Now is the day of salvation

Ash Wednesday 2010: Readings

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

We begin the Lenten season of 2010 with this declaration: “Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” An admonishment from Paul against receiving God's grace in vain, the Church in Corinth back then and the Church gathered here right now are urged to remember that our salvation through Christ is not only a subject for ancient history and a concern for the distant future but also a decision to be made NOW. Paul, an ambassador for Christ, writes, “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” To choose reconciliation with the Father through His Son is the supreme act of humility, the recognition that we are completely dependent on His love for us—for our creation from ash, our re-creation out of an emptied tomb, and for our final rest in His kingdom. We receive the ashes of Lent this morning to celebrate our dependency, to mark our mortality. And, most importantly, to show ourselves as pilgrims on the way to Easter morning. 

To help us arrive properly prepared in Jerusalem on Easter morning, forty days of the Church year are set aside so that we might be summoned daily to the work of repentance. And so that we do not fall into the trap of believing that the work of repentance is merely a matter for the intellect alone but the work of the body as well, we are called upon to fast, to pray, to give alms, to do the good work of Christ among his people. Mind, heart, hands—all that we are must be reconciled. To his disciples, Jesus lays down a challenge: resist the temptation to play at being repentant; reject the performance art of public repentance; do not follow the hypocrites in drawing attention to yourself for the sake of pious praise. Instead, truly repent; receive God's forgiveness in secret; go out into the world clean, smiling, joyful. Wash your face, anoint your head, and receive all the Lord has to give you.

“Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

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This Ash Wednesday. . .declare war!

Fr. Z. (always a good read!) offers the indispensable service of translating the Latin prayers of the Church  into English.

Today, he offers us a translation of the Collect for the Ash Wednesday Mass from the '62 Missale Romanum:

COLLECT:
 

Concede nobis, Domine, praesidia militiae christianae
sanctis inchoare ieiuniis,
ut, contra spiritales nequitias pugnaturi,
continentiae muniamur auxiliis.

[. . .]

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
 

Grant us, O Lord, to commence the defenses of the Christian 

field campaign by means of holy fasts, so that, we who are about

to do battle against spiritual negligences,
may be fortified by the support of continence.

Martial imagery in prayer, long out of fashion in the post-VC2 Church, has its appeal for those of us who must do more than merely struggle with temptation.  

May today mark a declaration of war on the Arch-Terrorist.

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Against the Leaven of the Pharisees

6th Week OT (T): Readings

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

James, writing to “the twelve tribes in dispersion,” neatly summarizes how we arrive at spiritual destruction: “. . .each person is tempted when lured and enticed by his desire. Then desire conceives and brings forth sin, and when sin reaches maturity it gives birth to death.” Desire tempts us to sin and sin leads to death. James' contemporary readers would have rightly assumed that the tempting desire that leads to sin is inordinate, that is, disordered or unnatural, a willful distortion of what is good and right. We know that not all desires immediately lead to disobedience; in fact, some desires lead us straight to God, to obedience and righteousness. Intriguingly, James writes that “desire conceives and brings forth sin. . .” If we pursue the image here—a desire conceiving like a woman conceives a child—we may ask: who's the husband to our desire and the father of our sin? To put it in more pedestrian terms: what can be added to a perfectly natural desire that changes it into a source for sin? Jesus warns the disciples, “Watch out, guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” 

Since we are reading Mark's gospel this morning, it shouldn't surprise us that the disciples are dumbfounded by this rather enigmatic warning. It seems like Jesus spends most of his time in Mark's gospel thumping the thick skulls of the poor disciples! This time, when they misunderstand his warning, he scolds them, “Do you not yet understand or comprehend? Are your hearts hardened?” What have our slow-learning brothers missed? What truth has dashed itself against their rock-hard hearts? First, they have forgotten that Jesus identifies the “leaven of the Pharisees” as the sin of hypocrisy—the public pretense of holiness that hides spiritual corruption (Luke 12.1). Second, they have failed to understand completely the significance of the miracle of the fishes and the loaves. Like a stern school master, Jesus rehearses the correct answers with them. Alright boys, how many loaves were leftover when the crowds had finished eating the bread I provided for them? Seven and twelve, they respond. Now, do you understand, he asks?

The leaven of the Pharisees is hypocrisy—a show, a piece of playacting to please an audience. In fact, the first hypocrites were Greek actors who used elaborate masks and tricks with the voice to portray different characters in a play. They followed a script; choreographed their movements; and wildly exaggerated their emotions all to stimulate their fans. For the Pharisees, the husband to desire and the father of sin is pretending to be holy, pretending to be righteous, and all for show. Their desire to actually be holy is leavened, raised up and given life, as a parody of real holiness: white-washed tombs, clean on the outside, rotting on the inside. Jesus compares their showy pretense at righteousness with his own miraculous leavening for the benefit of nine thousand people on two occasions: real bread to feed the hungry with baskets-full leftover. The Pharisees put on a nice act; Jesus delivers the real deal. 

If we are to marry the desire for righteousness and conceive the Word, we too must be wary of the leaven of the Pharisees, remembering who it is that gives us life. James writes, “[God] willed to give us birth by the word of truth that we may be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.” We ourselves are made by the Word of Truth, reborn in this Truth, and, if we choose to leaven our desires with true holiness, we will conceive and give birth to His Word made flesh, Christ Jesus.

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Death is a vanity

6th Sunday OT: Readings

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

Catholics are rarely accused of practicing an efficient or simplified faith. Two thousand years of accumulated philosophical and theological thinking woven together in the public celebration of the sacraments plus centuries of involvement in secular politics and international missionary efforts have bequeathed to the 21st century Church a vast global corporation with roots deeply embedded in human history. Thus, the practice of the Catholic faith is anything but culturally rigid and historically frozen. Sure, doctrinally, we share a single faith. But how that single faith gets lived on a daily basis around the world is hardly a matter of lock-step spiritual regimentation. Such orderliness and consistency would require the Church to “bottom-line” the faith, to boil it down, reduce it to a catch-phrase or a mission statement. And even then there would still be incredible variety in actual practice. But let's say we were going to take on the challenge of encapsulating the complexity of the faith into a single teaching, just one proposition that Really Mattered above all others. What would we come up with? I'm not sure we could do better than Paul does in his letter to the Corinthians: “If the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.” What would make our faith a vanity, a frivolity? That Christ never rose from the dead. Without the resurrection, we are still held captive by sin, perishing even as we breath.

Let's focus for a moment on the question of what it is that makes an act, or a belief, or a habit vain. First, we have to think beyond the typical use of the word “vain.” Cocky, conceited, or narcissistic. But why do we use “vain” to describe someone who is full of themselves? This brings us to the second, less common use of the word. Frivolous, hollow, futile. Someone who builds a life on looks, smarts, wealth and then lauds these qualities as valuable in themselves can be described a vain because they have inflated what is in realty a temporary condition into an illusion of something permanent. Since looks fade, smarts can be deceived, and wealth lost, it is vanity—futility, foolishness, emptiness—to count oneself worthy based on nothing more than that which can be destroyed. “How long will you be dull of heart? Why do you love vanity, and seek after lying?” (Ps 4.3). Loving trivially while you live is a curse. Loving the trivial at death is damnation.

Paul writes that our faith would be a vanity if Christ had not been raised from the dead. We would be foolish to put our trust in God if the promised resurrection had not occurred. We would be living lives emptied of eternal purpose, living our short lives as little more than exceptionally smart animals destined to ashes and then. . .nothing. If this were true, then our suffering while we live is the greatest vanity of all. The French philosopher, Albert Camus, once said that the only significant philosophical question is: why not commit suicide? Why suffer if there is nothing more for us than suffering? Perhaps our only chance to be courageous is to end it all now. Fear of pain or the unknown may cause us to hesitate, but overcoming this hesitation would be an act of freedom, pure liberated choice. Gun to the head, I choose to suffer no longer. POW! And then I am free. But can a bullet to the head truly free me from the futility of suffering? No. Assuming the impossibility of an afterlife, suicide can foreclose the possibility of any future suffering. But it does nothing to redeem the suffering I have experienced in the past nor the suffering I have caused to others. Death is not a new life. It's just the end of this one. Without the resurrection, death itself proves to be a vanity.

So, what does the resurrection add to the mix that changes the futility of death into the blessing of eternal life? The hope, the promise of life beyond life, another way of living that draws us—especially in our suffering—into a superlative renewal. Paul writes that if the resurrection had not occurred, then those who have died have truly perished and “if for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all.” We are indeed worthy of pity if we have hoped in Christ only to die into a permanent death. Think for a moment. How would we suffer if we knew that suffering was all we had to live for? We would mourn, hunger, weep; endure persecution, insult, torture; live in poverty and desperation; practice forgiveness and mercy all the while knowing that we would never been shown either. Where is the beauty of suffering if suffering is all we can hope for? Why mourn the dead if death is a release from pain? Why weep in hunger if hunger will bring us to an end? Why endure insult and persecution if those who would torture us are right about the vanity of our hope? Without the resurrection, there is no good reason for us to do anything but seek after our own pleasure while we can, regardless of the costs and knowing even as we celebrate that the party will end. 

Christ's resurrection, and our hope in following after him, turns the curse of inevitable suffering into the blessing of eternal life. The ugliness and disease of sin is redeemed into the beauty of godly perfection. Rather than curse those who mourn, weep, endure insult, hunger and thirst, we bless them, knowing that everything persevered here and now is also redeemed here and now, made new, wholly and utterly transformed into acts of praise and thanksgiving here and now. After death, our suffering is made perfect in the sufferings of Christ, but here and now, while we endure, we are blessed with the hope of that perfection. If we will, we can call the state of suffering with hope, Beatitude—the beautiful life lived in Christ. Jeremiah prophesies, “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord. He is like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream. . .” And as we stretch our thirsty roots, seeking out the waters of eternal life, the hope we share in Christ sings just one refrain over and over again: there is nothing we should fear. Nothing. The beauty of hope does more than oppose fear, it conquers fear. And that victory was won long ago. The rock of the tomb was pushed aside and the grave was found empty. Our perishing—though painful—is redeemed. And our beautiful lives in Christ, here and now, are blessed beyond measure.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

In a concerted effort to find something good to write about B.O. once and a while, I note this courageous rebuttal of Chinese intimidation.  Bravo, Mr. President!

If it ever gets to the point where the following can be said about me, I hope I have the courage to just man-up and leave the Church:  "He doesn’t believe in the priesthood anymore, nor the virgin birth. . .In fact, he doubts that Jesus ever existed and although he is the spiritual leader of a 500-strong Christian community, he says he no longer prays because there’s “'no one to pray to.'”  There has to be some sort of serious psychological imbalance going on here. 

Planned Parenthood needs a new researcher for its anti-Catholic propaganda.  They are claiming that the RCC denies the pleasures of sex.  Here's the Catechism quoting Pope Pius XII (not exactly a big liberal) from 1951:  "Sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure:  'The Creator himself . . . established that in the [generative] function, spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment of body and spirit. Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure and enjoyment. They accept what the Creator has intended for them. At the same time, spouses should know how to keep themselves within the limits of just moderation.'" (n. 2362).  Took me about ten seconds to find that quote on the internet.

Bees find their Inner Grad Student:  they prefer nectar laced with caffeine and nicotine!

Hmmmmm. . .that Harvard-trained neurobiologist who killed three of her colleagues recently has a history of gun violence.  Oh, and she's a socialist.  Wonder if that tid-bit will make it into the MSM narrative?  Doubt it.

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Sexual Abuse in the Public Schools

How many articles in the NYT have you read about this study:  "According to a study she [Prof. Carol Shakeshaft of Hofstra] did of abuse complaints against Catholic priests over a five decade period she concluded that '…the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.'”  Not many?  Figures.

Public school teachers molesting their students doesn't serve the leftist-collectivist narrative, so we never hear about it.  

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Angelicum snow

 A snowy courtyard at the Angelicum yesterday. . .

 Pic credit:  fra. Charles Morerod, OP

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Neve a Roma (pics)

The snow has stopped falling. . .but we have pics!

 Lots more pics here.  H/T:  fra. Albert Glade, OP

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Roman snow

It's snowing in Rome!!!

The last snowfall in Rome was 24 years ago in 1987. . .

Update:  three hours later and it is still snowing hard!  From a second storey window we can normally clearly see the monument to Vittorio Emmanuele. . .it's only about two blocks from the priory.  Right now, it is almost completely obscured by the falling snow. 

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

Another "Kennedy seat" up for grabs in November.  At the rate Dems are jumping the Congressional ship, the GOP may return to the majority by way of attrition alone.

". . .the Tea Party engine is driven first and foremost by a desire to return government to its proper constitutional limits and run it with a lot less money."  If this is true, then count me among the Tea Partiers!

Deal Hudson asks, "Is it time for a Catholic Tea Party?"  I'd say, "Most definitely!"

From a privacy rights/anti-Nanny State perspective, this seems like a good idea.  I wish they had left all that "666"/Mark of the Beast stuff out of the discussion.

And yet even MORE exaggerations and outright lies from the IPCC Global Warming boondoggle. 

Dissident feminists pretend to be ordained into the Catholic priesthood.  As usual, media clueless in reporting on the faux event.

Heh.  And Catholics think our Spirit of Vatican Two vestments are ugly!  Note the absence of any sort of Christian symbolism on these rags.

On the difference between the firm, outspoken leadership of BXVI and the limp, waffling reactions of Rowan Williams.

Now for some good news about the Catholic Church in the U.S.  (corrected)

Is the issue of state secession a settled political matter?  I read the Volokh Conspiracy blog b/c I am a Legal Fanboy.  And I am always amazed at how often this blog's well-argued posts put my assumptions to shame. 

Video of the fireworks display at the Vatican last night.  I heard the explosions and wondered what was going on.  Now I know.

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Updates. . .

1).  Please continue to pray for Mama Becky.  She is now on a portable O2 tank. . .we're thinking of changing her nickname to "Scuba Mama"!  :-)

2).  I updated the Book Depository Wish List yesterday to include two books from the reading list of the curriculum from Wyoming Catholic College.  Very impressive list!  (H/T:  Fr. Z.)

3).  Summer plans are shaping up.  Looks like I will spend most of the summer in Houston, TX at Holy Rosary Church (my priory of assignment).  I'm hoping to spend Sept. at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford.  Excellent phil/theo library. . .AND they will let me cook for them!

4).  My province, St. Martin de Porres (a.k.a. "the Southern Province") is in the midst of its annual "1216 Campaign."  This is our fundraising drive.  The largest portion of our annual operating budget goes for initial formation.  I.F. includes the novitiate and the costs of 5-7 years of graduate theology studies for each student brother.   Please consider donating!

5).  Also, my province will hold an elective chapter in June.  We will be electing new provincial officers, including a new Provincial (the OP version of a bishop for the province).  Please lift the province up in prayer and ask the Holy Spirit to guide the electors.  

6).  AND the whole Order will be electing a new Master of the Order in Sept.  The Master serves a single nine year term.  More prayer, please!  :-) 

7).  There will be a homily this coming Sunday. . .if I have to steal something straight out of St. Augustine's work, there will be a homily.

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Being Cool with the Cool Kids

The Anglican Church of Canada provides progressive Catholics in the U.S. with an important object lesson:

The report, prepared for the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia, calls Canada a post-Christian society in which Anglicanism is declining faster than any other denomination. It says the church has been “moved to the far margins of public life.”

So, in a misguided effort to "get in steps with the times," the leadership of the ACA adopted progressively more secular policies and practices.  Rather than confront the culture with the gospel, they abandoned the gospel to accommodate the culture.  And once the ACA was thoroughly, fundamentally changed into nothing much more than a politicized-therapeutic group with colorful vestments, the culture said "bye-bye."

The lesson?  When the Church tries to Be Cool in the public arena by adopting the behaviors and attitudes of the Cool Kids, what counts as cool changes.  Rather than destroying who we are as Catholics in order to appease the fickle manufacturers of culture, we should be strengthening our counter-cultural witness as men and women steeped in a 2,000 year old philosophical and theological tradition.  

There's nothing more pathetic than a senior citizen trying to be hip among the professional hipsters.

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Italy freaks out over paranormal activity

There's a minor controversy roiling in Italy over the movie, Paranormal Activity.  

Apparently, some Italian movie-goers are freaking out during and after the movie.  Showing signs of classic panic attacks, children and teens are complaining of shortness of breath, rapid heart rate, etc.  

I'm not sure what to make of this.  My first reaction was:  the movie studio must be delighted at the free P.R.  Nothing promotes a book or film better than a call to ban it for producing unpleasant effects.

Then I started wondering if the attacks were more than just your typical teenager overreaction.  It would be interesting (though difficult) to find out if these afflicted teens have any connections to occult practices or worldviews.  Most of the attacks are being reported in Naples.  I've been told more than once that Naples is a center of occultism in Italy.  Rome has its share too. 

Hmmmmm. . .???

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

Why Are Liberals So Condescending?  Reaching back into my left-liberal days in grad school, I recall many cocktail party conversations with my fellow-travelers.  The target of our ire was the entrenched "white male dominated culture of western values" in the academic study of literature.  Of course, this bled over into our politics as well.  Unfortunately, we chose to adopt various versions of deconstructionism and Marxist ideology to uproot these scalawags.  Though we often differed on the details of how to carry out our Utopian revolution, we never argued over one essential point:  conservatives were beyond stupid; they were evil.

Fisking the pro-abort hysterical overreaction to the pro-life Tebow Superbowl ad.  Can you say "clueless"? 

As an academic, a philosopher-in-training, I thrive on discussion.  It's just what we do.  When it comes to ecumenical dialogue, I'm all for it.  Talking to other religions and other Christian bodies is not only a good idea, it's a moral duty.  However, Cardinal Kasper's latest idea is a really, really bad one:  the Ecumenical Catechism.  I have visions of the CCC being replaced on seminary bookshelves all over the world.  Talk about the rise of an alternative magisterium!

Should Catholic Charities be in the business of providing a needle exchange for heroin addicts? 

The Boy Scout Handbook:  the most conservative book published in America?  With sources in virtue ethics and Stoicism, just maybe.  Though I think "conservative" is the wrong label here.

The mind of Ratzinger and the heart of Roncalli:  Italian Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture.  John Allen profiles one of the Vatican's rising stars. (H/T:  New Advent).

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Are we driving men away?

On any given Sunday here in Rome, the congregations attending Mass will be mostly women, and most of them will be elderly women.  God bless them!  What you will almost never see is younger men.  Hispanic friars tell me that the same goes for Masses in Latin and South America as well.  Church-going is women's work.

Why is that?  Not so long ago it was suggested by critics of a modernist Church that the reforms of Vatican Two and the subsequent hijacking of those reforms by feminists had "feminized" the Church (esp. the liturgy) to the point where men felt excluded.  Men voted with their feet.  

As a student brother in St Louis I once attended a Newman Center Mass at a university in Illinois.  Among the 30 or so students in attendance there were exactly three men--me, the priest, and the boyfriend of a young woman who read the readings.  Father, unfortunately, was the stereotypical Newman Center chaplain--deeply committed to a 1973 reading of Vatican Two, tied-dyed vestments, syrupy homily, huggy-kissy liturgy, big chunky loaf of granola bread for consecration, etc.  

The Center's personnel were women.  All of the student officers of the Catholic Student Organization were women.  All of the communion ministers were women.  All the readers and the entire choir were women.  I saw several offices with name plates on the doors.  All women. 

The building itself was "female" as well!  Round building, the chairs arranged in a circle, the altar dressings were "hand-made" in that oh-so-1973 style.  Since the chapel was basically a multi-purpose religious celebration space, images of other religions were hung about.  The Episcopalians had recently painted the walls and ceiling pink and hung up "art" by their grade school children.  The whole place exuded the feeling of a kindergarten classroom. 

During the Mass, I noticed that the boyfriend was standing stoically by his girlfriend with his arms crossed.  He never opened his mouth.  He was especially resolute in his silence when we sung a hand-clapping rendition of the Gloria!  When Mass was over, I tried to introduce myself, but he hit the door faster than I could get to him.  

I asked the priest afterward about the conspicuous absence of men at the Mass.  He just shrugged his shoulders and seemed not the least bit worried that his summer camp Mass might be alienating his male charges. 

Fr. Z. has some thoughts on getting men back into the parish. 

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