Preachers need wisdom and humility

Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, OP

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Notre Dame Seminary, NOLA

Thomas Aquinas: philosopher, theologian, scripture scholar, university professor, composer of hymns, jurist, consultant to Popes and councils, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, and, of course, every seminarians' favorite title, Dumb Ox! Before he wrote the Summa contra gentiles and before he wrote the Summa theologiae, and before he composed the Tantum Ergo and the Pange Ligua, and before he was named a Doctor of the Church and gifted the Church with a theological foundation that still breathes 742 years after his death, before all of these and more. . .Thomas flourished as a Dominican friar, a preacher. And everything we wrote, taught, sang, and studied he did for the sake of preaching the Gospel. For the Dumb Ox, preaching endured as that without which his commentaries, hymns, treatises, and books turned to straw. For us, the fruits of his contemplation constitute a body of human wisdom unsurpassed in subtlety, complexity, and depth, and gift us with the means of both perfecting ourselves and our preaching. Underneath Thomas' preaching, supporting his mission and ministry, stands the slender straws of wisdom and humility.

On the nature of wisdom, Thomas writes, “According to [Aristotle] (Metaph. i: 2), it belongs to wisdom to consider the highest cause. By means of that cause we are able to form a most certain judgment about other causes, and according thereto all things should be set in order…Accordingly, it belongs to the wisdom that is an intellectual virtue to pronounce right judgment about Divine things after reason has made its inquiry…”(ST II-II.45.1-2). More simply put, wisdom is that habit of mind that seeks to discover and study the final causes of all things and put these things in their proper order given their final cause. Therefore, Wisdom does not enlighten us like some occult swamp-spirit that flits around waiting for the right moment to sting. Nor does Wisdom live among the tacky tomes of Retail Gnosticism that litter the shelves of B&N. These “wisdoms” – little more than leftover paganism muscled-up with psychobabble – these wisdoms gift the weak ego with a shot of faux courage and urges the newly self-anointed guru to adore him or herself. But from the wisest teacher of them all, we know that: “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” 

 

When we acknowledge that we live and move and have our being in God, when we humble ourselves, we participate in His wisdom. When we participate in His wisdom – seeking the final causes of all things – we enter contemplation and prepare ourselves to share the fruits of our contemplation. And when we share the fruits of our contemplation, we preach the Good News. When we study, we prepare to preach. When we pray, we prepare to preach. When we minister, we prepare to preach. When we rest, we prepare to preach. For Thomas, and for us if we hope to grow in holiness, preaching endures as that without which our papers, our essays and presentations, our teaching and our research turns to straw. Whether we preach from the pulpit, the street corner, the dining room table, or the classroom lectern, our vowed task remains: to go ad gentes – among the peoples – and proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ. Our Father freely offers His mercy to sinners, seducing the sinner into salvation. If we will, we live and move and have our being as His mercy-filled instruments.

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Just how hard-headed are you?

From 2008. . .

Conversion of St Paul
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Albert the Great and Church of the Incarnation

I was hit in the head with a brick once. My brother threw it at me right after I threw two bricks at him. Once, while helping dad put up a barbed-wire fence, the tightly wound end unwound and smacked me across my face. I’ve been bitten several times by the emotionally unstable. Various bodily fluids thrown at me and on me. I’ve been in only one serious auto accident and numerous accidents with chainsaws, axes, lawnmowers, my ’69 Pontiac Executive, and a widely swung two x four to the jaw. I had to help physically restraint a police officer once while a psych nurse got a needle full of Haldol in his hip. I’ve watched patients in the trauma ward die. And then come back to life with a little help. I’ve seen beautiful black puppies slaughtered and dressed for food in a Chinese market. And I watched a Japanese family eat a raw fish while it still breathed. I even had to help a nurse suture a self-inflicted wound on a male patient. Let’s just say his “manhood” was telling him to do bad things, so he, well. . .snipsnip. Once, I was within days of dying from a blood-staph infection. Not once during any of these highly dangerous, highly emotional, deeply life-changing events, never did I hear a voice or see a light telling me to preach the Good News to the whole world. Then, again, I’m not (and have never been) Saul the infamous persecutor of the Church; nor Paul, the missionary apostle to the Gentiles. Maybe it is the case that Paul is a little less hard-headed than your average Mississippi farmboy.

Paul, well on his way to Damascus, is knocked to the ground by a flash of light and blinded. In his darkness, he is persecuting the Church—eyes and heart closed—; he arrests, jails, tries, and imprisons members of Christ’s Body. Ananias is told to go look for the blinded persecutor and teach him the faith. Ananias objects, saying that he has heard that Saul is an infamous enemy of the Church. But the Lord says to him, “Go, for this man is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles…” Ananias does as he is ordered, finding the blinded Saul and offering him the baptism of water and spirit. Once his sight is returned to me, his vision of the Church is radically changed. Now, he preaches Christ and him crucified.

All of this serious machination to get Paul on our side has a larger and better purpose than simply winning a hard one for the team. Without the benefit of Jesus’ one-on-one instruction that the other apostles received, Paul must do what the other Eleven were commissioned to do,”Go into the whole world an proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” That’s a good commission. But did it require being bodyslammed by a burst of light and then several days of blindness lived among Jewish strangers? It did. Why? Mark’s gospel is elegant in its simplicity and lack of subtly. Paul, like the other disciples and like ourselves, is charged with preaching the Good News. Whoever believes and is baptized is saved. Whoever refuses to believe or to be baptized is condemned.

At this point in the Christian narrative, this is not a happy-clappy message best delivered by recently scrubbed professors of theology or neatly styled media pastors. The weight of this choice is best delivered—in its stark, uncompromising simplicity—by someone who never believed it before but now, but because of a direct revelation from Christ himself, knows beyond the logic of language and speech that the Gospel message is terrifyingly true. Paul met the Message in the burst of light but he came to believe in Christ in his blindness. Blind, crippled, dependent on strangers for his daily care, and newly commissioned to abandon everything, everything he has ever known to the good, true, and beautiful, Paul sees with new eyes, stronger eyes and he is fortified against the lazy hearts and minds of those who would fall so easily back among their former ways, clouding the truth, burying the tough stuff under bushels of alien philosophies and favorites sin—all the foreign fruit that will rot too soon and soon enough.

All who heard him were astounded because he had been chosen from the world to go out, witness to the saving power of God, and bear through his witness the everlasting fruit of the Father’s Word.

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Are you ready to believe. . .by Word and Deed?

2nd Sunday OT 2016
Fr. Philip Neri, OP
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA

The party's in full swing. The couple is properly married. The band is jamming away. The food is hot and plentiful. Then disaster strikes! They run out of wine. This is how we know this isn't a Catholic wedding. Mary, knowing what knows about her son, approaches him and says – probably in that tone that mothers use when they want you to do something but don't want to ask, “They have no wine.” Jesus responds, “Woman, how does your concern affect me?” [Every time I read this, I cringe. Being a good southern boy, if I called my mama “woman,” I'd regret it. . .after came to.] Bravely, Jesus continues, “My hour has not yet come.” What? That's a lame excuse not to help the host with his wine shortage. Except that it's not an excuse. Jesus' “hour” is the moment he reveals himself to be the Christ. The second he reveals his identity as the Christ, the countdown clock to Golgotha starts ticking. Is he ready to reveal himself just to keep the party going? Is he ready to start his long, painful walk to the Cross? What's more, are his disciples ready to follow him? Are we?

We know that Jesus is ready to reveal himself. He changes six jars of water into wine. The head waiter is impressed and compliments the groom for serving his best wine last. About this miracle, John writes, “Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory. . .” Changing water into wine is just the beginning, the first among many signs that reveal the glory of Christ. Though this story seems straightforward enough, there are a few odd moments that deserve attention. If his hour had not yet come, why did he perform a sign that would start his clock ticking? A clue to answering this question comes in the last bit of the reading. John writes that Jesus performs this sign to reveal his glory and b/c of the sign “his disciples began to believe in him.” If his disciples “began to believe in him,” then we have to think that they didn't believe in him before he performed this miracle. Setting aside for a moment how you can be a disciple and not believe in your teacher, what does it say about the disciples that it takes a miracle to get their attention? Just how hardhearted are they? How closed minded do you have to be not to believe in a teacher you've freely chosen to follow? Maybe they believed him but were just not ready to follow him to the Cross. . .

Here's a question for you: how do you prove that you really believe something? For example, if you say that you believe in God, how do I know that you believe in God? If belief is just a matter of saying or thinking, “I believe X,” then I have to believe that you believe. But what if belief required more than just a matter-of-fact assertion? What if belief required both a matter-of-fact assertion about belief AND a demonstration of belief? In other words, when you say to me, “I believe in God,” my response would have to be, “Oh really? Show me.” What would you do? How do we act out a belief? I know this seems like a weird question to ask, but it's a question that Christians have been asking one another for centuries. During the Roman persecutions of the Church, Christians identified themselves by refusing to offer incense to the statues of the Emperor. Christians serving in the Roman legions were tortured and executed for treason b/c they would not pledge themselves to Caesar. Martyrdom is possible today in Nigeria, the Sudan, China, North Korea just by going to Mass. In the E.U. and increasingly in the US, you can lose your job, your children, and your business for living the Christian faith. What if belief required you to sacrifice everything, up to and including your life? Would you say you believed?

Jesus knew all too well where he was headed. And he knew what would happen to those who freely chose to follow him. He never made a secret of the consequences of believing in him and acting on that belief. He goes out of his way to detail the ugliness that awaits his followers. It's almost as if he wants to discourage people from becoming disciples! Maybe this is why he seems to reply to Mary so rudely, “My hour has not yet come.” Maybe his love for the disciples causes him to hesitate before showing them a sign of his glory as the Christ. Deep down, he wants to spare them the trials of living righteously in a world in rebellion against his Father's rule. Showing them a sign of his glory—like changing water to wine—means moving their hearts and minds from being devoted to him as a holy teacher to following him as their Savior. That's a big move, a Huge Move! A move that will eventually lead all of them to martyrdom in blood and fire. Mary seems to understand her son's hesitation, so she doesn't push him to reveal himself. Instead, she leaves the decision to him, saying to the servers only, “Do whatever he tells you.” And b/c he knows that the mission of the Christ is to die for the sins of the many, he tells them to bring him some water so that he might begin his ministry of signs in Cana.

Are the disciples ready to follow Christ to the Cross? Are we ready to follow him? That move from being devoted to Jesus as a holy teacher to following him as a Savior is a big move, a huge move. It's the difference btw being a hardworking student of a great teacher and being a fellow-worker in ministry eager to share both his glory and his tribulations. I think most of us are ready to say that we're ready to follow Christ. In theory, the whole scenario looks good, even healthy: repentance, forgiveness, penance, love, mercy, hope, good works, all tied together in the sacraments and supported by a vibrant religious culture. The disciples don't have this kind of external support. They are Jewish heretics. Their religious culture sees them as cultish, separated from family and friends, unclean. Thus they are nearly overwhelmed when the ascended Christ sends the Holy Spirit among them at Pentecost, flooding each one of them with His passionate fire for spreading the Word. In their darkest hour, they are given Divine Love, unmediated by law or prophets, undiluted by age or tradition. We are given this same Love: the Spirit to believe, trust, love, show mercy, do good works, to repent, and grow in righteousness. Like the disciples, we too come to believe and believe by word and deed.

Our challenge as faithful followers of Christ becomes clearer and clearer every day. It's not our mission to defeat the world with holiness. The world is already defeated. It's not our mission to save the world with prayer. The world is already saved. It's not our mission to bring justice and peace among the nations through our good works. That's done too. Our mission is to live our lives as witnesses to all that has already been done by Christ. To live holy lives b/c the world is defeated. To live prayerful lives b/c the world is saved. To live lives doing good deeds b/c Christ's justice and peace lives already in us. We live lives of holiness and prayer, and doing good works not to change the world but to show the world all that has already been done for it. Christ gives one sign after another that shows his glory and the glory of the Father among us. All we can do is point to that glory with word and deed, and urge the world, “Do whatever he tells you.” That's enough to get us close to the Cross. But to get all the way to the Cross, we must be ready and willing to sacrifice. . .everything. To show the world the glory of Christ, we must believe—by word and deed—and be ready to die for love.

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Coffee Cup Browsing (Tues)

Ted Cruz is not a team-player. . .given the congressional GOP, that's a good thing!

Hillary under investigation for public corruption. . .

Is fracking making us greener?

Five common "facts" that aren't facts at all. . .


Francis explains "who am I to judge?" comment.

"That's what the other eleven people are for. . ."

Sweden caught covering up rapes by "refugees". . .


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Coffee Cup Browsing (Sun)

When ideology trumps science. . .from the Left. 

Racial segregation making a come-back. . .with black support.

What B.O. doesn't cry about. . .

Sean Penn finally does something worthwhile for the world. . .

Is "objective knowledge" possible? (Hint: it's a loaded question!)

Anti-cop, anti-veteran, anti-Christian movie bombs at the box office.

B.O. forcing Little Sisters to choose btw their faith and their ministry.

The system itself is the problem. . .hmmmmmm. . .

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With you I Am well pleased

The Baptism of the Lord
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA

All that the Old Covenant with Abraham promises, the New Covenant in Christ Jesus fulfills. God makes a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He repeats this promise to their children and their children's children for generations. The promise is delivered again and again by fire, cloud, water, blood; by war and prosperity; by disease and good health; in slavery and in freedom from slavery. And in the voices of the prophets He sends to warn and plead with His people, God speaks one final promise: I will send my Servant to suffer and die for My people; to free them from sin; to show them my mercy and love; and to bring them all back home to Me. The Lord says through Isaiah, “Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased, upon whom I have put my spirit. . .” Eight hundred years after Isaiah records this prophecy, Jesus of Nazareth emerges from the River Jordan, baptized by John his herald, and hears a voice from heaven say, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Thus begins the public ministry of the Christ among God's people and the ministry of God's people among the nations. 

Luke records the moment: “After. . .Jesus had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.” Recall Isaiah's 800 yr old prophecy, “Here is my servant. . .upon whom I have put my spirit.” As the Holy Spirit descends, Jesus hears a voice proclaim, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Again, recall Isaiah, “Here is my servant. . .my chosen one with whom I am pleased. . .” These parallels are striking b/c the New Covenant fulfills the Old. In Matthew's account of Jesus' baptism, John refuses to baptize Jesus, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?” Jesus answers, “Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” The phrase “to fulfill all righteousness” means “to make good on God's promises, to do all that is right in the sight of the Father.” John's public baptism of the Father's Son fulfills the 800 yr old prophecy given to Isaiah. The suffering servant upon whom the Lord places His holy spirit, the one He upholds, is among us, and his mission to save us is begun. What is his mission? How does he save us? And what is our part in this salvation drama? 

The first part of Isaiah's 800 yr old prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus' baptism, so we can argue that the second part is fulfilled in his public ministry. Isaiah prophesies: “I, the Lord, have called you for the victory of justice. . .and set you as a light for the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement. . .those who live in darkness. . .[you] shall bring forth justice to the nations. . .” Hearing this we might conclude that the savior the Lord sends among us is a warrior-king, a battle-prince, one trained to command armies and conquer nations in blood. And we would be right. However, as we all know, the sword Christ wields is not forged of steel but of light, the light of truth, and the blood he spills is his own. His justice is not a legal settlement, a constitutional amendment, or a defense of natural rights. His freedom is not a license to do as we please and then demand that the neighbors to pay the bill. The prisoners Christ frees are held captive by all the injustices born of from the womb of human disobedience. Therefore, his public ministry is the preaching and teaching of the Good News, the good news that our Father has forgiven our trespasses against Him and only waits for us to receive His freely given mercy. We are the freest we will ever be this side of heaven when we obey the law of divine love.

Jesus of Nazareth is baptized in the River Jordan so that he can fulfill all righteousness. In obedience to his example and explicit command, we too are baptized and set out on a mission identical to his. Paul writes to Titus, “[God] saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit [through Christ]. . .” Why? “. . .So that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life.” In the water of baptism, we are made right with God, and we receive as an inheritance the hope of life eternal. We are made righteous heirs to heaven as a gift, a freely given heritage as children of God. What do we do with this gift right now? His grace “train[s] us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly. . .as we await [Christ's return].” Jesus, baptized in water and confirmed by the Holy Spirit, “gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people as his own, eager to do what is good.” Are we his people, a people cleansed from lawlessness? Are we a people eager to do what is good? Do we live in the blessed hope of his return?

All that the Old Covenant with Abraham promises, the New Covenant in Christ Jesus fulfills. God makes a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob make their promises to God in turn: to live according to His laws, in peace with one another, always seeking justice, and honoring Him alone as their heavenly Father. God's promises are delivered again and again in flame, smoke, flood, and tears; through violence and peace; by injury and healing; in exile and deliverance from exile. And from the mouths of the prophets He sends to admonish and beg His people, God speaks one last promise: I will send my Servant to suffer and die for My people; to free them from sin; to show them my mercy and love; and to bring them all back home to Me. That servant, our Savior, has arrived. And though he has long ago ascended to the Father, his public ministry continues. . .in those who are baptized in his name, confirmed in the Holy Spirit, and grow holy on the food and drink of his body and blood. Twenty-eight hundred years after Isaiah records his prophecy; and two thousand years after John baptizes Jesus in the Jordan, we emerge from the waters of baptism and hear a voice say, “You are my beloved sons and daughters; with you I am well pleased.”

Christ's mission among his Father's people is to preach and teach the good news that all is forgiven. Receive His forgiveness and come home. Christ gave himself to death so that we might know what divine love truly is: sacrifice for another. When we live in obedience to the law of divine love—sacrificing for one another—we are living our days in holy justice, and giving public witness to the power of God's mercy to repair ruined lives; to free souls from sin and death; to shine the light of truth in the darkness, and guide anyone who wants it to His peace. The history of our salvation is scarred with human failure and the ugly consequences of that failure. If we see history repeating itself—the cycle of laxity, licentiousness, debauchery, and exhausted collapse—then our blessed hope in life eternal becomes all the more blessed. But whatever history fires at us, whatever this world throws at us, our mission—baptized and confirmed—it never changes. We bless the Lord. Live in righteousness. Work for peace. Forgive one another. Love one another, especially those who call themselves our enemies. And we never cease in preaching and teaching the overwhelming mercy of God, freely given and waiting to be received. Christ died to cleanse for himself a people to be his own, a people eager to do only what is good.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing (Sat)

Remember: all they ever wanted was tolerance. . .yeah, right.

Mizzou paying the price for coddling lefty crybullies. . .

NYE perverts in Cologne: "largely asylum seekers." 

Apology from German media for not reporting sexual assaults: not enough.

 

Trump winning the war against P.C. culture. Well, I hope he wins that war. . .just not the White House.

Where is the Ark of the Covenant?

"13 Hours". . .I will definitely be seeing this!

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Coffee Bowl Browsing (Thurs)

"Social justice" bumper-sticker phrases translated into English.

Cologne (et al) sexual assaults: ". . .there has been a widespread failure on the part of German authorities and elite institutions." Given the disease of P.C. culture. . .entirely predictable.

The inevitable consequences of the $15 minimum wage: Ronald McDonald is now a robot. 

The myth of "white privilege."

My favorite Youtube artist: Gerda Lipski from Germany.

Mom got me a bottle of this for Christmas: Guerlain L'Instant pour homme. Spicy cocoa, patchouli, and florals. Very nice!

Tom K. makes an interesting liturgical observation. . .

Chicago politics: hiding the video until after the election. . .

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Coffee Cup Browsing (Wed)

FactCheck: B.O.'s latest attempt at "gun control" would not have stopped any of mass shooting.

"Taken at face value, the new ATF guidance is thus nothing more than a restatement of existing legal requirements." Meh.

Dozens of gang-rapes in Cologne over New Years. . .

Cops, politicians, pro-immigration activists keep the rapes quiet. . .

"Instead, we have a Democrat who is allowed by the press to fail quietly, discreetly, and off center stage."

Showdown btw the FBI and the DoJ over Hillary's classified emails.

How thoughtful. . .the bureaucrats plan on including you in the rearing of your children. Send them a Thank You note.

Abortion had a very bad 2015. . .Good!

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Coffee Cup Browsing (Sat)

Nutty Feminist comes to her senses. . .rejoins reality. 

Another friar and I are going to see Star Wars today. . .is the movie gnostic?

Institute of Catholic Culture 

Evil has a face. . . 

Lefties hate science when it contradicts the tenets of their faith.

Hurling snakes at the enemy!

Chinese gov't repressing Christians. . .
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Coffee Cup Browsing

NB. No classes until Jan 13th, so there's nothing stopping me from reviving Coffee Cup Browsing!

Media Corrections 2015: "Karol Wojtyla was referred to in Saturday’s Credo column as 'the first non-Catholic pope for 450 years'. This should, of course, have read 'non-Italian pope.'" —London Times.

Scientific peer-review isn't what it used to be. . .Mommy's boo-boo kisses. 

Peer-reviewed survey of scientists: there is a "scientific consensus" on global warming -- it's fake.

NCR (Nasty Critical Rag) awards "Persons of the Year" to the gay couple who gave us same-sex "marriage." Do you need another reason to cancel your subscription?

It's All About MEEEEE!!! Fr. Hollywood suspended for his adolescent attention-seeking stunt during Mass.

Hillary! is not a feminist. Duh.

2015: the Year of Absurdity.

Satanists perform adolescent attention-seeking stunt in OK. Oddly, this doesn't offend me. The BVM is bigger than their hatred.

My new favorite website. . .

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Back in NOLA & Thanks

I made it back to NOLA safely!

Waiting upon me -- outside my door -- from the Wish List were several books and some paint. . .

Thanks to Matheus, Jenny K, and Shelly for your kind generosity!

One package of paint (medium magenta) didn't have a name on it, so. . .thanks to this Anon Benefactor.

Wedding on Dec 31st, Masses at Tulane Univ and OLR on Jan 3rd. . .and back to work at the seminary on Jan 12th.

God bless and Happy New Year!

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Love made Flesh. . .

NB. from 2012. . .MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Solemnity of the Lord's Nativity (Vigil)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Every religion in human history has its prophets, mystics, saints, avatars, bodhisattvas, miracle-workers, and gurus. By whatever name they are called, these human-divine combos serve the same general purpose: to bring the natural world of man into closer contact with the supernatural world of the divine. The idea seems to be that closer human contact with the divine will somehow “save” or “redeem” or “enlighten” the lost, the ignorant, and the just plain evil among us. Most religious traditions claim to be founded on revelation or some sort of mystical experience. Most have the expected accoutrements of worship: clergy, laity, sacred texts, prayer, temples/churches, vestments, etc. And most claim a certain exclusive access to universal truth and goodness. However, of all the religions currently practiced in the world, only one claims to follow an incarnated god; only one can credibly claim that its founder and central figure of worship walked among us a person, fully human and fully divine. We call the arrival this person in human history, “The Nativity of the Lord.” And it is this event that we remember and celebrate this evening. Once again, we welcome the Christ, Emmanuel, “God is with us.” 

For our welcome to be truly sincere, it's important that we understand—to the degree possible—who it is that we are welcoming among us. A good start on this understanding would be to identify who we are NOT welcoming. We are not welcoming a person who is half and half, half human and half divine. Nor is he man with a human body and divine soul. Nor is he really just a man with a divine mind; nor a god who has taken on the appearance of a man. Or, as the current theological fashion argues, an enlightened man who had evolved beyond being merely human. The Church has considered all of these possibilities and rejected them as heresy. In fact, all of these possibilities for understanding the nature of Christ were rejected in the year 451 A.D. by the Council of Chalcedon. For at least 1,561 years, the Church has taught and defended a single view on the nature of the Christ, the Chalcedonian Formula. This formula explains part of the Nicene Creed: “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father. . .” Christ is consubstantial with the Father, meaning Christ and the Father are of the same substance, the identical divine nature. Thus, Emmanuel, “God is with us,” is the perfect name for Christ. 

Now, why in the world am I pestering you on Christmas Eve with a mini-lecture on christology? Well, here's why: the Chalcedonian Formula does more than simply define the true nature of Christ—tell us who Christ is. By telling us who Christ is, the formula also tells us Christ's purpose—what it is he came among us to do. And giving us these two bits of info about Christ helps us to welcome him with true sincerity. The Formula reveals that Jesus Christ is a divine person, the Son of God, with two natures: one human and one divine. By comparison, each one of us is a human person with just one nature, human. Because Christ is a divine person with both a divine and a human nature, he is uniquely placed in our salvation history to be the one (and the only one) to bring us into full union with God. Here's how the CCC puts it: “The Word became flesh to make us 'partakers of the divine nature'.” Then quoting St. Athanasius, “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God” (n. 460). So, when we welcome Christ among us at his Nativity, we also welcome among us our only means of attaining perfect union with our heavenly Father. 

Knowing all this, we might ask: what was preventing the possibility of perfect union before Christ's nativity? Simply put: sin; or rather, no perfect means of forgiving sin. Look at the gospel. Joseph is thinking about divorcing Mary b/c she's pregnant before they have consummated their betrothal. In a dream, an angel of the Lord visits Joseph and lays out for him exactly who it is that his wife is carrying in her womb. The angel says, “Joseph do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.” Thus, we have the two natures of Christ: the divine from the H.S. and the human from Mary, herself immaculately conceived. The angel continues, “She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” The divine person of Christ is the means by which God's people are saved from their sins, the sins that prevent us from being in perfect union with the Father. Again, we not only welcome the birth of the Christ Child tonight, we also welcome the birth of the possibility of becoming a child of God as well. The first step along this path is to open your heart and mind to the H.S. and follow Mary's humble example, saying with her, “Let it be done to me according to your word.” 

This resounding “fiat” highlighted Mary in history like no other woman had ever been before or since. She has been known through the centuries by many exalted titles and she is known now by many more: God-bearer, Mother of God; Mater Dolorosa, Mater Gloriosa; Mediatrix of All Graces; and Queen of Heaven. Though all theologically sound and historically accurate, these titles tempt us to forget a vital fact. We must remember—especially on the eve of Christ's nativity—that Mary was a teenaged girl, a virgin betrothed to Joseph and placed at the center of a cosmic drama that brought to fulfillment some 5,000 yrs of God's plans for mankind. If we welcome among us tonight the birth of the Christ Child, then we must also gives our thanks to Mary for her faithfulness, her courage, and her strength in the face of what we can only imagine was a harrowing adventure, a truly frightening and rewarding journey toward perfection. She is the model for how the Church best responds to the Father's invitation to live with Him forever. And as such, she is also the model of each one of us as we choose and pursue the narrow path toward holiness. 

We give Emmanuel a sincere welcome. We give thanks to Mary. We offer the Father our praise and the H.S. an invitation. And as we continue our welcome, we also pray. What should we pray for on this Holy Night? The Chief Shepherd of the Church, Pope Benedict, urges us to pray: “Lord Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem, come to us! Enter within me, within my soul. Transform me. Renew me. Change me, change us all from stone and wood into living people, in whom your love is made present and the world is transformed. Amen.”

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Waiting is not doing nothing. . .

NB. from 2012. . .visiting The Squirrels until after Christmas.

4th Sunday of Advent
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Through his prophet, Micah, the Lord God promises, “. . .from you [Bethlehem] shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel. . .He shall stand firm and shepherd his flock by the strength of the LORD. . .he shall be peace.” This promise was made almost 800 years before the birth of the Christ Child in Bethlehem. Between the making of this promise and the birth of Christ, eighteen generations of God's people waited and waited and waited for its fulfillment. And when the Lord God placed His only-begotten Son in the virginal womb of a teenaged Mary, and she bore him into the world as a squalling baby in a barn, who could blame God's people for their disappointment and their turning away to wait some more? Rulers are born to kings and queens. Strength comes from wealth. Peace is settled with a sword. Babies born to working class bumpkins from the sticks do not grow up to rule God's people. And so, the waiting continues. For those of us who see in the Christ Child a ruler of strength and peace, the wait is almost over. Just two days and our wait is over. Blessed are those who believe that what is spoken to them by the Lord will be fulfilled. Blessed are those who wait upon the Lord. 

Speaking strictly for myself, patience is not a virtue; it's more like a penance, a trial, or even a punishment. Being patient requires a level of “letting go” that I find extraordinarily difficult to master. Over the years, I've gotten better at enduring the obvious flaws of others. No one's perfect after all. Me included. But, of course, my own flaws never inconvenience anyone else. The truest test of patience ever invented by the Devil is called “Driving in New Orleans.” Second to this test is the one called “Parking in New Orleans.” Either one of these tests alone would wear a hole in the patience of the Virgin herself and both of them together would likely cause Jesus to return in the Apocalypse earlier than planned. Fortunately, for the sake of my holiness and humility, I am tested often enough to notice that patience in waiting can—sometimes—actually be virtue: the good habit of letting go and waiting upon the Lord. If Lent is that time before Easter when we are consigned to wait upon the Lord's resurrection, then Advent is our time to wait upon his birth. As Christians, our waiting is not polluted by impatience. We know he is coming. Rather, our patient waiting is flavored by anticipation. 

Blessed are those who believe that what is spoken to them by the Lord will be fulfilled. What has the Lord spoken to us? What word of His do we believe will be fulfilled? Through His prophet, Micah, He says, “. . .from you [Bethlehem] shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel. . .He shall stand firm and shepherd his flock by the strength of the Lord. . .he shall be peace.” He also says through Micah, “. . .the Lord will give [Israel] up, until the time when she who is to give birth has borne. . .” The time between the delivery of this prophecy and its fulfillment in the delivery of the Christ Child by Mary is the Advent of Israel, that long season of waiting between hearing the good news of a future Messiah and his arrival among us. Eight hundred years of anticipation, eight hundred years of waiting and waiting. If hopeful anticipation spices the main event, then the birth of Christ was well-seasoned! However, we know that his arrival—his humble start—was a disappointment to most of those who had patiently stood by. Perhaps they had forgotten the last sentence of what the Lord had said to Micah about the coming of the Messiah, “He shall be peace.” What sort of king comes to deliver his people from oppression using a sword of peace? 

God's people waited for eight hundred years for the coming of the promised Messiah. Some—those who do not follow the Christ—wait still. And even though the Messiah has been born to the virgin as prophesied, and even though we who follow Christ no long wait for his arrival in history, we still wait for the advent of his universal peace. We don't need a recitation of recent global and domestic events to know that we are far from the peace promised by the birth of the Savior. If anything, violence and death seem to be taking the upper hand. It is not too much for us ask: how much more strain can civilization bear before it cracks and falls apart? When we ask questions like this, and when we expect answers in concrete terms (days, weeks, months), we tend to forget that as followers of the Prince of Peace our hope, the fulfillment of God's promise of peace, is not to be found on a watch or a calendar. It's not found in the workings of the State, the laboratory, the classroom, or the battlefield. Our hope, the fulfillment of God's promise of peace, rests solely in the kingdom Christ brought with him to that barn in Bethlehem, the same kingdom he will bring to completion when he comes again. “He shall be peace,” and he is our peace until he comes again.

There's an obvious danger to this way of thinking. If we are simply waiting for the universal peace of Christ to arrive when he comes again, then we can be sorely tempted to adopt a “do-nothing” quietism; that is, we are poked and prodded by the sheer overwhelming horror of violence and death to stand aside and gamble our lives away on the off-chance that God will “do something” about this mess. So often we hear people ask after a disaster, “Where was God?” The assumption being that if God really existed or really cared, none of this horrible stuff would've happened. We waited on your help, Lord, and you never showed. Perhaps the most frustrating part of being a follower of Christ is knowing that help for our world is coming but that it did not arrive in time. Of course, help did arrive in time. He arrived 2,000 years ago as a child born in a barn. What we are waiting on now is our own growth in holiness, our own progress toward the righteousness that he made possible by his death and resurrection. If we want peace now, if we want help now, then we must be that help and that peace in his name. We cannot be both freed from our fallen nature by grace AND free from the consequences of that fallen nature. If we will be free to follow him in peace, then in peace we must follow His will and word. 

Just two days and our wait is over. Blessed are those who believe that what is spoken to them by the Lord will be fulfilled. Blessed are those who wait with anticipation upon the Lord. Elizabeth blesses Mary b/c Mary believed Gabriel's word to her. She says Yes to being the Mother of the Christ Child and comes down to us in the faith as the Blessed Virgin Mary. For an example of humility and peace, we need to look no further than the fervor with which this teenaged girl freely accepted the harrowing mission of bearing the Word made flesh into the world. As a good Jewish woman, Mary knows words of the prophets. She knows who it is she is carrying in her womb. She runs to Elizabeth in haste to greet her cousin, and all of her hopes are fulfilled when Elizabeth says, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” With the birth of Christ 2,000 yrs ago and with our celebration of his Nativity in two days time, we too are blessed. We have seen the glory of God in the face of a child and what we saw there has freed us to await the coming of his peace.

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I say again: Rejoice!

3^rd Sunday of Advent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Lay Carmelites/OLR, NOLA

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!” Given the state of the world, it might seem irresponsible to spend our time rejoicing in the Lord. Shouldn't we be trying to solve the problems our sins have created? Shouldn't we be worried about poverty, terrorism, environmental destruction, and the collapse of our nation's moral conscience? These are the Big Issues, the Big Problems that need our attention. After all, the Lord can do w/o our rejoicing. True. The Lord is perfectly who he is and will always be w/o our rejoicing. He can do w/o it. But can we? Can we survive and thrive as fallen men and women if we fail to rejoice in the Lord? No, we can't. We rejoice in the Lord for the same reason that we pray, offer sacrifice and worship; for the same reason we give alms, spend our time and talent helping the Church. All of these – most especially rejoicing – prepare us to better receive the graces that God has already given us in abundance. To rejoice, that is, to immerse yourself in the joy that only Christ can give is to bring yourself into the presence of the one who is Joy Himself. As an effect of divine love, divine joy is Christ – unfiltered, undiluted.

The third Sunday of Advent is marked out for us as a day for rejoicing. Even as we wait for the coming of the Christ Child and the Lord coming again, we set aside one Sunday in the season to give ourselves over to the joy that only Christ can bring to perfection. The worries of the world are same worries that plagued our grandparents, their grandparents, and theirs. The worries of this world are the worries of a world ruled by the princes and principalities who willfully rejected the offer of divine love offered to them at their creation. These powers are incapable of love, immune to mercy, and utterly w/o hope. Why should the world they rule be any different? Their anxieties rub off on us b/c we live in their world. But we are not of their world. We belong to Christ and to him alone. It is in this knowledge and with supreme faith and living in hope that we can we say, “Rejoice in the Lord always. . .Rejoice!” Today is made holy for our rejoicing, set apart as a time and place for us to immerse ourselves fully in the presence of Christ who announced his Father's kingdom, who is building his kingdom even now, and who will come again to finish what he started. While we wait, we also rejoice.

And our saint for waiting and rejoicing is John the Baptist! He goes before the Lord announcing his arrival, baptizing for the repentance of sin, and anticipating the one who will baptize with the fire of the Holy Spirit. John rejoiced in his mother's womb at the arrival of Mary and the yet-to-be born Jesus. He spends his life in the desert, waiting for the time to go back into the world and herald the Savior's coming. Today we take just one day to bask in Christ's joy before we go back into the world and herald the Savior's arrival. Because we have a job to do – a holy job – we do not have the time or the energy or the patience to endure the worries of the world. The world created its worries; let the world deal with them. Our task is to be Christs in the world while never being of the world. Our task is to defeat sin and death with the mercy and love that Christ freely, abundantly gives. Our task is to go out, wherever it is that we belong and thrive, to go and herald the arrival of Christ, announcing to all who will hear, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!”

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