Fr. Philip Neri's Three Year Plan for Faith Formation: UPDATED

Pretty much everyone admits that the quality Catholic catechesis in this country has taken a dramatic nose-dive in the last forty years. Replacing the contents of the historic Catholic faith with poorly digested pop-psychobabble, leftist political rhetoric, feminist power-grabs, and Protestantized biblical scholarship, our professional catechesis have left the U.S. church with at least two generations of Catholics incapable of articulating the most basic tenet of what we claim to believe as heirs of the apostles.

These same Catholics can emote canonical emotions on cue; “share” their faith when asked (i.e., give an uneducated opinion on some hot-button topic); and defend to the death the libertarian definition of conscience that they believe allows them, without consequence, to use artificial contraception, obtain abortions, divorce and marry without an annulment, and just generally do whatever they please. What they can’t do is describe, defend, or assent to the Roman Catholic faith as revealed in scripture, defined by the Fathers in the creeds, taught by the magisterium, and lived by the Church. And because they don’t know the faith, their “right to dissent” is wasted on tilting at Ecclesial Strawmen.

That we need a top-to-bottom, radical overhaul of the entire catechetical enterprise in this country is as obvious as a rabid possum in the outhouse and as pressing as finding that possum another home…quickly.

One fairly common solution to the problem of vincible ignorance of the faith is the establishment of diocesan centers for continuing education or adult lay formation programs. Insofar as any of these actually teach the faith, they are wonderful as antidotes to forty years of catechetical neglect. However, these centers and institutes are often recruitment and distribution facilities for dissent and pastoral malpractice. The more notorious of these will actively teach against the faith in the name of “cultural or historical relevancy” and in the name of “adult conscience formation.”

Another, and I would argue more specifically “Vatican Two,” solution to the problem is the parish-based, lay-run adult study group. The Episcopal Church offers what I think is probably one of the best organized lay-run continuing education programs called “Education for Ministry.” This is a four-year program that covers all the major elements of a professional seminary education at the master’s level. No doubt there are orthodox Catholic equivalents out there; however, most of the ones I’ve seen or heard about just can’t seem to get the basics right and refuse to side with the church on controversial issues, opting instead for wienie apologies or outright lies.

Below you will find a list of books that I believe one would need to start and maintain a three-year, once-a-week, lay-lead catechetical group in a parish.

But before we get to the books, let’s browse a few mandatory cautions:

1). No one living is as smart as two-thousand years of Church teaching and tradition. Some have come close (Rahner, von Balthasar) but 99.99999% of us are not yet ready to declare ourselves capable of consuming, digesting, regurgitating, and examining critically the monstrous volume of theology, philosophy, spirituality, history, science, biography, etc. produced in the church for the church. Therefore, a certain humility is required when stepping off into this project. This means leaving undeveloped and uncritical positions behind. The know-it-all has nothing to learn.

2). Do not let process crowd out content. If you have twenty minutes left in your group and you have the choice between looking up the word “consubstantial” in the dictionary or sharing your feelings about the Creed, find the dictionary and learn something. “Sharing” has its place but that place is near the back of the line. It has been the whole “sharing” obsession that has emptied our catechesis of its content.

3). Read. read. read. . .and wonder why! Every text deserves the respect of a critical reading. Ask questions until you are confident you could explain the basics to a tenth-grader. There is nothing about the faith that requires us to just shut up and take it. However, humility requires that we assume that it is our inability to understand that is confusing us about the doctrine rather than the falsity of the doctrine, or the unwillingness of the Church to explain themselves clearly (cf. #1 above, “I’m Not 2,000 Years Smart!”).

4). Don’t shy away from disagreement or argument. At the same time, don’t be a bully. Divine revelation is fixed. Our understanding of that revelation is fairly fluid and requires us to talk to one another for better understanding. This is not to say that everything about the faith is up for grabs. It is to say that particular expressions of the objectively true faith can be questioned and explored for clarity. Example: I’ve tried for some eight years now to understand the Church’s teaching on what happens to us after death. I’ve read just about every official document and still I fail to get it. I do not assume that this is a lack of clarity on the church’s part or a failure on the church’s part to make her case. I assume that I am simply not yet capable of “getting it.”

5). You are not an idiot, so please don’t come into the process thinking the project is above you. Yes, most of the ideas and texts are somewhat difficult. So what? Read the text. Look up the words you don’t know. Check references to scripture and the Catechism. And just get what you can as you can. If you think there’s a quick and easy way to have 2,000 years of the faith jammed into your brain…well, I got a possum farm I can let you have for cheap.

The Plan:

For a three-year, once-a-week, two hour class, I would divide the reading (roughly) this way:

Year One: Scripture & The Fathers

Gospels, Pauline Letters: 3 mos.

Patristic sources: 6 mos.

Secondary Texts listed below: 3 mos.

Year Two: Medieval Period

Early Medieval: primarily Anselm, early scholasticism: 2 mos.

Medieval: Bernard and Aquinas, high scholasticism: 6 mos.

Late Medieval: Mystics (Eckhart, etc.): 4 mos.

Year Three: Trent, Vatican One & Two

Council of Trent: 2 mos.

First Vatican Council: 2 mos.

Second Vatican Council: 8 mos.

The Texts

I. Necessary Texts (all three years)

a. a Bible (in order of preference: NRSV, NJB, NIV, NAB)

b. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1994

c. Companion to the CCC (full texts of the footnotes in the CCC)

d. Documents of Vatican Two, Austin Flannery, OP

e. Readings in the History of Christian Theology, Volume 1: From Its Beginnings to the Eve of the Reformation, Wm Placher

f. Readings in the History of Christian Theology, Volume 2: From the Reformation to the Present, W, Placher

g. The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, Bernard McGinn

h. a good theological dictionary

II. Year One: Texts for Patristic Period

a. Robert L. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God, 2005.

b. Andrew Louth, et al., Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers, 1987.

c. John R Willis,. Teachings of the Church Fathers, 2002.

d. Henrry Chadwick, The Early Church, 1993.

e. www.newadvent.org (click under “Fathers”)

1. Ambrose, “On the Mysteries”

2. Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine” (for the brave), “The Enchiridion,” & “Of Faith and the Creed”

3. Clement of Rome, “First Epistle”

4. Ignatius of Antioch, “The Martyrdom of Ignatius”

5. Any other you would like to include…

III. Year Two: Texts for the Medieval Period

a. Carl Volz, The Medieval Church: From the Dawn of the Middle Ages to the Eve of the Reformation, 1997.

b. Brian Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 1993

c. Robert Barron, Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Master, 2008

d. Selections from the Placher anthology

e. Selections from the McGinn anthology

f. Rule of St Benedict

IV. Texts for Trent, Vatican One & Two

a. document of the Council of Trent (on-line)

b. documents of the First Vatican Council (on-line)

c. documents of the Second Vaticna Council (on-line)

d. Mysterium fidei, Humanae vitae, Pope Paul VI

e. Redemptor homine, Redemptoris mater, Veritatis splendor, Fides et ratio, Pope John Paul II

f. Deus caritatis est, Spe et salvi, Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI

Exhortations!

Most contemporary Catholic catechesis is based on the notion that you are too stupid, too lazy, or just don’t care enough to read moderately difficult texts about church history or theology. Frankly, this might be true. But even if it is true and despite yourself you truly want to immerse yourself in your faith: READ! Don’t try to understand every sentence, every paragraph. Read the assignment and just keep reading. Every time you want to skimp on the reading, say to yourself, “Ah HA! There’s something on the next page the Devil doesn’t want me to see!”

Keep your heart and mind open to the movement of the Holy Spirit as you read and discuss the texts. We learn in more ways than just the intellectual. Contemporary adult catechesis has one thing right: experience is vital to the process of integrating knowledge; in other words, knowledge has to be lived in order to become wisdom, otherwise it degrades to mere information.

If you have someone who has read some of these texts or knows something about the history of the faith, it might be a good idea to invite them to your group. You might even want to make him/her the group facilitator. This person ought to be able to help the group discuss the texts critically. If you keep your nose in the texts (and away from opinions, preferences, and feelings), there should be no danger of any one person dominating the group. Very often we are told that “sharing our feelings” is the best way to avoid one person from dominating an intellectual exchange; however, I’ve been in many, many groups where one Unstable Emotional Bully shut down most legitimates conversations with, “That offends me…” The proper response to this claim is: “OK. But are you harmed?”

Yes, this is an ambitious plan. Lots of books. Lots of reading. But just think: at the end of a mere three years you will have under your belt, in your head, and on your heart a nice chunk of knowledge about the Catholic faith and the rest of your life to turn that knowledge into wisdom!

If you want a few suggestions for advancing the reading list to the upper-classmen undergraduate level, let me know. If you want to tone it down a bit, that’s easy: keep the anthologies of primary texts and the histories. Put everything else aside. . .for now.

Reading the Texts and Group Discussion

These suggestions should be applicable to most any way your group wants to configure itself.

The basic idea is to read the texts and then have an intelligent conversation about what you have read. A caution: you will be tempted, as we all are in this postmodern age, to let the conversation drift into “sharing feelings” or “sharing experiences.” Strictly speaking, there is nothing wrong with this. However—and this is a Big However—, merely giving words to a memory or an emotion or a fantasy provoked by the text is not what intelligent conversation is about.

Yes, we must contemplate, and contemplation is much more than just “reasoning through” propositions and syllogisms. Contemplation is reading to pray, reading to understand, reading to grow in holiness and wisdom. Therefore, it is important that you actually know what the text says before you start sharing. Otherwise, what is it exactly are you experiencing?

Try these:

. . .have each member of the group select a passage before the group meets that he/she is ready to read aloud and summarize for the group.

. . .read the passage out loud and offer a summary of the basic argument or claim being made. . .

. . .as a group discuss any unfamiliar terminology or concepts; grab the dictionary if necessary.

. . .now, begin a “close reading” of the text; that is, take the passage apart one or two phrases or sentences at a time, parsing each one in relation to the next. One way to do this is to grab a thesaurus and look up key words to see what their synonyms might be.

. . .as you go along reading a phrase or sentence, back up and repeat the whole sentence or series of sentences until it makes some kind of sense for you.

. . .once you have the basic sense of the idea/argument/claim, discuss it until the group has exhausted all of its questions.

. . .questions can take the form of “What does he/she mean by X?” or “How are X and Y related here?” or, more critically, “Since X is ________, then why can’t we say Y?” or “Is X true?”

. . .the idea here is to avoid at all costs the Death Phrase: “I feel that________.” Feelings are fine and wonderful gifts from God, but if you are going to grasp content, you must hold off on feelings and experiences until you have something to feel about or have an experience of. Very often we use “I feel” to mean “I think” and the former becomes a way for us to express an opinion that appears to be immune from critical assessment.

. . .to say, “I feel that Augustine’s idea of Original Sin isn’t very helpful” or “I feel that Ambrose is being negative” is pointless. How I feel about an idea says nothing about whether or not that idea is true, good, or beautiful.

. . .make your feelings into a claim about the truth, goodness, and/or beauty of the idea being presented: “I think that Augustine’s idea of Original Sin is dangerous.” Now we have a discussion! Tell the group why you think that this true.

. . .stick to the text; stick to making “I think” statements; avoid “I feel” statements and grow in your knowledge of the faith!

Axioms:

It is better to spend two hours thinking through one sentence than it is to spend two hours emoting over an entire book.

Just like feeling, thinking is something we all do, and we all have the right and responsibility to express our thoughts.

Do yourselves a favor and think with the Church! Assume our 2,000 year old Church has something to teach you and let yourself be taught. Disagreeing with a Church teaching is almost always about a failure to understand the teaching properly.

If you disagree with a Church teaching, make sure you understand it fully. Put the teaching “in suspension” and see what develops over the course of time. Please note: just because you’ve put a teaching “in suspension” doesn’t mean that you are free to dissent from the substance of the teaching. For example, let’s say that I put the Church’s teaching on adultery “in suspension.” I cannot then say, “Well, since I don’t agree with this teaching, and I’ve suspended my assent to the teaching, it is morally acceptable for me to have an adulterous affair until I decide that the teaching is correct.”

You can’t learn anything new if you come to the text with your mind made up with regard to the truth of the teaching.

Anyone in the group who bullies the others to accept or reject a teaching should be shown the door. This is faith formation. The assumption from the very beginning has to be: we are here as faithful Christians to learn our faith as it has been given to us. This is not a project of theological innovation nor is it a project designed to help you memorize the Catechism.

A note on conscience: “Conscience” is not a magical word that allows us to believe anything we want to believe about the faith. Your conscience is a divine gift that allows you to recognize the truth when you see it. Conscience does not invent the truth; conscience discovers the truth. Conscience does not make a belief true; conscience makes sure we only believe true things. Be careful, therefore, how you wield the gift of conscience!

Please leave comments and ask questions!

And if you really like this plan of study, buy me a book!

(WOW! Thanks for the swift business on the Wish List. . .)

How not to be a Catholic Zombie

3^rd Week of Lent: Hosea 14.2-10 and Mark 12.28-34
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory and Church of the Incarnation

No doubt each of us here could write a book exploring the tragic spiritual consequences of a divided heart and a fogged mind, not to mention the resulting exhaustion from draining away one’s strength in dissipation and the hard work of entertaining anxiety. How quickly do we become ragged, stumbling spiritual zombies, more or less careening haplessly through a day, a week, a month until we hit wall or fall into a ditch, twitching and moaning, unable even to ask for help! But maybe, while we’re still clear-headed enough to wonder, somewhere in the increasing mushiness of our zombie brains, we ask, “How did this happen? How did I become a spiritual tourist? An accidental Christian? When did I become a Catholic Zombie?” When it happens, it happens for all of us at exactly the moment we love one thing more than we love God. It happens the moment my soul, my mind, my strength targets something other than God to love and then loves that target as if it were God. Jesus repeats the ancient prayer of Israel to the friendly scribe: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord your God is Lord alone!” He does so just for this reason: there is One we are commanded to love; One we are to worship; One we are to contemplate; just One upon whom we are to expend our strength to know and love: the Lord our God. No other, no-thing else; just One and Him alone.

Here Jesus teaches the friendly scribe the meaning of the Law; he does more than merely condense the Law into a pithy saying or two; and he does more than simply edit the Law to highlight his favorite parts. What Jesus does is unveil the foundation stones; he uncovers the roots at their deepest, the very ground of Who God is for us. Since our Lord is One, our love for Him must be one, singular, exclusively focused. But it is precisely because our Lord is One and that our love for Him must be singular that we are then capable of loving more than Him alone. In fact, loving God as Lord exclusively entails loving His creation, His creatures, and honoring their gifted-ends. We cannot, in other words, say that we love God and hate our neighbor.

The genius of Jesus’ teaching lies in the way he moves the abstracted notion of “loving God” into the natural world of real things: loving self, loving neighbor. By directly binding the commandment to love God alone to the commandment to love neighbor as self, Jesus makes it possible for us to “reverse engineer” a revelation of Who God Is for us as Love; that is, since there is just one Love, the one divine love we share in as members of the Body, we are shown—imperfectly—the divine face when we will for ourselves and one another what God wills in love for us all. God’s will, my will, your will, our wills, One Will together in love! When this happens, we can say of ourselves what Jesus said of the scribe, “[We] are not far from the kingdom of God.”

What stands in the way of this grand union of wills in love? The divided soul, the fogged mind, and a dissipated strength; that is, a scattered sense of your purpose as loved creature; a mushy brain confused by error and folly; and your potential as an eternal companion of God squandered on living passionately “just right now for right now.” Think about it: zombies are the walking dead! And you can’t get deader than when you turn everything you are toward a stingy life of Me-Me-Me. Look at Jesus’ temptations in the desert: personal wealth, personal power, personal aggrandizement. The Devil offers our Lord the only thing the Devil can offer any of us, The Temptation that we face in our Lenten desert: the chance to be our own god; to love self without Love Himself. Do this and you throw yourself into a vacuum, a permanent place of Nothingness, a terrible emptiness.

Christ does not urge us to love or exhort us to love or persuade us to love. He commands us to love. And as strange as that might be, the stakes are too high—even in the face of doubts and fears— the stakes are too high for us to do anything else but love as He loves us. Just look at the Cross and ask yourself: why would anyone do that for, why would anyone die for me?

The Mass workshop

The Mass Line by Line: The Liturgy of the Word

Fr Philip Neri Powell, OP, PhD

University of Dallas, Gorman Lecture Hall E
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
7.30pm-9.30pm

A workshop/lecture on the theology and celebration of the Mass using the text of the sacramentary. Please come and go as you need to but get there early!

The...workshop...will...be...podcasted!

NB. Next Wednesday, March 5th: "The Mass Line by Line: Liturgy of the Eucharist," same time/place.

Entertaining Prophets Unawares

Yup. . .

3^rd Week of Lent (M): 2 Kings 5.1-15 and Luke 4.24-30
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

At their best, prophets are shady characters, dodgy types hanging out on the edges of decent society, always yelling about something, or telling people off, or threatening folks with the “End of the World” or God’s judgment. Apparently, it doesn’t take much to be a prophet these days. You need a loud mouth; a scary-slash-hopeful message about looming changes; a crowd of ego-massaging cultists to follow you around, mooning over you, fainting; and a friendly press corps with questionable ethics…oh wait…that’s a politician in an election year. Sorry. A prophet, a real prophet, on the other hand, is an anointed voice, a national conscience, a heart and mind given to God to see and hear where we as God’s people must go and how far we have strayed from our path. Consistently in scripture, prophets do not tell us what our ears itch to hear, and so we tend to draw them in vivid colors with wild hair, crazy eyes, disheveled clothing. They always seem to be spouting gibberish on the street. We prefer the prophets we listen to be well-dressed, clean-shaven, articulate, and liberal—that way they are easy to ignore, easier to manipulate, and easier still to get rid of when their usefulness is done. Let me ask you: when was the last time you listened to one of God’s prophets?

Prophets present us with a very difficult problem. Back in the day, it was simple enough to determine the divine-creds of someone claiming to be a prophet. The Lord was inclined to provide dramatic evidence of the prophet’s credentials. Fire from heaven. Water from rocks. Quick lift in a flying saucer. A general’s leprosy cured in the Jordan. Even Jesus pulled out the gasp-giving miracle or two to bolster his resume for the crowds. But now, since we are all accounted priests, prophets, and kings in virtue of our baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection, it seems that the much-applauded miraculous proof of prophet status has gone the way of dinosaurs and humble politicians. Do we entertain prophets unawares? Better yet, given our suspicion of prophecy in our times, if a prophet told us to do something extraordinary, would we do it? For that matter, would we do something perfectly ordinary if asked?

At first, Naaman ignored the prophet Elisha b/c Elisha told him to do something very ordinary to cure his leprosy. Naaman’s expectations for the extraordinary got in the way of his cure. Likewise, the people of Nazareth, having grown up over the years with Jesus, ignored his prophetic preaching b/c they knew him too well. Prideful expectation and contempt for our own often blind us to the power of God’s anointing, deafen us to His Word spoken for our eternal benefit. We want spectacle as proof of prophetic legitimacy. We want to hear sunshine, bunny rabbits, and cotton candy from our McWorld/McChurch prophets. And our self-appointed prophets comply b/c they need the cash for upkeep on their fleet of Caddies.

We have to look carefully at what Jesus says about the power and purpose of a prophet. There were many widows in the land of Sidon due to famine. But Elijah was sent to just one widow. There were many lepers in Israel. But Elisha was sent to just one leper. There were many sinners in the world. But Jesus was sent to the Jews. Does this mean that all the other starving widows, suffering lepers, and desperate sinners were out of luck? No. It means that a true prophet goes where he is sent, does what he is told to do, and very often the benefits of his work go to the stranger, the foreigner, the one we least expect to draw our Lord’s attention. It means that if we want to benefit from the prophet’s ministry among us, we must learn to expect nothing, be prepared for the extraordinary, and give thanks when nothing more than the perfectly ordinary happens.

Naaman is healed because he listens to his slaves. We are saved because we listen to a carpenter’s son. We believe on the testimony of fishermen, tax collectors, prostitutes, and thieves. Let me ask you again, how often have you entertained a prophet unawares?

Cartoon credit

Ideas, anyone?

Though I enjoy writing and preaching these homilies (I hope that's obvious!), I've found myself thoroughly enjoying the challenge of writing the occasional pieces I've written as well (confession advice, vocations, etc).

So, it occurred to me to ask: is there topic or a question or a problem you would like to see me write about for this blog?

I'm open to hearing all-comers. . .but I'm not promising to write something on every idea shot my way. If an idea strikes me as particularly interesting or ripe for discussion, I will pick it up and run.

Either send me an email (address on the left) or--better yet--leave a comment.

God bless...Fr. Philip, OP

Christ, Our Well-Water

3^rd Sunday of Lent: Ex 17.3-7; Rom 5.1-8; John 4.5-42
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, Univ. of Dallas

[NB. This is a revision of the homily immediately below this post...]

Is the Lord in our midst or not?

Jesus went into the desert after his baptism “to be tempted by the Devil.” For this reason alone did he step into the arid wasteland of temptation. He did not go to fast or pray or to do penance. He went so that he might be tempted. Though we sometimes embrace temptation as a welcomed break from the apparent tedium of holiness, I doubt that many of us work up a sweat running into the Devil’s theater to beg the dark angel to entice us to act deliberately against our Father’s will for us. Most of us prefer to skirt the edges of temptation, only peeking through the doors and catching glimpses of perdition as our more foolish brothers and sisters push past us and on into their spiritual demise. This is indeed foolish, reckless even, considering the long-term effects of disobedience on one’s soul. However, if the folks who braved the desert with Moses are any sign to us of our own frustration with the hiddeness of God, we too can find ourselves at Massah and Meribah, crying out to heaven, “Is the Lord in our midst or not!” How you answer that question will determine whether you arrive at the Cross in Jerusalem on Good Friday as a living sacrifice or a cheering spectator.

What’s the difference between these two? Answering a question with a question: how pliable is your heart and head? A hard heart and a harder head make for useless spiritual tools. Neither will seek out water to kill a thirst. Neither will seek food to kill a hunger. Neither will ask for help to relieve distress. However, both will faithfully rely on a dull will, a lazy intellect, and a careless concern for little beyond the moment. Moses’ people cannot look beyond their discomfort and so they cannot see their desert trek as anything other than a mistake, or an unmerited punishment. And so they whine incessantly, “Why did you make us leave [our slavery] in Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst…?” In answer to Moses’ worried prayer, the Lord gives them water, but He names the place of their infidelity, Massah and Meribah, that is, “testing” and “quarreling”—the two things a hard heart and harder head do best.

So, here we are. . .in the desert of Lent, slowly winding our way to Jerusalem and the Cross. Are you thirsty yet? Hungry? Are you tired of the journey? Lent is noon-high, half-way finished but the most difficult leg of our trip is still ahead. The betrayal. The Garden. The trial. The beatings and the Way of Sorrow. We’re not there yet, but we’ve been there before. Will you arrive to ride on the donkey? Or, will you cheer the riders on? Will you stand before the crowd for its judgment? Or, will you join the crowd to judge? Between now and then, hold firmly in your heart and mind the Well of Living Water. Not the flow of Massah and Meribah where the infidelity of the ungrateful poisons even the rocks. But the Well of Christ Jesus and remember, remember the water changed to wine; the water poured over Jesus’ head; the water that held him up as we walked the sea to save his friends. Let that water soften your heart and open your head! See and hear the waters of this gospel. . .

This gospel teaches us that: the Good News of God’s mercy is to be preached to everyone, excluding no one not even those with whom we have significant religious differences. The Living Water of God’s grace is immeasurably deep and sunrise to sunset wide. We receive this Water as a gift, given to us without a price or a debt, liberally handed-over in for no other reason than love, and this Water is dipped from the well of Christ Jesus himself.

The Living Water of God’s saving grace flows easily and freely over the dirtiest feet, into the foulest mouths, through the most unclean hands, and it washes away any and all afflictions.

The Living Water of God’s grace waters the cruelest heart, softens the hardest head, and tames the most passionate stomach. No dam or pipe or bucket or cloud is high enough, long enough, deep enough or empty enough to hold the gifts that our Father has to give us.

The Living Water of God’s grace is the Bridge between blood enemies; the Way across all anger and pride; the Means of health and beauty; the only Gate to truth and goodness. Built on the confession of Peter and guarded against Hell itself, the Church floats on its ocean, unsinkable, unshakable, His Ark.

The Living Water of God’s grace wets everything it touches, stains anything it falls upon, and indelibly marks for eternal life anyone who will say with the Samaritan woman, “Lord! Give me this water.”

We learn from this gospel reading that we cannot worship I AM THAT I AM on any single mountain; in one church and not another; nor can we pray in Jerusalem only, Rome only, or Dallas only. We learn that we are to worship the LORD in Spirit and in Truth, not with spirits and lies, but in His Spirit and His Truth; alone with Him and all together, we pray where we are, when we are, and we ask for one gift: voices eager to praise His glory, voice set afire to preach the Word of God’s mercy.

Jesus says to the woman, “I am [the Christ], the one who is speaking with you.” When she tells her neighbors this truth, they come to Christ and listen to the Word. For two days they listen. When the time for him to leave comes, the Samaritans say to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.” If she had held her tongue, quieted her voice and failed to speak the Truth, they would not have heard. Where then would they find hope?

Paul writes to the Romans: “…hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” If we are not disappointed in the grace we have received, how much more passionate are we then about speaking a simple truth, just one word to our neighbors about the gift of life we have received. There is no hope on the dry land promises of secular religion or science; no hope in the dry mouths of politicians or professors; there is no hope in the small spaces of test tubes or books. No hope that lasts. Our hope, our one hope is the depth, the breadth, the width of our Father’s immeasurable mercy—the sky-wide and valley-deep well of His free flowing and ever-living Water.

Walking this desert of Lent to the Cross, let Paul remind you: “…only with difficulty [do you] die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person [you] might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners [still sinners!] Christ died for us.” Our Lord gave Moses’ people the water they needed to quench their thirsty tongues. But their infidelity, their testing and quarreling, poisoned even the rocks. Now, Christ comes as the Living Water of our Father’s final grace, and all we need to do to gulp our fill is shout out like the Samaritan woman, “Lord! Give me this water!”

Is the Lord in our midst or not? Bring your biggest bucket and taste for yourself!

Drowning in Well-Water

3^rd Sunday of Lent: Ex 17.3-7; Rom 5.1-8; John 4.5-42 (Vigil Mass)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital, Dallas, TX

[NB. This homily is something of an experiment for me. . .so, I am very eager to hear comments!]

Here’s what we are supposed to learn from this gospel reading: the preaching of the Good News is to go out to everyone, excluding no one not even those with whom we have significant religious differences. The Living Water of God’s grace is immeasurably deep and awesomely wide. We receive this Water as a gift, given without price or debt, liberally handed-over in love, and dipped from the well of Christ Jesus himself.

The Living Water of God’s saving grace flows easily and freely over the dirtiest feet, into the foulest mouths, through the most unclean hands, and washes away any and all afflictions.

The Living Water of God’s grace waters the cruelest heart, softens the hardest head, and tames the most passionate stomach. No dam or pipe or bucket or cloud is strong enough, high enough, deep enough or empty enough to hold the gifts that our Father has to give us.

The Living Water of God’s grace is the Bridge between blood enemies; the Way across all anger and pride; the Means of health and beauty; the only Gate to truth and goodness. Built on the confession of Peter and guarded against Hell itself, the Church floats on its ocean, unsinkable, unshakable, His Ark.

The Living Water of God’s grace wets everything it touches, stains anything it falls upon, and indelibly marks for eternal life anyone who will say with the Samaritan woman, “Lord! Give me this water.”

We learn from this gospel reading that we cannot worship I AM THAT I AM on any single mountain; in one church and not another; nor can we pray in Jerusalem alone, Rome alone, Paris alone, or Dallas alone. We learn that we are to worship the LORD in Spirit and in Truth, not with spirits and lies, but in His Spirit and His Truth; alone with Him and all together, we pray where we are, when we are, and we ask for one gift: voices eager to praise His glory, voice set afire with the Word of God’s mercy.

Jesus says to the woman, “I am [the Christ], the one who is speaking with you.” When she tells her neighbors this truth, they come to Christ and listen to the Word. For two days they listen. When the time for him to leave comes, the Samaritans say to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.” If she had held her tongue, quieted her voice and failed to speak the Truth, they would not have heard. Where then would they find hope?

Paul writes to the Romans: “…hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” If we are not disappointed in the grace we have received, how much more passionate are we then about speaking a simple truth, just one word to our neighbors about the gift of life we have received. There is no hope on the dry land of secular religion or science; no hope in the mouths of politicians or professors; there is no hope in test tubes or books. No hope that lasts. Our hope, our one hope is the depth, the breadth, the width of our Father’s immeasurable mercy--the sky-wide and valley-deep well of His free flowing and ever-living Water. Walking this desert of Lent to the Cross, let Paul remind you: “…only with difficulty [do you] die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person [you] might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners [still sinners!] Christ died for us.”

Wasting Love on Sinners

2^nd Week of Lent (S): Micah 7.14-15, 18-20 and Luke 15.1-3, 11-32
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

The Pharisees hate sinners. Jesus loves them. For the Pharisees, Jesus’ love of sinners is more than just annoying; it’s downright dangerous. Any sensible person can see that loving sinners—even while hating the sin—can easily lead the sinner to think that his or her sin is somehow OK. We can’t have sinners thinking, “Well, I’m a sinner but folks seem to love me anyway, so my sinning must not be so bad after all…” This is a dangerous way to think. True, Jesus loved sinners. But surely there are seriously practical limits on which sinners get loved. Just random, gratuitous, free-for-all loving Everybody just seems so untidy? So messy and free! Where’s the cost of sinning when we just love everybody all the time regardless? Isn’t love all about rewarding the Good?

Fortunately, we have the Parable of the Prodigal Son to answer this question! The standard parsing of this parable goes something like this: the younger son is the Sinner. The older son is the self-righteous Do-Gooder. And the father in the story is God. The Sinner sins. The Father welcomes the Sinner home. The Do-Gooder whines about not being rewarded for being a do-gooder. The moral of the story: no matter how sinful we are we are always welcomed home by God our Father—even over the objections of the jealous prigs in the church. Nothing wrong with that. It occurred to me, however, that if we focus on the prodigality of the younger son, his adventures in squandering his inheritance, we might see, through slightly squinted eyes, another, fruitful way to parse the parable. Bear with me.

We call the younger son “prodigal” because he wastes his inheritance on wine, women, and song: “…on a life of dissipation…[he] freely spent everything.” There is no good reason, however, to limit the notion of prodigality to useless waste. Why can’t we think of prodigality as useful waste, or as the extravagant giving of gifts without regard to merit or the possibility of repayment? The younger son took his share of his father’s property and bestowed it freely on prostitutes, bartenders, waiters, and hookah baristas. I doubt these folks saw his largesse as wasteful. He expended his treasure, and his “wastefulness” benefited others. In fact, his generosity brought him very close to death—the last sacrifice he could make. In the rank humility of his destitution, he calls out to his father for help, pledging himself to yet another prodigal enterprise: conversion, confession, contrition, and penance. He is received by his father, who is “filled with compassion,” and his return is abundantly celebrated.

In one very important respect, our prodigal pal looks like Christ. What could be more extravagant, more over-the-top, more excessively unnecessary and wasteful than giving your life away on a cross because you find yourself in love with billions and billions of sinners. What is more ridiculous than squandering your very life to love sinners. . .some of whom will never love you back, will never love anyone at all. Is there a less efficient means of loving sinners than sacrificing your life for them. . .just on the off-chance that some of them, maybe most, maybe just a few, on the off-chance that some will come to love perfectly with you. The Prodigal Son wastes his inheritance on sinners. So does Jesus. The Prodigal Son finds himself hungry, alone, and near death. So does Jesus. The Prodigal Son calls out to his father in the last moment, surrendering himself to his father’s will. And so does Jesus. One lives and one dies but both are welcomed home by an exceedingly compassionate father. One lives as an example to sinners. The other dies as a sacrifice for sinners. Living and dying, both did so copiously, richly, prosperously.

The moral of this telling of the parable? It is impossible to love sinners too much; impossible to spread your love too thin; impossible to sow the seeds of mercy too wide; so long as you love because God loves you, it is impossible to exhaust the harvest of the Cross; so long as you love because God loves you, it is impossible not to be Christ.

You are the Christ

The Chair of Peter: 1 Peter 5.1-4 and Matthew 16.13-19
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, Univ of Dallas

[NB. Confession time: I don't like this homily...]

Preachers like to point out that today is the only day on the Church calendar when we celebrate a piece of furniture. Of course, we aren’t celebrating a piece of furniture, we are honoring the shepherding office given to Peter by Christ and held today by our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. Even so, some would claim that the office of Peter—as it is currently understood by the Church—is a kind of furniture: a decorative chair, too pretty to actually use; a chair sealed in the plastic of tradition, away from the grubbiness of life; a chair moved out of the museum of the grandma’s sitting room only when important guests show up, but otherwise kept hidden away; a chair, in other words, too delicate to sit on, too fragile to clean up, and in much need of a good repair job. Let’s see what the connection is between Peter's confession and the teaching office of Peter.

In a scene that we have come to recognize as a “teaching moment,” Jesus sits with his students and asks a thunderclapping question, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” The disciples give a variety of answers, covering all the bases: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or some other prophet sent by God. You can almost see Jesus nodding, slightly amused by the answer but very understanding. Notice that the first formulation of this question asks who the Son of Man is. Once the disciples have shouted out their answers, Jesus changes the question, “But who do you say that I am?” Jesus answers his own question by changing the terms of the question the second time around. He is the Son of Man! Peter, obviously the eager-beaver leader of the student group pipes up immediately and says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Notice something else here. All of the disciples are implicated in the initial, incorrect answers. Only Peter answers the second question. Alone, he answers correctly. And like the good professor he is, Jesus praises Peter by saying, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah…”

What does this extraordinary exchange tell us about the commission Jesus gives Peter when he, Jesus, calls Peter the Rock and gives him the keys to the kingdom? The most basic revelation here is the direct link between the truth of who Jesus is for us and the teaching office of Peter. It falls to our Holy Father to constantly put before the Church the reality of the God-Man, the truth of the Incarnation; it falls to our Holy Father to call us back, to always call us back to the essential confession of every Christian (Catholic or not!) that the man, Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph, is the promised Messiah of the prophets, that he is the Anointed One of the Father, that he is the Lamb, who upon the Cross, makes it possible for us all to participate in the divine life.

The Chair of Peter will be a piece of furniture when we look back from the Throne of God; but for us now, looking forward to Throne, the Chair of Peter is a compass, a roadmap, an infallible guide. Notice that we do not celebrate the Popes as a category. We celebrate this or that pope as a saint. We celebrate the office of the papacy. But we do not lift up and honor The Popes as men incapable of error or sin, as men separated from their ministry as Peter’s successors. The reason for this is simple: no man is above sin. We know that this or that pope made it to the Throne of God as a Saint. And the Chair of Peter itself sits in honor near the Throne. But as we all know, our history is spoiled with the avarice, lusts, pride, and arrogance of men who have sat in that Chair. This is precisely why Peter’s confession—“You are the Christ!—must remain on our lips as we pray, as we work, as we play, as we live and die.

Today’s feast of the Chair of Peter is not a celebration of Joseph Ratzinger or Karol Wojtyła or Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli or even Peter himself! Today we celebrate that teaching office of the Holy Spirit that shouts from first century Judea all the way to twenty-first century Irving, TX: “Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ!"

Sand for Water

Lenten desert? YES! Sand in the fonts? NO!

After the 7.30pm Sunday Mass on campus, a woman approached me and asked, "Father, why is there water in the baptismal font?" Used to esoteric questions from my U.D. students, I took a breath and geared up to give a ferverino on the sacramental uses of water and the first known uses of fonts in the patristic period. . .before I could say a word, she grumbled, "There's not supposed to be any water in there. . .it's supposed to be sand!" I stared at her for a sec and said something like, "Well, that was an unauthorized innovation from the 80's. Trendy nonsense. We don't renounce our baptisms in Lent." She turned and walked away. I was prompted to find this little piece of liturgical arcana. . .

________________________________________
Prot. N. 569/00/L

March 14, 2000

Dear Father:

This Congregation for Divine Worship has received your letter sent by fax in which you ask whether it is in accord with liturgical law to remove the Holy Water from the fonts for the duration of the season of Lent.

This Dicastery is able to respond that the removing of Holy Water from the fonts during the season of Lent is not permitted, in particular, for two reasons:

1. The liturgical legislation in force does not foresee this innovation, which in addition to being praeter legem is contrary to a balanced understanding of the season of Lent, which though truly being a season of penance, is also a season rich in the symbolism of water and baptism, constantly evoked in liturgical texts.

2. The encouragement of the Church that the faithful avail themselves frequently of the [sic] of her sacraments and sacramentals is to be understood to apply also to the season of Lent. The "fast" and "abstinence" which the faithful embrace in this season does not extend to abstaining from the sacraments or sacramentals of the Church. The practice of the Church has been to empty the Holy Water fonts on the days of the Sacred Triduum in preparation of the blessing of the water at the Easter Vigil, and it corresponds to those days on which the Eucharist is not celebrated (i.e., Good Friday and Holy Saturday).

Hoping that this resolves the question and with every good wish and kind regard, I am,

Sincerely yours in Christ,

[signed]

Mons. Mario Marini Undersecretary

An opened hand is your measure

2^nd Week of Lent (M): Daniel 9.4-10 and Luke 6.36-38
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

Tit for tat. Quid pro quo. Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. We understand these colorful phrases to mean one thing: you do me a favor, I do you a favor—an equal exchange of labor and good will. Implied in the exchange is the possibility of indebtedness, that if I do you a favor now, but you can’t do one for me immediately, you owe me. The longer I hold your debt the more unequal the exchange is going to be. Eventually, I will end up asking you to do something way out of proportion to the favor I did for you. The difference between favors at this point is to be found in my gentle patience, my all-too-human generosity in allowing you time to repay the favor. You end up repaying the debt and rewarding me for not calling in the favor before you are ready to repay. We call this interest…even if it isn’t strictly calculated as a percentage of value.

In Luke’s gospel this morning, Jesus is teaching his disciples two lessons about forgiveness: 1) forgive always so that the one you forgive will be obligated to forgive you when the time comes and 2) be as generous as you possibly can so that your generosity will be repaid in kind. The key to both these teachings is the last sentence of the reading: “For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

Jesus tells his disciples to be merciful as their Father is merciful. Not an easy job! Our God is more than merciful. He is Mercy per se. How do mere creatures imitate that? We stop judging others. stop condemning others. This means that we are to stop formulating final decisions about the guilt or innocence of others in sin. We are to stop passing sentence on their sins, drawing conclusions about the state of their souls. This does not mean that we are to close our eyes to sin and refuse to call sin Sin. “Judge not lest ye be judged” is not a biblical way of saying, “Mind your own business and I’ll mind mine!” We know this because our interpretative key—the measure you use to measure will be used to measure for you—this key tells us that we do not want our “business” ignored…I want my business measured in mercy and forgiven! Therefore, I had better be ready to repay that measure of mercy with an equal measure of my own.

The clear intent of Jesus here is to point us to the boundless generosity of the Father’s love and mercy. There is no room for stinginess in a heart once cleansed of sin by divine forgiveness. His grant of redeeming grace through the death and resurrection of His Son is the monumental gift of creation restored to right relationship. How do creatures repay that favor? How do we stand under that gift, accept its benefits, and prepare ourselves to repay the favor? We don’t. We can’t. And in creaturely terms, our debt to the Father grows every minute, every second we fail to repay. Fortunately, our Father calculates interest on debts in divine terms, in terms of limitless abundance, boundless generosity—He has paid the debt for us. No interest accrues on our divine favors, so the measure with which we are measured is no measure at all but the open hand of God pouring gifts in love.

So, be merciful as your Father is merciful.

Fear Nothing!

2^nd Sunday of Lent (A): Gen 12.1-4; 2 Tim 1.8-10; Matt 17.1-9
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital and Church of the Incarnation

“Rise, and do not be afraid!”

Are you wondering yet why you decided to take on a Lenten fast? Why you chose this or that bad habit to surrender to the desert? Are you finding yourself counting the days maybe, just waiting it out, maybe twitching a little now and then, maybe standing up and marching right into that Chinese buffet or right into that Marble Creamery or right into that tobacco shop? Is your tongue itching to tell someone off? Or maybe your credit card is keeping you up at night softly sobbing from loneliness? Imagine calling the whole thing off. Right now. Just stop Lent and get off. Stop the fasting, the abstaining; stop the extra prayers and just break those promises of weekly confession and daily Mass. Just stop. Just say NO to Lent. And get off this purple-hazed roller coaster of a liturgical season! I mean, really now…is Jesus coming back in 2008? 2009 even? Who knows?

Imagine the disciples for a second. There they were WITH Jesus, their beloved teacher, and they are having trouble understanding all this cryptic talk of suffering and dying and coming back to life again. The disciples! The guys who know him best, the ones who have known him face-to-face are struggling with this whole desert-thing. Here we are 2,000 years later and we’re trying to understand, to believe, to obey, and to benefit from the lessons of his own temptations among the sand dunes. Sure! You had better believe I would conjure up some bread after forty days without food. Not to mention a case or two of good German beer! Of course, I would call down angels if the Devil appeared to me and started talking. And, yes, ruling the world seems like a heady vocation. But I, like you, must do what Christ did and will do again. And in case we’re scared out of our minds, frightened at the very idea of what’s ahead, we have Christ on the mountain with Peter, James, and John. And we have his promise: “…his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as light.” What sort of promise is this? What are we to make of the transfiguration?

The disciples, gawking in fear at the sight of the transfigured Jesus, Moses and Elijah with him, fall flat on their faces in the dirt. Jesus touches them and says, “Rise, and do not be afraid!” When they rise, Jesus alone remains standing before them, brilliant bright, shining clean. He stands there for a moment. Moses and Elijah are gone. The joyous light dissipates. All he says to the dumb-struck disciples is: “Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” That’s it. That’s his explanation of what just happened. So, what just happened? What are we to do with this theatrical revelation now that we have it?

Let’s go back to Paul and his second letter to Timothy. Paul writes to this friend, “[God] saved us and called us to a holy life, NOT according to our works but according to His own design and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus…” What makes this holy life we are called to possible? Nothing other than the gifts we have received from God, the grace “now made manifest through the appearance of our savior Christ Jesus…” Paul, writing long after the revelation on the mountain, is reminding Timothy that he must “bear [his] share of hardship for the gospel…” How? “…with the strength that comes from God.” Jesus’ transfiguration, his transformation before Peter, James, and John is our Lord’s seal on an ancient promise: endure with my strength, endure with the gifts you have been given, endure with one another, and you too will be transfigured; you too will shine like the sun, white as light.

What do we do ‘til then? Jesus touches his frightened disciples and says to them, “Rise, and do not be afraid!” We can hear echoed here all of the promises our Lord made to Abram: “I will make you a great nation…I will make your name great…I will bless those who bless you…All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you.” None of this is ours by right or inheritance. It is ours in faith by the promise of He who blesses His creation with His presence. We cannot lay claim to a single blessing, not one gift from our Lord if we are face down in the dirt…frightened by our promised future. Or if we will not look up into the eyes of Christ; or if we refuse in our sinfulness to be transfigured, to be changed into He Whom we adore. So, rise and do not be afraid! Do not fear small sacrifices or large ones; do not fear little fasts or days of abstinence; do not fear that the Body of Christ is sick beyond healing, or that the Word is mute against the world’s unbelief and violence. Meet your temptations for what they are: lies. Meet the Devil for who he is: a liar. And rejoice that you have been given a seal on the promise of your salvation! A bright shining promise made by he “who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

What awaits our Lord in Jerusalem is an ignoble death on the Cross. He knows this. Yet he rides into Jerusalem like a slave on a donkey. And though he is cheered as a king, he is abandoned like a beggar to beg for his life. . .even as he dies. His face shone like the sun on the mountain. But it bleeds on the Cross. His clothes become white as light on the mountain. But when he is lifted up on the Cross, he wears a king’s purple red with his own blood. And when he stands before the disciples shining and bright on the mountain, he stands with Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets; yet in the garden he is alone. On the Cross he is among thieves, a criminal. He knows all of this. And he appears to his disciples to seal an ancient promise of mercy. He appears, transfigured, to ease their doubts, to strengthen their resolve, to bolster their lagging faith.

Are you ready yet to abandon your Lenten fasts? Your desert sacrifices? Are you ready to chat with the Devil and shop among his illusions of wealth and glory? Are you ready to stop this crazy ride and get off? If so, hear this one more time: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” Listen to the emptying Cross. Listen to the crash of the temple veil as it falls. Listen again to Paul: “Beloved, bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.” Listen to Jesus say as he touches your hand, “Rise, and do not be afraid!”

Confessional Advice

Advice from Fr. Philip Neri’s Confessional

I. Starting point:

1. Sin. When we sin we abuse a gift from God. Just about every sin we commit can be traced back to a disordered use of some grace we have received from God. Abusing God’s gifts is a dangerous practice b/c it is through the charitable use of our divine gifts for others that God perfects His love us. If you are not using your gifts for the benefit of others then God’s love is not being perfected in you.

2. Forgiveness. When we ask for forgiveness we are not asking God to do something He has not already done. All of our sins are forgiven right now. All of them. Then why go to confession? God gives us forgiveness always, constantly, without ceasing. We go to confession to receive His forgiveness. Let’s say I call you up and tell you that I’ve purchased a nice Easter ham for you at Central Market. It’s a gift from me to you and your family. I give you this ham. For the ham to be a proper gift, you have to go get it. Once you have received the ham, it is a gift. The ham is no less real b/c you haven’t picked it up yet. The ham doesn’t materialize out of thin air when you go to Central Market and ask for it. The ham is just sitting there waiting for you to come ask for. The same is true for God’s forgiveness. Just ask and you will receive.

3. Charity. Once you have received your gift of forgiveness, you need to put it into action as a gift for others. We do not have the option of failing to forgive. We are commanded to love and when we love, we forgive; i.e., You give your gift of divine forgiveness away by forgiving me my sins against you. In this way, you enact your most basic ministry as Christ to me.

II. The Sins (in order of frequency heard in the Box)

4. Lust. What gift does lust pervert? You might be tempt to say “love” or “sex,” but I would say “beauty.” We know from the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei verbum) that God reveals Himself to us through His creation, His only Son, and scripture. As the rational members of His creation, we humans are particularly capable of revealing Who God Is, that is, of revealing Divine Beauty, Goodness, and Truth to others. In other words, you are a revelation of God to me and I to you. When you see a beautiful woman (or man) she is beautiful b/c God’s beauty is being revealed through her. She serves as an icon through which God shines His beauty and through which you receive His beauty. Your attraction to her is the attraction you know and feel for Beauty Himself. When you take that Beauty and pervert it for temporary pleasure (porn, masturbation), you sin against God.

Advice: Begin to habituate yourself to giving God thanks for the Beauty He reveals to you. When you see an attractive person lift them up in your mind and say, “Thank you, Lord, for showing me your beauty through this beautiful person!” Be truly grateful each and every time. Over time, it will become harder and harder to think of others as objects when you know that they are actually icons.

5. Envy: What gift does envy pervert? I would say that envy perverts the nature of giftedness itself. We are all created as graced creatures…THAT we exist at all is a grace, a gift of God. Beyond the gift of existence, each of us is gifted in some particular fashion—singing, writing, patience, piety, etc. These gifts are mixed and matched and combined in all sorts of odd configurations. Our job is to organize these gifts into a coherent “charitable personality,” to become the best possible version of ourselves that these gifts will allow. The way we do this is to use the gifts for others. When we do this God’s love is perfected in us. However, when I lust after the gifts of my friends and neighbors, ignoring my own gifts in favor of coveting theirs, I fail to use my own gifts and God’s love is not perfected in me. So, envy is a double-edged sin in that it promotes covetousness and makes us lazy in being charitable.

Advice: Being grateful is the key here. When you feel yourself becoming envious of another’s gifts, stop and give God thanks for that person’s gifts. Pray that they might use their gifts well and grow in holiness. Gratitude is one of the things that the devil can’t fight against. A truly grateful heart is well protected from temptation.

6. Gossip: What sin does gossip pervert? Gossip tends to pervert the gift of Truth, or in other words, gossip distorts our view of objective reality in favor of the illusions generated by lust, envy, jealousy, etc. Depending on the subject of the gossip, gossip is exciting b/c there is the great potential there for making oneself look good or better in front of friends. It is important to us that we appear to be “hooked in,” so we gossip. Gossip, in its worse form, is also a form of tearing people down—lying exaggerating, etc. all build up a false picture that then gets used to make rash judgments.

Advice: St. Philip Neri once took a penitent to the top of his church. He handed the woman a feather pillow and told her to rip the pillow open and scatter the feathers. She did so, watching the thousands of feathers fly all over the city. He then told her that her penance was to go and collect every feather. Such is the nature of gossip.

7. Doubt/Not praying: These sins can also be understood as a perversions of God’s Truth. One thing we have to get clear, however, is there is doubt and there is Doubt. Little “d” doubt is acceptable if and only if you are truly confused about or unsure of the right way to think about and believe an article of the faith. Being ignorant of a teaching can lead to doubt, so can the complexity of some of our beliefs. Big “D” Doubt occurs when you are actually rejecting a de fide (of the faith) teaching of the church for no other reason than you don’t like the teaching or that you the teaching teaches against your favorite sin. This occurs a lot with contraception, masturbation, and pre-martial sex. So, when you confess “doubt” be sure and distinguish between the two. Doubt often leads us to stop praying or to stop using the sacraments.

Advice: Know your faith! You are responsible for knowing and living the faith as it has been given to the Church. If you are truly confused about a teaching, ask for help or get a copy of the Catechism. If you find yourself Doubting, try saying to yourself: “I am one person in a two-thousand year old Church. I’m smart but I’m not Two-Thousand Years Smart, so I will assent to this teaching and assume that my rejection of the teaching is based on my ignorance and not on the falsity of the teaching.” This is a properly humble way of approaching difficult teachings. When you find yourself unable to pray with any eagerness or force, just pray anyway…”fake it ‘til you make it through the dry spell.” Prayer is a habit like any other and requires constant maintenance. Prayer is the means by which God speaks to us, so keep the channel open even when you are convinced that there’s no one on the other end. Think of yourself lost on a deserted island and you have a radio. When you give up hope that you will be rescued, you will turn the radio off. How will the rescue team find you then? Leave it on so you catch anything that might come through. In fact, pick several times during the day when you will sit with the radio and broadcast your location.

8. Lack of charity: This is a really BIG sin. This sin perverts God’s love. First, we are commanded by Christ to love one another. He never says that we have to like one another. This is the whole problem with equating “loving others” with “being nice to others.” We should be nice to other out of a sense of civility but the failure to be pleasant or polite is not a sin. When you find yourself actively working against the Good of another person, then you are in trouble. Charity requires that we will the Good of the other at all times. I can truly dislike someone and still will the Good for them. In fact, there may be more merit to loving someone you dislike. “Willing the Good” requires that we treat others as persons with their own ends, meaning we treat others as fellow creatures created in the image and likeness of God. We cannot use people as means to other ends. This is uncharitable.

Advice: Giving thanks for everyone in your life is key to being charitable to these people. Pay attention to how you are thinking and feeling about the people you interacted with daily. For everyone you meet send up a prayer that whatever they need to grow in holiness will be given to them. If there is someone you really, really dislike make that person a part of your daily thanksgiving. Have a Mass said for them! Beware one common pitfall: “Please, Lord, help Philip to change his ridiculous ways and make him a agree with me about X.” This is a prayer to change me to fit your expectations of who you want me to be. For some reason, I find mothers are terribly burdened with this temptation, especially when it comes to their children! Try instead: “Lord, I give you thanks for Philip. Grant him all he needs to grow in holiness.”

III. Resisting Temptation

9. Temptation: Temptation is the pressure we feel when our disordered desires rise up and urge us to indulge them against God’s will for us. Entertaining a temptation is not a sin. Merely thinking about lying is not the sin of lying. However, if you decide to lie and do so “in your heart,” then you have lied whether you actually give voice to the lie or not.

10. Resistance: When you resist temptation on your own you are rejecting God’s grace and denying the victory of the Cross. There is no reason to resist temptation. You are perfectly free not to sin. Rather than steel yourself against temptation and fight like mad to resist the sin, turn and face the temptation square on. Name it. Hand it over to God. And move on. Resistance is actually the first step we take toward the sin. Be honest: how many times have you resisted a temptation only to submit to it eventually? What you are doing is habituating yourself to surrendering to sin. Break the cycle here by taking control of the temptation itself. Let’s say you are being tempted to lie to your professor about cheating on a paper. Say to God, “Lord, I am being tempted to lie to Dr. Jones about my paper. I give this temptation to you to deal with. I’m going to the library. Amen.” This is both an act of the intellect and an act of the will. Habituate yourself to using Christ’s victory over sin and stop resisting temptation!

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No doubt there is much more I could say here. Much, much more. But these are the common sins I hear in the Box. Keep these basic principles in mind at all times:

You are free. Right now, right this second, you are free. You do not have to sin.

You cannot sin in ignorance or by accident or by being forced or coerced.

Mortal sins “kill charity in your heart.” Ask yourself: have I killed charity in my heart? Don’t turn every sin into a mortal sin “just in case.”

For most sins only you can decide whether or not you have sinned, meaning, sinning is a highly subjective affair and you must decide what your intent was at the time. Of course, there are intrinsically morally evil acts but these acts have to be committed before they are sins in the real world. If you commit an IMEA, then you have sinned objectively. Examples of IMEA’s are murder, apostasy, adultery.

I hope these help during your Lenten journey to Jerusalem and the Cross!

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The heart of the other

1st Week of Lent (F): Ez 18.21-28 and Matt 5.20-26
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Serra Club and Church of the Incarnation

Aren’t we accustomed to Jesus saying ridiculous things? He always seems to be pulling some kind of joke on his disciples. It’s like that 70’s martial-arts western, “Kung Fu,” where the novice monk, young Cain, is challenged by his blind master to walk on rice paper without tearing it or to catch a fly with his chopsticks or wrestle with a riddle like “what was your face before you were born”? Jesus tells his disciples to abandon family and friends and follow him to a certain death on a cross in Jerusalem. He tells them to walk on water, cast out demons; he tells them that they have to eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have eternal life. As our Brit brothers and sisters say, “He’s having a laugh.” All the more unusual then is this teaching from Matthew that makes perfect, practical sense: your sacrifice at the altar of God is rendered unacceptable, unclean by a heart darkened with selfish anger toward a brother or sister; with a sin against family or friends; or squeezed by the cold vise of rash judgment. Be reconciled first with the one against whom your heart is set, and then offer your gift at the altar. Very sensible. But Jesus can’t seem to resist just one small twist to keep us vigilant.

What’s the twist? Listen carefully, “…if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave the gift there…go first and be reconciled…” Did you catch it? If you recall that your brother has anything against you. Jesus tweaks his otherwise sensible teaching with a characteristically Jesus tweak: we expect him to say, “If you have anything against your brother…” What he actually says is quite different: if you know that your brother has something against you, it is your responsibility to go to him and reconcile. This tweak in the teaching serves to emphasize (in dramatic fashion) how important it is to serve our Lord a clean, a contrite heart—the one and only sacrifice we make for holiness! By making it my job to approach the brother I’ve sinned against, Jesus lifts us the radical nature of God’s love, the divine love that makes it possible for us to love in the first place. He turns us out of our self-pitying navel-gazing to face the one we’ve rashly judged.

The Lord tells the prophet, Ezekiel: “…if the wicked, turning from the wickedness he has committed, does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life…” The wicked man “turns away” (i.e., repents) of his sins and lives. But his “turning away” is made good not by the act of turning away (remember: we do not earn forgiveness) but by the mercy of God who has promised (repeatedly promised) to honor our conversions from sin with forgiveness. In other words, we are forgiven NOW and urged to repent in order that that forgiveness might be made productive for us.

Jesus’ tweak—his insistence that I approach the one whom I have sinned against, the one whom I have given reason to be angry with me—this tweak guarantees my obligation to seek reconciliation, holds me directly responsible for helping my brother or sister to approach the altar with a contrite heart. For this difficult requirement we can only be grateful b/c when one member of the Body is reconciled to God, we are all made one soul cleaner! Notice also that this tweak assumes that you know you have sinned against another. Yet again, Jesus makes it difficult for us to say something like, “Well, if she has a problem with what I said or did, she needs to come to me and say so.” That attitude makes you the fool and the one you have sinned against “will hand you over to the judge…”

We march our way across the Lenten desert to Jerusalem and the Cross of Christ. This is the time to cry out from the depths of your heart and seek the Lord’s kindness in repentance. Does your soul wait for the Lord? Do you know that if He held our sins against us, we could not stand at His altar?