On being leaders in love

5th Week of Easter (F)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

Of all the strange things our Lord has said—and he's said some pretty strange things—the last command he issues to the disciples is probably the strangest of all. He commands them to love one another. And if that's not strange enough, he goes on to command them to love one another as he loves them. Not just any old sort of mundane love, not just to think good thoughts or say nice things. . .but to love each other in the same way that he loves each of them. Perhaps the only thing he could say to make this any stranger would be something like, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Of course, he does say this and this whole episode moves from the unusual to the outright bizarre. Now, you might be thinking that there's nothing all that unusual or bizarre about Jesus commanding us to love one another as he loves us, or that dying for a friend is the greatest sort of love we can give. As a Church, we've lived with these ideas for centuries, and we've heard them repeated and expounded upon countless times. But as members of the Church in the 21st century, we are the beneficiaries of a Judeo-Christian culture that lifts up divine love not only as an ideal but as a real possibility. Even when we fail as individuals and as a culture to love one another we recognize the obligation to do so, and we mark our failures as failures. What's so strange about Jesus' command to love one another is that he thinks that love is something that can be commanded. 

What if we were to act as though love was something we deserved, something we are entitled to. What if we engraved in our laws and civil customs the idea that each of us—in virtue of just being born—has the natural right to be loved by everyone else. Like the right to vote or the right to free speech, the right to be loved is now fundamental to the constitution of our republic. Would this reform comply with our Lord's command? Law-suit happy citizens would be delighted. Trial lawyers would certainly be delirious. But would love given under the threat of legal action really be love? Or would we eventually come to understand love in strictly behavioral terms? I could fake love by acting lovingly in order to avoid having to pay damages. We would have stacks of Supreme Court rulings detailing various tests for true love, complete with dissenting opinions objecting to the very notion that love can be quantified. Before the ink is dry on the Love Amendment, the Lord's command would be destroyed b/c we would have reduced it to a natural right, that is, a legal prohibition against not-loving. Yes, it would be a command but would it be what the Lord actually ordered? No, it wouldn't.

The Lord's command to love only makes sense if we are first his disciples and then his friends; only if we first sit at his feet to listen and learn and then become his companions on the Way. His authority to command us derives from our surrender to him, from our willingness to be commanded—our freely given consent at the beginning our discipleship to follow wherever he leads. That kind of surrender takes enormous amounts of trust and not only trust in him but trust in one another. We cannot obey the command to love God w/o loving each and every one of His children. In fact, we show our love for Him by loving one another. If you think that's easy, try it. Try willing the good for your worst enemy for just one hour. Will all happiness and joy for someone who has injured you most. Will all blessings and success for someone who loathes you, someone who would see you humiliated or destroyed. Even better, will every good thing for the one you would see injured or humiliated. Difficult? Oh yes. And thus the necessity and the wisdom of the Lord's command. Could we even begin to love w/o the love he has shown us? Would we even know where to start? He suffered death to show us the Way to love. We followed. Now, it's our turn to lead.

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Back in town. . .

Back in Ponchaoula!  I managed to lose my wallet on the shuttle btw Hobby and Bush.  The driver kindly returned to the airport to give it back.

I lost my cell phone at the retreat center.  Someone used my cell to text one of the friars on my contact list and told him that the phone would be at the front desk.  It never arrived.

We had a great time at the Assembly!

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Just say NO to idols

5th Week of Easter (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

Paul and Barnabus find themselves in an awkward situation. Having preached the Good News in Lystra and healed a crippled man, the two apostles are acclaimed by the crowds and mistaken for gods. When the priest of Zeus attempts to sacrifice an ox to them, Paul shouts, “Men, why are you doing this?” He tells them that they are just men come to proclaim God's mercy to sinners. He tells them that they must turn from their idols and offer worship to the living God, the one who “who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.” It's not too difficult to imagine that the crowds, especially the pagan priests, received this bit of news with some skepticism, even a little hostility. Here are two obviously powerful, gods-touched men who perform a miracle refusing to take credit for a miraculous feat and yelling at them that their centuries old religious traditions are deficient maybe even evil. Surely, the gods are testing the faithful, waiting to see if they will abandon Zeus and Hermes on the word of two wandering prophets. Paul tells the crowds that the living God has allowed these pagans “to go their own ways” and at the same time provided them—out of His abundant goodness—with many sure signs of His presence and purpose: the rains and fruitful seasons, nourishment and gladness for their hearts. Even with this revelation, the pagans are barely prevented from offering sacrifice to the Lord's ambassadors. Mistaking the sign for that which is signified, the pagans continue in their idolatry. Are we tempted to do the same?

The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council teach the Church that God reveals Himself to us through scripture, the person of Jesus Christ, and the witness of “created things.” Surrounded as we are and totally dependent upon the created things of this world, we are free to direct our worship to the things themselves or to the One who created them. We can believe that mountains, trees, rivers, animals, and the stars all stand above us as gods, or we can respect them as signs of God's presence, created windows through which we see and hear the Word Himself revealed. In this scientific and technological age, we might choose to honor creation in less religious terms, in less worshipful ways and still hold the things of the world above their Creator. We can deny the presence of God in His creation and believe that nothing exists beyond or above the material stuff of the universe. We can live out our lives believing that our dominion over creation was sealed by the coming of the scientific age and that our technology gives us certain if not absolute control over our destiny. If we make such a choice, choosing to center ourselves in the temporary matter of the world, we sacrifices our lives to that which cannot endure, cannot persist beyond its own destruction. We become idolaters, worshipers of the Signs of the divine and not the Divine Himself.

Most modern Christians aren't tempted to worship Zeus or Odin or Vishnu. These aren't the idols we set up on the altars of our daily lives. Our idols are less substantial, more subtle than the figures of ancient myth. If we are tempted to idolatry nowadays, we are tempted to offer praise and thanksgiving to our ambitions, our passions, and our prejudices. Rather than acknowledge the presence of Christ in the tabernacle of our hearts, we are tempted to place a selfish will or a libertine spirit on the throne reserved for our Lord. Even with the grace of baptism and the sustenance of the Eucharist, we will worship Worry and Vengeance if we believe that worrying and revenge will serve us better than surrender and mercy. Christ sends the Holy Spirit to teach us and remind us that idols of all kinds—whether they are made of gold or psychological distress—are made things and subject to death. Only the Lord of Life, the one who has conquered death, is worthy of our worship. Only He deserves our faithful attention and the sacrifice of our lives in His service.

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Away into the wild blue yonder. . .again.

I am off today to Houston to attend our Provincial Assembly.

Be back in Ponchatoula late on May 26th.

Pray for the Province of St. Martin de Porres!

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What Sisyphus Can Teach Us About Faith

5th Week of Easter (A)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

The king of Corinth was a clever man. He was also prideful and lived to lie to friend and foe alike. His pride and deceitfulness kept him in power and flush with gold. When given the chance, he would divulge an ally's secrets to a mutual enemy and reap the rewards of betrayal. It was only a matter of time before his hubris compelled him to expose the follies of Zeus and gamble his cleverness against the anger of a god. One day, believing himself equal to the gods, the king told the river god, Asopus, one of Zeus' secrets in exchange for a fresh water spring in his city. As punishment, Zeus ordered Death to chain the king in the Abyss. The king, ever-clever, tricked Death and escaped. When the king died, his wife did not observe the proper burial rites, so he ended up in Hades only to escape and return to his wife to scold her for being disrespectful. Fed up with the king's impertinence, Zeus ordered his spirit to bear an eternal burden. He was condemned to push a boulder up a hill. When he nearly reached the top of the hill with the boulder, it would escape his grasp and roll to the bottom. The king would have to begin again. . .for eternity. The king's name was Sisyphus. To this day, we use his name to describe an absurd task, or a futile burden that leads to despair. For some, Sisyphus and his fate serve as a warning against pride and deceit. To others, he's an absurd hero, a foolish solider in a war against tyrants. Who is he for the followers of Christ? Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” But how often do we lovers of Christ wallow in our burdens and make our troubles badges of honor?

Because he was a fool to challenge Zeus and because his punishment seems so familiar, so “right,” Sisyphus is a popular subject in modern poetry. The American poet, Stephen Dunn, in a series of poems starring our anti-hero, wonders what Sisyphus would do if he were forgiven his sins, relieved of our ridiculous task. In a poem titled, “Sisyphus and the Sudden Lightness,” Dunn gives us the man mysteriously absolved of his debt to Zeus and wandering the streets in search of a purpose. Dunn writes, “Sisyphus, of course, was worried;/ he'd come to depend on his burden,/wasn't sure who he was without it.” He peels an orange; pets a dog, keeps moving forward b/c he is “afraid/of the consequences of standing still.//He no longer felt inclined to smile.” Over time, Sisyphus realizes that he is no longer being punished b/c the gods have disappeared. He hasn't been forgiven; he's been abandoned. So, out of anger or frustration or maybe defiance, “He dared to raise his fist to the sky./Nothing, gloriously, happened.//Then a different terror overtook him.” Sisyphus has been his punishment for centuries. Now that the boulder and the hill no longer imprison him, who is he? The gods are gone and the history of his punishment is more ridiculous, more meaningless than ever.

Sisyphus' heart is troubled. He has been abandoned by his gods, and he no longer knows who or what he is. He was condemned to an eternity of futile labor. Had he come to enjoy that boulder and the hill? Had he come to believe that his punishment was not only well-deserved but actually beneficial to his soul? As followers of Christ, what would we tell him about pride and its punishment? About lying and the consequences of defying God? Would we tell him that he got what he deserved and that he should shoulder his burden w/o complaint? If so, then we have to ask ourselves: Do we see ourselves in Sisyphus, wallowing in our burdens, making our troubled hearts badges of honor? Are we freed men and women, liberated children of a loving God; or, are we prisoners to our self-selected and self-imposed punishments? It might not be polite to say or pleasant to believe, but those of us who lay claim to the kingdom of God too often see ourselves as lost, abandoned; forsaken and punished for our sins. Sometimes we see this so intensely, believe it so fervently that we become our burdens; we transform ourselves from forgiven souls with an occasionally troubled heart into constantly troubled hearts with souls we cannot trust are forgiven. After all, we deserve our burdens; we are entitled to our troubles and we would not know who or what we are if, suddenly, our sentences were commuted and we were set free. Who are you once you are unchained and your prison is destroyed?

Jesus tells his disciples that he is preparing himself for death. He is leaving them. Confronted by their overwhelming anxiety and fear, Jesus says to them, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.” He tells them that he is going to prepare a place for them in his Father's house. “I will come back again,” he assures them, “and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way.” Most anxious and skeptical of them all, Thomas, blurts out, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Can you hear Thomas' real question? He's really asking, “How can you abandon us? How can you just leave us here? Why are we being punished? We don't know the way!” Jesus says to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father.” You know the way. You know me, and I am the way. You know the truth and you know the life. I am the truth and the life. You have come to me, and in doing so, you have come to the Father. When I return, you will all return with me to the Father. Did his friends believe him? Do we believe him? If we think Jesus is lying, then we will never surrender our burdens, never give up the punishments for sin that we believe we deserve. If we trust in his word, then we will crawl out from under the anxiety and the despair; we will gladly, eagerly push aside all of our destructive guilt and self-recrimination. Finally, we will come to accept that we are not the sum total of our sins and the years we have spent in prison, but that we are the freed children of a loving God who waits for us to occupy the many rooms of His heavenly house. That's who and what we are: not guests or visitors but children, beloved sons and daughters come home, and come home for good.

Peter tells us more about who and what we are in Christ: “You are 'a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises' of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” We are a race—black, white, yellow, brown, red—a race of those chosen by God. We are royal priests, offering sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving on the altars of our daily lives. We are a holy nation—Americans, Russians, Japanese, Mexicans—a nation set aside to be a commonwealth of faith and reason in a world slowing going insane. And we are a people, a tribe, citizens and subjects of a kingdom that will never end. When we are who we were redeemed to be and when we do what we were redeemed to do, there is no time for us nor energy left in us for absurd burdens, futile punishments, or useless anxiety. 

Sisyphus, upon realizing that his punishment was at an end, and realizing that his gods had abandoned him, shook his fist at heaven, and “a different terror overtook him.” He was terrified of not knowing who or what we was without his burden, without his petty gods. If you are afraid of surrendering your worries and your labors b/c you believe that you deserve them, or b/c you fear that you will become lost, let Christ's words bang around in your mind for a while: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. . .I will come back again and take you to myself. . .”

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Anniversary

Please pray for me and my OP brother, Fr. Scott Daniels. . .we are celebrating the sixth anniversary of our priestly ordination today!

We were ordained at St Peter's Church in Memphis by Bishop Terry Steib, SVD.

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Knowing THAT Jesus is in Father

4th Week of Easter (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

“Knowing” is a complicated business. For example, can know that a computer works—whether or not it works; we can know how it works and when; we can know where it works and doesn't; we may even know enough about the thing to know why it works like it does. Our varying levels of knowledge about a computer are distinguished more by kind than degree, that is, knowing more certainly that a computer is working does not increase our knowledge about how the computer works. To learn more about the how's and why's of computer technology requires a much more intimate relationship with computer science than simply knowing whether or not the thing is going to work when you turn it on. If knowing the what, how, when, and why of a computer is complicated, how much more complicated is knowing another person, or knowing God the Father? Jesus says to his disciples: “If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” What we know of the Father—who, what, when, where, why—we know b/c Jesus, His Son, has revealed Him to us. Why does it matter to us that Jesus is our window to the Father?

If God the Father had wanted to reveal Himself to His children, He could've done so in a hundred or a thousand different ways. He could've appeared to a prominent person among His people and spoken His will. He could've performed miracles or sent angels. He could've commissioned prophets to announce His plan for humanity. He could've inspired poets and priests to write down the stories of these revelations and made sure that the stories survived for centuries and millennia. And just to make absolutely sure that we had every opportunity to come to know Him best, He could've promised long ago to send us His Anointed One, His Messiah so that we could see and hear for ourselves the love He has for us. He could've done all this. And, of course, He did. Yet we still failed to come to know Him in a way that would bring us back to Him. So, He fulfilled His promise and sent us His only Son to live among us as one of us so that we might come to know everything we need to know in order to repent of our sins and receive His forgiveness. 

When Jesus says to the disciples, “If you know me, then you will also know my Father,” he means exactly that. If we come to know Jesus—to plant and cultivate a relationship with the Christ—we will come into a saving knowledge of the Father. Not just a factual knowledge, not just “knowing stuff about God,” but knowing Him in a way that saves us, perfects us, and brings us back to Him more fully human than we could ever be otherwise. Knowing Christ in this way is more than merely informative; it is performative, that is, know Christ as our Savior performs our salvation, makes our redemption happen. Stories and miracles, prophets and priests can't perform or accomplish our salvation. Only an intimate relationship with God the Father through His Son in the Holy Spirit can achieve that which we long for the most: a reunion with the One who created us. This is why Jesus is astonished when Philip says, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus is disappointed, exasperated by this request. He says, in essence, “What do you mean 'show us the Father'? What do you think I've been doing these last three years?! Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? I'm not speaking my own words but the words of the Father. The Father who dwells in me and I am doing His works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. And if my word alone isn't good enough, believe me because of the work I do in His name.” 

Our job is the same as Christ's. To reveal the love of God in our words and deeds, what we say and what we do. Our burden is both heavy and light. Heavy b/c we carry the responsibility of making sure that He is revealed to the whole world. Light b/c we never do this job alone. We have the whole Body of Christ, the Spirit of God, and sure knowledge that—in the end—victory goes to the Lamb who was slain for our us.

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Coffe Cup Browsing (Late Edition)

If The One gets his way, some of the most sacred sites of Christianity in Jerusalem will be under the control of the terrorist group, Hamas.  Can 2012 get here soon enough?

M.U.S.T. read this!  ". . .liberals - or 'progressives,' as they prefer to be called - persist in laboring under an embarrassing misconception: They honestly believe they remain the nonconformists. It’s precious. In fact, today’s liberals are nothing of the sort. They compliantly conform - like little windup, patchouli-daubed lemmings. . ."  Amen.

Science vs. Religion. . .which will happen first:  the Zombie Apocalypse or the Second Coming?  I know which one I'm cheering for!

Most HancAquam readers know what it means to be Raputured. . .but do you know what it means to be Zombied?

More on the Great Target vs. Wal-Mart Debate. . .this has the makings of a Coke vs. Pepsi War or the perennial southern favorite:  Ford vs Chevy Throwdown.   My picks:  Wal-Mart, Pepsi, Chevy.

Hideous new statue of Bl. JPII.  I've said it before:  "Raze it, salt the earth!"  Lord, spare your faithful from any more of these pretentious, modernist wrecks.

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The Adult Faith of a Dissident?

4th Week of Easter (Th)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

I recently ran across an article about an upcoming gathering of Church dissidents in Detroit. They call themselves the American Catholic Council. Their agenda for Church reform is as predictable as it is destructive to the Body of Christ: give us women priests, openly gay/lesbian priests, popularly elected bishops, etc. Had this group met in the 16th century, historians now would call them by their proper name, Protestants. Given the religious freedom that Americans enjoy and the ease with which we can form religious associations, it beggars the mind to understand why these disaffected Catholics don't simply join the Episcopal Church. Regardless, what's interesting to me is the frequency with which these folks identify their radical agenda for the future of the Church with what they call “an adult faith,” or “an adult Church.” It's not entirely clear why they think that their version of the faith is more mature than the one given to us by the apostles, but it is clear that they see the apostolic faith as immature and oppressive. Setting aside for a moment that middle-class academics whining about being oppressed is the very definition of adolescent behavior, and setting aside for now questions about their motives and chances of success, let's ask a more fundamental question: what is an “adult faith”? When do we know that our beliefs and religious practices have matured into an adult spirituality worthy of our time and energy?

Jesus has just finished washing the feet of his students, demonstrating that he no longer considers them his students but his friends. He says to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.” Here's the key to identifying a matured spirituality, an adult understanding of our relationship with God: you and I are not the masters of our faith; we do not control, direct, or in any way influence the truth of the gospel, nor do we have the authority or the power to change one letter of the Father's Self-revelation to His people. A teenager rages against The Machine b/c he believes that he is the center of reality, the locus around which all living things exist. He chooses what's Real and what's not. An adult long ago recognized that The Real is a given and that one's success or failure in life is judged against one's ability and willingness to accept that wishful-thinking, tantrums, and appeals to self-centered notions of justice can't alter truth. Jesus tells his newly minted friends that though they are no longer his students, they are still slaves to the Master, an eternal Master who loves them enough to give His only Son to death.

Spiritual maturity can never be about asserting control or demanding that one's “rights” be respected. Servants, faithful servants of the Church work tirelessly to make sure that every opened eye and ear sees and hears the central message of the gospel: you're sins are forgiven, receive God's mercy and live wholly in His love. Jesus tells his friends that if they understand the truth in what he is teaching them, “blessed are you if you do it.” Not just believe it or assent to it. But do it! Don't just believe that you are a servant. Serve. Don't just assent to the notion that you are blessed to be of service. Go out and act blessed. Go out and serve. Service does not include stamping your feet and whining about the need for structural change in the institutional Church, or demanding that Reality be altered to fit your fantasy-agenda. Jesus says, “. . .whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.” We receive from the ones sent by Christ all that they received from him. We receive. We do not create or change or revolutionize or re-think what we have received. Instead, we pass it on. Whole and entire. We pass it on in mint condition so others can mature into an adult faith rooted in the apostolic faith.

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Coffee Cup Browsing

New study argues that the clergy sexual abuse scandals were caused largely by poor seminary training, a permissive culture, and bishops who ignored victims.  If priests and bishops in the '60's and '70's had been taught Catholic moral theology and followed it none of this would have happened.

The Anchoress has the right idea about the study and the scandal.

Editorial on that letter sent to Speaker Boehner by a group of Catholic profs:  "Nowhere in the Gospels do you find Jesus saying his followers should enlist in a government spending rampage that will not only make the poor poorer, but devastate the livelihoods of just about everyone in society."  Amen.

Two Girl Scouts leave the highly politicized and feminist-agenda driven organization.  I stopped buying GS cookies a long time ago.

Figured I'd link to the story about the woman who wouldn't stop talking on her cell phone in the Quiet Car of an Amtrak train.  She talked for 16hrs straight!!! 

No, implementing the Church's authentic social justice agenda does not necessarily entail support for politically leftist solutions to economic problems.  "Social justice" advocates in the Church (esp. in religious orders) often fail to distinguish btw the legitimate goals of social justice and the methods used to achieve them. 

Who burdened us with P.C.-speak and the oppression of the Word Police?  The fallacy here is the ridiculous notion that language is the sole source and arbiter of reality.  Control language, control reality.  Bunk.

Don't throw paperclips at your co-workers.  I love the fact that none of the other guys intervene.

Yes, Zombies have their own currency. 

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Target vs. Wal-Mart

I found this quote on Instapundit. . .still waiting for my Instalanche,* btw.

“Target is Wal-Mart for pretty people.”

I like both stores, but Wal-Mart gets my $$$ about 80% of the time.  The apparel shoppers for Target seem to believe that men with waist sizes smaller than 34 should roam the streets naked.

Wal-Mart, however, always has a well-stocked Deep and Wide department.

*This term is used to refer to what happens to a blogger's stats when Glenn Reynolds links to your site.  Come on, Prof. Reynolds!  Do a priest a solid!!

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Coffe Cup Browsing

Professional atheist Dawkins accused of cowardice for refusing to debate prominent Christian philosopher.  Dawkins is actually being smart here. . .he is clueless when it comes to philosophy.

European anarchists seem a bit confused about their who they are and what they believe. 

Jesus set to return on May 21st.  I wonder if anyone told the Lord that he's scheduled to Rapture the faithful that day?  He said he didn't know the day or time of his return. . .soooooo. . .???

A classic Mark Shea Rant:  we are all slobs and losers. . .thanks be to God!

This is what happens to your church when you choose to be OF the world and not just IN the world.  NB.  this is also what the Catholic Church would look like if the Holy Spirit hadn't given us JPII and BXVI.

Famous physicist assures us that there is no heaven. . .famous theologian assures us that gravity is a myth.  Stick to what you know, Steve, OK?

I will defend the use of the semicolon 'til the day I die!  Oh, and commas go inside the quotation marks.  Jesus said so.  

This should be my family's crest.

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Link for the new missal translation

For those who have requested more info on the new English translation of the Roman Missal:

Go Here and look under the menu "Sample Texts."


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Cut to the heart

4th Sunday of Easter (A)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

While in the studium—the Dominican version of seminary—the student brothers were often told that agricultural metaphors for the Church weren't all that “helpful.” For example, using images such as harvesting grain, planting seeds, plowing fields, pruning trees, etc. to talk about complex theological ideas like redemption, justice, etc. is virtually meaningless in our postmodern age. Our fussy, urbane professors were particularly hard on the sheep/shepherd metaphors in the gospels. They really got wound up about Jesus describing his followers as sheep. Sheep are dirty, stupid, and prone to being killed unless well-guarded. And it didn't help matters at all that those who guard the Lord's sheep—the shepherds, you know, the bishops—were exclusively male and celibate! By the time our enlightened profs were finished foaming at the mouth against the image of the Church as a bunch of filthy, ignorant animals led by an all-male cadre of celibate shepherds, we poor seminarians were quaking in our habits, silently vowing to never-ever speak about or even think about the Church in terms of the sheep/shepherd metaphor! Of course, one or two of us were farm boys so we knew one thing about sheep that our profs didn't: Sheep don't follow shepherds. No one leads a flock of sheep. Sheep are driven, herded by a skillful shepherd with a big stick and a pack of feisty dogs. Now that's an image of the Church that Catholics can understand! So, what are we to make of Jesus saying, “. . .[the shepherd] walks ahead of [his sheep], and [they] follow him, because they recognize his voice”? 

Well, by nature, metaphors are always imperfect, so we don't want to spend too much time dissecting the parallels between Christians and sheep, or between bishops and shepherds. Jesus' point seems to be that those who have chosen to follow him will know his voice when he speaks and obey his word b/c he speaks with a familiar authority. Jesus emphasizes his point by noting that those who love him “will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.” In other words, Christians do not hear, cannot hear in the voice of a false teacher, a false shepherd that familiar ring of authority that proclaims the authentic faith, the Real Deal of Gospel Truth. We could play with the sheep metaphor a bit and say that the voice of a false teacher, a false shepherd always sounds like a wolf growling with hunger even when it looks, smells, and acts like a lamb. Oh sure, the occasional individual sheep—the lapsed or lukewarm Christian—may be fooled, seduced by the hypnotic thrill of the wolf's promises, but the flock as a whole is never fooled, never taken in by a stranger's voice. Together, as one flock, we remember the Chief Shepherd's voice; we remember him saying, “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. . .I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” There is no other gate to the Father's eternal pasture, no other Shepherd for His faithful flock. Christ Jesus alone brings us to a more abundant life!

As faithful sheep, we should ask: how do we come to recognize the authoritative voice of our Shepherd? In his Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke gives us a clue. Peter stands with the Eleven and proclaims to the crowd, “Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Luke tells us that when those in the crowd heard this truth spoken, “they were cut to the heart. . .” Cut to the heart! Peter utters a simple sentence, twenty-one common words strung together, a declarative sentence that rings out over those gathered, seizes their attention with absolute clarity, and instantly convicts their hearts in the truth: the man Jesus, the one whom they crucified, is the Lord and the Christ long-promised by their God. Peter's pronouncement slices through their guilt; their recriminations; their religious and legal defenses; their logic, their doubts, and their fears. They were cut to the heart, that place in their souls where no lie can easily rest and b/c they recognize their sin, they ask, “What are we to do?” And Peter tells them what to do. “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. . .Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Among those who heard Peter preach that day were three thousand souls who accepted his message and were baptized. Those three thousand, once convicted in the truth and baptized in the name of Christ Jesus, would always recognize the voice of the Lord and his shepherds. A cut to the heart made by the sword that Christ himself yields is always deep and always permanent. It cannot be forgotten nor can it be mistaken for the mark of a stranger.

As men and women baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, we are deeply and permanently cut by the truth of the gospel. Christ's voice always rings true; the familiar authority of our shepherd is unmistakable, and we cannot be lead astray if we graze with his flock, the Church. The apostle Peter and his successors proclaim the central, abiding fact of our two-thousand year old flock: “God has made both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” That's the sound, the voice of gospel truth, the words and the spirit that cuts the hearts of all those who long to see their lives redeemed, who desire a life beyond this one, who know that they will be perfected only when they come to see their Father face-to-face at the foot of His throne. Do you recognize that voice? More importantly, can you speak with that voice and spread the good news it proclaims? Sheep may be dirty, stupid, and prone to being eaten by wolves, but we are no ordinary sheep! We belong to the Eternal Shepherd and the world is our pasture to cultivate for him. Having heard his call, it's time for us to answer.

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Back amongst the gators. . .

I'm back in Ponchatoula!  Had a great time with the OP Nuns of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary.  They were enthusiastic students/participants in the Spe salvi seminars. . .as usual, I come away from these kinds of meetings convinced that I've learned more than I've taught. 

The food was good. . .really good.  And I am looking forward to going back next year!

The nuns have a great gift shop that features their handmade soaps and creams. . .give it a visit.

Almost forgot. . .all those books from the Wish List were delivered while I was gone.  No name on the shipping invoice.  Mille grazie to my anonymous benefactor.

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