-6 Fat Report

Down to 327 lbs.!  Just another 100 lbs to go.

WooHoo!!!  Keep those prayers going, folks.

Update:  Ooops. . .I lost six pounds rather than three.  

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Coffee Cup Browsing

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, “In effect, [B.O.] is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences."  Even pro-abort/pro-contraceptive "Catholics" have to see that this is only the first salvo in B.O.'s war on the Church. 

B.O. knows who the enemy is.

Another extended crashed cruise ship metaphor:  The Sinking of the West.  Cf. the links above.

Let the E.U. Nannies find the money to defend themselves!  The cradle to grave socialism of the E.U. is made easier to maintain by a massive subsidy called. . .the American Armed Forces.

Hmmmm. . .Pope BXVI establishes an academy for the study of science and faith.  Maybe I left Rome too soon!

Newt wins in S.C.  I think this is more about sticking it to the Palace Guard Media than it is about the voters' comfort with Newt.

Cardinal Mahony attacks B.O. and his power grab over the Church.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Maybe the 52% of Catholics who voted for The One might get it right next time around?

The Occu-Bears!  (You make this stuff up, people.)

You GOT that!?

Funny. . .don't know why.

___________________

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Fr. Pontifex responses to Love Jesus, Hate Religion vid

There's a Youtube video where some guy recites a poem about loving Jesus but hating religion.  I haven't watched it. . .don't need to. . .I know the meme well b/c I used it for years to dodge my vocation.  

Below you will find an excellent response to the shallow anti-Catholic vid from "Fr.  Pontifex":

Lyrics:

What if I told you that Jesus loves religion
And that by his coming as man he brought his religion to fruition
See this had to be addressed, the use of illogical terms and definitions
You clearly have a heart for Jesus but its fueling atheistic opinions
See what makes his religion great is not errors of wars and inquisitions
It's that broken men and women to participate in his mission
Clearly Jesus says I have not come to abolish
I came to fulfill the law and I came to fulfill the prophets (Matthew 5:17)
And lines about building big churches and tending to the poor
Sounds a bit like Judas when the perfume was being poured (John 12:5)
See His religion is the largest worldwide source of relief
For the poor, the hungry, the sick and repentant thief
Oceans of compassion, opening wide the doors
For single mothers, widows and orphans, married and divorced (James 1:27)
We all detest hypocrisy, and empty show is just the worst
But blaming religion for contradiction
Is like staring at death, and blaming the hearse.
See the teacher will teach when the students are ready to listen
But those that choose to sit in the pews and refuse the good news
Is not the fault of religion.
And If I have the Jersey and I'm playing for the Bulls
There's going to be some boundaries, regulations and some rules.
You can't have Christ without his Church; you can't have the King without his Kingdom
Sins of the Body and internal treason will never ever make me leave him
And that Jesus said it is done, is absolutely true
But he also gave us a mission with many things to DO.
Jesus says if you love me, you will Do what I command. (JN 15:14)
Go and Baptize in the name of the Father, Son & Spirit in Every Land. (MT 28:19)
And on the night he was betrayed he took his men in the Upper Room
Take at eat this is my body take and drink my blood for you.
A New covenant you see, an act connected to the tree,
Do this time and time again in Memory of Me. (Mt 26:26-28)
And at last with crown of thorns beaten beyond comprehension
His eyes were looking for yours and mine; it was divine, no human invention.
So as for religion I love it, I have one because Jesus rose from the dead and won.
I believe When Jesus said IT IS FINISHED, His religion had just begun.

Fr. Claude (Dusty) Burns
Aka Pontifex

You can go to the Youtube page and see some of the other responses. 

___________________

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Prayers, please. . .

Going for an interview of sorts on Tuesday. . .please pray that it goes well!

More on this development later.

God bless, Fr. Philip Neri, OP

NB. This job would be in addition to my current assignment as parochial vicar.
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Getting your attention. . .

3rd Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, New Orleans

What does it take to get our attention these days? A crisis? Some sort of disaster? Maybe something as simple as a name change for your favorite brand? Or maybe you're a fairly even tempered sort who reacts proportionally to all situations. You're calm in a crisis, controlled, and clear-minded. But think about it. What isn't a crisis? Global warming! A New Ice Age! Bird Flu! Terrorists! Record Unemployment! The End of America! Sex Scandals! Genocide! The Collapse of Europe! Just about anything that happens these days (no matter how minor) is presented to us as a crisis of earth-shattering proportions, a disaster on par with the worst punishments visited on sinners in the Old Testament. Digging through the hysterical rhetoric of a hyperventilating media can be exhausting work. If you're like me, you've come to the conclusion that “Wolf” has been cried once too often, and that it is far better to throw in with the providence of God and let human events unfold as they will, knowing that Love Himself has already won the victory for us. Squeals of panic from politicians, activists, and media talking-heads take on a whole new insignificance when placed along side the Word of God and His promise of loving-care. None of this, however, should close our ears to the His call for our repentance. Though He will not destroy us for our disobedience, He will leave us to face the consequences of failing to heed fair warning. “I tell you, brothers and sisters, the time is running out. . .”

So, what does it take to get your attention these days? The people of Nineveh hear Jonah announce in their streets, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed!" Just forty days. And everything you know and love will be gone. Does that get your attention? Apparently, it gets the Ninevehites' attention b/c they repent and their city is spared. What's odd about this brief episode from the Book of Jonah is that the prophet sent by God to warn the Ninevehites never actually offers them a deal. You know the deal. . .repent or burn. Jonah simply goes around the streets yelling that the city will be destroyed in forty days. No conditions. No hedged bets against destruction. Just a straightforward warning. Why no conditions? Well, we might speculate that Jonah wanted the city destroyed. Or perhaps the Lord's punishment for his earlier reluctance to serve left him feeling a little petulant. Regardless, the threat of destruction is enough to send a city-wide wave of repentance through the population. Having secured the Ninevehites' attention without offering them a deal, Jonah secures the city for the Lord. 

So, what does it take to secure your attention? Writing to the Corinthians, Paul announces, “I tell you, brothers and sisters, the time is running out. . .For the world in its present form is passing away.” Does knowing that your time will one day run out secure your attention? Paul's warning to the Corinthians is hardly profound. The world in its present form is always passing away. Time is always running out. Anyone with a watch and somewhere to be knows this. What might not be so obvious at first glance is that for time to run out, for the world in its present form to pass away, there must be a point somewhen in the future toward which we are moving in time. In other words, Paul is telling the Corinthians that time and this present world have an end and that end is swiftly coming to bear. Is this an attention-grabber? Hardly. We're told everyday that the end is near. It's either the ice caps melting or the scarcity of clean air or some new genetically modified plague that's coming to wipe us all out. . .any moment now! Just a few more minutes. . .one or two more hours. . .I mean, um, in a year or two. Maybe. Naw, telling us that time is short is nothing new, not scary enough to open our ears to news we do not want to hear.

So, for the last time, what will open your ears to hear what you really need to hear? How about this: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel!” A time of fulfillment. Not the end of time, or the destruction of your city, but the fulfillment of God's promise to bring His kingdom to us. You are now living in that period of human history that will witness the keeping of a divine promise. Turn from disobedience toward righteousness and believe that the Lord wills that all sinners come to Him for His mercy. Notice the absence of a threat, the absence of a deal. Notice also that Jesus doesn't warn us or nag at us. He simply announces that the Kingdom of God is at hand and then he invites us to turn from our sin and believe that we are forgiven. We don't have to fast to be saved or put on sackcloth or wail our sins in the streets. All we need to do is turn from sin and believe that the Father loves us enough to announce the coming of His kingdom by sending His only Son to live and die as one of us. He fulfills His promise in the body and blood of Christ. The urgent choice we have to make is btw receiving him as Lord, or living with the consequences of sin. 

Jesus calls all of us to believe his gospel. Not a gospel of loss, of grief and mourning; not of threat or bargain, or dust and fumes; nor the gospel of city-wide apocalypse or righteous war. His is a gospel of everlasting goodness and eternal life, permanent mercy and all-pervading grace; a gospel of ceaseless vitality and living strength. And it is our gospel! Our story! Our work in the world and, if we will take it up, our dare and our charge—to be with Christ in here and to be Christ out there. He says to Simon and Andrew, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Follow after me and my gospel, and I will turn you into men who cast your nets to harvest the lives of men and women who long to give themselves to God. Simon and Andrew abandon all they know and follow Christ. James and John leave their father in his boat and follow Christ. And all of are made into the men that Jesus promises. How did he get their attention? Threats of impending apocalypse? No. Promises of damnation if they refuse? No. He simply tells them the truth. And that truth rings in their ears louder than family, friends, career, hobbies, or even the lure of this world's impermanent joys. 

OK. I lied. I'm going to ask one more time: what does it take to get your attention? Sirens? Flashing lights? Threats of immediate death? How about an invitation from Christ himself to become an heir to his heavenly kingdom? To be a member of his Body with an eternal purpose? If so, here's the Good News: you are so invited. All you need to do to become a fisher of men is accept the invitation. 

___________________

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Grazie to Poste Italiane. . .

During my three years in Rome, I spent a lot of time casting stones at Poste Italiane.  . .mostly at their ridiculous customs requirements and lackadaisical attitude toward a work ethic.

Now, I want to give them a thumbs-up. . .for delivering eight boxes of books, etc. from Rome to NOLA!  While in route the boxes started to break open and P.I. put each box into a sturdy plastic bag and sent them on. . .

Mille grazie, Poste Italiane! 

___________________

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On following a crazy person. . .

St. Agnes
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, New Orleans

So, Jesus' family thinks he's crazy, “out of his mind.” We can see why they might think that. He running around the country doing things that only a prophet can claim to do: healing people, casting out demons, forgiving sins. He argues with respectable religious folks, claiming to have the authority to re-interpret scripture. He's got this gang of twelve hanging around with him, his disciples, men who once had decent jobs and families. And occasionally he runs off into the desert to be alone with God. Add all these to the fact that everywhere he goes a mob follows along, clamoring for his attention, and we can see why a normal, working family might think that Jesus is out of his mind. Of course, if they knew that he planned to reveal himself in the not too distant future as the Son of God, the Messiah, they might've decided to lock him up for good! If Jesus' relatives think that he's crazy, what must they think of those who follow him? How crazy do you have to be to follow a crazy man? Given what we know about Jesus' promises to his followers, you'd have to be pretty crazy. Well, brothers and sisters, dear followers of Christ, welcome to the looney bin! Do you feel like you're “out of your mind”? Do you think you're crazy for following a man who claims to be the Son of God, the savior of all creation? 

Let's review the promises made by Christ to those crazy enough to follow him. He promises us persecution at the hands of our family and friends. He promises trial and imprisonment by governors and princes. He promises ridicule, opposition, and outright violence for his name's sake. He tells us that his Way is straight but exceedingly narrow, difficult to navigate at times but clearly plotted and mapped out. Along the Way, he promises us battle after battle in a war he has already won. We have before us a long, hard struggle against an Enemy who cheats, steals, lies and has no moral qualms about using whatever he needs to ensnare us. Finally, he tells us that to follow him with our whole hearts and minds and bodies, we must follow him all the way to the Cross and the Tomb. That's a promise too. Given all these promises, we would have to be out of our minds to even think of crowding around this guy and begging him for his help.

And yet, here we are. Why? Why are we here this morning? Why do we follow around a man whose own family thought he was out of his mind? All those promises of pain, loss, tribulation were not made to warn us off, to keep us away. They aren't predictions or punishments. Jesus' promises to us are the consequences of living in the world while not being of the world. IF you follow me, THEN you will be persecuted. It must happen b/c the world cannot abide its own imperfection and those seeking perfection in Christ are irritating reminders that there are more and better ways of being human, more and better means of being perfect. The world accuses: how dare you point out my diseases and disabilities by seeking a way to have your own healed? There's nothing wrong with me, do not tempt me to believe otherwise by pointing out your own faults and how you've come to have them mended! For all the suffering we are promised as a consequence of following Christ, there is one promise that balances the scales: we will be made perfect in the Father's love. In fact, even as we seek that perfection now, we abide in His love. We may be out of our minds for following a crazy man, but we follow him into an audience with the Father to see him face-to-face. Let us see your face, Lord, and we shall be saved.

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Authenticating the Truth

2nd Week OT (F)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Dominic Church, New Orleans

It seems that for the last 40 years or so Americans and especially Catholic Americans have had a Love-Hate relationship with the concept of authority. We love having authority on our side when we think we are right, and we hate having it oppose us when. . .well, when we think we are right. In other words, authority is vitally important to discovering and defending the truth so long as whoever wields that authority agrees with me. The bad news here is that this particular way of treating authority actually leaves those in authority without much real power to discover or defend much of anything at all. The good news is that the truth isn't touched one way or another by whether or not we choose to accept or reject it. The truth is the truth and always will be. The authority of, say, a president or a scientist or a pope cannot create truth out of nothing. At most, legitimate authority has the power to authenticate some expression of the truth, or to point out that we are giving credibility to a falsehood. This distinction—btw creating truth and merely certifying an expression of the truth—is essential to our progress in holiness b/c we need to know whether or not we are holding on to and following the authentic teachings of Christ. Teachings don't save us—Christ does that—but like the apostles we are sent out to tell the truth about Christ and his Good News.

To ensure that his authentic message is spread, Jesus calls The Twelve together and then sends them out with the authority to preach and teach the gospel. They are not given the freedom to invent a wholly new gospel, or to spin the Good News for easier consumption, or to blend Jesus' teachings with the more exotic and interesting bits from fairy tale and legend. As eyewitnesses to his public ministry and the direct beneficiaries of his personal instruction, The Twelve are sent out to preach and teach what Jesus himself preached and taught. And they do exactly that. We know that they did exactly that b/c to this day—2,000 years later—the Church still teaches and preaches the apostolic faith of The Twelve. Resting on the building blocks of the martyred apostles, the Church has authenticated again and again the truth of the Good News of Jesus Christ and will continue to do so until he returns. We're not bragging. That's not a boast. It's a promise from Christ himself, the wellspring of the Church's power to define and defend the truth of our Lord's message of God's mercy to sinners.

Americans in general and Catholic Americans in particular have had a hard struggle these last few decades with the notion of authority. Our nation is rooted in rebellion against the alleged divine right of King George III to rule us as colonists. Since we declared our independence, we've been a tad shy of anyone claiming to hold authority over us as individuals or as a nation. But as Catholics we must be extraordinarily careful not to confuse the secular authority of the state (derived from the consent of the governed) with the authority of the Church (derived from Christ through his apostles). The truth of the Gospel is not subject to a referendum; we do not elect our bishops or pastors by popular vote; we cannot alter the apostolic faith b/c polls tell us to. This isn't a matter of ecclesial stubbornness or institutional authoritarianism. There is a Way, a Truth, and a Life beyond the grubby politics of the human passions and that way/truth/life is Christ Jesus—the way, truth, and life given to the apostles by Christ and given to us by them in turn. The Way is straight and narrow. The Truth never changes. And the Life we reap is eternal.

 ___________________

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He's not a celebrity. . .he's the Son of God!

2nd Week OT (Th)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Dominic Church, New Orleans

Listen Here (5.30 Mass)

While studying in Rome, I met several “church celebrities”: Cardinal Cottier (JPII's personal theologian) and Fr. Giertych (BXVI's), both Dominicans; Archbishops Burke and Rigali; and while teaching in Dallas, I served as tour guide and emcee for Cardinal Arinze during one of his visits. Though I've never met a pope, I did get to stand directly behind Pope Benedict during a Good Friday liturgy at St. Peter's. That's about it for my brushes with fame! And that's perfectly fine with me. I'm a bad fan, meaning I'm not one to get all crazy over an actor or a politician or even a pope. So, today's gospel provoked a question for me: Philip, you would be in that crowd chasing down Jesus, clamoring for his attention? I don't know. Ask anyone who visits St Peter's when the Holy Father is celebrating Mass and they will tell you that the most dangerous place to be at that moment is between the Pope and a little Italian nun! I'm 6'1” and 300+ lbs., standing there in full habit and le sorelle plow over me like a Roman taxi driver late for his nap! Clamoring for the attention of a celebrity is undignified; it's demeaning and. . .well, it's vulgar. But what if that celebrity is Christ? And you were blind or suffered from leprosy or were possessed by an unclean spirit? How about then? Well, now, that's a different story altogether, isn't it. . .? He is, after all, the Son of God.

Would you be among those chasing Jesus around the countryside? I mean, if you weren't sick or disabled or possessed? Would you follow him around just to watch him heal others or hear him preach? Maybe you've heard of him and just want to see for yourself what all the fuss is about? Is this guy for real? Too good to be true? You know that celebrities inevitable disappoint us, right? Athletes lose games. Actors make bad movies. Even popes sometimes fail to live up to the ideals they profess. The most apparently perfect celeb is still only human, only a man or a woman whose celebrity hides their many imperfections. Just like us regular folks they crack under pressure, succumb to temptation, and fall short of the glory of God. That's to be expected: they aren't God, and neither are we. When the pedestal we've put them on starts to wobble, we might groan and weep but can we really be surprised? What supernatural feats have any of them accomplished? Have any of them taught a truth so profound that we were astonished by their authority? Who among them serves as the foundation stone for an institution begun more than 2,000 years ago? Let their pedestal tumble. But don't mourn their fall. It's the Christ we celebrate; it's Jesus we here to hear!

Jesus' celebrity in his native land is easy to understand. He brings healing to those who would otherwise suffer and die from their afflictions. Medical science at the time was little more than folklore and herbalism. He cleans the uncleanable and brings back into the life of the community those thought forever cast out. He frees those held in slavery by unclean spirits, restoring their freedom and giving them back their dignity. He adds purpose to their lives, gives direction and strength, and he grants the one virtue most had probably never practiced: hope. He did all this then, and he does all this now. Instead of chasing him around the hill country like a rock star, we gather in his name. Instead of seeing him in the distance or hearing him as an echo, we sit at his feet and we listen. Instead of fighting over the chance to touch his tunic, we eat at his table. And we do all this by his invitation, by his grace. The Christ came to save us with his body and blood not wow us with his celebrity. We honor him when we make known that the invitation to his table is always open and the feast is always free.

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Coffee Cup Browsing

Guns! Guns! Guns!  As gun ownership skyrockets murder rates. . .drop?  Yup.  Homicide is no longer one of the top 15 causes of death in the U.S.

Φεύγετε τὴν πορνείαν!  Flee fornication!  On the weak translation served up in the NAB.  Heroes gotta have standards. . .otherwise, we will melt into the pablum mess of utilitarianism.

For example. . .

"I'm spiritual but not religious."  And I'm on a diet but eat whatever I want when I want.  Get it?  It's a "diet" b/c I've defined "diet" to mean whatever I want it to mean.

That half sunken cruise ship as a metaphor for the Church in Italy. . .and Italy herself.  Apt, indeed.

Thoughts on the heresy of feminism.

The gods must be tasty. . .or at least cavity-causing.

Just in case you've forgotten:  it's coming.

This would be me at the National Museum, or something.

___________________

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Say NO to SOPA!

You may have noticed that both Google and Wikipedia are acting a little funny today. . .

They've been "blacked out" in order to draw public opposition to a power-grab piece of legislation pending in Congress, the so-called Stop On-line Piracy Act (SOPA).

Like most gobbledygook coming out of D.C. these days, SOPA is a front for the Nanny State.  Plain and simple.  Yes, intellectual property theft is a real problem; and Yes, the internet has only served to worsen an already bad situation.  

But how would the gov't use its power to shut down domain sites and confiscate domain names in the future?  Written to prevent copyright infringement, SOPA (like RICO) is easily morphed into a political tool by a creative prosecutor or judge.  Crying "copyright infringement" is already used by political parties, corporations, and various interest groups to silence their opponents.  Youtube, Hulu, and other internet sites quickly remove vids for no other reason than that the unflattering content of those vids offend someone with a point-of-view.

Make no mistake.  Our Nanny State Betters would love more than to have legal recourse to shutting out their opponents.  Pro-life Christians?  Out.  Defenders of marriage?  Out.  Anti-public union activists?  Out.  Catholic bishops teaching the faith and "offending" delicate feelings?  Out.  Post a video of a politician saying something stupid?  Out.  Right-wing talk radio annoying you, Senator?  No worries.  You get the picture.  Just about anything can become a dispute over intellectual property with the right politician writing the definitions. 

The basic question for me is:  when has giving gov't bureaucrats more power to define and regulate our lives been a good thing?  The internet is one of the last arenas of truly free discourse in the U.S. 

Let's keep it that way!

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Coffee: it's what's for breakfast. . .and lunch and dinner!

Can I get an AMEN!

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Repairing a ruin with love

2nd Week OT (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Dominic Church, New Orleans

Listen Here (8.30 Mass)

We read this morning about two battles. The first is a contest between a Jewish boy and a Philistine warrior and is fought with a slingshot and a rock. The second is a battle between ruin and repair, and it is fought with the mercy of God and the rock of the human heart. Faced with an army of Philistines, King Saul agrees to send David against the enemy's best warrior, a giant with sword and shield, in a one on one fight to decide the war. Calling on the Lord's protection, David announces to the enemy, “All this multitude. . .shall learn that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves.” He slings a rock, kills the giant, and wins the war. In the synagogue, Jesus too faces a hostile force: a crowd of Pharisees whose hearts have been hardened by the Law. A man with a ruined hand is called before Jesus and the Pharisees wait to see if Jesus will violate the Law by repairing his hand on the Sabbath. Jesus asks, “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” His question is met with silence. He grows angry at the Pharisees and “grieves at their hardness of heart.” Jesus repairs the man's ruined hand and the Lord's enemies conspire to have him executed not realizing that he has already won this war. The Lord's mercy repairs the ruin of this world despite our opposition, despite our hardened hearts. We can benefit by stepping forward to help him, or we can suffer by testing his strength as a foe.

Though the Pharisees think that they are testing Jesus in the synagogue, it is actually Jesus who is testing them. They wait to see if he will violate the Law and heal on the Sabbath. Jesus waits to see if they will obey the Law and extend mercy to the disabled man. When the Pharisees fail his test, Jesus grieves for their hardened hearts. Why does he grieve? We grieve over the death of a loved one. We mourn their passing. Seeing into their hearts, Jesus knows that the Pharisees live with dead hearts. They cannot/will not see that under the Law they serve there is the Law of Love. Every commandment, each rule and regulation enacts, embodies the Lord's will that we seek out and make real the Good for ourselves and one another. Think back to David's announcement to the Philistine army, “All. . .shall learn that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves.” Indeed. He saves by willing that our ruin be repaired in His love. The Law the Pharisees worship is the Lord's plan for our repair, but the Law is not itself our repair. 

Jesus grows angry with the Pharisees and grieves over their dead hearts. As the keepers of the Law, they should be the first to recognize that repairing a ruined hand is vastly more important to the fulfillment of the Law than obeying the rules against healing on the Sabbath. Their failure sets them against the Lord and blinds them to his already accomplished victory. As Jesus' brothers and sisters, we are vowed to battle against the hardened hearts of this world, and, more importantly, to battle against any temptation to hardened our own hearts when given the chance to show mercy. Lest we misunderstand, mercy does not create lawlessness. We are not called to abandon truth in order to be loving. No repair, no healing can come from a lie. When we speak the truth, we heal. And that healing will not always be comfortable. Sometimes, often repairing a ruin requires demolition. But no repair of another should begin before we have demolished and repaired our own ruin. First, we receive God's mercy for ourselves; then, we give it to others. This is the only path to victory.

___________________

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+ 2 Monday

Almost forgot the Fat Report again!

+2 for a total of 333 lbs.  I think last week's -7 was a fluke.

Keep praying, please! 

___________________

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Freshly cured and newly sewn together

2nd Week OT (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St Dominic Church, New Orleans

Listen Here (8.30 Mass)

Like many converts to the Church, it took me a few years to toss out some of my religious, philosophical, and cultural baggage. I grew up a largely unchurched Baptist-Methodist. Was baptized an Episcopalian in college. Dabbled in various neo-pagan practices. Thought of myself as a Buddhist for a while. Returned to Anglicanism as an atheist-leaning agnostic. And eventually settled into that most American of religions: eclectic spirituality w/o a church. When I finally got around to swimming the Tiber, I packed up all my baggage and dragged it along with me, joining the Catholic Church as a fire-breathing progressive bent on reshaping this medieval museum of ours into a body worthy of having me as a member. Elected bishops, female priests, inclusive language bibles, and term limits for the pope were all good starts on reform. As I started seminary training, the possibilities for revolution were legion! It took one semester for me to feel the weight, the beauty of our 2,000 year old tradition and another year for me to realize the dangers of trying to cobble together a spirituality from both old and new pieces of my religious history. When the seams of my self-made cloak started to burst, I was left with two choices: continue on completely naked, making the same mistakes and suffering the same consequences; or wrap myself in the whole cloth of our centuries-old story of faith. When Samuel tells King Saul, “Obedience is better than sacrifice,” he was speaking to me as well.

So, why does Samuel berate his king? While Saul more or less complies with the Lord's commands, he does not obey; that is, he acts as God has ordered (more or less), but he does not listen, he doesn't “take in” the heart of the Lord's will and follow Him. In the imagery of Jesus' teaching from Mark, Saul sews the old patches of his willfulness onto the new cloak of the Lord's will. He pours the new wine of God's orders into the old wineskin of his habitual disobedience. Predictably, the seams of both the cloak and the wineskin tear apart, leaving Saul to clean up his own mess. His first attempt at cleaning up—excusing himself in virtue of his sacrifice—fails miserably. Samuel sets him straight right away, “Obedience is better than sacrifice!” Not just compliance, not just doing what you're told to do w/o question or doubt, but obedience, hearing and listening and taking in the heart of God's will and following Him. 

Samuel—with a rough tongue—sorts out Saul's disobedience and Saul eventually repents of his sin. This is probably a familiar pattern to all of us. Old habits left over from a Life Before Christ intrude into our Life With Christ, and we find ourselves in disobedience and in need of repentance. Sometimes it takes a brother or sister in Christ to play the role of Samuel to our Saul. Sometimes circumstances are prophetic enough to turn us around. Sickness, accident, disaster. When confronted with our disobedience to God's Word, we do well to remember the conclusion of Jesus' teaching: “. . .new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.” The Spirit of God is the new wine and we are the new wineskins, if we will be. Freshly cured, newly sewn together, and lovingly washed and oiled, we are the brand spanking new containers of the Holy Spirit. There is nothing in our pasts left to mar us, nothing remaining to pollute the new wine of the Spirit; there is nothing for us to carry around but our willingness to follow Christ. No baggage, no sad habits, no sin. Obedience—listening to and then doing God's will—is better than sacrifice, better than dotting religious “i's” and crossing ritual “t's.” It is better to wrap ourselves in the new cloak of Christ than it is to go naked and alone into the cold darkness of error and sin. 

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