Post-Meta-Theo Requirements & Reading LIst

I've posted the Course Requirements for the Postmetaphysical theologies seminar over on suppl(e)mental.

The Reading Syllabus is up now!

The first student posts will be up Tuesday, Jan 29th.

HOW do you know Christ?

2^nd Sunday OT: Isa 49.3-6; 1 Cir 1.1-3; John 1.29-34
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital, Dallas

[Mea culpa! I deleted this recording before I posted it. . .doh.]

John the Baptist, all the while running up and down the Jordan River baptizing folks for repentance in the name of Christ, freely admits upon seeing Jesus that he himself did not know Jesus! He says though that he does know one thing about Jesus; he says, “…the reason why I came baptizing with water was that [Jesus] might be made known to Israel.” This episode from John’s gospel occurs after John has baptized Jesus, so now John knows exactly who and what Jesus is. More than a herald of the coming of the Lord, John is now a witness to the Lord’s presence among us. He says, “I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven and remain upon him. . .he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. . .he is the Son of God.” You may wonder why we are hearing about John the Baptist so soon after Christmas! He is the herald of Advent leading us to Christmas not a witness for Lent who leads us to Easter. We are hearing about the Baptist again so soon after Christmas b/c he makes a single confession of ignorance twice: “I did not know him. . .I did not know him. . .” You might say, here on the verge of Ash Wednesday and Lent, John the Baptist is showing us a way into the Lenten desert: do you know Christ?

There is no shame in confessing that you do not know Christ. You want to know Christ or you wouldn’t be here this morning. It’s likely that you know lots of facts about Christ. His first name: Jesus. His mom’s name: Mary. His dad: Joseph. You may know where he was born; where he lived and preached and taught; when and where he died. You may know all of the prophecies of his coming—Emmanuel, virgin mother, suffering servant, etc. And you may even know people who claim to know him well. But think for a moment about the difference between “knowing facts about Christ” and “knowing Christ.” Even John admits, “I did not know him. . .I did not know him. . .” But what John did know was that he was to baptize Jesus when he saw him so that all of Israel may be exposed to the unveiling of the Christ, the Son of God. How then do you know Christ? Factually or intimately?

I think this question makes Catholics a little nervous. It sounds very evangelical, very Protestant. The question seems to come with a whole bags full of sticky emotions, affective commitments, weepy testimonials, and a certain amount of religious theatre—you know, the preacher running around, shouting, waving his arms, urging people to stand and clap. This is the Protestant version of Catholic calisthenics (stand, bow, sit, kneel, stand, bow, etc). Anyway, let me assure you that our Protestant brothers and sisters have no monopoly on knowing Christ, nor do have they cornered the market on asking whether or we know Christ. This is a universal question for Christians, a catholic question, if you will. John the Baptist comes to the fullest possible knowledge of Christ when the Holy Spirit points him out at the Jordan and says (more or less): “That’s him. Baptize him!” You and I need to hear the question and struggle with an answer because we are packing our things and looking toward the Lenten desert—that time we set aside during the year to face the Devil’s temptations with Christ. Frankly, I want to know who’s with me when I face down the thousands of temptations that peck at me all year!

So, back to the question: do you know Christ? If so, how so? I don’t mean here “by what means do you know Christ;” I mean, what is the quality of your knowledge? Casually, formally, ritually, liturgically, morally, or perhaps, not at all. With regard to the means of knowing Christ, most of what we know we know from scripture, tradition, the magisterium. We are gifted with reason so that we may deduce certain knowledge. We can ask our clergy, our family, our friends. They can tell us some things we may not yet know. Bits and pieces that can be shared with words or gestures, or gifts. We can watch documentaries on A&E or read a library full of books. But finally, ultimately we have to know to what degree of intimacy, to what depth and breadth do we know him? This is a matter of our salvation b/c we were baptized with him in the Jordan. We were with him preaching, healing, feeding, suffering, and dying. We were with him on the cross and in the tomb. He rose up from the grave, leaving us his Holy Spirit, so that—yes absolutely—we will be with him again, rising to the Father! How do you know Christ?

Listen one more time to how Paul addresses the Corinthians in the first letter to them: “…to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy, with those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.” Did you catch that? To you who have been sanctified in Christ and “called to be holy…” The depth and breadth of our knowledge of Christ is best measured in our holiness. Our holiness. Not our piety. Not our morality. Not our adherence to the law. But in our holiness. We have the question “do you know Christ?” before us. Another way to ask the same question is this: are you holy? YIKES! What does that mean? Am I holy? Well, you might say, I love my family and friends. I go to Mass, confession, holy days of obligation. I’m pious. I’m moral. I obey the law. I’m a good person, generally speaking. But holy? Yes, are you holy? Here’s your Lenten job, brothers and sisters: become holy. If you are already holy, then become holier. You are, we all are, as capable of becoming holy as we are of breathing, eating, sleeping. How so?

Listen to what the Lord said to Isaiah, “You are my servant, Israel, through whom I show my glory.” As baptized members of the Body of Christ, we are the people of his Word, the tribe of David, the royal priesthood of his temple, the prophets of his coming again. Listen again, “You are my servant, Bob, Sue, Jill, Charles, Jeff, Fr. Philip, Richard, you are my servants through whom I show my glory.” We know that only the Lord is good and holy. So the only way we may be good and holy is to show our Lord’s glory. The way Christ shows the Father’s glory. The way the Holy Spirit shows the Father’s glory. We must be a light to the nations so that the Lord’s salvation “may reach to the ends of the earth.” And we can do this precisely because we have been made holy in Christ Jesus and called to the life of the apostle in baptism. Please, be moral, pious, obedient, generous, but be and do all these to show the Lord’s glory. And show the Lord’s glory so that all may hear the call to holiness. That’s our job as members of the Body.

John did his job—baptizing with water for repentance—until the Holy Spirit called him to holiness in Christ. Then he baptized with Christ, showing everyone who came to him the sign of their calling: “Behold! Look there! The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” Is this what we are doing? This is how we grow in the holiness that Christ died to give us. As you get closer to Lent, that deserted trek across our temptations to disobedience, freely confess, “I do not know Christ.” Take it as a temptation if you want to confess, “I do know Christ!” Why a temptation? Because we are growing in holiness. A confession of ignorance is the humble means of knowing him better, more deeply; it is the surer means of coming to the surer knowledge that you are all at once planted, nurtured, pruned, cultivated, but not yet harvested. All of the possibilities for our growth in holiness lie in this one confession: “Here am I, Lord! I come to do your will!”

Sleep, books, Japanese metaphysics

The sleep study was a bust! The sensors wouldn't stay on for some reason. The poor tech had to come into the room several times in the night to reattach sensors and replace broken connectors and wires. I told her it was my Dominican Brain Power (DBP) that was shorting the wires.

I've updated the Phil/Theo Wish List to include several books on the evangelical movement called "Open Theology." I don't know much about it, but it looks like an interesting read of scripture and historical theology. . . not to mention it's use of process philosophy. I think the more orthodox evangelicals have more or less trounced the movement institutionally, but it may prove useful as an example to Catholic liberals who want to rely too heavily on "correlationist" philosophies in theological work.

I ended up using two of my B&N gift cards from Christmas to buy the Japanese metaphysics books. Several faithful readers wrote to express some anxiety about my reading direction: Buddhist metaphysics!!! In my defense: I'm a Dominican. Dominicans read everything with a critical eye. I'm as orthodox now as I have ever been. So, no worries, people!

God bless, Fr. Philip, OP

Can we be astounded?

1^st Week OT (F): 1 Sam 8.4-7, 10-22 and Mark 2.1-12
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Serra Club Mass, Church of the Incarnation

The video tape was out there, passing from hand to hand, showing up in one room and then the next, speeding away in another book bag just before I reached it. As a Resident Advisor in the freshmen dorm in the late ‘80’s, my guys were telling me all about this highly sought after video tape. It was the guest of honor at many-a-late-night party; and it was said that those who watched the tape breathlessly concluded, “We have never seen anything like this.” I finally had my chance to see this movie one late night shift in the dorm office. The subject of the movie? Something racy and X-rated? No, on the tape was a documentary called, “Faces of Death”—a collection of real footage from police, fire, emergency departments depicting real people meeting their deaths in a variety of horrible ways: a crocodile, a failed parachute, a police shoot out, an execution in a state prison. No one in 1986 could watch that and not come away astounded and saying, “I have never seen anything like that!” What astonishes us, what changes us, what draws us in to hold us still is very different now.

To show the scribes that he has the authority to forgive sins on earth, Jesus simply looks at the paralyzed man and says, “….rise, pick up your mat, and go home.” And he did. He walked “away in the sight of everyone. They were all astounded and glorified God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this.’” What exactly had they never seen before? A miraculous healing? A miraculous healing done by merely forgiving the sin of the sick? Or a miraculous healing done in defiance of traditional Jewish theology? Or, all three! Would we be astounded? Would we think that this healing through the forgiveness of sins was miraculous?

Maybe. More than likely we would set aside a judgment until we had more and better evidence. Where’s the doctor’s report, before and after? Are there any X-rays? Let’s see the tape again. Do we have expert testimony from a professionally trained, crime-lab certified videographer that the tape hasn’t been Photo-Shopped? Do we have an unambiguous statement from Jesus’ ministry office that the video isn’t fake? Is there a rebuttal statement from the scribes’ office? And so on. What can astound us in 2008? Perhaps nothing, perhaps everything.

Truly, what’s astounding about this gospel tale is that Jesus claims to be the Son of God and the Son of Man with the authority “to forgive sins on earth.” Essentially, he is claiming to possess the license that God alone enjoys to wipe away those offenses against God that bring us to illness, to paralysis, to demonic possession. By speaking, merely speaking, he picks up the paralyzed man and undoes his life of sin, repairing him, reconciling him to the Father. The witnesses at his home see and hear Jesus do that which the scribes argue that God alone can do—bring a creature to health by speaking a word to his disease. And! And, he does so not because of the paralyzed man’s faith, but because of the faith shown by the man’s friends. Another marvel! One more miracle to astound them. Are we astounded? Can we be astounded?

A weary cynicism worries this age. Miraculous healings are simply inadequately explained medical anomalies. Witnesses to miracles are duped pawns, gullible, easily impressed morons. Authority, especially spiritual authority, is an oppressive tactic to maintain institutional power. That which can astound us becomes more and more rare as we eagerly replace our Christian moral imaginations with the mechanical insights of science and the demands of political ideology.
It is impossible for a Christian to live this way. Why? We start with the premise that creation itself is a gift; Christ is a gift; our lives lived with Christ are all gifts. And when we give these gifted lives back to God, we are doubly gifted with their return to us! After this, nothing is beyond our astonishment, everything is a source of amazement! The Good News is that our Father whispers to us daily and all day, “Child, your sins are forgiven.” What malady, what cynicism can worm its way into that gift and spoil our party?

Your name is "Servant"

1^st Week OT (M): 1 Sam 1.1-18 and Mark 1.14-20
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

There you are. . .sitting in the library reading. There you are standing all by yourself in Kroger shopping. There you are strolling down a mellow neighborhood street enjoying the breeze. And completely surprised! You hear your name! John. David. Aaron. No other sound. No other voice. Bill. Jackie. Anne. Like a pistol shot out of the blinding dark. Marty. Michael. Christopher. Eddy. You jump. Maybe your heart quickens. You might want to run. And then there is that suspended moment in time between hearing your name and turning to the name-caller, just a single, lonely half sweep of the second hand between recognizing your name and recognizing the voice of the caller; it is just an infinitesimally small dot of not-knowing-who-calls. . .but you turn anyway. And you say, “Yes.” Now, imagine that the voice that calls your name out of a depthless silence, imagine that that voice could belong to anyone, just anyone at all. . .

The sun is high but the wind is cool enough. The fish are almost leaping into the nets. Voices carry over the lazy water. It was almost time to sit down for a small meal. And just as they pull the next net of fish from the Galilee Sea, they hear: Simon. Andrew. James. John. They are fishermen. And when he calls them by name, “they [leave] their nets and [follow] him.” What did these men hear when Christ called to them? Did they hear their names spoken aloud? The gospel just says that Jesus called out his invitation: “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Does this sound like “Simon” or “Andrew” or “James” or “John”? If not, why do these sensible working men just leave their nets, their family, their hired help, and follow Jesus? Imagine yourself at work today. A stranger walks into the office, the classroom, the bank, the store, and says to you: “Follow me.” And then walks away. No name. No indication that the person knows you. Just, “Follow me.” Do you leave your desk, your calculator, your books, and follow? In that infinitesimally small dot of not-knowing-who-calls-you, don’t you wonder who calls? Of course you do!

How strange is it that Simon, Andrew, James, and John—not hearing their names from Jesus and apparently not knowing who he is—leave their livelihood and follow him? It is exceedingly strange. . .well, unless, of course, we will say that when Christ calls us to follow him, he simultaneously re-names us with our mission. In other words, what we hear when he calls is not an old name, an “unturned name,” but the name he gives us to turn us to him. Perhaps you will be startled to recognize in this new name of yours an old mission. Or you might find comfort in hearing again why you were made. There could fear or anxiety or abiding pleasure. However you might feel about being renamed when called to your mission, turn and say “Yes, Lord!” Remember: at baptism we took on the life of Christ, adopting his name for our mission. . .there is no moment, no place when we are without the name of Christ; no moment, no place when we are without his prophetic and priestly ministry. Our lives are lives of constant conversion, turning-always back to Christ, turning back to follow him.

Here’s your assignment. When someone calls your name today, turn to them, and say to yourself: “What can I leave behind today to make Christ better known to you?” Or perhaps you can say to yourself: “Yes, Lord! How may I serve?” We prayed the responsorial to the Psalm 116 this morning: “To you, Lord, I will offer a sacrifice of praise.” Will you? When you hear your name called today, offer a sacrifice of praise to God by saying, “O Lord, I am your servant…you have loosed my bonds.”

Smaller heroes

Baptism of the Lord (A): Isa 42.1-4, 6-7; Acts 10.34-38; Matthew 3.13-17
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital, Dallas, TX

In almost all of my high school literature classes we were taught that good literature is always about conflict and revelation. Man vs. Man. Man vs. Nature. Man vs. Machine. In these conflicts, the protagonist becomes the main character of a revelatory drama, something-up-until-now-hidden is finally unveiled in the conflict and the now public secret, though immediately applicable to our hero in the drama, is really a revelation for the reader. We as readers learn something about ourselves and thereby grow in our humanity—deepening our communal connections and preparing ourselves more fully for the next conflict. In this way, we are the beneficiaries of an epiphany; we are the smaller heroes of a drama that unveils the veiled, unlocks the locked, and in doing so, moves us into the way of a newer, more profound conflict that itself resolves eventually into another revelation and so on and so on. And the spiral spirals and we spiral with it to our end. That’s what we were taught about how to read literature in high school.

John the Baptist is busy at the Jordan River dunking prostitutes, tax-collectors, lepers, all the unwashed and unwanted of Galilee, baptizing them for repentance and preaching the coming of the Lord—the one who will baptize with fire and righteousness! In mid-dunk, John sees Jesus walk up, get in line, and when his turn comes, insists on being baptized like everyone else. John protests! And tries to prevent Jesus from being baptized. An altogether sensible move given that Jesus is the Son of God and moves among his Father’s people without sin. Why baptize someone for repentance when they have no sin to repent of? John says in protest, “I need to be baptized by you, Lord, and yet you are coming to me?” This must be similar to your CPA coming to you for tax advice. Or, perhaps your doctor asking you for a second opinion about one of her cancer patients. Does the ignorant amateur safely advise the professional about his or her own profession? John stands conflicted and confused.

Jesus eases the conflict and clears the confusion when he says to John, “Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Jesus, so as not to be in conflict with his Jewish tradition, presents himself to John for baptism because it is the right thing to do according to the law. Notice that Jesus doesn’t say that his baptism is necessary or prudent or a good PR stunt. He says that his baptism is one part of a larger fulfillment of his Father’s expectations for human righteousness. Jesus has done all that is required of an observant Jew in his day: naming day, circumcision, Passover feasts, etc. His baptism is the last ritual obligation he has to complete before starting his public ministry as the Christ. John, either convinced by Jesus’ argument or simply cowed by his authority, “allows” Jesus to be baptized. And here we have the revelation!

But wait! The conflict between John and Jesus in the gospel is resolved in a revelation, but what about all the conflicts out here, outside the text, out here in the real world? Jesus is baptized. The Father reveals Jesus to be His beloved Son. God is pleased with His son. Great revelation, wonderful epiphany. But just today we hear from Peter in Acts that the Jesus went about “healing all those oppressed by the devil…” And this was after his baptism! The devil is still oppressing God’s children even after Jesus’ baptism. How did his baptism in the Jordan by John resolve conflicts with the devil, with ourselves, and with one another? We still have problems.

First, pay attention to the epiphany itself. The Spirit of God came upon him. The voice proclaimed Jesus to be the “beloved Son.” Second, look again at the text from Acts. Peter says in Acts, “You know the word…how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power.” And third, look again at the text from Isaiah, the Lord says, “Here is my servant…my chosen one with whom I am well pleased, upon whom I have put my spirit…” The Lord tells Isaiah that His anointed will not cry out or shout in the streets, not a single blade of grass will he bruise “until he establishes justice on the earth…” We know that the Spirit of the Lord is upon His anointed. We know that His anointed will establish justice—the Lord’s rule on earth. What else do we know about this Christ? We know that he must suffer and die. We know that he must come again.

In the meantime—all the time and times in between then and now, there and here—we, you and I, have promised to follow him. We have promised to make it our lives to follow, our livelihoods to follow, all of our conflicts and all of our revelations are about following him. Jesus was baptized in order “to fulfill all righteousness.” We were baptized to join his righteousness, to cling onto his ministry, his miracles, his teaching and preaching, his betrayals, his sufferings, and his death. We were baptized to graft ourselves onto the branch of David and Jesse, to share in the promised kingdom, the sacrificial priesthood, and the revealing mission of the prophet. We were baptized to transplant ourselves into the Body of Christ and work with him to bring justice to the nations. We were baptized so that we are able to shout with Mary, she who gave birth to the Word, “Let it be done to me according to your Word!”

Jesus was baptized in the Jordan by John because, if we will become the beloved children of a loving Father, we too must be baptized and the Spirit of God must come upon us and the voice from heaven will say of you and me and our promise to be Christ for others, “I am well pleased.” What happens then? Wars end. Hunger is eliminated. Disease cured. No. Our conflicts with God do not magically cease. My conflicts with myself do not disappear like soap bubbles. Your conflicts with yourself and your neighbors do not vanish into the cold air. What is revealed to us in every conflict, each sign of trouble is power of the Spirit to bring us a patient peace, a constant hope, the love we need to throw off the oppression of hatred and inordinate desire; to unbuckle the leash of sin and to throw ourselves out there as living sacrifices to the justice that we know is coming. We are baptized to follow Christ not to wallow in self-pity; to cry out in the streets and shout the Word in the markets. In short, what is hidden is revealed, what is locked is unlocked b/c we ourselves are revelations of the Spirit!

Will the tax-collectors and prostitutes and Pharisees watch us and say, “Ahhhhh…so that’s who Christ is…that’s exactly, he is exactly who I want to be”?

Looking for a What, or a Who?

January 4^th (A): I John 3.7-10 and Luke 1.35-42
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Serra Club Mass, Church of the Incarnation

Exhausted though we may be of anticipating and now celebrating the birth of our Lord, we find ourselves still in need of remembering exactly why the second Person of the Blessed Trinity became Man. Why did the Son of God take on human flesh? John, writing in his first letter, argues that “…the Son of God was revealed to destroy the works of the Devil.” No doubt Macy’s, the wrapping paper industry, the candy makers, and the reindeers’ union are disappointed to hear that this joyful season is not about them! Sorry to disappoint. But this little chunk of the church calendar is set aside to help us answer a question so fundamental to our human nature that our scientists may one day find its gene and name it “Telos,” or “Purpose.” So, time to store the glazed ham recipes, the shopping lists, the gift receipts, that torn plastic bag of worn discount bows and ribbon, and pick up a nice clean sheet of paper and write across the top in permanent Magic Marker: “What am I looking for?” Like Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem, like the shepherds obeying the angel, like the Three Kings coming from the east, and like billions of souls since Jesus lay in his manger, we are all looking for something, and that something is, in fact, a Someone.

So, John the Baptist is standing around with a couple of his disciples and Jesus walks by. John says for all to hear, “Look! The Lamb of God!” John’s disciples start following Jesus around. After awhile, Jesus stops and turns to them. He asks, “What are you looking for?” The disciples’ strange answer comes in two parts: 1) they address Jesus as “Teacher,” and 2) they answer Jesus’ question with a question—“where are you staying?” This question is not a request for a street address or an apartment number. They want to know where Jesus abides; basically, in what truth or peace or justice does this Teacher rest? Jesus answers them, “Come, and you will see.” The invitation, “come and see,” is gospel-speak for “there is no explanation I can give you that surpasses the excellence of simply experiencing the Christ first-hand, so come on!” And they do.

Now that you have written “what am I looking for?” in big letters across the top of your page, what will you write in answer? You can be practical and write something like: financial security, lots of friends, a good marriage. You can be spiritual and write: peace, wisdom, mercy. Or maybe you want to be philosophical and write: truth, clarity, goodness. Or psychological and write: integrated, actualized, self-possessed. Or maybe, just maybe, you want to be Christian and write: “I am looking for Christ, the Lamb of God.” All those other things you might write can be had in varying degrees without Christ. You can be practical, spiritual, philosophical, psychological all day, everyday and never once think of Christ. Let me ask you another question then: where are you staying? On whom do you live? From whom do you derive your life, your love, your beauty? If John’s disciples walked past you today and someone said of you: “Look! A follower of Christ” and then the disciples asked you—“where are you staying?”—could you say to them with the confidence and assurance of Jesus himself, “Come, and you will see”? What would you show them of Christ in your life? Could you say with Andrew and the shepherds and the Three Kings, “We have found the Messiah”? Can Jesus look at you and change your name to “The Rock”?

The Son took on human flesh to destroy the works of the Devil. One such work is the filtering edifices of abstractions, -ologies and –ism’s, theories and speculations, all the gunk we set up between our desire for God and the satisfaction of that desire. Jesus said, “Come and see.” Follow and see; do and see; walk with me and see. Dissolve the gunk in hearing Jesus ask you: “what are you looking for”? Then glory in triumph to hear him say, “Here I am.”

Dominican Poetry Prize

For all the Dominican poet-preachers out there!



Submit your work at the Fourth Annual OP Prize for Poetry. . .



I will be submitting one or two myself.

And again & again & again. . .

December 24 (Morning Mass): 2 Sam 7.1-5, 8-16 and Luke 1.67-79
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

Zechariah’s tongue, struck mute by the archangel Gabriel as a punishment for his failure to trust God’s plan, is now unstuck at the birth of his son, John, and Zechariah wisely uses his first words to praise the Lord, the God of Israel. And more than praise God he blesses God and recounts as a memorial all that God has done for the people of Israel. And more than praise God and bless God for His mighty deeds, Zechariah prophesies his son’s task and the future-history of his people. This canticle, called the Benedictus, is so much a part of our lives of prayer together—we pray it every morning—that I wonder if we really hear it anymore. In poetry, repetition is used to emphasize the importance of a word or concept or emotion. Repetition in prayer inscribes, writes on the heart and mind of the one praying a Word or Deed, spoken and done, a word or deed that reveals God to us and reminds us each time we pray that we live and move and have our being in the promises of God. John was promised to Zechariah and Elizabeth. John’s coming heralds the coming of the Christ. And so, today, for one more day, we wait—praising, blessing, prophesying, anticipating the arrival of the Christ Child among us. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel!

Repetition is a means of remembering and forgetting. What is written can be read and misread. What is written can be true and false. In repetition, we can know better or forget more. The familiarity of recitation becomes the comfort of knowing-well and knowing-well what we pray can become an inauthentic mumble, the vain repetition of small noises. However, we know that Zechariah’s witness to our salvation history is authentic, and delivered with authority, precisely because his tongue was struck mute by the archangel. His initial seed of doubt is contained. Held in, dammed up, given over to silence and the methodical march of the calendar. Like the infant in his wife’s womb, Zechariah’s doubt gestates for nine months, maturing, distilling, insistently progressing toward its term and its inevitable, exuberant birth! From doubt to praise. From anxiety to blessing. From silence to prophecy. Zechariah’s prayer, like his son and the Christ his son announces, is a dawning, a daybreak, a morning of mornings.

Our God has come to his people—again. He has set us free—again—this time by raising up from the house of David the king, a powerful savior, the Christ. He has saved us—again—from the harm our enemies would do to us. He has—again—made good on His promises to be our God by showing our ancestors an undeserved mercy. He shows us that He has once again remembered the covenant He swore to Abraham, our father in faith. His vow to us to save us from our enemies, to set us free to worship Him, rejoicing and singing, to make us holy and righteous; this vow He has—again—kept in perfect love.

Zechariah’s and Elizabeth’s son, John, prepares the way of the Christ by baptizing with water for repentance, a turning from sin with forgiveness that prepares us, leaves us knowing that our salvation is at hand. Praying this prayer, repeating the praise, blessing, and prophecy of Zechariah, brings to our hearts and minds again the coming dawn from on high. And we, those who dwell in the dark and live in the shadow of death, we are guided—again—on the way to peace. Forever we will sing the goodness of the Lord because we will forever sing the canticle of blessing that greets John on his birth as prophet and herald of the Lord, The Lord—Wisdom of God, Lord of Israel, Root of Jesse, Key of David, Radiant Dawn, King of Nations, and again, tomorrow, Emmanuel, “God-is-with-us”!

God is dead. . .now to mourn. . .

4^th Sunday of Advent: Isa 7.10-14; Rom 1.1-7; Matt 1.18-24
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital, Dallas, TX

[Wow...you can really hear my southern accent coming through on this podcast!]

On this chilly December morning in Dallas, TX, this fourth Sunday of Advent 2007, just two days from the solemn celebration of our Lord’s Nativity, with a heart ready to open in prayer, a mind waiting to learn the truth, a stomach eager for some ham and pecan pie, and with my bags packed to head home to Mississippi, on this chilly morning, I greet you with this bit of news: “God is dead.” He passed peacefully while we slept; unexpectedly, He passed while we weren’t paying attention. God is dead. And now, we must mourn. . .even as the birth of Christ approaches, we must mourn the passing of our God. How do we mourn the death of a deity?

Before we ask that question again and answer it, let’s ask a question about the God’s death. As long ago as 1965, the American theologian, William Hamilton, asked our question for us: “What does it mean to say that God is dead? Is this any more than a rather romantic way of pointing to the traditional difficulty of speaking about the holy God in human terms? Is it any more than writing against all idols, all divinities fashioned out of human need, human ideologies? Does it perhaps not just mean that ‘existence is not an appropriate word to ascribe to God, that therefore he cannot be said to exist, and he is in that sense dead’”(27-8)? Hamilton argues that the “death of God” means all of these and more besides. But as we fall toward the celebration of our dead God’s Son’s birth on Christmas, this observation, made by Hamilton, hits us with the truth, and hits us squarely in the heart: “God is dead. We are not talking about the absence of the experience of God, but the experience of the absence of God”(28). In other words, God is dead to us insofar as we experience His absence in our lives. Think about all those times when He failed to “show up” when you most needed and wanted Him. Those dark nights of mourning when His smallest touch or quiet word would have healed your despairing grief. That disappointment is the death of God.

If God is dead, how do we mourn? There are at least two that we mourn the passing of our God. If you find the death of God worrisome, downright anxiety-producing and dangerous, then you might mourn His death by building strong stone monuments of His existence, by writing wordy systems that describe His presence, that inscribe His “being-here-with-us” into our daily language, our everyday living-together-rules. And these monuments of stone and ink slowly, over time, replace the God of the Old and New Covenants, the once thriving God of Abraham and Jesus. If, however, you experience the death of God as liberating event in human history, a freeing of the creaturely spirit from the prison of a jealous deity to explore and evolve, then you might mourn His passing by pulling down His monuments, burning all those pages of ink with their empty words and hollow sentiments. And your revelry of revolutionary destruction will itself become a god to be praised, to be worshiped—the Human, not the merely human, but the Human Freed is set on the altar. I said that you might mourn in either of these two ways. In fact, we have mourned in exactly these two ways. Our stone monuments and our revolutionary fires have become for us idols, mere creatures of creatures toted on the shoulders of the Disappointed and Despairing, and praised precisely b/c each is so easily within our grasp, each so easily controlled. They are idols. And there is no quicker, no more sure way for us to kill God than to make of Him an idol, for us to make God into Man.

This temptation—to make God in our own image and likeness—is overwhelmed in the solemnity of our Lord’s Nativity, in the celebration of the birth of Christ among us. All of this talk about the death of God and how we mourn His passing leads us to the fourth Sunday of Advent where we continue to wait, continue to anticipate, where we hold still and silent for the introduction of God’s Word into human history. Christmas for Christians cannot be Santa Claus, holiday sales, wrapping paper, trees and wreaths, family meals, and getting presents. All of these are happy-enough traditions as they are. But Christmas—the birth of our Lord among us—is God’s sign, God’s wonder-work, God’s promise-fulfilled, His gift of Himself to us: not as a monument, not as a doctrine, not as a holiday or feast, not even as a memorial or a solemnity. Christmas is the Very Gift of God Himself to us. He is born as a child for no other reason than to be our living God in history—yearly, monthly, daily, He is Emmanuel, “God is with us.”

When we create God in the image and likeness of Man, we sculpt an idol and raise a temple around it. That temple can be stone, brick, abstract idea, notion; it can be wooden, golden, paper and ink; our temple can be a belief, an emotion, an intellectual game, or a political ideology. But for this deity, our Man-made god, to be real for us, we must first kill the Living God and mourn His passing. Only then can our disappointment at His absence, or our relief at His demise grow into a full-blown idolatry, a truly man-made, man-centered, man-empowered theology of Man.

So, who will kill Him? Who will step up and slay our divine jailer so that we might be free? Santa Claus? Papa Noel? The Easter Bunny? One of the North Pole elves? Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer? The CEO of Wal-Mart? Target? Macy’s? They needn’t bother. It seems that you and I are all too ready to do the dirty deed. Let me ask you (and myself!): have we waited, truly waited on the coming of the Lord? I mean, have we used our Advent time to prepare for the introduction of the Christ Child into history? Have we prepared for the coming of the Lord, or have we waited on shopping days, half-off sales, post-holiday clearances? Have we helped our ulcers to grow by fretting over family problems? Have we put aside the Joy that is coming in favor of the work to be done? Will the Christ Child arrive to find us eager to greet him, or just ready for it all to be over? I have a flight to catch. Security checks. Lines. Crowded planes. Baggage claim. Car rental. Credit card bills. Expectant family and friends. Deep cuts, old wounds. You might protest here, “But Father, we are only human! This is what happens to us.” Yes, it does. And because it does, we have a living God Who becomes one of us to free us from exactly this kind of dis-ease, this kind of faithlessness. We must live with Him to be free!

Here’s the Good News: our failures are not permanent; our lapses in faith will not endure. Having been “called to belong to Jesus Christ,” we are set up to be free, made to be liberated from the need for idols. Ahaz needs no sign—nothing high nor deep—because he wills not to tempt the Lord. We have no need of a sign from our living God b/c we know what’s coming, who’s coming. Even as we layer the nativity feast with our consumerist anxieties, we rejoice way down deep that the sign we have been given—“a virgin will conceive and bear a son”—we rejoice that this sign has come to pass. And for all our missteps and mistakes in making this feast about our living God, we welcome Him as our gift. Wrapped not in paper and ribbon but in flesh like our own, we welcome and accept the gift of the Christ Child, and beg his Father to show us how to be gifts to one another.

Rejoice! The gods of our idols are dead. Now, “let the Lord enter, He is the king of glory!”

Altizer, Thomas J.J. and William Hamilton, Radical Theology and the Death of God, 1966.

Where's your Christmas face?

3^rd Week of Advent(F): Zeph 3.14-18 and Luke 1.39-45
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Serra Club & Church of the Incarnation

Joseph is worried because his wife, Mary is pregnant. They have yet to consummate their betrothal. An angel appears to Joseph is a dream and says, “Do not be afraid to take Mary into your home.” Zechariah, while serving his allotted time before the altar of incense in the temple, is greeted by an angel. The angelic greeting troubles him and “fear came upon him.” The angel tells him that his elderly, barren wife, Elizabeth will conceive and bear him a son, John. The angel Gabriel appears to Mary and says, “Hail, Mary! Full of grace. Blessed are you among women!” And Mary ponders what sort of greeting this might be. Mary travels to the hill country of Judah. She enters the house of Zechariah and greets Elizabeth. When Elizabeth hears Mary’s greeting she is filled with the Holy Spirit, and the infant in her womb leaps with joy. Elizabeth must have pondered what sort of greeting might cause her child such joy. She asks, “How does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” What better place for our infant Lord to be than with his infant herald, John? Elizabeth concludes her greeting: “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

Joseph worried and then believed. Zechariah doubted, at first, but he came to believe. Mary, afraid and anxious, not only believed but gave her body so that the Word might gestate within her womb and be born from her. And Elizabeth believed in virtue of her infant son’s witness to her: “For the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped with joy.” Each of our gospel witnesses were greeted and given a revelation. Each received the revelation. And each obeyed the Lord’s message. Notice this difference: Joseph, Zechariah, and Mary were all greeted by an angel of the Lord. At first they were anxious and afraid. But the angelic message soothed their fears. Elizabeth, however, was greeted by Mary, who carried our Lord in her womb. No angels here. No fear or anxiety. No doubting or hesitation. The direct testimony of infant John’s leaping in her womb told Elizabeth what she needed to know: she and her child were in the presence of the Son of God. Before John is born, Mary serves as the Lord’s herald, announcing with her presence—not by any word or any deed—just by merely being there with Elizabeth and baby John, Mary announces the coming of the Lord. Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and says, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”

Let me ask you: how are you arriving at Christmas? I mean, Christmas is just four days away…in what state will you greet the birth of our Lord? Will you stumble into the manger loaded with shopping bags? Cookbooks? Will you glide in, smooth and sleek like a reindeer? Will you fall on your face, exhausted and mean from all the work you think the holiday requires? Will you greet the Infant Jesus smiling, laughing; pinched and grimacing; eagerly, sullenly, joyfully, reluctantly? Will he look back at you and ponder what sort of greeting you have given him? Will he think: “I am welcomed here!” Or, “Geez, I landed at the wrong barn.” Will it be: “These people love me.” Or, “These people fear me.”

To be on the safe side, use the words of the prophet Zephaniah to greet our Lord: “The Lord, your God, is in our midst, a mighty savior; He will rejoice over us with gladness, and renew us in his love!” How odd that our Lord should rejoice over us. Not really, no: “Blessed are we who believed that what was spoken to us by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

Our Lord is coming! Prepare your face so that when you greet him, he might see himself in you.

A new blog. . .

Suppl(e)Mental. . .a new blog!

I created this blog for my seminar on post-metaphysical theologies. . .

My students and I will use this blog to post short essays, reflections, critiques, musings about the reading assignments for the class.

Posting on the site will be a regular part of the seminar, so these ventures into the truly weird world of post-metaphysical theology will be ad experimentum.

Empty out to be filled up

3^rd Week of Advent (W): Judges 13.2-7, 24-25 and Luke 1.5-25
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

[One of the novices said that this homily is "kinda blah." I agree. My insomnia is catching up with me. . .]

Zechariah is troubled, and fear comes upon him. Gabriel, the archangel, is telling him that Elizabeth, his barren wife, will conceive a son and that that son will grow up to become the prophet, John the Baptist, whose mission it will be to herald the coming of the Christ. For one second, just a flash of small wonderment, Zechariah, almost whispering, asks the angel, “How shall I know this?” The price for his passing doubt, his lapse in trust is the loss of his ability to speak. He is struck mute. His tongue will be untied when Gabriel’s announcement comes to pass, when John the Baptist is born. Why is silence the proper punishment for Zechariah’s anxiety?

You might wonder at Zechariah’s doubt. Here he is in the temple, chosen by lots to offer the sacrifice of incense, and the archangel, Gabriel, appears to him with a message from God. Gabriel calmly delivers the message with some detail and then pauses for Zechariah’s answer. And what does the priest do? He asks for a sign, something like a confirmation code! Let’s see: how about an archangel materializing out of a cloud of incense in the holy of holies! Zechariah’s desire for a confirming sign is taken by Gabriel to be a sign of the priest’s weakness. Neither John or the Christ will be best served by a weak heart or a weak tongue. This is a time for strength, conviction, and prophetic zeal! So, the angel silences Zechariah’s doubting tongue to keep him from speaking foolishly about God’s plan.

The 14^th century Dominican mystic, John Tauler, preaches: “God cannot leave things empty; that would be to contradict his own nature and justice. Therefore, you must be silent. Then the Word of this birth can be spoken in you and you will be able to hear him. But be certain of this: if you try to speak then He must be silent. There is no better way of serving the Word than in being silent and listening. So if you come out of yourself completely, God will wholly enter in; to the degree you come out, to that degree will he enter, neither more nor less.” Perhaps Gabriel’s judgment on the priest was medicinal, that is, Zechariah’s involuntary silence was actually an opportunity, as Tauler argues, “to come out of [himself] completely,” so that God might wholly enter in. It seems impossible that one tongue could speak both doubt and belief, dissent and allegiance. By silencing his doubting tongue, Gabriel gave Zechariah a chance to cultivate his belief and his allegiance. How much more powerful then is his witness when John is born!

Advent is winter’s Lent. To the face of Christmas abundance and extravagance we must show some measure of austerity, make some small challenge to be less full, closer to empty. When we empty self, God fills up. And the power and conviction and prophetic zeal of our witness to Christ is charged with the Holy Spirit, a fiery tongue for proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom! Live just today with this austere fast: fast from doubt, fear, anxiety, and make your hope in the coming of Christ known—word or deed, but known and known well.

Root to trunk to branch to flower

3^rd Week Advent(M): Genesis 49.2, 8-10 and Matthew 1.1-17
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

Beyond tongue-tying dyslexic presiders at 7.00am, what purpose does this genealogy serve? Over your many years as Catholics you have heard many explanations. The genealogy establishes Jesus’ lineage as David’s heir to the throne of Israel. The genealogy shows us Mary’s place in the long history of a male-dominated culture. The genealogy reaches back and back into the graying mist of near-legend and story to retrieve a solid rock of evidence that Jesus is the Christ. The genealogy begins the gospel of Matthew as a way of giving legitimacy and authority to a gospel told to the Jewish people about their long-awaited Messiah. None of these is wrong. And there many more. What these explanations have in common is a singular notion of genealogy—tracing back a familial line through history in order to show a person his or her origins. Bear with me while I give you a slightly different definition of genealogy and provide another theological interpretation.

Michel Foucault, a French philosopher, opens his 1977 essay, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” with the following, “Genealogy is gray, meticulous, and patiently documentary. It operates on a field of entangled and confused parchments, on documents that have been scratched over and recopied many times.” Towards the end of that essay he writes, “The purpose of history, guided by genealogy, is not to discover the roots of our identity but to commit itself to its dissipation.” At the risk of taxing our morning brains with French philosophy, let’s say that what Foucault is proposing here is that genealogy is really about dispersing one’s identity rather than firming it up; in other words, we trace a family line not to find our where we’re from but rather to find out how large we’ve become, how scattered (like seed) we are—as a family, a tribe, a nation, even as a person firmly glued within a history.

Now, back to Jesus. As Christians, we read out Jesus’ familial genealogy this time every year to show again where Jesus came from, to show that he has the basic qualification to be the Christ—he is heir to the throne of David. But as Christians we do not doubt this bit of history. Even without the genealogy we have experienced Jesus as the Christ and struggle to live our collected lives as his followers, as his body. We are, however, more than just followers. And we are more than just members of his body, the Church. We are on our way to becoming Christ himself. If Foucault is right about his notion of genealogy in general, then we have in this particular genealogy a record of the dissipation of Jesus’ identity into the body: “Of [Mary] was born Jesus who is called the Christ.”

Why does this matter? It matters to us b/c as we approach the birth of our Savior, we are forced to remember our own nativity and more than just our own births: we are forced to remember our rebirth in Christ, our coming again into the world as Christs. Jesus’ lineage is our lineage; his history is our history. And what’s more, we are charged, commissioned by Christ himself to live lives of dissipation, not decadence or debauchery, but lives of active dispersal—going out, growing deeper, spreading further, blooming more, producing more and better fruit, grafting others onto Jesse’s branch, and branching and branching up until he comes again and claims his orchard harvest. This bit of genealogical knowledge is not wisdom in itself, but surely it is wise to know that each of us and all of us together are heirs to David’s throne—priests, prophets, and kings, all given the delicate but arduous task of being the Father’s Christ in the world.

May his name and ours be blessed forever!

Impatient? Rejoice!

3^rd Sunday of Advent(A): Isa 35.1-6, 10; James 5.7-10; Matthew 11.2-11
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital and Church of the Incarnation

Parched lands can wait on an abundant flowering; deserts can wait to rejoice—shouting joy, exulting in bloom. Those who cannot see, wait to see. Those who cannot hear, wait to hear. The lame wait to leap and the mute wait to sing. If your heart is frightened, anxious; if you fret because you cannot wait: “Be strong, fear not! Here is your God…He comes to save you.” But first, you must wait. And you must wait with the rest of us…

I made the mistake of going to WalMart on a Saturday. Walking into the store, I was immediately confronted by my mistake. Wall to wall people. I sucked up my frustration and more or less bullied my way in. The aisles were packed with people and carts. Families buzzing around baskets of goodies for Christmas. An older couple slowly pushing an empty cart. College students on cell phones loudly cursing and laughing. I heard spoken Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Hindi, English, and Teenager. The building throbbed with the pain of crowded impatience. And I must confess, I brought no joy to the suffering herd. Rather, I threw in with the rest of the cattle and MOO’ed and shoved my way in to get my way out. Leaving, I felt oily and smelled of sulphur.

“Be patient,” James writes, “until the coming of the Lord.” The farmer can wait for the fruit of his labor, receiving in due time the harvest promised by his hopeful sowing of spring seed. The early rains will come early. And the late rains will come late. As always. Being patient with what will come, the farmer waits and receives. Therefore, James writes, “You too must be patient. Make your hearts firm, because the coming of the Lord is at hand.” Isaiah prophesies the healing of the blind, the deaf, the mute, and the lame at the coming of the Lord. They wait in affliction for their wholeness. The farmer waits with his need; his annual labor of joyful hope—planting seed, tending crops, harvesting the fruit. Can we wait on what has been promised to us?

I’m getting better. Yesterday in traffic, I only wished twice that my 1995 Honda Accord came equipped with phasers and photon torpedoes. Today will be hard though. The Cowboys play at Texas stadium (just two blocks from the priory). Here my dream vehicle morphs into a 40 ton stone loader with a sweeping steel wedge on the front. I’ll save the phasers for the boneheads who jump the light and block the intersection! Then my impatience reminds me of the woman at WalMart who juggled her many purchases, a baby, and her purse while trying (unsuccessfully) to use the self-service checkout station—apparently the friend she was talking to on her cell was no help at all. Then there were the fourteen Boy Scouts in line at my favorite fast food place. The creeping internet service of Starbuck’s WiFi. The hours it takes for my friends in Europe to respond to an email. The Fred Flintstone copying machine in campus ministry—I swear there must be a literate squirrel in there, pen and paper in paw. And then I think, “You must be patient!” And then I think things that I can’t share with you, and then I remember the Psalm: “the Lord thwarts the ways of the wicked; He shall reign forever!”

John the Baptist, waiting in prison, heard about the ministry of Jesus and sent his disciples to ask Jesus a question: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” Do we hear a bit of impatience in this question? Is John getting anxious? Surely, John the Baptist, the herald of the Father’s Christ, knows that Jesus is the one to come! Why this question then? Notice how Jesus answers: “Go and tell John what you hear and see…” John, knowing that Jesus is who he says he is, sends his own disciples to Jesus so that Jesus can make them preachers of his Good News. Go and tell what you hear and see. That’s what preachers do. And notice what Jesus highlights as the content of their witness: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are clean, the deaf hear, the dead live, and the good news of God’s mercy is preached to the poor. In other words, the wrecked world of sin is righted and the righteous reign of God is at hand. Preach that and take no offense!

Jesus then turns to the crowd remaining and extols John as his herald, as the one-who-comes-before. Lifting him up as his messenger, Jesus quotes Isaiah, “he will prepare your way before you.” No 40 ton stone loaders with steel wedges will be necessary. Hold your phaser fire. Unload the photon torpedoes. John has come and baptized with water for repentance. Christ has come and baptizes (even now!) with fire and Spirit for eternal life. John preached in the desert and baptized in the Jordan. Jesus asks the crowd, “What did you go out to the desert to see?” The things of the desert? A prince or king? “To see a prophet?” Yes, of course, you went into the desert to see a prophet! But why? We must be prepared to hear and see the Word. We must be told that the Word of God is coming. We must be reminded that he is among us already. We wait for his coming. And we rejoice because he is here! Be strong, fear not! Here is your God…he comes to save you.

Impatience is a vicious habit, a routine way of butting your head against the inevitability of having to move through space and time toward a goal that has already been reached. If Christ is fully God and fully Man, then it must be the case that we, all of humanity, that we have arrived at our redeemed destination. But we experience life here as an anxious separation, that worried gap between what we know is our perfection and what we know our sinful selves to be: broken, unfulfilled, and driven by a hazardous annoyance to be done with it. Impatience is our blindness, our deafness, our disability. Impatience is the public profession of our doubt in the providence of God, an abject failure to trust that every second is a moment graced by God to bring us back to Him. We feel that gap so intensely because our desire, our longing and hunger to be with God is greater than any product WalMart has for sale, greater than any merchandise Amazon.com might offer at a discount. But the emptiness in us can be vast, night-black, suffocating. Patience then is nothing more than our living prayer of gratitude, our lived lives of praise for the God of promises fulfilled.

Can we wait on what has been promised to us? The bone-crushing pressure of final papers, exams, travel home, plans for next year, holiday shopping, cooking, visiting, family feuds, parental expectations, sibling rivalries, disappointments, anger; the stifling hurts of long histories, money problems, failed marriages, successful friends; a looming horizon and no where to go, no one to see—these are not the promises made to you. Nor were you promised reprieve from them. You are promised, we are all promised that no matter what may come, our Lord is already here and nothing made can stand against him. And so, we rejoice! If cannot rejoice or will not rejoice, then let me ask you: what did you come here to see? Why are you here if not to have your hands strengthen, your back straightened, your head cleared, and your heart filled?

Be strong, fear not! Here is your God!