Ready to be a convict?

23^rd Sunday OT: Wis 9.13-18; Phil 9-10, 12-17; Luke 14.25-33
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory & The Church of the Incarnation, Irving, TX

Listen here!*

To lay a foundation for your faith, to plot out a plan for your successful growth in holiness, you must hate your mother, father, your wife, your husband, the children, your siblings, and even your own life; you must pick up and carry the cross handed to you and follow after Christ to the city dump and die an ignoble death as an unjustly convicted criminal; and you must renounce all of your possessions, anything you possess and everything that possesses you—stacked up stuff, ideas, habits, people, places, patterns of thought, passions, excuses, reasons. Everything.

Likely, you along with the rest of us slackers, while trying to build a holy life, will find yourself ridiculed by onlookers who shout: “HA! You guys started to build holy lives but you do not have the resources to finish!” Out of charity, we refrain from pinging them up side the head with a hammer. However, our anger at being ridiculed cannot burn away the knowing in our longing hearts that our poverty of spirit is not the blessing of the Beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” No, our poverty, our lacking is a neglect and a failure and most likely the final bloom of cowardice.

Is this too harsh? Too difficult to hear? Am I just being mean? Jesus has just told the crowd following him that none of them can become his disciple unless they are ready to hate their families, die on the cross, and renounce all of their possessions. Is Jesus being harsh? Difficult? Just plain mean? Jesus is telling them and us the truth of what it means to be his disciple. What he is describing to them and to us is not a list of pre-conditions that we must meet before we become his disciples. He is telling us what we must be prepared for if we become his disciples. In other words, he is telling us this: “Come be my disciple. But know this: to be my disciple means forsaking those you love, dying with me on a cross, and separating from everything in favor of preaching the gospel. If you can handle that, then come on! If not, don’t bother b/c though you may start as my disciple, you won’t end that way.”

This teaching should be both familiar and confusing. Familiar in that you have no doubt heard this gospel passage read many times, quoted by spiritual directors and pastors, and probably printed on a prayer card or a poster. This teaching is likely confusing b/c it resembles nothing that we have been taught in the last thirty years or so. How many of us have heard that loving Christ, doing his will, teaching and preaching his gospel will likely get us thrown out of the family, hanged on a cross, and left destitute? Our contemporary Catholic Jesus is a mild-mannered social worker with a tendency to be a bit grandiose. Ultimately, he is harmless and urges us on in our efforts to build a community of spiritual consensus around vague notions like “justice,” “peace,” and “love”—none of which, of course, are very clearly defined in terms of Truth and all of which seem always to end up looking very political with a strangely partisan glow about them. Floaty Platonic Forms circling in the sky like ideological clouds never touch us down here, so Jesus says outrageous things like: “…anyone of you who does not renounce all of this possessions cannot be my disciple.” How strange that our mild-mannered social engineer with a utopian fetish seems so eager to exclude, to divide and conquer, and to set families against their members.

What does Jesus want from us? The quick answer: everything, all of it. The more complicated answer: Christ knows what lies ahead for him; he knows the Way he must travel is pockmarked with deadly-dangerous people, perilous trials, and a bloody end on the cross. And he knows that we who look to him now as the Christ—the one who satisfies our hunger for holiness, the one who heals our fractured lives—he knows that we will be sorely seduced, tempted beyond resistance to follow him, to walk behind him even now. And like his disciples then we find ourselves now in his increasingly seditious company. His disciples worsen their plight then if they, once seduced by his feast of grace, decide to be baptized, taught, and sent out as preachers of the Good News. What they had to be told then and we must be told now is that in order to survive spiritually, to keep the faith and to grow in holiness, they and we must want nothing but Christ, desire nothing but Christ, long for nothing and no one but Christ! Our hearts exclusively focused on Jesus; our minds thinking first and last of Christ; our bodies ready to be beaten, torn, burned, and killed for his sake and as a witness to the power and truth of the gospel, then we are prepared in this age or any age to be his faithful students. Christ died to give us the resources we need to finish building our righteous lives. Will we follow?

We must know and be warned: Jesus’ band of preachers and prophets and priests and kings is no merry band of do-gooders and smiley-faced bourgeois social engineers. They are men and women who were and will be, like Paul, imprisoned for the gospel. Made slaves of the Truth. Sworn to the Good. And brought to Beauty, brought to Him face-to-face. “And thus were the paths of those on earth set right.” And thus will our paths be made right.

I said earlier that our spiritual poverty, our lacking in strength is a neglect and a failure and most likely the final bloom of cowardice. Jesus knew that those who loved him as a teacher would betray him at his end. He knew he would die without his students. Despite his dreadful warning, they signed on and followed him. . .until following him required a price. But he knew this too, and he freely went to his death for them despite their cowardice, despite their failure of heart. In fact, he went to his death b/c of their cowardice. How else could he return and set them on fire with his Holy Spirit? The book of Wisdom is right about us: our deliberations are timid and our plans unsure, and we are weighed down with corruptible bodies and minds loaded with daily, yearly, and life-long worries. But we choose these; they are our decisions. And though we can scarcely understand the things of the earth and though we find difficult even that which is within our grasp, our Way has been set right by Christ. Now, will you follow him? Will you walk his Way? Sorrowful AND joyous!

Let’s end here: what do you love more than God? Who do you love more than God? What cross has been handed to you? Will you pick it up? Will you carry it? What possesses you? Who owns you? Will you claim the resources Christ died to give you? And finally, will you leave the prison of sin you have put yourself in so that you may be imprisoned in Christ?

If so, follow him.

*The low hum in the background is a fan I am using to keep me from dying of heat exhaustion while saying Mass. It will be a regular feature from now on. If it becomes too much of a distraction, let me know.

"Lay Presiders" at Mass? Nope.

I've received several emails and a few off-thread posts in the comboxes asking me to comment on the recent article in The Tablet concerning our Dutch Dominicans brothers and their most recent venture into experimental Protestantism. Apparently, two or three Dutch Dominicans published a pamphlet calling for the Catholic Church to allow locally elected members of the lay faithful "to say Mass," i.e. lay folks presiding at Mass instead of a priest. According to The Tablet article the brothers offer up the usual reasons for allowing such a thing.

Most of the questions I've received have been along the lines of: "What will the Order's Master do about this?" My answer: I have no idea. I've heard that at least one American province is planning a public repudiation of the booklet. And I just read something about someone in authority over there canceling a study day between the theological center that produced this little gem of theological excellence and some of the Dutch bishops. My Dutch is rusty, but the Babel-fish translation I managed seemed to indicate that the study day had been canceled at the request of the Master of the Order--a very good sign.

I am pretty confident in saying that at least 90% of my Dominican brothers would sign off on the following bolded-statements:

1). A validly ordained priest in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church is necessary for the valid celebration of the Eucharist. IOW, there can be no lay presiders at the Mass because such an event would not in fact be a Mass at all. A "lay lead Mass" can never be a Mass by definition.

2). Anyone teaching that the Mass can be validly confected by a lay person is teaching against the Church's ancient understanding of the Eucharist and Orders. Paragraph eighty of the Dominican constitutions (LCO 80) calls on all friars to put our intellectual and academic prowess at the service of the Church's magisterial office. We are not called to set ourselves up as an "alternative magisterium."

3). As an Order, the Order of Preachers fully supports the ancient teaching of the Church and should publicly repudiate the conclusions of our Dutch brothers. This would not be a condemnation of the brothers themselves, of course, only a rejection of their theological conclusions. Prediction: the Dutch friars in this case will not be disciplined in any way.

4). Such a repudiation should not be understood as a rejection of theological exploration in general nor the necessity of researching creative ways of ensuring that an adequate number of priests are available to serve God's church. The desired result of any faithful attempt at solving the "priest shortage" should be more priests not more "lay presiders."

If we are concerned about the shrinking availability of the Eucharist in a time of an apparent priest shortage, how exactly does allowing lay presiders at the Mass make the Eucharist more available? Without a priest there is no Eucharist. So, what are we supposed to be making available to the people by allowing lay presiders? A lovely Protestant communion service? Fine with me. Just don't call it "Roman Catholic."

BVM: First stone, first step

The Nativity of the BVM: Micah 5.1-4 and Matthew 1.18-23
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

Listen here!

Feasts of the Blessed Mother should do what Mary herself did all her life and continues to do even now: exalt the Lord, prod us all to say YES to the Lord’s will for us, and point us constantly and consistently to Christ. We go to the Blessed Virgin in order to go through her to Christ. St. John Damascus preaches it well when he says, “Today a virginal gateway draws near: through her the God who is above all creatures will come bodily into the world. . .Eternal light. . .takes His body from this woman and, like a groom, comes forth from His bridal chamber. . .”

Lest any of us are tempted to hear this description of our Blessed Mother as an irreverent diminishment of her work for our redemption, listen again to Matthew’s gospel: “Listen up! The virgin will become pregnant and she will give birth to a son, and she and her husband, Joseph, will name their son Emmanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’” We cannot diminish or downplay or in any way minimize the obedient YES of Mary, her loving assent to the Holy Spirit’s embrace nor can we but help to turn to her as she herself turns to Christ, her son. We celebrate the Blessed Mother’s nativity this morning so that we may celebrate the Lord’s nativity. . .and then his baptism and then his public preaching and healing and then his suffering, his death, and his resurrection and ascension.

Truly, then, Mary is our gateway, our door; she is not our path nor is she the Way, but she is the first foot stone, the first step; in our history as a holy nation, a royal priesthood, she is for us our Mother in grace, the Mother of the Church; she spoke then and speaks now the most primitive YES, offering her body as the first sacrifice of a new covenant, giving herself to the Spirit and giving us our Savior.

All of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through His prophet: God has been with us. God is with us. And God will never abandon us. Mary is our promise of God’s presence. Her son, Christ Jesus, is that promise made good.

Oops!

In my Cleaning Frenzy I just now noticed a problem with the homily from the 18th Sunday in OT, "An exit graceless and without mystery?" I mistakenly posted the next day's homily, for the Transfiguration, under the heading for the 18th Sunday OT. So, my Transfiguration homily appeared twice!

I have fixed the problem. . .

Being the Lord's Faithful Bait

22^nd Week OT: Col 1.15-20 and Luke 5.33-39
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Serra Club & Church of the Incarnation, Irving, TX

Listen here!

Not a few of us here are no doubt delighted to hear the Lord proclaim this bit of Good News to us: “The old is good.” The beauty of the ancient is often difficult to see much less appreciate layered as it often is with the dust of history and myth, the grime and gook of being out of fashion, out of a shared groove. There is also—though difficult to articulate and somewhat embarrassing to expose—there is also something in there, in the ancient, the historical and the traditional that forms us, injects into us its genetic virus and pushes up through our flesh and bone, art and music, dance and theatre and invention and disaster, making its inexorable way from Then to Now and guaranteeing its presence—if only in fragments and splices—in a future where it will be fashionable, celebrated, at least for a time. But now, always now for us, the ancient is just old and stains us a sturdy red: old wine. Old wine in old wineskins. Why? “For he says, ‘The old is good.’”

The old is good. Old is endurance, survival, true-tested, lived through and beyond, and wised-up in practice. Haven’t we all heard the voice of the Lord urging us to take up an old life, a life of survival and testing? Aren’t we dared to contest against the world by joining the world in its decadence and attempting to transform it from its belly out? Um, no to both. We are urged by Christ to a new life in him and we are dared to contest against our disordered passions and witness to the world from within the world as Christs. So, what use then is the old to our lives in the new if the old (and all the old gives us) is not what we are called to, dared to? Jesus says, “…no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”

Do you think that the old opposes the new? Or maybe the other way around? Antiquity vs. novelty? Institution vs. revolution? No, no, no. Without the old there is no new. Without the old there is no nothing! Jesus teaches this point to the Pharisees when he tells them that his disciples will not fast while he is with them. Fasting will come later when he is left them. He says, “No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one. Otherwise, he will tear the new and the piece from it will not match the old cloak.” In other words, we do not destroy the new to repair the old nor do we disfigure the old with the new. The old is good. The new is waiting to be old and getting better. Together the old and new in you make you exactly who you are in Christ right now. You are your history, your present-promise, and everything you will become. You are old; you are new; and you are Next—whoever you are given to be by God forever!

In his letter to the Colossians, Paul tells us what it means for Christ to be in the image and likeness of his Father. He is the firstborn of all creation. He is before all things. Head of the Body, the Church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead and all things will be reconciled for him through him. We, you and I, are baptized into and made partakers of, added as players in the Easter Mystery of Christ. We are Christs, created and re-created in the imago Dei and who he is is who you are right this second—imperfectly Christ as just a “me” but more so and more so and more so as a “we.” Christ is not a new piece sewn to you. He is not new wine poured into your old wineskin. Nor is Christ the old cloak on which you are sown as a new piece. He is not the old wineskin into which you, the wine, are poured. Christ is old and new. He is Wisdom from the beginning and Mercy at the last. He was born before all creation. He is Head of his Body, the Church. And all things—All Things—all-created-things will be reconciled in him at last.

The fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Christ. The fullness of God—old and new—is pleased to seduce us, pleased to lure us to Him. We are stained (at once) a brilliant white and a sturdy red. And as we live and move and have our being in Him, we are his bait--preachers of his Good News!

Cleaning House

Howdy folks! Starting today I am deleting a number of non-homily posts in order to make room for this year's crop of new homilies. Most of what I will be deleting are the cranky op-ed pieces written without the benefit of sufficient caffeine and sleep. Since I started adding pics to every post I have rapidly depleted my alloted blog space. . .basically, I'm running out of room and I don't want to jump to another blog provider b/c that's. . .well. . .that's technical, and it makes me crazy.

So, enjoy the homilies and check out the updated POETRY Wish List and the PHIL & THEO Wish List and send me something I can't live without!

:-)

God bless, Fr. Philip, OP

To rule is to serve. . .

St Gregory the Great: 2 Cor 4.1-2, 5-7 and Luke 22.24-30
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

Listen here!

Jesus, bringing the useless argument of apostolic superiority to a clashing close, reminds his bickering friends who he is: “I am among you as the one who serves.” Wiser than all those sent with tongues on fire; holier than all those raptured in righteousness; more glorious than all the choirs of celestial intelligences; and in possession of a perfected heavenly reflection of the Face of God, His divine light, glory that outshines the Queen of Heaven, his own mother, Jesus the Christ is “among us as the one who serves.”

Remember: in the desert before his Emptying on the Cross, Jesus is offered everything any of us would want and take if offered—wealth, power, celebrity, worship. Jesus puts the Tempter behind him to stare at his back-side. Knowing that he can be wealthy, powerful, popular, and worshipped; and knowing that his suffering and death is a matter of his free choice, Jesus says “No” to the Devil and “Yes” to us, to our eternal lives. He served us then, he serves us now. If you will follow him, if you will be his friend, his preacher, you too have to say and mean, “I am among you as the one who serves.”

Perhaps I am just a jaded academic or a calloused cynic. I am not scandalized by the apostles jockeying for position. Good leaders are always necessary to maintain a connection to our history and show a way forward into what’s coming for us. Charitably, we can assume that all this apostolic politicking is about finding the Right Guy for the job and not just politicking for the sake of prestige and power. Jesus warns his friends about the way the Gentile kings lord their power over their subjects, saying “those in authority over them are addressed as “Benefactors’”—a title for the Greek kings. Jesus’ understanding of authority and power for his friends and for the Church they will build is quite different: to rule is to serve. He teaches his disciples: “...let the greatest among you be as the youngest, and the leader as the servant. For who is greater: the one seated at table or the one who serves? Is it not the one seated at table?” Can’t you hear the disciple’s brain-gears trying to grind this one out! You can almost smell the brain-oil burning as they try to crank this logic through! Then, just as they are finding convenient ways around this inconvenient little instruction, Jesus drops this bomb: “I am among you as the one who serves.” Eyes wide. Mouths drop. BOOM! Apostolic brains all over the walls and ceiling.

Son of God, Son of Man; King of kings, Prince of princes; The Messiah, The Anointed Savior, The Christ. And do not forget: The Suffering Servant. On a donkey. Accused with lies. Bound in mocking purple. Beaten. Crowned with wooden nails. And nailed to a cross of wood. Broken. Bled. Speared and finally, dead. If you will lead Christ’s people as his disciple, if you will serve the table of the Lord as our slave, you will follow him…not only behind him on Palm Sunday, collecting your share of accolades. But beside him on Good Friday as well, gripping your iron nails. Not only with him on Easter morning, rising from the grave but with him in hell the night before, freeing Nothing’s captives.

Paul writes to the Corinthians: “…we do not preach ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for the sake of Jesus.” This is the only homily any of us need preach, whether from the pulpit or the chalkboard, the boardroom or the cash register, from the kitchen, the car, or on the computer: Jesus Christ is Lord! And we are his students. We cannot be discouraged “since we have this ministry [of preaching and leading] through the mercy shown us.”

Christ has conferred a kingdom on us! Therefore, we are to serve as slaves to the least of his.

Where do you wanna sit?

22^nd Sunday OT: Sir 3.17-20, 28-29; Heb 12.18-19, 22-24; Luke 14.1, 7-14
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital, Dallas, TX

Listen here!

Let’s say I asked each of you to stand in turn and name one gift you have from God that you use to help other people. What would we hear? I am: good with money, medicine, law, real estate, teaching, learning, prayer, hard work. I am: willing to work, beg, collect goods, sweep porches, mow yards, paint houses, serve dinner. I have: time, cash, good friends with time and cash, transportation, supplies, connections. And I am willing and able to put all these—who I am, what I have, who I know—to work for those who are lost, those who have nothing, and those who know no one. Out of God’s abundance, you are blessed for your prosperity and the prosperity of your family. In humility, you are required to use God’s freely given abundance for the benefit of those who have nothing. This is not about polite “social charity” or “being a good philanthropist.” It is about your salvation—nothing less than a matter of whether or not you will sit at the banquet table at all.

Now, some of you may be thinking, “Prosperity!? What abundance? I’m not prosperous. I got debt; I work paycheck to paycheck; my family is barely scraping by!” As a working-class Mississippi boy who spent way too many years in college racking up student loans in order to get a job that earns me less than a Wal-Mart assistant manager—I hear you, loud and clear! We are not all given treasure as our gift. Not all of us have a ready cash-flow or asset liquidity. But let me quickly point out how quickly we all jumped to the conclusion that prosperity is about money, that our wealth is about a financial portfolio. I would guess that well-over 90% of Catholics in this country aren’t wealthy. And yet, they are required, like you and me, to be generous to those who do without. Prosperity is wealth but not all wealth is treasure and not all treasure is silver and gold and green.

Sirach points to wealth. The mind of a sage. An ear attentive to wisdom. The psalmist sings of wealth as well. The rejoicing of the just and their exultation of the Lord. Bountiful rain and a restored land. Hebrews tells us that those who have approached Mt Zion are wealthy in their experience of the divine. They have seen the city of the living God; seen countless angels partying at the throne of God; watched the assembly of the firstborn; and laid eyes on Jesus, “the mediator of a new covenant.” And! And! we all have an engraved invitation, carved into the flesh of Christ himself, an invitation to the wedding and the wedding feast. Christ is our living invite and our way to the party. Is there any gold or talent or any amount of time, any portfolio or estate worth as much as a place at The Table? Prosperity in Christ Jesus is eternal life; this is our inheritance as adopted heirs of the Father. So, how do we share ALL of our gifts so that we are not bumped, with great embarrassment, to the bottom of the table?

There are the usual ways of charity: donating money and goods to the needy; spending some time doing local service work; help a volunteer group raise funds for travel on a mission trip; go on a mission-trip yourself and work directly with the poor. All perfectly acceptable and much appreciated ways of spreading your prosperity in Christ. Are there other ways? Oh, yes. What about your witness? Your testimony about who Christ is to you, what he has done for you? What about the light of Christ beaming out of your skin? Do you radiate the love of God? This sort of charity—talking about Christ to others—is the sort of charity that makes Catholics extremely nervous! All that “testimony talk” sounds very evangelical Protestant, kinda Baptist, and very personal. It does, I know.

We have managed in this country to submerge our lives in faith into a kind of private vault, locking away the very center of our lives as Christians so that we can function politely in a largely secular culture. Our nation’s anti-Christian cultural elites are so obsessed with not being bothered by our faith, that, at their insistence, we have carefully crafted safe places where our faith might shine out but not shine on them. Church, for example. Maybe the Union Mission downtown. Never the office or our public schools. Never the ballot box or the statehouse. Never, in other words, anywhere the light might actually touch them. We have, I think, become used to this arrangement and we have, as a result of this familiarity, made our witness something to be ashamed of right when it is most needed.

Here’s my challenge to you: think long and hard about your witness: how do you share—out there—who Christ is to you and what he has done for you? How do you spread the wealth of God’s love, His mercy and care, His universal invitation through Christ to come party with Him forever? The public credibility of the gospel depends on Christ’s ministers—you and me and all of us together!—it depends on us sharing the prosperity, the abundance of the Good News preached by Christ Jesus to every man, woman, and child; Jew and Greek; slave and freeman; the gospel preached to everyone with him when he was among us. We must complete the preaching; we must make the teaching whole where we are, and show others the Way. There is no greater work of charity to be done.

Now, let me highlight the trap that lies in wait for those who will be witnesses in this world. As Christians, we do not possess the truth. We are possessed by the Truth. Our preaching and teaching cannot be about lording the correctness of the faith over those who do not share our faith. Truth is truth and truth wins out every time. We cannot be so arrogant as to believe that All of Truth is speakable, pronounceable by a human tongue, especially our flawed tongues! We know what we know, but there is infinitely more that we do not know. In front of this Mystery, we can only stand in silence with humility, trusting that as we grow in perfection God’s revelation will unfold for us. That there is no single owner of the Truth does not mean that there are multiple owners of the Truth. The truth of our faith rests in the Church, the whole Body of Christ; and this truth serves as our well of witness, our river of fresh understanding and utility. When we ourselves become poor and lame and crippled and blind, those possessed by the truth of our faith bring us to the table. So we must be very, very careful to invite to the Lord’s table the poor and lame and crippled and blind among us. Think! How long before I need such an invitation?

From the Word, a final word: You have not approached that which cannot be touched, therefore, My child, conduct your affairs with humility. Go and take the lowest place at the banquet table because he who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Learn from me, your shepherd, for I am meek and humble of heart. Spread your gifts. Sow your wealth. Be prosperous so that others might survive. Your harvest is mine, therefore, invite to my table those who cannot repay you. And when you do, know that I will repay you at the resurrection of the righteous.

Blind Fools! Hypocrites!

St. Monica: 1 Thes 1.1-5, 8-10 and Matthew 23.13-22
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

Listen here!

Woe to you, Pharisees and scribes! Hypocrites! Blind guides! Fools! Ah yes, Jesus is on a tear. He targets those most directly responsible for access to the Divine, painting them as obstacles, obstructions, as perverse things-in-the-way, and then he loudly and squarely accuses them of turning hard-won converts into children of Gehanna! So, not only are the Pharisees and scribes preventing the children of the Father from entering the kingdom—avarice fogging their obedience—but when they do manage to make converts, they turn these men and women, by their corrupt teaching and worse example, into heirs of the burning garbage heap, sons and daughters of refuse and waste. Having locked the kingdom against themselves, those who sit on the chair of Moses lock the kingdom against all those trying to enter, packing on their backs the Law, traditional interpretation of the Law, editions to the Law, interpretations of the editions, editions of the editions, intepretations of the interpretations, and, finally, practical distinctions so fine, so subtle that they push God’s people to edge of blasphemy and idolatry. And so Jesus cries to the crowd and his disciples: Woe to you, Pharisees and scribes! Hypocrites! Blind guides! Fools!

Could we ask for a starker contrast to this scene than the one we read about in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians? Here Paul gives thanks to God for the “work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope” of those chosen to lead the church in Thessalonia. Paul notes that though the gospel came to this thriving church through apostolic preaching and work, it also arrived “in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.” In other words, the gospel arrived as testimony in human word and deed, full and bright; AND the gospel arrived as the passionate love of God, the Holy Spirit snatching up cold-hard hearts, whacking open locked minds, and punting comfortable tushies up and down the beaches of the Aegean Sea!

And what difference does any of this make in how the contrasting modes of spiritual leadership handle their responsibility to mediate the divine to the people in their charge? Here’s the difference between the Temple in Jerusalem and the Church in Thessalonia: Paul writes, “In every place your faith in God has gone forth…” Gone out. Away from. Branched upward. Their faith is diffusing, scattering, circulating; it is spreading like seed, like good news, like wealth. The faith of those who sit on the chair of Moses is hog-tied, strung-up, caged in craft and guile; what true faith they have is hoarded like gold, like food in famine, like water in a desert so meagerly shared that even those who possess see little benefit from having it. Therefore, they are blind guides leading blind tourists. Hypocrites teaching the accumulated minutiae of legal precedent—footnotes to footnotes, cross references to more minutiae, bibliographical trivia, citations and indices—all piled-high trivia labeled “Faith.”

What are we to do? Obviously, we’re not to look the scribes and Pharisees for spiritual leadership! And we are to watch carefully our own legalistic tendencies—so easy and neat, aren’t they? So simple, uncomplicated and clean. I think Paul hits the right note on our jobs in the spirit of Love: “…to serve the living and true God and to await His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus…” To serve and to wait. To serve only is busy work done to stay busy. To wait only is a lethal quietism, a posion against lived-charity. Our ministry is service and waiting. More precisely, our service is service to God insofar as we do it while waiting on the coming of His Son, Christ Jesus. And it is the waiting, the anticipation of his coming again that pushes us to witness our lived-faith and to serve the least of His.

You can be a lock or a key. Show your joy in Christ: unlock the Kingdom!

Widening the Narrow Gate

Hey! There's nothing in the gospel about having to climb any stairs to the Narrow Gate!

21^st Sunday OT: Isa 66.18-21; Heb 12.5-7, 11-13; Luke 13.22-30
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Paul Hospital, Dallas, TX

Listen here!

That narrow gate ain’t getting any wider, and the wider I get the more I worry! There are times when I make a run for the gate, hoping to hit it hard enough to squeeze most of me through. You know, just hope that momentum pushes me on through. And there are other times that I think I might be able to slowly twist and turn, wiggle and jiggle in the right angles and pop on through. It’s a matter of finesse and know-how. And there are still other times that I just fall on the ground in front of the gate, kicking my feet and squalling like a baby needing his diaper changed! Let me through! Let me through! But fits and tempers don’t widen the gate either. Here’s my theory about that Narrow Gate: the gate is inversely proportionate to the size of the Pride trying to get through. The bigger the Pride, the narrower the gate. Humility—that lived-knowing that we are totally dependent on God for everything—my humility, your humility widens the gate and our Lord will say to us on the other side, “Hey! I know y’all! Come, recline at my table.” Momentum will not propel you through. Spiritual fervor, religious athleticism won’t help either. Nor will finesse or knowledge or good family connections wave you through ahead of the line. Infantile belly-aching about fairness and justice won’t reward you eternal life. Nor will whining about what you think you are entitled to / help you force your way through.

Someone asked Jesus, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” Notice, please, that Jesus doesn’t answer the question directly. Instead he instructs, then warns, then prophesies. First, the instruction: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate…” Then the warning: “…many, I tell you, will attempt to enter [the narrow gate]...” And finally the prophecy: “...but [they] will not be strong enough [to enter].” Unlike most of what we hear preached in our Catholic parishes these days and taught in our Catholic seminaries, this teaching is unambiguously exclusive, clearly it is not the all-inclusive, gates-wide-open-garden-banquet that we’ve been taught to believe represents salvation through Christ. Jesus couldn’t be more straightforward, more plain spoken: after the master of the house has locked the door, those standing outside will knock and plead, “Lord, open the door for us.” And the master will say, “I do not know where you are from.” And those outside will remind him that they ate and drank with him, listening to his teachings. The master will respond, “I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!” Much wailing and gnashing of teeth follows. Now, is this the nonjudgmental, all-inclusive, diversity and difference welcoming Jesus we’ve come to know and ignore? I don’t think so.

Our Lord is not a way to God among various but equally valid ways to God. Our Lord is not a truth among numerous but perfectly legitimate truths. Our Lord is not a life among different but equivalently honorable lives. Jesus says, “I am THE Way, THE Truth, and THE Life, and no one come to the Father, except through me. Christ is the Narrow Gate of salvation; he is the door to perfect freedom, perfect joy, perfect life, and that door opens for anyone, anyone at all—no one is excluded by Christ from the invitation to eternal life through Christ Jesus. Every human person, everyone, all of us are invited to knock on the gate in humility, to show him that we have been of service to the least of God’s children, and that we have put ourselves last in the kingdom by training our hearts and minds, by teaching our hands and feet through the daily exercise of righteousness—our workout routine in God’s Gym!

You might be confused now. Didn’t I say earlier that the teaching in this gospel is unambiguously exclusive? And didn’t I just say that Christ invitation to the gate and the party beyond it is all—inclusive! No one is left out. Exactly right. Christ leaves no one out of his invitation to follow him. No one. Jesus says, “And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.” No race, no sex, no color, no religious creed, no nationality, no sexual proclivity, no nothing is excluded from the call to holiness in Christ Jesus. Aight. So, who are those people on the condemned side of the locked door? Who are the evildoers that the master is cussing at? The ones who couldn’t squeeze through the narrow gate? Those are the ones who hear the call but do not answer it. The ones who come to the gate swollen with pride, envy, greed, self-righteousness. The ones who work hard to get themselves through the gate but never love. The ones who think that their mama and daddy’s money or family name or political connections would get them through ahead of the trash in line. The ones who plan on forcing their way in, bullying God with witchcraft and theologies of liberation. The ones who will not be disciplined by any authority, any instruction, any law. The ones who consistently and finally chose to use their freedom as license and squander their heavenly inheritance on a gamble against the house, God’s house. Those who stand on the other side of the gate, wailing and grinding their teeth, are there b/c they choose to be there: unambiguously excluded.

I said earlier that the Gate’s size is inversely proportionate to the size of the pride/humility of the person seeking to get through. How do we shrink our pride and swell our humility? The letter to the Hebrews tell us that the discipline of the Lord brings “the peaceful fruits of righteousness to those who are trained by it.” OK. What is this discipline? “Discipline” is an ordered form of learning, an organized means of attaining knowledge and/or enlightenment. Most anything can be a discipline: exercising, dieting, reading/writing, study, prayer. The key to discipline is that it is done in an orderly way under some authority—a teacher, a coach, a supervisor, a spiritual director. We are not to disdain the “discipline of the Lord,” meaning we are not to deride or disrespect the orderly authority of Christ in teaching us his truth. From Hebrews we learn that his discipline is our faithful way of enduring trial, our obedient means of suffering well under testing. This endurance, this suffering is a witness; this is testimony under duress and evidence for the Kingdom!

To repeat: Hebrews tell us that the discipline of the Lord brings “the peaceful fruits of righteousness to those who are trained by it.” Here’s your question for today: are you trained by the Lord’s discipline? Do you find yourself scourged by the love of the Father? He acknowledges you, so he treats you like a son; yes, even the women he treats like sons—as ones who will inherit His kingdom! Do you find pain or joy in your trials? Do you find peace or turmoil in obeying Christ? Do your hands droop and your knees grow weak thinking about the gospel-task in front of you? Do you give God thanks for your difficulties or do you complain? If you are made lame in your trials, it is better to make straight paths for your feet so that they may be healed and not disjointed. IOW, clear the path ahead of you by blasting it with gratitude to God! Yes, give God thanks for your diseases, your failures, your trials and persecutions, your disjointed bones and tired flesh. Thank Him and be disciplined. Be disciplined by the love that calls you to holiness, always calls to you to come to Him, and to pass through the narrow gate; you, shrunken in pride but swollen with humility; you, son of God, you, last of the least.

Loving your skin

St. Bartholomew (Nathanael): Rev 21.9-14 and John 1.45-51
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

Listen Here!

Here is a true child of Israel! Come and see.

Leather cords coil around the wrists. Bloody-sticky, the torn, pinched skin, caked with sand and hair, looks ready to pop, ready to turn itself inside-out in wet surrender. Fingers no longer move, blue-black, clogged and swollen with long-dead blood. He can hear the air split around each studded cord. . .and rattle in its descent, like market-day jewelry or a tent’s bead curtain, sharp and bronze. A biting stone, blade-edged to scrape the bone, to flay away the flesh and rend the spirit.

Nathanael says to Jesus, “How do you know me?” Jesus answers, “Before Philip called you—‘Come and see!’—I saw you under the fig tree.”

The first bronze barb strikes his sagging flesh just above the shoulder. The second strikes just next to the first and the remaining seven bite in line across his back. Pulling the leather cords unzips his skin, opening his flesh like ripping silk. Before he falls again to his knees, the nine scores leach out blood in perfectly straight rivulets. Falling, he smears his blood against one of those who try to hold him up and bent-over. We hear a faint, breathless profession, just a word or two as history.

Nathanael says, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.” Jesus answers him, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.”

Squinting his eyes against stinging sweat and cloying blood, he sees bits of meat—no longer wildly flayed pieces but filleted cutlets—neatly squared portions of his body stacked at the feet of those who fear him for loving Christ. His nine-barbed scourge hangs in the crook of tree branch, dripping small drops to the roots in the earth. His tongue swells to push against his teeth. And he no longer screams, watching his testimony in flesh and blood dissected. He will see greater things than these.

Philip finds Nathanael and preaches to him: “We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law…Jesus, from Nazareth.” Nathanael, for a moment puzzled and prejudiced, says “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Philip, again preaching, says, “Come and see.” Come and see the Christ for yourself. Come and see if I lie about the Messiah. Come and see the truth of my witness to you. Come and see your skin flayed to ribbons and your blood drained to wet the roots of a tree. Come and see your tongue swollen to silence and your witness hushed in the barbed rush of the scourge. What is Philip inviting Nathanael to come and to see? Christ? Yes, and more. The Good News? Yes, and more. Much more. Philip invites Nathanael to come and see the Christ who knows him—Nathanael—knows him already! I saw you under the fig tree, Jesus says to his newest disciple.

And why does Nathanael believe? Because Jesus does a magic trick by telling him where he has been? No. Like all of those in the gospels who come across the Christ, all of those who approach him in some need, with longing, Nathanael sees with eyes wide-open the glory of the Word given meat and bone standing before him. He sees all of his deficiencies turned to excesses; all of this problems resolved into gifts; all of his sins washed clean and forgotten. He sees standing before him the Son of God and the Son of Man come to give himself for us all. There is nothing else for Nathanael to say, nothing else for any of us to say but, “Jesus, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel!”

How much do you love your skin? Is it worth a single witness? Just one chance to say out loud to an unsuspecting disciple of the Lord, “Come and see…”?

Come on, Spirit, light my fire!

20th Sunday in OT: Jer 38.4-10; Heb 12.1-4; Luke 12.49-53
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP

St Ann’s Church, CORE Retreat, Coppell, TX & St Paul Hospital, Dallas, TX


Listen Here!

Surrounded as I am by so great a cloud of witnesses, I must ask: have you come to help our Lord to set the earth on fire?! Have you come here to help him destroy the family, to divide the nation, and to conquer the church? Do you understand that the water of your baptism did not extinguish the holy fire set ablaze in you, but rather those blessed waters feed and spread the fire of the Holy Spirit like gasoline, consuming you, burning you to perfection? And your job, my job, our job together is to run shouting like lunatics—holy priests and prophets—to run shouting through the dry-tinder kindling of this world, setting everything cold and hard and brittle on fire with the Holy Spirit! If you will follow Christ, walk his Way, carrying his Cross as yours, then you will become a Holy Pyromaniac.

The author of Hebrews writes, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that cling to us…” Fire burns its fuel first. The fire of the Holy Spirit burns away every burden and sin, releasing the grip of anxiety and freeing body and soul from the sickening weight of disobedience. Essentially, we are lightened for the race before us, unencumbered for navigating the Way and finding our Morningstar. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, “the leader and perfecter of faith,” every burden, every obstacle, every failure is lifted, surmounted, rectified, and we are propelled into the same joy that Christ saw before him through the Cross. Through the Cross. Not around it or under it or above it but through it, only through the Cross did he and do we come to the long anticipated joy in the presence of the throne of God.

But what does “only through the Cross can we find joy” mean day-to-day, minute-to-minute? First, be warned: the race to the Cross is heart-wearying! It’s not a test b/c a test is too easy. You have the help of the Holy Spirit! What’s a test when the H.S. is your cheat sheet? There is no obstacle course, something like a heroic passage from Greek myth—no giants to behead, no mutant spiders to outwit. You don’t even have to memorize any arcane languages or master multiple sets of occult symbols or chase down any wizardly objects. No. What you have to do is actually much, much worse than all these; much more difficult and painful: you must release your pride, unclench your self-satisfaction and arrogance, your misplaced sense of duty and control, and you must be weak before the Lord, praying, “I too wish the world were already ablaze for you, Lord! Enkindle in me the fire of your righteousness, burn away my burdens and sins, and make me a torch for your purifying love.” To joy through the Cross…

Going to the Cross for us, for our example and our benefit, Christ poured himself out, emptied himself in total subjection to the Father, becoming for us our sin. His kenosis, his abandonment to the worst of human depravity and his freely accepted death for our sake, is the spark for a holy fire, the match that pops and flares and sets all creation blazing in sacrifice. Every thing, every person and place, every relationship and bond, every right and wrong, all of it, our peace, our achievements, our grand plans and projects, our deeply held convictions and logical conclusions, our allegiances and sworn wars, our science, theology, philosophy, art, all of it, everything is transfigured, transformed in the perfecting conflagration of the Cross, the Empty Tomb, and our Lord’s ascension to the right hand of his Father. I tell you, Jesus says, I did not come to bring peace but division…and to leave everything in ash and smoke.

We have not yet resisted sin to the point of shedding blood. Our brothers and sisters in the Middle East have. Those of us in the Sudan have bled and bled. In China, we bleed for the state’s fear of an all-consuming fire. In Texas? Probably not today or tomorrow. But it’s not impossible that one of us here or all of us together could be called to resist sin to the point of shedding blood. Is that frightening? Of course. Our faith, or rather our religion, is a comfort to us. We find settled patterns and rhythms here. Familiarity and peace. Should our faith be comforting? I mean, should the fact that we trust a man who willing died on a cross for us be a source of comfort to us? You have vowed to do the same for me, ya know? To die for me. And I for you. That promise of witness is greater than family or friends or neighbors. That promise to stand up and speak up and give witness to a mighty God is greater than the comfort of religion or the temporary excitement of spirituality. For the sake of your joy beg to be emptied of every burden, every sin, and then fix your eyes on Jesus. He is the only leader, the only perfecter of our faith.

Again: surrounded as I am by so great a cloud of witnesses, I must ask: have you come to help our Lord to set the earth on fire?!

First adore. . .

Homily for Exposition & Adoration
St. Ann’s Church Retreat
August 18, 2007

from Pope Benedict XVI's Sacramentum caritatis (66): During the early phases of the reform [of Vatican Two], the inherent relationship between Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was not always perceived with sufficient clarity. For example, an objection that was widespread at the time argued that the eucharistic bread was given to us not to be looked at, but to be eaten. In the light of the Church's experience of prayer, however, this was seen to be a false dichotomy. As Saint Augustine put it: "nemo autem illam carnem manducat, nisi prius adoraverit; peccemus non adorando – no one eats that flesh without first adoring it; we should sin were we not to adore it." (191) In the Eucharist, the Son of God comes to meet us and desires to become one with us; eucharistic adoration is simply the natural consequence of the eucharistic celebration, which is itself the Church's supreme act of adoration. (192) Receiving the Eucharist means adoring him whom we receive. Only in this way do we become one with him, and are given, as it were, a foretaste of the beauty of the heavenly liturgy. The act of adoration outside Mass prolongs and intensifies all that takes place during the liturgical celebration itself. Indeed, "only in adoration can a profound and genuine reception mature. And it is precisely this personal encounter with the Lord that then strengthens the social mission contained in the Eucharist, which seeks to break down not only the walls that separate the Lord and ourselves, but also and especially the walls that separate us from one another."

Our adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is not something we just do b/c we have time to kill in the retreat schedule, or b/c it’s now the trendy thing to do! As our Holy Father makes plain in this exhortation: (reread underlined section). Precisely, precisely…at that point where you and I encounter Christ in our adoration and communion, precisely at that moment we are offered a grace: the chance to serve Christ, to honor his work and Word, to lift him up in praise and thanksgiving, a chance to be of godly use to someone else. Rather than taking us away from the messy work of Christian service, our adoration of the Blessed Sacrament pokes and prods, and pushes us out, out there to get sweaty in taking care of the needs of others. Think about it: does Christ need our adoration? No. God has no need of our praise, but our desire to praise Him is His gift to us. And our desire to praise him together in the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is His gift to us and then we are held responsible for becoming gifts to others. Ask yourself: how will I take this time in the presence of the Lord and then give it away?

Done Deal, or Dodging Cannibals

Assumption of the BVM: Rev 11.19; 12.1-6, 10; 1 Cor 15.20-27; Luke 1.39-56
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

“I don’t know” and “I promise” are the two most oft-repeated sentences in Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road. A man and his ten-year old son travel a road in a post-apocalyptic world. Everything is burnt to ash and poisoned. Remaining are Good Guys and Bad Guys. Bad Guys hunt other humans for food. And the Good Guys run. And occasionally roast over an open fire. All through the novel, as the man and his son travel along the road, the son questions his father about the the right and wrong of surviving. More often than not the father, in the post-trauma of witnessing his entire world destroyed, simply says, “I don’t know.” Since the father no longer knows what is true, good, or beautiful, he begins to build a two man civilization on the power of another sentence, “I promise.” And the son, hearing this tiny silver of hope over and over again, responds each time with the universal fiat of a near exhausted faith: “OK.”

In a novel or movie or dream, there might be a world where Divine Love does not animate all life; does not lift up and bring forward His children; does not create and re-create in His image and likeness. A world not haunted by the spirit of holiness would be that sort of world where ignorance of living beyond life and death would be fundamental and the only way up and forward would be the promise of other creatures. That is dismal. And no way to live. But how precarious is it for us to live on promise in this real world of ours? Haven’t we all here surrendered our lives—body and soul—to what we hope is a Divine Lover? Haven’t we all here submitted ourselves to His obedience and service after just a promise? Yes, we have. And no, we haven’t. Yes, there is the promise but there is more than a promise. We have been shown the promise in action—twice.

This feast today is a feast of promise, sure; but it is also a feast of transfiguring revelation, of God’s promise to us shown to us in the raising of Mary to heaven, her resurrection to His promise of glory fulfilled. Paul says that “Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Christ is the first of those raised. Mary is the second. And the Church will be the third. Follow here: Christ, Mary, the Church. Christ is the Son of the Father. Mary is the mother of the Son. The Church is the body of Christ, his brothers and sister in faith. Therefore, Mary is the Mother of the Church, the body of Christ, and we are children of the Father. We inherited the Father’s promise of resurrection in Christ through Mary. And her assumption into heaven, her resurrection, is our sign of God’s promise done. Like her Son who was transfigured on Mt Tabor, our Blessed Mother’s assumption is a transfiguring revelation, that sort of unveiling of truth that both educates and changes, informs and transforms. We do not celebrate a pious legend today but a divine promise shown to us to have been fulfilled. This is the end of us all!

In her fiat to the archangel’s announcement of her pregnancy, Mary sings out her people’s salvation history, the theodicies of God’s love for us, His interventions and interuptions in our time and place. He shows us His love. And reminds us of His promise of mercy, the promise He made to Abraham and his children forever. Mary is answering with more than a hesitant “OK” or a bored, whispered “whatever.” She is saying yes to it all—everything of the Father’s plan for her, for us. She knows. She knows. And she says yes. So then, how precarious is it for us to live on a promise in this world of ours? Here’s how: if you aren’t living on the promise of the Father, then you are living in the ignorance of the Enemy, traveling a burnt and poisoned road, just waiting for the Bad Guys to hunt you down and spit you like a pig.

Skilled in Love?

Solemnity of St. Dominic, Vespers: Philippians 1.3-8
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

We begin with an innocent question: are you skilled in love? Do you possess the distinguishing talents, the connoisseur’s gifts for hunting, finding, and cultivating love? If so, Paul is writing to you on this evening feast of St. Dominic, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion…” In fact, he is writing to all of us who are skilled in love, promising us the achievement of the Good Work, a sterling finish to the gospel race we have vowed to run. If we are to be graced love-makers, committed craftsman of our Lord’s saving charity—looking to our Dominican brothers and sisters: Jordan, Thomas, Catherine, Rose, Martin, fra. Angelico, Margaret, Lacordaire—if we are to light even the smallest fire among the wet woods of this wearying world, we will imprison our hearts and minds in the gracious, re-creating Word, defending and confirming with every word we speak the Good News of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no joy for us in anything less. Our fiery brother, Savonarola, preached the Lord’s Passion, saying, “Our preaching will be refined and not refined, yet everyone can receive it, particularly those skilled in love. Those who are not skilled will know their distance from Love.” And that distance we must make our own and then travel to those who do not yet know Love. Our sister, Catherine of Siena, preached this ministry, saying, “The soul in love with [the Lord’s] truth never ceases to be of service in a small enough way to all the world…” Surely, it is a small enough way for us to walk, gifted as we are with the work of preaching Christ Jesus and skilled in nothing less than giving voice and volume to the advent of our Father’s Kingdom! We can find those who do not yet know Love even when we ourselves forget to love, forget to be Love. From our long history, we Dominicans know that it is never enough for us merely to preach. We must be the preaching—with all our anxieties, human quirks, tongue-tied failures, and even the occasional cold heart. The sacred preaching is never just an imitation of Dominic. We do not channel Hyacinth or Peter of Verona from the pulpit. Love shapes each voice of the Word given the nature of the tongue that speaks it, so that all the syllables of the Gospel will find their artful expression. And all those skilled in love will hear One Word, One Voice, One Herald of the Good News.

Lord, on this solemn feast of our Holy Father, Dominic, free us from the silent death of fear and worry and jail us in your saving Word. Bring to perfection the Good Work you have begun in us and take us with ready hands and hearts to serve those who are not yet skilled in your Love. Amen.