Spoken to by God

Solemnity of the Annunciation: Isa 7.10-14, 8.10; Heb 10.4-10; Luke 1.26-38
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she will be the Mother of God is both a declaration of future fact and a revelation; that is, Gabriel tells Mary that she, a virgin, will conceive and bear a son and Gabriel reveals to Mary who her son will be: the Son of God, the promised Messiah. That this episode from Luke is an announcement from the mouth of an archangel that the Messiah is coming is special enough, but that it is also a revelation from God, a revealing of Himself to us, is extraordinary. Fr. Jean Danielou, in his characteristically subdued manner, writes: “The revelation given to Mary is of the same order as the other revelations recounted in both Testaments. With it we are evidently faced with one of the essential affirmations of Scripture, one of the essential objects of faith: that God speaks to man”(23). Surely, our celebration this morning marks our Blessed Mother’s acceptance of her messianic motherhood. But is it too bold to suggest that what we truly celebrate this morning is extra-ordinary gift of hearing the Father speak to His creation? After all, we do not celebrate the Solemnity of the Invitation this morning, or the Solemnity of the Pregnancy of Mary. We celebrate a divine annunciation, a Word spoken to a creature for the universal benefit of all creation.

And though we do not celebrate Mary this morning, we do honor her faith in the Word. Our Testaments testify to the fact that God has revealed Himself to prophets, priests, kings, and even children, pulling back the Creator/creature veil to allow us to glimpse through their witness the glory that reigns supreme. Mary encounters more than an archangel, more than a mere angelic invitation; she is confronted with the fulfillment of the Messianic promise; she is shown, head on, face up the culmination of her people’s historic anticipation of their salvation. In effect, she is shown the end and the beginning of the promise that our Father spoke to Ahaz: Emmanuel, “God is with us!” Mary’s faith in the divine achievement of the impossible moves this promise from the Word to the world.

Fr. Danielou writes, “Faith is the recognition of revelation, and of equal importance in going to make up saving history. Faith is the special mark of biblical man”(24). Mary’s trust in the truth of Gabriel’s announcement that she will bear the Word into World is exemplary; it is also prophetic and priestly: she brings us to our end in Christ and she stands between us and the divine, offering herself as sacrifice, giving herself to God as a bloodless holocaust to bring our final and true Mediator into the flesh. With her Son, Mary says, “Behold, I come to do your will, O God!” but it is Christ who alone who accomplishes his Father’s will for us on the Cross. Word made flesh, he dies for us so that we might live.

Our eucharist this morning, this early morning party of praise and thanksgiving, brings that same Word into the world, making us carriers of the hope of creation’s salvation. St Peter says that we are a “living hope.” Jesus himself sends us out to be that living hope for others. Mary says yes to the work of bearing the Word. And so do we. Every “amen” we exclaim this morning binds us to the annunciation, to the revelation that God not only speaks to us, but he also holds us to our baptismal promise to speak of Him, to be His revelation in the world to every heart and mind free to see and hear. So, when you pray “amen” this morning, you pray a promise along with Christ and his Mother: “Here I am, Lord; I come to your will.”

Danielou, Jean. The Infancy Narratives. Herder & Herder, 1968.

Pic credit: Henry Tanner

WARNING: "Peace be with you!"

2^nd Sunday of Easter: Acts 2.42-47; 1 Peter 1.3-9; John 20.19-31
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital and Church of the Incarnation

In this you rejoice: “Peace be with you!”

On this second Sunday of Easter, celebrating the Divine Mercy of God, we are asked to brave a closer look at fear, an eyes-wide-open stare at what it means for a follower of Christ to live dreadfully, panicked. Just look at the disciples who lock themselves away, afraid of the Jewish leaders. Look at the Jewish leaders who chase and threaten, afraid of the disciples and their teacher. Look at Thomas, fearful of disappointment and despair, he denies the resurrected Christ, “I will not believe.” Look at us. . .are we afraid? Are you afraid? The Psalmist this morning-evening sings, “I was hard pressed and was falling. . .” Peter must remind his brothers and sisters, in the midst of their “various trials,” that their inheritance in Christ is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading…” Jesus appears among his friends, with them behind their locked door, and he must say to them, “Peace be with you.” He breathes the Holy Spirit on them, charging his friends to go out and preach. He shows them that security is not the Christian answer to fear. It is his peace that trumps our fear, and our commission from Jesus himself—“I send you as the Father has sent me”—this commission is the source of our peace.

So, what is peace for a Christian? We might have this idea that Christian peace is pacifist; that is, we might tend to conflate “peace” with “being passive” and call “pacifism” the only proper attitude for a Christian to take in the face of violence, persecution, or trial. And why not? Surely, it is the case that when faced with the ire of the Jewish leaders, the disciples run home and lock their doors. Surely, it is case that in the early church one soul after another drops out when the way gets to be too much to handle. Surely, it is better to live another day to preach than it is to die inopportunely? Surely, Thomas is right to deny the bizarre claims of his brothers that the dead and buried Jesus has appeared to them. With both the temple and the state chasing you for being a heretic and a traitor, surely, it is best to shut up, run away, hide, and wait. Surely, surely, this cannot be true for the peaceful Christian! Thanks be to God, it is not.

Our peace as a risen Church is not rooted in pacifism, a passive lounging about in the face of opposition. Our peace as a risen Church is rooted in what Peter calls our “new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. . .” Our peace is “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,” gifted to us by our Father, we “who by the power of God are safeguarded through faith…,” we who are ordered by the Spirit to rejoice “so that the genuineness of [our] faith, more precious than gold…even though tested by fire, may prove to be for the praise, glory, and honor” of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our peace as the risen Body of Christ is our “indescribable and glorious joy. . .” We do not live with hope. We do not live in hope. We are Hope—embodied, living, growing, spreading; we are attaining “the goal of [our] faith, the salvation of [our] souls.”

It is not enough that I achieve the goals of faith for myself. We, all of us, the whole Church, we are charged with “going out,” with “being sent” and with sending others out. To live as if the single end of our living hope is my personal salvation in is to live fearfully, dreadfully, passively; to live against the hard, bare witness of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. To believe that I alone am saved by the Cross and the Empty Tomb, to believe that my salvation is sufficient and that now all I need do is wait—this is another betrayal, another act of Judas, another discount on the ministry of Christ. Luke tells us in his Acts that “awe came upon everyone. . .All who believed were together and had all things in common. . .Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together. . .They ate their meals. . .praising God and enjoying favor with all the people.” We defeat fear together as Hope, or we live in dread. . .alone.

Look at Thomas. The disciples, locked behind their fearful door, witness the risen Christ—his wounds, his peace—they witness Christ as they have never seen him before. Thomas is not there. And when his brothers testify to Christ’s visit, he says, “Unless I see the marks. . .I will not believe.” One week passes and we can only imagine what happens in that single week. Do the disciples plead with Thomas to believe? Do they challenge his lack of faith? Do they argue with his skepticism, his need for physical evidence? Why do they need for Thomas to believe? Maybe Thomas regrets his willful rejection of his brothers’ witness. Or, maybe he becomes more and more obstinate in the face of their cajoling. Maybe Thomas, exhausted from the pressure, resolves to live alone, outside the witness of his friends. In just one week, maybe everything he learned from his Master sours, and he grows in fear. Who knows? We don’t. What we do know is that one week later, our Lord appears to them again and he gives Thomas what Thomas believes he needs to believe: physical proof. But lest Thomas or any of us begin to think that this faithless demand for evidence is ordinary, Jesus teaches them and us: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” Let’s say here that Thomas’ sin is not unbelief per se, but a failure to be “a living hope” with his brothers. Rather than hope with his friends, Thomas demands a demonstration for his security; he needs to know before he believes. And so his peace, freely given through God’s hope, is ruined. Fortunately for him, our Lord decides to restore his peace and teach him a lesson.

In this you rejoice: “Peace be with you!” And what a peace it is! First, Jesus says to the frightened disciples: Peace be with you. Then he says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Let’s see. . .where did the Father send Jesus? A three year teaching and preaching trek across the home country with angry Jewish leaders and Romans soldiers on his heels with little more than twelve guys who sometimes got it but most of the time didn’t, one of whom will eventually sell him as a criminal to the authorities, and the others will run like whipped puppies into the night right before his trial and execution! Peace be with you. . .here’s your suffering and death, have fun with it. Obviously, Christian peace is not a form of pacifism but a radical means of being the living hope of God for others…despite the risks, despite the trials, despite the costs. And despite the risks, the trials and the costs, we have this truth from Peter: the Lord our God and Father in his great mercy has given us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That living hope has been given to US not to you or to me but to US and nothing can stand against it, nothing, if we but take the peace of Christ, our living hope for eternal life, and spread it thick like spring seed. We have seen the Lord! Now, peace be with you. . .

Do you wanna be a fish?

Octave of Easter (F): Acts 4.1-12 and John 21.1-14
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation

For us, the Lord is far and near, close by and distant, personal and abstract. In fact, there may seem to be at times two gods for us to adore: the god of intimate relationship and the god of infinite distance. Haven’t we heard that God is both “with us” and “above us”? Both immanent (“among us”) and transcendent (“beyond us”)? Sometimes these two gods are called the God of the Bible and the God of the Philosophers; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and the God of Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas. Whatever we might think of this distinction, this difference, we have to admit that daily we experience God as with us and away from us; in varying degrees of intensity, right here, right now AND out there, perhaps waiting, perhaps not; gone away or hanging around close by, disinterested or fiercely loving. Jesus’ encounter with the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias, especially the anxiety, the trepidation of the disciples with Jesus’ presence among them, this encounter shows up for us our own sometimes deeply ambivalent fear and trembling with God’s work in our life.

At the very core of our being-here, we desire intimacy with God; our imperfection as creatures yearns for His perfection as our Creator. That yearning, that sometimes near painful desire to be with God throws up for our choosing a radical choice: (very simply put) I either embrace my lack of perfection and run after the perfection God offers through Christ; or in my folly, I make my lack of perfection a god and worship it with my whole being, pushing God further and further away, adding to the distance btw us, divinizing my desire, my lacks, filling up all my God-shaped with misshapened deities. For most of us, we walk the fine, razor-thin line somewhere btw these two forms of surrender and spend our time praying (desperately praying!) for help in choosing.

Look at the disciples, squatting near the fire while Jesus serves them fish and bread. John reports: “. . .none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they realized it was the Lord.” What’s the problem here? Why the anxiety? John has already told us that once Jesus asks—“Children, have you caught anything to eat?”—the disciples recognize him. Having obeyed the Lord’s command to stay together as his family in faith, the disciples are “sighted to see” him; that is, they are properly illuminated to see, gifted to recognize the Lord after his resurrection, but notice that they still need a prompt to understand fully.

The beloved disciple shouts, “It is the Lord.” Simon Peter jumps into the sea and wades ashore. The other disciples follow soon enough. But none will ask him who he is, none will dare to request a confirmation of what they know to be true. Why? It could be fear of offending their Lord with such an obviously doubting question. It could be that they simply want to respect his presence without pestering him with student questions. It could be that they are hoping that they are wrong. Likely, it is b/c they understand—if only in the head—what this appearance of the Lord means for them. Do you think that they are squatting there eating bread and fish and remembering back over the last three years all the promises of their Master? The promise of political and religious persecution? The promise of familial strife? Brotherly conflict? The truly frightening promise that they too—if they follow him on his Way—that they too will die horribly with a prayer to the Father on their lips? Of course, of course. And so they squat there, knowing and remembering and sweating through all those promises of violence and inevitable glory. And we, like them, sit and stand here, btw our choices of radical surrender, and pray for courage, stout hearts: give up to God all that is His and be wildly transformed, or cling to our imperfect creatureliness and worship all the little gods of deficiency?

Here’s what we are to do: go fishing! Wade into the deep! Shout: he is the Lord! Row ashore with our nets bulging and eat and drink with the Lord! He is risen. . .he is dead, buried, risen again, and when he comes for us, he will count us among his wondrous fishes!

Pic credit: Penny Prior

Hearts slow to believe

Octave of Easter (W): Acts 3.1-10 and Luke 24.13-35
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

After nearly twenty decades of exile in the woodshed for barbaric acts against humanity and a slow rehabilitation on the continent with French and German philosophers, I am happy to report that Belief is once again welcomed among us as an acceptable weapon against the encroaching hordes of nihilism. With those hordes shaking the ground right outside our gates, some in the civilized world line up for defense behind the utopian promises of secular scientism; some behind the ever more suicidal versions of Christless Christianity; some behind the absurd absolutes of religious fundamentalism; and some have even come to understand the wisdom of the West’s Catholic heritage and have, as a result, embraced the power of basic belief as the first best step in the dangerous project of shining a bright beacon into the darkness. Luke’s gospel story of meeting Jesus on the road to Emmaus greatly clarifies this last option: if our eyes are to be opened, we must first believe and only then will the need for sight disappear.

As the disciples walk to Emmaus, Jesus joins them. Since “their eyes were prevented from recognizing him,” the disciples confess their deepest doubts about the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday: “…we were hoping that [Jesus] would be the one to redeem Israel…” The disciples tell Jesus about his execution, his burial, and the discovery of his empty tomb by the women. They report: “…some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.” Jesus’ reaction to their doubt is telling. He doesn’t accuse them of being blind or stupid or deluded. He says to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!” Their inability to understand the events of Easter Sunday is rooted in an unwillingness to believe. They went to the tomb to see, but they did not take with them their eyes of faith.

Jesus patiently teaches them—again!—the heart and soul of the prophetic tradition: God will come to His people in the person of a savior. This is a promise fulfilled in their hearing. But it is not until Jesus blesses, breaks, and gives them the bread at table that their eyes are opened and they see. The instant they recognize him for who he is, “he vanishe[s] from their sight.” They believe, they recognize. They see him. And seeing is no longer necessary. Remember just last week or so that Jesus stood before an angry crowd busy gathering stones to throw at him. He urges the crowd to believe in his good works so that they may come to “realize and understand” that he is the Christ sent by the Father. The evidence he offers is only good as evidence if we first believe. This is basic. Comes first. Primary.

Belief is fashionable again b/c we have exhausted the modernist project of scientific absolutes, and we have discovered along the way that for all its usefulness science is a story we tell about the world. Like most stories, it has characters, plots, settings, action. Unlike most stories, it does an excellent job of explaining we think we see and hear and taste and touch. What it cannot do as a story is tell us about how to live in wonder at creation, how to thrive in love with the very fact of just being-here. Scientism demands that we place our faith in a investigative method. Christless Christianity demands that we place our faith in the bastard children of the hard sciences: sociology, psychology, economics, history. Fundamentalism demands that we place our faith in the infallible genius of the individual’s zeal for absolutes. What does Christ demand? How do those hearts so slow to believe catch fire? As Jesus and the disciples approached Emmaus, Jesus “gave the impression that he was going on farther. But [the disciples] urged him, ‘Stay with us…’ So he went in to stay with them.”

Pic credit: Stefan Blondal

It's gotta be good!

I ran across this gem today over at the Ignatius Press blog site: Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of the Faith by Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ.

It is extraordinarily difficult to find good books on magisterial authority. The standard texts are pretty much all--to one degree or another--apologies for dissent (e.g. R. Gaillardetz, F. Sullivan, et al).

Though I've not read this book, I am sure that Cardinal Dulles would not write nor would Ignatius Press publish a rubbish book on the magisterium.

I also found the four volume set, The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers. Just let me say that I only bumped my thick head once on the ceiling jumping for joy to see this available from Amazon.com!

Talk about the potential for a series of summer retreats, or adult Bible studies, or informal priory seminars. . .(Father does his Homer Loves Donuts impression. . .)

Gracias! [Updated]

Checking the Wish List, I am happy to see that my Book Benefactors have been busy helping the Philosophy/Theology library grow! The Copelston set is NOT complete. . .I thought I had all nine volumes but I ended up somehow with 2 copies of the second volume! Oh well. . .

I arrived back at my office very late last night and was greeted by a stack of recent gifts. . .Thank You notes will go out tomorrow.

One or two items arrived w/o shipping invoices, so I don't know who sent them to me. . .the translation software, for example, arrived in a box with no indication whatsoever of where it came from. . .

Special Thanks go to my German angel, Bee, for her diligence in providing this text-hungry Dominican with food for thought. . .her latest gift: a Latin comic book! WooHoo!! Also, a special thanks to my English angel, Rachael, not only for her books but for her contribution to the ASB Pilgrimage as well. What is it with Dominican friars and smart European women. . .(winkwink).

God bless, Fr. Philip, OP

We're back in TEXAS!

Alleluia! He is RISEN!!

I am happy to report that the ASB2008 Pilgrims to The Catholic Oasis of St Rafaela in Athens, GA have all safely returned to Irving, TX.

We had a blast with the Sisters Margarita, Angela, and Marietta, all members of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

During the week with the sisters we built a playground for the Oasis kindergarten children, drained a small but annoying swamp near the school, and tutored the first, second, and third grade students in reading and math.

We also prayed the daily office, celebrated a daily Mass, enjoyed some excellent homemade Mexican food, visited the Catholic Center at UGA, visited the parish--St Joseph's--, participated in a Stations of the Cross in Atlanta, celebrated the Triduum with the folks at the UGA Newman Center and at St. Joseph's, and we managed all of this with the help of our generous benefactors here at the Church of the Incarnation, our pilgrims' home parishes, parents, friends, and even a number of anonymous donors.

I want to plug the sisters' work at the Oasis in Athens, GA. The sisters there serve a large community of recent immigrants (mostly from Mexico). The Oasis program is fundamentally an afterschool tutoring program for kindergarten-third grade students in the community. With the help of more than 100 tutors from UGA, the sisters are able to spend about 2.5 hrs a day during the week assisting these children with improving their math and reading skills. I have to say that I am thoroughly impressed with their hard work and the results they've achieved. One of the most impressive accomplishments of the community is the elimination of gang activity in the area. No easy feat! But once you encounter the determination of these faithful women, you can easily see how evil never stands a chance.

More than anything right now the sisters need cash donations. While we were there, I witnessed the sisters paying the medical bill for one little boy with a bad case of meningitis. Another family was being evicted from their home and the sisters were able to stall the eviction by coming up with the rent money. They are frequently called upon for basic foodstuffs. The people in the community are hard-working, justly proud, deeply faithful, and committed to their families. I can testify the frugality of the sisters' lifestyle (three of them in a trailer). And I am happy to recommend them to you as worthy recipients of your help. So, please send them a donation or contact them about how you might be of help to them:

Catholic Oasis of St Rafaela
1465 Highway 29, N
Lot G-21
Athens, GA 30601

On behalf of the ASB2008 Pilgrims, I want to thank you all for your prayers!

Now: back to the academic grind. . .

Belief is basic

5^th Week of Lent: Jer 20.10-13 and John 10.31-42
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation

The Italian philosopher of religion, Gianni Vattimo, was once asked in an interview, “Do you now once again believe in God?” Vattimo, a scholar of Heidegger and Nietzsche and a proponent of Christian nihilism, answered, “I believe that I believe.” Unpacking this enigmatic response would take most of Spring Break, so let me get quickly to the point: Vattimo believes in belief, that is, he holds that believing in God is a desirable practice even if we cannot assert that believing in God is properly rational. Vattimo argues that science has done Christianity a huge favor by showing that most of what we call “religious belief” is nonsense. Why is this a “huge favor”? Because in a futile effort to prove itself “true,” Christian belief, Christian religious practice, has become weighed down by the excessive baggage of metaphysical philosophies, or ways of thinking that constantly add packages of myth, magic, and mystical gibberish to our basic commitment to God. His answer—“I believe that I believe”—is the first step to emptying out our belief so that we might simply love God and one another. Vattimo’s argument is most often linked to Philippians 2.6-8: “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God,. . . emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. . .” Just as Christ emptied himself to become a slave, so our beliefs must be emptied of any metaphysical speculation that we might confuse with revealed truth—to believe is enough. Now, is this the commitment that Jesus urges on the Jews as they collect their stones?

Let’s see what Jesus is asking of them and us. Confused as to why the Jews want to stone him for doing good works, Jesus professes his relationship to the Father and urges the Jews to believe that he is the Son of God. He pleads: “…if I perform [these good works], even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” What is he asking? Jesus is asking the Jews (and us) to “realize and understand” who he is, and we are to do so first by an act of belief, specifically an act of belief in his word or, if not his word, in his good works. Belief is prior to our understanding. Belief, therefore, is basic. And basic in this sense: belief constitutes the possibility of our understanding. Without prior belief subsequent understanding is impossible.

It should be clear that Jesus is not urging the Jews to believe in belief; that is, he is not pleading with them to trust in trust or to be convicted by conviction. Jesus is urging the Jews (and us) to trust him when he says that he is the Son of God. And by trusting that he is the Christ, we come to understand that he is the Christ. You may say that this is just blind faith. Maybe so. But if so, it is a blinded faith that finds itself brilliantly healed and gifted with every possibility of seeing Christ as he is for us: the only Son of God, betrayed, tried, convicted, humiliated, hung on a cross, dead and risen again for our redemption. Our philosopher-friend, Vattimo, is right about the need to empty ourselves out, but it is not metaphysical speculation that crowds our believing hearts. What stunts out growth in holiness is our desire to know before we believe; that is, our need to be sure before we trust, our need to be shown proof and evidence before we begin to hope; this need puts the work of human genius in front of trust and gives reign to the methods and prejudices and limitations of the human mind.

Our Lord says that we must first believe and then understand. In no way does he mean that all we have to do is believe. As creatures of intellect and will, we are also obligated to know, to comprehend. But we must pour out what we think we know, what we think we understand, and begin again in trust. Without this beginning in the divine, we start and finish as little more than stone-throwers, maybe even highly advanced, technologically superior stone-throwers; but without a heart for God’s love, you are just a smart monkey with shiny gadgets driven by your stomach.

Belief is basic. Trust God, seek to understand, grow in holiness. In that order.

Demon possessed Samaritan?

5^th Week of Lent (R): Gen 17.3-8 and John 8.51-59
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

We find ourselves this morning in the middle of an argument between Jesus and the Jewish leaders about who it is that Jesus claims to be. In the readings between yesterday and today, we miss out on part of the argument: Jesus asks, “’Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God; the reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.’" The Jews answered him, "’Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?’" Jesus answered, "’I have not a demon; but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me.’” This is no simple fight among friends or a “back and forth” between a street preacher and his slightly amused audience. Remember: the disciple were quick to remind Jesus that the Jewish leaders were carefully stockpiling stones for his eventual execution. The stakes are high and the question is clear: is this Jesus guy who he says he is or not? If so, then all of Heaven is about to break loose. If not, he’s a public blasphemer and deserving of death. Jesus had already asked his disciples, “Who do they you say that the Son of Man is?” and, more pointedly of his friends, he asked, “Who do you say that I am?” The Jewish authorities turn the tables and ask Jesus the crucial question as plainly as they know how: “Who do you make yourself out to be?” Who, indeed?

When I say that this is the “crucial question,” I mean that quite literally: the Jewish question to Jesus is the question of the Cross (crucial, cruce, cross). Jesus stands before his heritage, his long tradition as a Jew and a rabbi; he looks at and through the men in front of him, and back down the ancestral line to Abraham, and responds with these shocking words, “Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day…Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” Who does he make himself out to be? God, the Father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God of the ancestors, the One Who brought them out of slavery in Egypt and gave them their land and their descendants as numerous as the stars. Not surprisingly, the stones began to fly.

Why is the question of who Jesus is a question about the Cross? Modestly put, the Cross is an empty religious gesture if the man who dies on it is just a man. If the man on the cross is a teacher, we may learn some moral lesson. If the man on the cross is a preacher, we may see his end as merely exemplary. If the man on the cross is a rebel and a heretic, we may feel secure that rebellion and heresy are justly punished. But what if Jesus is telling the truth? What if he is “I AM,” and I AM is executed on a Roman cross? What now?

“What now?” is our crucial question, for us, right now—the question of the Cross that we must answer. For you, who hangs on that Cross come Good Friday? A demon possessed egoist? A mad rabbi with authority issues? A Jewish redneck from Nazareth the Cowtown, a bubba with delusions of grandeur? Or maybe a stylized first-century hippie who’s hit the bong one too many times? Or maybe he’s an enlightened teacher of peace who ran afoul of intuitional power and paid the ultimate price? For you, who will hang on that Cross come Good Friday? How you answer that question changes everything.

Most importantly, how you answer that question changes what Easter will be for you. Jesus doesn’t have to die to teach us a moral lesson, or to show us the way to peace, or to give us an example of love. He has to die so that we might live. If death is to be defeated, Life Himself must die and rise again. Only I AM can do this for us. Jesus says to his accusers: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.” And our Lord remembers his covenant forever. . .

It's "actual" NOT "active" participation

Fr. Jay Scott Newman, pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenville, SC, Nails It! Every candidate for ordination for the next 75 years ought to be required to recite this article verbatim at his ordination to the priesthood BEFORE the bishop touches his head. Check out the parish’s website and give God thanks for all of the wonderful work Fr. Newman and his people are doing at St. Mary’s. I wanna be his Parochial Vicar. . .

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Dear Friends in Christ,

One objective of the liturgical reforms of the 1960’s was to encourage the active participation ["actuosam. . .participationem" means "actual participation" (SC14)]* of the Catholic people in the celebration of the sacred liturgy, in part by reminding them that they are participants in, not spectators of, offering the sacrifice of praise at the heart of all Christian worship. Unfortunately, in the years following the II Vatican Council, the Church’s desire that all the faithful participate fully in the sacred liturgy was too often rendered a caricature of the Council’s teaching, and misconceptions about the true nature of active participation multiplied. This led to the frenzied expansion of “ministries” among the people and turned worship into a team sport [precisely!]. But it is possible to participate in the liturgy fully, consciously, and actively ["actually"] without ever leaving one’s pew, and it is likewise possible to serve busily as a musician or lector at Mass without truly participating in the sacred liturgy. Both of these are true because the primary meaning of active participation in the liturgy is worshipping the living God in Spirit and truth, and that in turn is an interior disposition of faith, hope, and love which cannot be measured by the presence or absence of physical activity. But this confusion about the role of the laity in the Church’s worship was not the only misconception to follow the liturgical reforms; similar mistakes were made about the part of the priest [oh boy, were there!].

Because of the mistaken idea that the whole congregation had to be “in motion” during the liturgy to be truly participating, the priest was gradually changed in the popular imagination from the celebrant of the Sacred Mysteries of salvation into the coordinator of the liturgical ministries of others [i.e. "Fr. Hollywood"]. And this false understanding of the ministerial priesthood produced the ever-expanding role of the “priest presider,” whose primary task was to make the congregation feel welcome and constantly engage them with eye contact and the embrace of his warm personality [i.e. "Fr. Oprah"]. Once these falsehoods were accepted, then the service of the priest in the liturgy became grotesquely misshapen, and instead of a humble steward of the mysteries whose only task was to draw back the veil between God and man and then hide himself in the folds, the priest became a ring-master or entertainer whose task was thought of as making the congregation feel good about itself. But, whatever that is, it is not Christian worship, and in the last two decades the Church has been gently finding a way back towards the right ordering of her public prayer. In February 2007 Pope Benedict XVI published an Apostolic Exhortation on the Most Holy Eucharist entitled Sacramentum Caritatis in which he discusses the need for priests to cultivate a proper ars celebrandi or art of celebrating the liturgy. In that document, the pope teaches that “the primary way to foster the participation of the People of God in the sacred rite is the proper celebration of the rite itself,” and an essential part of that work is removing the celebrant from the center of attention [i.e., the liturgy is not about you, Father! Get out of the way!] so that priest and people together can turn towards the LORD. Accomplishing this task of restoring God-centered liturgy is one of the main reasons for returning to the ancient and universal practice of priest and people standing together on the same side of the altar as they offer in Christ, each in their own way, the sacrifice of Calvary as true worship of the Father. In other words, the custom of ad orientem celebration enhances, rather than diminishes, the possibility of the people participating fully, consciously, and actively in the celebration of the sacred liturgy.

Father Jay Scott Newman

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NB. There is nothing canonical or rubrical preventing the celebrant from adopting the ad orientum posture immediately. In fact, the rubrics of the Missal frequently assume an ad orientum posture on the part of the priest and the congregation; that is, the rubrics read in several places in the Missal, "The priest turns toward the people and says. . ."

*The idea here is pretty simple: full, conscious participation in the liturgy engages our God-given potential for becoming Christ and activates/actuates that potential. Your participation is necessary b/c God wills that His grace perfect your nature with our cooperation. So, you can be up and running around like Martha at Mass and fail utterly to fully and consciously participate in the Mystery. "Active participation" is about movement, speaking, singing, etc. ONLY insofar as these activities are signs of an interior disposition toward cooperating with God's grace to perfect you. "Active" here is used in the Thomistic sense of "making potential real" and not in the more modern sense of "acting out."

H/T to C.C.

Let's say that you are dead. . .

5^th Sunday of Lent (A): Eze 37.12-14; Rom 8.8-11; John 11.3-45 (revised)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital and Church of the Incarnation

[NB. My thanks to my regulars who pointed out lots of errors. I’ll do what everyone else is doing today: blame Daylight Savings Time!]

Let’s say that you are dead. Have been for some time now. It’s hard to tell that you are dead b/c you are still up and walking around. Talking, working, eating, sleeping. But you are dead. Though your heart pumps blood, it is empty—holding in a terrifying vacuum. Where your purpose should be, where your animating love should be, where your freedom should be—there is nothing. Dead quiet. Icy stillness. Nothing. . .nothing at all. Your bones dry. Your muscles wither. Your strength drains away. And you either cry in anger at the loss, or you die a little more b/c there is nothing to do. Let’s say that you are dead. Have been for some time now. But it is hard to tell b/c the circus of your life is choreographed to ballet-perfection, and your smile sparkles like a dead winter’s sky. Careful! Be very careful. Does that dead smile mean that you have strangled hope? If so, listen: “O my people, I will open your graves and raise you from them. . .you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and raise you from them, O my people!. . .I will put my spirit in you that you may live. . .”

This is who we are, People of God! We are those who live in the spirit of the Lord. We are not made to live with dry bones or poisoned blood; we are not made to rot in the ground or to be scattered like dust to the wind. The grave is a temporary place, a moment’s rest, just a quick stop on the way to a new heaven and a new earth. Our hope rests in the promise of the Lord to breathe into us again the first breath of creation, His Word of over the void, and to re-create us anew; from the drying bones and rotting flesh of death, we are made to rise, to be refreshed, to be brought up again so that we might dwell with Him, body and soul, whole persons with Christ. And this promise of re-creation in the Word is not a promissory note that we must wait on to mature, an account that we sit patiently by waiting to balance: we are raised up now, lifted up now, brought to new life in the resurrection right now!

We have spent four weeks allowing the desert heat of Lent to reveal our temptations. Once uncovered, we know our weakness, we know how we can fall, how our hearts are emptied. But if your heart—that is, the very root of your link with God—if our heart is dead and still, an icy void—no revelation, no divine showing will move you to live again. That link to the Father must remain alive, whole, undefiled, and free. So, what do we do when we feel the spirit in us failing? Think of Mary and Martha and Lazarus—those loved by Jesus. Lazarus is sick and dying. Martha and Mary send word to Jesus that “the one he loves is ill.” Jesus calms their anxiety: “This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Jesus waits two days and then tells his friends that they must all go back to Judea. They protest: the Jewish authorities are trying to kill you! He says, “Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him.”

If we walk in the darkness, we are blind. But since we walk in the light, we see: Jesus is going to Judea to lift Lazarus out of his grave, to bring him out of his tomb, and he does so so that his Father’s promise will be kept. Over his friends’ objections and despite their doubts, Jesus goes to the tomb and cries aloud: “Lazarus, come out!” And John reports to us: “The dead man came out. . .” The dead man walked out of his grave and lived. Because of “what he had done [many of the Jews] began to believe in him.” And because we too believe, there is no death for us, no grave to hold us, no tomb to jail us. Our ears are always open to hear the Lord cry: “Come out of your grave and live!”

Even so, how often do you feel the spirit failing you? How often do you feel the disbelief scratching at your heart? What is it that tells you to welcome the void? More often than not our faith in the Lord’s promises is challenged by sickness and loss. The very fact of our mortality, the reality that we will die, stands against His promise of life. There is nothing for us to do but die. And because our eyes are open and because we walk in the light, we see that this stumbling block litters our path. My death, your death is no death at all if we live and move and have our being in the Spirit. Paul writes to the Romans, “If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the One who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you.” Is this a wish? A fantasy? A dangerous gamble? No! It is our most precious hope, His most gracious gift—we live, and we live with Him forever.

Listen again to Ezekiel: “O my people, [you people here, right here, right now] I will open your graves and raise you from them. . .you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and raise you from them, O my people!. . .I will put my spirit in you that you may live. . .” That promise is made good here this morning/evening in the Eucharist, right here in this celebration of the Lord’s last supper with his friends. Gathering together in his name, repenting of our disobediences, listening to His word spoken and preached, we are offer on the altar of sacrifice not only our first fruits, our material goods, we offer ourselves; we make of ourselves a true and living sacrifice, an offering made acceptable to the Father by His Son through the Spirit. We are the Body and Blood of Christ offering Christ to Christ through Christ for Christ so that we might be Christ in the world for others! And when we do this, our opened ears hear loud and clear the voice of God say, “Untie them and let them go.”

Though the Enemy throws scandal in our way, we are our own worst enemy. How hard do you work against your own eternal life? How often do you create—from thin air and dust—obstacles for yourself? How many burdens do you pile on your back? On the backs of your family and friends? Do you bind yourself with the minutiae of the Law that Christ himself fulfilled for you? Do you properly credit yourself as freed from the necessity of sin and death? How much do you labor to untie yourself, to find your own way out of the prison of sin? You cannot free yourself. You cannot bring yourself back to life. You cannot lift your tombstone and walk out of the grave. Why not? You cannot do for yourself what the Lord Himself has already done for you. When Jesus tells Martha that he will raise Lazarus from the dead, Martha accuses him of being too late, too slow to arrive to help Lazarus. Jesus says to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha, ever practical, ever sensible, says, “I know he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus corrects her saying, “I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live. . .” He says, “I AM the resurrection” not “I will be the resurrection” or “I was the resurrection.” He says, “I AM the resurrection. . .” Present tense. Right now, he is life for believers.

Let’s say that you are dead. Have been for some time now. But it’s hard to tell that you are dead b/c you are still up and walking around. It is time for you to get angry with death, time for you to get angry with your hardened heart; it’s time for you, looking at the Cross and hoping on the resurrection, it’s time for you to join Christ, get angry and cry out: “Take away the stone!” And it is time for you to walk out of your grave, let your bonds be untied, and walk freely in the Spirit of a Father who gave His only Son for you. It is time for you to show the glory of the Lord!

Died and gone to heaven. . .

DAMN! Goldberg beat me to it! I lived this book in grad school in the 1990's.

Topics for Future Occasional Pieces

Honestly, the first thing I would do is drag my habit sleeve across the ink bottle
and spoil the paper!

My gratitude goes out to all of you who responded so generously and provided me with a bushel-basket full of ideas for future occasional pieces of writing. Some of the topics suggested are beyond my competence ("history and use of the Dominican Rite"); others are treated better by more competent writers elsewhere ("location of tabernacle") and still others didn't quite strike the right chord with me ("Dominican bio-ethics"). So, given all of this, here are the three topics I've chosen to write about in the next few months:

1). Contemporary Religious Life (a narrowly construed piece on generational issues in the orders)

2). Theory and Practice of Prayer, or Is God Really Listening? (I've taught this as a senior theology seminar)

3). Some Random, Deconstructive, Postliberal, Hermeneutical Reflections on Postmetaphysical Theologies, or "A Dingo Ate My Nicaean Creed!" 'Nuff said. . .

Those interested in the Dominican Rite of the Mass, click here.

Those interested in Dominican bioethics, click here for a great vid by Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, OP.

PODCAST! The podcast for the first "The Mass Line by Line" workshop has been edited and is ready to post. I am waiting for the second installment to be edited. My thanks go out to Rudy B. (A.K.A. "El Burro") and Alex P. for their great work in helping this aging Poet/Preacher with the techie stuff).

AND! Last but not least and because I have fallen short of the full glory of the Father and wallow in sin, I note (one again) that the Wish List has been updated. . .

No true prophet...

4^th Week of Lent (F): Wisdom 2.1, 12-22 and John 7.1-2, 10, 25-30
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory and Church of the Incarnation

Jesus travels to Jerusalem, moving slowly toward the center of his world as a faithful Jew. As those who travel with him, we stand behind him and peer over his shoulder at the steadily rising tide of opposition and violence against his Good Word. His approaching presence exerts a holy pressure against the Wicked of the world, pushing them back against one another, crowding them into one another, condensing them into smaller and smaller but stronger and stronger enclaves of surprisingly creative rebellion. From behind his shoulder, what do you see as Jerusalem comes into focus over the hill? What waits there, who waits there to cheer or jeer our Lord and his motley band of preachers? The Book of Wisdom gives us a prophetic picture, a picture of what waits and a prophecy for those who are waiting. But let’s ask this question: are you tempted to place yourself among the wicked, or do you fancy yourself as the “just one”?

The second chapter of the Book of Wisdom opens with this cheery scene: “The wicked said among themselves, thinking not aright: ‘Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us…’” Our book on the wisdom of the Lord prominently features the foolishness of the wicked. What are they worried about? The foolish and the wicked are feeling increasingly anxious about a holy man among them who stands as a living rebuke to their folly. The foolish wisely call him “just,” but because of this he is judged to be “obnoxious.” We have to wonder what he is doing to be so obnoxious! According to the wicked, he reproaches them and charges them with violations of the law; he claims to know the Lord and calls himself a child of God; his very presence is felt as a rebuke, censure; the wicked say of him, “…merely to see him is a hardship for us!” And their carefully considered response to this horrible man is predictable: they will test his claims to holiness with “revilement and torture;” they will give him a shameful death to test his claim that God will help him: “For if the just one be the son of God, he will defend him and deliver him…”

We know the wicked aren’t thinking clearly here…St. Thomas says (in more philosophical terms than these): sin makes you stupid. Scripture says, “…they erred; for their wickedness blinded them…” Rightly, the author of Wisdom comes down on the side of the righteous man. But since we are still in our Lenten wilderness, our temptations are especially fresh and vivid. Are you then tempted to place yourself among the wicked, or do you fancy yourself the righteous yet persecuted child of God? If you place yourself among the wicked, you are admitting your foolishness and in so doing you have very likely seen the light. If you fancy yourself the Just Yet Persecuted One, you will likely find yourself wallowing in folly by Easter. Remember: for the devil, temptations are just convenient means to a much bigger end. If he can tempt you to anoint yourself a prophet contra ecclesia or tempt you to die a martyr’s death for nothing more than your vanity, then he has proven the wicked right—more often than not underneath the most highly polished plate of righteousness is a self-righteous heart just waiting, just hoping to be martyred for its favorite cause.

You may object here by pointing out that I’ve set up a false dichotomy with no good result for the earnest seeker and no way out. I’ve pointed out the obvious temptations of both the wicked and the righteous. Here’s the way out; Jesus says to the residents of Jerusalem, “You know me…I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true.” No true prophet, priest, or king is self-anointed. No true martyr or saint runs after death for the sake of ego. You are sent out, or you go out on your own. The difference rests in the hand of God.

Suffer Well

4^th Week of Lent (T): Eze 47.1-9, 12; John 5.1-16
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

Forgive this old English teacher his need for a moment of grammatical clarity. I promise, it serves our prayerful purpose this morning! Jesus asks the man who has been sick for 38 years, “Do you want to be well?” The man answers Jesus in a way that leads us to conclude that the man understands Jesus to be asking, “Do you want to be healed?” He tells Jesus that he can’t reach the pool “when the water is stirred up” because he has no one to help him. Jesus says, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” In other words, Jesus orders him to be well. How are we to understand this healing? What does it mean for us “to be well”? We all know the basic distinction btw Good and Well. “Good” is an adjective, nouns are good. “Well” is an adverb, verbs are done well. Fried chicken, pecan pie, afternoon naps are all good. However, we read well, run well, write well. But what does it mean “to be well,” that is, what does it mean for us to exist well?

We can start a good answer here by looking at why the now-healed man and our Lord think he is ill. Think back to the Man Born Blind. Why does he believe that he is blind? What do others think about the Blind Man and the Man sick for 38 years? They are blind and sick because of sin—an opinion our Lord Jesus shares. Now, we find this difficult to believe. Of course, sin can make us “soul-sick,” but physically ill, physically disabled? That’s stretching a useful analogy between healing the soul and healing the body, don’t you think? I don’t think so. As persons, whole creatures, we are body and soul together. Not a soul poured into a body, or a Ghost Haunting a Machine of Flesh and Blood. As the incarnated Son of God and Son of Man, Jesus understands the intimate relationship between flesh and soul, he says to the healed man later on in the temple: “Look, you are well; do not sin any more…” Think of this admonishment this way, “Look, you are absolved of your sin, you are well. Do not sin any more…”

I asked earlier: what does it mean “to be well”? What does it mean for us “to exist well”? To be and to exist are infinitive verbs: we exist, we be. And to be well is to exist always in the will of the Father for us. I don’t mean to suggest here that disease is somehow a punishment for sin. God does not give us cancer as a punishment for sin. He doesn’t cause us to fall and break a hip or crack our heads open because we disobey Him. The reckless world we live in, this mortal realm of dangerous obstacles and killing sicknesses exists as a consequence of just One Sin, the original sin. And because we live in this physical world as persons, we get sick, we have accidents, we harm one another. To be well (verb + adverb) is to live as creatures in the will of the Creator for us.

We all know about germs and viruses and cancers and other mean-spirited dis-eases that strike us down. Even the most righteous among us get sick! So, “to be well,” must mean more than just “living as persons without disease or injuries.” Being well is about how you will come to understand your dis-ease, your personal uneasiness while sick or injured. And how you choose to understand and live with your disease is called “suffering.” We suffer the infection, the cancer, the emotional imbalance. We suffer, we “allow” that the sickness is with us and we choose how to react to this fact in the world. This is why Jesus asks the sick man, “Do you want to be well?” Do you will to be in right relationship with God? Though the sick man never says outright, “Yes, I want to be well,” his answer to Jesus is an act of contrition, therefore our Lord orders him to wellness; that is, Jesus places him back into the good order of righteousness.

“Do you want to be well” means (in part) “How do you want to suffer your sickness?” If you suffer alone, in self-pity, or with some sense that your sickness is deserved, then you will suffer—“live with”—your malady as a just punishment. The Good News, however, is that we do not need to suffer our maladies as punishments! We are free to give our sickness to Christ, the one who died that we might live. And we are free to be well as we suffer, free to live as men and women—loved persons—to live as creatures already perfectly healed, if not wholly cured. Do you want to be well? Good! Be well.