Fatty hearts tempt the Butcher

26th Sunday OT: Readings
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Holy Rosary Priory, Houston, TX

You can go to the webpage, This is Why You are Fat, and find a few paradoxically enticing/disgusting examples of why Americans are bulging around the waists. Deep-fried bacon wrapped Krispy-kreme doughnuts. Chocolate-chunk pizza. Pancakes stacked with peanut butter and bacon. In a culinary rebellion against our nutritional masters, Americans are storming this country's palaces of low-fat, low-calorie monarchs with corn-dog cannons and vats of boiling fatback. Our rabbit-food nibbling betters simply sneer and proclaim from the heights of their emaciated battlements: “Let them eat rice cakes!” This is our fight against an invading horde of Food Nazis, this generation's righteous Battle of the Bulge. Lost in the push and pull of dining strategies and buffet binges is a much more important battle, a fight fought at not around the waist but at the center of our spiritual lives: the heart, the seat of God's wisdom in us. After cataloging the sins of the oppressive rich against the oppressed poor, James diagnoses a malady of the soul: “You have lived on earth in luxury and pleasure; you have fattened your hearts for the day of slaughter.” What fattens your heart? What is it that clogs your soul, readying you for the day of slaughter?

Let's not pretend that James is limiting his condemnation to luxurious abuse of spiritual riches. We would cheat ourselves of a significant insight if we remove this passage from the real socio-economic world and confine ourselves to reading it as allegory for sin and redemption. Yes, he's talking about the death of the soul from a spiritual heart attack, but he is also warning us that worldly riches and the temptations they bring are very real, very dangerous. In fact, storing up treasure gathered on the backs of the poor is the fastest way to fatten a human heart, the surest route to a death-dealing coronary. How so? The injustice of ill-gotten, hoarded wealth is unjust for two reasons: 1) the poor are used as tools in violation of their dignity as children of God, and 2) hoarding riches for the last days is a sure sign that those who hoard do not trust in the Lord's providence. Is there a faster way to kill charity in a human heart than to plunder the image of God in His human creatures and then use that plunder to deny the truth of His promised care?

Recently, the mainstream media applauded the documentarian, Michael Moore, for his expose of the excesses of capitalism, calling his work “Christian.” An avowed socialist and Catholic, Moore produced the film, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” as a critique not only of capitalism itself but the consumerist culture it creates and needs to flourish. Moore is often criticized for building boogey-men out of straw and then knocking them down with exaggerated ridicule and outright fabrication of the facts. Regardless, what's intriguing here is the speed with which the mainstream media embraced his cinematic critique of capitalism as immediately identifiably Christian. Listening to James in this morning's readings, we might conclude that opposition to capitalism is indeed an identifiably Christian position to take. But, like most things in this world, it's not that simple; in fact, it's more complex than we can imagine in the time we have on this earth. James' point is not that riches in themselves are evil. Being wealthy per se is not a fast-track ticket to hell. What can bring the wealthy to the edge of the Pit is the means by which they acquired their wealth and how they use it. In other words, there are perfectly just ways of acquiring wealth and perfectly just ways of spending it. The complexity of Christian wealth—and its accompanying dangers—is born and grows in the heart: given your relationship to God, does wealth free you to greater charity or enslave you to self-dependence? As always, Jesus gives us the best answer.

Jesus is confronted by his worried disciples. They are upset because there are those not of their group who are casting out demons in Jesus' name. He tells his disciples not to prevent these people from performing exorcisms. No one who does such holy deeds in his name can be against him. To emphasize his point, he adds: “Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.” Did you catch that? “. . .because you belong to Christ. . .” Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ. . .will not lose his reward. NOT: anyone who gives you a cup of water. Period. But anyone who give you water because—for the reason that—you belong to Christ. Jesus is putting us on a spiritual diet. No heart can grow fat when it exercises charity in his name.

If using someone elses labor as a means to a wealthy end is unjust, then how much fatter do our hearts grow when we kill another life for a merely convenient end? Recently, I watched a re-run of the sci-fi TV show, Stargate SG1. I won't bore you with the geeky details, let it suffice to say that the episode presented the moral issue of abortion in a strangely straightforward way. The main characters come across a culture that killed others like them in order to live. To carry out these murders with a clear conscience, the needy killers had to convince themselves that the ones they kill are deadly enemies. A prominent member of the killer-culture refuses to stop killing even when offered a bloodless alternative. During a battle, she is wounded and her sister asks her not to kill another so that she might live. Urging the proffered alternative on her, the wounded woman's sister pleads, “Choose life.” Choose not only your life but the lives of all those you would kill so that you might live. The wounded woman's heart had grown fat on the sin of murder and she could not accept that those she killed for her own good were not her enemies. Eventually, she relented and took the alternative. The details of the plot are more complex than this, but the message is starkly clear: there is no room for charity in a heart grown obese with sin. This killer was ready for the day of slaughter.

Are you ready for that day? Are we ready? As individual Christians and as a collective body, a nation and a Church, have our hearts grown fat? Let's not dwell on whether or not Jesus was a capitalist or a socialist. As modern concepts, neither existed in his time. The Church has never preferred one over the other, choosing instead to consistently teach the absolute value of the human person and condemning in both systems any practice or theory that diminishes the sacred dignity we share as creatures created in the image and likeness of God. The Church has condemned profit-exploitation in capitalism and the anti-family practices of socialism. Both often fall short of the Christian virtue of charity and the requirements of human freedom. For us, here in 2009, the question and problem is as fresh as this morning and as old as creation: is the other guy here for me to use and abuse, or is he here for me to love and serve? The fatty deposits of sin begin to collect in our hearts when we deface the image of God in another by treating him as a thing, a means, a way to profit or control. Jesus tells us that it is better to lop off a hand or pluck out an eye than it is to sin in this way. It would be better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone around your neck than to cause a believing child to sin. Drowning and self-mutilation. Both are preferable on the day of slaughter than approaching the judgment seat with a heart grown obese on sin.

Even if you must wiggle to the throne—blind, handless, footless—wiggle to His feet with a fit heart, a polished seat where He can set His wisdom in you. On the day of slaughter, it is better to be crippled and wise than able and foolish.

Receiving like children

26th Week OT (M): Readings
Fr Philip Neri Powell, OP
Holy Rosary Priory, Houston

What do you see, who do you see when you think of God? At prayer, in times of crisis, with the ones you love, what picture of God develops in your mind? Reading scripture, enjoying the bright day, at work on your computer, who comes to mind when thoughts of God rise up? Pagans and atheists have it easy. Either their gods manifest as animals, trees, or monsters; or they think of God only to refute His existence. When your god can be anything at all or nothing at all, your imagination is challenged hardly at all to see beyond what stands around you, or past the nothingness of obstinate denial. Where pagans worship creation's evidence for God, atheists deny creation itself. No creator, no creation—just accidentally mixed-up stuff that moves. Do you think of everything when you think of God? Or nothing at all? Do you think of everyone or no one?

The God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob says to Zechariah, “I am intensely jealous for Zion, stirred to jealous wrath for her. . .I will bring [my people] back to dwell within Jerusalem. They shall be my people, and I will be their God, with faithfulness and justice.” The Lord says “I am” and “I will.” Notice: “I” cannot be everyone, nor can “I” be no one. “I” is personal, first person, singular. One and first. As a person, with faithfulness and justice, He will be our God and we will be His people. Animals, trees, mountains do not grow jealous. Forces of nature—storms, fires, rain—do not love. Even when laying waste to coast lands and hills, hurricanes and floods do not destroy out of wrath. What does not exist cannot be faithful or just. How can nothingness trust? How can no-thing set relationships right? Do you think of everything when you think of God? Or nothing at all? Do you think of everyone or no one?

On Mt. Sinai, God instructed Moses not to carve any image of Him. There can be no statute or painting or icon that depicts I AM. How can we chisel a verb? How do you draw and color Being? And even as I AM forbids images of His countenance, He reveals Himself to be our Father, our Maker, the One Who gathered dust from creation and breathed His spirit into us. Even as He instructs Moses to stand against the pagan love of idols, He reveals Himself as Flood, Fire, and Cloud. He speaks. He walks among us. He teaches and preaches and heals. And yet, no painting of His face exists. No statue captures His body. For us, He is, at once, Everything and Nothing. He is All yet No-thing.

Caught as we are between the reality of I AM and our natural human need to use language and image, we fight our own devices to find or invent a way of speaking, a way of imagining Him that is both true but not limited, full yet still-to-be filled. In times of desperate crisis, we cry out “Lord!” When we are joyful and content, we cry “Lord!” as well. First, personal, and singular—we address a person, one God, another like us but well beyond us. Jesus reminds the disciples of their limits and ours when we places a child on his lap and says, “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.” The lesson? We have a true and faithful God. We do not need static images, limited words, or even beautiful concepts. Receive a child in Christ's name and receive the One Who came to us in the flesh; the One Who comes to us still, body and blood.

Do you think of everything when you think of God? Or nothing at all? Do you think of everyone or no one? If you think of both Everything and Nothing, Everyone and No One, you are still thinking in darkness. “Even if this should seem impossible in the eyes of the remnant of this people,” the Lord delivers His promises. Ours is a God jealous of our love. Always faithful, always just, He is with us. We are His people. And He is our God.

Academic freedom found in the authority of truth

I believe we have a theme for today!

From the Holy Father's address to the Academic Community in Prague:

The proper autonomy of a university, or indeed any educational institution, finds meaning in its accountability to the authority of truth. Nevertheless, that autonomy can be thwarted in a variety of ways. The great formative tradition, open to the transcendent, which stands at the base of universities across Europe, was in this land, and others, systematically subverted by the reductive ideology of materialism, the repression of religion and the suppression of the human spirit. In 1989, however, the world witnessed in dramatic ways the overthrow of a failed totalitarian ideology and the triumph of the human spirit. The yearning for freedom and truth is inalienably part of our common humanity. It can never be eliminated; and, as history has shown, it is denied at humanity’s own peril. It is to this yearning that religious faith, the various arts, philosophy, theology and other scientific disciplines, each with its own method, seek to respond, both on the level of disciplined reflection and on the level of a sound praxis.

The idea of an integrated education, based on the unity of knowledge grounded in truth, must be regained. It serves to counteract the tendency, so evident in contemporary society, towards a fragmentation of knowledge. With the massive growth in information and technology there comes the temptation to detach reason from the pursuit of truth. Sundered from the fundamental human orientation towards truth, however, reason begins to lose direction: it withers, either under the guise of modesty, resting content with the merely partial or provisional, or under the guise of certainty, insisting on capitulation to the demands of those who indiscriminately give equal value to practically everything. The relativism that ensues provides a dense camouflage behind which new threats to the autonomy of academic institutions can lurk. While the period of interference from political totalitarianism has passed, is it not the case that frequently, across the globe, the exercise of reason and academic research are – subtly and not so subtly – constrained to bow to the pressures of ideological interest groups and the lure of short-term utilitarian or pragmatic goals? What will happen if our culture builds itself only on fashionable arguments, with little reference to a genuine historical intellectual tradition, or on the viewpoints that are most vociferously promoted and most heavily funded? What will happen if in its anxiety to preserve a radical secularism, it detaches itself from its life-giving roots? Our societies will not become more reasonable or tolerant or adaptable but rather more brittle and less inclusive, and they will increasingly struggle to recognize what is true, noble and good.

H/T: Whispers

"We have no other options." (UPDATED)

Jürgen Habermas, one of the world's leading contemporary proponents of philosophical hermeneutics and an atheist, writes about Christianity:

"Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this we have no other options. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

PoMo chatter, indeed. . .unless, of course, Western civilization and its Christian foundation deems your favorite sin as. . .well. . .a sin.

UPDATE: The quote above is attributed to Habermas. It is a paraphrase. Here's the real deal from Times of Transition (2006):

". . .Christianity not only fulfilled the initial cognitive conditions for modern structures of consciousness; it also fostered a range of motivations that formed the major themes of the economic and ethical research of Max Weber. Christianity has functioned for the normative self-understanding of modernity as more than a mere precursor or a catalyst. Egalitarian universalism, from which sprang ideas of freedom and social solidarity, of an autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, of the individual morality of conscience, human rights, and democracy, is the direct heir of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual critical appropriation and reinterpretation. To this day, there is no alternative to it. And in light of the current challenges of a postnational constellation, we continue to draw on the substance of this heritage. Everything else is just idle postmodern talk.” (150-1)

Be sure to FOLLOW HancAquam! (right side bar) and check out the WISH LIST!

On the definition and proper use of the Cheesy Grin

I've been asked by MightyMom to define "cheesy grin."

Def., "a facial expression used to garner sympathy for a request when said request is known to be improper," or "a facial expression made by one who is shamelessly asking for a favor he/she knows is undeserved"

Examples:

1). Your teenaged daughter is grounded for violating her weekend curfew. Despite your best efforts to show resolve in the face her pleadings, she notes some wavering and decides to bide her time. The next weekend, detecting your weakness, she asks with a Chessy Grin, "Can I go to the mall with Susie?"

2). Your spouse is upset with you for __________. In an attempt to end the deadly silence around this issue, you break out a Cheesy Grin and say, "Wow! How silly were we for arguing over __________?"

3). You are a poor grad student with a criminally small book budget. Needing several specialized yet easily obtainable books, you ask for help on your humble blog. With a Chessy Grin, you write: "Don't forget to browse the Wish List and send a book my way!"

4). Your boss is notoriously grouchy and miserly. You want off work on a Friday. Approaching him with a Cheesy Grin, you say, "Not much going on this Friday, uh boss?"

The key to the effectiveness of the Cheesy Grin is shamelessness.

P.S. Don't forget to FOLLOW HANCAQUAM! (cheesy grin) ------------------------->

The luxury of great books and greater faith

William Chase diagnoses and laments the decline of the English department:

What are the causes for this decline? There are several, but at the root is the failure of departments of English across the country to champion, with passion, the books they teach and to make a strong case to undergraduates that the knowledge of those books and the tradition in which they exist is a human good in and of itself. What departments have done instead is dismember the curriculum, drift away from the notion that historical chronology is important, and substitute for the books themselves a scattered array of secondary considerations (identity studies, abstruse theory, sexuality, film and popular culture). In so doing, they have distanced themselves from the young people interested in good books.

Replace "English department" with "the Church" or "Catholic theology" and you will have a fairly accurate picture of what is happening in our neck of the ecclesial and academic woods.

What's the cure for the study of literature?

It would be a pleasure to map a way out of this academic dead end. First, several of my colleagues around the country have called for a return to the aesthetic wellsprings of literature, the rock-solid fact, often neglected, that it can indeed amuse, delight, and educate. They urge the teaching of English, or French, or Russian literature, and the like, in terms of the intrinsic value of the works themselves, in all their range and multiplicity, as well-crafted and appealing artifacts of human wisdom. Second, we should redefine our own standards for granting tenure, placing more emphasis on the classroom and less on published research, and we should prepare to contest our decisions with administrators whose science-based model is not an appropriate means of evaluation. Released from the obligation to deliver research results in the form of little-read monographs and articles, humanists could then resolve to spend their time teaching what they love to students glad to learn. If they wanted to publish, they could do so—at almost no cost—on the Internet, and like-minded colleagues could rapidly share the results of such research and speculation. Most important, the luxury of reading could be welcomed back. I want to believe in what they say.

This is exactly what we do at the University of Dallas. Problem solved.

Drudge Report?

Anyone know what happened to The Drudge Report?

It's been down for two days.

I read that some hackers used that site and others to spread viral chaos. My anti-virus caught a couple of attempts at infection last Friday and early Saturday.

Heh. . .

Daily Homilies: 9/27-10/4

Starting today (9/27) and through next Sunday (10-4), I will be posting a daily homily.

Good, bad, incomplete, rambling. . .no matter: daily homily.

My preaching muscle has gotten flabby. . .time for a little exercise!

"Hey, prof! You get my global warming homework?"

OK...this sort of thing really gets me in touch with my Inner-Conspiracy Theorist:

"The Dog Ate Global Warming," Patrick J. Michaels

Imagine if there were no reliable records of global surface temperature. Raucous policy debates such as cap-and-trade would have no scientific basis, Al Gore would at this point be little more than a historical footnote, and President Obama would not be spending this U.N. session talking up a (likely unattainable) international climate deal in Copenhagen in December.

Steel yourself for the new reality, because the data needed to verify the gloom-and-doom warming forecasts have disappeared.

Or so it seems. Apparently, they were either lost or purged from some discarded computer. Only a very few people know what really happened, and they aren’t talking much. And what little they are saying makes no sense.

Read the whole thing at NRO.

Coffe Cup Browsing (Website Edition)

Religion Clause: news and analysis about legal cases involving the Establish Clause of the 1st Amendment

The Center for Theology and Natural Science: great resource for those interested in the intersection of science and theology

Powerline: conservative political commentary

What's Wrong with the World: philosophy, politics, theology, etc.

Stand Firm: chronicling the sad decline of Anglicanism into neo-pagan irrelevance

RevKnowItAll: no, this is not one of my blogs. . .Q&A for inquiring Catholics

Preces Latinae: lots of Latin prayers

thisibelieve: a project of PBS--some good, some bad, some just dumb

Logical Paradoxes: the fastest route to a headache on the internet

SurLaLune FairyTales: traditional tales with annotations

Project Gutenberg: over 30,000 e-books

American Museum of Natural History: frogs, trees, bears, etc.

Book-a-Minute: "Some woman puts Dante through Hell." (Inferno)

Lagoon Creature Talking Smack

That Papist Sasquatch of Seattle gloats:

"236 Followers! Ha! Take that, Fr. Philip! Five new mumbling ciphers in a single day! Five new playthings for me to, to... *do* things to! Mine is the superior pointless and idle tyranny!"

Can we let him get away with talking such outrageous blogsphere smack?

I think NOT!

Go to the right side bar and FOLLOW HANCAQUAM! -------------->

Let's teach that Shambling He-Cow a thing or two about who's the Bigger Dog. . .

Chessy Grin

The WISH LIST was updated this morning!

Coffee Cup Browsing (Bizarro Edition)

The Gashlycrumb Tinies: "N is for NEVILLE who died of ennui"

Google search suggestions: "I like to. . ."

Bizarro law-suits. . .can you say "tort reform"?

Can you watch this for one minute and not go crazy?

How to create Russian Haired Sausage

Nashville! Here they come!

Pimp my bug. . .

Extraordinary, weird, and just plain ugly churches

Memorable (and weird) weddings

Ice Cream flavors not even I would eat!

Singing for Dear Leader (UPDATED)

Oh, no. . .no Cult of Personality here. . .move along, move along:



And here's the pop quiz that makes sure the kiddies were properly indoctrinated.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has dug up the back-story on this creepy piece of propaganda.

Coffee Cup Browsing

Globalist hypocrites gather to preach to the Unwashed Masses about "climate change"

You aren't disappointed if you never thought he was the Messiah

The Catholic Medical Association speaks out on B.O. Care.

Big trouble for Mahony in L.A. Former vicar for clergy is telling tales at trial.

Continuing toil and trouble over New Age oogie-boogie nonsense in Catholic hospitals

A feline with too much time on his hands. . .er. . .paws

Unicorns of the Apocalypse! (they look scared)

A lot of VERY cool photographs

How you are going to die. . .or, the chances that you will be consumed by a fleshing-eating bacteria during a domestic terrorist attack; that is if cancer and heart disease don't get you first

No amount of money would get me in this thing. . .very large doses of Xanax might