Your Year of Faith

Today marks the beginning of The Year of Faith!

Catholic Culture has a comprehensive list of web resources for your clicking pleasure.

Here are three suggestions from Yours Truly:

1).  Commit to making more and better use of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  I hear confessions daily and can tell you that too many Catholics allow themselves to remain "stuck" outside God's loving mercy b/c they falsely believe that God cannot or will not forgive their sins.  Your sins are already forgiven!  Go to confession and receive the forgiveness God has freely given you.

2).  Make Sunday Mass a priority.  Not only is Sunday Mass attendance a precept of the Church, it is also the best way to start your week off right.  Don't allow football games, shopping, "family time," etc. prevent you and your family from spending (at most) an hour and a half of your Sunday at Mass.   While I'm here, let me rail against "parish shopping."  Go to your parish church for Mass.  I know, I know:  the choir at your parish is awful; the pastor is a heretic; they have chubby, middle-aged liturgical dancers. . .none of that will change if you aren't there to encourage change.  How do you think the Spirit of Vatican Two Peace Bong crowd managed to take over and ruin your parish in the first place?  Hint:  they didn't all run to St. Bozo's b/c they liked the hootenanny Mass better.  They stayed where they were and worked from the inside.  Follow their example.

3).  You knew this one was coming:  Demand better preaching!  I won't flog this.  Suffice it to say, preaching in the RCC will not improve until Catholics demand/expect/reward better preaching.  I'm heartened to read accounts from all over the world of good preaching.  Things are improving.  But we have a long way to go.  

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Two. . .count 'em. . .TWO classes!

Woo-Hoo!!!

Scored two classes at Notre Dame Seminary in the spring:  Intro to Modern Philosophy and Intro to the New Testament.

So, it'll be Descartes/Nietzsche/Kant in the morning and Jesus/Paul/John in the afternoon.

Whew.  That's a loooooong day.
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Prayer as a tool for sinners

27th Week OT (W)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

The disciples say to Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray. . .” He responds by giving them The Lord's Prayer. Because he gives his disciples The Lord's Prayer in response to their request for instruction in prayer, we assume that the prayer he gives them is how we ought to pray. And so, we recite the Lord's Prayer at every celebration of the Eucharist; many times while praying the rosary; and pretty much anytime we feel the urge to talk to God. It's the perfect prayer. We praise God. We petition Him for our needs. We beg forgiveness. And we ask to be spared the trails of temptation. Not only is it the perfect prayer, it is also an excellent summary of Christian teaching, focusing squarely on the necessity of humility, the need for us to acknowledge our total dependence on God in our daily growth toward holiness. Notice that Jesus doesn't give us a particular posture for prayer. He doesn't tell us to sing the prayer or chant it or rush through it like an auctioneer. There are no special garments or hats or jewelry to wear. In fact, the perfection of this prayer rests in its comprehensive simplicity, its all-encompassing restraint as a means of talking to God. If prayer shapes the one praying, how does The Lord's Prayer mold a Christian into a saint? 

Let's be as clear as possible here: prayer does nothing—absolutely nothing—to God or for God. He doesn't need our prayer. Our prayer cannot change His mind or influence His disposition towards us. The promises He made to our ancestors in faith have been fulfilled in Christ Jesus and every grace we will ever need has already been bestowed. To believe that prayer elicits a response from God implies that we have some kind of control over His will; that we—His creatures—can alter His will. This idea turns faith into magic and a prayer into a spell. Prayers are not incantations that guarantee us the results we desire. Let's remove from our way of thinking about prayer any notion that we are capable of generating or procuring or guaranteeing a gift from God through prayer. True humility—the basis of all prayer—is achieved through perfect surrender, through total detachment from any thought, word, or deed that suggests we are in charge of the blessings we are given. St. Augustine puts it succinctly, “Man is a beggar before God.” If all of this is true, why pray at all? Why petition God for our needs if every gift we will get has already been given? Why bother? 

Prayer is a tool for turning sinners into saints. Think of prayer as a carving knife, whittling away sin to reveal the saint underneath. Think of prayer as a hot bath, soaking away the grime and ache of sin to produce a freshly scrubbed and relaxed soul. Think of prayer as a visit with God where you receive all the gifts He has to give you. Though He is always with us, we are not always with Him. So, everything about prayer is designed to put us fully, consciously in His presence. Words, images, gestures, posture, touching all the senses so that we are fully, consciously engaged in giving Him thanks and praise for His graces. The more we carve, the harder we scrub, the longer we visit, the more acutely aware of His presence we become, and the more fervently we receive His gifts, the better able we are to say, “Thank you, Lord!” Prayer is how we learn to be better beggars before our God. Not b/c God needs us to be beggars, but b/c beggars are truly free to enjoy every gift they are given, every gift they receive. Pride cannot beg. And pride cannot gratefully receive a gift. Saints are sinners who have learned to beg God for His mercy and receive His mercy with thanksgiving. 

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Monks and friars. . .oh my!

Monks of Clear Creek Abbey

Third from the left is a former U.D. student of mine:  James Garrity


Dominican student brothers in Oakland, CA (below)

 Back row, second on the left is a former U.D. student of mine, Thomas More Barba

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Prayer request. . .

Received some VERY good news this morning. . .can't share just yet b/c it's not official and may not be for some time (or ever).

However, I ask for your prayers that all turns out for the best!

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R.I.P.

Just got word from the provincial that Fr. Aaron Arce, OP died this morning.

R.I.P.

P.S. Fr. Aaron was the cheeky friar who coined the term, "Ample Friar" to refer to those of us--like himself--who are less than Gym Bunny sized.
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Fr. Kappes heading home. . .

from IndyStar.com:

 

12:10 PM -- Family: Missing priest has left Greece

 

The Rev. Christiaan Kappes is safely out of Greece and will return home to Indianapolis, his family said this morning.

Kappes' sister, Nadia Kappes Charcap, said she received a call from her brother this morning saying he left Greece and was in another country, which she would not disclose.

The Indianapolis priest and his Greek translator disappeared around Oct. 1, after he called his family to say he was concerned for his safety.

The priest's father also said the interpreter was safely out of Greece.

[. . .]

More here:  IndyStar.com

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A gospel of life

27th Week OT (M)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Paul admonishes the Christians in Galatia for forsaking the gospel of Christ and embracing a different, perverted gospel. Some of the leaders in the Galatian church were teaching that Gentile converts must be circumcised before they can be baptized. These so-called “Judaizers” were, in effect, requiring Gentiles to become Jews before they could become fully Christian. Two thousand years later, and in the light of contemporary controversies, the Judaizing controversy seems obscure, maybe even a bit silly. So, imagine Paul's reaction if he were to visit the Church in 2012 and discover that life-long members of the Church have embraced as morally good some or all of the tenets of the gospel of death—abortion, euthanasia, same-sex “marriage,” artificial contraception, torture. I daresay we'd see him left the roof of this church building, “. . .if anyone preaches to you a gospel other than the one that you received, let that one be accursed!” The gospel of Jesus Christ, the one we have received from the apostles, is a gospel of life, unapologetically, unashamedly, enthusiastically, a gospel that proclaims the essential goodness of all life and celebrates the freedom that comes with a life lived serving with mercy the least among God's children. 

Pope John Paul II coined the phrase “culture of death” in the 1995 encyclical, Evangelium vitae. He describes “structures of sin” that suppress the conscience and allow evil to flourish disguised as mercy. These structures filter in the daily lives of communities and form a “culture of death,” that is, a way of living based on economic efficiency, a system of efficiency that always privileges the strong against the weak. This system looks to death as a solution for the inevitable problems of being human. He writes, “. . .a life which would require greater acceptance, love and care is considered useless, or held to be an intolerable burden, and is therefore rejected in one way or another”(12). Unplanned pregnancies, children with disabilities or diseases, the terminally ill, the elderly, the incurably criminal—all are seen as weak, useless, intolerable burdens and put to death to insure the efficient operation of society for the benefit of the physically, mentally, and financially strong. The culture of death preaches and practices a perverted gospel that no follower of Christ can embrace. 

The scholar of the law wants to know how he can inherit eternal life. Jesus asks him to recite the Law. He scholar says, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says, “Yup, that's it. Do it and you will live.” When the lawyer asks Jesus to define the term “neighbor,” Jesus tells him the parable of the Good Samaritan and then asks him which of the passers-by acted as the injured man's neighbor. The lawyer says, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.” That's the Gospel of Life. Because you love God with your whole being, treat those most in need with the same mercy that God has shown you. There is no mercy in killing an unplanned child. There is no mercy in killing a child who will be born with a disability. There is no mercy in killing someone who is terminally ill. There is no mercy in killing the elderly. There is no mercy in killing a criminal.* Every abortion, every act of euthanasia, every execution is a failure to love God and neighbor, and a repudiation of the mercy we ourselves have received. Not only do we reject God's mercy in these acts, we lend spiritual support to hopelessness and foster despair. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the gospel of life. “If anyone preaches to you a gospel other than the one that you received, let that one be accursed!” 

*Before I am admonished in the combox for drawing a moral equivalency btw abortion and capital punishment, let me say:  there is no moral equivalency btw the two.  Abortion kills an innocent life and can never be called good.  The Church allows an execution to be called good under very restricted and rarely occuring circumstances.  My point here is that executing a criminal--no matter how richly deserved--is still an act of despair precisely b/c it denies it possibility of repentance and forgiveness.

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Divorce, Remarriage. . .(Audio file)

Audio file for the homily:  27th Sunday in OT

Divorce, remarriage, and the love of God  (text)

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Divorce, remarriage, and the love of God

NB. I have a Dominican laity Serra Club retreat all day today. So, this homily is an edited repost from 2006. 

27th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Audio File

What does it mean to accept the Kingdom of God like a child? Jesus says quite plainly that we must come to accept his Father’s Kingdom like a child would, open our lives to His rule if we are to be a part of the glory that is to come. Living with God forever is not a reward for good behavior or right belief, it is the supernatural consequence of a life lived in right relationship, in righteousness, with He Who loved you into being, loved you into redemption, and loves you even now, drawing you to Him, seducing your heart, wooing your soul back to the source of all peace, of all happiness, pulling you back to Him. 

To accept the Kingdom of God like a child means first that you respond to our Father’s clarion call to come home to Him without argument, without pretense, without guile, without need for evidence or proof. You come home to rest because home is where you most belong. Because resting in God is the rest that comforts your nastiest hurts and eases your most tedious worries. You come home to rest in God because you know and accept—as any child would—that there is no argument for love, no pretense in belonging. The bond between you and God, between all of us and God was forged at the welding of creation, from the instantaneous explosion of Nothing into Everything, we are bound to Him, indelibly marked by His love precisely because He is Love and Love is Who He Is. To know as true and accept as real that you are brought out of nothingness, shaped body and soul by Love, held in being by Love, and seduced back to Love while you seek after holiness—to know these as true, to accept these as real—THIS is what it means to look up into the face of Jesus, to come to him, to be embraced and blessed by him as a child and to live with him forever. 

Forgive me, I’m going to become a professor for a second: Coming before everything we have freely chosen ourselves to be is the primal kinship between each of us and God. There is nothing about us more basic, more fundamental than the fact that we exist. We ARE. This fact means that we are loved. God is Love. And we continue to exist because He loves us. God made us in His image and likeness. He made us for no other reason than to live in perfect relationship with Him. It follows then that every relationship we can name, every connection we can point to, every single kinship we have is given to us by God and is a reflection of our most primitive relationship with Love, with God. We can have no relationship with each other or with anything in creation that is not first a relationship with God, first a kinship with Love Who made us. Now, I can say: the question the Pharisees ask Jesus about divorce obscures the purpose of our creation, misses the point of our very existence; in fact, it betrays a deep misunderstanding of who we are made finally to be. 

You are probably saying, “Wow, Father, took you long enough to get to divorce!” It did. Here’s why: how easy for me to stand up here and teach what the Church teaches about marriage and divorce, pointing to all the relevant texts—all read this afternoon—and pointing to the CCC and telling you what you already know: marriage is permanent, therefore, divorce is impossible. But you might think that this is a social policy issue, or a cultural problem, or a private choice. You might think that the Church needs to loosen its teachings on marriage or ease its strict understanding of divorce. I spent so much time laying out our childlike relationship with God so that I can say this: divorce is impossible because it is impossible for us NOT to have a relationship with God—even if that relationship is broken and deeply impaired, it is still a relationship in love. What God has joined, no man must separate. 

OK. That sounds odd. Divorce/remarriage is impossible because it is impossible for us not to have a relationship with God. Think about it: God created Man, Adam and Eve. In the more detailed telling of the two Genesis stories of creation, God uses Adam’s rib to create Eve. God brings this newly created person to Adam for a name. He names her “woman.” The story continues with this explanation of marriage: this is why a man leaves his mom and dad and clings to his wife and the two become one flesh. Perhaps it should read, “and the two become one flesh again.” 

My point is simple: our most basic relationship is with God, the One in Whom we find our completion, our wholeness, and our end; marriage then embodies the search for and discovery of wholeness and the consummation of a single person’s separated existence into a completed existence. In other words, the sacrament of marriage signifies and makes present the joining of the creature with his or her Creator. Marriage is a sacrament of redemption. Divorce/remarriage is impossible because divorce/remarriage implies that marriage, a sacrament of our healing, can mean something else entirely. It cannot. It cannot mean anything other than the sacramental joining of one man and one woman into one flesh for the purpose of expressing Christ's love for his Church and the raising of a natural family. This definition of marriage was not born in hatred or bigotry. It simply expresses the stark truth of reality. 

All this is well and good. But what do we do with Catholics who have divorced and remarried? This will sound harsh. We do with divorced and remarried Catholics what we do with all those who disobey God, what we do with all those who manage to mess up their relationship with the One Who loves us completely. We do with divorced and remarried Catholics exactly what we do with fornicators, apostates, adulterers, abusive priests, irresponsible bishops, and heretics; we do what we do with you and with me when we sin—we stand here imperfect in the truth of the faith, clearly proclaiming the golden standard of holiness to which we are all called, readily naming our own sins, our own need for forgiveness, and we welcome them—all of them—back to a life of righteousness, always back to Love, always back to that which they and we resist in our most hateful moments of pride: Christ’s patient, loving embrace. There is no alternative here. No other way to go. Absolution of sin requires repentance. To freely receive God's freely given mercy, we must repent, turn away from sin. 

We cannot lie about divorce/remarriage or adultery or fornication, or any sin for that matter. Pretending that sin isn’t sin or renaming sin to hide its ugliness does nothing to the reality of a broken relationship. We might as well conclude that gravity is a hateful notion and decide to ignore it. Dropped dishes will still fall. Airplanes will still need speed and thrust to fly. And divorce/remarriage is impossible not because the Church says so, not even because Jesus say so, but because marriage is a living witness to the most basic hunger we have, the most basic satisfaction we can find: the love of God. Marriage cannot be what it is not. And neither can we. 

Know and accept, therefore, the embrace and blessing of Christ. If you are married, make that commitment shine like the sun for our good and yours. If you are divorced and remarried, come back; come back to us for your holiness and for ours. We need your matrimonial witness. We are one flesh, one Body in Christ. Pope Benedict writes in his letter, Deus caritas est, that when we embrace Christ and his blessing, “God's way of loving becomes the measure of human love.” There is no better measure of mercy and there is no better way home.

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P.C. ideology & the Republic

For readers who miss political commentary on HancAquam: I ran across this quote on Instapundit that sums up nicely my own views:

Political tags – such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth – are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.   -- Robert A. Heinlein 

Heinlein's two categories of people implies a third, more dangerous category: those who want to control others using political means.  To my mind, there is a stark distinction to be made between using the law to establish civil boundaries for public behavior (boundaries that rule out direct harm to others) AND using the law to establish civil boundaries to shape attitudes and  convictions.

For example, the law can and should penalize murder.  However, it cannot and should not penalize the attitudes, convictions, emotions that lead to murder.  "Hate" simply cannot be made illegal.  To attempt to do so results in a transfer of political power from the individual to the State, a transfer that threatens a free conscience.

Political correctness is a subversive ideology that directly undermines critical thinking and the free exchange of ideas by ruling out huge swaths of civil discourse in the name of "protecting victims." It's the principal weapon that cultural Marxists use to gain power over their ideological enemies.

  

I would argue that PC ideology is the acid that's corroding our Republic.

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Thanks and Prayers

Mille grazie. . .again. . .to a kind and generous and anonymous Book Benefactor!

Rec'd vol 5. of the Pelikan development of doctrine series and Dan Gioia's new book of poems, Pity the Beautiful.

Please continue praying for Fr. Christiaan Kappes.  He is still missing in Greece.
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Thanks & FYI

Yesterday, I rec'd vol 2. of Pelikan's A History of the Development of Doctrine from the Wish List.

There was no name on the shipping invoice. . .so, I will say Mille Grazie here.

FYI:  several weeks ago someone purchased The Gagging of God from the Wish List. 

It hasn't arrived yet.  Don't want you think I got it and haven't sent my thanks.
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I think I shall praise it!

26th Week OT (F)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Robert Hass opens his 1979 book of poetry, Praise, with an epigraph: “We asked the captain what course/of action he proposed to take toward/a beast so large, terrifying, and/unpredictable. He hesitated to/answer, and then said judiciously:/‘I think I shall praise it.’” The captain's awe-struck desire to praise so large a beast always brought to mind an image of Job standing before God in the whirlwind. Until this morning. Job questions God, presuming that his suffering entitles him to an explanation from the One who allowed it. Speaking Creator to creature, the Lord answers, “Tell me, if you know all: Which is the way to the dwelling place of light, and where is the abode of darkness, that you may take them to their boundaries. . .” I've always imagined that Job, like our awe-struck captain, would fall prostrate in praise. Instead, “Job answered the Lord and said: Behold, I am of little account; what can I answer you? I put my hand over my mouth. Though I have spoken once, I will not do so again. . .” Rather than praise a beast so large and terrifying, Job judiciously covers his mouth and vows himself to silence. Before the mighty works of God, under His even mightier Word, silence is the richest praise His creatures can offer. 

Were you to suffer as Job has suffered and were you given the chance to demand a reason from God for your suffering, would you make such a demand; or would you remember Job's chastised pride and cover your mouth in awe? The idea of “suffering in silence” is not one we modern folks embrace with much enthusiasm. We are industrious complainers, founding whole factories to assemble our grievances against God, man, and country. It's repugnant to suggest that the best response to God's challenge—Who are you to question me?—is to cover our mouths and vow silence. It is even more repugnant to suggest that we praise God for allowing us to suffer. Praising a collaborator in our disaster and pain smells too much like submission, like a weak surrender. Aren't we more inclined to quote heaven's most beautiful angel, and defiantly answer, “I will not serve”? We are certainly free to shout a feeble non serviam at the whirlwind. We are also free to grant the beast of our suffering—so large, so terrifying and unpredictable—a word of praise. However, we are freest while suffering when we give God thanks for all His gifts, including the gift of suffering. 

Yes, that's right: suffering is a gift. If you understand suffering to be the experience of pain, then you might think I'm crazy. But suffering is not the experience of pain. To suffer pain is to allow it, to give it permission to be. Job does not suffer well. His legendary patience is no where in sight as one disaster after another crashes into him. He tries surrender; he tries philosophy. Though his patience is tried by his well-meaning friends, he endures their arguments in vain. When he seeks an answer from God, he's rebuffed with a reminder that he is dust and wind living in an unimaginably complex creation, and wholly incapable of grasping the smallest truths of its boundaries. Job does not suffer well until he learns that humble praise is best given in silence. This is not the answer he thought he wanted. Nor is it the answer we hoped to hear. But what would we do with a reasonable answer to suffering, a sensible explanation for why we must endure pain and disaster? Would we accept it? Challenge it? Greet it with pride and derision? When we give God thanks for giving us the gift of suffering—the gift of choosing how we will experience pain and disaster—we embrace our truest freedom: the freedom to give Him praise and know that we are loved by the One who set the boundaries on all that is. 

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Only a new creation

St. Francis of Assisi
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Paul prays that he may never boast except to boast in the cross of Christ Jesus, the cross through which, he writes, “the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” The zealous former persecutor of the Church is placing his pride, his worldly dignity squarely on the cross to die along with Christ, and by doing so, he is forever renouncing the temporary glories and passing rewards that this world offers. In context, Paul is comparing his apostolic preaching ministry to those false teachers among the Galatians who are insisting that circumcision is necessary for salvation. He writes, “. . .they only want you to be circumcised so that they may boast of your flesh.” These false teachers are using the scars of circumcision—both physical and spiritual—to brag about their privileged relationship with Christ and to draw in more followers. In rebuttal, Paul figuratively drops his tunic to show his own scars, a multitude of scars earned through years of suffering for the Gospel. What do these scars mean? Ultimately, nothing, w/o Christ and him crucified. “For neither does circumcision mean anything, nor does uncircumcision, but only a new creation.” And it is to the new creature that God reveals His wisdom. 

In another letter to a troubled church, Paul writes that he is “being poured out like a libation,” emptied of all that he is and all that is his. To the Galatians he writes that he has been crucified to the world and the world to him. All that he knew, desired, needed, and sought after died on the cross with Christ. And all the wisdom, knowledge, social standing, and privilege that the world laid at his feet also died on the cross with Christ. All he has left is the cross; Christ crucified; and his living body, the Church. And it is in the living body of Christ, the Church, that Paul finds peace and wisdom. Despite all of her scars, warts, abrasions, and disabilities, the Church is where Paul thrives in God's wisdom and peace as a creature newly made. If we will find this same wisdom and peace, we too must become child-like, newly made creatures. 

Jesus sets the wise and learned of the world against the child-like and anoints the child-like with the true wisdom found only in God. If you think of yourself as the culmination of experiences, all the time you've spent on this earth, all that you've done, said, thought, and you pile it all up, you have who you are—not all that you are—but a good start on seeing a biggest picture of yourself as you are. All the warts and scars are there. All the failures and triumphs. All the times you've been helped and the times that you were the one helping. It all backs up into this moment, right now, as you sit here, and it gives who you are definition. Think about Paul again and all that he was bringing with him to Damascus. Roman citizenship, classical education, Jewish religious training, privileged social standing as a Pharisee, years and years of accumulated wisdom. And he meets Christ on the way and it is all gone. All crucified with Christ on the cross and now he can boast of none of it b/c none of it matters to who is as a follower of Christ. On that road that day he is made new, child-like and now he enjoys the peace and wisdom of God. We cannot wait for a Damascus Road lightening bolt to set us right. We don't have to. With our baptism we are already made new. What we might need is crucifixion; that is, a loud surrender to Christ that renders us poor in spirit and dead to the world. God's wisdom and peace doesn't come with age; it comes when we pour out of our lives all that which makes us foolish and restless. It comes when we arrive newly made in Christ. 

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