on. In other words, the truth of everything we believe about ourselves as Christians rests on the question of Jesus' true identity. So, why would we ever hesitate to loudly proclaim that Jesus is the Christ? Like the Pharisees and scribes, we face popular pressure; threats to our own identity; threats to our need for control; pressure from elite factions of our country and culture; we may even feel pressure from within the Church to bob and weave when applying the Gospel to contemporary problems. Remember the Pharisees and scribes: they are ambivalent, teetering btw truth and fiction, left dangling with nothing but their naked pride showing. Our yes must yes and our no must be no. There is no maybe in preaching the Good News. Either Jesus is who he says he is or he isn't. If he isn't the Christ, then why are you here? If he is, then shout that Good News from the rooftops and make known the saving power of God! 

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Perilous Sensibilities

[. . .]

[Theological modernism] was little more than the result of a rather puerile desire of Christians, especially clergymen and theologians, to avoid being counter-cultural, to retain the same status and “relevance” in a secular age as had been accorded them in a Catholic age. Therefore, by the mid-20th century, Modernism had become the quasi-spiritual and theological doorway through which a profound secularization entered into the Church, as Catholics at every level embraced the opportunity to reinterpret their faith and values in ways which made them more compatible with the larger surrounding culture—a culture which was no longer shaped in any significant way by the Faith.

 

The result was a rapid shift in Catholic sensibilities, beginning with a rejection of authority in favor of the zeitgeist (spirit of the times or cultural spirit). Where in 1930 parishioners would likely have been shocked if their priest undermined or contradicted a clear statement of the Holy See, in 1980 parishioners could very easily be moved to applaud the courage and vision such a contradiction seemed to them to embody. This broad infection of secularization in the Church led to countless abuses in preaching, in the liturgy, in catechetics, in theology classes, and even in social action and politics. In fact, as both the attitude of relativism and the power of the State grew during the same period, Catholics began to see things more and more in merely political terms. Every disagreement was understood to be essentially a partisan struggle.

In some universities and religious communities, these attitudes continue unabated even now that dioceses and parishes have begun to heal. Efforts by the Holy See to correct the wayward are a perfect example. The Holy See inevitably speaks in terms of the objective and absolute truths Divinely revealed through Jesus Christ, and the Holy See is inevitably dismissed as a bunch of old, celibate, white European males making a power grab for a party whose relevance has long since vanished from the world stage.

[. . .]

Read the whole thing.

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Healing becomes discipleship

8th Week OT (Th) 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 
St. Dominic Church, NOLA 

Bartimaeus' blindness is healed, so naturally we assume that this gospel story is about a miraculous cure. In fact, Bartimaeus' healing is a story about discipleship, a story about being healed so that discipleship is possible. We know this b/c the Greek tells us much more than our English translation can. Mark tells us that Bartimaeus is sitting by the “roadside begging.” The Greek work for “roadside” is hodon. Once his blindness is healed, Mark tells us that Bartimaeus follows Jesus “on the way.” The Greek here is hodo. In other words, Bartimaeus, blind and pitiful, is sitting along side the way begging. Jesus comes along the way, heals Bartimaeus' blindness, and now he, once blind, follows Jesus on the Way, both enlightened and sighted. Other than the miraculous cure, what changes btw Bartimaeus begging beside the way and Bartimaeus following along behind Jesus on the way? Our Lord asks the blind man, “What can I do for you?” He answers, “Master, I want to see.” In his compassion, Jesus says, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” What “way” does Bartimaeus choose? He chooses the Way of Christ. 

After healing Bartimaeus, Jesus tells the once blind man to “go your way.” His eyes are open now. He can “see” the truth. He can choose his own way and live life w/o begging. With all the options available to him, he chooses Christ as his way, the truth, and the life, giving his own life to the ministry of Christ by following him. So, yes, this is a story with a miraculous healing, but it is fundamentally a story about how a blind man comes to see by faith and answers the call to discipleship as a student of Christ. Like Bartimaeus, we are all called to discipleship. Every one of us hears a call to be a student learning at the feet of a Master. The question is: who do we choose as our teacher? The options are legion. We can be students of our rapidly collapsing Enlightenment culture; students of material science and the nihilism it imposes; students of our disordered passions and instincts; students of the created world, giving ourselves over to made-things rather than their Maker. We will learn from a Master, someone or something will teach us. The only question is: who will we choose to learn from? And make no mistake, we choose our teachers. We choose to submit ourselves to the lessons we learn. Bartimaeus chooses Christ with good reason. Why have you chosen Christ? What are your good reasons? 

We don't have to think too hard to understand why Bartimaeus chooses Christ as his teacher. Jesus tells his disciples to call the blind man over to him. They say to Bartimaeus, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.” But how did Jesus even notice the poor beggar in the first place? Over the racket of the crowd, Jesus hears the man calling him repeatedly, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” Bartimaeus calls out to Jesus for compassion. Jesus calls Bartimaeus to discipleship by healing his blindness. That's a good reason to make Christ your way, your truth, and your life. What's your good reason? Why do we need a good reason to follow Christ? What's wrong with saying, “It's my choice! I don't need a reason”? For someone, you and I will become a teacher. You and I will be chosen as someone to follow. If we follow Christ, then we will naturally lead to Christ those who look to us for instruction. If we're to point to Christ as the Master, and not ourselves as some sort of guru, then we need a reason to be walking his Way. If we are no longer blind to the truth, who healed us and how? Make yourselves ready to give reasons for your faith. “As the rising sun is clear to all, so the glory of the Lord fills all his works. . .” You are among His most beautiful works. How will you reveal His glory if asked for the reason why? 

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Francis and Liberation Theology

The pope cares for the poor and calls upon all Christians to assist them.  

This must mean that our Holy Father embraces liberation theology, right?  I mean, only leftists really care for the poor!

Wrong.

So is Pope Francis a closet liberation theologian, or someone with strong sympathies for the school of thought? It’s a question that’s been raised many times since Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s election to the papacy in March. Most recently, the New York Times weighed in on the subject. While discussing the tone adopted by Bergoglio since becoming pope, the NYT article claimed that Francis has “an affinity for liberation theology.” “Francis’s speeches,” the article argues, “draw clearly on the themes of liberation theology.” It also suggested that “Francis studied with an Argentine Jesuit priest who was a proponent of liberation theology.”

I’m afraid, however, that if one looks at Francis’s pre-pontifical writings, a rather different picture emerges. Certainly Bergoglio is a man who has always been concerned about those in genuine material need. But orthodox Christianity didn’t need to wait for liberation theology in order to articulate deep concern for the materially poor and to remind those with power and resources that they have concrete obligations to the less fortunate. From the very beginning, it was a message that pervaded the Gospels and the Church’s subsequent life.

Read the whole thing.
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Calling All Catholic Education Nerds!

Next semester I will teaching a course at Notre Dame Seminary called, "Teaching and Preaching the Word of God."

The course is designed to teach seminarians who to teach the faith to children/teens/adults. 

The General Directory of Catechesis and the USCCB's United States Catholic Catechism for Adults will feature prominently, but we still need a good book or two on theory/method in faith formation pedagogy.

Any suggestions?

P.S. Thomas Groome's work has been mentioned as a possibility. . .but I'm pretty sure his stuff (or some really bad uses of his stuff) has been partly responsibile for the collapse of good faith formation in the last 40 yrs.

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A Servant Church Needs All of God's Gifts

8th Week OT (W) 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 
St. Dominic Church, NOLA 

 We do well to start this day in prayer, praying with Sirach, “Come to our aid, O God of the universe, look upon us, show us the light of your mercies. . .Give new signs and work new wonders. . .Give evidence of your deeds of old; fulfill the prophecies spoken in your name, Reward those who have hoped in you. . .Hear the prayer of your servants. . .and lead us in the way of justice. . .” This is a prayer for restoration, a prayer for renewal and strength. All that the Lord has to give is given but the Church has yet to receive all of His gifts. Our Lord has given us aid, light, mercy signs, wonders, hope, prophecies fulfilled, and abundant justice. And like James and John who assure Christ that they can follow him into suffering and death, we have assured ourselves that we are open to receiving all of God's gifts. But are we open to all that God has to give us? Our Holy Father, Francis, has repeatedly urged us to transform ourselves into a “servant Church,” echoing Christ who teaches his disciples, “. . .whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.” 

If we will be open to receiving all of God's gifts—not just the ones we see as personally advantageous—we will be slaves to all. We are given divine gifts for one purpose: to use freely for the benefit of others. And in using these gifts for others, we are perfected in His love. What are your divine gifts? First, you are alive. As a follower of Christ, your life belongs to God. Every breath, every heartbeat, every second of your existence is His. Second, you are a rational creature, meaning that you are made by God to think, to reason, to deliberate. By this gift you are freed from the prison of instinct and disordered passion. This allows you to use the gift of life to order your heart and mind toward service. Third, just as you were made by God to reason, you are re-made in Christ to love. Joined to Christ in baptism, you are a member of his living Body on Earth, a sacrament of human flesh and bone that presents God's mercy to the world. And, finally, because you are re-made in Christ to love, you can become Christ for others, re-making others in his love. If Christ came to serve not to be served, then those of us who hope to grow in Christ's perfection must serve. And to do this, we must be open to receiving all of God's gifts and using them for the good of all. 

When Pope Francis urges us to transform ourselves into a “servant Church,” he is not urging us to strengthen the social services division of Catholic Church, Inc. He's not calling on us to set up a new bureaucracy dedicated to handing out grants to aid organizations or funding new social programs. The Servant Church that he has in mind drinks from the same chalice that Christ drinks from: the chalice of individual sacrificial love, personal service for the good of the many. Each of us is called up to serve, personally serve, in the world united to the Body. This isn't about works-salvation; we're not racking up Heaven Points to redeem later. The spiritual rewards of slave-servitude to others are immediate. Every use of our gifts—whatever those individual gifts may be—sharpens and polishes God's love in us, and His glory shines out from us all the more, drawing in all those who are starving for His mercy and His word. Our Lord has given us aid, light, signs, wonders, hope, prophecies fulfilled, and abundant justice. Are hoarding these gifts? Socking them away for a rainy day? Or are you busy about the Lord's work, imitating Christ in sacrificial love, slaving away at loving others into the Body? “Come to our aid, O God of the universe, look upon us, show us the light of your mercies!”

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God provides a way back

8th Week OT (M) 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 
St. Dominic Church, NOLA 

For those of us who are lost, held captive to sin, and living in darkness, there is a way to be found, freed, and brought into the light. Sirach assures us, “To the penitent God provides a way back, he encourages those who are losing hope and has chosen for them the lot of truth.” God provides, encourages, and chooses. He provides the means for returning to Him. He encourages the weakened heart. He chooses truth and makes truth an inheritance. For whom does God provide, encourage, and choose? The penitent. Those who repent, those who turn from sin and disobedience and return to Him in contrition. Repentance is not a condition for mercy. There are no conditions for the gift of mercy. However, what good is mercy if it is not freely received? To receive God's mercy, to be open to making mercy work in the life of a sinner, the sinner must take what is given. But we cannot take a divine gift and put it to work in a soul that has turned away from God. So, we must repent, turn again toward God and His rule. Think for a moment: what prevents you from turning again toward God? What weighs you down, holds you under the thumb of sin? 

The rich young man—a figure both sympathetic and tragic—asks Jesus, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus recites the Ten Commandments, knowing already that the man follows the Law dutifully. The man says, “Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.” Though he has followed the Law since he was a child, the man is still lost, living in darkness. And even though he's living in darkness, he longs to be brought into the light. This tells us that sin can never completely destroy our desire for eternal life, our hope of salvation. Mark tells us, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him. . .” Despite his sin, despite his attachment to things, Jesus loves him. Thus, Christ is the means that God provides for us to return to Him. Christ is the encouragement that God provides to strengthen our sin-weakened hearts. Christ is the choice that God makes for us to live in truth. The man is kneeling before Jesus the Teacher and he's asking to be taught. So, Jesus teaches, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” The man lacks for nothing in this world except the will to leave the world for heaven. 

What's weighing him down? What's holding him under the thumb of sin? Stuff can't keep us from God—money, cars, gadgets. These are things. Made things. They are all as light as smoke. The burden holding the man down is the value he attaches to these thing. But even “value” is an abstract concept; it's a made thing of the mind. Like an idol, “value” reflects the one who made it. The man turns away from Christ b/c he has invested his worth, his sense of self in the passing stuff of creation. Whether he knows it or not, he worships a god of his own making, and looks to that false god to save him. When Jesus tells him to go sell everything he has and give it all to the poor, he's not just telling the man to impoverish himself, he's telling him to abandon a false religion, to destroy an idol he himself has made. In effect, Jesus is saying, “If you want eternal life, then you must worship only the One who is eternal.” Giving up his idol means giving up everything that has defined him, given him purpose and hope. He walks away. But Sirach assures us, “To the penitent God provides a way back, he encourages those who are losing hope and has chosen for them the lot of truth.”

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Bad Trinitarian Analogies

My thanks to Tom of Disputations for bringing this to my attention:

 

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St Philip Neri

 Happy Feast Day to all the Philip Neri's of the world! 

(I hope my beard will be that glorious one day. . .)

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In the face of Mystery, we wait. . .

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity 2013 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 
St. Dominic Church/Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA 

 If we were to wonder about the fundamental difference between scientists and believers, we could say that scientists work to expose the mysteries of the universe by use of reason alone, while believers—Christian believers—work along side mystery in reason and wonder to expose themselves to God and His handiwork. Scientists hope to learn more about the universe for the sheer delight of gaining practical knowledge. Believers hope to learn more about creation so that their joy may be complete by growing closer to their Creator. The fundamental difference btw science and faith hinges on mystery. For science, a mystery is a problem is to be solved. For faith, mystery is a truth not yet revealed. What we share with science is the alluring power of Not Yet, the seduction of knowing just enough to keep us motivated to learn more. When Jesus says, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now,” scientists hear a challenge but believers hear a promise. The promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit is fulfilled at Pentecost. And with the coming of the Holy Spirit, God reveals the central mystery of the faith: He is Three in One. 

How to describe this essential mystery? We could say that the Trinity is like a single drop of water in three forms: fluid, frozen, vaporous. But the Trinity is Three in One simultaneously, while a drop of water cannot be fluid, frozen, and vaporous all at the same time. We could say that the Trinity is like a woman who is simultaneously a mother, an aunt, and a sister. But the Trinity is Three in One absolutely, relative only to one another, while a woman is a mother, an aunt, and a sister only in relation to her children, her nieces, and her siblings. We could say that the Trinity is like a person with three jobs: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. The Father creates; the Son redeems; and the Spirit sanctifies. That's not wrong as such but if the Three are One then all Three must each be Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. You begin to see the problem, right? How do we describe what is essentially unsayable, indescribable? We know that God is Three Persons in One Divinity, but how do we make sense of this mystery? We wait. Jesus says, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. . .” He doesn't say that we can never bear all that he has to tell us; we just can't bear all the truth right now. So, we wait and trust and hold ourselves in hope that the fullness of this mystery will revealed when we are finally perfected. 

What do we do in the meantime? Between knowing the little that we know and knowing the whole truth, what do we do? Jesus reassures us, “. . .when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.” If the Spirit of Truth comes to guides us, then we must make our ready to be guided. And how do we do that? Writing to the Romans, Paul, teaches: “. . .we boast in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint. . .” As followers of Christ, we boast about both our blessings and our afflictions. We boast of our blessings to show the world the mercy of God. We boast of our afflictions to produce endurance, character, and hope. What we do btw imperfect and perfect knowing is live our lives in that sure knowledge that “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. . .” When our imperfect knowledge of God's mysteries fails us, love never will b/c God is love and He never fails. And that is the definition of hope: knowing that God never fails. He never fails to provide, to forgive, to honor His promises. We prepare ourselves to be guided by the Spirit by hoping, by accepting the truth that God will not/cannot fail us.

If we accept this truth and live this truth, then we are living with God who is Three in One. We are living trinitarian lives. Since the first century of the Church, our ancestors made a distinction btw the theological Trinity and the economic Trinity. The theological Trinity is the Trinity as He knows and understands Himself. Reason alone cannot help us know or understand God as He knows and understands Himself. So, how do we know anything at all about the Trinity? Since all of creation abides in God, and we live and move and have our being in God, we can look to creation and see the Trinity's presence there. The Trinity works in creation, works through His creatures to reveal His truest nature. This is the economic Trinity. When we love forgive, provide, bless, create, trust, sacrifice, and bear witness to Christ, we manifest—imperfectly, of course—we manifest the Blessed Trinity. Each one of us is a sliver of the mystery that is the Trinity working in creation. Each one of us reveals how we are the Father's favored child, the Son's brother or sister, the Spirit's student and servant. Each one of us is a piece of God's peace, His assurance that all is well, that everything will always be well with Him. 

And we know that all will be well with Him b/c, as the Catechism teaches us, “The ultimate end of the whole divine economy is the entry of God's creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity” (n. 260). The whole point of God's cosmic plan of salvation is to bring us to Him to live perfectly united in Him. Do we need a scientific understanding of the divine mysteries to be perfect? No. Besides, science cannot perfect us. Do we need to work along side the divine mysteries in wonder and reason in order to be made perfect? Yes. B/c we cannot be made perfect, we cannot be brought to God w/o our consent and help. Mysteries of the faith—like the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection—are all revealed truths that we do not yet fully understand. We know that God is Three Persons in One Divine Being. We know that Christ is fully human, fully divine. We know that Christ was raised from his tomb body and soul. And we even have some inkling of what these mysteries mean to our daily lives as followers of Christ. What we don't yet know, what we cannot yet bear, is the weight, the fullness of these truths completely revealed. For that we must wait to see God face-to-face. And to see Him face-to-face, we must submit to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit urges us to live trinitarian lives. We read in the Catechism: “Everyone who glorifies the Father does so through the Son in the Holy Spirit; everyone who follows Christ does so because the Father draws him and the Spirit moves him” (n. 259). Open yourself to being drawn by the Father to follow Christ. Open yourself to being moved by the Spirit to follow Christ. Follow Christ—wholly abandoned to him—and you will find yourself working along side the mysteries of faith in wonder and reason, opening your heart and mind to all that God has to show you. When Jesus says, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now,” scientists hear a daring challenge but believers hear a loving promise. Christ promises to make us strong enough, whole enough, beautiful enough to bear up under every truth, all truth, fully revealed and wondrously arrayed. And because of this promise “we boast in hope of the glory of God.” 

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Preaching & Poetry

My thanks to M.R. for the book on preaching. And B.M. for the Hirsch book of poetry.  

I plan on using both in my classes come the Fall semester.

I have a lot of reading to do before August. . .apparently, homiletics is a very productive field.
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"According to the whole"

Fr. Z. drew my attention to the Pastor's Page of Fr. George Welzbacher, wherein Father expounds:

The technical term Catholic, whose first known use occurs in the letters of the bishop and martyr Ignatius of Antioch, writing very early in the second century of the Christian era [. . .] is a term derived from the ancient Greek adverbial phrase kath holon, meaning "according to the WHOLE". This new adjective [. . .] was used by St. Ignatius to differentiate, on the one hand, the Church that preaches the whole revelation of Christ to the whole world to all generations to come until the end of time, in contrast with those transitory sects that, like bargain hunters at a rummage sale, pick and choose only such items as happen to have a passing appeal. The authentic Catholic is therefore one who accepts the whole doctrine of Christ, intact and untrimmed, and (with special relevance to our day) not revised with respect to the proper use of the sexual power. The authentic Catholic recognizes that Christ's teachings are eternal and absolute, not subject to revision, inasmuch as not even Christ Himself was at liberty to change them, since, as He explained: "The word that I have spoken to you is not mine; it is the word of Him Who sent Me" (John 14: 24).

[. . .]

Read the whole thing.  Well worth your time.

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The kingdom belongs to The Leapers

7th Week OT (S) 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 
St. Dominic Church, NOLA 

 Jesus says, “Let the children come to me; do not prevent them. . .” Why? “[Because] the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” We have to understand this scene on two levels. First, the literal sense: Jesus is addressing his disciples and indignantly rebuking them for trying to keep a bunch of children away from him. Apparently, it was considered undignified for a rabbi to be swamped by a gang of grubby kids! Second, the spiritual sense: though he doesn't say so explicitly, our Lord is teaching us that keeping our children from him is an injustice. If the kingdom belongs to them (and it does), then interfering with our children coming into the kingdom deprives them of what is rightly theirs. As ever, Jesus is being very practical here. It is well and good that adults come into the kingdom. But if the Good News of God's freely given mercy to sinners is to survive beyond one generation, the Church needs children. And not just persons who happen to be minors. Jesus adds, “. . .whoever does not accept the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.” Being a child in the kingdom is both a matter of age and attitude. What does it mean to be child coming into the kingdom? 

When we think of children we likely think of the Ideal Child. Sweet, loving, innocent, obedient, curious, a walking-talking blank slate upon which parents impress their values. If you have children or spend much time with them you know all too well that children are perfectly capable of being angry, petty, rebellious, stubborn, and greedy. In other words, they can be just as vicious as any adult. Jesus must know this, so we have to wonder what he means by “accepting the kingdom as a child.” He can't mean “imitate the adult attitudes of children.” And he can't mean “think and act in a childish manner.” He must mean something like “run to me and embrace me like these children do.” What do children forget when they see someone they love? They forget manners, protocols; they focus on the loved one and demand attention; they simply assume that they must be the be-all and end-all of the loved one's life. . .at that moment. Nothing matters more right then and there than being close to the one they love. Rushing head-long, abandoning dignity and social grace, they leap; they cling, forgetting and forgiving, rejoicing simply in being with the one they love. Does this describe your attitude and behavior toward Christ and his Church? 

More than likely, you, like me, tend to stand off a bit from Christ and his Church—analyzing, debating, weighing options, waiting for the Right Moment to leap. Having been disappointed too often by the all too human foibles of the Church, we choose to gamble wisely when it comes to surrendering ourselves. We want to know if the Church is going to accept just as I am. Will I be welcomed? Will I be called upon to do something I don't want to do? Does leaping into Christ's arms mean that I have to change something I don't want to change? Will I have to face my fears and failures and try to make things right? The answer to all these questions is Yes. And that's frightening. So, we hang back, calculate the odds, map out an escape route, and slowly dip a toe into the water to make sure we're going to be comfortable. Here's the bad news: following Christ isn't about being comfortable. It isn't about being safe and security in our OK-ness. I'm not OK; you're not OK and that OK b/c we're heading toward being fully OK in Christ. That is, if we look our children and their freakish abandon when embracing the ones they love. Following Christ is first about leaping into his arms, into the lap of Mother Church, and surrendering everything, all of it to our wild desire to be loved forever. The kingdom does not belong to those who calculate the odds, weigh their options, and try to negotiate a better deal. There is no better deal than the mercy of God. So, leap!

My Big News

OK. . .here's my Big News. . .

Archbishop Gregory Aymond has approved the recommendation of the faculty of the Notre Dame Seminary to hire me on as Director and Professor of Homiletics and Formation Advisor effective July 1, 2013.

Basically, my duties include teaching homiletics to the seminarians and serving on the formation team of the seminary. 

I will remain in residence at St Dominic.
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