The Way of Life, the Way of Death

NB.  I'm seriously considering revamping this homily.  It started in one place and ends in a completely different place.  It's almost three daily homilies just stuck together.  Feedback, please.

6th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

The Psalmist sings, “I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation!” Turning to the Lord in times of trouble is an old, old tradition of the sinner. Lord, I made another dumb choice, so I'm turning to you! Lord, I didn't anticipate the consequences of my behavior, so I'm turning to you! Lord, I know we don't really talk all that often, but I'm in real trouble here, so I'm turning to you! We've all done it. When all else fails, turn to prayer; turn to the Lord. God as Last Resort is a constant in human history and it is far better that we see Him as the Last Resort than it is to see Him as No Resort At All. But the Psalmist isn't wagging a finger at us for our infidelity. Quite the opposite. What we hear reaffirmed in this verse is the constancy of God's help and protection, most especially in times of trouble, most especially when we are least able to help and protect ourselves. Of course, the Lord watches over us; of course, the Lord lends us the help we need. However, that help may not always come in the shape and substance we want. His protection may not always look and feel like the protection we ask for. Sometimes, more often than not, the help and protection He provides is the joy of salvation, the elation of knowing that whatever trouble plagues us now cannot follow us into a righteous life. Nothing can trouble a soul at peace with the Lord, a soul that walks the Way of Life.

The Psalmist sings, “Lord, I turn to you in time of trouble, and you fix everything to my liking!” That's not right. It's “I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you rescue me from the bad consequences of all my dumb choices!” No, wait. That's not right either. That should be: “I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you remove my free will so that I won't make those dumb choices ever again!” No. The solution of our troubles is not a magical fix, or a divine rescue, or the extinction of free will. The Psalmist sings that the solution to our troubles is to be filled with the joy of salvation! To be delighted with the fact that we are children of a loving God. To take pleasure in the knowledge that while this world passes away, we remain constant in His mercy. God doesn't erase our troubles like some sort of heavenly Mr. Clean. What we are given in tumultuous times is the joy, the delight, the pleasure of knowing, feeling, living His divine love and knowing, feeling, living the absolute hard fact that there is nothing—no trouble, no disaster—greater than His love for us. God cannot love us more than He already does. He cannot be greater than Himself. But we can always be more than we are. And that is the purpose of His love for us. 

A man suffering from leprosy begs Jesus to make him clean. Jesus says to the man, “Be made clean.” And he is. Jesus tells the man to be quiet about his healing. Completely ignoring this order, the man runs around town shouting with joy, spreading the good news of his miraculous healing. Can we blame him? Leprosy is a rotting skin disease that can take years to kill. Not only is it a terminal illness, in those days, it turned the sufferer into a social pariah, someone to be exiled, avoided. Moses ordered that all lepers were to tear their garments, keep their heads bares, cover their mouths, and shout, “Unclean! Unclean!” everywhere they went. They were exiled to live outside the camp, outside the protection of the tribe. When Jesus heals the leper, he not only cures his disease, he lifts a social death sentence. No wonder the grateful man ignores Jesus' order to remain silent and runs the streets shouting the joy of his salvation. 

The purpose of God's love for us is to boot us into being better than we are. He will not overwhelm the freedom that He has given us nor will He punish us for making the wrong choices. We freely choose to love, to hate, to lie, to forgive, and then we live with the consequences of those choices—good or bad. God's love for us shows us the way to His peace, the way to His righteousness. We follow the Way, or we do not. Both those who follow and those who choose another way suffer disease and disaster. But those who follow the Way know the joy of salvation in their suffering, the delight of being wholly loved through their trials. We who follow the Way may experience a miraculous healing, a miraculous intervention that relieves our pain and distress, but all we are sure of is the company of a Father's love for His child. That surety alone brings us closer to being perfect as the Father is perfect. It brings us that much closer to the knowledge and peace that surpasses all understanding, that much closer to seeing our troubles as God Himself sees them: temporary, of a moment. He draws us into eternity, seduces us into living our lives as if we were already with Him face-to-face, doing nothing other than giving away everything we have always been given. To use a contemporary image: we are recycling machines for the love that gave us life. God's love goes in at our creation, and we live and grow by turning that love into righteous human thought, word, and deed. When we fail to function properly, when we turn divine love into spite, revenge, despair, selfishness, we turn to the Lord and He fills us again with the joy of salvation!

The Way that leads to a peaceful soul is always the way of life. In the first century, an unnamed Christian wrote a small book called The Didache. The first sentence of this book reads, “There are two ways, one of life and one of death; but a great difference between the two ways.” What is the Way of Life? He writes, “First, you shall love God who made you; second, your neighbor as yourself; and all things whatsoever you would not have done to you, do not do to another.” What is the Way of Death? He writes in part, “First of all it is evil and full of curse. . .hating truth, loving a lie. . .not pitying a poor man, not laboring for the afflicted, not knowing Him that made them, murderers of children, destroyers of the handiwork of God. . .” The way to peace is the Way of Life—loving, forgiving, trusting in God. The way to trouble and trial is the Way of Death—destroying the handiwork of God. 

When we hate truth and love a lie, we walk the Way of Death and set up for ourselves an idol, an image to worship. What idol tempts us in 2012? The image of the human person as an animal w/o a soul, an animal that only needs to eat, drink, sleep, have sex, and get all that it can before it dies. When we reduce the human person to nothing more than an animal, we invite upon ourselves a darkness and despair that will not permit us to see or feel or think beyond our next meal, beyond our next bed partner. When we understand ourselves as nothing more than soulless animals, we begin to think that the destruction of God's handiwork—the destruction of our children—is a duty, a right, even a blessing. When we think of ourselves as nothing more than soulless animals, we begin to think of ourselves as gods, as masters of creation with the power to deal death at a whim. This is not who we were created to be. God loves us to make us better than we can be on our own. He gives us the joy of salvation in the time of trouble so that we might overcome death and despair. We turn to the Lord and His Way of Life. We turn away from the Way of Death and rejoice that we are healed!

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U.S. Bishops to BO: Rescind the Mandate!

Below is the most recent statement from the USCCB. . .despite the convoluted bureaucratese that these things are always composed with, the statement is adequate. . .for now.  However, one sentence near the end nearly surrenders the battle.  We can be thankful that our bishops were not duped by this highly dubious "accommodation."  Let's pray that they continue the fight!

WASHINGTON – The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have issued the following statement:

The Catholic bishops have long supported access to life-affirming healthcare for all, and the conscience rights of everyone involved in the complex process of providing that healthcare. That is why we raised two serious objections to the "preventive services" regulation issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in August 2011.

First, we objected to the rule forcing private health plans — nationwide, by the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen—to cover sterilization and contraception, including drugs that may cause abortion. All the other mandated "preventive services" prevent disease, and pregnancy is not a disease. Moreover, forcing plans to cover abortifacients violates existing federal conscience laws. Therefore, we called for the rescission of the mandate altogether.

Second, we explained that the mandate would impose a burden of unprecedented reach and severity on the consciences of those who consider such "services" immoral: insurers forced to write policies including this coverage; employers and schools forced to sponsor and subsidize the coverage; and individual employees and students forced to pay premiums for the coverage. We therefore urged HHS, if it insisted on keeping the mandate, to provide a conscience exemption for all of these stakeholders—not just the extremely small subset of "religious employers" that HHS proposed to exempt initially.

Today, the President has done two things.

First, he has decided to retain HHS's nationwide mandate of insurance coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacients. This is both unsupported in the law and remains a grave moral concern. We cannot fail to reiterate this, even as so many would focus exclusively on the question of religious liberty.

Second, the President has announced some changes in how that mandate will be administered, which is still unclear in its details. As far as we can tell at this point, the change appears to have the following basic contours:

--It would still mandate that all insurers must include coverage for the objectionable services in all the policies they would write. At this point, it would appear that self-insuring religious employers, and religious insurance companies, are not exempt from this mandate.

--It would allow non-profit, religious employers to declare that they do not offer such coverage. But the employee and insurer may separately agree to add that coverage. The employee would not have to pay any additional amount to obtain this coverage, and the coverage would be provided as a part of the employer's policy, not as a separate rider.

--Finally, we are told that the one-year extension on the effective date (from August 1, 2012 to August 1, 2013) is available to any non-profit religious employer who desires it, without any government application or approval process.

These changes require careful moral analysis, and moreover, appear subject to some measure of change. But we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders—for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals—is unacceptable and must be corrected. And in the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer's plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.

We just received information about this proposal for the first time this morning; we were not consulted in advance. Some information we have is in writing and some is oral. We will, of course, continue to press for the greatest conscience protection we can secure from the Executive Branch (No, no, no.  This sentence concedes the ground to B.O. and his allies.  Why are we pressing B.O. to grant us meager exemptions to our fundamental constitutional right to the free exercise of our religion?  We are not petitioning a monarch to graciously grant us a boon.  We are demanding that a public servant do his sworn duty and uphold our God-given natural rights). But stepping away from the particulars, we note that today's proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions (Much, much better!). In a nation dedicated to religious liberty as its first and founding principle, we should not be limited to negotiating within these parameters. The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services (Yes!).

We will therefore continue—with no less vigor, no less sense of urgency—our efforts to correct this problem through the other two branches of government. For example, we renew our call on Congress to pass, and the Administration to sign, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. And we renew our call to the Catholic faithful, and to all our fellow Americans, to join together in this effort to protect religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all.

 

This power-grab by B.O. and his Culture of Death allies is just a warm-up to the kinds of battles we can expect in the future if ObamaCare is allowed to remain in effect.  

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USCCB Statement on Obama "Accommodation"

Statement from the USCCB on B.O.'s "accommodation" proposal:

WASHINGTON— The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sees initial opportunities in preserving the principle of religious freedom after President Obama’s announcement today. But the Conference continues to express concerns. “While there may be an openness to respond to some of our concerns, we reserve judgment on the details until we have them,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of USCCB.

“The past three weeks have witnessed a remarkable unity of Americans from all religions or none at all worried about the erosion of religious freedom and governmental intrusion into issues of faith and morals,” he said.

“Today’s decision to revise how individuals obtain services that are morally objectionable to religious entities and people of faith is a first step in the right direction,” Cardinal-designate Dolan said. “We hope to work with the Administration to guarantee that Americans’ consciences and our religious freedom are not harmed by these regulations.”

We should all thank our Dear Leader for deigning to accommodate us in the exercise of our 1st Amendment rights and the enjoyment of our religious liberties.  We know he's only trying to do what's best for us, but sometimes we Silly Religious Folk must be indulged.

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Bishops, don't be duped!

About that "accommodation" on birth-control coverage that B.O. proposed this afternoon. . .

It changes nothing.   The Church will still have to pay to violate her conscience.  The only difference now is that B.O. is saying, "They don't have to pay."  In the world of postmodern politics, this counts as an accommodation.

From Hot Air:

Let’s just take this one step at a time.  Where do insurers get money to pay claims?  They collect premiums and co-pays from the insured group or risk pool.  No matter what the Obama administration wants to say now, the money that will cover those contraception costs will come from the religious organizations that must now by law buy that insurance and pay those premiums.  Their religious doctrines have long-standing prohibitions against participating in contraception and abortion, and nothing in this “accommodation” changes the fact that the government is now forcing them to both fund and facilitate access to products and services that offend their practice of religion.

Basically, the Obama administration told religious organizations to stop complaining and get in line.  This “accommodation” only attempts to accommodate Obama’s political standing and nothing more.

Please pray that our bishops are not duped by this cynical tactic.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

B.O. "doubles down" on Stupid. NB.  There is NO "compromise" possible here.  That's like saying it's possible to poison just half of an aquarium. How do we half-way violate our conscience and half-way surrender religious liberty?

UPDATE:  Looks like B.O. is ready to cave.  Prepare for the harpies of the culture of death to begin their hysterical screeching.

Speaking of the harpies of the culture of death:  the real reason Planned Parenthood freaked out over the lose of Komen money?  

The 9th Circus rules that 54% of the citizen-voters in California are not capable of deciding what marriage ought to be.  Bottomline:  "civil unions" really are a slippery slope to same-sex "marriage."

Heh.  Now that Their Guy in the W.H., Dems suddenly decide that W's war-mongering, Hitleresque, blood for oil anti-terrorist tactics are just fine.  These tactics were wrong when W used them and they are wrong now. 

More cold scientific water tossed on "global warming" hysteria. 

Funny animal pics. . .

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Thanks!

A BIG Thank You to Michael S. for the Kindle Book.  And be assured of my prayers for you and your family!

I've heard very good things about Vaughn Heppner's work.  He combines some of my fav fictional elements:  alternative history, military action, sci-fi, current events. . .

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Misc. updates. . .

Why no homily yesterday?

We had a School Mass at 8.30am, and I usually preach to the kids w/o a text.  

I had another School Mass at Mt. Carmel Academy--also textless.

Fr. Michael is on vacation, so the links to the recorded Masses won't be updated for awhile.  I might start recording just my homilies again. . .once I find a digital voice recorder with a USB uplink.  The one I have doesn't use the mp3 format.  

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Dieting advice from Jesus. . .???

5th Week OT (W)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Eat five fruits and vegetables daily. Drink six to eight 8 oz. glasses of water daily. Never skip breakfast. Eat protein and complex carbs six times a day. Don’t eat after eight o’clock at night. “Fat-free” doesn’t mean “calorie-free”—read the label! Take smaller portions and chew slowly. Wear a tight belt at meals. Don’t eat alone. Bright green socks will distract you during meals. Eat left-handed. Stick grapefruit seeds behind your ears to rev-up your metabolism. Watch back to back episodes of the surgery channel while eating—especially when they do the eyes! Eat naked in front of a mirror. Eat with your hands. Let someone else feed you. But under no circumstances are you to allow someone else to feed you while sitting naked in front of a mirror wearing green socks with grapefruit seeds stuck behind your ears! That’s just silly. And we don’t want to be silly about our eating habits, do we? Just tell family and friends that you are on a diet and wait for the silly advice to flow. It's almost as if dieting were all about what you do and do not eat. If you've ever been on a diet, you know all too well that dieting is as much about how you think about food as it is about what and how much you eat. Like Jesus says, “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile [a] person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”

Jesus isn't arguing against the Pharisees' unhealthy eating habits; he's point out to them the foolishness of believing that we can be made unclean by what we put into our bodies. Cleanliness and uncleanliness is not about eating or refraining from eating this or that food. What truly makes us clean or unclean is what comes out from our heart; that is, our words and behaviors indicate whether or not we are holy. He says, “. . . [nothing] that goes into a person from outside [can] defile, since it enters [the stomach] not the heart. . .and passes out into the latrine.” All of the hundreds of dietary laws observed and enforced by the Pharisees are useless in the pursuit of holiness if the heart is left to soak in “evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, and folly.” He concludes the lesson with a simple statement: “All these evils come from within and they defile.”

Catholics really don't worry too much about eating unclean foods. So, that's not our lesson. Let's expand on Jesus' point. Pray the rosary. Recite the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Offer up a novena to the Blessed Mother. Visit the Stations of the Cross. Do this everyday for a year. Are you holier? Maybe but not necessarily. Acts of devotion are effective if and only if you perform them devoutly. In other words, no religious act can in itself make you holy unless you perform them out of a genuine love for God. If eating this or that sort of food cannot make you unclean, then performing this or that devotion is not going to make you holy. Holiness comes from a heart already and always given over to the enduring love of God. Devotional prayer expresses that love and gives a public witness to what God can do for us and to us when we surrender ourselves to His will. Jesus clearly teaches us that it is what comes out of the human heart that makes us clean, or holy, or righteous. You can pray the rosary 12 times a day, but if you exude unchastity, greed, malice, deceit, envy, arrogance, and folly, then your prayer is fruitless. The Psalmist sings, “The mouth of the just murmurs wisdom.” Let nothing but God's love part your lips and grow in wisdom as His reward.

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HHS Mandate Statements from OP's?

The Nashville Dominican Sisters have issued a statement on the unconscionable mandate imposed on religious employers by the B.O. administration.

I am eager to post links to statements by other members of the Dominican family--nuns, friars, sisters, laity--addressing this gross violation of our religious liberty.

The process for producing a corporate statement from the friars is cumbersome, so there probably won't be anything as grand from us as the Nashville's produced.  

Anyway, let me know if you find anything!

God bless, Fr. Philip Neri, OP

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Nashville Dominican Sisters Say NO to B.O. Anti-Catholic Mandate

A recently released statement from the Nashville Dominican Sisters:

Statement from Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia Congregation February 6, 2012

Health Insurance Mandate: Religious Freedom and Conscience Rights in United States 

Seriously Threatened

The United States, from its very beginnings, has been an example of true human freedom and religious liberty for all. During its history, in fact, our nation has sheltered countless people who came here from countries where their basic freedoms were either in danger or being denied altogether. Sadly, Americans now face a similar threat. At this moment, which is strange and new to us, our own religious freedom and rights of conscience are in jeopardy. Sharing the very serious concerns expressed by Pope Benedict XVI and by our U.S. bishops in recent weeks, the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia will set aside nine days of prayer and fasting during the month of February, asking Our Lady to intercede for our country.

Background

The Holy Father noted in a recent address to U.S. Bishops visiting Rome that Catholics in the United States face "grave threats to the Church's public witness" and "attempts to limit the most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion." He was responding to the American bishops' concerns about "concerted efforts...to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices" and the "tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship." Pope Benedict stressed that it is imperative that "the entire Catholic community in the United States" recognize and counter these threats.

While faced with multiple threats to religious liberty, the most immediate concern is a January 20, 2012 ruling by the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), made in conjunction with the recently approved healthcare law. In identifying the "preventive services" that must be covered in most health insurance plans, this HHS mandate specifies "all FDA approved forms of contraception," including sterilization and some abortifacients. Although the ruling does allow an exemption for certain religious organizations, the exemption is so narrow that most religious institutions - including most Catholic schools, colleges and universities, hospitals, and charitable agencies - do not meet the criteria.

As a result of this ruling, religious employers will be required to pay for forms of health insurance coverage that violate both their religious beliefs and their rights of conscience. This would be the case with employers at both Catholic and many other religiously-affiliated institutions.

This decision was immediately denounced by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as well as numerous individual bishops and other religious leaders, both Christian and non-Christian. According to the terms of the mandate, most new and renewed health plans will be required to include the aforementioned services beginning August 1, 2012. Nonprofit employers who, because of their religious beliefs, do not currently provide contraceptive coverage, may have an additional year, until August 1, 2013, to comply with the new law; but they must certify that they qualify for delayed implementation. In the meantime, they must provide their employees with specific information about sites where "contraceptive services" can be obtained. Thus religious employers are obliged by law to cooperate in actions which they hold in conscience to be intrinsically evil.

Cardinal-Designate Timothy M. Dolan, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has termed the HHS decision "literally unconscionable." The Washington Post, in a January 22 editorial, noted that the final HHS ruling "fails to address the fundamental problem of requiring religiously affiliated entities to spend their own money in a way that contradicts the tenets of their faith."

Numerous bishops and other religious leaders have continued to issue public protests against the HHS decision. The bishops have vowed to continue fighting the mandate, urging their people to do the same.

The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia Congregation strongly share the concern of our bishops and other religious leaders who have expressed opposition to this decision of the HHS. We are providing in this newsletter links to statements and articles giving more complete information about the implications of this ruling, one which poses an unprecedented threat to freedom of religion and conscience in our country.

United in Prayer

We beg God for the preservation of our great and beautiful country, and of the freedom we have all enjoyed and been privileged to share with others. The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia invite you to join with us in a novena of prayer and fasting, asking Mary, Patroness of the United States of America, to implore God's loving mercy on us at this critical time. The novena will begin February 11 and end February 19, 2012. The sisters will be praying the following prayer each of the nine days.

Act of Consecration of the United States to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Most Holy Trinity: Our Father in heaven, who chose Mary as the fairest of your daughters; Holy Spirit, who chose Mary as your spouse; God the Son, who chose Mary as your Mother; in union with Mary, we adore your majesty and acknowledge your supreme, eternal dominion and authority.

Most Holy Trinity, we put the United States of America into the hands of Mary Immaculate in order that she may present the country to you. Through her we wish to thank you for the great resources of this land and for the freedom, which has been its heritage. Through the intercession of Mary, have mercy on the Catholic Church in America. Grant us peace. Have mercy on our president and on all the officers of our government. Grant us a fruitful economy born of justice and charity. Have mercy on capital and industry and labor. Protect the family life of the nation. Guard the precious gift of many religious vocations. Through the intercession of our Mother, have mercy on the sick, the poor, the tempted, sinners - on all who are in need.

Mary, Immaculate Virgin, our Mother, Patroness of our land, we praise you and honor you and give our country and ourselves to your sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. O Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pierced by the sword of sorrow prophesied by Simeon, save us from degeneration, disaster and war. Protect us from all harm. O Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, you who bore the sufferings of your Son in the depths of your heart, be our advocate. Pray for us, that acting always according to your will and the will of your divine Son, we may live and die pleasing to God. Amen.

(Imprimatur, Patrick Cardinal O'Boyle, Archbishop of Washington, 1959, for public consecration of the United States to the Immaculate Heart of Mary; renewed by U.S. Bishops, November 11, 2006)

NB.  We eagerly await statements from other congregations of Dominican sisters and from the friars of the U.S. Dominican provinces.

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No, the Church has NOT vowed war on B.O.

This morning's headline on Drudge reads:

CHURCH VOWS WAR ON OBAMA 

'FIGHT IN STREETS'

Two points here: 1) No. . .and. . .hmmmmmm. . .2) No.

No.  The Church has not "vowed war on Obama."  A large majority of U.S. bishops have vowed to fight an Obama administration policy decision.  The headline above gives the distinct impression that this is some sort of personal, partisan battle. . .like rooting for one team over another at the Super Bowl. B.O. has attacked religious liberty by attacking Catholic conscience.  But the fight here is not against him as a partisan player.  

(Don't get me wrong:  I will be delighted to see him lose in November, but that's not because I am a die-hard Republican and I just want "my side" to win.  I'm looking forward to the campaign about as much as I am looking forward to my first colonoscopy.  If B.O. loses and his GOP replacement pursues anti-Catholic/anti-religious policies/anti-life similar to B.O.'s, I'll be just as happy to see him lose in 2016).

And. . .please note that the "fight in the streets" quote is not from a bishop or any official Church office.  It's from Bill Donohue of the Catholic League.

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Touching the Ineffable

5th Week OT (M)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Just about every spiritual director I've ever had has asked me to describe my image of God. Do I see God as a distant father? A nurturing mother? An impersonal cosmic force? A cruel judge? Being a Christian, I always said, “I see Jesus.” The point of the exercise was to get an idea of my relationship with God. One's relationship with a petty and vengeful tyrant is very different than one's relationship with a benevolent cosmic force. Most of the directors we had available to us in seminary we of the Feel Good Religious Social Worker variety, so they were usually delighted when we described our image of God in gender-neutral, morally ambiguous terms. The more abstract our image of the divine, the happier they were. My answer—“I see Jesus”—usually got a blank stare or a longish pause. Yes, I see God as both human and divine, a divine person—the Son—given flesh and bone. But I see God Himself as ultimately unknowable in merely human terms, what St Gregory of Nyssa calls “Impenetrable Darkness.” This is not the darkness of an evil god but rather the darkness of human ignorance when confronted by the ineffable nature of the Divine. God is both unknowable in Himself and intimately known in Christ Jesus.

Our readings today bear this out. In 1 Kings we read that the glory of the Lord manifests as a cloud in the temple of Solomon, preventing the priests from ministering at the altars. Solomon proclaims, "The Lord intends to dwell in the dark cloud. . .” and he believes that his temple provides a place for that cloud to abide forever. In Mark's gospel, we read a radically differently description of God in the person of Jesus, “Whatever villages. . .he entered, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak; and as many as touched it were healed.” From a dark cloud billowing in Solomon's temple to walking the hillsides Palestine, our God is at once presented in the glory of His untouchable divinity, and in the humility of his all-too-touchable humanity. The genius of our faith is that our God transcends His creation as its Father; and He abides with His creation as the Holy Spirit. He is with us and beyond us, always right here among us and always exceeding, surpassing everything He has created. 

Before and after the new Missal translation was approved for use in the U.S., several bishops, liturgists, and theologians objected to the reintroduction of the word “ineffable” into the prayer life of the Church. They argued that the word was arcane or too philosophical or too confusing for the poor average Catholic pew-sitter to understand. Try to describe the joy you felt at the birth of your child. Try to describe the pain you felt at the death of a loved one. When you find yourself at a loss for words, you have found an ineffable experience. The glory of God that clouds Solomon's temple is ineffable. The joy of those healed by touching the tassels of Jesus' cloak is ineffable. What's not ineffable, what's not beyond our words to describe is the mission and ministry of the man, Jesus Christ. He walked the hills of ancient Judea preaching, teaching, healing, casting out unclean spirits, and sometimes fleeing the needy crowds of those who hope to touch him! And that they could touch him—the Word made flesh—is the genius of our faith. They could lay hands on the Lord and receive his blessing. We can do that and more. We can receive him, body and blood. And we can go out to follow him by bringing others to him. Bring the sick to him. All they need do is touch Christ to know him and his healing.

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+1 Fat Monday Report

Up by 1 this week to 328. . .not as bad as I was thinking it was gonna be.

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Deacons' weekend. . .

No Sunday homily from me this week. . .our deacons are preaching.

See ya Monday!

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Pope Nope I

Maybe a little over the top. . .

. . .but not inaccurate.

Credit:  HotAir
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