Wherever the Spirit sends us. . .

6th Week of Easter (T)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Have the disciples been listening? Have they truly attended to what Jesus is trying to teach them about who and what they are to become? On many occasions in the three years they have spent with Jesus, the disciples have misunderstood him, ignored him, failed to follow him, and now, as he stands on the verge of leaving them behind, they exhibit a curious lack of curiosity. Jesus says to them, “Now I am going to the one who sent me, and not one of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?'” Do they fail to ask because they do not care? Or, because they already know and don't want their worst fears confirmed? Jesus answers the question for us, “. . .because I told you [that I am leaving], grief has filled your hearts.” His friends know that he is leaving them behind, moving on to Jerusalem and a gruesome death. Though their grief is only natural, it cannot stand against the coming of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who convicts the world of sin and convinces the worldliest heart that not even death can triumph over the promise of eternal life through Christ.

Jesus will leave his friends behind. He will go to Jerusalem, suffer at the hands of his enemies, die on the cross, and rise from the grave to live again. He will ascend to the Father, and the Holy Spirit will come to sweep across those who heard his words and witnessed his deeds. All their fear, doubt, worry; all their confusion, questions, insecurities; any hesitation they harbor in preaching the gospel, all of these will be set ablaze, burned away by the coming of the Holy Spirit. Then they will set out to heal, to cast out demons, to speak God's word of mercy to sinners, to suffer and die as Christ himself suffered and died. In the rush to pack and leave for their missions, do they remember the question they forgot to ask to the Lord, “Where are you going?” If they were listening to Jesus while he was among them, they already know how to answer, “Lord, we am going to Jerusalem; we are following you to the cross.”

Two thousand years later, the question still matters. Baptized, confirmed in the Spirit, nourished at the altar, where are you going? Jesus is gone and the Advocate has come. Where are you going? To Jerusalem and your cross? Of course. But there are many hours and many miles between now and then, here and there. If the Spirit has convicted us of our sin and convinced us of the truth, what do we do in the meantime, all those miles in between? We do what Jesus did. We do what the disciples did once the Spirit seized their grieving hearts. Proclaim the truth. Heal the sick. Feed the hungry. Forgive, love, show mercy. Bring peace to worry. Bear good fruit and give it away. Live in joy. Die for your friends. Each time, a step behind our Lord. Each step, a moment longer with him.

Where are we going? Wherever the Spirit sends us. When are we leaving? If we've been listening, we are already well on our way.

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To open wide the most closely guarded heart

St. Philip Neri

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Dominic Church, NOLA

When we hear God's Word and listen to Him speaking to us, our hearts are opened, and we are filled with the joy of His Holy Spirit. Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, is our witness to this truth. Hearing Paul preach in Philippi, she attends to the Word. She turns herself toward the Word, reaching out toward the Word, “and the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying.” What does Lydia hear? She hears the truth revealed – the truth about her sin and the surety of God's mercy to sinners. Lydia and her household are baptized, and she offers Paul and his companions the hospitality of her home. Her invitation is an expression of joy, an act of charity born out of a new found freedom from slavery to sin. We can't miss the progression of events here: Lydia hears the Word; the Lord opens her heart to listen; she listens to the Word; she is convicted and convinced in the truth of the Spirit; and then she is baptized. Her baptism immediately leads her to express her joy, an act of charity. When we hear God's Word and listen to Him speaking to us, our hearts are opened, and we are filled with the joy of His Holy Spirit.

 

On this feast day of St. Philip Neri, the Apostle of Joy, we cannot miss the intimate connection btw listening to the Word and the presence of joy. When we turn ourselves toward God's Word and our hearts are opened to listen – to attend to His Word – we recognize the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. Here's a weak analogy to give you an image. Think of a laptop. It's on, but the screen is blank. When you “attend to” the laptop, when you press a key or click the mouse, the laptop “wakes up,” it doesn't turn on b/c it's already on – it animates, it comes alive. Here's another analogy. You crank your car. It's running but not moving. When you “attend to” the car by putting it in gear, the car moves. In a similar way, the Holy Spirit abides – He sleeps, idles – in the baptized. When we “attend to” the Spirit by listening to God's Word, by celebrating the sacraments, by praying, the Spirits wakes; He comes alive and blooms into joy. And joy, St. Thomas tells us, is an effect of charity. Joy is an act of love, a fruit of the Holy Spirit (ST.II-II.28.4).

You may have noticed that in my analogies the laptop had be turned on and the car cranked. IOW, before they are able to “come alive” by our attention, they have to be “on.” Before the Holy Spirit can “come alive” in us, we too must be “on.” How does this happen? In his exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis teaches us that God always takes the initiative. He loves us first. Francis writes, “God asks everything of us, yet at the same time he offers everything to us” (12). The first gift we receive from God is His love, Himself. This is what “turns us on.” This is what makes it possible for Lydia to hear Paul's preaching. Our relationship with God is always voluntary, always a willed act on your part. We must will to turn toward Him. He makes that willing possible but not compulsory. Jesus tells the disciples that they will be expelled from the synagogues and even killed. Those who commit these evil acts “will do this because they have not known either the Father or me.” They have not heard the Word nor have they turned themselves toward the Lord. Their hearts are closed to the truth of the Spirit. Our task – as enjoyers of the Spirit's abiding presence – is to testify to Christ, to bear witness to the freely offered mercy of the Father to sinners. Our example is Philip Neri. He lived in constant joy, a martyr to the power of the Spirit to open wide the most closely guarded heart.

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Philip Neri and Spiritual Combat

In honor of St. Philip Neri, Fr. George Rutler offers a reflection on spiritual combat:

The feast of St. Philip Neri (1515-1595) falls this Monday, on the same day that the civil calendar memorializes those who gave their lives in the service of our country. Philip was a soldier, too, albeit a soldier of Christ, wearing “the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). He lived in a decadent time when many who called themselves Christians chose to be pacifists in the spiritual combat against the world, the flesh and the Devil. 

Read the whole thing.

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Coffee Cup Browsing

Amer-Progs' fav Marxist economist used bogus data. Figures. Marxism is bogus from the ground up.

"Sentimentality always leads to the gas chamber." This is why reason must always rule passion.

More on the LCWR's fav self-appointed prophet and New Age phoney-baloney, Barbara Hubbard.

U.N. drops "torture" charge against the Church. Here's an idea: abolish the U.N. Raze the building. Salt the earth. 

Lefty's trying and failing (again) to pin the blame for mass-shooter on the Right.

BTW, all of his guns/ammo were legal. . .in California! And three of his victims were killed with a knife.

Looks like the Brits are finally coming to their anti-E.U. senses. 
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Audio for 6th Sunday of Easter

Audio File for: "Was it easier back then?"

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Eliot Rodger: hero of amoral secularism

If you can stomach it, watch this guy's Youtube vids. I haven't heard that kind of psycho-narcissism since I worked in the mental hospital.

Two disturbing things jumped out at me: 1). his entitlement and 2). the hyper-sexualized fixation on his virginity.

Notice how many times he refers to his cars, sunglasses, clothes, etc., always appealing to them as some kind of magical amulets that are supposed to make women fall in love with him. Apparently, his accumulation of expensive stuff entitles him to a girlfriend. Wonder where he got that idea!?

He's a 22 yo virgin. Only in a culture that despises marriage and children can a 22 yo man wail in public about his virginity. Notice that he never mentions marriage or children. . .just sex. Notice how he compares himself with the "brutes" that women seem to prefer over him -- a beta-male with money whining b/c women like alpha-males. 

My guess is that he has been told since birth that he is special: given everything he wants, never disciplined, always pampered, and told that his feelings defined reality. When his bloated self-esteem ran up against the equally bloated self-esteem of the women his age. . .well, just watch the vids, if you can bear it.

Sad. Very sad. 

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Was it easier Back Then?

NB. Had to edit this one. . .too long.

6th Sunday of Easter (A)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA

Audio File

Was it easier back then, I wonder, to believe in and witness to Christ? “Back then,” of course, being during the first few decades after the resurrection. Was it simpler? You just believed, met Christ in the Spirit, and then ran around telling everyone what you now know: He is risen! It had to be less complicated, less involved to be a follower of the Way way back then. Well, it wasn’t easier in the sense of having to run for your life every the temple guards or the Roman soldiers showed up. Then there were the crowds who weren’t happy about you blaspheming their elder gods when you preached the gospel. Not to mention the growing factions of Christians who polluted the Word with Egyptian occultism, Roman blood rituals, Greek mystery philosophies. And then there’s that whole martyrdom business—arrows, blades, fires, crucifixions. Belief itself was easier, I think. Though believing came at a much higher price than it does for us now. Of course, by “us” I mean, “western Christians.” Christians can still find the blade, the jail cell, the shot to the head in some parts of the world. Still, reading the Acts of the Apostles you get the sense of a greater faith among the early Christians, a more urgent fervor than we have now. Jesus had to know that the fire he kindled would burn hot for a while and then begin to settle into a warm glow before turning to ash altogether. How much more would his friends and their students begin to feel the pressure of family, friends, neighbors to return to the traditional ways once it became clear that he wasn’t coming back tomorrow or next week or even several years down the line? You would think that someone as smart as Jesus would have a plan in place to keep his Word burning down through the centuries. The Good News is: he did and that plan is called the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, our Advocate and Counselor!

Look at Philip in Samaria. The crowds paid attention to him because he “proclaimed the Christ to them.” He freed people from unclean spirits, healed the paralyzed, and “there was great joy in [Samaria].” So successful was Philip’s preaching there that “the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God…” They sent in the Big Guns, Peter and John, who “prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen upon any of them…” Philip had preached and healed and baptized, but Peter and John laid hands on these new members of the family, and “they received the Holy Spirit.” Notice here that though Philip brought the Word to Samaria, the larger Church—represented by Peter and John—brought the Holy Spirit. Look at Philip in Samaria! He went down to that city and the Samaritans paid attention to him. Why? Because he “proclaimed the Christ to them.”

Who then is this Holy Spirit? Go back a little while and remember the promise of Christ as he says farewell to his friends, “…I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth…” This is the first part of his promise. What’s the second? Jesus promises, “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” So, who is this Holy Spirit? Christ himself, that’s who: “In a little while the world will no longer see me,” Jesus says, “but you will see me, because I live and you will live.” If we live and he lives then it must be the case that we—all of us and Christ himself— we live together. What do we live in, together? The Holy Spirit! But then Jesus says, “…I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.” So, it’s not the Spirit but the Father we live in? Not quite. It is the Father and the Spirit that we live in…we live as Christ, the one who made us sons of the Father through the Spirit.

 

How then you do you love God? This is not a rhetorical question. This is a question about your eternal destination. Most deeply, most basically, at the heart of everything you are and hope to be, ask the question: how do I love God? In what manner do I love God? Peter helps us here. He writes, “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.” Meaning, make the One who died for you, everything he is and everything he did, make him ruler of your very being, God of your thinking, your believing, your doing, your living and your dying. He must rule, or someone else will. Peter continues, “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope…” Why do you hope? Seduced as you are to spend eternity with God, why do you trust? Knowing that your answer might lead to ridicule, abuse, violence, even death, why would you tell anyone why you hope? Peter says, “For it is better to suffer for doing good…than for doing evil.” If it is God’s will that you suffer, it is better to suffer telling the truth; it is better to suffer while witnessing to Christ’s suffering for you.

Jesus, looking at his friends, knows that such a witness will draw the most maligned accusations against them. He knows this because he himself knows that even his friends—those sitting in front of him—will betray him. If your friends will abandon you in your most painful moment, why would you expect those who never knew you, even your enemies, to hang around and help? Peter writes, “[Jesus] was put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the Spirit.” And so it must be for us as well. Given this truth, why do we stay the course to the Cross?

Don’t you think that it was easier back then? They were closer to Christ. They knew him flesh and bone. They heard him with their own ears, watched him with their eyes. They knew him in a way we never can. And yet, here we are. Gathered together in his name as his Body, offering his gifts on the altar of sacrifice, saying AMEN to lives bound to one another in charity. Here we are—loving him as he loves us so that he might reveal himself to us. What does he reveal? He reveals that in his love, we too are Christ! We abide, live, move and have our being, we plan, grow, thrive, harvest in his love; we work, play, sleep, eat, study in his love; we do everything we do, think everything we think, feel everything we feel in his love. It is no more difficult now than it was then. The Spirit moved then, and the Spirit moves now. The Spirit set them on fire then, he sets us on fire now. The Spirit gave them what they needed to explain their hope; he gives us now the words, the courage, the power to preach and teach our hope in him now. Yes, he suffered; so do we. Yes, he died; so do we. Yet he lives, and so do we…in him, with him, through him. We live as Christ.

It is no easier then than it is now. The Devil has a deal for you. Unclean spirits still plague us. Aren’t we tempted to surrender to our neighbors and say yes to the culture of death? Aren’t we ridiculed for our naïve faith in ancient tales of miracles? For believing that we need salvation from the stain of sin? For our hope that one day he will return in the flesh to take us away? Sure, of course, we are. The same spirit of despair, darkness, loathing, and destruction still haunts the Church. We must remain unmoved by this spirit of desolation. Love Christ. Follow his commandment to love. Remain in him, and he will remain in you. If He can change the sea into dry land and deliver His children from slavery, then he can give you the Word of Life to speak in His name. Keep your conscience clear and be ready. The Devil has a deal for you. He prowls like a hungry lion hunting for someone to devour. If you want to be the meat between the devil’s teeth, then let go of Christ, surrender to despair, abandon your friends in the Body, and run toward the easier choice of living without our Father’s rule, without His love. This is the freedom the world has for sale and the Devil is ready to make a deal just for you. He'll let you have this world's freedom for as little as your immortal soul. Tell him you are bought and paid for: the Advocate, the Paraclete owns you, body and soul.

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Back amongst the gators. . .

Back in New Orleans from the provincial assembly in TX.  Always good to see the brothers. 

The Provincial Chapter starts Saturday. Please keep the delegates in your prayers.

They are charged with electing a provincial, appointing a provincial council and several other provincial officers. 

We are praying for see a new direction, a renewed vision of our fundamental charism, an end to a long bout of crisis management, and a transparent image of the province as a loyal worker with the Church for the spread of the apostolic faith. 

That's a lot to pray for, but we are ever-confident that the Holy Spirit will provide!

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And. . .my summer begins!

Blogging is going to be rare in the next few weeks.

I'm off to Navasota, TX for the annual provincial assembly. . .

And then probably a visit to the squirrels. . .

And then to NJ to teach theology to some OP nun novices. . .

Please offer up some Big Prayers for the province during our assembly (May 19-22). 

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Listen to homily for 5th Sunday of Easter

Audio File for "No troubled hearts. . ."

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No troubled hearts. . .

NB. A homily I need right now. . .do not let your hearts be troubled.
 

5th Sunday of Easter (A)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA

Audio File

The king of Corinth was a clever man. He was also prideful and lived to lie to friend and foe alike. His pride and deceitfulness kept him in power and flush with gold. When given the chance, he would divulge an ally's secrets to a mutual enemy and reap the rewards of betrayal. It was only a matter of time before his hubris compelled him to expose the follies of Zeus and gamble his cleverness against the anger of a god. One day, believing himself equal to the gods, the king told the river god, Asopus, one of Zeus' secrets in exchange for a fresh water spring in his city. As punishment, Zeus ordered Death to chain the king in the Abyss. The king, ever-clever, tricked Death and escaped. When the king died, his wife did not observe the proper burial rites, so he ended up in Hades only to escape and return to his wife to scold her for being disrespectful. Fed up with the king's impertinence, Zeus ordered his spirit to bear an eternal burden. He was condemned to push a boulder up a hill. When he nearly reached the top of the hill with the boulder, it would escape his grasp and roll to the bottom. The king would have to begin again. . .for eternity. The king's name was Sisyphus. To this day, we use his name to describe an absurd task, or a futile burden that leads to despair. For some, Sisyphus and his fate serve as a warning against pride and deceit. To others, he's an absurd hero, a foolish solider in a war against tyrants. Who is he for the followers of Christ? Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” But how often do we lovers of Christ wallow in our burdens and make our troubles badges of honor?

Because he was a fool to challenge Zeus and because his punishment seems so familiar, so “right,” Sisyphus is a popular subject in modern poetry. The American poet, Stephen Dunn, in a series of poems starring our anti-hero, wonders what Sisyphus would do if he were forgiven his sins, relieved of his ridiculous task. In a poem titled, “Sisyphus and the Sudden Lightness,” Dunn gives us the man mysteriously absolved of his debt to Zeus and wandering the streets in search of a purpose. Dunn writes, Sisyphus, of course, was worried;/ he'd come to depend on his burden,/wasn't sure who he was without it. He peels an orange; pets a dog, keeps moving forward b/c he is afraid/of the consequences of standing still.//He no longer felt inclined to smile. Over time, Sisyphus realizes that he is no longer being punished b/c the gods have disappeared. He hasn't been forgiven; he's been abandoned. So, out of anger or frustration or maybe defiance, He dared to raise his fist to the sky./Nothing, gloriously, happened.//Then a different terror overtook him. Sisyphus has been his punishment for centuries. Now that the boulder and the hill no longer imprison him, who is he? The gods are gone and the history of his punishment is more ridiculous, more meaningless than ever.

Sisyphus' heart is troubled. He has been abandoned by his gods, and he no longer knows who or what he is. He was condemned to an eternity of futile labor. Had he come to enjoy that boulder and the hill? Had he come to believe that his punishment was not only well-deserved but actually beneficial to his soul? As followers of Christ, what would we tell him about pride and its punishment? About lying and the consequences of defying God? Would we tell him that he got what he deserved and that he should shoulder his burden w/o complaint? If so, then we have to ask ourselves: Do we see ourselves in Sisyphus, wallowing in our burdens, making our troubled hearts badges of honor? Are we freed men and women, liberated children of a loving God; or, are we prisoners to our self-selected and self-imposed punishments? It might not be polite to say or pleasant to believe, but those of us who lay claim to the kingdom of God too often see ourselves as lost, abandoned; forsaken and punished for our sins. Sometimes we see this so intensely, believe it so fervently that we become our burdens; we transform ourselves from forgiven souls with an occasionally troubled heart into constantly troubled hearts with souls we cannot trust are forgiven. After all, we deserve our burdens; we are entitled to our troubles and we would not know who or what we are if, suddenly, our sentences were commuted and we were set free. Who are you once you are unchained and your prison is destroyed?

Jesus tells his disciples that he is preparing himself for death. He is leaving them. Confronted by their overwhelming anxiety and fear, Jesus says to them, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.” He tells them that he is going to prepare a place for them in his Father's house. “I will come back again,” he assures them, “and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way.” Most anxious and skeptical of them all, Thomas, blurts out, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Can you hear Thomas' real question? He's really asking, “How can you abandon us? How can you just leave us here? Why are we being punished? We don't know the way!” Jesus says to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father.” You know the way. You know me, and I am the way. You know the truth and you know the life. I am the truth and the life. You have come to me, and in doing so, you have come to the Father. When I return, you will all return with me to the Father. Did his friends believe him? Do we believe him? If we think Jesus is lying, then we will never surrender our burdens, never give up the punishments for sin that we believe we deserve. If we trust in his word, then we will crawl out from under the anxiety and the despair; we will gladly, eagerly push aside all of our destructive guilt and self-recrimination. Finally, we will come to accept that we are not the sum total of our sins and the years we have spent in prison, but that we are the freed children of a loving God who waits for us to occupy the many rooms of His heavenly house. That's who and what we are: not guests or visitors but children, beloved sons and daughters come home, and come home for good.

Peter tells us more about who and what we are in Christ: “You are 'a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises' of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” We are a race—black, white, yellow, brown, red—a race of those chosen by God. We are royal priests, offering sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving on the altars of our daily lives. We are a holy nation—Americans, Russians, Japanese, Mexicans—a nation set aside to be a commonwealth of faith and reason in a world slowing going insane. And we are a people, a tribe, citizens and subjects of a kingdom that will never end. When we are who we were redeemed to be and when we do what we were redeemed to do, there is no time for us nor energy left in us for absurd burdens, futile punishments, or useless anxiety. 

Sisyphus, upon realizing that his punishment was at an end, and realizing that his gods had abandoned him, shook his fist at heaven, and a different terror overtook him. He was terrified of not knowing who or what we was without his burden, without his petty gods. If you are afraid of surrendering your worries and your labors b/c you believe that you deserve them, or b/c you fear that you will become lost, let Christ's words bang around in your mind for a while: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. . .I will come back again and take you to myself. . .”

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The absurd dichotomy of Jesus without the Church

A not-so-subtle message to the LCWR?

This is what Pope Francis asserted in his address to the participants in the plenary assembly of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) whom he received in audience this morning. . .

“Your vocation is a fundamental charism for the Church's journey and it isn't possible that a consecrated woman or man might 'feel' themselves not to be with the Church. A 'feeling' with the Church that has generated us in Baptism; a 'feeling' with the Church that finds its filial expression in fidelity to the Magisterium, in communion with the Bishops and the Successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome, a visible sign of that unity,” the pontiff added, citing Paul VI: “It is an absurd dichotomy to think of living with Jesus but without the Church, of following Jesus outside of the Church, of loving Jesus without loving the Church. Feel the responsibility that you have of caring for the formation of your Institutes in sound Church doctrine,* in love of the Church, and in an ecclesial spirit.” 

Oh, yes. . .I think so!

* A good place to start: invite religious who support the "New Cosmology" to explore career opportunities outside the seminary/school of theology. 

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Coffee Cup Browsing

Stamp Your Feet: a "dialogue" btw the CDF and LCWR. . .yes, it's meant to be funny, but it really does capture the back and forth.

Well, no big surprise here. Boy Scouts being pressured to allow openly gay adult leaders. Progs are so predictable.

Pope Francis on "intellectuals" in the Church. Hear, hear! (Yes, the irony of a Dominican cheering this is palpable).

Pregnant Sudanese Christian is sentenced to death for. . .being a Christian.

Young Catholics drove the Harvard-MIT response to that Satanic PR stunt.

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Thanks!

Birthday Thanks to Evandro M. for sending me The Genesis of Science from the Wish List.

Arrived in time for my visit to Squirrel Country at the end of this month!

Fr. Philip
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"You are not owners of doctrine!"

Wise words from the Holy Father to newly ordained priests:

The Holy Father spoke to the men of his sadness at hearing of people who had the experience of being “thrashed” or “yelled at” in the confessional and never returned because they felt that “the doors of the Church were closed in their face!”

“Please, don’t do this!” he exclaimed.

[AMEN! This has got to be one of the dumbest things a priest can do. Confession is hard enough w/o adding another dose of fear to the equation. Anyone who approaches The Box is there b/c the Holy Spirit sent them there. And they should be treated as co-operators with the Spirit's grace.]
 

[. . .]

Pope Francis also reminded those seeking ordination to be faithful to the gospel they were taught rather than creating their own ideas.

“Teach that which you have learned in the faith, live that which you have taught. A nourishment to the people of God will therefore be your doctrine, which is not yours: you are not owners of doctrine! It is the doctrine of the Lord, and you must be faithful to the doctrine of the Lord!”

[AMEN! No one owns the doctrine of the faith. Not even the Pope. Clergy and religious who treat the faith like a personal possession need to find another line of work. All this nonsense about "creative dissent" is just cover for plain ole dissent. Father shouldn't be teaching and preaching his personal theology.]

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