Being a Great Love, or How You Feel Doesn't Matter

11^th Sunday OT: 2 Sam 12.710, 13; Galatians 2.16, 19-21; Luke 7.36-8.3
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital, Dallas, TX

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Let’s say you are going to confession. You pour your heart out to the priest, truly rending your soul of every sin and making an Act of Contrition that brings tears to your eyes. The priest gives you a merciful penance and then pronounces absolution, “…I absolve you from all your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Right that second! How do you feel? What do you feel right that second? Relief? A burden lifted? Do you feel happy or clean or do you feel a little mischievous, like you’ve gotten away with something diabolical? Do you feel sad or pleased, or do you feel nothing at all? Except perhaps the weight of the sins you have just confessed? Maybe you are thinking and feeling that the absolution didn’t “take.” Didn’t work for me. Maybe if I do my penance, then I will feel like it worked. Maybe if I do my penance twice or three times, it will work. Or maybe you’re on the other side of this problem; maybe you feel nothing after the absolution, so you conclude that confession and absolution are pointless. What’s the point if I don’t feel guilty for my sins in the first place, and I don’t feel relieved after I confess and receive absolution? I feel OK with God right now and that’s enough for me.

Let me ask you this—regardless of how (precisely) you are confused about confession—why does the sinful woman wash Jesus’ feet with her tears, drying them with her hair and anointing them with oil? Why does this sinful woman risk being violently ejected from Simon’s house? Why does she expend her precious oil on this gesture? For a favor? To be paid? For attention? To feel better about herself? No. No. No. She humbles herself in these acts of service to Jesus in order to show him Great Love. Have you ever been to confession for no other reason than to show your Lord Great Love?

I’ll confess: I never have! For some reason I have always thought of confession as a sacrament about Me. My confession. My contrition and penance. My absolution. Now, I feel better—even if for no other reason than I’ve completed an expected task. How very sad. How sad that anyone would approach the sacrament of reconciliation as a duty to perform, as a task to just get done. Over with and out. But given the drives and lusts of our secular culture, are we really surprised that this sort of distortion is so common? So deeply soaked and thoroughly wetted are we in our middle-class pragmaticism and materialism that we come to understand the mysteries of the Lord’s sacraments in purely functional terms, in simply practical or utilitarian terms. Have you ever heard someone say, “I don’t go to Mass anymore b/c I don’t get anything out of it?” Insert pretty much any religious practice in place of “Mass” in that sentence and you get what I think of as the typical American Catholic response to the faith. The pragmatic notion that we must “get something out of” a commitment or a promise or a vow is absurd in light of this morning’s gospel. The Great Love that Christ shows us from the Cross and the Empty Tomb is freely given, no strings attached. Can we love as freely? Even if there is nothing to be gained personally, can we love so purely, so excessively, so overwhelmingly so?

We can if we will. Paul writes to the Galatians, “I have been crucifed with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me…” You see the genuis of the Catholic faith is that nothing required of us is truly required of us alone. We admit from the beginning that we can do nothing without first receiving the grace, the gifts, necessary to complete the task. Even our desire to cooperate with God’s various gifts to us is itself a gift. Our completed tasks in grace are no more responsible for saving us than any number of goats slaughtered and burned on an altar. We are not made just by our works. In other words, we cannot work our way into holiness apart from the God of grace that motivates us to do good works. Paul writes, “We who know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ even we have believed in Christ Jesus…b/c by works of the law no one will be justified.” We are made just when we are crucifed with Christ (in baptism) and when he abides in us (in confession and Eucharist) we remain just. We can proclaim with Paul then, “I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself for me.”

Can we, then, be members of the Body of Christ, the Church, who participate in the ministries of the Church not for pragmatic gain, nor the need to “feel something,” nor in the hope of fitting-in, but b/c we long to show Christ a Great Love, the love that he first showed us on the cross and shows us even now on this altar? Can we do what the sinful woman did: freely, openly, purely, and without caring about gossip or any negative consequences, can we express our Great Love for Christ and one another with the gifts of tears—humility, forgiveness, mercy; and the gifts of service—teaching, preaching, healing, feeding? Can you show others—for no other reason or purpose than your Great Love for Jesus—can you show others the Christ That Lives In You? And can you show them that Christ did not die for nothing but that he died and rose again for everything, everyone, everywhere? And can you show them that b/c he died and rose again for everything, everyone, everywhere, that they too, saying YES to his gifts of trust, hope, and love, that they too can shine out a Christ-light for all to see, that they too can wash filthy feet with repentant tears and anoint them freshly clean with precious oil?

If you can do all this, and you can, why could it possibly matter how you feel about it? Angry, depressed, joyful, exhausted, pitiful, happy—does it matter? Truly, does it matter? No, it doesn’t. Be careful: do not let fleeting emotions (no matter how passionate!) bargain with the triumphs of Love. Feel what you feel and Love anyway. Be angry and love anyway. Be depressed, exhausted, spiteful, and love anyway. Be elated, ecstatic, on cloud nine, and nearly uncontrollably happy, and love anyway. Be bored, isolated, cranky, and mean, and love anyway. Christ did not die for nothing. He died for you. And you are not nothing. You are everything to him. We are everything to him. Yes, our sins betray us! But his Great Love forgives us. Our debt is always canceled, always forgiven.

Knowing this, can you serve others, with Christ living in you, serve others as Christ served you?

Growing a Sacred Heart

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus: Ez 34.11-16; Rom 5.5-11; Luke 15.3-7
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
DECAT Mass (St. Rita)

[NB. This homily was written for and preached to about 250 fifth graders who are finishing up their time in the diocese's DECAT program (a summer program for academically gifted children attending Catholic schools). The sound is weird b/c I was moving around a lot. Also, this is the first time I have ever preached w/o reading my homily. . .]

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Having grown up Baptist in the deep south, it took me a long time to get used to this Catholic habit of venerating holy body parts: the arm of Aloysius, the head of Agnes, the chipped up bones of Martin, Dominic, Ignatius. Pieces of clothing or keepsakes like glasses or bookmarks seemed perfectly fine. But taking a saint’s pinkie bone and locking it in a gold trimmed, vacuumed sealed glass case for safe travel around the world…well, that’s just creepy. Spending time in Rome didn’t help me being any less creeped out either. Made it worse in fact! There’s a church there made of nothing but human skulls and thigh bones. It seems like every church has a Holy Body Part in a box and some have the whole body! Now, here we are today honoring the sacred heart of Jesus. What exactly are we honoring? And why?

Let’s answer these questions with this one: what is the link between Jesus’ sacred heart and this morning’s biblical image of Jesus as a good shepherd? To start an answer to this question and the two previous questions, we need to know what the heart is and does in our Catholic spirituality. Historically, the heart for our faith is a symbol of the whole person, the person made whole by God, brought to the fullness of healing, and set right in holiness. All of the various images of the heart bear this out: the pierced heart of Mary, showing us her grief; the crowned heart of Jesus, showing us his triumph over death in heaven, and so on. The heart is also a mystical image of our covenant with God. Think of your heart as a tabernacle, a holy vault where you keep your promises to God and He keeps His to you. Your heart then is that place in your soul where you are closest to God, most intimate with the Holy Spirit; your heart is the center of our very being, the source of your life.

Now, I have to tell you what your heart isn’t, or better yet how the word “heart” gets used in our popular media and why that use doesn’t apply to us here. How many of you have heard Disney characters tell the story’s hero: “Just follow your heart! Feel your way along!” I heard Yoda say this to Obi Wan Kenobi just yesterday afternoon. I groaned out loud and switched the channel back to Mythbusters. At least they were blowing up raw chickens with nitro. The idea that the “heart” rules our deliberations, governs our passions, and serves as an infallible guide to our decision-making isn’t all that crazy if (IF!) we remember that God governs the heart. But Hollywood generally means that we should just do what we want to do and use the excuse “I was just following my heart” to justify whatever mess we cause in acting irrationally.

OK. Back to Jesus’ sacred heart and the Good Shepherd. Here’s what Christ wants for you and from you. What he wants for you is a life of holiness lived in service to others. There is no holiness for the Christian without service to others. Let me say that again: if you do not serve others—help other people when they need your help—you cannot grow in holiness. God loves you and His love for you is perfected (made complete, whole) in you when you use your talents and gifts for the benefit of others. Your job is to become Christ for other people—doing what he did, teaching what he taught, and preaching what he preached. You can do this with your brains, your hands, your back, with music, words, paints, numbers, motherly talents, fatherly talents, with technology, without it, in an office or a church, with song, dance, a poem or a novel, whatever gift God has given you to improve on: use it, use all of them, for others. That’s what Jesus wants for you.

What does he want from you? Christ is the Good Shepherd, his heart is holy, his relationship with His Father is perfect. Everything that Christ is as a person is wholly perfect in God the Father and the Holy Spirit. There is nothing we can give Christ or do for Christ that will add to his perfection. All we can do is multiple his love in the Church. So what he wants from us is to be good shepherds ourselves. To be men and women with strong hearts, clear vision, peaceful souls, and welcoming arms. Sometimes the shepherd has to redirect the flock from danger. Sometimes a sheep wanders away and must be brought back. Sometimes the wolves chase the flock and the shepherd has to defend his sheep. Each of us is responsible for the flock in his or her own way. Make sure your heart, that place in your soul where you keep the covenant, is ready for the challenge, ready to break free and get to work for God’s greater glory!

Paul writes to the Romans: “The love of God has been poured out into your hearts through the Holy Spirit…God [has proven] his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Notice here: Christ did not wait for us to stop sinning before he died for us. He died so that we might be freed from sin. The Good Shepherd came running after us. We don’t have to find him. He has already found us. Now, we walk around with the tabernacle of God’s love, with hearts brightened by the Spirit’s fire.

Do what you must to perfect your gifts and talents. And a huge part of that perfection will be using your gifts and talents for the benefit of others. Some would say to you that you are too young to be thinking about giving your life to a gift or a talent or a service. I say: now is precisely the time to take on a passion, to pick up a call to do something heroic, to do something holy and to be a saint. When it comes to God perfecting His love in you, why would anyone choose to wait until later?

The Good Shepherd's Sacred Heart

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus: Ez 34.11-16; Rom 5.5-11; Luke 15.3-7
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Serra Club Mass (Church of the Incarnation)

What does it mean to “boast of God”? Paul tells the Romans that b/c they are reconciled to the Father in Christ Jesus that they may boast of God. Are we to brag about His power? His mercy? Are we to talk him up like a presidential candidate? Or are we lifting Him up so that we might be lifted up as well? Rising in glory with Him? These all seem a little self-serving. A little too much like pride slopping over the edges of vanity and spilling out into self-promotion. Such publicity—especially for personal enlargement—does little to strenghten the source of legit boasting: a Christ-shaped heart pounding out the loving blood of service and sacrifice. Our Good Shepherd rescues us from the rugged gullies and the dark forests and brings us back to level ground and light. It is precisely his love for us that sends him out in search of just me or just you. With great joy he finds us lost and celebrates our return. That joy, that elation at the return of just one lost soul is the burst of holy fire, the BANG! of the Spirit that shakes our own hearts, lets us feel his pleasure at giving his Father one more broken spirit. So full are we then with the light and warmth and glow and crackle and silk smooth love of Christ’s sacrifice that our own hearts are set apart, consecrated for holy duties, becoming that place in us out of which we serve and serve and serve. The Good Shepherd knows his sheep because his sheep pump his blood; his sheep hold his sacred heart in their bodies and feel the pounding of all the love he can pour in. He died for us while we were still sinners. Still sinners. He died for us confident that our own hearts—tabernacles made to hold his presence—would come alive with his blood. The Psalmist says this morning, “Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life.” Can you say that? Listening to the thump of the shepherd in your heart, can you say that goodness and kindess will follow you…everyday of your life? If not, do not boast of God. Do not claim His presence or patronage. If your heart will burst with goodness, then boast! Tell it all to the world! Boast of His words, deeds, and what He has done for you. Boast your witness until the conflagration of all sacred hearts.

A surpassing Righteousness

10^th Week OT(R): 2 Cor 3.15-4.1, 3-6 and Matthew 5.20-26
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

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Jesus teaches us that “unless [our] righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, [we] will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.” Then Paul tell us that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” We are able to surpass the righteousness of those who merely comply with the Law b/c we are freed by the Spirit of the Lord to live our lives within the Law as Christ’s coming fulfilled it, that is, in his Spirit we recognize the will of the Father; by grace we are able to cooperate with His will, growing in holiness; and therefore, the Law becomes a sign for us, a structure through which we see the fullness of the truth. In Christ Jesus, the Law becomes an icon through which we meet the glory of God. And here the veil of mere compliance, of just “following the rules” is removed and the ends of the Law rise to the surface: we are to be made righteous, made perfect, made God. Paul goes on to tell us, “All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory…”

Jesus tells us that our righteousness must surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees. What is “righteousness”? It is the state of being in right relationship with God, being as holy as is humanly possible in cooperation with God’s grace. The Old Covenant is clear about this: to be righteous is to comply with the Law (dietary, temple, etc.). If strict compliance with the Law were our only measure of what counts as “righteous,” well, we’re in trouble. Those guys had the Law down pat. Jesus knew this. But Jesus isn’t talking about mere compliance with the Law. He came to fulfill the Law, that is, he came to complete the Law, to perfect it for us now so that we might surpass the righteousness of the most observant scribe or Pharisee. By showing us the ends of the Law, the eternal purposes of the Law, he shows us a way to righteousness through and beyond the Law. . .but never around it!

Now, all that sounds good. But thank God for Jesus and his good example! Look at it again. You shall not kill. A good prohibition. But is the only purpose of this law to make killing a crime? In one sense, yes. Killing is a crime. But why is killing a crime? Just b/c God says so? Jesus fully teases out the implications of this law: it is self-righteous anger that leads to killing; it is a certain disposition of the spirit that moves you to murder, moves you to treat another person as if he or she is worthy of death for making your angry. Certainly, the act of killing kills charity in your heart! But Jesus’ point seems to be: wait! the act of murder starts long before the knife slides in or the gun goes off. Therefore, the end of the law against killing is to habituate us to respect the dignity of the person as a creature of God—His image and likeness. Though murder may be the most violent act we can commit against human dignity, it is far from the only violence we are capable of. And we delude ourselves and one another when we assume that by merely refraining from killing, we are respecting the dignity of the person.

Jesus concludes his discourse on the purposes of the Law by urging us to “get right” with one another before we sacrifice at the altar. We give ourselves here. We are the gift. Given life by God through Christ, we give our lives back to Him in service. The goats and lambs for the temple altar were unblemished. And so the offerings we bring—our hearts and minds—must be unblemished as well. No self-righteousness, no pride, no envy or deceit.

If you will be transformed into the perfect image of Christ, you will accept the freedom that the ends of the Law offers. There you will find the Spirit of the Lord, waiting with mercy and love.

Of Poverty & Wolves

St. Anthony of Padua: Isa 61.1-3 and Luke 10.1-9
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation

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Jesus sends out ahead of him seventy-two disciples. He gives them instructions on how to greet peaceable people once in the town. And how to eat and drink what is given. And not to be jumping from house to house. And how to proclaim the Good News: “The kingdom of God is at hand for you.” Oddly, he sends them out without money, without a sack, and without shoes. And he tells them not to acquire any of these along the way. I suppose if Jesus were with us as a teacher now, he would send out his seventy-two without credit cards, luggage, and cell phones. What point is he making by imposing such a seemingly burdensome restriction on his preachers? Notice where this restriction comes in the reading; it comes just after this ominous line: “Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among the wolves.” Can we say that the required poverty of possessions is a weapon against the ravening wolves? I think so. How so?

To the degree that we are attached to this world, the degree to which we find our ultimate worth, our final end in the come and go of material creation, to that degree are we beholding to the wolves. When we look at all those things that collect around us where we live and work, all those ideas and passions that sink us firmly in the ground of the temporary, when we look closely and deeply at our weights and anchors, we look squarely into the eyes of the wolf. Lean, hungry, ruthless, and violent. To this wolf and its hunger your soul is a nibbling snack. Gobbled up like a bite of bloody rabbit in the snow. What holds you down, weighs against your escape from the wolf is the delusion that what you see and hear and taste and feel all around you is your final end, your goal. It isn’t. It can’t be. All of this too will pass away. Why invest your soul in impermanent order, in temporary things?

Jesus knows well the psychology of the wolf. The wolf is always hungry. Always hunting. Always brutal in taking down its prey. The wolves of Jesus’ day lied about him in court; paid off witnesses to testify against him; intentionally misstated his teachings to trap him in heresy; and, eventually, one of his friends betrayed him for silver. Jesus knows well how the wolf works. He also knows the temptations of the world. The seduction of power and wealth; the obsessive heart that collects things rather than love; the compulsive mind that mulls over reason and ignores truth. And the quickest, deadliest enemy of all: the temptation to despair in the face of repeated spiritual failures.

Knowing the wolf, the possible seductions, obsessions, and temptations, Jesus requires his preachers to go out among the wolves naked of ambition, freed from possessions, completely shorn of the desire to collect and accumulate. And he makes it possible for them to succeed by pointing out that success in preaching is the business of the preacher, the hearer, and the Spirit moving between them. The preacher must preach, the hearer must listen, and the Spirit will move hearts and minds to Christ’s peace.

If it is not money or shoes or books or gadgets that anchor you, what is it? What will you have to drag behind you, running in the snow, when the wolves catch your scent? Or will you opt to live the life of an Occasional Wolf, a lamb in wolves’ fur? I’m no shaman, but I hear that pretending to be an animal too well and too long will eventually change you into that animal. Will you be a wolf then?

To take this animal metaphor from the sublime to the ridiculous: we are required to be lambs among the wolves, as gentle as doves and as wise as serpents! So get out there with all the gentleness and wisdom you can muster and preach the gospel to everyone who will listen. And watch the wolves—they get hungry for mutton when they hear the truth spoken.

Tasteless & Dark, we are useless

10^th Week OT (Tues): 2 Cor 1.18-22 and Matthew 5.13-46
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, University of Dallas

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Where is your flavor? Where is your light? Have you gone stale? Dim? Tasteless and dark? Or do you season well everything you do with Christ’s love, season well everyone you meet? Do you shine out before others the wonders our Lord has done for you? Does your presence push shadows into the light? If not, why not? Tasteless and dark, you are useless to the Lord. To be stale and dim in the faith before the world is an anti-witness, a testimony at cross-purposes with the gospel. Instead of proclaiming in word and deed the freedom of God’s mercy, the boundless possibilities of our Father’s love, instead, being tasteless and dark, we confirm the prejudices of this world’s blackest hearts and most ruthless minds: God is a fairytale best left to children’s books. We know this is a lie. But do we live lives—out there!—in a way that provides ample, positive evidence that God is not a fairytale or a brutal projection of our desire to control chaos or a figment of a collective subconscious wish for an eternal Parent?

In other words, do you live out there in the same way you worship in here? Out there, do you love Christ openly? Freely? Do you proclaim with the words of your mouth and the work of your hands the glory of God? Do you show others The Way to eternal life in Christ? Is it plain to everyone around you that for you Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life? Do you exude the peace of Christ, the obedient YES of Mary, the remarkable surrender to divine providence of Christ’s final minutes on the cross? Do you live and move and have your being in God, living day to day trusting in His promises, believing His faithful YES’s and knowing that, though you and I are not perfect yet, we are, in Christ Jesus, being perfected for a life that glorifies God forever?

What is your light and what is your lampstand? My questions to you here should not be heard as a kind of Christian fundamentalism. I am not pushing a “Jesus alone is enough” spirituality. Our Catholic faith is never about Me and God. It is always Us and God. And in that “us” each of us exercises a nature unique to the person, a set of gifts and talents combined in a way that will, once used for the benefit of others, cooperate with God’s will for each of us and perfect His love in each of us. Your light is your set of gifts, your bag of talents given to you to glorify God. Your lampstand is how you choose to use those gifts for our good. And as a member of the Body, any perfection in God’s love for you is a grace for me and everyone else in the Body. When I grow in holiness, so do you. When you are healed, I am healthier. Let’s be thorough here: when any member of the Body is diseased, the whole Body is sick. If salvation is not about Me and Jesus, then neither is sin just about Me and Jesus. Look not, Lord, on our sins but on the faith of your Church.

Your light must shine before others! Not for your benefit alone but for all of us out here who fail so regularly, who fall so frequently, who need the whole Body for strength to go on. Tasteless and dark, we are useless to one another. This doesn’t mean moral or spiritual perfection right now. It does mean that we have promised at baptism to show Christ to anyone who looks our way; to show him as faithfully, as fully as our current progress in holiness will allow. And it means that do so with a spirit of work, working to understand His Self-revelation; working to clarify and know more deeply His wisdom; working, always working with the gifts of the Spirit—intellect and will—to purify ourselves of narcissism and disobedience so that we may come to be servants worthy of serving Him and one another.

Where is your flavor? Where is your light? You must shine before others, so that we may all see Christ more clearly.

"With more sisters wearing the habit. . ."

Check out this great video of the Nashville Dominican Sisters. Very powerful stuff!

And this Today Show piece on the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.

God is blessing these faithful congregations with energetic young women and He is blessing the rest of us with them! Amen.

Of Justification and Homies

The University of Dallas' very own Dr. Chris Malloy is interviewed over at the Ignatius Press blog. Dr. Malloy fields questions on what I think is probably the most difficult theological specialty in the discipline: the problems of justification.

Check it out!

Also, I learned today that this blog has a fan base among Homeschooling Mothers! Who knew? So, here's a shout out to all my Homies (hehehehehe) in the homeschooling world. . .

So, you wanna be a Christian...

Feast of St. Barnabas: 2 Cor 1.1-7 and Matthew 5.1-12
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

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Every time the Beatitudes roll around in the lectionary cycle, I am tempted to preach a homily called the “Uglititudes.” You can imagine, I think, what this homily might look like. There would a litany of ugly vices opposed to all those beautiful virtues; some wordplay that makes it sound like we should be ugly rather than beautiful; for a little humor there would be one or two unfair swipes at self-serving interpretations of Jesus’ litany—pacifism, moral perfectionism; and the whole thing would conclude with a surprising, twisty reading of the word “beatitude” and a bouncy admonition to be a prophet or to rejoice more or maybe to volunteer at a shelter or something like that. No one wants to be predictable but ruts will groove the hardest clay when traveled on long enough. What do you imagine the disciples thought of the whole Beatitude homily? Predictable? Standard stuff? Safe, middle-class prattle? I’m willing to bet that they were thinking: “You have got to be kidding with this!”

Let’s get a definition. St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his homilies on the Beatitudes, teaches us that, “Beatitude…is a possession of all things held to be good, from which nothing is absent that a good desire may want.” He goes on to write that “beatitude” is opposed to ‘misery,” which he defines as “being afflicted unwillingly with painful sufferings.” Then he says, “Now the one thing truly blessed is Divinity Itself. Whatever else we may suppose [the Divine Self] to be, this pure life, the ineffable and incomprehensible good, is beatitude.” So, for me to say that I am in a state of beatitude is to say that I possesses all the good things that I want; that I am not afflicted with any painful sufferings; and that I participate fully in the Divine Life. Who here is blessed in precisely this way?

And now this is why the disciples might be thinking to themselves, “You have got to be kidding!” As a standard of blessedness, the Beatitudes are tough. To be poor in spirit, meek, hungry for righteousness, clean of heart, merciful, to be peacemakers and ready to die as martyrs—these are our standards of holiness, our measures for blessedness. You have go to be kidding me! Nope. No kidding. There’s nothing predictable here. Nothing worn or rutted. Jesus is plainly, simply drawing out the spiritual implications of choosing to walk his Way; he is unpacking for us all the baggage that comes with sincerely calling him “Lord,” all of the consequences of accepting his death on the cross and his resurrection from the tomb as our own death and resurrection. In other words, the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ answer to this question: “Lord, what will happen to me if I choose to follow you?” Blessed are you…

For they will be comforted. For they will be satisfied. For they will be shown mercy. Future tense. How about now? I asked earlier who here is blessed in precisely the way Gregory of Nyssa defines beatitude. A better question: who here expects to be blessed in beatitude? An even better question: who here, looking to a future in Perfect Beatitude, is experiencing imperfect Beatitude now, small day to day blessings right now?

The Sermon on the Mount is best read like a map. It shows us our starting point, our destination, and all the ways to get to where we are going. But reading a map ain’t the same as taking a trip. Blessed are they (then) who travel the Way. For they will be brought to Beauty Himself. This is not a prediction but a promise. And there is nothing safe about it.

Deep fired sacramentum caritatis with pork gravy

Corpus Christi: Gen 14.18-20; 1 Cor 11.23-26; Luke 9.11-17
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, University of Dallas

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These are a few of my favorite things: Buttermilk dripped and deep-fried chicken. Butter beans with bacon and onions. Garlic mashed potatoes and chicken gravy. Greens with fatback and vinegar. Squash casserole, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole with pecans and brown sugar crust. Deviled eggs. Warm biscuits with honey butter. 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, tea—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! You are made up of, built out of what you eat.

What does it mean then for you, for 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. 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 our participation in the life of God by God. We are brought and given. Brought to Him by Him and given to Him by Him. We do not go to God uninvited and we do not take from Him what is not first given. Therefore, “take, eat, this is my body, which is 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 together we are Christ for one another—his Body, the church.

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 heirs, brothers and sisters, prophets and priests; we are made holy, just, and clean; we are made Christ and being made Christ, 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. 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 cipher, an icon—walk out of here stamped with the Holy Spirit. Preach, teach, bless, feed, eat, drink, pray, and spread the infectious joy of the children 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 us always.

*NB. To answer a question asked after Mass about my menu, "Yes, I can cook every dish listed here!" Oh, and I forgot "grits."

Your prayers, please...

I am back in Irving! The annual provincial assembly went extremely well. It was a most unusual meeting of the brothers of the Southern Province.

I would ask your prayers for the province as we continue to discern our way with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. May we open ourselves to all those changes necessary to grow and thrive as preachers of the Gospel.

I would ask your prayers for me personally. I have been presented with an opportunity and a substantial challenge. Both will require me to spend lots of time seeking the Spirit's voice and straining to hear how He is wanting me to respond. There is a fundamental question of obedience here and the paths to take lead to radically different places. . .I need wisdom!

God bless, Fr. Philip, OP

P.S. Since my prior is away at a meeting and not around to chastise me, let me mention again that my birthday is May 26th. My Wish List is fully functioning and recently updated to reflect some of my new reality. I am deeply grateful for all the books I receive!

Plain talk about Jesus, or "Come on, baby, light my fire"

7^th Week of Easter (M): Acts 19.1-8 and John 16.29-33
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory

PODCAST!

Let’s speak plainly this morning about Jesus and his Father. Late last week Jesus is talking to the disciples about his Father and about what he, Jesus, is preparing himself to do in the coming days. He says to his friends, “I came from the Father and have come into the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.” The first movement here—coming from the Father into the world—we call the Incarnation and celebrate at Christmas. The Son of God is made man. The second movement—leaving the world and going back to the Father—we call the Ascension and we celebrated it just yesterday on Ascension Sunday. The Son of God is taken up into heaven. So what? Plainly speaking: why do these two movement matter to us? Let’s see.

Today the disciples respond to Jesus’ plain spokeness with a simple admission of their own. They say (paraphrasing): “Now that you’ve stopped using figures of speech to teach us, we know that you know everything and that we don’t need to test you anymore. We believe that you come from God.” And here’s the kind of question that Jesus loves to ask: “Oh really? Do you believe now? Do you?” He asks this question b/c he knows why he came. He knows the trials that lie ahead. And he knows that his disciples will have to follow him through those trials—not immediately, not even soon, but eventually—they will have to follow him in order to call themselves “followers of the Way.”

Knowing his end and that they must follow, he asks, “Do you believe now?” Well, they believe that they believe! Jesus predicts that when his hour arrives their belief will leave them and that they will leave him, scattering to their homes. He says to them, “You will leave me alone.” This bit of news can’t be very comforting for his disciples! Is he accusing them of being cowards?! Jesus eases their anxiety: “But I am not alone, because the Father is with me. I have told you this so that you might have peace in me.”

In Christ we find perfect divinity and perfect humanity; he is fully human and fully divine. Two natures, one person. Son of God made Man. This is the Incarnation. If all things human are to be healed in Christ, then Christ must become all things human. The imperfect cannot heal the imperfect. If Christ becomes all things human in order to heal all things human, then he must also be fully divine. Only the perfect heals the imperfect. When we unite the gift of our lives with the gift of his sacrifice, our lives become a sacrifice as well and his love is made complete in us. We will follow him not of any necessity—we are saved by the cross and the empty tomb, not by our works!—but b/c having God’s love perfected in us makes us Christ. And Christ has risen to the Father, ascended to His right hand. Though he was beaten, crucified, and buried—by all accounts, defeated by injustice and death—he rose from the grave, lived among his friends, and ascended to his Father: a victory over the world and the fulfillment of his promise to us that we too will live with him forever when we rise on the last day.

His peace, the certainty of his success, eases our troubled hearts. But there is no guarantee in his peace that we will not face the same hour he faced. In fact, we are promised persecution, trial, and death. We cannot follow half-way or only follow those paths that run straight, wide, and downhill. Ask Peter or Paul or Andrew. Ask any of the Church’s martyrs. Ask our brothers and sisters in Christ who live in the Sudan, China, Vietnam, most anywhere in the Middle East. To follow Christ always brings peace; Christ’s peace does not always put an end to strife.

Do you still believe? Speak plainly then of the One who saved you. Do not fret over abandoning him. He is never alone. He is with the Father always. . .as we are and will be. Be ready for his fiery gift. Be ready for the conflagration that sets all of creation ablaze. . .

Why are you looking at the sky?

The Ascension of the Lord (C): Acts 1.1-11; Eph 1.17-23; Luke 24.46-53
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation and St. Paul Hospital Chapel

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[Fair warning: this is actually about three homilies in one. . .sorry.]

No one will accuse Paul of being a fuzzy dreamer. He is not known for his abstract idealism. Later on in his letter to the Ephesians, he exhorts the new Christians of Ephesus: “I plead with you, as a prisoner of the Lord, to live a life worthy of the calling you have received, with perfect humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another lovingly…” Pretty words. Beautiful sentiment. But highly impractical, if not dangerous, for the Church! Besides, who can achieve this level of perfection now? Who can walk such a narrow path so confidently? Clearly, Paul is wishing out loud here, or at best he’s violating our image of him and exercising a bit of his never before seen idealism. He’s just setting the bar for us, calibrating the ideal soul for us to look to for guidance as we struggle along. And it’s not really clear how we are to achieve this perfect humility, meekness, and patience. What does he have to say about method or technique or first principles? It’s one thing, dear Paul, to show us an end, a goal. It’s quite another to teach us the means to that goal! Show us how…

And Paul would say here: “Oy vey! Have you been paying attention the last couple of months? Have you been listening to the readings, the prayers of the Church? Have you noticed the sequence of events since we entered the desert with Christ forty days before he suffered and died for us?” And we might respond: “Well, Paul, we’ve been paying attention…kinda, sorta. We’ve had Lent and Good Friday and Easter…lots and lots of Easter…weeks and weeks of Easter! But you’re avoiding our question. What do the readings and prayers of the Mass, the sequence of events since the desert have to do with your crazy dream that we live lives of perfect humility, meekness, etc., etc.?” At this point, we might imagine poor Paul hanging his head, but being the excellent teacher that he is, he asks instead: “Who have you been these last few months? Who are you becoming? And who will you be at last?” Uh?! we say. That’s right: who have you been? Who are you becoming? And who will you be at last?

In a homily on Ascension Sunday, Augustine asked his congregation: “Why do we on earth not strive to find rest with him in heaven even now…?” He goes on: “While in heaven he is also with us; and we while on earth we are with him. He is here with us by his divinity, his power and love. We cannot be in heaven, as he is on earth, by divinity, but in him, we can be there by love.” How? Why was the Son made flesh? Why did he become sin for us? Why did he suffer and die? To make good theatre? To fulfill some mythical Jewish prophecy? Entertainment for a cruel god? How can we down here be up there with Christ in love? Who have you been? Who are you becoming? And who will you be at last?

Let’s remember where we are in our history: the Holy Spirit announces to Mary that she will bear the Word into the world. She says, “Yes.” Elizabeth bears the Christ’s herald, John, and he is born to call our hearts to attention. Jesus is born. He is presented to the Father in the temple as the first fruit of Mary and Joseph. He is baptized by his herald and the Father declares him to be the Christ. He chooses his students. He teaches them his gospel. He preaches and heals; he feeds and frees; he shakes the foundation stones and breaks the temple gates. He draws hungry souls and repels the self-righteous. He casts out demons and forgives sinners. He goes to the mountain, the river, the sea, and the desert. And there he is given the chance to abandon us, to leave us to our humane mess. Without bending his back or lifting a finger, he picks up his cross, saying, “Yes” to his Father’s will for him and for us all. Lent. On a donkey he rides like a king into Jerusalem. Palm Sunday. There he is betrayed, tried, betrayed again, abandoned, whipped, ridiculed, spiked to a cross, mocked as he bleeds, and dies. He is buried. Holy Week and Triduum. And Mary Magdalene finds his grave empty three days later. He is risen from the dead. Easter morning. Knowing his disciples are fretful, he finds a few of them on the road to Emmaus and reveals himself again, spending forty days with them. Blessing them a final time, he is taken up; he ascends into heaven so that all of us may be lifted up with him. But for now, we wait until the promised Spirit descends! And the church is born. Born once of Mary. Born again from the Spirit. And yet again—now—from the womb of your YES. Christ’s body is born.

In case you’ve forgotten: who have you been since Ash Wednesday? Who are you becoming? And who will you be at last?

Perfect humility, meekness, and patience. In his letter to the Ephesians this morning, Paul bestows a blessing. We receive from God the Father: wisdom and revelation; knowledge of Jesus the Christ; eyes and hearts enlightened to see and know his hope, the wealth of His glory; to share in the inheritance of the holy ones, the exceeding greatness and generosity of His power for all who believe. And here is what the Spirit says that we need to hear in this blessing right now: Jesus is ascended into heaven to take his place of honor with the Father; he is given a place above “every principality, authority, power, dominion and every name that is named” in all ages past, this age, and in every age to come. And in rising to the Father, the Father has “put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the Church, which is his body…” Perfect humility, meekness, and patience then are not passive virtues that leave us vulnerable in the world. They are habits of being that rise out of the rule of Christ in our lives. Does true strength need to exercise its muscle? Does true power need to show itself in action? Does true authority balk at being patient? No. Perfect humility, meekness, and patience mark us as belonging to Christ. As his slaves, we live his life and die his death and rise in his resurrection and we ascend, we ascend as his Body—one promise, one blessing, one Spirit—living, dying, rising, ascending in Christ, with Christ, as Christ.

Ah! There it is. There it is. As Christ. That’s the “how” of Paul’s dreaming and Augustine’s wonder. Let’s see: who have you been? Christ. Who are you becoming? Christ. And who will you be at last? Christ. Christ is your past, your present, and your future. Christ is who you have been all along; are right now; and will be when all of this is done. When you rejoice, your joy is Christ. When you suffer, your pain is Christ. When you fall, your bruises are Christ. When you stand again, your height, your dignity is Christ. And when you accept the Spirit of Love, your Word, your deed, every breath, every motion, every stir of air and eddy of scent is Christ. His ascension into heaven draws us up. His Body, all of us, his Body is drawn up and, on our way there, we are pulled into his worship, his joy, and we drink from his blessing cup for our healing and health.

Why are we looking at the sky? Christ has ascended to the Father and now, for now, we wait. We know that God loves us to change us. We know that we are transfigured in His love. The New You waits for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He is risen! And as Christ so will we all be raised.

Who are you to hope?

6^th Week of Easter (R): Acts 18.9-18 and John 16.2-23
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, Irving, TX

If God leaves us, who are we then? Let’s say: God is dead. What now? Anything goes: might makes right; money rules; power corrupts; the weak suffer at hands of the strong; the poor will still be blessed but they will be hungry first…wait a second! All of these are true now! And we don’t believe that God is dead. Do we believe that He has left us? Let’s say: God has left us alone. What now? We can wait—for His return; for the return of His Christ; for some sort of End to All This; we can just Wait and let waiting be who we are and what we do until…when? It’s over? We can grieve—that He has left us; that He might have died but we’re not sure; over our now fading memories or the fading memories of those who knew someone who knew someone who knew Him once upon a time. We can weep and mourn. Or we can hope. Or we can weep, mourn, and hope. But hope alone is best.

The most radically transforming activity we can engage in given Christ’s Passion, Resurrection, and his coming Ascension is hope. No other labor, no other “thing to do” right now, given our history and given the signs of these darkening times, nothing else remotely makes sense but Hope. Seeing his disciples in anguish over his impending departure, Jesus says to them: “…I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.” If this is comforting—and maybe it is—here’s a question for us: who are we until then? Who are we to be until Jesus comes back? We are his disciples, his students and his brothers and sisters. And then he leaves. Now, who are we? Are we mourners? Weepers? What do we do? Huddle in locked rooms wishing away adversity and pain? Retreat into a closed world of private spiritual practice and increasingly gnostic and ultimately useless religious arcania? Are we anxious hand-wringers? No. Do we fear the world and draw the shades? No. We are men and women of the Spirit! And before we do anything else—pray, worship, serve, sacrifice, fast—before we do anything else, we hope! When we fail to hope, we join Jesus’ accusers, calling him a liar and fraud.

What do we do, then, when we hope? We invest in Jesus’ promises; we place that which is most valuable to us “at risk,” believing completely that his Word is trustworthy. We hear his vow to return and we know that he will. No guessing or gambling. No probabilities or chance. Knowledge. We know he will be back. If we hope with any integrity at all, then it follows that we live the lives he left us to live: lives of eager holiness, exhaustive service, constant conversion, far-flung evangelization, prophetic witness, and priestly sacrifice. If you truly believe that he is returning to us, your hope, your passion for seeing his promises fulfilled, will propel you out, kick you out there and give you the shining face of Christ, his healing hands, and powerful tongue. Ask, then, what you will and receive what the Father gives.

If God leaves us, who are we? We are not orphans nor are we homeless. We are not abandoned or sold, traded or bought. We are not strays to be collected by some other god or some other teacher or philosopher or devil. We are not children left alone nor grown-ups warehoused, conveniently stored until his return. We are children of the Most High. Brothers and sisters of Christ. A people raised up. A royal priesthood and a mighty kingdom. And though we may anguish now, though we may flounder now in some small darkness, our grief will become joy—must become joy—because anything less than hope, anything cheaper than full-on hope from us tells the world that Jesus is a liar. And there is nothing left for us but despair.

Contrast: who are you when you hope in Christ? Who are you when you despair of his hope?

Joy, Joy, Joy down in my heart...

St. Matthias: Acts 1.15-17, 20-26 and John 15.9-17 (Propers)
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory

PODCAST!

Here are the headlines from Yahoo! News this morning: Al-Qaida claims to have 3 missing U.S. troops; Strikes hit Pakistan after violence; Brazilian rancher on trial for slaying of American nun; Warmer winters threatens migratory birds. We could easily add our own Catholics headlines here as well: Declining trust in God’s providence hurting vocations; Hard hearts and harder heads leading Catholics to legalism, alien philosophies; Scandal of dissident clergy and Catholic politicians undermining Gospel of Life; and on and on. Let’s not get into the personal headlines we could add! In all this upheaval and rolling chaos and clamor and clang, where do we find joy?

Jesus tells us to remain in his love and keep his commandments to love. Then he tells us that he is telling us this so that his joy might be in us and our joy might be complete. Complete Joy? How about we start with something small like plain ole joy? We have: delight, elation, bliss, and happiness. We know the word “joy” and we could rattle off a few examples if we needed to. So what does Jesus add to our Christian understanding of joy? At least three new elements: 1) Jesus says that he wants us to be infused with “my joy” not a generic joy of a worldly type but “his joy;” 2) to be infused with his joy completes “our joy,” meaning that our joy and his are different but compatiable; 3) joy is that sort of thing that can be experienced in degrees—joy has an perfect and imperfect form.

Jesus is leaving the disciples to join the Father. His joy is rapidly approaching completion. His joy is the delight, the bliss, the elation and happiness he feels as he returns to his Father and directly experiences again perfect being, Being Himself. As the only Son of God, the joy Jesus experiences is unique to him; joy’s fullness in Christ overflows, abounds and diffuses, adding to and flooding the joy we feel as we approach the perfection that awaits us in Christ.

Our joy here and now is incomplete b/c we still long for God. Aquinas teaches us: “…joy is full, when there remains nothing to be desired. But as long as we are in this world, the movement of desire does not cease in us, because it still remains possible for us to approach nearer to God by grace” (ST II-II.28.3). He compares desire and joy to movement and rest. Desire moves. Joy rests. We love imperfectly. We are at peace imperfectly. And our imperfections are pushed and pulled by Christ’s love, Christ’s peace, looking confidently forward toward his joy. Fortunately, in Christ, we are not slaves to desire—our incomplete longings—but his friends, his beloved, and we know that our joy will be complete in him. When we keep his command to love one another—knowing our hunger, knowing our emptiness—we love ourselves into his perfect joy. Complete happiness. Total elation.

Dire headlines. Dark warnings and calamitous predictions. Terrible stuff. And it’s not going away. Jesus commands us to love another—commands it!—b/c he knows what we know all to well: despite our longing for God we end up all too often settling for some-thing, some-one that cannot, who cannot make us whole. And in discovering this unhappy truth, we despair. The temptation against joy is bleak: to believe that this is all there is and all there is is dismal and grim. We are unfinished. Believing this is simply an act of assenting to the truth. To believe that we are unfinishable is a sin against joy—an act of disobedience; it is a refusal to listen to the plain words of Christ: if you remain in my love, your joy will be complete in me.

Listen again: Remain in my love. Keep my command to love God and one another. And your joy will be complete in mine.