Where Catholic preaching needs to go. . .?

One of my holiday/summer projects is to reconfigure the homiletics program at NDS.

In my hubris, I've concluded that the problem with Catholic preaching is Catholic homiletics. Not the academic study of Catholic preaching as such, but the overall approach that most homiletics texts tend to favor: preaching is a personal performance rooted in the subjective experience of the preacher and relies almost entirely on an affective mood in tone and content. 

To counter this tendency, I want to introduce seminarians to a wider literary understanding of the imagination; that is, I want to give them some literary tools with which they can re-imagine the Gospel and present it to a contemporary Church. This entails reading novels, poetry, and creative non-fiction in a way that prompts the preacher to address real existential issues and questions through Gospel lenses.

Along with a number of other (better qualified and more experienced) preachers, I've also concluded that catechesis must take a backseat to evangelization in Catholic preaching. Preachers can teach all day long, but if their people haven't experienced Christ as a living presence in their lives, teaching is just mental work: memorization, recitation, etc. This doesn't mean that there is no place in Catholic preaching for teaching, it just means that the first focus of the homily needs to be on bringing our people to an encounter with Christ.

I have no idea where any of this will lead. . .St Dominic, pray for us!

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Sunday Dinner for the friars

For the first time since. . .what?. . .2008. . .I'm cooking Sunday dinner for the friars!

We're having:

Chicken Provence (baked chicken thighs with Provence herbs)
Creamed Spinach
Garlic Mash Potatoes
Honeyed Carrots
Orange Marmalade Cake with vanilla ice cream 

Sounds good?

Benedicare! Praedicare! Cenare!
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Nuncio Visits NDS!

A visit from the Papal Nuncio! 

Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, Papal Nuncio to the U.S. celebrated Mass at Notre Dame Seminary on Thursday, Oct 31, 2013.  

(front row L-R: Fr. James Wehner, Rector of NDS; Archbishop Vigano; Archbishop Aymond of New Orleans.)

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Bound to Happen

Well, there's a First Time for Everything, I suppose. . .

Seminarian Brad Doyle goes to a Halloween party dressed up as. . .Me. (sigh) 

I give this costume a "C-". . .note the lack of coffee stains on the habit.
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3,000 a year!

These numbers are a bit unsettling!

The secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life said in an October 29 address that over 3,000 men and women religious leave the consecrated life each year. 

In the address – a portion of which was reprinted in L’Osservatore Romano – Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo said that statistics from his Congregation, as well as the Congregation for the Clergy, indicate that over the past five years, 2,624 religious have left the religious life annually. When one takes into account additional cases handled by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the number tops 3,000. 

The prelate, who led the Order of Friars Minor from 2003 until his April 2013 curial appointment, said that the majority of cases occur at a “relatively young age.” The causes, he said, include “absence of spiritual life,” “loss of a sense of community,” and a “loss of sense of belonging to the Church” – a loss manifest in dissent from Catholic teaching on “women priests and sexual morality.”

The article goes on to explain the difficulties caused by the cultural shift from modernity to post-modernity in the West, specifically, the current emphasis on radical individuality.

Post-modernity is best described as the cultural manifestation of a prolonged adolescence brought on by the failure of the Baby Boomers to hand on our family's philosophical, spiritual, and theological traditions.

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This is not the pope you are looking for. . .

Wait.

I thought Pope "A New Wind is Blowing" Francis was going to take us back to the Rainbow and Felt Butterfly days of 1973. . .

. . .and yet, he appoints Bishop Leonard Blair to the archbishopric of Hartford, CT.

. . .the archbishop-elect is best known on the wider scene as a linchpin player in the Holy See's controversial doctrinal probe of the LCWR, the principal "umbrella-group" for the superiors of the nation's religious women. In 2009, Blair was tapped by Rome to conduct the initial inquest into LCWR's adherence to certain aspects of church teaching, at whose conclusion he became one of two bishop-assistants to the delegate for the CDF's ordered five-year "reform" process, Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle.

I'm very confused. . .(and so are a lot of other Catholics).
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Made Just By God Alone

30^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA

Sirach assures us that the “Lord is a God of justice, who knows no favorites. . .[He] is not deaf to the wail of the orphan, nor to the widow. . .The one who serves God willingly is heard. . .The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds.” Paul assures Timothy that as he, Paul, reaches the end of his life: “. . .the Lord stood by me and gave me strength. . .And I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil threat. . .” Both Sirach and Paul assure us all that our God is faithful to those who live their days in humility, in humble service to the proclamation of the Word. He hears and answers the prayers of the lowly and rescues those who serve His will. How do we become lowly? How do we bind ourselves to His will and serve out our days in His service? Jesus offers a parable. Two men go to the temple to pray. One is a Pharisee; the other a tax collector. The Pharisee believes himself to be righteous by his deeds. The tax collector knows himself to be a sinner and cries out for God's mercy. Which one leaves the temple justified, made just by God? 

 

The question here is not: which one is a righteous? The Pharisee is self-righteous; the tax collector is made-righteous. The question is: which one leaves the temple justified; that is, which one is made just in his humility before God? My question gives away the answer. You see, we already know that the Pharisee's prayer in the temple is useless. First, to whom does he pray? Jesus says, “The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself. . .” He offers his praise and thanksgiving to himself. He is his own god. Second, how does he pray? He praises himself for not being a sinner; he gives himself thanks for “not being like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous.” And lastly, how does he think that he made himself righteous? “I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.” Works. He believes that pious works—w/o mercy, humility, or love—makes him righteous. Now, we know that the tax collector leaves the temple justified. Instead of praising himself for not being like other men, the tax collector does the only thing a truly self-aware sinner can do: he throws himself into the hands of God and cries out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, a sinner!” Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

And why should that be the case? Why are the humble exalted and the self-exalted humbled? Is God so paranoid about His status as Lord of the Universe that He can't take a little human competition for exaltation? Is He so worried about not getting His due that He has to rub our faces in how dependent we are on Him? I mean, come on, getting holy is no joy ride; it's not easy or quick. Getting to holiness takes a lot of determination, dedication, and plain ole hard work. Why shouldn't we be allowed to pay ourselves on the back when we achieve righteousness? Seems only fair! Fair or not, we can do nothing good w/o God. Every good thing we achieve, every good word we utter is motivated and sustained by the goodness of God, sustained by Him for our benefit. He gets nothing out of our good works. Nothing. All the benefits of mercy, love, forgiveness; all the profits from our holy labors, all of it accrues to us, enriches us, and brings us closer to His perfection. And all this happens—the goodness of our works and the benefits they accrue—b/c we are created to be made perfect in divine love. God wills that we use the gifts He gives so that His love might be perfected in each one of us. Accepting this truth is the beginning of humility. 

 

So what then obstructs our growth in humility? We know the vice that opposes the virtue of humility is pride. What is pride? Pride isn't about taking pleasure on one's achievements, or claiming that one's nation, state, or team is particularly wonderful. Being proud of your children for academic and athletic awards isn't the sort of pride that thwarts humility. True Pride—the sort our ancestors put in first place on the list of Deadly Sins—is the erroneous belief that we do not need God; that we do not require His help b/c we are perfectly capable of saving ourselves from sin and death; that we are not only capable of saving ourselves but that we prefer to save ourselves. Pride leads us to believe that working for social justice and equality will save us; that holding the right beliefs and attitudes will save us; that saying the right prayers in the right order the right number of times will save us; that giving money to the Church, to charity will save us. Pride insists that we are each self-sufficient, independent, and absolutely alone. And that with these superlative qualities, we can become god w/o God. The serpent says to Eve, “when you eat [the forbidden fruit] your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods. . .” That serpent's name is Hubris, Pride. 

 

Pride leads us away from God, so how do we overcome it? Like the tax collector at prayer in the temple, there's only one way to triumph over the self-righteousness that pride instills in us: throw yourself on God's mercy! Why is this the only way? B/c only God Himself can make you righteous; only God Himself can bring you out of sin and death and restore you to your rightful place in His Holy Family. He gives us His only Son, Christ Jesus, as the only means, the only Way, back to Him. And with the Holy Spirit pushing us toward perfection, pouring out for us and into us gift after gift after gift, we accomplish all that God commands us to accomplish for His greater glory. The Pharisee's good works are just that: his good works. Yes, tithing and fasting and praying are all perfectly wonderful spiritual exercises. But before a spiritual exercise can be efficacious, there must be a relationship of love established btw the human heart and Love Himself. Fortunately for us, God Himself initiated this relationship at the instant of creation, installing into every human heart and mind the gnawing need to seek Him out and live with Him forever. To think that I can satisfy this need for myself is Pride distilled into the darkest, deadliest poison. 

 

Luke tells us that Jesus addresses his parable to a very specific audience: “. . .to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.” We can't help but make the connection btw self-righteousness and hatred. Self-righteousness—born, bred, and nurtured in pride—rejects the necessity of loving others; it leads us to deny the need for mercy, forgiveness, trust in others. If I can make myself righteous, why do I need you? Or God? Or the Church? If my social justice causes and good works and charitable donations are enough, why bother with humility? Why bother with all that “love your neighbor” nonsense? Why bother? Sirach answers: “The one who serves God willingly is heard. . .The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds.” Paul answers: “I am already being poured out like a libation. . .I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.” How do we answer? We throw ourselves on the mercy of God, confessing our sins, knowing that the Lord hears the cries of the poor—the poor in spirit, the truly humble, those most in need of His care, and those most willing to take into the world His re-creating love.

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Are We Fools?

NB. A little Vintage Fr. Philip ca. 2008 for your Sunday. . .

30th Sunday OT: Ex 22.20-26; 1 Thes 1.5-10; Matt 22.34-40
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS Domenico e Sisto, Roma

St. Paul, ever the romantic(!), writing in his first letter to the Corinthians, insists that “love is patient, love is kind. Love is not jealous, is not pompous; it is not inflated; it is not rude; it does not seek its own interest [. . .] but rather rejoices with the truth”(1 Cor 13). He goes on to write that love bears, believes, hopes and endures all things; and finally, he declares, as if he has never grieved a betrayal or lost his heart to passion: “Love never fails.” The romantic whispers, “Yes!” The cynic scoffs, “Bull.” The pragmatist asks, “Really? Never?” The Catholic exclaims, “Deo gratias! Thanks be to God!” Who needs for love to never fail more than he for whom Love is God? This is why Jesus teaches the Pharisees that the spiritual heart of the Law is: “You shall love the Lord, your God, will all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind [. . .] You shall your neighbor as yourself.” Listen to Paul again, “Our Lord is patient, He is kind. He is not jealous, is not pompous; He is not inflated; He is not rude; He does not seek His own interest [. . .] but rather Our Lord rejoices with the truth.” Though Paul is writing to the Corinthians to show them how we must love one another—patiently, kindly, selflessly—we cannot, cannot love at all except that Love Himself loves us first. Therefore, with the Lord and because of the Lord, we love Him, one another; and we rejoice with His truth.

Now, that we must be commanded to love says everything that needs to be said about the weaknesses of the human heart, soul, and mind. That we must be commanded to love tells us that we do not eagerly enthrone love in the center of our being, making all we do the children of charity. That we must be commanded to love tells us that we do not love as a way of giving thanks for our very existence, for the gift of being alive. That we must be commanded to love tells us that we do not reason with the grace of God’s wisdom, with the deliberative power granted to us as creatures created in His divine image. That we must be commanded to love tells us that we are not God but rather creatures imperfect without God, longing for God, grieving our loss yet yearning for the peace and truth of His Being-with-us.

Think for a moment of the ways we have struggled in our past to find some small portion of peace and truth. Moses returns from Mt. Sinai to find his people giving themselves over to the idols of their former masters in slavery. Paul admonishes the Corinthians for turning to “worldly philosophies” for their much-needed wisdom. He lashes them for rutting indiscriminately in the flesh, surrendering body and soul to disordered passion and vice. Jesus teaches against the legalistic blindness of the Pharisees; he calls them “white washed tombs,” beautifully, lawfully clean on the outside but stuffed with rotted meat on the inside. In our long past we have turned to idols, pagan philosophies, debauchery and license, and taken an easy refuge in the dots and tittles of the law. Each of these reach for the peace and truth we long for, but none grasp the love we need.

Think for a moment of the ways you yourself have struggled in your past and struggle even now to find some small portion of peace and truth. Do you look to the idols of power, wealth, possessions, or Self to find your purpose? Do you scratch your itchy ears with the wisdom of the world? With the profound systems of material science, the occult mysteries of New Age gurus, the glittering gospels of prosperity and celebrity? Perhaps you search for and hope to find some peace in your body, your flesh and bones. Do you worship at Gold’s Gym, Kroger and Target, Blockbuster, or CVS, searching for peace in a perfectly sculpted body, a full belly, a house full of things, a visual distraction, or over-the-counter cures for the nausea and headache of a life that will not love God? Or, perhaps in this election season, you look to parties and politicians to give you hope and security. Do you look to the Democrats to give you the ease of a well-funded government entitlement? Or perhaps you look to the Republicans to secure your place near the top of the economic food-chain? Do you think Obama will give you hope? Or that McCain will give you security? When we reach down for higher things, we grasp the lowest of the low and in our disappointment we name the Lowest the Highest, and then, in our pride, we pretend to be at peace. To do otherwise is to confess that we are fools fooled by foolish hearts, that we are stubborn mules needing the bridle and bit.

And perhaps we are fools. Perhaps this is why Jesus finds it necessary to command us to love God and one another. Why command what we would and could do willingly? In Exodus our Lord must command that we not molest the foreigners among us. That we must care for the women who have lost their husbands and children who have no family. He must command us not to extort money from the poor or strip them of their modest possessions for our profit. We must be commanded not to kill one another, not to steal, not to violate our solemn oaths, not to worship alien gods. Why doesn’t it occur to us naturally to care for the weakest, the least among us? To help those who have little or nothing? Why must we be commanded not to destroy the gift of life, not to lie or extort, not to surrender our souls to the demonic and the dead? We must be commanded to love God, to hope in His promises, to trust in His providential care because in our foolish hearts we believe that we are God and that we have no other gods but ourselves.

Are we fools? Probably not entirely. But we are often foolish, often believing and behaving in ways that give lie to Paul’s declaration, “Love never fails.” God never fails, but we often do. When we make the creature the Creator, giving thanks and praise to the bounty of our own wisdom, we reach down for the higher things and convince ourselves that we have grasped truth. We do this when we believe that it is not only sometimes necessary but also good to murder the innocent; when we believe that it is right to murder the inconveniently expensive, those whom the Nazis called “useless eaters,” the sick, the elderly, the disabled. We reach down for higher truths when we create markets for housing in order to exploit for profit the homelessness of the poor. We are foolish when we raise impregnable borders around the gifts we have been given , gifts given to us so that we might witness freely to God’s abundance. We do foolish things because we believe we are God, and so, we must be commanded by Love Himself to love. But surely this is no hardship. Difficult, yes. But not impossible. With Love all things are possible.

What must we do? To love well we must first come to know and give thanks to Love Himself. He loved us first, so He must be our First Love. Second, we must hold as inviolable the truth that we cannot love Love Himself if we fail to love one another. Third, love must be the first filter through which we see, hear, think, feel, speak, and act. No other philosophy or ideology comes before Love Himself. This mean obeying (listening to and complying with) His commandments and doing now all the things that Christ did then. Fourth, after placing God as our first filter, we must surrender to Love’s providential care, meaning we must sacrifice (make holy by giving over) our prideful need to control, direct, order our lives according to the world’s priorities. Wealth and power do not mark success. Celebrity does not mark prestige. “Having everything my way” does not mark freedom. Last, we must grow in holiness by becoming Christ—frequent attention to the sacraments, private prayer and fasting, lectio divina, strengthening our hearts with charitable works, sharpening our minds with beauty and truth in art, music, poetry, and while being painfully, painfully aware of how far we can fall from the perfection of Christ, knowing that we are absolutely free to try again and again and again.

Though we often fail love, Love never fails us. Remember: who needs for love to never fail more than he for whom Love is God?
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Miscellany

Blogging's been light this week, I know.

Several seminary-related duties converged simultaneously this week: individual preaching tutorials; formation advisee meetings; homilist at NDS Mass; helping out at St Dominic's. . .

AND I choose this week to get a cold. Over it now.

Today is more or less a Free Day: run to WalMart; lunch with fra. David (if he's awake before noon!); and the rest of the day reading: got some nifty books in the mail yesterday and Friday. Thank God for kind and generous Book Benefactors. . .who are always on my personal intention prayer list, btw.  :-)

Speaking of books. . .I'd like to hear what HA Readers think of Amazon Prime and Amazon VISA.

Are they worth the price of admission? 

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Catholic Theological Society confesses leftist bias

NB. I am pleasantly surprised (really surprised!) to see this report. The Catholic Theological Society of America is publicly confessing to its anti-conservative bias.  My long experience with academic bodies like the CTSA tells me that ideological blindness is a permanent condition. Somewhere along the line, someone at the CTSA must've been healed of this particular malady.
 

II. Observations/Problems

A. Many CTSA sessions, both plenary and concurrent, include jokes and snide remarks about, or disrespectful references to, bishops, the Vatican, the magisterium, etc. These predictably elicit derisive laughter from a part of the audience.

B. Many CTSA members employ demeaning references. For example, the phrase “thinking Catholics” is sometimes used to mean liberals. The phrase “people who would take us backwards” is sometimes used to mean conservatives.

C. Resolutions are a significant problem because an individual member can bring to the floor of the business meeting a divisive issue that not only consumes important time and energy but exacerbates the ideological differences that exist among theologians, typically leaving conservatives feeling not only marginalized but unwelcome. (CTSA members who have trouble understanding this as a problem might ask how they would feel if they were part of a professional society that passed resolutions criticizing a theologian they hold in high regard or endorsing views they reject.)

D. In recent decades, conservative theologians have only rarely been invited to be plenary speakers and respondents.

E. In CTSA elections, there is a general unwillingness of many members to vote for a conservative theologian. Scholarly credentials seem often outweighed by voters’ partisan commitments.

F. Some conservative theologians have experienced the feeling that a number of other members “wish I wouldn’t come back” to the CTSA.

G. In sum, the self-conception of many members that the CTSA is open to all Catholic theologians is faulty and self-deceptive. As one of our members put it,the CTSA is a group of liberal theologians and “this permeates virtually everything.” Because the CTSA does not aspire to be a partisan group, both attitudes and practices will have to shift if the CTSA is to become the place where all perspectives within Catholic theology in North America are welcome.

The whole report is available here.
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Living a Life of Departure

Blessed John Paul II

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Notre Dame Seminary, NOLA

Two weeks before petitions for solemn vows were due and two months before my class was scheduled to take solemn vows, I find myself sitting in the student master's office for yet another Come to Jesus talk. These talks had become a regular feature of my three years of studium formation; and this time, Fr. Michael, the Student Master, was really not happy with me. After six semesters, three summers, and countless dinner table conversations, you'd think that by now he would've been used to my peculiar sense of humor. But looking across at his pinched face and gritted teeth, I could tell that his training as a tax attorney and Patristics scholar had done nothing to prepare him to deal the weirdnesses of an over-educated 38 year old redneck-convert from Episcopaganism. I knew before he spoke a word what the topic of this exhortation would be: my complete lack of docility. I was unprepared to embrace the life of departure that every Dominican friar must be willing to live. In other words, I would not gird my loins nor would I light my lamp. The master would return from the wedding and find me sound asleep, snoring loudly.

What is a life of departure*? What does it have to do with remaining ready for the master's return? A life of departure is a life lived in constant readiness to move, a sort of perpetual vigilance against getting too settled in, too snug and comfy with who we are and where we are serving. As itinerant friars, Dominicans live lives of departure quite literally. I've been professed for 13 yrs and I've lived in five provinces, three countries, and nine or ten cities here and abroad. In one academic year, I logged almost 60,000 miles of air travel! That's Dominican life. But what would a life of departure look like for the laity, or for diocesan clergy? Notice the tension in our gospel story. The servants are girded. Lamps are lit. They wait for the knock on the door. Even though they aren't doing much, they are wound up to spring into action when called. Just being ready, always ready to answer God's call is holy work. Being ready to snap into sweat-inducing labor at a moment's notice means that we cannot rest too long or too soundly; we cannot dig down our roots too deep; we cannot let yesterday's work haunt us nor tomorrow's work worry us. Whatever comes next when God calls is what we are charged with doing. A life of departure is a life lived right at the edge of expectation, right at the brink of just letting go of everything for the love of Christ.

In fact, a life of departure is a life lived by just letting go of everything—everyTHING—for the love of Christ. For the sake of his name, and in his name, to be constantly ready to jump at his Word, we let go of our long-range plans; our packed schedules; our assessments of failure and success; our competitive comparisons with peers. We cannot properly gird ourselves or light the lamps if our hands are busy with the work we think is vital. Now, of course, we need plans, schedules, assessments, etc., but they cannot be allowed to become the measure of our availability to serve. Patience, perseverance, docility—all of these are not only better measures of service, they are also better tools for serving the Master. A life of departure, a life of constant service is a life lived in the eternal shade of God's wisdom. Who can honestly say, “I know it all already”? Or even worse, “I know enough to get the job done.” Knowing is not serving. And knowing just enough and no more rewards ignorance. To serve—in Christ's name—means letting go of what we think we know, and being ready—always ready—to be moved by divine wisdom from the comfy pretense of Knowing All to the hard reality of Loving Others. 

 

As servants, we wait upon the return of our master. Loins girded. Lamps lit. When he returns, he will serve us. And from his service, we will learn what it is to die. . .to die for love of him.

*I borrowed this phrase from Hans Urs Von Balthasar.

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Catholic Priesthood ca. 1964 (ft. Dominicans!)

One of my preaching students at NDS brought this vid to my attention. . .

1964! Ah, a good year. . .
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With the stubbornness of a rented mule

29^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St Dominic/Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA

Pray always. Pray always without ceasing. Pray always without ceasing, AND do not grow weary. Is there anything we can do always and without ceasing that doesn't make us grow weary? Even those things that we love to do will eventually grind us down, exhaust our reserves, and cause us to crash and burn, so why should prayer be any different? Why wouldn't a ceaseless conversation with God wear us out? The intense focus required: brow creasing, eyes squinting, lips running. Your mind flipping through catalog after catalog of petitions, names, causes, needs, and wants. Memory stoking conscious thought with prayerful fuel: pious phrases; exhortations; the names of interceding saints; useful titles for Mary and the angels. Fingers counting out beads, or shuffling through stacks of holy cards; eyes picking out the details of a statue, a station, or a crucifix. Bowing, kneeling, standing, maybe even crawling, only to stand again and genuflect. Why doesn't a ceaseless conversation with God wear us out? Maybe it should. But it doesn't. Perseverance in prayer—always, without ceasing—cannot weary us b/c prayer is our direct line to the source and summit, the center and ground of our very being: God who is Love Himself. 

 

Pray always, without ceasing and do not grow weary. Be persistent, persevering in prayer. That sounds good. It sounds like the sort of advice we want to hear from the pulpit. We want to hear our preachers exhort us to be persistent, to be persevering, but let's be frank with one another. Words like “persistent” and “perseverance” are just the polite substitutes we use to disguise a vulgar truth: a successful prayer-life requires a bull-headed stubbornness. I mean something akin to the sort of stubbornness that we expect from a rented mule*; or the iron will of a two year old refusing her nap time. We're talking about a level of determination and dedication that would make an Olympic gold-medalist blush with shame at his own laziness. If you will live a life in God's blessing, weariness is not an option. Why not? B/c the stakes are too high. B/c the costs of laxity are too great. Consider: prayer does nothing to change the mind of God. Prayer changes the pray-er. If we cannot or will not recognize the blessings that God has poured out for us, it's likely b/c we have failed to be stubborn enough in using prayer to open our eyes to see. His gifts never stop coming; they never cease flowing. If we will to see and receive His gifts, our prayer can never cease. Gratitude must always be on our lips. 

 

The Catechism teaches us: “Prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. It always presupposes effort [b/c] prayer is a battle. Against whom? Against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter. . .” (2725). Prayer would be a burden if it were not a gift. But b/c it is a gift, it is not only not a burden but a necessary weapon, a weapon against temptation and our own obstinate disobedience. As we daily receive the gift of prayer and use it stubbornly, our disobedience is muted; the chains of sin are loosened; and find ourselves freer and freer to pursue the holiness we were created to pursue. The CCC says, “We pray as we live, because we live as we pray. . .The 'spiritual battle' of the Christian's new life is inseparable from the battle of prayer” (2725). Don't balk at the image of the Christian life as a battle, or the idea that prayer is a weapon in that battle. We are in a fight—don't doubt it—a fight against ourselves, the world, and the Enemy of Life itself. That direct line to the source and summit, the center and ground of our being—Love Himself—feeds and nurtures us in this fight. To let it go, to surrender this life-line to our Strength is dangerous; I daresay, suicidal. In the middle of a fight for your life, your eternal life, you do not abandon your only means of victory.

Writing to his disciple, Timothy, Paul urges, “Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed. . .I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus. . .proclaim the word; be persistent. . .” Remain faithful; be persistent. Why this focus on endurance, tenacity? Aren't we called as Christians to be tolerant and flexible? Aren't we supposed to be willing to compromise in conflict? That's what “love your neighbor” is all about, right? I mean, how do we love others and at the same time remain faithful to what we have learned, if what we have learned conflicts with Christ's command to love? When we love our neighbors, we participate in Love who is God Himself. He is also Truth and Goodness, so we can only love in the presence of the True and the Good. Paul's admonition to remain faithful and to persist in the Truth is a warning to us not to forget that we are vowed to proclaim the Word, the Word who became flesh and bone and died for us. We can only fulfill our vow if we stubbornly refuse to surrender our direct line to Love Himself, only if we tenaciously guard against the temptation to compromise what we have learned and believe. 

 

How do we keep the weapon of prayer honed and well-oiled? By using it, daily using the gift. What happens when we become distracted in prayer? Those aren't distractions you're experiencing. That's the Holy Spirit showing you who and what needs prayer. What about those dry periods when it appears that God isn't hearing us? He always hears us. Dryness comes when we aren't listening. The surest way of ending a dry-spell is to turn your prayer to gratitude. Gratitude grows humility and humility unplugs the ears. What about finding the time to pray? If you are still breathing, there's time to pray. Talk to God about washing the dishes; driving the kids to school; paying the bills; cooking dinner; mowing the yard. Keep a running conversation going about whatever it is you're doing. What if we grow weary of prayer? Ask yourself: am I tired of being loved? Am I exhausted by being forgiven? If you grow weary of prayer, then tell God that you are weary and give Him thanks for being alive to feel weary! If all you have to say to God is “O Lord! I am so weary!” then say that. Say it until you're no longer weary and then give Him thanks for the gift of being able to tell Him so.

I urged you earlier not to doubt that your life as a Christian is a battle and not to forget that prayer is your greatest weapon. Let me add: prayer is not a technique or a method. It takes no special training, no weekend seminar, or bookshelf full of How-To guides. You don't need to learn how to pray b/c God taught you to pray the moment you were conceived. He engraved into each one of us an indelible desire to seek Him out and live Him forever. In other words, in the great game of life, God made the first move and He continues to make the first move with every breath we take. If we're to be stubborn in prayer, then all we need to do is make each and every breath an exhalation of thanksgiving and praise. Breath in His gifts, breath out our gratitude. If you grow weary of prayer, then I must ask: have you grown weary of breathing? We live, move, have our being in the enduring presence of Love Himself. Prayer is no more difficult than seeing, hearing, touching, feeling His presence as we live and move. Stubbornly refuse then to be moved from His loving-care and just as stubbornly give Him constant thanks. 

*I was asked by a City Boy last night after Mass why a rented mule would be considered particularly stubborn. The idea came from the saying, "They work me like a rented mule," meaning, they worked me hard b/c they do not own me and will therefore not lose anything of value if I were to die while working. A rented mule would be especially stubborn b/c he is usually worked too hard.

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Christ is not who we want him to be. . .

From 2008: Hmmmm. . .this one seems particularly relevant these days. . .no worries: there will be a new one tomorrow, one for the readings for Year C.

29th Sunday OT: Isa 45.1-4-6; 1 Thes 1.1-5; Matt 22.15-21
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma
 

The Pharisees show Jesus a Roman coin and ask whether or not they should pay Caesar’s taxes. Matthew tells us that “knowing their malice, Jesus said, ‘Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?... ‘Whose image is this and whose inscription?’ They replied, ‘Caesar's.’ At that he said to them, ‘Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.’" Much has been made of this infamous distinction between what is God’s and what is Caesar’s. And even more could be made of it during this tense political season. I have preached before that ultimately the distinction is meaningless because everything belongs to God, including Caesar himself. I will not belabor the point. Rather, this morning the more interesting moment in this story is the moment Jesus calls the Pharisees out for questioning him, or more precisely, for “testing” him. According to Jesus, the Pharisees test him out of a malicious hypocrisy; that is, a hateful insincerity, a spiteful duplicity. Their apparently sincere question about paying taxes is really a contrived event to catch him up, a staged incident, choreographed and scripted to force Jesus into either treason against Rome or blasphemy against God. Jesus skillfully dodges the trap with an ultimately meaningless answer, but Jesus teaches his lesson nonetheless: “I am not who you want me to be, Pharisees.”

Let’s get down to the question: who do you want God to be? Father, Mother, Santa Claus, mischievous elf, mythical Ego, Jungian archetype, Ground of Being? Spiritual direction often starts with a question about one’s image of God. Our prayer life tells us volumes about how we understand who God is for us. In desperate times, an image of God emerges. Suffering carves out of us a hard figure of God. When we reach beyond ourselves, beyond the possibilities of easy helps and cheap fixes, we usually reach out toward heaven and call on our God for His care, His rescue. And this is exactly what we ought to do. There is nothing so humbling and spiritually purifying as a moment of desperation, a flash of weakness, or damaging stupidity that drives us to God’s comfort. But we must be careful: “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?” Our God is not our student, every ready to be questioned, every ready to be tested.

Obviously, like most politicians probing an opponents weaknesses, the Pharisees are trying to trip Jesus up by asking him the “are you still beating your wife?” sort of question. No answer is good, any answer will be vacuous in the end. The point of the exchange is not to find the truth but to expose a hated enemy as worthy of one’s hate. Jesus calls this attempt malicious and hypocritical. Malicious because their intent is evil and hypocritical because they know that they are not asking a real question but setting a trap. Their insincerity is poisonous. But only to themselves. Who do they need him to be? Or perhaps the best question: who do they hope he turns out to be? Given their institutional investments and political commitments, no doubt the Pharisees hope he turns out to be little more than a madman from Nazareth.

Given your institutional investments and political commitments, who do you hope Jesus turns out to be? Jesus says to give to Caesar what is his and give to God what belongs to Him. Of course, this means that we give all things to God in the end b/c all that belongs to Caesar really belongs to God. For a while, while we walk around on the dirt, we give Caesar his due—his taxes, our obedience to his laws within our duties to God, our civic participation. But in giving Caesar his due now our hearts must always be inclined to a longing and a goal well beyond Caesar’s temporary crown; focused fiercely, permanently on the Crown of Heaven. The Pharisees hope to use this apparently split allegiance to force Jesus into a political-religious quagmire. They need for Jesus to be a madman or a traitor or a blasphemer, so they test him in their malicious hypocrisy, rigging the test to give them the result they hope for; and in getting the hoped-for answer, relieving them of any duty to preach his message, teach his word, or offer him their obedience as the Messiah promised by the prophets.

Rather than giving them what they hope for, Jesus says, in essence, “I am not who you want me to be.” Jesus is not a traitor or a blasphemer. Nor is he a revolutionary or an institutional cog. He is not a preacher of flaccid tolerance nor a fire-breathing demagogue. He is neither Democrat nor Republican; he is not Obama nor McCain. He is the Prince of Peace who comes with a death-dealing sword to deal death to our sin. He is the Lamb of God who comes with a scourge to beat the unfaithful faithful for their hypocrisy and out of his temple. He is the Final Judge who died for us, making us clean before the Father’s throne. He is the Lion of David’s House who gently shepherds, protects, and provides. He tells Isaiah: “I am the LORD and there is no other, there is no God besides me. It is I who arm you, though you know me not, so that toward the rising and the setting of the sun people may know that there is none besides me. I am the LORD, there is no other.”

And no other is the LORD! Not the state, not a political party, not an institution, not a person or an idea or a theory. Nothing made can save us. Nothing passing can give us eternal life. If it can die, it cannot give Life. If it can change, it cannot impart perfection. If it can fail, it cannot gift us with goodness. That we want a man, a party, a system, or an idea to save us, to give us life, to grant us goodness is a sin as old as Eve’s yes to the serpent’s gift. Like the maliciously hypocritical Pharisees, don’t we often find ourselves testing Jesus to see who he will be for us today? Just poking him a bit to see if he will budge on a favorite issue or yield a bit on a favorite sin? Recently, I watched a youtube video of a Catholic rally for Prop 8 in CA. A woman approached the young men and screamed at them: “Jesus preached tolerance!” Since Prop 8 is designed to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman, we can assume that the woman—shown in the video harassing the men—believes that the first-century Jewish rabbi, Jesus, would “tolerate” a marriage among a man, another man, and the first man’s sister. You are either tolerant or you’re not. Tolerance tolerates no intolerance.

Let’s conclude here with this: Jesus fails the Pharisee’s test. Turns out that he is not who they hope he is. He is not the traitor, the blasphemer, the arch-heretic they had hoped for. Neither is he the hippie-dippy feminist peacenik, nor the fiery-eyed God of Righteous Vengeance Come to Smite Our Enemies, nor the sagacious prophet with a stoical temper. He is the Judge, the Lamb, the Prince, the Child, the King, the Seed, the Vine, the Word, the Spirit. He is the LORD. And there is no other and no other is the LORD. 

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Pope Francis' First Message in English!

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