Just as, just so

4^th Week of Easter (M): Acts 11.1-8 and John 10.11-18
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

One of the most striking features of John’s gospel is Jesus’ dogged repetition of what I have come to think of as his “Just As” teaching. In one form or another, Jesus repeats for us the phrase “just as the Father loves me and I love the Father, I love mine and mine love me.” We can replace “love” here with “know” or “sent”—“just as the Father knows me/sent me”—and we still get a clear picture of the correlation between our relation with Christ and Christ’s relation with the Father. Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the father knows me and I know the Father…” Just as, just so: how does the Father know his Son? And given that answer: how does the Son know us?

Luke reports in Acts that Peter is confronted by “circumcised believers” who chastise him for eating with the Gentiles. Peter defends himself by telling them how he was given a vision of the “four-legged animals of the earth” and heard a voice telling him that these animals were now clean to eat. He reports that over his objections to this revelation, a voice said to him: “What God has made clean, you are not to call profane.” This vision, though obviously about the kosher laws, has a much broader application. Peter is called to a household recently visited by an angel. The angel promised that if the members of the household summon Peter, the words he speaks to them will save them all. The Holy Spirit came upon Peter and he has another revelation: God’s flock has expanded beyond the Jews. Those with Peter conclude: “God has then granted life-giving repentance to the Gentiles too.” Peter must have heard ringing in his head the words from the previous vision: “What God has made clean, you are not to call profane.”

We are lead back to the original questions: how does the Father know his Son? And given that answer: how does the Son know us? We know that the Father knows His Son because the Son himself tells us that he, the Son, and the Father are one. When we see the Son, we see the Father. Two persons: Father and Son; one nature: divine. The Son knows us through the Holy Spirit, who is one with the Father and the Son. Also, a person; also divine. But how do we know this trinity of divine persons, this One God? We look at our Shepherd, the Christ. Just as the Son knows his Father because they are one, so we know the Christ and the Father “in the Spirit.” We are not divine, of course, but we are made clean, made holy by the Christ and his sacrifice for us. The fifth Easter preface says it plainly: Christ is the priest, the altar, and the lamb of sacrifice. Our Shepherd became a sheep and died for us so that we might know the Father just as he knows the Father.

Peter heard the voice from heaven says, “What God has made clean, you are not to call profane” and thus the Way is open for all of the Father’s two-legged creatures—Jew and Gentile—to come to Him perfectly clean. And we must hear this clearly so as to avoid appointing blame where it does not belong: Jesus says, “…I will lay down my life for the sheep…This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own.” When our Lord took up his life again on Easter morning, he took us with him; and now, we are His sheep saved from the slaughter, fiercely loved by Love Himself; just as He loves His Son, just so are we too loved.

Visit by Cardinal Arinze!

In case those in the area haven't heard: Francis Cardinal Arinze will be in Irving, TX at the University of Dallas all day tomorrow and part of Tuesday.

His Eminence will celebrate the noon Mass at the Church of the Incarnation on the U.D. campus.

He will also speak at the Irving Arts Center at 7.30pm. His talk: "Evangelization and Interreligious Dialogue."

This will be a great day for me personally! I will assist His Eminence at the noon Mass as his Master of Ceremonies (he has requested a very simple Novus Ordo Mass, btw), and I will have the great privilege of having lunch with him and several other members of the theology department!

Details may be found on the University of Dallas website.

The Gate: "Jesus is Lord!"

4^th Sunday of Easter: Acts 2.14, 36-41; 1 Peter 2.20-25; John 10.1-10
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital and Church of the
Incarnation

[Hahaha...someone thought it would be funny to rearrange the pages of my homily on the ambo while I wasn't looking...if you listen to the podcast you will hear me fumbling to get things right...if I find out who...]

On the ideal ranch in an ideal world, the ideal shepherd leads his ideal sheep and ideally they follow him. For some, this is the ideal model for the ideal Church. Shepherds lead. Sheep follow. On the real ranch, however, real shepherds do not so much lead their real sheep as they stand behind them and drive them forward using fierce little dogs and a real big stick. Sheep, being enormously stupid and easily controlled, respond well to the shepherd’s staff and even better to the sharp teeth and quick barks of the fierce little dog. For some, this is the ideal model for the ideal Church: stupid sheep driven forward by a shepherd, his staff, and a fiercely obedient little dog. Fortunately, for us, our Lord has something else in mind when he uses the Shepherd/Sheep Gate metaphor to teach the Pharisees about who and what he is for them. We do not follow Jesus b/c we are stupid and easily controlled. Nor do we follow Jesus because he has the use of a heavy staff and a fierce little dog. We follow because we hear and recognize his voice as he calls us by name to join his flock. We also hear the “voice of strangers” calling us away from the flock, but we do not follow them because we not recognize the voices of these robbers and thieves. How do you know that it is the voice of the Shepherd you are hearing, inviting you to enter through the sheep gate?

Peter and the Eleven are preaching Christ in Jerusalem. Without apology, without any hesitation or worry, without any fear of offending or alienating anyone, the Eleven stand with Peter as he proclaims, “Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God had made both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom your crucified.” Simple, straightforward, hard-to-hear truth. Jesus is the Lord and the Christ by the grace of God, and you, the Jewish leaders, executed him on a Roman cross. That uncomplicated, unadorned declaration of the truth hits them hard, “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart…” Cut to the heart! Peter’s words carry the Word to the center of their very being, that place where the Holy Spirit abides, and his words ring them like a bell. And while they are still ringing with the Word, they obediently ask, “What are we to do, my brothers?” Peter tells them what they are to do; they do it, and “about three thousand persons were added that day.”

The apostle Peter, in his letter to the exiled elect of the Church, writes, “[Christ] himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you had gone astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” The Jewish leaders heard Peter speak the Word in his words and thousand joined the Way. These thousand, now, later, spread across the known world, continue to hear the Word, the truth of their salvation in the one time sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and hearing again the truth spoken and reading the Word written, they abide with Christ the Shepherd. How do these exiled followers of the Way abide with Christ despite their suffering? Peter writes, “…to this [suffering] you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps.” Hear his voice. Recognize his Word. Follow the Shepherd and Guardian of your soul. And by his wounds you are healed.

But how do you know that it is the voice of the Shepherd you are hearing, inviting you to enter through the sheep gate? Jesus says to the Pharisees, “…I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved…A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” You know you are hearing the voice of the Shepherd when you hear one message, the message Peter declared to the Jewish leaders: Jesus is the Lord and the Christ, the gift of sacrifice for us, the one we crucified with our sins, the one, the Only One, who suffered and died for us. Peter supplemented this simple, straightforward truth “with many other arguments,” but the force, the power, the fire of his first exhortation—Jesus is the Christ!—cut them to the heart.

The single most dangerous predator for sheep is the wolf. The wolf skulks around the edges of the flock, looking for an opportunity to strike, waiting patiently for just one lost sheep to kill and carry off for supper. The shepherd and his co-workers recognize a wolf immediately and work hard to drive it away. For the rest of us, Christ’s all-too-human sheep, we sometimes fail to recognize the stink of the wolf, fail to see his shabby fur and hungry eyes, thinking instead perhaps that this oddly colored sheep, this strangely hungry lamb, is one of us. If we listen, we might hear the sheep-shaped wolf whisper to us that the Shepherd is really just a man, just like one of us, frail and fallible, subject to temptation and sin. We might hear the sheep-shaped wolf say that our home with the Shepherd is really somewhere over there, over the hill, next to the more attractive, greener pasture. We might hear the wolf tells us that our flock is dull, hind-bound, exclusive, too structured and too authoritarian, too rigidly dogmatic for free-thinking sheep like ourselves. Or that we are indeed just sheep, stupid followers, easily controlled. The wolf will tempt us to see the Shepherd and his flock as unable and unwilling to meet our need for liberty and personal development. And as we listen, the wolf will lick his hungry lips and wait.

All extended metaphors aside. . .we all know that there are many voices out there competing for our attention, jockeying for our money, our time, our talent. We know that there are those inside and outside the Church who would love to see us boldly “stand up to” the teachings of the Body of Christ, challenge the truth of the faith, and walk away believing that we do not belong among the elect. But as the Body of Christ, his pilgrim people and servant-sheep, we cannot ask for a more explicit, more direct revelation than the one we have in this morning’s/evening’s gospel: “Jesus said again…I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved…” As vowed and baptized priests and prophets of the Gospel, we hear and recognize the truth of Peter’s words: Jesus is the Christ! There is no other way, no other Shepherd, no other gate.

As intelligent men and women, faithful Christians we give a hearing to the philosophers, the scientists, the novelists and poets; we listen to our political and financial leaders; we respect Caesar in his empire and strive to obey his laws. But our hearts are cut by the Word, not by argument or laboratory experimentation; not by a good novel or poem; not by a stump speech or Wall Street report; nor do we allow Caesar to sit on the throne of our souls and rule us out of his need for authority and power. We belong to Christ—body, soul, heart and mind. We will not follow a stranger. We will not recognize as Christ any other Shepherd, any other Gate. So, how do you know that it is the voice of the Shepherd you are hearing, inviting you to enter the through sheep gate? Is the voice saying to you, “Jesus is the Christ”? Yes? Then listen. If the voice is saying anything else, anything but: start bleating for your life, and wait for the Shepherd and his faithful flock to come find you! Listen and remember: “I am the gate…A thief comes to steal and destroy and slaughter; I come so that [you] might have life and have it more abundantly.”

Summer Seminars at U.D.!

Good News!

I will be teaching two senior/grad seminars here at U.D. during the 1st Summer Term:

ENG 4360 American Literature: 19 & 20th Century (covers classical novels and poems from the mid to late 19th century up through the mid-20th century: Hawthorne, Twain, Whitman, Dickinson, James, Faulkner, etc.)

and

THE 5317 Recent & Contemporary Theology: theology of religions (topics: philosophical issues raised by religious pluralism, theologies of salvation in light of religious diversity, nature of the Church in interreligious dialogue, etc: John Hick, Jacques Dupuis, Pope Benedict XVI, and many others).

Generally, these seminars need at least six students registered before they can be offered. I will post reading lists when I have selected and ordered the assigned texts.

N.B. Updated the Phil/Theo Wish List to include two new books. One of contemporary Thomism and another on the theology of our Holy Father (both written by the brilliant and orthodox theologian, Tracey Rowland).

"Blessed are the cheese makers..."

3^rd Week of Easter (F): Acts 9.1-20 and John 6.52-59
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, Irving, TX

Standing before the confused crowds of Jews and disciples, Jesus makes an astonishing claim. Maybe the wind blew his words away, or perhaps the crowd swallowed the essential point, but most heard him say something like: “…I will raise him on the last day.” During this sermon, he teaches this particular heresy multiple times. If you had heard just this bit, just this last part about how he will raise someone on the last day, you might find yourself among those who heard Jesus say during the Sermon of the Mount: “Blessed are the cheese makers.” And then you might find yourself having to explain why cheese makers will be raised on the last day, and then defending the broader notion that Jesus obviously meant that all of those in the cheese-making industry would be raised, or something else equally ridiculous and confusing. And just to toss another wrench into the works, let’s add the barely heard but nonetheless frightening phrase, “…unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man…” Did we hear that correctly? What bits did the wind blow away? Who’s this man that we are supposed to eat…? And why will eating his flesh and drinking his blood result in the raising up of some guy on the last day?

The strangeness of Jesus’ sermon on the Bread of Life might have been caused—partially—by the bad acoustics in the synagogue or crowd-noise drowning him out or maybe even some translation problems. No doubt the primary difficulty had to do with the what most hearing him preach would say is his blasphemy against God. Here we are two-thousand years later, after centuries of solid Church teaching on the nature of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, and we hear this gospel preached, and we think to ourselves: “Yea, of course, bread and wine become the Body and the Blood. Jesus is the Bread of Life. OK? Now what?” What we have missed is the raw, stinging smack in the face that Jesus delivers to those listening to him in the synagogue. Already infamous for his claims to be the Son of God, Jesus is compounding his blasphemy by claiming to be—flesh and blood—not only the only son of the Father, and not only the Father himself, but also—in his person—he is claiming to be, personally, meat and blood, the one whom they must eat in order to live. Can we blame them for quarreling? For believing that they have misheard or misunderstood? Is it unreasonable that we should think that we have had a Monty Python moment and simply got the phrasing, the words wrong?

Once the full text of Jesus’ homily was released on the web, everyone could see that, yes indeed, Jesus says, “Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my Flesh is true food, and my Blood is true drink.” There it is in black and white. No way to mishear a written text. But what does it mean? Is Jesus speaking symbolically? Metaphorically? Is he just being cryptic again? Is this some sort of test? Jesus means what he says. He is with us.

The key to this difficult teaching, I think, is found in the phrase “remains in me and I in him.” Think about “remaining.” Think about abiding, staying put, bearing under, and even more interesting, don’t we sometimes use the verb “to stomach” as a way of describing how we might endure? “I will just have to stomach it.” To remain with is to stand beside, linger with and live near; it is the opposite of abandoning, leaving, disposing of, deserting. Jesus is telling us that if we eat his Flesh and drink his Blood he will abide, remain, linger with, endure with us. If we stomach him now—literally—, he will not vomit us out on the last day; he will stand by us because as a part of us he can do no less. He says plainly enough: “…I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life…because of me.”

Don’t mishear this. Don’t let the dead desert winds of the world blow his words away from you. Don’t flee in confusion to the easily swallowed notion that Jesus is preaching metaphorically or symbolically. He is with us. He remains with us. Not as divine residue or a godly leftover; he abides, Flesh and Blood for our eternal lives.

That they may all be One...

3^rd Week of Easter (R)Acts 8.26-40 and John 6.44-5
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

Jesus says to the crowds: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him…They shall all be taught by God…Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.” Simple question for us: who does Jesus believe his Father to be? The Buddha? Krishna? A Jewish manifestation of Mother Gaia? Sophia, the spirit of wisdom? Or maybe the “Father” is just a time-honored, culture-bound image and name for the collective Jewish experience of the otherness of the Divine. No, Jesus understands his Father to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the First and Last Covenant, the Creator of all Things, revealed on Mt Sinai, the Passover, the exodus, in the flood, through the prophets, and finally in the Incarnation of his Son as a man in human history. And Jesus understands himself to be “the living bread that came down from heaven.” If you want to live eternally you must eat this bread, believing that the Father sent him to us for us.

This very simple, nearly universally proclaimed truth of the faith is regularly challenged by a sub-disciple of systematic theology called “theology of religion.” The central, operating claim of the theology of religion goes something like this (very roughly put): there is One Divine Being that individuals, groups of individuals, religions, cultures, ethnic groups, etc. all encounter through various “lenses” of culture, language, etc. and then these folks shape their experience into a religious revelation. So, when a Buddhist encounters the One, he sees the Buddha. When a Christian encounters the One, she sees Jesus. When a Hindu encounters the One, he sees a billion-billion deities in a billion-billion shapes and colors. The upshot of this argument is that there is no one right way to believe, no one right way to describe God; no religion is closer to God nor does any religion have any special hold on sacred scriptures: one mountain, many paths. The Buddha, Jesus, and Krishna are essentially the same since they are all merely culturally determined experiences of the One. And anyone who insists on the exclusive use of his or her path to salvation is a religious bigot, a barbarian, a knuckle-dragging buffoon. I’m reminded of the poet, William Carols Williams, who argued that using a close analysis of a poem’s formal structure to determine the poem’s quality is like trying to figure out the nature of a crab by cutting off its legs and stuffing it into a box. It would seem that our “theologians of religion” are really looking for a box into which they will stuff a brutally mangled divinity.

It is fairly easy to see how the mere description of a plurality of religions in the world has become a prescription for mandatory plurality—“there are many religions in the world” quickly becomes “all of these religions are right.” Keep in mind here the core mistake of religious pluralism as it is practiced in the academy and in the Church: religious pluralism turns a description of natural religious diversity into a prescription for enforced, artificial religious diversity. Is this what Christ is calling us to in John’s gospel?

No, it isn’t. We have in Acts the model of Christian evangelization. The eunuch is reading scripture. Along the road out of Jerusalem, the eunuch meets Philip. Philip sees that the eunuch is reading Isaiah. He asks the eunuch: “Do you understand what you are reading?” The eunuch says no and asks for help. Philip does just that and ends up baptizing him. Notice that Philip doesn’t try to convince the eunuch that the “lamb led to slaughter” in the Isaiah passage is, for the eunuch, a manifestation of some sort of Ethiopian deity, or some sort of tribal spirit, or something religiously akin to something the eunuch thinks of as divine. Philip proclaims Jesus to the eunuch! And the eunuch asks for baptism. Once brought to the Lord in the waters of baptism, the eunuch “continues on his way rejoicing.”

In the face of every attempt to spread our Lord thinly across cultures, we must respond (with the psalmist): “Bless our God, you peoples, loudly sound his praise! He has given life to our souls…!” One faith, one baptism, one Lord.

Nietzsche...

UGH! We talked about Nietzsche's "will to power" and nihilism last night in the theology seminar.

Reading and discussing Herr Nietzsche reminds me why I would rather be a poet than a theologian or a philosopher.

CELEBRATE NATIONAL POETRY MONTH! Send me a book. . .(cheesy grin). . .

B16 to America!

Full-text of Pope Benedict's "Message to the American People":

Dear Brothers and Sisters in the United States of America,

The grace and peace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with all of you! In just a few days from now, I shall begin my apostolic visit to your beloved country. Before setting off, I would like to offer you a heartfelt greeting and an invitation to prayer. As you know, I shall only be able to visit two cities: Washington and New York. The intention behind my visit, though, is to reach out spiritually to all Catholics in the United States. At the same time, I earnestly hope that my presence among you will be seen as a fraternal gesture towards every ecclesial community, and a sign of friendship for members of other religious traditions and all men and women of good will. The risen Lord entrusted the Apostles and the Church with his Gospel of love and peace, and his intention in doing so was that the message should be passed on to all peoples.

At this point I should like to add some words of thanks, because I am conscious that many people have been working hard for a long time, both in Church circles and in the public services, to prepare for my journey. I am especially grateful to all who have been praying for the success of the visit, since prayer is the most important element of all. Dear friends, I say this because I am convinced that without the power of prayer, without that intimate union with the Lord, our human endeavours would achieve very little. Indeed this is what our faith teaches us. It is God who saves us, he saves the world, and all of history. He is the Shepherd of his people. I am coming, sent by Jesus Christ, to bring you his word of life.

Together with your Bishops, I have chosen as the theme of my journey three simple but essential words: "Christ our hope". Following in the footsteps of my venerable predecessors, Paul VI and John Paul II, I shall come to United States of America as Pope for the first time, to proclaim this great truth: Jesus Christ is hope for men and women of every language, race, culture and social condition. Yes, Christ is the face of God present among us. Through him, our lives reach fullness, and together, both as individuals and peoples, we can become a family united by fraternal love, according to the eternal plan of God the Father. I know how deeply rooted this Gospel message is in your country. I am coming to share it with you, in a series of celebrations and gatherings. I shall also bring the message of Christian hope to the great Assembly of the United Nations, to the representatives of all the peoples of the world. Indeed, the world has greater need of hope than ever: hope for peace, for justice, and for freedom, but this hope can never be fulfilled without obedience to the law of God, which Christ brought to fulfilment in the commandment to love one another. Do to others as you would have them do to you, and avoid doing what you would not want them to do. This "golden rule" is given in the Bible, but it is valid for all people, including non-believers. It is the law written on the human heart; on this we can all agree, so that when we come to address other matters we can do so in a positive and constructive manner for the entire human community.

Dirijo un cordial saludo a los católicos de lengua española y les manifiesto mi cercanía espiritual, en particular a los jóvenes, a los enfermos, a los ancianos y a los que pasan por dificultades o se sienten más necesitados. Les expreso mi vivo deseo de poder estar pronto con Ustedes en esa querida Nación. Mientras tanto, les aliento a orar intensamente por los frutos pastorales de mi inminente Viaje Apostólico y a mantener en alto la llama de la esperanza en Cristo Resucitado.

[I cordially greet Spanish-speaking Catholics and manifest to you my spiritual closeness, especially to the young, to the sick, the elderly and those experiencing difficulties or who are most in need. I express my great wish to be present with you in this dear nation. In the meantime, I ask you to pray intensely for the pastoral fruits of my imminent Apostolic Voyage and to keep high the call of hope in the Risen Christ.]

Dear brothers and sisters, dear friends in the United States, I am very much looking forward to being with you. I want you to know that, even if my itinerary is short, with just a few engagements, my heart is close to all of you, especially to the sick, the weak, and the lonely. I thank you once again for your prayerful support of my mission. I reach out to every one of you with affection, and I invoke upon you the maternal protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Que la Virgen María les acompañe y proteja. Que Dios les bendiga.

May God bless you all.

Text Source: Whispers

Answering the question asked...

3^rd Week of Easter (M): Acts 6.8-15 and John6.22-29
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

It would make a fascinating study to look closely at the way those who follow Jesus around in crowds often utterly fail to understand what he is saying and doing. Once again, Jesus finds himself performing a miracle in order to teach and then being very disappointed when no bulbs go bright. Jesus uses this failure to instruct. When the recently fed crowd find him in Capernaum, they are puzzled and ask him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus being Jesus, he doesn’t answer the question put to him, but rather he answers the question the crowd should have put to him but didn’t. They question they should have asked of him is: Jesus, why are we following you around like a gang of lovesick stalkers?!

What does Jesus know about those in the crowd that they probably don’t know about themselves? Looking at the answer he gives to the question about why the crowds follow him, we can say that Jesus understands human motivation with a great deal of clarity and depth. Not surprising given who he is, but perhaps a little frustrating given that he often doesn’t connect with his students or the crowd with his odd-ball parables and cryptic sayings. We know that we must have ears to hear and eyes to see.

How does Jesus answer the question about why the crowds follow him around? Ignoring the question actually put to him—“when did you get here?”—Jesus says, “…you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.” In other words, you aren’t here because you believe I am who I say I am, but because I’ve proven that I can fill your bellies. What’s interesting here is that Jesus doesn’t seem at all put off by this rather pedestrian motivation for stalking him across the sea. He moves blithely on to attempt again to teach them the truth of why he multiplied the fishes and loaves for them. He says, “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life…” I can see most in the crowd nodding their heads at first. . .and then getting this look on their face something like, “Uh?” And it might have been the last little bit of that sentence that confuses them: “. . .[the food of eternal life] which the Son of Man will give you.” Again, “Uh?” To their credit they overcome their initial confusion and manage to ask a sensible question: “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?”

We don’t want to be too hard on our Lord so early in the morning, but can we really say that we know what to do with his answer: “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one He sent.” OK. Do they understand this answer? No. Tomorrow we will hear them ask for a sign so that they might believe! Here’s a suggestion: how about, oh I don’t know, maybe Jesus could fed five thousand grown men with five loaves of bread and two fish!? Seems like a good start to me. That they are still clamoring for signs is a sure sign that they are willing not to believe in the face of one mighty work after another.

So, what’s going on here? Jesus is teaching but his students aren’t getting it. The students are listening but Jesus seems to be teaching them cryptic gibberish. Like most of us, probably most of the time, those in the crowd are looking for physical proof, “scientific evidence” that Jesus is the Son of Man sent by the Father. They want to understand before they believe. Most of Jesus’ post-resurrection teaching falls on the tired and frightened ears of the disciples. But here he is still with the crowds and yet they cannot see, cannot hear. Much like those in the Synagogue of Freemen who hear Stephen witnessing to them, “they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke.” And we are left again with the question: why not?

Why not? Jesus is appealing to their hearts of flesh, that is, the Law of desire for God gifted to us all at our creation. They are listening with their hearts of stone, that is, hearts trained in the Law of Moses. What they must do, what we must do, is crack that stone and fling open the gates that guard the beauty of God revealed through us. Until they can do this, until we can do this, Jesus will always speak cryptic gibberish, utter nonsense. So, to quote my father when there’s work to be done: “Come on, boys! Let’s get crackin’!”

Follow the map, ask for directions!

3^rd Sunday of Easter: Acts 2.14, 22-23; 1 Peter 1.17-21; Luke 24.13-35
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital and Church of the Incarnation

What road are you on this morning/evening? What road do you travel? To get from here to there, from now to then we walk, ride, run, fly, swim, and sometimes crawl. From Point A to Point B we move across the earth, clocked by time and measured by distance. Along the way there are potholes, detours, undertows, and turbulence. There are those who would stop us, delay us, give us false directions. And there are those who would travel with us, offer us their support, provide us with what we need to survive, to thrive. Do you travel just to travel? Walk just to walk? Or, do you have a destination in mind? A time and a place in mind to be? Our life together in Christ, as we move closer to God, is a pilgrimage, a holy procession, a long traveling parade to an end, to just one spot. We are not here to wait. We are not here to dally and fidget and linger; we are not here to ponder what we have and cry over what we are lacking. The Church is charged with moving, going out, spreading out and away from the cross and the empty tomb, marching with conviction and purpose into the world. We are measured by the hour and the mile. And our engines are fueled by the Spirit! Where are we going? What we are doing? And why?

Our Lord is risen! We know that both the cross and the tomb are empty. The witness of his resurrection spreads from his gravesite like a bomb-blast—fast, hot, loud, and wild. And for a while his people wait for the coming of the Spirit. He appears in the locked room to his friends and breathes his spirit on them, charging them by sending them out just as his Father sent him out. His peace settles on them like fire. Everything but the Good News is burned away. Acting like the spirit-possessed students that they are, the disciples run wild through the countryside, spreading the Good News. And they find themselves standing before judges, kings, priests, standing in front of both gospel-hungry crowds and angry crowds. This is where they are: in their world, the sighted and hearing among the deaf and the blind. What road are you on this morning/evening? What road do you travel? And why?

These are Easter questions. We need these answers because the answers are our roadmap. We watch and listen as Peter and the Eleven stand before their fellow Jews and remind them of who Jesus is: “Jesus the Nazarene was a man commended to you by God. . .[a man commended to you] with mighty deed, wonders, and signs, [deeds, wonders, and signs] which God worked through him in your midst. . .This man […] you killed, using lawless men to crucify him. But God raised him up, releasing him from the throes of death because it was impossible for him to be held by [death].” We read Peter’s letter, “. . .conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning, realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct […] not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ […].” And so, you must know: What road are you on this morning/evening? What road do you travel?

Do you really need to be told about the dangerous paths available to you? Is there anyone here who hasn’t stepped off the Way and found himself/herself in a briar patch, a mud hole, or a heading toward a cliff? When we strike out with Christ to give witness to his gospel we are immediately tempted with a whole host of alternative roads, attractive shortcuts and by-ways. Some are more subtle than others, some are obvious frauds, others are weak imitations, off-brand knock-offs—cheap but glamorous. Dressed up in contemporary fashion, they are all as old as the Tree in the garden, as old as the serpent himself. Like silver and gold they are perishable, mortal, temporary. . .and deadly. There is one path to God, one road to abounding joy, one Way, one Truth, one Life. Jesus Christ. And him alone.

On the road into Emmaus, two of Jesus’ disciples lament the death of their Master and wonder when he will return. They tell the stranger who has joined them that they were hoping that “[Jesus] would be the one to redeem Israel” but that “it is now the third day since [his execution] took place.” Already they are pondering a different road, a wayward path. And this despite knowing that the Lord was not found in his tomb on the third day! Jesus, risen and with them on the road, scolds them: “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!” Do you see the road? From the first instant of creation, through the garden to Moses and the Law, and on to Abraham and the prophets, with the kings of Israel and John the Baptist and the Blessed Mother, to the arrival of the Messiah himself in Bethlehem and his public ministry in the land, to his mighty deeds and words of power, to his betrayal, arrest, trail, humiliation, execution, and resurrection, through it all our Lord has been our navigator, our lighthouse, all the road signs along the Way! And he remains our map to the Father, the only map for our peace.

What does it mean to travel the road with Christ? At its most basic, we are obliged by the vows of baptism to take up the apostolic charge to teach and preach the gospel in season and out. To live for others as Christ died for us. Our road does not lead to personal enlightenment, earth-consciousness, cosmic assimilation, or the fulfillment of “felt-needs.” Our road is not paved with dollars or gold; haute-couture fashion or academic novelty; intellectual prowess or religious athleticism. Along the way, we are not to exit at those stops that tempt us with political utopias, spiritualist oasises, or philosophical escapes. Our road is not a virtual paradise of motherboards, WiFi connections, or cell-phone towers. We are a pilgrim people in route, on parade, in procession with one another to our perfection in Christ. Anything or anyone that/who tells us or tempts us to believe that the road is a lonely, solitary way; or that the road we travel is straight and downhill all the way; or that we travel for our health, wealth, or the building up of community; these, all of these voices, we must shut out, and listen carefully to the Lord: “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer. . .?”

A hard question. And one we might take to heart and refuse to answer because the answer frightens us. Of course, it is terrible to think that Jesus had to die for us. That one man was sacrificed for our sins. But this is a truth we have to face head on, a truth that millions have died to affirm. Putting aside all strained traveling metaphors, let’s say what we mean to say plainly: Peter and the Eleven before the Sanhedrin, Cleopas and the other disciple on the road to Emmaus, Peter again in his letter, and Simon and those gathered with him, proclaim one truth, one Easter answer for all our questions of faith: God, our Father, commended to us the man, Jesus of Nazareth, with mighty deeds, works, and signs, so that we might receive the promise of the Holy Spirit, our eternal lives in him. Our response, the way we walk the Way of Faith, is best expressed in our psalm: “Lord, you will show me the path to life, abounding joy in your presence forever!” There is no other Way, no other Truth, no other Life but the way and truth and the life of Jesus Christ.

Let me ask you again those Easter questions: Where you we going? What you are doing? And why?

"New" poem posts. . .

I've posted a few "new" poems on the revamped creative writing site: kNOt + homi(lies).

These are all poems I wrote many years ago for a workshop. . .they are very, very rough.

I am cycling through a three day cluster-headache right now, so there will be nothing Truly New for a while. . .

OH! And. . . you can help me celebrate National Poetry Month by shooting a volume of verse my way. Check out: National Poetry Month Wish List. :-)

Listen, God so loved the world...

Second Week of Easter (W): Acts 5.17-26 and John 3.16-21
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP, PhD
St Albert the Great Priory

If I were a bit more technologically competent and we had the equipment here in the chapel for viewing audio-video, I might offer this homily this morning as a short film. The characters, scene, and action would be scripted using Luke’s account in Acts of the Sadducees arresting and confining the Apostles; their escape from prison with angelic help; the teaching and preaching in the temple area; the Sanhedrin’s discovery of their escape; and the eventual return of the apostles to trial. These scenes would be silent. The action of the priests and guards speaking loudly enough. The narration for the film would come from John 3.16, our gospel passage this morning.

Laid over the scene of the Sadducees’ expression of jealousy and the public arrest of the apostle’s is a gentle voice, saying “God so loved the world that he have his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but have eternal life.” Then we might think, watching and listening, why are they jealous? All they have to do is believe!

Then the whole scene brightens white and the angel releases the apostles from jail. The angel tells them to go to the temple area to teach. As they move silently into position outside the temple, that gentle narrator’s voice rises again and says, “…God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned…whoever does not believe has already been condemned.” We can see the lips of all the apostles moving as they teach, hands flying in emphasis, and we hear, as if each is speaking one Word together: “Listen, God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son. . .”

This scene fades and the lights come up on the Sanhedrin convening, readying itself for a trial of heresy. The high priest gestures for the jailed apostles to be brought forward. Over the action, we hear that gospel voice again, saying, “And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light. . .” The guards report that the prisoners were not in the cells—cells securely locked and guarded. The gospel voice rises again, “God did NOT send his Son into the world to condemn the world…”* And the chief priests and the guards become agitated, miming dismay among themselves, wondering what this might mean. The Chief Priest wants the apostles found. The guards, under orders but also in the darkness, begin their search—“because their works were evil”—the voice whispers just for us.

The little chaos of the court is stopped when someone comes in and indicates that the apostles are in the temple area teaching: “For God so loved the world”—they teach—“that he gave us his only Son for our redemption. . .” The captain and his guards run to the temple area and find the apostles there preaching: “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light…so that his works might not be exposed.” The guards collect the apostles without using any force because they were afraid that the people would stone them. And the gospel voice says, “…whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.” Walking back to the Sanhedrin with the bound apostles, the guards hide their eyes. The voice says, “people preferred the darkness, people preferred the darkness.”

Finally, the captain stands the apostles before the Sanhedrin, his eyes firmly shut. The Chief Priest opens his mouth to pronounce his verdict on the heretics and rebels…we see his mouth move but we hear another voice say these words, “And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred the darkness to light. . .” We see the guards look confused. The Chief Priest is panicked by his own words. The Apostles nod knowingly, lovingly, smiling. Then the Chief Priest, hesitantly, very reluctantly opens his mouth again, and we hear our gospel voice again say with his lips, “. . .they preferred the darkness to light because their works were evil.” Eyes wide open, the Chief Priest closes his mouth.

The Apostles turn. Their bound hands now unbounded rise in praise. There’s a long silence. No movement. As the guards and priests watch over the apostles’ shoulders, the gospel voice, again with a loud whisper, one not to be ignored, proclaims, “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” The Chief and his guards step back, out of scene.

Fade to black. Cue credits.

____________________________________________________________________________

Cast: Fr. Philip and Br. Michael

*I left out this crucial "not" in the printed text and Br. Michael dutifully read my incorrect text for the Podcast...

Pic credit: Jacques Tissot

PoMo essays & Mucho poems

Check the new student essays over at suppl(e)mental. . .

Since this is National Poetry Month, I couldn't help but beg for a few volumes of poetry!

Check out these fav poets of mine over at my National Poetry Month Wish List. . .

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. . .