Your word is Truth

7th Week of Easter (W) 

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 

St. Dominic Church, NOLA 

If Truth were a commodity—like cotton or oil—its stock value would be very low these days. With the exception of the Church, no one seems to care much about what's true or false, what's fact and fiction. We are far more likely to hear that truth is a tool in the oppressor's arsenal; or that truth is a traditional fiction dreamed up by neurotics; or that truth, at best, depends on one's perspective. You have your truth. I have my truth. Who's to say what's true or false? It just depends. Rather than ask if a bit of information is true or false, we're told to ask, “Who does this information benefit? Who does it harm?” Rather than seek the truth, we are urged to “create a narrative,” or “construct a perception.” When did this sort of deception creep into our world? Sometime right after God told Adam and Eve to avoid eating the fruit of one particular tree, the world's first salesman convinced them that God was lying to them. Several centuries later, that salesman's political partner asks Jesus, “What is Truth?” And then washes his hands of Jesus' death. But before he is arrested and executed, Jesus prays to the Father, “Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.” Assuming the Father answered this prayer by fulfilling Jesus' petition, what changed? How are we different? 

 When something is consecrated it is set apart for some special use and only that use. Chalices are consecrated for use at Mass. Churches are consecrated for public worship. We don't use a chalice to swig beer nor do we use a church to host a crawfish boil. When a person is consecrated something similar happens. That person is set apart for some special task and only for that task. Monks and nuns come to mind. They are consecrated to a life of prayer. Dominican friars are consecrated to a life of preaching. And all baptized Christians are set apart to give public witness to the Gospel. So when Jesus asks the Father to consecrate us in the truth, what is he asking? It seems that he's asking God to set us aside in the truth; that is, to move us over into the truth in some special way, to preserve us for some special task that requires that we be in the truth. Now that awful question rises again, “What is the Truth?” Jesus answers, “Your word is truth.” God's word is truth. God's promises are truth itself. All that God has spoken through the Law, the Prophets, and through the Word made flesh is truth. All that God has revealed to us through scripture, creation, and His Christ is truth. Jesus is asking his Father to set us apart to live in His truth while we reside in the world. 

 Jesus' petition for our consecration is bracketed by two statements: “They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world” and “As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.” Because we belong to Christ, we cannot belong to the world. However, Jesus says that he sends us into the world as he himself was sent. Therefore, we must be consecrated in the truth, set apart in God's word so that we can bear witness to His mercy in a world to which we do no belong. Jesus says, “I gave them your word, and the world hates them. . .” Of course it does! The world loves violence, spite, revenge, falsehood, and death. God's word shines the glaring light of truth on the world's most fundamental spiritual darkness: the pride of a creature that has rejected the rule of its Creator. We are set apart in God's word to announce the Good News of His mercy. We are not set apart so that we can pretend to be politically infallible, or economically incorruptible, or scientifically inerrant. We are set apart in the death and resurrection of Christ as that we might be witnesses, givers of testimony to the word we have received: this world will pass, God's truth will not. His truth endures forever, and so do all those who receive His truth and announce His Good News.

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Brave New World

The Laptop arrived today!    Deo gratis! [with apologies to the ever-vigilant Latinists]


It uses Windows 8. . .and this means it will take me three days to figure out what I'm doing.

Off tomorrow. . .but all will be back to normal on Wednesday.
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Why are you standing there looking at the sky?

NB. Deacons preaching this Sunday.  Here's an Ascension homily from 2006:

The Ascension of the Lord (C)
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation and St. Paul Hospital Chapel

No one will accuse Paul of being a fuzzy dreamer. He is not known for his abstract idealism. Later on in his letter to the Ephesians, he exhorts the new Christians of Ephesus: “I plead with you, as a prisoner of the Lord, to live a life worthy of the calling you have received, with perfect humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another lovingly…” Pretty words. Beautiful sentiment. But highly impractical, if not dangerous, for the Church! Besides, who can achieve this level of perfection now? Who can walk such a narrow path so confidently? Clearly, Paul is wishing out loud here, or at best he’s violating our image of him and exercising a bit of his never before seen idealism. He’s just setting the bar for us, calibrating the ideal soul for us to look to for guidance as we struggle along. And it’s not really clear how we are to achieve this perfect humility, meekness, and patience. What does he have to say about method or technique or first principles? It’s one thing, dear Paul, to show us an end, a goal. It’s quite another to teach us the means to that goal! Show us how. . .

And Paul would say here: “Oy vey! Have you been paying attention the last couple of months? Have you been listening to the readings, the prayers of the Church? Have you noticed the sequence of events since we entered the desert with Christ forty days before he suffered and died for us?” And we might respond: “Well, Paul, we’ve been paying attention…kinda, sorta. We’ve had Lent and Good Friday and Easter…lots and lots of Easter…weeks and weeks of Easter! But you’re avoiding our question. What do the readings and prayers of the Mass, the sequence of events since the desert have to do with your crazy dream that we live lives of perfect humility, meekness, etc., etc.?” At this point, we might imagine poor Paul hanging his head, but being the excellent teacher that he is, he asks instead: “Who have you been these last few months? Who are you becoming? And who will you be at last?” Uh?! we say. That’s right: who have you been? Who are you becoming? And who will you be at last?

 

In a homily on Ascension Sunday, Augustine asked his congregation: “Why do we on earth not strive to find rest with him in heaven even now…?” He goes on: “While in heaven he is also with us; and we while on earth we are with him. He is here with us by his divinity, his power and love. We cannot be in heaven, as he is on earth, by divinity, but in him, we can be there by love.” How? Why was the Son made flesh? Why did he become sin for us? Why did he suffer and die? To make good theatre? To fulfill some mythical Jewish prophecy? Entertainment for a cruel god? How can we down here be up there with Christ in love? Who have you been? Who are you becoming? And who will you be at last?

 

Let’s remember where we are in our history: the Holy Spirit announces to Mary that she will bear the Word into the world. She says, “Yes.” Elizabeth bears the Christ’s herald, John, and he is born to call our hearts to attention. Jesus is born. He is presented to the Father in the temple as the first fruit of Mary and Joseph. He is baptized by his herald and the Father declares him to be the Christ. He chooses his students. He teaches them his gospel. He preaches and heals; he feeds and frees; he shakes the foundation stones and breaks the temple gates. He draws hungry souls and repels the self-righteous. He casts out demons and forgives sinners. He goes to the mountain, the river, the sea, and the desert. And there he is given the chance to abandon us, to leave us to our humane mess. Without bending his back or lifting a finger, he picks up his cross, saying, “Yes” to his Father’s will for him and for us all. Lent. On a donkey he rides like a king into Jerusalem. Palm Sunday. There he is betrayed, tried, betrayed again, abandoned, whipped, ridiculed, spiked to a cross, mocked as he bleeds, and dies. He is buried. Holy Week and Triduum. And Mary Magdalene finds his grave empty three days later. He is risen from the dead. Easter morning. Knowing his disciples are fretful, he finds a few of them on the road to Emmaus and reveals himself again, spending forty days with them. Blessing them a final time, he is taken up; he ascends into heaven so that all of us may be lifted up with him. But for now, we wait until the promised Spirit descends! And the church is born. Born once of Mary. Born again from the Spirit. And yet again—now—from the womb of your YES. Christ’s body is born.

In case you’ve forgotten: who have you been since Ash Wednesday? Who are you becoming? And who will you be at last?

 

Perfect humility, meekness, and patience. In his letter to the Ephesians this morning, Paul bestows a blessing. We receive from God the Father: wisdom and revelation; knowledge of Jesus the Christ; eyes and hearts enlightened to see and know his hope, the wealth of His glory; to share in the inheritance of the holy ones, the exceeding greatness and generosity of His power for all who believe. And here is what the Spirit says that we need to hear in this blessing right now: Jesus is ascended into heaven to take his place of honor with the Father; he is given a place above “every principality, authority, power, dominion and every name that is named” in all ages past, this age, and in every age to come. And in rising to the Father, the Father has “put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the Church, which is his body…” Perfect humility, meekness, and patience then are not passive virtues that leave us vulnerable in the world. They are habits of being that rise out of the rule of Christ in our lives. Does true strength need to exercise its muscle? Does true power need to show itself in action? Does true authority balk at being patient? No. Perfect humility, meekness, and patience mark us as belonging to Christ. As his slaves, we live his life and die his death and rise in his resurrection and we ascend, we ascend as his Body—one promise, one blessing, one Spirit—living, dying, rising, ascending in Christ, with Christ, as Christ.

 

Ah! There it is. There it is. As Christ. That’s the “how” of Paul’s dreaming and Augustine’s wonder. Let’s see: who have you been? Christ. Who are you becoming? Christ. And who will you be at last? Christ. Christ is your past, your present, and your future. Christ is who you have been all along; are right now; and will be when all of this is done. When you rejoice, your joy is Christ. When you suffer, your pain is Christ. When you fall, your bruises are Christ. When you stand again, your height, your dignity is Christ. And when you accept the Spirit of Love, your Word, your deed, every breath, every motion, every stir of air and eddy of scent is Christ. His ascension into heaven draws us up. His Body, all of us, his Body is drawn up and, on our way there, we are pulled into his worship, his joy, and we drink from his blessing cup for our healing and health.

 

Why are we looking at the sky? Christ has ascended to the Father and now, for now, we wait. We know that God loves us to change us. We know that we are transfigured in His love. The New You waits for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He is risen! And as Christ so will we all be raised.
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Irrational, self-deceived, repressed, and arrogant

NB.  The Laptop is sitting on a boat in Port of Shanghai, China. . .so, here's a Roman homily from 2009.

6th Week of Easter (S)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Christianity is the “one great curse, the one great inmost corruption...the one immortal blemish of mankind” (Hovey 3). Thus spake Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher-prophet of the anti-Christ. British theologian, Craig Hovey, notes that Nietzsche “loathed Christianity, especially Christian morality. He thought Christians were irrational, self-deceived, repressed, and arrogant; he took Christian morality to be pettily reactionary and positively fatal to life…”(3). Will the Prosecutor of the Church in his closing argument before the judge of the world rest his case and demand a guilty verdict? Do we stand convicted by the evidence of human history—the thoughts, words, and deeds of our own hearts and minds? Are we guilty? We can point to the hospitals and orphanages we have built. Our Prosecutor can point to the injuries we have caused and the orphans we have made. We can point to the spread of the Gospel in the New World, the souls we brought to Christ. Our Prosecutor can show the jury our destruction of whole cultures in the pursuit of gold and slaves, all the souls we lost to our greed. We can point to our tireless efforts to relieve poverty, hunger, and suffering. Our Prosecutor can bring evidence of the poverty, hunger, and suffering we have caused. Are we guilty? Before the judge of the world and a jury of our peers, how do we plea? What is our defense? 

If Nietzsche were to serve as our defense attorney, he might argue that though we have certainly committed the crimes the prosecution charges us with, but that we should be found not-guilty by reason of insanity. If indeed the Church is cursed, if we are an “immortal blemish” as he claims, the slaves of a herd mentality, following our basest instincts and primitive impulses, then we are irrational, self-deceived, little more than animals doing what animals do. He could simply repeat our crimes and ask, “What sane Church would do these things?” Would the judge and jury buy this plea? Would they look at us with contempt but nonetheless find us not-guilty? 

Before the bench of the judge of this world, we have an Advocate, an intercessor, one who pleas on our behalf. Nietzsche would argue our insanity and ask that we be found not guilty because of it; our true Advocate knows we are guilty and makes no excuses. Our true Advocate knows our crimes better than we do because he became those very crimes for us. He can do more than merely show evidence of our sins, he can give personal testimony to them. He became sin for us, so that sin might be put to death and we might have eternal life. He knows we are guilty and loves us anyway. He loves us all the way to his cross, and he is with us as we approach ours. 

Is the Church “irrational, self-deceived, repressed, and arrogant”? Are we “pettily reactionary and positively fatal to life”? We can be. This is not who we are fundamentally. But we could plead guilty to the charges w/o perjuring ourselves. At our worst, we are worse than the unbelievers and those who would persecute us. At our best, we are Christ for the world. The Good News is that we never again have to be anything or anyone less than Christ. Never again are we compelled by irrational instinct or inordinate passion or selfish greed to commit a single sin, not one crime against God, our world, or one another. We are free. Free from all that would acquit us on the grounds of insanity; free from all that would excuse our crimes as animalistic and primitive. We are free to love, to show mercy, to build tighter and tighter bonds of friendship. We are free because we have been freed by the mercy of the One Who sits in judgment. 

Hovey, Craig. Nietzsche and Theology. T&T Clark, 2008. 
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No, Sister, the nature of authority and obedience hasn't changed since Vatican II. . .

Francis Throws Down the Gauntlet to Religious

Pope Francis has begun his assault against the secularization of religious life, attacking the late-20th century tendency to separate religious commitment from the Church in order to serve the spirit of the world. We have seen this tendency in the shift to purely secular service among women religious, accompanied by New Age spirituality and feminist careerism.

[. . .]

Although Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI all attempted to foster a spirit of true renewal in communities of consecrated life around the world, progress among the badly infected orders has been like the proverbial pulling of teeth—with excuses for delay and, if delay fails, then kicking and screaming. The latest evidence of the widespread rebellion against the Church was found in the effort of Sister Mary Lou Wirtz, President of the International Union of Superiors General, to derail the reform of the Leadership Conference for Women Religious last Tuesday. Sister Mary Lou claimed that the nature of authority and obedience had changed since Vatican II, that the LCWR wanted to focus on what “Gospel leadership” means today, and that the Vatican was clearly not interested in that topic.

[. . .]

But Pope Francis cannot be fooled in this. He has experienced the rot in religious life first-hand; he was marginalized by his Jesuit Superiors as a young priest, just as true men and women of the Church in so many religious orders have been for the past two generations [. . .] Will he shift from words to discipline?

We don’t know yet, but it has not taken him long to respond to Sister Mary Lou or to go on the offensive verbally in a tone which sounds suspiciously like he is ready to lay down the law. The Pope received the plenary assembly of the International Union of Superiors General in audience the day after its president gave her ill-conceived interview to Vatican Radio. The complete text is available under a striking title, Careerists and Climbers Doing “Great Harm” to the Church. Francis struck at the very heart of the religious malaise today, while responding pointedly to the leader of the IUSG. . .

Read the whole thing!

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Pope Francis Catholicity Update

This Just In. . .The Pope is Still Catholic. . .

Fr. Z. translates part of Pope Francis' address to an international gathering of religious superiors:

Finally, the ecclesial aspect as one of the constitutive dimensions of the consecrated life, a dimension which must be constantly recovered and deepened in life. Your vocation is a fundamental charism through the journey of the Church, and it is not possible that a consecrated woman or man do not “think” with the Church, which gave birth to us in Baptism; a “thinking” with the Church which finds its filial expression in fidelity to the Magisterium, in communion with the Shepherds and the Successor of Peter, Bishop of Rome, visible sign of unity. The announcement of and the witness to the Gospel, for every Christian, is never an isolated act.  This is important, the announcing of and the witnessing to the Gospel for every Christian is never an isolated act or that of a group, and no evangelizer whosoever acts, as Paul VI recalled so well, “under the force of his own inspiration, but in union with the mission of the Church and in her name”. Paul VI continued: “It is an absurd dichotomy to think to live outside the Church, to love Jesus without living the Church. Feel strongly the responsibility that you have to care for the formation of your Institutes in the sound doctrine of the Church, in the love of the Church and in the ecclesial spirit.

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Laptop Update

I wrote to TOSHIBA Customer Service to ask if there's anything I could do to speed delivery of my laptop.

Their response:  "Sorry. Your system is shipping from China."

So, my new laptop will likely come loaded with Commie Spyware!  :-)

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A deadly business

NB. Adapted from a 2008 homily

6th Week of Easter (M)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Dominic Church, NOLA

Good writers hate clichés, or they should. Clichés don't tell us anything new or interesting. But they do have their uses. For example, in polite conversation, clichés free us from potential embarrassment in social situations. Let's call these “formal noises.” A phrase like, “Hey, how you doing?” Phrases and words that we hear so often that we no longer hear them as requiring anything of us other than that we play the game and politely utter another formal noise. We can find examples of formal noises in scripture. We’ve heard them a thousand thousand times. Clichés in polite conversation are one thing, however, allowing scriptural language to become cliché, allowing the words of the Word to become dull with use or to utter biblical language like a formal noise is dangerous. We have an example this morning. Let’s see if we can reclaim a clichéd phrase and restore it to its proper luster! 

Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, is attending to one of Paul’s homilies. Scripture tells us, “[She] listened, and the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying.” How many times in your life as a Catholic have you heard someone use the phrase “open our hearts”? Don’t you hear this phrase as white noise? Just formal speech, meaningless filler? We pray all the time: “Lord, open our hearts and minds …” And we do this very casually, very matter-of-factly. When, in fact, this is an incredibly dangerous thing to say! How much more so to pray it! But the habit of repetition, the pattern of sound and occasion has dulled the sting of the fire in these words and so we mouth them too easily and expect little to happen b/c we did so. 

Let’s take a moment to look a little closer at what the heart is for us as believers. In the Catechism we read, “The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live…the heart is the place ‘to which I withdraw.’ The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others…The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as the image of God we live in relation : it is the place of covenant” (CCC 2563). For us then our heart is that place where who we are most fundamentally rests. To open this place and offer it to another is an awesome, perhaps fearful task. And because we are no one unless we are in a relationship, in a covenant, we are defined essentially by the one who rests in our heart…whoever He or It may be. 

Lydia’s heart is opened by the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth promised by Christ as he says farewell to his disciples: “When Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father…he will testify to me.” Paul testifies. Lydia listens. Her heart is opened. And the Spirit of Truth seizes her. She and her household are baptized. This is very dangerous. Dangerous? Yes. Jesus goes on to tell the disciples that b/c they have listened to his Word, received the Spirit of Truth from his Father by his agency, that their hearts will be opened. This is a good thing? Yes and no. As a result of this gift they will be expelled from the synagogues and killed as act of worship by those who have not listened to Word, have not received the Spirit of Truth, by those whose hearts—perhaps wisely in this case—remain closed. 

As a prayer, “Lord, open our hearts,” means “Lord, let us be killed for knowing Your Truth.” Will we be so quick to mumble this religious cliché in the future? I hope so. But we should do so remembering what Jesus tells his disciples: “…the Spirit of Truth [I send you from the Father]…he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.” Even as we pray to be killed for knowing his truth, we remember: Christ is with us, then, now, always. 

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Peace: one more thing Jesus messes up!

NB. Another adapted homily. . .

6th Sunday of Easter 2013
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. You are no longer our own; you no longer live for yourself alone. So, you can stop running and hiding. You are possessed by a spirit! Wholly owned and operated by the Holy Spirit. And if this causes you noticeable delight—Good!—but let me add a dire warning that will likely creep you out: you have, we have in virtue of our possession by the Holy Spirit, we have inherited (are you ready?)…the Peace of Christ! If this doesn’t give you the heebie-jeebies, you weren’t listening to the gospel. Jesus says to the disciples: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” Easy enough. Then, he adds: “Not as the world gives do I give it to you.” Now that’s just wrong! He had a good thing going there and then he messes it up by telling us that this Good Thing he’s giving us isn’t exactly the Good Thing we thought it was. And that changes everything. Except this: there is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. We are no longer our own. 

You would think that as heirs to the peace of Christ, we would be rejoicing in his serene calm, a well-balanced spiritual harmony. You would think that we would never argue, never fight, never become angry or frustrated with one another. You would think. And you would be wrong. Why would we assume that Christ’s Peace has anything at all to do with spiritual serenity or psychological wellness or bodily stillness? Given Jesus’ tumultuous life and his violent end on the cross; the oftentimes violent history of the Church on earth; given the sometimes painful, purifying work of the Spirit’s Fire in us and among us; and the ebb and flow of pilgrims' holiness, why would any Christian believe that Christ’s Peace is about peace at all? Shalom I leave with you; my shalom I give to you. 

Inasmuch as “love” has come to mean “that warm-fuzzy feeling we get that tells us to accept and approve anything and everything that comes our way,” so “peace” has come to mean something like “a permanent numbness of heart and mind that deflects all conflict at the expense of the truth.” Biblically, of course, peace (shalom) means “prosperity,” “security,” “success,” and even “salvation.” My research tells me that the best English translation of shalom is “well-being,” but the shading of the word leans heavily toward wishing someone material success or worldly security. This is perhaps more like the Vulcan greeting, “Live long and prosper” than it is the Buddhist idea of “eliminating suffering by eliminating desire.” Jesus leaves us his peace, true; but, he explicitly notes that this is not the peace of the world. His peace is something else entirely.

Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.” My peace. Most certainly not the World’s Material Peace or the Empire’s Political Peace or the Temple’s Religious Peace. But the Peace of Christ. What sort of peace is this? Christ’s Peace comes with the Holy Spirit. Notice the sequence of events in the gospel: Christ is leaving the disciples to go to the Father. He says he is sending the Advocate in his place to teach them everything and to remind them of all that he has taught. Being reminded of Jesus’ teachings, of everything he has said, and then remembering his teachings—this is “Christ’s Peace.” Does being reminded of Christ’s teachings and then remembering Christ’s teachings bring you that pleasantly numbed feeling that we often associate with a material “peace”? Let’s hope not! In the same way that welcoming Christ’s love into your life requires a commitment to conversion and service—“whoever loves me will keep my word”—so accepting his peace means settling your troubled heart into the truth of his teachings—“Do not let your hearts be troubled.” You are no long your own. 

Being heirs to Christ’s Peace, then, is first about being heirs to his teachings; being the recipients of his Word and the certainty we have in the truth of his witness. This is the peace we live knowing that Christ reveals the Father and that the Spirit dwells among us as their Love for one another. Again, there is nothing numbing or tranquil about this fundamental fact of the faith—it bears on our souls to live this truth fully in the world. We must give flesh and bone to this truth; we must incarnate Christ’s love, and in doing so, accept his peace. How? We live Christ’s triduum—in his betrayal, his humiliation, his beatings, his Cross, and his tomb—we live these as Christ himself did: trusting in God’s care, His plan, His blessings and abundance, and then giving our lives freely for others. Isn’t this is the courage of the martyrs? Their witness to the bare bones power of Christ’s promises? They took on Christ’s Peace and their question to us is clear: will you follow…if called upon, will you follow? 

Now, knowing that Christ’s Peace might require a Red Witness, does the thought of receiving his peace make you a little nervous? If you love him, you will keep his Word, preach his Word, teach his Word, obey his Word; you will make your dwelling with him, and follow him always; you will fall, fail, rise again and peak; you will stumble and crash and you will jump and fly; you will believe and doubt and hide and find; and you will come to a passionate obsession, a loving fascination with the movement of the Spirit, the leadership of Christ’s Peace in your life. But expect no peace of mind. Rather welcome the intellectual turmoil that follows the sword of truth. Expect no peace in your body. Rather welcome the tension that comes with making your flesh a daily sacrifice. Expect nothing balanced or harmonized or gentled to rule you. You are ruled by the Prince of Peace, the One Anointed, whose reign requires you to serve against your best instincts, to surrender your greatest perceived needs, and to follow into hell and on to heaven a dead Jewish rebel executed on a tree. How absurd! And yet, the Spirit burns, with tongues of fire, the Law of Love into our hearts: to die for a beloved friend is the greatest gift. 

When you exchange the peace this morning, remember: you are not wishing your neighbors worldly well-being or cheerfulness or a pleasant day/tomorrow. You are reminding them (and you are being reminded in turn) that Christ’s Peace is more threat than promise. Think: “Peace be with you” means “You are Christ. You will suffer, die, and rise again! For whom will you sacrifice yourself today?” Perhaps you will skip the exchange of peace altogether! Don’t! Why? Jesus said, “Whoever does not love me does not keep my words…” There is no dwelling place with the Father for those who do not keep Christ’s words. So, love Christ, keep his Word. And take on his Peace with fear and trembling; take it on only when you are grateful enough to him for dying for you that you are ready to die for someone else. 

Then, only then, you are truly at Peace. Christ’s Peace. 

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Petition to Protect Religious Liberty in the U.S. Armed Forces

SIGN THE PETITION! 

There are ominous signs the U.S. military is turning its back on religious freedom.

On April 23, Pentagon leaders met with Mikey Weinstein, an anti-Christian extremist who decries “fundamentalist Christian monsters” and calls Christians “pitiable unconstitutional carpetbaggers.” He compares Christians to racists from the civil rights era.

If he said these things about Muslims, he’d never be permitted in the Pentagon; but now military leaders are actually consulting with him – relying on his input – as they create new policies that may roll back religious liberty – especially for Christians. This must stop!

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Frighten the world!

NB.  Still w/o a 'puter, so here's a repost of 2012's homily for today. . .

5th Week of Easter (S)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Jesus drops a rather somber warning on his disciples, “I have chosen you out of the world. . .and the world hates you. . .[but] realize that it hated me first. . .If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” We know that the world persecuted Jesus, and we know that the disciples were persecuted as well. Despite the best efforts of the world to bludgeon, burn, crucify, and exile the Good News from its realm, the news got out, and we've been here for more than 2,000 years. Like a body infected with a deadly virus, the world reacts to the presence of the Church—attacking, repelling, isolating. But we're still here. Despite the best efforts of some in the Church to surrender to the world, to bring the world into the sanctuary, and give her away like a rare virgin bride, we're still here. We're still here not b/c we are deserving of preservation, b/c we're earned the privilege of God's protection. We're still here b/c Christ promised to be with his Church always. Because the world needs an ordinary means of receiving his Father's abounding grace. So long as the Church remains, the body of the world remains infected with the saving virus of the Good News. This is why the world hates us: they do not see any need for rescue. 

If you feel no danger, you very likely see no need for rescue. Sitting comfy and cozy on your couch, reading a good book, you would probably dismiss a neighbor who barges in yelling, “I'm here to rescue you from your comfy, cozy couch!” If you were kneeling in prayer in church, confident that all was right with your spiritual life, the rantings of a crazy friar from the pulpit about sin and God's love would be distracting but hardly alarming. However, if your world were collapsing, if your family, your nation, your civilization, all that you have come to rely on were spinning out of control, and someone offered you a way to leave that world behind, the first thing you would need to do is admit that your world was coming apart. You would need to see the destruction, hear the system tearing at its seams, feel the angst and anger rising. In other words, you would have to confess that the world you helped to build and operate was losing its soul, spiraling into a dysfunctional waste. If you make this confession, then rescue is possible. If you refuse, if you deny the truth, rescue is impossible, and you will grow to hate those who offer you a way out. 

 Christ's offer to rescue the world is an accusation. To say, “You need rescuing” is to say “You are in danger,” and I am in a position to help. The hardest part of being rescued is admitting that help is required. Why does the world hate Christ and his disciples? Because the Church sees the world in danger and knows that the only way to be rescued is to embrace Christ and leave that dangerous world behind. Leave behind contesting for social standing; compromising the truth to gain political influence; rutting with violence for the applause of mob; to leave behind self-righteous do-gooding, the easy hatred of imaginary enemies, and the lust for things and people. Christ's offer of rescue is an accusation, but it is also—if accepted—a vindication, a victory over the world, a win for those who would confess that they can only lose without God. No slave is greater than his master. If we are slaves of Christ, then we can expect nothing more from the world than he himself received. The rulers of this world fear another King, and they fear his followers. When the world stops hating the Church, we know that we have stopped preaching his Good News. Therefore, go out and frighten the world! 

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First World Problems

TOSHIBA keeps changing the estimated shipping date on my laptop. . .

They moved it from May 9th to the 6th and now back to the 9th.

Shoulda just gone to Best Buy like Fr. Mike suggested.  

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New Laptop: May 9th

Replacement parts + labor + lost productivity = Just Get a New Laptop!

So, I did.  Got a great deal on a Toshiba Satellite.  Almost half-price direct from the warehouse.

Should be here by May 9th. . .until then, it's ad-lib homilies.  

Gulp.

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RIP. . .laptop

I think the video card on my laptop died this afternoon. 

The screen just went black. It's been "jumpy" lately, frequently turning red.

Anyway, blogging and email will be slow until I can get a replacement card, or a new laptop.

Fr. Philip
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Love never compromises

5th Sunday of Easter 2013 

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 

St. Dominic Church, NOLA 

The traitor leaves the table and goes to complete his betrayal. Jesus watches him go; without a word, Jesus bears witness to his friend's treason. When the door closes behind Judas, our Lord turns to the remaining disciples and declares the beginning of the end, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.” Now. Immediately. At this moment. With Judas gone and the door closed, our Lord is given glory for his Passion: the Father's strength and the Spirit's fire—the divine majesty. With the Son of Man glorified, God is glorified in him. Amplified. Magnified. Made more brilliant. So elevated, he says to his disciples, “My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.” Can they see/feel the glory suffusing their teacher? Do his friends know that the traitor's departure started the countdown to Golgotha? Rather than accuse Judas, or flee to the desert, or shout a call to fight, our Lord issues a new command. Watching Judas leave the table, watching him go to sell his teacher and friend to their enemies, Jesus shares his glory with those who remain, who remain loyal: “Love one another,” he commands, “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” If we love one another, all will know that we follow Christ. 

Two disciples who love one another in Christ, Paul and Barnabas, travel through the churches of Asia Minor, strengthening the spirits of the other disciples and exhorting them to persevere in the faith. How do these two instruct the other disciples to persevere? They spread this bit of good news: “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” How is this any sort of good news? How is this truth supposed to strengthen the disciples, or urge them on to persevere in the faith? Wouldn't it have been better for Paul and Barnabas to encourage the others with smiling personal affirmations, or rousing songs about the wonders of achieving social justice? How about a few calming homilies on how wonderful we all are? Or how good it is that we can come together to be church? Paul and Barnabas reveal to the others a difficult truth: entering the kingdom of God is an obstacle course, a regime of hard choices, harder consequences, and frequent failures. These barriers to joining the kingdom are not God's doing. These barriers belong to the world. To enter the kingdom, we must overcome the world. And to overcome the world, we must love one another. That's the hardest truth of all. 

“Love one another” can heard as a glib slogan, a mushy motto meant to soothe a jagged conscience. It trips easily off the tongue, a nice catch-phrase that catches all the sentiments we tend to think will ease conflicts, dissolving differences into a numbing peace. When our Lord orders his disciples at the Last Supper to love one another, he does so after Judas leaves to betray him. He waits until the traitor exits the room to issue his last command. With Judas gone and the door closed, our Lord is glorified, raised up, given the honor due his impending sacrifice; and the fullness of God's revelation is made manifest in him; that is, at the beginning of his Passion and death, Jesus shines with whole glory of God, the full strength of the Father and the fire of the Holy Spirit. The treasonous disciple cannot witness this. Even had he stayed with the others, we could not see it. He does not love the Lord; he does not love his brother disciples. He loves worldly glory and riches, and so he is blind to the heavenly glory that Christ shows to those who choose to love him. Had he stayed, Judas would not have heard Jesus say, “Love one another.” The ears of a traitor are closed to loyalty and love, to faithfulness and perseverance. And b/c loving one another is its own hardship, betrayal come easily to those to who refuse to love. 

“It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” Paul and Barnabas spread a bit of good news throughout the churches of Asia Minor. This good news sounds a whole lot like bad news. And it would be bad news if these hardships were sent from heaven. But they are not. Look at the hardships that Paul and Barnabas themselves have endured: arrest, imprisonment, floggings, threats from civil authorities, denunciations from religious officials. Both apostles are martyred. Paul was beheaded at the order of the Emperor Nero. Barnabas was stoned to death by Jewish authorities in Cyprus.* Every hardship, every obstacle to their apostolic ministry comes from the powers of this world, or from those allied with them. So, Paul and Barnabas understand—with the bodies and souls—that the hardships of loving one another come by way of the world. They also understand that we overcome the world while standing in the glory of God, loving one another despite the world's obstacles, sharing in the divine majesty given to the Son at the beginning of his Passion and death. And by sharing in his Passion and death, we give God glory in our own hardships. 

All this talk of hardships, glory, death, and love seems a bit abstract, a bit airy, unsubstantial. Let's put some meat on these bones. We lay claim to an inheritance through Christ, a portion of the kingdom that he announced 2,000 yrs ago. As heirs to this kingdom, we are also its stewards, responsible for seeing to the growth and maintenance of all that God has given us. Traditionally, Catholics talk in terms of “time, treasure, and talent” when we speak of stewardship. And there's nothing wrong with that. However, there is a more fundamental sense in which all of us steward God's gifts. Look at Judas. What did he squander for 30 pieces of silver? Fellowship among the disciples; his relationship with Christ; his historical reputation as a faithful disciple. But more than these, he sold his soul; that is, he allowed the powers of this world to buy his integrity, his strength as a Good Man, a man of God. He used his friendship with Jesus to sell our Lord to his enemies. The powers of this world set a hardship for Judas. And he chose the easy work-around, the profitable dodge. In other words, he compromised the very thing that made him a man of God, worthy of trust. Judas accommodated himself to the spirit of the age and ended his own life with a noose. 

The spirit of our own age is busy setting hardships for us. Oddly enough, these hardships are not all that different from the ones Paul, Barnabas, Judas, and all God's children in the early Church tackled. They were tempted to dilute the Gospel with false religions. Compromise with secular power for material gain. Accommodate moral principles for the sake of social standing. Surrender their freedoms in the name of state security. And more than many lost their struggles with these temptations. More than many exhausted their strength, extinguishing the fire of the Holy Spirit in their resistance. Here's what we need to know now: when we love another as Christ loves us, we have no need for a gospel other than the Gospel of Jesus Christ; when we love one another as Christ loves us, we don't need material gain, social standing, or security from the state. Everything we need is given by God so that we might live wholly in His love. Judas did not believe this. Paul and Barnabas did. Judas died a traitor's death. Paul and Barnabas died as witnesses, preaching the Good News to the end. Love tells the truth; it never compromises or accommodates, nor do those who love one another. Jesus orders us, “As I [love] you, so you also should love one another.” His Passion and death began when the traitor left the table. Ours begins when we approach the table and dare to share in his last meal.

*Unfortunately, this is probably a legend, but it's the only info we have on his death.

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