Defilement from within...

5th Week OT: 1 Kings 10.1-10; Mark 7.14-23
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

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Sin rises from our center, from our heart. Its seed is planted and nourished in the place of covenant, the place where we withdraw to rest in solitude with our Lord. Sin is the powerful enemy of holiness precisely because it sprouts so aggressively from “the dwelling-place where [we are], where [we] live”(CCC 2563). A heart choked with the weeds of sin beats less vigorously for righteousness, shrinks more quickly from the duties of mercy, and dies more quickly from one failure of charity after another.

Jesus teaches his students, “From within the man, from his heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery […] All these evils come from within and they defile.” He had just finished telling the disciples that defilement, impurity does not come from what we put into our bodies, but rather from what comes out! Parenthetically, literally “with parentheses,” the NAB notes: “Thus he declared all foods clean.” But this is not so much a declaration of freedom from the purity laws regarding food as it is a declaration of moral, spiritual adulthood for his followers. A declaration with serious responsibilities.

Please note what Jesus is not doing here: he is not freeing his disciples from the obligations of the heart, meaning, he is not removing from them the God-placed hook that relentlessly reels them back to the Father. He is not abandoning the very notion of sin itself as his ancestors understood it. Sin is still disobedience and rebellion against the divine and natural order, the habitual failure to listen to and to comply with those truths revealed to us by God and those known to us by reason. And, finally, Jesus is not teaching his disciples (and us!) that we may abandon the basic precepts of the Law in favor of some sort of merely affective notion of moral behavior, in favor of some sort of modern therapeutic fetishes like “integrity” or “wellness” or “maturity.”

What Jesus is voiding is the “traditions of men” that have attached themselves to the Law. The most basic goods revealed to us by God—the Law—had become layered with interpretation, thick with commentary, nearly suffocated with picayune hairsplitting and ritual observance. Jesus simply cuts to the quick, as he often did, with an earthquake, a thunderclap: “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person […]” Boom! Layers of regulation slide away and the heart of the matter is left open and clean.

We are not made unclean from anything we can take in. Sin is the mindful disobedience of the mature heart, the unsettling, the dis-easing of the seat of our covenant by what we do and why. Sin is not accidental. It is not done in ignorance. Sin is the failure to grow in holiness, the failure to make the best use of our freedom by serving one another for the greater glory of God. Jesus is painfully clear in announcing the foundational tenet of his mature spirituality: “[…] the things that come from within are what defile.”

An adolescent spirituality demands the hard, mathematically precise laws of personal and public behavior. An adolescent spirituality will also demand, as a matter of “being an adult,” total freedom from any law. A mature spirituality will bring us to settle peacefully into an easily regulated life, a life aligned with the Goods God has revealed to us and the ends of our natural order. A mature spirituality will recognize the Law at its root, at its most basic as a definitive expression of the truth, goodness, and beauty that God Is. And that true cleanliness, to be clean, is to pursue holiness with abandon, with reckless surrender, to give over wholly and free our hearts and minds, our center, our souls to Christ.

What Purpose do you serve?

5th Sunday OT: Job 7.1-4, 6-7; 1 Cor 9.16-19, 22-23; Mark 1.29-39
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, University of Dallas

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Everything is lost. Nothing really lives here. There is no light, no life, no hope of being found. There is work with no purpose. Movement toward no end. Day, then night, then day again. No meaning. Pointless striving. Unraveling hours of nothing at all. Sleep brings no rest. Work never tires. It won’t end soon enough. Or, too soon. Like an exhausted wind weakly blowing dust. Sigh. Job is not a happy man. He’s learned that his life of blessing and prosperity is very easily washed away. Troubled nights. Restlessness ‘til dawn. His life like a wind. Never to see happiness again. Job has lost his faith. And with it his humility and his gratitude. Self-pity and anger are not the seeds of blessing. So, he will be hopeless, restless, and sleepless until he finds again a purpose bigger than his small dreams, his little dramas of success.

We read tonight that Jesus and Paul know their purpose. And they know happiness in knowing their purpose. What makes you happy? What Purpose do you serve?

Isn’t it easier getting out of bed in the morning knowing you have a purpose, knowing you have a goal to achieve, a To Do List for your life that needs some work? Isn't it easier making it to work or class or the next thing on the list knowing that your attention, energy, labor, and time will be focused on completing a mission, on getting something done? With the time we have and the talents given to us, don’t we prefer to see constructive and profitable outcomes? Even when we’re being a bit lazy, wasting a little time doing much of nothing, we have it in the back of our mind to get busy, to get going on something, checking that next thing on the list and moving toward a goal. It’s how we are made. It’s how we live in the world.

Paul writes to the Corinthians: “If I preach the gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation have been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it!” Paul has been given an end, a goal, a purpose beyond mere survival, beyond merely getting along. Having been smacked around by the Lord for persecuting the Church, Paul finds himself ordered to a regime of holiness, a kingdom of righteousness, that demands more than rule-following, more than simply showing up and breathing the temple air. Paul must preach. He must travel city to city, province to province, publicly witnessing to his repentance, to the power of Christ’s mercy.

Paul’s sleep is restful. His work exhausts him. He is a slave whose labor is never drudgery, never pointless. His end, his purpose is Jesus Christ, the telling again and again of his story, his bruising encounter with the man of love. And offering to anyone who will open their eyes to see and their ears to hear, offering to them the same restfulness, the same pleasing exhaustion, the same intense focus of a purpose driven by the need to proclaim Christ.

Jesus, doing his best to find a little time away from the crowds, responds responsibly when Simon and other disciples find him and say, “Everyone is looking for you.” Jesus, pursued, literally, by his purpose says, “Let us go to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose have I come.” Soon he will look out over the vast crowd and, moved by compassion, teach them many things. Now, nearly exhausted himself, he takes his students out again to preach and teach the Good News. It is his purpose—to show those hungry for God that God does indeed rule, that He holds dominion here, over all creation—heaven and earth, human and devil—and that healing flows from faith, light always overcomes darkness, and that evil, no matter how much ahead in the race, has already lost.

Job has lost his purpose and dwells in an anxious darkness. Paul is driven by his need to witness. Jesus reveals His Father’s kingdom—healing, driving out demons, preaching. Job recovers his purpose when the Lord dramatically reminds him who is God and who is creature, Who Is Purpose Himself and who has a purpose. Paul runs his preaching into every town he crosses, proclaiming the Word, setting up houses of prayer, and leaving behind men and women strong in the faith. Jesus moves inexorably toward the Cross, his work for the Way along the way reveals again and again the always, already present victory of Life over Death, freedom over slavery, final success over endless failure.

What goals do you serve? Why do you get up in the morning? What meaning does your work, your play have for you? Who are you in light of what you have promised to be and do? What makes you happy? Where do you find joy? Lots of questions! But all of these are really just one question: what is your purpose?

You have a given purpose and a chosen purpose. Your given purpose is dyed into your flesh, pressed through into your bones; it is a God-placed hook in your heart, a hook that tugs you relentlessly back to God, back to His perfecting goodness. Your chosen purpose is how you choose to live out day-to-day your given purpose, how you have figured out how to make it back to God. Student, mother, professor, virgin, priest, monk, artist, poet, engineer, athlete, clerk, scientist, father, nurse, dentist. When your chosen purpose best reveals your given purpose, when what you have chosen to do helps who you are given to be flourish, your anxiety finds trust, your sleeplessness finds rest, your despair finds joy. And you can say with Paul: “All this I do for the sake of the gospel,”—heal, study, pray, minister, write, research, teach, drive, build, all this I do for the gospel—“so that I too may have a share in it.”

What Purpose do you serve? I mean, when you work, when you study and teach and play, toward what end do you reach? What goal seduces you forward, pulls you to the finish line? Surely for us, all of us here tonight, that purpose is Jesus Christ. Our goal is his friendship, his love. And our goal is his witness, our telling of his Good News. We can waddle around in the darkness of sin, bumping around blind, reaching for what’s never there. We can wail into the wind like Job, moaning about the meaninglessness of life, the pointlessness of our daily striving. We can even refuse happiness, refuse to see that we have a given purpose. But you will find your release and your license, your freedom and your choice when you make yourself a slave to all, when you make yourself all things to all, to save at least some.

Like Paul, a trusted steward, a faithful child, preach the gospel. Live it right where you are. Make it your reason for getting out of bed, for going to work, for making it to class. Make it who you are, what you do, and everything you ever will become.

Everyone is looking for you. For what purpose do you live?

Misericordia veritatis

4th Week OT (Sat): 1 Kings 3.4-13; Mark 6.30-34
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

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Compassion moves Jesus to teach the crowd. Not a need for attention, a hunger for the adulation or the warmth of the spotlight. It is his love for them that compels him to stay a little longer to teach, to go one more hour to show them the Way. He looks out over them and sees clearly the reason for his time among them: they are sheep without a shepherd, hungry souls needing the solid food of truth and compassion. And so, he stays to teach them many things. And they stay to be taught.

What does it take to teach and what does it take to be taught? More specifically, what does it take to teach the faith and what does it take to be taught the faith? Maybe there’s even a more basic question here that needs to be asked and answered first: why is it even necessary to teach and to be taught the faith? Why can’t we be solitary learners? Individual souls seeking truth? Captains for our own exploratory faith-vessels?

There is an element of individual effort in learning the faith, of course, some sense of being the unique soul seeking out the Face of God in order to better reveal Him to others. But my question is more about the nature of the faith itself than it is about the comparative effectiveness of diverse learning styles. The nature of our faith requires that it be taught. We can come to trust God without being told to, without being tested by a professor. But can we come to the fullest possible understanding of what that trust means for us without authoritative instruction, without the experienced witness of a teacher to poke, prod, stir-up, and direct?

As a shared trust in God, a witness passed on and handed down, our faith is not simply about feeling a connection with the Divine, not merely an affective jolt or glowy attraction to Something Transcendent. We trust a person, Jesus Christ. Not an idea. We have faith in the Son our Father sent to teach us. Not a system of principles or some sort of cabbalistic academic jig-saw puzzle.

Dominicans are committed to teaching misericordia veritatis, the compassion of truth. This is the mercy that the truth reveals, the compassion evident in exposing the truth. And we do this best as a fraternity, as an Order of Preachers. Not as singular friars motivated by academic incentive or the lure of the spotlight, but as a family committed to God’s Self-revelation in scripture, in His creation, and in the unique person of Jesus Christ.

As teachers of the faith, all of us must come to both the content of revelation and its subjective affect with the humility that true compassion requires. It is not enough to rehearse publicly propositional declarations of the faith. Nor is it enough to gather together and vigorously emote. The fullest possible understanding of the faith comes when we obey—listen to—what has been handed on to us and when we experience personally, run into, the man, Jesus Christ—in one another, the Church; in the memorial of his sacrifice for us, the Eucharist; and as living witnesses to his compassion.

To teach the faith is to show godly pity, mercy, to those starving for the truth of Christ. To be taught, to be a disciple, is to tame pride long enough to admit a basic ignorance and the need for instruction.

The crowd followed Jesus to a deserted place and with compassion he taught them many things. We, his students, his apostles, can do no less.

On the Habits and Spirit of Dissent

When we talk about a “Spirit of This” or a “Spirit of That,” I think we mean to point out a deeply seated habit of assenting to and doing This and That. A Spirit of Charity points out a habit of assenting to the call to charity, being charitable, and doing charitable works. The Spirit of Disobedience points out a habit of assenting to the temptation of rebellion, being rebellious, and actually rebelling. To say then that a person or institution is “possessed of a Spirit of X” is to say that this person or institution is habitual assenting to, being, and doing X.

If all of this is true, then I think we can learn something about the Spirit of Dissent by looking at the Habits of Dissent among those charged with teaching the faith in the Church. This includes both clerical and lay teachers, elementary-secondary teachers, and teachers in college, seminary, and schools of theology.

Habitually, dissent looks like…

…anger: a consuming frustration, disappointment, rage toward the Truth
…hatred: a self-defining loathing for the apostolic faith
…willful ignorance: a refusal to learn, a refusal to be disciplined (to be a student)
…pride: an utter failure to be humble in the face 2,000 years of teaching
…arrogance: an expression of pride that manifests as dismissiveness of authority
…entitlement: an obsessive assertion of prerogative/privilege over service
…idolatry: the raising up of Novelty and Trendiness as final ends
…rebelliousness: revolting against legitimate authority in favor of private choice

What feeds the Spirit of Dissent? (NOT a comprehensive list)

1. The hermeneutics of suspicion. This is a method of reading texts that requires the reader to approach the text suspiciously, that is, to be deeply skeptical of the text’s author, his/her intent, his/her credentials, any and everything about the text: origin, timing of publication, method of publication, drafts, editions, private/public comments of the author—all of the “histories of production”—every possible scrape of information that could add to the interpretation of the text. Reading the text is a matter of holding in perpetual suspension all of this info, one’s own socio-political identity/agenda, and all of one’s deeply held prejudices against anything that looks/sounds like Truth. This method is especially popular among dissenters because it varnishes their dissent with the very thin veneer of academic respectability. Typical suspicious statement about an authoritative text: “We need time to look at the document in its fullest possible context and ask questions about how it applies to our current situation…”

2. Identity Politics. This complex network of self-serving nastiness allows the reader of authoritative texts to “read through” his/her “social location” and come to an understanding of the text that best assists in the creation and advancement of his/her identity. Circular? You bet. But that doesn’t matter at all because dissenters celebrate the…

3. Death of Reason as a metanarrative. This is an important move for the Habit and Spirit of Dissent in that it allows the reader of authority and tradition to discard the pesky habits of rational discourse and rely totally on affectivity. Assertions of personal need, experience, and “hurt” overwhelm rational argument by sheer force of emotionalism and the fear of causing additional “hurt.” Typical affective statement about an authoritative text: “I am deeply wounded by this document. It fails to understand me.” End of discussion.

4. Failure of humility, triumph of pride. The Habit and Spirit of Dissent is fundamentally about the failure to understand and accept the necessity of authority in defining and teaching the faith. Pride tells us that we are basically independent creatures, freed from any and all obligation, beholding to none (including and especially God!). Humility in teaching the faith means that we begin my assuming the authenticity of the witness we’ve received. In other words, we start this whole project by trusting the Holy Spirit to do what He said He would do: to guide His church, to keep Her free from error though the apostolic tradition. The Habit and Spirit of Dissent begins by assuming that the apostolic tradition as received is deeply flawed, in desperate need of repair, and that he/she is the One to accomplish this healing through radical reformation and revolution. The model for this reformation/revolution is almost always secular in origin: ecclesial democracy, spiritualized psychotherapy, fetishization of various secular or non-Christian philosophies (Marxism, feminism, Eastern thought), ad. nau. Typical prideful statement about an authoritative text: “Most Catholic theologians disagree with Dogma X. The latest research indicates that Dogma X is an outdated assertion of ___________ [insert Current Dissenter Object of Derision, e.g. papal authority, institutional identity, gender domination, etc.].”

Teaching the faith means teaching with the mind of the Church. On this subject, the constitutions of the Order of Preachers reads: “In all things the brethren should think with the Church and exhibit allegiance to the varied exercise of the Magisterium to which is entrusted the authentic interpretation of the word of God. Furthermore, faithful to the Order's mission, they should always be prepared to provide with special dedication cooperative service to the Magisterium in fulfilling their doctrinal obligations” (LCO III.1.80).

A failure to dissent is not a failure to question. As a Dominican, I am trained to question. The Catechism recognizes a legitimate form of doubt (nn. 157-159). But notice where the burden of assent and belief rests: on the student, not the teacher. We can legitimately fail to understand, fail to “get it,” and in that failure, doubt. This is why we need faithful teachers, power masters of the faith who begin by trusting God, putting their own agendas and issues behind them, and putting forward the clearest picture of our apostolic faith that their gifts allow.

At its root, public dissent on the part of Catholic teachers is quite simply the spirit of entitled narcissism, the habit of petulant self-worship.

Beheading prophets!

4th Week OT: Sirach 47.2-11; Mark 6.14-29
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Serra Club/Church of the Incarnation, University of Dallas

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How many prophets have you beheaded?

No one likes a tattle-tale or a Know-it-all. Who likes to be shown their mistakes or told that their lives are a mess? And who wants to hear from a stranger that one’s “lifestyle choices” are an offense against God? I mean, who here wants to open his or her life to the evaluation of someone who may or may not share your values, understand your personal struggles, or respect your “comfort zones”? Who here will invite into your private life the unflinching stare of a prophet, one sent by God to reveal His will for us? I don’t see any takers! This isn’t surprising. I would find hard to do.

Our culture worships at the altar of privacy, of not having our lives interrupted by anyone who might suggest to us that one choice or another is foolish or damaging or sinful. Think about how our culture of individualism and license almost requires us to structure our lives, manage our choices, with layers of protection against criticism, against any kind of intrusion into the libertine progress of Self. Thick layers of political correctness protect our self-selected identities against the realities of nature. Pseudo-therapeutic prattle guards us against the discomforting, dispassionate rule of reason. Frequent and urgent appeals to “freedom” insulate us against public responsibility. There is no room for the prophetic in a land where every choice is a right, every decision a matter of private conscience, and every action beyond public judgment.

OK! Maybe we haven’t gone that far just yet. But I have to ask: is there room for the prophetic here? Is there room in the public life of this nation, and in the personal lives of its citizens, for a prophet, a true prophet of God, to look us over and pass judgment?

A prophet like John the Baptist is in the business of annoying those in charge. He was born to herald the coming of the Christ. He preached a crystal-clear and highly focused message of repentance. And he had the infuriating habit of pointing out those who most needed to repent. He lost his head for his trouble. An unpleasant warning against being prophetic, against taking the time and trouble to make trouble for those in charge.

But let’s not limit the reach of this gospel to the worn view that those in charge need to be annoyed by prophets. Too often modern-day prophets appoint themselves and operate out of secular political agendas that have little or nothing to do with the gospel. Let’s open this gospel to the question of how open are we to the prophetic? How accommodating we are to the possibility that God might send a prophet into our lives to knock us around, call us out, pin us to the mat of holiness and name sin “Sin.”

Can we hear a prophet? I mean, is your life structured in a way that allows you to hear and listen to a voice summoning you to righteousness? How do you react to fraternal correction? Defensively? With angry appeals to “need,” “freedom,” and “rights”? How do you hear challenges to your choices? As threats against personal privilege? As denials of your liberty or judgments against your worth as a person? How many prophets have you beheaded?

The Good News is that we can structure our lives in such a way that any prophet sent by God to give us the Once-Over would find nothing to complain about. We can live lives of brilliant humility, humility so spotless it blinds, humility so simple it bears undeniable witness. This is possible. But only with Christ. Only with him as our advocate, our brother, and our King.

Can't go home again...

4th Week OT (Wed): 2 Sam 24.2, 9-17; Mark 6.1-6
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX


At Christmas, my sister-in-law, Marilyn, asked me: “How does it feel different being a priest?” Before I could give a moderately profound answer, my mother’s voice came from the kitchen, “He loves it! He gets to be a Big Shot!”

When I go back home to Mississippi I am “David” and “Dave.” Not “Father” or “Father Philip.” I am just the chubby blonde kid who read too many sci-fi novels, avoided as much outdoor work as I could, and rode off to my high school job at McDonald’s every afternoon. I am not the former college English teacher, the 41 year-old Roman Catholic priest, or the Dominican preacher with four university degrees. I am just David. Son of Glenn and Becky. Brother to Andy, brother-in-law to Marilyn, and uncle to Megan and Melanie. Home is where I end up to be who I always was.

Jesus goes to Nazareth, his hometown, with his students and teaches in the synagogue. Like every other place he’s been, the people who hear him preach and teach are astonished at his wisdom, truly awed by his mighty deeds. That astonishment and awe are short-lived, however, when someone remembers Jesus from his days among them as a carpenter’s son, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. Once they realize that he’s a local boy, they take offense at his apparent pretense. They knew him as a boy, knew him as a teenager, and now they cannot see him as the Christ. They take offense. And cannot believe.

Jesus is amazed at their lack of faith. This does seem astonishing to me. Think back over the last week and remember that there were all sorts of creatures recognizing Jesus for who he is: the unclean spirits ordered by Jesus to silence, the legion of demons he tossed into the swine, and Jairus whose daughter Jesus healed. All knew him and he was able to provide miraculous healing, evidence of the Father’s favor and his own power as the Christ. But the Nazarenes knew him as well. And this made no difference to their belief. Why?

Jesus says that it is because a prophet has no honor among his own kin and in his own house. We find it difficult to accept that the divine is knowable to us through the ordinary, through the plainly familiar. We cannot know God fully as He Is through any created medium, of course; but He does reveal Himself to us in creation, in his creatures. And each of us is a unique revelation of the Triune God, an exceptional showing of the Divine for others.

With all of our flaws, faults, defects and problems, we shine out to the world what happens when a creature, a human creature, takes seriously the promise of salvation, chooses to live a life in Christ, and takes on the apostolic charge to be the traveling salesman of God, His itinerant preacher, His compassionate healer. We have to see Jesus as an alien, a foreigner, before we can accept him as a brother, our Savior—good practice for allowing those odd sorts, those strangers and outsiders to do their work in revealing Christ to us.

Jesus is amazed at their lack of faith! Would he be amazed at our faith? Would he be astonished at how well we’ve come to learn and live everything he’s taught us? Faith is the habit of trust, given to us by God and nurtured by our cooperation with Him. Faith is given and grown. Never earned or sold. Faith is what makes the radically alien, the otherwise foreign, knowable, approachable, and lovable.

Jesus is the carpenter’s son. He is the son of Mary and brother to James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. He is at home here. And we cannot fail to do him honor.

What are you anxious about?

4th Sunday of OT: Deut 18.15-20; 1 Cor 7.32-35; Mark 1.21-28
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Paul’s Hospital and Church of the Incarnation, University of Dallas

Hear it!

It is 12:34am. 1:13am. 2:56am. 3:32am. Finally, it is 4:45am. The professionally calm voices of NPR pop on my radio. With weirdly deceptive ease, a sort of earnest calm, they narrate what happened while I watched my clock in the dark: a car-bomb in Iraq kills 27, a drought in Texas fuels wildfires, the nuclear threat from Iran and North Korea grew overnight, scientists with more money than sense drag us closer their genetic, Frankensteinian utopia, the icecaps melted some more, the ozone layer thinned, the rainforest lost another 12,000 acres…there are one-eyed kittens! three-legged calves! swarms of locusts! rivers of blood! hailstorms of frogs! An angel of Death in the street! The radio pops back on. 4:53am. Get up, Philip! No Snooze button is big enough to tame this world’s worry, this time’s anxious passing.

Paul writes to the always-worried Corinthians, “Brothers and sisters, I should like you to be free of anxieties.” He would like for them to be released from the slavery of their doubts, the chains of their mistrust and the need for total control. He would like for them to be able to live in the world and not flail around panicked about what’s next. What’s After This? Where’s the plan? The map? The schedule? Paul would like for his Corinthian brothers and sisters to be rested in the Lord’s promise of mercy, settled into an enduring trust of their Father, and focused on all the things Christ left them to accomplish.

The Corinthians are being distracted by the requirements of family life, worried needlessly by the demands of husbands and wives and children, taken away from the difficult work, the hard labor of preparing for the Coming of the Christ again. Paul, and all those Jesus left behind, waited for their beloved Master to return to them, to come back for them and take them away. They were anxious about many things, but most anxious about the apparent delay in his return. Paul’s admonishment to them: don’t become too attached to the needs of this world…the things of this world demand their own kind attention, their own kind of sacrifice…stay free for Christ and do what he has asked you to do.

What are you anxious about? What unclean spirits worry you? Do you know the name of the fearfulness that gnaws at your gifts, your trust, your patience, your ease? Do you know the name of the spirit that moves you to hide from God, moves you to ignore God, moves you to defy God? You can all say, “Sure, Father, it’s the Devil!” Yes, it is. But more specifically, can you identify, point out the spirit that steals your peace?

Jesus goes to Capernaum to teach in the synagogue. People are astonished at his teaching, stunned at the authenticity and authority of his message. He speaks the Word, teaches and preaches a Word of power and might, claiming for himself the authority of his Father and, in doing so, claiming for the Father the lives, the souls of those who hear and heed his Word. But notice who is anxious, notice whose peace is rattled: the unclean spirits!

The human spirit there is gifted, graced with the boundless love of God. The unclean spirit is fearful. The human spirit is astonished, opened, enlightened, touched by glory at the Word proclaimed. The unclean spirit is dreadful, nervous, shaken, and most definitely stirred! The people there leap forward to grab hold of the Word and they hold on to the Word as if it were a hurt child, a wandering friend too often lost. They embrace the hope, the expectation of eternal life, the renewal of their lives with the Father, the reconciliation that the God-man, Jesus, makes real. He was sent. He is sent. And he will be sent again.

Moses spoke to his people and said, “A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise for you from among your own kin; to him you shall listen […] I will put my words into his mouth; he shall tell them all that I command him.” Our Lord will send a prophet, a voice to speak His Word to us and we will listen. We heard Elijah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah. We heard Amos and Isaiah. And much more recently, we heard John the Baptizer. We heard the Name he spoke to us, the announcement of the Good News of our Savior’s arrival in the flesh. And then we heard the Christ Himself teach us salvation, preach to us the Way of Life through him. We believed. We heard and we believed.

And yet we are still capable of anxiety. Why? I think we forget Who we are dealing with. I think we trudge along, so habituated to hearing the Bad News, that the Good God has done for us is lost in the swirling headlines, crowded out in the competition for our limited attention, our squeezed time. We forget what we have said “Amen” to here. We forget what we have asked for here. We come here to remember. And still we forget.

Here’s a reminder, just a reminder to put a little fear into the spirit of forgetfulness that may be haunting us. This morning/evening, if you participate fully in this Eucharist, you will say “Amen”—“it is so”—to the presence of Christ among us. He IS here. You will thank him for his Word proclaimed and thank him again for his Gospel. You will say amen to his ancient teaching and amen again for taking care of your needs. You will say amen to His blessed Name and amen to his coming Kingdom; amen to His will done in all creation and amen to your need for His daily food; amen to his mercy and yours and amen to his protection from evil. You will say “amen” to offering bread and wine, your body and soul on that altar of sacrifice, to be blessed, transformed and given back to Him. You will say amen to His peace and share it. Amen to the Lamb of God and his sacrifice for us. Amen to his supper. And amen and amen for the Holy One of God who teaches with a new authority, preaches with a new authenticity the Word of Life.

What are you anxious about? What spirits worry you? Remember what you have said amen to here this morning/evening. Remember what you have sacrificed and who you are. Our Lord wants us free of anxieties. Our Lord wants us freed so that we can spread the fame of the Good News everywhere: The Holy One of God is here!

Growing in faith, spreading it around...

3rd Week OT (Fri): 2 Sam 11.1-10, 13-17; Mark 4.26-34
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, University of Dallas

Hear it!

How do you grow in faith? How do you multiply that faith?

Jesus tells those gathered around him that living the Way is like sowing seeds one day and harvesting the crop the next. Living in Christ is like scattering seeds—of trust, of mercy, of forgiveness—throwing out there to sprout the Word all those things of beatitude, of grace, that take root, crave our care, receive nourishment, and flower into sure signs of God’s love for us. Being a Christian working on our own little field of holiness is like being a farmer whose abundant crop sneaks across fences, spreads along the turn row, creeps into and over ditches, and roots itself—carefully, gently, but stubbornly—into the fertile ground of every field nearby. Anyone who has tended a garden or planted a field can tell you: containing a rich harvest is no easy task!

Our daily work of holiness is not a private labor. It is not work done in secret, work done in darkness or alone. Our daily work of holiness is the public work of farming the faith—broadcasting the seed, tending the sprouts, choking out the weeds, and harvesting the fruit.

Don’t get me wrong. Of course, there’s a deeply personal side to our walk in the Way. There is always that time and place when and where we meet Jesus alone and find ourselves confronted by our sin, comforted by his forgiveness, and energized to carry on despite the temptations to despair. These moments are essential to our growth, basic to the work of perfecting our natures. However, our faith cannot be merely private, merely personal. There is always that time and place when and where we meet Jesus in one another, in the stranger, in those cast aside and we find ourselves confronted by our dependence, comforted by our family ties in faith, and shown the way to the Kingdom together.

How do you grow in faith? How do you multiply that faith? Growing in faith requires attention to prayer and to service. And not just prayer and service. Growing in faith requires attention to studying the Word and living in communion—contemplating God’s Self-revelation in scripture and living within the reach and grasp of all those who seek to do God’s will. Prayer grounds us in an abiding, an enduring conversation with God that grows our awareness of our dependence on Him. Prayer unlocks the gates of our shut-up hearts to His will for us. And clears away the blighted weeds of sin. Service, done in His name and for His glory, radically reconnects us, that is, it attaches us again to the root of our lives together, bringing to mind again and again that we receive our salvation and prosper in it together, always together, never alone.

Is it enough to grow in faith? No, really, it isn’t. Jesus teaches us in parable that our growing faith is contagious, spreading, overlapping fence lines, and catching in the fertile fields all around us—friends, roommates, classmates, co-workers, family. That tiny mustard seed of faith is huge! It’s the germ of a mighty plant, the speck that sprouts a tree. And as we grow in our faith, we are responsible for scattering that faith, slinging it in every direction, blessing and prospering everyone we meet, nurturing to flower each seed we sow.

How do you grow in faith? Prayer, service, study, and community. How do you multiply that faith? Prayer, service, study, and community—all in His name, always for His glory!

Put down the missalette! Hearing a Homily

I’ve written about some of the artsy elements of writing a homily and about some definitions of preaching. I’ve been challenged to write about how one should go about listening to a homily and getting the most out of it.

So, here’s my shot at answering the question: how do I listen to a homily for maximum benefit? The very first thing I want to say is that listening to a homily is and is not like listening to any other sort of performed text. All the skills you use to listen to a speech, an academic lecture, or a conversation are used in listening to a homily. However, the difference that makes the difference in listening to a homily is that in a homily, especially one preached in a liturgical context, you are listening to an extension of the Word proclaimed.

1. Put down the missalette, or as I prefer to call them Those Paper Destroyers of the Liturgy, or Those Menaces to the Word Proclaimed. Put them down. No, tear them in half, stick them in your pocket, and bury them near a soggy marsh. Do you take your Riverside Shakespeare with you when you go to see Hamlet? Ask yourself this question: if we were meant to read along with the lectionary readings, why do we bother training and appointing a Lector to proclaim the readings for us? Why don’t we just say, “OK. Let us take out our missalettes, turn to page forty-three, and spend a few minutes reading the Old Testament passage, etc.”? We don’t do this because we are called upon in the liturgy to LISTEN to the Word proclaimed. Not to read along, not to check the Lector for errors, not to fiddle with a little book during the Boring Parts When We Read the Bible Out Loud. Can you listen and read along? No. You can’t. Sorry, you can’t. The whole point of the proclamation is that the Word is sent out, projected, given a voice, made alive. You can’t get this if you’re fumbling with a missalette or fussing over a mispronounced word or a lame translation. Hear the Word Proclaimed. Don’t follow along with another text. And, yes, this means we need VERY well-prepared and trained Lectors who understand what they do as a ministry of the Church.

2. Pay attention to key words, images, phrases, ideas. If you can’t “hear” the whole homily, listen for prominent words or ideas that get repeated or emphasized. A good preacher will ask a question or make a statement or in some way call your attention to his point(s). When you hear this point, cling to it and then listen to the rest of the homily “through” this point, paying careful attention to how it is developed or used. So, for example, if the preacher starts by defining “conversion” or asking a question about conversion, then listen for images or words or some kind of repetition of conversion themes in the rest of the homily. He might preach about other things, but you’ve picked up on “conversion.” Now, of course, you can pick up on multiple points and follow them all. But you can’t do any of this while reading the bulletin, the missalette (Hack! Pooey!) or fiddling with your cell phone.

3. Repeat every word in your head. Yup, that’s what I said: repeat every word. I do this all the time. I have what the Buddhists call “Monkey Mind.” Just about the only way I can pay attention to a homily is to close my eyes (no visual distraction) and then repeat every word of the homily in my head. This is how I am able to stay on track, follow the homily’s “argument,” and not end up daydreaming about bread pudding, Battlestar Galactica, and the Pope’s new encyclical all at the same time.

4. Listen now, argue later. OK. Fr. Oprah is on and on and on about his latest trip to the therapist and he’s boring the snot out of you with tales of his evolving consciousness and how close he is to exploding into Cosmic Oneness with the Womb of Universal Is-ness. First, put down the missalette. Just put it down. Pay attention to key words and image and repeat every word in your head. Why? Because for better or worse, ugly or pretty, he’s the preacher and (however hard it is for us to understand why) the Church has seen fit to make him a priest. He has something you need to hear. Even if you need to hear in order to reject it. Listen now, argue later. If you start arguing when he launches into a description of his Naked Rebirthing Sweat Lodge Ritual with Richard Rohr and you tune out because you need to argue, then you can’t hear what it is you need to hear from him. You’re spending your homily time arguing with someone who can’t hear you argue and couldn’t care less if he could. So, don’t waste your homily time arguing with your version of Fr. Oprah’s homily. Hear him out and argue on his time later.

5. Pray! The proclamation and preaching of the Word is an extension of the Word into this time and this place. When we hear the Word proclaimed and preached, we are made larger to better receive God’s blessing; we are strengthened to labor in holiness; we are deepened to be fresher sources of living water for others; and we are excited, electrified to be bearers of the Word, apostles to our world. Pray constantly for our preachers. Ask God to set them on fire for His truth, to open their hearts and minds to His Word, to loosen their tongues, to free their gifts, and make them true workers in sowing the seed of faith. Since we know from the Tradition that the first beneficiary of prayer is the Prayer himself, praying for our preachers grows the capacity of the Prayer to hear, bear, and spread the Word he/she hears in a homily. Ears settled charitably in prayer will hear clearly the voice of God spoken by the preacher.

Well, those are my (somewhat cranky) suggestions for listening to and benefiting from a liturgical homily.

Anybody want to add anything?

Are you ready to RUMBLE!!??

3rd Week OT (Wed): Act 9.1-22; Mark 16.15-18
The Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, Apostle
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX


Are you ready to be converted? To be converted is to be transformed, changed from one thing to another, from one condition to another. It is to be turned around, whirled about the other way, and made into that which one was not before. It is to be flipped over, tossed up, spun about, and left to crash, hard, on the ground. To be converted is to be made over, done-over, modified, and radically revised. It is newly given, freshly gifted life. New life given for a new purpose, a different way of traveling on the Way to Jesus.

To be converted is to be resurrected.

The murderous Saul is on his way to persecute the infant church in Damascus. He’s ready for war with letters from the synagogue authorizing him to root out these Jewish heretics who follow the Way, to chain them up, and drag them back to Jerusalem for trial. Absolutely sure of the righteousness of his cause and serenely confident in his ability to prosecute these looney fringe elements, Saul sets out with his fellow thugs. What he’s not ready for is the holy smackdown that the Lord brings his way. I mean, who is ever really prepared to be surrounded by the brilliance of God’s glory, knocked to the ground by the divine voice, and questioned—questioned!—by Christ himself?

You know the rest of the story. Saul is converted. Dramatically converted. The Living God reaches out to Saul, makes it clear to him that he is not merely chasing after heretics, but that he is chasing after Jesus Himself, persecuting the Lord of the Law and the Prophets, his God since the Word was breathed across the void. This encounter, this meeting of creature and Creator is a resurrection. From death to life. From stony Law to fleshy beatitude. From zeal for an Older Righteousness to zeal for a Newer Holiness. Saul is taken up, spun around, smacked about, dropped on his head, blinded, and sent like a naughty child to the church for instruction. He is brought down and risen up; he is, in the language of the business world, “re-purposed.”

Are you ready to be converted? Are you ready for your resurrection? You might object and say that you are already converted, already turned around and headed to God. No doubt. But a life of holiness, the universal call to live a holy life, is always about the day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute work of turning to face the Lord, of being ready to meet Him face-to-face, and to hear a new plan for your life. Are you ready for that? Are you ready to be sent out? Ready to find yourself walking into a task blinded, guided by someone you don’t know? Ready to be a child for a while, taught and disciplined by a stranger? Are you ready for the Holy Spirit to grab you, smack you around a bit, and put you on a path diametrically opposed to anything you’ve ever thought of before? In other words, are you ready to be resurrected? Are you ready to be changed beyond recognition and given an entirely new purpose?

If you are, then here’s your job description: go out into the world, the whole world, and declare with clarity and confidence that Jesus is the Anointed One of the Father. Anyone who believes this Good News and is washed with water in his name will be saved from final death. Anyone who does not believe will be condemned in their unbelief. Witness to what you know about the Lord, tell your story of resurrection, make the fantastic plausible, make the implausible real, and be the one for us who stands up, speaks out, boldly declares the love, the mercy, the forgiveness of the Lord. And never fail in announcing the freely given, abundantly stocked, no-waiting-in-line offer to start over, to repent and believe the Gospel.

An urgent faith...

3rd Sunday OT: Jon 3.1-5, 10; 1 Cor 7.29-31; Mark 1.14-20
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Paul’s Hospital, Dallas and Church of the Incarnation, Irving, TX


I first came to Jesus as a child living in Slidell, LA way back in the 1970’s. A Baptist friend of mine drew me into his faith by telling me about the Last Days. I was fascinated by the idea that no one would be able to kill himself during the Tribulations and that the world would be covered with blood as high as a horse’s bridle and that army after army would march against The Beast and his doomed troops. It was too much for my ten-year old imagination, but I took it in and it all came together with images of helicopters, tanks, artillery, and the frantic push to defeat an Enemy, the panicked drive to win against the devil’s agent and vindicate the Biblical prophecy: watching Satan and his minions be thrown into the pit by the Lord’s terrible angels. I asked for that story over and over again. And found myself hypnotized again and again by the chaos of a righteous war against Evil, the Final Battle where Jesus thumps Satan for the last time. And those of us who knew Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior would be feasted endlessly in Heaven, victorious soldiers for holiness and purity.

It was too much. But it got me here. I hadn’t read Lord of the Rings or Narnia. Nor had I thought much about the longer job of holiness. What grabbed me then was the exhilaration, the urgency of history crashing to its end in this apocalyptic battle, the near-panic I felt to be on the right side, to be among the winners and to feel a part of something much, much bigger than my ten-year old life in Slidell. It was vital that I be involved, that I had a side, that I fought for a cause and that that cause was Right. I believed! And my conviction was electric.

Is there an urgency to your faith? Is there something vitally compelling about your trust in God that pushes you, drives you along? Maybe a better way to ask the question is this: what gets you up every morning, in the shower, dressed, and on the road? This isn’t a question about loyalty or priory? It is a question about how you understand and live out your promise to God to be His today, all day, and tomorrow, forever. Does your faith juice you up? Hurry you to holiness? Speed you to prayer, to service in His name? Is there an urgency to your faith?

Paul says there needs to be: “I tell you, brothers and sisters, the time is running out […] For the world in its present form is passing away.” If you’re weeping, he says, stop. There’s no time. If you are married, no time! If you are rejoicing, no time! Living in the world like there’s no tomorrow? Well, there isn’t! Everything is passing away, cinders and fumes, dust and wind, everything is going and there is an urgency to making your life right, getting the house of your faith in order. Of course, Paul and his readers are expecting Christ to come again at any moment. Just any day soon. But urgency is urgency when we’re talking about the quality of our trust, the strength of our faith.

John the Baptist has been arrested and in Galilee Jesus preaches: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” Several centuries earlier the people of Nineveh heard the same exhortation and they believed God; they took Him at His word, repented, called a fast, and put on sackcloth to show their humility. Jesus’ declaration of the time of fulfillment is the declaration of his advent in the world, his coming into human history to open the way for the Kingdom of God, to clear our way to that Kingdom, and to give us the Good News of his salvation. If this world is passing away and now is the time of fulfillment and the Kingdom of God is at hand, then I ask you again: is there an urgency to your faith? Are you pushed, driven into the world daily by your trust in God?

If not, what pushes you, what drives you? One of the usual things, I would guess: career, school, success, money, personal loyalty, an imaginative story, an ideology, a political agenda, a need for recognition…none of these are bad, of course, but they will pass away. Cinders and fumes, dust and wind. Gone. And soon enough. And what’s left for you? What’s left for any of us when the things we so eagerly invest in—the projects, the ideas, the people—what do we do when everything we pour ourselves into do what all impermanent things do: die and fade away? We mourn, of course. But our lives can’t be about mourning loss.

The very heart of the gospel is that we are saved, healed, made whole on the cross by the love Jesus has for us. The urgency of our faith is the urgency of the cross, the imperative love of Christ’s sacrifice, the vitality of his hope for us—that we will welcome the Holy Spirit among us, dwell lovingly with each one another in his Spirit, grow steadily in his Truth, hand on the faith to family to community to state to empire, and, finally, come back to him, to his beauty, his glory, and be with him without end. This is not a gospel of loss, of grief and mourning, of dust and fumes, or apocalypse and righteous battle. This is a gospel of lasting goodness and everlasting life, permanent mercy and all-pervading grace; a gospel of ceaseless vitality and living strength. And it is our gospel! Our story! Our work in the world and our dare, our charge—to be with Christ in here and to be Christ out there.

Is there an urgency to your faith? If not, maybe this will help: we are nothing without God. Literally, nothing. We are given life, given being by the Father. Without Him, we are nothing; we are no-thing. We are made to be creatures of praise and thanksgiving, rational animals made to grow and flourish knowing that we will return to Him. Give Him thanks for your creation. Offer him as a gift the gift He has given you: your life. Simply say, “Thank you, Lord, for my life and I give it back to you.” With conviction and longing to live with Him forever, your gratitude will produce humility and your humility will make prayer easier and easier, and you will see, with time and commitment, that being thankful to God adds an urgency to your trust in Him, a hurry to speak His Word to others, a holy panic (if you will!) to follow Him and collect others with you. You will leak out joy, seep out the good news, and scatter the tiny seeds of a holy trust on every kind of soil.

Is there an urgency to your faith? Forty days to destruction. Time is running out. The present world is passing. This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe! “Come after me,” Jesus says, “I will make you fishers of men.”

I will make you preachers of my Good News!

Praedicare! To Preach!

Praedicare! To preach! What does it mean “to preach”? Is reading a homily from the pulpit preaching? Is washing dishes at a homeless shelter preaching? Is a loud, haranguing diatribe against sin/injustice/the Bush administration preaching? Is throwing little vials of your blood on parked bombers at an Air Force base preaching?

The most obvious and readily accessible form of preaching is the homily delivered at Mass by the priest-celebrant. I think most everyone will agree that this is preaching. Are there other forms of preaching? No doubt. But let’s look at liturgical preaching in the hope of getting a better understanding of what preaching is more broadly understood.

A little clarity from the Catechism: “The liturgy of the Word is an integral part of sacramental celebrations. To nourish he faith of believers, the signs which accompany the Word of God should be emphasized: […] the place of [the Word’s] proclamation (lectern or ambo), [the Word’s] audible and intelligible reading, the minister's homily which extends [the Word’s] proclamation…” (CCC n. 1154).

So, the homily is an extension of the Word’s proclamation. To give voice to the Word, to project it out to be heard is preaching. Let’s break this down even more:

1. When we say that we “proclaim the Word,” what do we mean? When we proclaim the Word, we make the Word plain in a striking way. Straightforwardly conspicuous? Memorably obvious? The idea here is that our proclamation of the Word must be plain, simple, unadorned and at the same time beautiful, noble, seductive. Not an easy balance.

2. How does the homily “extend the proclamation of the Word”? If the proclamation of the Word must be simple and seductive, then the preaching of the Word can be nothing less. There’s no sense in which we can talk about the homily improving on the Word or going deeper than the Word can go. The Word needs no improvement. It goes to the marrow of the bone. There is no deeper. This is why I like the idea of preaching as an “extension of the Word.”

The good homily will…

…draw out the Word,
…lengthen it,
…spread it out,
…lift it up,
…hand it over,
…and give it lots of volume!

The bad homily will…

…discourage the Word,
…flatten it,
…draw it in,
…hold it down,
…keep it closed,
…and whisper, whine, and wail.

3. Is there a difference between “delivering a homily” and “preaching the Word”? Yes and no. I suppose, strictly speaking, these two are the same. However, I also want to say that there is a Big Difference between merely speaking about the Word and giving the Word voice. There is a difference between reading the Bible and proclaiming the Word. There is a difference between the performance of a text and embodying the living Word—speaking, living, putting it out there, consuming, and being consumed. The homily, the preaching, is that moment of clarity and grace when the preacher exposes the Word, trespasses against a dark silence, exhorts and extols goodness, teaches Life against Sin, and invokes with his very breath the memory, the treasure, the story, the poetry of the faithful dead for the benefit of the living faithful.

4. You know you’ve heard a good homily when…

…you are encouraged in your faith, strengthened in your trust of God,
…you are set afire to read your Bible, to read the Fathers,
…you are compelled to speak the Word to someone else,
…you are convicted in your heart to conversion,
…you are shown mercy and you show mercy in turn,
…you are deepen in the Apostolic Tradition and the authority of the Magisterium,
…you are sent out, given the proper tools, and convinced of success!

You know you’ve heard a bad homily when…

…you sadden by the faith handed to you, weakened in your trust of God,
…your faith is attacked, ridiculed, dismissed, or called a lie,
…you are told more about what the Bible isn’t about than what it is about,
…you are more convinced than ever that your sins aren’t all that bad after all,
…you are shown lax indifference and you show lax indifference in turn,
…you are ridiculed for being “nostalgic” or applauded for being a “suspicious thinker,”
…you are closed up, properly aggravated, and certain of failure!

So, are all the things I mentioned above preaching? Sure. If they extend the Word as it is understood in the Church’s long tradition, the living memories of the apostles still with us, and if they set out to glorify God, to seek his face always, to strengthen and support the Truth, to call us all to forgiveness, and to throw the Word into the world, as is, whole, simple, and unadorned.

Yup, that’s preaching.

Summoned? Step up!

2nd Week OT (Fri): 1 Sam 24.3-21; Mark 3.13-19
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, University of Dallas


The demons loudly witnessed to Jesus’ authority as the Son of God. They writhe and wail when he preaches the Word, shouting at him, “What do you have to do with us?!” They understand, much better then we do most of the time, that Jesus is the Source of our lives and our salvation; he is the creator, the One Who Gives Direction and Purpose; and he is the Killer of Death and the Risen One. The demons writhe and wail because they know that Jesus’ authority is more than just legitimate legal power or profound social influence. His authority is founded in the creation of everything that is, rooted in the very fabric, the elemental stuff of every world there is. He is the Author of the universal story.

And one day, on a mountain, he picked from those who followed him, a small group of twelve and established the apostolic line, the college or collection of those who will go out, build-up, and carry on in his name. Jesus, desiring that his teaching survive and thrive beyond his life with the disciples, sets up a means for his teaching to be handed on, to be carried out and held up, passed on with authority. He chooses twelve, just twelve, to be bearers of his name to the world, teachers of his Way, and preachers of his Word. And not just any twelve, but The Twelve, summoned by name, pulled out of the crowd and set apart for the work of authentic evangelization.

Look closely at how Mark reports this process: 1) Jesus summons those whom he wanted, 2) they came to him, 3) he appointed them, 4) named them Apostles that they might be with him, 5) and be sent forth to preach, 6) and have authority over demons. And then we have their names. Notice that there was no nominating committee, no caucus to hash out acceptable candidates, no negotiation of the terms of employment, no participation by representatives of the diverse interests of the crowd, and no consultations with the benefactors. And they didn't appoint themsleves! Jesus summoned those whom he wanted. And they came to him.

Why? Why did these Twelve come to him? The Word seduces. And draws. He lures. And captures. Jesus the Word of God shines out unsayable beauty, unblinking truth, and his glory is diffusive. It spreads. It scatters and collects. Broadcasts and gathers, going out to bring back in. His Word touches our word and we are caught—fish in the net, sparrow in the branch—caught to be re-made, re-fashioned, done again in his image. It is our desire to be his love that drives us toward him. We are gifted with the summons to be his always. The Twelve—men, just men—answer. They come to him. And they are appointed to be with him, to go out, to preach, and take command of the forces of the dark.

Jesus summoned these men to be for him a living legacy, a lasting reach into our future, and we know them now as our bishops. Though he summoned these Twelve for this job, he summons us for other jobs, other tasks that require our gifts, our special skills and temperaments. Will we answer and come? Will we accept the authority of the Author of our lives and our salvation and answer him: “Yes, Lord! I will do your will.” What holds us back—fear, meagerness of heart, jealousy, pride, cowardice, self-righteous judgment, habitual sin—all of these are smoke, ash, nothing, absolutely nothing, in his light.

Your name is called. Summoned, standing before him, strengthened by his glory, say, “Yes, Lord!” Pick it up. Get out there. Preach his Word. Fight the darkness.

Be an apostle everytime, wherever you are.

Stretch out your hand!

2nd Week of OT (Wed): 1 Sam 17.32-33, 37, 40-51; Mark 3.1-6
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, University of Dallas


What happens when the heart grows hard? What becomes of us when our heart, our center with God, grows cold like stone and we habitually rely on the limited wisdom of regulation, policy, and procedure to make our moral choices? The world shrinks. Grows tiny. And that’s bad enough. What’s worse is that as the heart settles into habits of weighing and cutting excessive beauty and mercy, it is starved for charity and grace and shrivels and grows cold and dies. What’s left but to be angry at the waste and mourn the loss?

This is what happens to us when our hearts grow hard. But how do our hearts of flesh become hearts of stone? The standard interpretation of the gospel story this evening is as follows: the officials of the Heartless Religious Establishment refuse to do good because they are slaves to their strangled rule-following and puritanical notions of holiness. Jesus is the Warm Counselor, the Destroyer of Rigid Paradigms who rides to the rescue with his openness, his acceptance, and his tolerance of difference to save the poor wretch from the grinding narrowness of Those In Charge. Jesus heals the man’s withered hand and irrevocably sets the Pharisees against him.

Now, here’s my question: are the Pharisees rigid and hard-hearted because they follow the Law? Or, is their rigidity in following the rules a sign of their hard-heartedness? Asked another way: do they refuse to help the poor man because the rules won’t allow it, or do they refuse to help because their hearts are hard and following the rules is a just a way of making their hard-heartedness “right” in their minds?

The Pharisees refuse to help the man because they are trying to trap Jesus in an arrestable offense against the Law. Their calculated silence moves Jesus and he heals the man as an act of defiance against the Pharisees’ cold hearts, as a sign against their failure of holiness. Their refusal to do good is motivated by fear, jealousy, political expediency, and spite. They are not acting out of an unbiased assessment of the Law and its application. They are playing Gotcha! with the Lord and this absolute failure of charity and mercy angers the Lord and grieves him deeply.

Jesus says to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” The man does and he is healed. Jesus is angry and mourning that the hearts of the Pharisees cannot be moved to compassion, cannot be set afire by another’s need. They are dead because they will not stretch out their hands. They will not be healed in their silence.

Our own hard-heartedness is not so difficult to imagine. That stone-cold, merciless attitude is one sin away, just one refusal of compassion away. We starve our filial relationship with the Father when we look away from need, when we work at justifying our unjust acts with the letter of the Law. Any habit of the heart that freezes out the sick, the hungry, the lost necessarily freezes out our Lord and kills the hope in us that keeps the promise of eternal life alive.

The Good News is that we are given all the means we need to keep our hearts alive in the Lord, awake to the needs of others, beating in time to the life of holiness, and squarely centered in the will of the Father. We are tempted by the glory of Christ to live with him forever. And to live with him now is to live mercy, to live compassion, and to live with a heart of flesh.

When your chance comes, stretch out your hand. To heal and be healed: stretch out your hand!

The Art of the Homily

What is the “art of the homily”? My recent post on the “Mechanics of the Homily” lead some to ask me to share my thoughts on the art of writing a homily. Here are some very practical considerations drawn from my short experience preaching on a weekly basis:

1). Use the lectionary texts. The arguments/theses of my homilies are limited by the lectionary texts in front of me. What’s the alternative? The newspaper? CNN? A recent visit to the therapist? I preach the Gospel—the gospel text. I preach the epistle—the epistle text. What do I mean by “use the lectionary texts”? At the very minimum, I mean use the language, imagery, ideas, etc. from the actual texts. Pick up the image of the blind man raising his eyes to be smeared with spit and dirt (and yes, say “spit and dirt”!). Pick up the image of the Simon and James and Andrew throwing down their nets to follow Jesus. Pick up the cadences of the biblical language. Look at the repetition of vowel sounds. Watch the way Paul builds an argument with rhetorical flourish, layering one idea on top of another until the fullest possible picture of his teaching is compete. That’s not teaching…it’s proclamation! He’s not being pedantic, but rhetorical; that is, he’s not being a classroom Teacher so much as he is being a Preacher. Here’s an example of what I mean:

From today’s reading in Mark: “[The healed leper] spread the report abroad so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere.”

Pick up on “spread,” “abroad,” “impossible,” openly,” “remained outside,” “deserted places,” and “everywhere.” Two movements of note here: 1) the healed leper’s faithful spreading of the Good News against Jesus’ express command to be silent, and 2) Jesus’ captivity to the crowd, the mass of people who have the freedom to come to him.

My “use” of this short passage: “Jesus does what he came to do: to heal the sick, to witness to his Father’s love and mercy. The healed leper, overcome with joy in his newfound cleanliness, disobeys Jesus’ command to remain silent and spreads the Good News. He spreads the news, sends it abroad, talks openly about his moments with Jesus. And the crowd listens to this Word proclaimed—healing for the sick, cleanliness for the unclean. They drive Jesus into the deserted places with their desire for his healing, with their longing for his wholeness.”

Nothing particularly profound here at all. Just a re-telling of the short lectionary passage. However, this is how the readings get repeated in the homily so that the language and images are heard again.

2). Don’t avoid complexity, controversy, or the “hard sayings.” I don’t assume that the folks in the pews are dummies incapable of digesting a complex idea or dealing with a controversial topic. I preach against sin. And do so without sugarcoating it. God’s mercy is bigger than any fear we might have of those who will wag their fingers at us for daring to mention Hell from the pulpit. I preach against specific sins. We all sin. And we all commit specific sins. God’s mercy is universal and free. Say so! Call sin sin and shout about God’s mercy. Avoiding talk of specific sins is just a way to keep the peace at the cost of the truth. I’m not suggesting that anyone go out and punch folks out with belligerent homilies on the Evil of the Day. However, preachers of the gospel MUST teach and preach what Jesus taught and preached. What else is there to teach and preach?

3). Prefer the Oral to the Written. Uh? OK. Here’s what I mean: homilies are oral performances. I don’t mean theatrical performances, but they are works enacted, works given life in their portrayal. If you write your homily and then perform it as a written piece, then you are inviting comparisons to an academic lecture. This happens to me a lot because I use a prepared text. It’s something I have to work on. Writing oral English requires that you “hear” your homily being preached aloud as you write. Take for example this opening line to an Easter homily:

“This morning the universal Church celebrates the resurrection of the Lord.”

OK. True enough. Nothing theologically dodgy, but I’m snoozing already. Here’s my version in oral form:

“He is risen! In Irving, Texas and Bangladesh. In Cairo and London. In Capetown and Maui-maui. He is risen indeed! He is risen to new life! In Jackson, MS and Miami, FL. On the riverias of France and the tundras of Russia! Our Lord is alive again!”

How are these two different? They say basically the same thing: Jesus is risen from the dead and all the world celebrates this fact on Easter morning. The difference is that the first opening paragraph is a description and the second is a proclamation. The first tells us what is going on and the second IS what’s going on. Another substantial difference is that the first is a general description and the second is a specific proclamation. The first says “universal Church”—an abstraction—and the second says “London, Maui-maui, Jackson, and Russia”—all very specific places. The difference in oral impact is dramatic.

4). Use a combination of short, declarative sentences and longer, complex sentences. This combo helps me to introduce a Big Idea and then reinforce it with repetition. The oral form requires repetition for comprehension and retention. An example:

“Mary, pregnant with Jesus, visits Elizabeth, pregnant with John, and John leaps in his mother’s womb at Mary’s approach, preparing himself now for his ministry later. He knows Jesus. He knows Jesus is the One Anointed. And he leaps. He leaps again and again in joy, telling the world of the coming of the Christ.”

The shorter sentences are repetitions of the longer one. The frequent, creative repetition of the main idea is a sure-fire way to etch the image/language into the memories of those listening.

5). Questions are good…if you answer them. Using rhetorical questions for affect is dubious at best. I mean, ending a homily with something like: “What would you do if given the chance to heal the sick”? I almost always think of this as a cheapy way to end a homily. It’s safe, easy, noncommittal, and, frankly, dishonest. How so? If the homily is about making the Word present to those listening, then it must look and sound like the Word, like Jesus, like Scripture. Rhetorical questions are gimmicky in that they seem to ask a real question but really just serve as a stopping point or pretend at being intellectual exercises. In fact, they can be escape routes for chicken preachers. Start with questions and answer them. The folks in the pews are smart enough to figure out that our answers are either dumb beyond reckoning or right on target. The right question asked of a difficult text can open multiple doors and shine a vigorous light on scripture. But you have to think that scripture is actually the Word of God and that your homily is a door to that Word.

6). Use theological language but temper it with appositive repetition. I think preachers fear using theological language because those listening will label them pretentious or academic or both. There’s nothing obviously wrong with using the historical language of the Church to talk about the truths of the faith. I use “Incarnation,” “redemption,” “grace,” etc. all the time. You might object and say that I preach at a Catholic university parish and you would be right! However, the way to use theological language productively is to follow each use with an appositive repetition; that is, every time you use a theological term, follow it immediately with a more scriptural or mundane appositive that develops its meaning for those listening.

Some examples:

"The Trinity, the community of divine persons that is our One God, reveals to us Who God is to us and for us."

"Christmas is the celebration of the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the coming into flesh of the Son, his arrival among us as a man."

"This sacrifice of the Mass, this surrendering to God in thanksgiving, is our greatest praise, our highest oblation."

Now, obviously, you can’t capture every nuance of a complex theological term in a single appositive, but I think you can do a lot of good teaching in a small space.

7). Religiously use a thesaurus. Preachers, like everyone else, are creatures of habit when it comes to language. We have our favorite phrases, our favorite themes, and our favorite images. And we use them over and over. This can become a problem over time because language use not only reveals patterns of thinking, it can begin to limit patterns of thinking as well. I mean, if you stick to certain kinds of words, certain discursive rhetorics (e.g., psychology-inspired terms or military-inspired images) then your understanding of scripture slowly shrinks to the basest limits of your preferred vocabulary. The thesaurus is the most immediate remedy to this problem. Using the thesaurus is a kind of “language-play,” but well worth the effort when it jogs us out of stagnant familiarity. Here’s what I do: I write a sentence and immediately notice commonly used words (e.g. “grace”). I grab my thesaurus or use the one on my word processing program to search for alternatives. The top six alternatives for “grace” are: elegance, refinement, loveliness, polish, beauty, and poise. OK. None of these will serve as a substitute for the theological concept of “grace.” However, each one could be used to describe God’s attitude toward us as sinners or used to describe what grace does for us.

Examples: “God’s grace, His elegant invitation to live His life with him, polishes the human soul, refines our path to His beauty, and grants us a final loveliness, the last gift of seeing Him face-to-face.”

A more direct use of the thesaurus…

Original: "We gather here this morning to see and hear the Gospel proclaim and preached, to offer our prayers and thanksgivings to God, and to celebrate the sacrament of our redemption."

Thesaurus: "We draw closer together at daybreak to glimpse the Gospel, to take heed of its declaration and its preaching, to tender our petitions and gratitude to God, and to make merry in the sacrament of our deliverance."

Now, I wouldn’t use the Thesaurus Version in a homily. I just went through and replaced key words with “thesaurus words.” But I think you can see how this exercise offers up some insight into making that opening paragraph more interesting. I like “draw closer together” (“gather” is one of our most overused words. I would argue that it has almost become meaningless), “daybreak,” “take heed” (yes, a bit old-fashioned, but just odd enough to require one’s attention), and “make merry” (“celebrate” has become stale, overused), and I really like “deliverance” instead of “redemption.” That’s my Baptist coming out.

8). Read good literature. There’s no substitute for reading good poetry and fiction for developing a sense of how a sentence works or how an image conveys meaning. I would go so far as to say, “Lose the homily helps and spend that money on a couple of good poetry anthologies and a few prize-winning novels!”

What I haven’t covered here is the process of reading and prayer that goes into a homily. As a Dominican, my community life and my study are inextricably bound up together in the composition of a homily. If there’s interest, I’d be happy to share some thoughts on the how prayer and study fit into the art of the homily.

Comments?