Doctor's orders

4th Week of Lent: Readings

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

Jesus asks the man who has been sick for 38 years if he wants to be well. The man doesn't answer yes, no, or maybe. Instead, he tells Jesus that he has no one to put him into the healing pool when the water is ready to heal. We can infer from his response that he wants to be healed but cannot do on his own what is required to be healed. He needs help. We might expect, at this point, that Jesus would pick the man up and put him in the pool. But following the man's enigmatic example, Jesus responds in a way that no one expects. He says to the man, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” Just like that, he does. John writes, “Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.” He is completely healed. We could read this passage as a story of miraculous physical healing and surely it is. But we could also read it as a story about how illness—physical and spiritual—cripples our courage and undermines our faith by leaving us to the fickle mercies of others. The man has no one to help him. What he needs is someone to come along and strengthen his spirit. Jesus does just that. But he helps in way that heals all the man's sicknesses not just his body. Finding the newly healed man later that day, Jesus says to him, “Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.” The fundamental ministry that Christ gives to his Church is the ministry of reconciliation with the Father through grace. If Christ's healing grace is to work in bringing us back to the Father, we must do what the Doctor has ordered us to do.

Rise, take up your mat, and walk. These are the three orders that the divine physician gives to his long-suffering patient. Are we surprised that these orders do not include instructions on prayer, fasting, sacrifice, or alms-giving? Are we surprised that the man is not ordered to recite scripture or wash himself clean with fresh water? Jesus doesn't even require the man to answer his simple question, “Do you want to be well?” John is very clear on the sequence of events: Jesus issues his orders and immediately the man does as he is ordered to do. At no time in the gospel story does the man ask to be healed nor does he explicitly consent to the healing he receives. Jesus speaks, and it is done. What are we to make of this sequence of events given that Christ's healing grace requires our cooperation in order to do its work? Unless we are willing to admit that the man was healed against his will, we must wrestle with exactly how he came back to physical and spiritual health.

First, notice that the Jews who want to persecute Jesus consider healing the sick a form of work, a job that gets done. Next, note that the man is hanging around the healing pool waiting, hoping to be helped. Now, remember both the natural condition of the human soul and its supernatural end. Putting these three elements together we get a man who should be well seeking out someone to do the work of healing in order that he might be well again. In other words, he longs to be reconciled to the Father as a matter of who he is as a fallen creature. He yearns to be made whole because who he is most perfectly is a child of God. That desire is his consent, that need is the work he contributes to his healing. To be fully healed—body and spirit—is his goal, his end. Jesus orders him to see himself as he should be and to act accordingly. He does. Nothing more is required.

And nothing more is required of us. The saints and doctors of the Church teach us that sin is a slave master. We are chained to disobedience. The irony is that we remain chained by choice. We hired our master and we employ him. All we need to do is see our perfected end in Christ and fire our unruly master. If we do as the Doctor orders, we too can rise and walk away from sickness. And in rising and walking away, give witness to the healing graces of our Lord.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

More orchestral Obama worship from children.  Shudder.

What if you threw a political party and most of the people who showed up were white males?  Well, if you call your gathering a "tea party," you are labeled a racist.  However, if you change the name to "coffee party," you are labeled as mainstream.

Oklahoma stands up to the Nanny State by refusing to cooperate in federal investigations into so-called hate crimes.  Apparently, this OK law was passed to prevent enforcement of the recently passed federal law criminalizing non-groupthink thinking about sexual orientation.

Should homilies exceed eight minutes?  The Sunday homilies preached here at the priory usually run between 20-25 minutes!  Maybe I should post this article?  :-)

The tyranny of tolerance:  the case for excluding the children of same-sex couples from Catholic schools. 

Muslims to conquer Rome?  If they do, it will likely happen to the cheers of Europe's lefty elite.

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Prayers, please!

Just got off the phone with Mama Becky. . .she's in the hospital again with pneumonia!

Please, offer those prayers. . .

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Piracetam, anyone?

Anyone out there have any experience using piracetam?  I'm told by reliable sources that this nutritional supplement is very useful for improving concentration and helps with restoring a healthy sleep cycle.  It is also supposed to be good for dyslexia. 

It's available here in Italy, but I am deeply suspicious of all the hyped advertising on the internet.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

Worried about the anti-Catholic bigots in the media trying to embarrass the Pope over the scandals in Germany?  Don't be.  Smoke, mirrors, and demonic glamours.

B.O. supports the expansion of the police state.  DNA sampling is a good idea. . .if you love having your genetic code stored in Big Brother's database.

Europeans are waking up (finally!) to the reality of B.O.'s indifference/hostility to their concerns.  Face it, Europe, he's just not that into you.

Matt Damon's anti-American cinematic screed, Green Zone, flops at the box office.  Will this abysmal failure convince Hollywood to stop making these kinds of movies?  Don't hold your breath.

Patrick Kennedy unhinged.  I wonder if Pelosi wrote this speech. 

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Updates

Why no weekend posts?  I've been going through one of my bouts of  insomnia. Though this should produce more posts rather than fewer, not sleeping messes with my concentration--something I'm not good at even when rested.  I'm looking into locally available non-Rx remedies.  Name it, I've tried it.  

My summer plans sorta blew up Friday.  I learned that the friars at my house of assignment in Houston are renovating the old priory, so there will be no guest rooms available for the next year.  This blew a two month hole in my four month summer plans.  Options for guesting are limited in the province during the summer b/c our students from St Louis use what guest rooms we have available to do summer assignments.  I have a request into Blackfriars, Oxford.  Staying here is not an option b/c we are renovating the kitchen over the summer and there will be no meals.

French is still going fairly well.  The focus is on conversational French, so how much help this will be in my text translation exam is doubtful.  Hey, it gets me out of the priory three days a week.  Our teacher speaks only French in class, so our learning is more intuitive than mechanical.  This appeals to me precisely b/c I'm no good at mechanical memorization or anything that requires my poet's brain to process information in an orderly, analytical fashion.  What's weird is that I am able to organize and present material in an orderly, analytical fashion when I teach.  Maybe that's why teaching is so important for my intellectual work!

I've recently updated the WISH LIST.

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Dissent is the problem, not celibacy

Cardinal Schonborn stirred up a little controversy recently when he seemed to suggest that mandatory celibacy for priests was part of the sexual abuse scandals in his archdiocese.  Reading his actual comments, it is easy to see that once again the media are fishing for juicy bits to use against their favored whipping boy, the Church.  The Cardinal said no such thing.

Included in the linked article are these two paragraphs outlining the dessicated views of dinosaur faux-Catholic theologian, Hans Kung:

This week the dissident theologian Father Hans Küng, who was stripped of his licence to teach Catholic theology in 1979 after he rejected the doctrine of Papal infallibility, said in The Tablet that denials of any link between abuse and celibacy were “erroneous”.

He said celibacy was not the only cause of the misconduct but described it as “the most important and structurally the most decisive” expression of the Church’s repressive attitude to sex. 

Can celibacy cause sexual repression?  Yes, it can.  So can sexual promiscuity and monogamy.  If a priest (or anyone else) finds himself sexually repressed by celibacy, this is a sure sign that celibacy is not a discipline he should be practicing. . ."better to marry than burn." If you can't practice celibacy, don't seek ordination as a Catholic priest.  If you are already a Catholic priest and can't be celibate, then seek to be laicized.   

If a man is sexually integrated and emotionally stable before he enters seminary, there's almost no chance that the discipline of celibacy will cause sexual repression, much less cause him to molest children or teens.   Keep in mind:  the number of sexual abuse cases in the public school system is significantly higher than in the Church.  I doubt many public school teachers are celibate. 

The real problem with celibacy is the constant attacks on the practice by people like Kung.  How many sexually problematic men go through seminary listening to the "inevitable revolution" rhetoric of Church dissidents and believe that any day now the Church will see the light and allow priests to marry?  I know for a fact that many women in the '70's went to seminary to train for Orders b/c they listened to these same dissidents tell them--in knowing prophetic tones--that women's ordination was inevitable, so they had better be prepared!  Their disappointment forms one of the strongest pillars of radical feminist rage against the Church.

Is it any wonder that Mother Church comes out looking like a Prude given that your wildest (and impossible) dreams, planted by dissent and nourished by heresy, are thwarted by the truths of the faith?

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

Losing credibility:  they have no one to blame but themselves.  Science properly done is always credible, if not always absolutely correct. 

Wards of the State riot against Nanny in Greece as French and German E.U. Super Nannies tell their Greek wards to make financially responsible decisions. 

Pledge of Allegiance is constitutional.  Go figure.  Remember the important question to ask when you hear people complain about the civil use of "God":  "OK.  You're offended.  But have you been harmed?"  We do not enjoy the right not to be offended.

How Marx got it wrong:  BXVI on the failure of socialism.

I'm 100% in favor of having women play a greater role in the decision-making of the Church.  However, no one should be deluded into thinking that More Women = Better Decisions.  American university faculties are dominated by women.  The LCWR is a women-only group.  The E.U. machine has lots of women working in prominent positions.  Liberal Protestant churches are top-heavy with women leaders.  None of these institutions can lay claim to being "more perfect" simply b/c women have a greater role in the decision-making process. IOW, women are as prone to the temptations of the Devil as men are. . .sin knows no gender bias.

God, the Heavy Stone, and a Mistaken Notion of "Almighty."

My new fav show:  Caprica.  If you want a dramatic rendition of the problems faced by philosophers of science and religion, this show is for you:  mind vs. body, real world vs. virtual world, polytheist culture vs. monotheist insurgency, theocratic inculturation, ethics of technology, nature of personhood, etc.  Good stuff.

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Quick updates

Mea culpa!

I'm WAY behind on homily postings and "question time."  Second and third Sunday of Lent homilies are still in the pipeline.  I could regale you with hundreds of perfectly legit-sounding excuses. . .but I won't.  

Rec'd the author's proof-copy of the second prayer book yesterday.  Rather than cut more of the text, Liguori decided to increase the page limit by 24 pages.  They are also publishing the Beatitude Rosary as a separate chap book.  

French is chugging along.  We have an excellent teacher.  But I'm the dumbest kid in class.  This is always the case when I take foreign language classes.  It's bizarre:  I can grasp deconstuctive linguistics and process metaphysics, but tell me to introduce myself in a language I've studied for two years and my mind goes blooey.  God's way of keeping me humble (or trying to anyway).

Back to work.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

I wouldn't have stabbed her. . .but I would've considered it.  This is one of my pet peeves.  


The devil is at work in the Vatican?  Again, yes.  He is also at work in Canterbury, Jerusalem, Riyadh; in hospitals, restaurants, and supermarkets; even your kitchen and in your front yard.  Why is this news?

I stopped watching Law & Order way back in 2000.  Along with Boston Legal it had become a P.R. vehicle for leftist whining and anti-Christian bigotry.

Celibacy is not psychologically dangerous; however, promiscuity is.  Thus, the reason our sexual libertine culture attacks virginity, celibacy, and marriage.

The dangers (and absurdities) of the New Socialist Man.  Basic problem:  the denial of original sin and the imperatives of human evolution.

Something to forward to after Easter:  papal document on the Bible!

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Coffee Bowl Browsing (Verbose Edition)

The banality of the Postmodern Mystic:  "Americans seem to have done with mysticism what we’ve done with every other kind of human experience: We’ve democratized it, diversified it, and taken it mass market."

Will the Baby Boomers come to regret their revolutionary pretenses?  If demographics are any indication, yes.  Boomers raised my generation--the X'er's--and we raised the Millennials.  Boomers pushed free-love, abortion/contraception, Do Your Own Thing, etc. and now their twilight years will be spent wholly dependent on two diminished generations of citizens who are less inclined to feel any sense of duty toward the elderly, the family; support euthanasia, and shirk civic responsibility.  The hippie-chickens are coming home to roost and those are not golden eggs they're dropping.

Home-school biology textbooks dominated by anti-evolution Protestant fundamentalism.  Surely there are some Catholic home-schooling science textbooks out there that aren't based on biblical scientism?

What is nihilism?  Recently, an European friar admitted to me, "Europeans. . .we hate ourselves."

Why the MSM hates the blogosphere--two words:  Dan Rather.  There's a real generation gap when it comes to trusting the news reported on the internet.  I've noticed among Baby Boomer friars an entrenched prejudice against believing the truth of most anything first reported on the net.  The attitude seems to be:  "If it's not reported in the NYT or on CNN, it's not worth knowing."  Too bad.

These "women-priests" are starting to remind me of those creepy guys who travel around the world getting ordained over and over again in hotel ballrooms by bishops who claim apostolic succession through multiple obscure national churches.  At some point a hobby becomes an obsession and an obsession becomes a parody. . .in the case of "women-priests," a decidedly pathetic parody.

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Recommendations for a cell phone?

I'll be heading back to the U.S. mid-June, and I need a cell phone.
 

Nothing fancy.  No contracts.  Just a simple phone to use in case of emergencies while I travel.  I want my parents to be able to contact me while I'm on the road.

Any suggestions?


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Venite Adoremus!

Great video about Eucharistic Adoration here at the Angelicum!

The video features our own chaplain for English-speaking students, Fr. Benedict Croell, OP of the Eastern Dominican Province.



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The sacrifice of forgiveness

3rd Week of Lent: Readings

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

The young woman sitting in my office was recounting to me all the times she had been physically and sexually abused by her father. Before his death, he had been a heavy drinker and drug-addict. He had never married this woman's mother and only showed his face at home when he needed money. Before ransacking the house looking for goods to sell, he would beat the girl and her mother, and more often than not, rape one or the other or both. Without fail, he would return later in the week, crying, begging for forgiveness and promising to never hurt either of them again. He never kept this promise. He died of an overdose while serving a prison sentence for drug possession. The young woman was in my office, telling me this horror story because she wanted me to tell her how to forgive him. I had no idea what to say, so I asked instead, “Why do you want to forgive him?” She said, “Because he is my father, and I love him.” Better than I could then and even now, she understood the power of sacrificial love to push the wounded soul to forgiveness.

Azariah finds himself in a very different predicament. From the flames of the furnace, he promises to honor his God on the altar of his contrite heart. He has no first fruits, no incense, no bull to offer; no priest for the sacrifice. He has nothing to give but his life, so he prays: “. . .let our sacrifice be in your presence today. . .for those who trust in you cannot be put to shame. . .Deliver us by your wonders, and bring glory to your name, O Lord.” Facing an agonizing death, Azariah's love for God does not falter on the off-chance that his ruler will spare him if he only recants his faith. Rather than cry out for vengeance against his murderer, Azariah cries out to God for rescue, offering the one victim that makes every sacrifice of the altar holy: the undivided, wholly surrendered, and contrite heart of the lover. “Let us be received,” he prays, “as though we were burnt offerings.” 

The young woman said that she wanted to forgive her father because she loved him. I asked her, “Is your love for him now forgiveness enough?” She said, “No. If I forgive him, then everything he did was O.K. It's like saying he did nothing wrong.” I didn't know how to explain to her that she could forgive him without condoning his crimes, that she could sacrifice her pain without celebrating his sin. How could I tell her that her desire to forgive him was also a desire to be forgiven her hatred of him and what he had done? Jesus tells us that if we want to be forgiven, then we must forgive. He says that we will be forgiven our sins in exactly the same way that we forgive those who have sinned against us. The sacrifice we must make is to release the grip we have on the sins committed against us. Held too closely and too tightly, these sins will turn rancid and poison us. 

Azariah doesn't pray for vengeance. He prays for rescue and offers his humbled spirit in sacrifice. The young woman in my office loves her father but cannot sacrifice the wounds he has inflicted on her. Azariah doesn't burn in the furnace because he holds nothing against his persecutors. There is nothing in him that is not already burned away. The young woman desires to forgive, but she still clings to her father's sins and there is much left to burn. 

Jesus teaches us the truth: we cannot forgive if we do not sacrifice; we cannot be forgiven if we ourselves will not forgive.

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O.P. sisters in Mosul, Iraq

Sr Donna Markham, O.P., the Prioress of the Adrian Dominicans, reports on the terrible situation of our Dominican Sisters in Iraq and the entire Christian community in Mosul:

Dear Sisters, This evening I have received very tragic news about the situation in Iraq. I have just returned from being with the 5 Iraqi sisters who are with us in Adrian. Today, all the Christians have fled from Mosul.

There have been murders and rapes of Christians there and for now they are fleeing to the Christian villages. Sister Maria is very frightened about the safety of the sisters and the Christian people. As of now, the five elderly sisters who have been holding down the Motherhouse are choosing to remain there because they do not want to lose their Motherhouse to the terrorists. She said most Christians are making plans to evacuate from Iraq and, as a consequence, she does not know what will happen with her Congregation. She said they will follow the Christian people where they go, but where that will be is uncertain. The sisters' families remain in grave danger and, as you can imagine, the young ones with us and with Springfield are terrified. As of now, nothing is being reported in the US press. She asks if any of us know people in Washington whom we could contact and tell the story, to please do so. Most importantly, she asks for our prayers. 

Love, Sr. Donna

*forwarded to the friars by Fr. Brian Mulcahy, OP, Socius of the Eastern Dominican Province.

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