"A [preacher] who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental; they are necessarily reflected in his [preaching]." — BXVI
02 October 2007
Catholic Truth Society and Two OP books
01 October 2007
Turn, go to the playground
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St.
You have to imagine the scene clearly. Jesus is praying quietly by himself. His disciples, the twelve and probably a few others, all grown men in their thirties and forties, approach Jesus expectantly. He opens his eyes, takes a deep breath, and waits for the question. And what cosmos-quaking question do these students of the Anointed Messiah ask their master? What is the nature of peace? Of mercy? How do we live abundantly in poverty? Hunger? No. They want to know who among them will be the greatest in heaven. Ah, it’s about ambition, about being the alpha-dog. You can almost feel the heat from Jesus’ embarrassment and perhaps just a degree or two of his anger. Jesus—no doubt thinking: how do I get through to these thick skulls I’ve chosen to be my apostles?—calls over a child and stands the child in the middle of the group. There’s a tense silence among the nipping canine-disciples, an expectant hush as they wait to hear what incredible nonsense Jesus will try to teach them this time; and Jesus says, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” I see dumbfounded stares, dropped jaws, disappointment, confusion, all flavored with a bit of frustration and anger. Children!?
Yes, children. Jesus sets a child among them and anoints the child as their exemplar. He puts two conditions on entering heaven in this passage: 1) we must turn and 2) we must become like children. Turning makes perfect sense b/c as adults we would have to make radical changes, turn-a-bouts, in order to arrive back at where we started—innocence, humility, a sense of wonder. Turning is conversion, flipping over, stopping and going in reverse, facing the other direction. What does it mean for us to become like children? No doubt Jesus is pointing out the desirable qualities of a first-century Jewish child. Respect, humility, willingness to serve, eagerness to learn, docility in obedience—all of the qualities we would associate with “good kids.” He is also lifting up in this child those qualities that we sometime leave behind as adults: imagination, wonder, a perfect sense of awe, that ability and willingness to look at the world and live wholeheartedly in joy, overflowing gladness and a complete lack of pretension.
Jesus is telling us that we must become a particular kind of child. We must become small, little; without worldly ambitions, without aggressive pretense or a need for secular approval. He is telling us that we must become who we truly are already: creatures of a Creator, children of the Father. We are to be students, apprentices of charity and grace, interns of eternity. As adults of the twenty-first century, we must become the children of the first. If we would be the greatest, we must be who we truly are: the least. To do this we must turn and turn and turn. Always turning back to our heavenly Father. What else can His favorites do?
30 September 2007
Hey! Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?!
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Paul
Let’s get a definition first. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1033), we read: “We cannot unite with God unless we freely choose to love him.” So far, so good. We must choose to love God in order to live with Him forever. Continuing, “But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves.” How do we fail to love God? How do we reject His invitation to live with Him forever? We sin against Him, our neighbors (meaning any other human being), and ourselves.
Alright, how do we sin? Let’s read a definition of sin and then return to Hell (no pun!): “Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience…” When we act against, speak against, desire against reason, truth, and our properly form conscience, we sin. Continuing on: “…[sin is a] failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods.” OK. When you are attached viciously (in a manner of a vice, a bad habit) to goods that are not The Good (God), then you fail to give your love to God and to your neighbors. So, loving things or ideas or desires in a way that fundamentally excludes God is a failure in genuine love. And more: “[Sin] wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity.” When you act against, speak against, and desire against reason, truth, and your rightly formed conscience, you wound or injure your very nature; in other words, you damage that which makes you loveable to God and the rest of us—your creaturliness, your nature as a redeemed child of the Father. One more: “[Sin] sets itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from [God’s love]…Sin is thus (according to
Now, back to Hell. Remember: we cannot be united with God if we sin against Him, neighbor, or self. The CCC continues: “Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.” This is straight from Matthew’s gospel: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, visit the imprisoned. (Matt 25.31-46). More: “[To die in sin] without repenting or accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by [your] own free choice.” That is, if you leave this life having lived apart from God—His love, His mercy—and you leave this life having failed to help those in need, you will live in eternity in exactly the same way you lived this life: separated from God. Hell, therefore, “[is the state] of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed…” Did you hear that? Hell is the definitive self-exclusion from an eternal life with God and His saints. SELF-exclusion. You put yourself in Hell. God wants you in heaven with Him. Why would He put you Hell? Answer: He wouldn’t. Or rather: He won’t!
Paul tells Timothy: “Lay hold of eternal life, to which you are called when you made the noble confession in the presence of many witnesses.” You do this by pursuing “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and gentleness.” Paul urges Timothy: “Compete well for the faith.” The better translation reads: “Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you were made.” Did you hear that? You are made to live with God forever! God created you, created all of us in such a way that we can live beyond this life of flesh and blood, beyond our sin, beyond death itself—we can live with Him in “unapproachable light.”* But we cannot live with Him if we sin. Not now and not forever.
The Rich man in Luke’s gospel finds himself suffering torment in the flames of Hell. Why? Because he was rich? No. Because he wore purple garments and ate sumptuously on fine linen? No and no. Because he drove a Land Rover? Wore Gucci and Donna Karan? Vacationed in
Now this is the point in the homily where I am supposed to guilt you into giving money to charity or volunteering at the homeless shelter. Do I need to do that? No. We Catholics are famous for our works of mercy. If you aren’t giving money to charity or volunteering to help the poor, start now. No, I don’t want to guilt you into service. Rather I want to make sure you have heard the subtext of this homily—and for that matter, the plain text of our Mass readings. I’ll say it clearly so there is no confusion: God does not want you in Hell. God made you and me to live with Him. He called us to lives of righteousness. He sent His only Son to die for us so that we can live with Him forever. He does everything in His power to seduce us into a life of Love with Him…everything, that is, except take away our free choice and turn us into programmed androids. He loves us so much that He will respect our freedom to reject Him and honor our decision to live without Him. In other words, God will love us straight into Hell. But please, please hear this: He does not want us in Hell nor will He just randomly toss us into Hell. That’s our choice. Not His. A mature relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us—He loved us first and loves us last—and we come to the fullness of our humanity when we take His love for us and spread it around.
Finally, God is not hiding behind your bathroom door just waiting for you to sin. He is not under your bed taking notes and hoping you “go too far.” He is not floating above your car praying that you will slip up and cuss someone in traffic so He can crash your car in punishment. Ours is not a GOTCHA God who lurks in dark places just hoping we will mess up so He can get us. Nor is he a petty little god of tiny faults and minute flaws, hungry for theological error and spiritual laziness. This kind of god does not provide a way out nor does he/she open avenues of forgiveness and blessing. This kind of god does not bother to care for his/her wicked creatures, but focuses his/her energy on the Bright and
For the sake of your spiritual maturity, please move beyond the god of constant surveillance, beyond the god of terrible Gotcha’s, beyond the god of retribution and blood. Move toward the God of Christ, the God who sent His only child, His son, to die for us once on the cross. We are free from sin in his death and resurrection. We are freed, we are free in his one sacrifice for us. Fight the good fight of the faith not the already, always lost battle of “do-it-yourself” salvation. You didn’t create yourself, so you can’t re-recreate yourself. Choose now to love as you are loved and choose against Hell itself.
*For reasons known only to God and my misfiring synapses, I pronounced this as "irreproachable." There is no such word. Duh.
Oh, the possibilities!
Please continue to pray for my discernment!
As of yesterday morning, the list of possibilities has been narrowed considerably. Though I've received no final word, it is almost certain that my first choice for ministry has been eliminated.
My second choice is going to be a HUGE challenge. . .
And my third choice (sssshhhhhhh. . .) is still brewing in prayer. . .
I will flesh these out for you more later--when I know for certain that this or that possibility has been eliminated.
In other news: any bishops out there looking for an orthodox Dominican friar to run your diocesan religious ed program, or any university/college department chairs who might need an experienced classroom teacher. . .I know a guy who knows a guy who can hook you up with a well-educated O.P. who would run a tight yet creative ship for you! Drop me a combox note and I'll pass it along to this friar's superiors.
Pray hard, Fr. Philip, OP
28 September 2007
Because Christ was first. . .
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert
Notice that the Crowds say that Jesus is just some ancient prophet risen again. And, despite the fact that Jesus asks all of the disciples the question at hand—who do you say that I am?—it is Peter alone who answers, “The Christ of God.” But for this correct answer Jesus rebukes them all and silences them! Why? At the exact point where his less than brilliant students finally get that he is who he says he is—the Messiah, the Christ—Jesus not only orders them to silence but chastises them for knowing the truth. Again, why?
Jesus knows that the Party is long from over. In fact, he knows how the whole thing ends and says so: betrayal, arrest, trial, rejection by the chief priests, execution, and resurrection—third-day-dead. He knows all of this. And he knows that Peter, the one with all the correct answers, will deny him over and over and over again. And he knows that he will go to his execution alone. That he must go alone—without his friends, without his fans, without his family. No crowding followers. No mobs of zealous converts trying to rescue him. No bloody riots in his name. Just a shameful death on a cross. The Christ of God dying—beaten and abandoned—on a cross.
Why couldn’t that be John on that cross, or Elijah, or Peter himself? Why didn’t the Romans and temple authorities arrest Jesus’ students and hang them up as well? His family? Why didn’t the whole lot of them meet their gruesome end as theological subversives, or liberating guerillas fighting against
Jesus is the Christ of God. He is the only one who could die on the cross for us. We cannot say that Jesus is only one Christ among many. Though we can say that we are all Christs in the world because he was Christ first. We cannot say that Jesus is one incarnation of divinity among many. Though we can say that we are all being perfected in divinity because the Son became flesh first. We cannot say that Jesus is just one man among many, dead on a cross, and risen again for our eternal lives. Though we can say that we have all died with him, and we will rise with him because he died for us and rose for us first.
The crowds still say that he is a prophet, a teacher, an avatar, a buddha of sorts. Peter says, even now, and we say with him still, “Jesus is the Christ of God!”
27 September 2007
Entertaining the Novices
Thanks, Rewrite, and Hire me!
I also want to thank all of those who posted comments here and the ones who sent me private emails--including one or two or more?--gentlemen who wear pointy hats to Mass. Your support is invaluable.
I will mention one criticism here in particular and offer to make amends for it. More than one commenter on another blog and more than one in private emails took me to task for they called "problems with tone," i.e. they noted that I am coming across as "sarcastic and bitter." OK. I am a bit sarcastic. OK! OK! I am a lot sarcastic. I'm not bitter at all. I am frequently a Disappointed Idealist, but I do not wallow in regret or bitterness. No fun in that.
Also in my defense: 1) I'm a born and bred Southerner and we have a weird sense of humor down here, and 2) I survived liberal arts grad school in the '90's...which means I have a "survival of the fittest" attitude when it comes to debate. We were trained by Hungry Pitbulls with Radical Political Agendas. Sometimes my Mississippi "Suffer No Fools" humor and my "Gut Them Before They Gut You" mentality combine to create a literary monster. These are reasons...not excuses.
Anyway, my critics claim that my legit message would be better served w/o the smart-ass attitude. [Why does my Mama's voice suddenly ring in my head?!] And I agree to a degree. I think what resonates with people in that post is my willingness to "tell it like it is."
The emotional energy of the post is frustration and just a bit of anger. A passive critical slap in the direction of the offenders would have been much less effective with those who read this blog regularly. In other words, I was writing to my audience.
Now, I also realize that the sarcasm does not come off as very professional and this may lead people who don't know me to believe that I am an Unprofessional Priest. Far from it.
So, here's my offer: if anyone out there wants to use my post, "Kids These Days..." but finds the sarcastic tone to be too much or potentially off-putting to those you think might benefit from the actual argument, let me know via the combox and I will rewrite the post in more "professional" language for your use.
I'm only going to do this if there is a demand for it. Please, don't ask me to do just to see what such a post might look like. If you want to reprint in a bulletin or something like that, well, OK...I'll do it.
The answer is: YES!
I have done all of the above on more than one occasion. And I am happy to do more. The only problem is that I am incredibly busy with my full-time job and two part-time jobs plus community commitments.
That said: I like to stay busy. So, it can't hurt to ask.
If you want to inquire about having me come speak or teach or "dance liturgically" (that would be U-G-L-Y, btw) or write something for publication, contact me at neripowell (at) yahoo (dot) com. You can also contact me through the Campus Ministry office of the University of Dallas (here).
The Priory usually asks for travel reimbursement and an agreed-upon stipend--contingent on time spent in prep work, degree of difficulty, time on-site, etc.
God Bless, Fr. Philip, OP
24 September 2007
Addition to the Hanc Aquam!
Also, you can enter your email address on the Player and receive notice that I have added a new homily!
Don't forget to stop by the buy POETRY for Fr. Philip Wish List or the buy PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY for Fr. Philip Wish List. There are lots of lonely books there just waiting for an eager Dominican friar to read them!
Use it or lose it
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory,
[Click podOmatic Player to listen]
With what do you listen? Eyes? Nose? Of course not! Ears? Maybe but no good. An opened-mind? Better but still not good enough. A contrite heart? Closer, much closer but not quite there yet. Hint: take care how you hear because “there is nothing hidden that will not become visible and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light.” Visible. Light. So, we do hear with our eyes after all! No. Eyes see. Ears hear. How you hear is the work of the Spirit—the Light of heaven shining to you, through you, and out of you “so that those who enter may see the light.” So, we have been given the Light to shine to others? Yes. Shine it for others and more light will given to you. Bundle it away under a vessel—say, fear of mockery, hoarding greed, or useless anxiety—and what little light you have will be taken away. Use it or lose it, right? Right. Begging to live in the Light of Heaven and then hiding it once you have received it is something No One does. And he who is No One is not someone you want to be. No One will whisper to you that you are being prideful when you shine out Heaven’s Light for others to see; that you are bragging about living in the Light; that you should be more humble, much quieter, less attention-seeking. It’s all about the Light, right? Yes. But the Light shines out through you to others. Without you that particle of Light, that wave of Light that you have been given will not shine. It is lost under the lie of No One. Take care, then, how you hear. Hear with a spirit longing to shine. Hear with the spirit of Someone who longs to glorify Light Himself.
Feeding the Fire Who loves you into His beautiful presence, burn yourself to cinder and ash.
23 September 2007
Growing Up to be What You Love Most
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation,
Here’s a basic spiritual principle that you can apply to your living out the faith day-to-day: I am now and will become that which I love most. So, one way to figure out what you want to be when you grow up is to figure out who or what it is that you love most. The underlying theological truth here is that since God holds us in being and since God is love, then it is love that holds us in being and love that defines our existence fundamentally. How we choose to participate in the love that is God is a decision about how we will shape, express, and nurture love for God, self, and others. In other words, what or who you choose to love most now is who or what you will become…eventually. Love God most, become God. Love money most, become money. Love sex most, become sex. Though this may sound appealing at first glance, please keep in mind: vanity, vanity, all is vanity…except Truth, Goodness, and Beauty—that is, God. So, whatever/whoever you choose to love and eventually become, make sure that that What or Who is permanent, everlasting, eternal b/c choosing anything less is the first choice you will make for your inevitable annihilation. Just ask yourself: do I want to become something or someone that will or who will die, rot, and never rise again?
Before moving to the gospel, let’s make a quick stop in the Psalms to shore up this basic teaching about superlative love and our existential future. Psalm 115 starts with a question from the enemies of God and ends with a profound insight into human nature: “Why should the nations say, ‘Where is their God?’/Our God is in heaven; whatever God wills is done./Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands./They have mouths but do not speak, eyes but do not see./They have ears but do not hear, noses but do not smell./They have hands but do not feel, feet but do not walk, and no sound rises from their throats./Their makers shall be like them, all who trust in them.” The idols have all of the features we have as humans (eyes, ears, noses), but they do not have life. They have no souls, no spirit; they are dead matter and without love. As the psalmist makes clear: if you love these idols, these lifeless statues, then you too become lifeless, without a soul, unable to love—the makers of idols, all who trust in the idols, will become their idols, their gods. Our God is in heaven—permanent, eternal, loving, and merciful—and so our destination, if we love God most, is a permanent, eternal, loving, and merciful life in heaven.
From psalmist to evangelist—St. Luke, specifically. In this gospel, Jesus says to his disciples: “No servant can serve two masters…You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” The standard read on this teaching, and the standard homily derived from it, focuses on not becoming too attached to material goods—Mammon being the pagan god of wealth and all. A perfectly good approach. However, I want to bring in the prophet Amos and then go in another direction. Amos warns: “Hear this! you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land!” Who is he shouting at? Amos is shouting at those who will, after the festivals of the New Moon, begin to cheat the poor of the little that they have by rigging their scales and selling the refuse of the wheat. To them the Lord through Amos says, “…by the pride of Jacob: Never will I forget a thing [you] have done!” And just to emphasize this warning to those who would cheat the poor, the Church places Psalm 113 right next to this reading. Our response to this psalm: “Praise the Lord, who lifts up the poor!”
Let me ask you again: what do you want to be when you grow up? Listen again to what the psalmist sings this evening: “The Lord raises up the lowly from the dust; from the dunghill he lifts up the poor/to seat them with princes, with the princes of his own people./Praise the Lord, who lifts up the poor!” Now, by show of hands: who here wants to grow up to be among the poor? Exactly! It’s not the first choice of many. But it will be the last choice of those who remain. How can I say such a thing? “No servant can serve two masters…You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” Who will be the Master of your life? In more contemporary terms: who will you choose to be your Teacher? Will you choose to love most Wealth and take your lessons, get your education from earthly treasure? Or will you choose God to love most and take your most basic education from the One Who made you and loves you most? I doubt anyone here is going to shout, “Oh! I choose Mammon!” But do you choose Mammon in quieter, more subtle ways?
Let’s see. Who is Mammon? Yes, “who.” Mammon is a “who,” a noun; he is a demon, in fact, mentioned by St. Thomas Aquinas: "Mammon being carried up from Hell by a wolf, coming to inflame the human heart with Greed.”
Lets’ go back to our basic spiritual principle: I am now and will become that which I love most. Given everything said here tonight: what do you want to be when you grow up? Are you ready right now to pray to God to put you among the poor? How ridiculous, Father! We’re students…we can’t get any poorer! Ah, but you see: that’s just a delirium brought on by all those Ramen noodles you’re been eating. You can be poorer. Much poorer. You could empty yourself entirely for another. You could give your life for a friend. You could die on a cross for your worst enemy. You could be starved to death in the
One more time: who do you love most? Love Love Himself and become Love for others—emptying yourself on the cross you have been given, using the gifts with which you have been graced. Anything, anyone less than this is to squander your inheritance as a child of God; you trash that which makes you loveable, you spit on the image and likeness of God Himself; to love anything, anyone less than God Himself—to serve a Master smaller and weaker, to take your education from a Teacher who will not die for you, who did not die for you—is to choose a life of folly; it is the choice to live your life as an enormous fool. You cannot serve two Masters. Nor can you love two Masters. Nor can you grow up to be both of those Masters. You will grow up to be one or the other. Choose then to be counted among the poor, those who have nothing but Christ and will die for everything they have.
22 September 2007
Kids These Days: What they don't want from the Church
There’s a lot of hand-wringing over the sharp decline in youth participation in the Church in the last few decades. I won’t go into the stats b/c I have always believed that Math is of the Devil…
21 September 2007
Mercy not sacrifice, sinners not the just
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Serra Club Mass & Church of the Incarnation
Follow Christ.
If Jesus can approach a Jewish man who works for the Roman version of the IRS, and say to him with all sincerity and grace, “Follow me,” then we can all find ourselves sitting at that customs post, working for the enemy of our own people, our own nation, and hear Jesus’ call to repentance, living lives worthy of that call. We, along with Matthew, are sinners and we, along with Matthew, are pressed into a daily conversion, a weekly transformation that moves us step by step, leap by leap closer and closer to the One Body, the One Spirit, “the one hope of [our] call.” That one hope is this: that we come to allow into our lives, lives made worthy by Christ and our repentance, “one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all”—one Father of ALL.
The one sacrifice of Christ on the cross is every sacrifice will we ever need to make. There is nothing else for us to sacrifice. What can we sacrifice that is a better gift, a greater oblation than the self-sacrifice of the Son of God for our eternal lives? My own life, given in suffering and death for another, is efficacious only b/c Christ gave his own life in suffering and death for us all first. In other words, my death for you or your death for me is a sacrifice worthy of our call b/c Christ, in his one sacrifice on the cross, has already made every sacrifice we will ever make a success before we make it. Therefore, as ones called to live worthily in Christ, we are to live lives of mercy and not lives of sacrifice!
What would such a life look like? Paul, a prisoner of the Lord, writes to the Ephesians that they are to live their lives “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace…” Let me suggest that “the bond of peace” is not some kind of “live and let live” or a “you do your thing and I will do mine” morality, but rather a bond that frees us from fighting with one another and wrangling over the petty stuff so that we may hear the Word and see the Word in one another, maturing in the hope of our call--“one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all.”
Jesus says to the vile tax collector, Matthew: “Follow me.” Matthew gets up and follows Christ. He follows Christ to the desert, the sea, the houses of prostitutes, dinner with Roman officials, to the markets, to the Garden, and eventually, to his own cross. Grace is given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Some will be graced to lives of quiet witness. Some to lives of noisy work. Some to lives of poverty and sickness and others to lives of wealth and health. And because God loves us all and each differently, we will all be made worthy according to our gifts. Some will be teachers and some preachers and some prophets and others will be fathers, mothers, and others still will be eunuchs for the
And because he died for us, we must give to one another mercy and expect from one another mercy alone.
19 September 2007
Dominican Rite
Check it out!
Reaction from Santa Sabina
Rome Dominicans surprised at Dutch proposal for priestless Masses
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The general curia of the Dominicans expressed surprise over a booklet published by its order in the Netherlands recommending that laypeople be allowed to celebrate Mass when no ordained priests are available. In a written statement released by the Vatican Sept. 18, the Dominicans' Rome-based leaders said that, while they "laud the concern of our brothers" over the shortage of priests, they did not believe "the solutions that they have proposed are beneficial to the church nor in harmony with its tradition." The statement, dated Sept. 4, acknowledged the Dutch Dominicans' concerns about the shortage of vocations to the priesthood and the difficulty in offering the faithful in the Netherlands a wider celebration of the Eucharist. But while the statement said Dominican leaders shared those same concerns it said they did "not believe that the method they (Dutch Dominicans) have used in disseminating" a booklet to all 1,300 parishes in the Netherlands was an appropriate way to discuss the issue.
I've search in vain for the text of the statement from Santa Sabina. I'm curious about who signed it.
17 September 2007
Podcast links...
So, if you want to hear my homilies preached, please click on the Pod-o-Matic badge on the left hand sidebar.
Click over there!