Are you ready?

NB. This homily is an example of what happens when I drink four cups of Italian roast coffee. . .

19^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

To be vigilant is to be in a constant state of watchfulness, always prepared, always ready. The faith we claim and practice entails vigilance. Along with trust and belief, faith in God requires us to be perpetually geared up and ready to move out. At a moment's notice, we can be called upon to bear witness, to offer sacrifice, to give thanks and praise, to heal or forgive; to teach, preach, and bless. Whatever it is that the Lord might ask us to do, we must be prepared to obey. This level of persistent preparation means – at the very least – living always within His grace. The Lord says to his disciples and to us: “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. . .You must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” Though the Lord is with us always – in the sacraments, the Church, the baptized, the ordained, even in creation itself – though he is always with us, he will return to us and sit in judgment of how we have lived our lives as bearers of the Good News. Are you prepared for his return?

One way to be in a constant state of vigilance for the Lord's return is to live your life in Christ as if he had already returned. That is, imagine that he has come again among us to judge the living and the dead and that you're just waiting for your name to be called. How would you live your life in Christ if you knew that your name could be called any moment now? Another way of being vigilant is to live your life as an acknowledgment that Christ is always present to us. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, Christ is there with you. Every person you meet, there is Christ. Yes, he's present in the Eucharist and the tabernacle. But he is also present in his Father's creation – in the natural world and among his human brothers and sisters. If you want some serious practice acknowledging the reality of Christ's presence in the world, find him among those who hate you. Those who would sooner kill you than look at you. He's among them too, working their hearts and minds toward the Father's mercy. Seeing Christ there and acknowledging his presence could be the lightening strike that breaks Satan's hold on those who would see you crushed. Living as if Christ had already returned and living in his presence now will give you a head start on being properly prepared.

 

But neither one of these methods is possible without the good habit of faith. The author of Hebrews tells us that: “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” So, the good habit of trusting in God is itself the manifestation of all that we have come to expect from Him. In other words, when we trust in God, when we believe in Him, our trust and belief in Him is itself what we had hoped for, all that we ever expected from Him. Whatever else might result from our faith is a sign of God's own faithfulness with us. Abraham is our example: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; he went out, not knowing where he was to go.” Not knowing where he was going, Abraham went out anyway, trusting that his obedience to God's command would result in a blessing – an inheritance. “By faith Abraham obeyed. . .By faith he sojourned. . .By faith he received power to generate [to have children].” And why did he obey God's command? Because “he thought that the one who had made the promise was trustworthy.” He hoped to have children with his barren wife and his faith in God was made manifest: “So it was that there came forth from one man, himself as good as dead, descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sands on the seashore.” 

 

Vigilance in our faith is necessary not because “believing creates reality,” but because trusting that God will fulfill His promises keeps us always awake in His presence. Christ urges us to stay watchful because he know how easy it is for us to go asleep in faith. What does it take? One bad accident? The loss of a job? The death of a spouse, a child, a friend? What does it take for us to close our eyes on faith and let despair have its way with us? At the very moment when we most need to be awake in the presence of God, we can nod off and lose hope. Or – even worse – we can apply ourselves to activities and people who encourage us to fall dead asleep to faith. Acts of disobedience that separate us from God. Family and friends who lure us away – in a moment of weakness – from all that God has promised. Being vigilant in faith also means being vigilant against those temptations that seduce us away from faith. Abraham received all that he hoped for because he believed in God – found him trustworthy – and obeyed His command to go out in faith. God's command to us is no different. We are commanded to out into the world and bear witness to the Father's freely offered mercy to sinners. We are not only living witnesses to His mercy, we are also instruments of His mercy. We hoped to be saved from our sins, and that hope is made manifest in our faith. Stay ready, always prepared to receive the blessings of God and to give testimony to the saving power of His infinite mercy.

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Thanks

Mendicant thanks to S.B., M.R., and E.M. (continuing to pray for your discernment!) for hitting the Wish List and sending me books and painting supplies.  You are all on my prayer list. . .

God bless!

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Nihilism picks away at faith

Audio File Link

18^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

God says to the man who would store up his treasures in this world, “You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?” Forget – for a moment – about the things that you store up. And forget about to whom they will belong after you die. This night your life will be demanded of you – to whom do you belong? Your things come and go. Your things aren't immortal. But you are. So: who owns you? Who rules you? Our Lord is asking a question that demands much more than just a promise of allegiance, or a statement of mere belief. He's asking you and me to decide where we stand in this world while we prepare for the next. Christ is asking you and me to make a choice: me or the world? Your life will be demanded of you. It's your choice. We can look to our assets, our earning potential, and we can do a quick calculation. We could be better off submitting to the world – if this world is where we hope to find our end. But this world is passing; it's temporary. And finding your hope here – among all these fading away things – is foolishness. And yet it appears that we are living in an age of foolishness. To survive, listen to Paul: “Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly. . .”

When we live to accumulate the things of this world rather than to serve the Lord for His greater glory, we swear ourselves to the service of Nothing. Nothing is our god. We love Nothing. We have absolute faith in Nothing. Nothing matters. And Nothing is our purpose in life. As we watch this world slowly grind itself to its bloody end, we can depend on Nothing to spare us; Nothing will provide what we need. Why is Nothing so accommodating, so solicitous of our desires? Because Nothing has nothing to lose by promising us everything we imagine that are we entitled to. Nothing has nothing to give, so promising us everything costs nothing. When we live by the values and philosophies of this world rather than the the Word of God and His Church, we sell our souls to the spirit of the age, giving ourselves away cheaply to both new and ancient falsehoods. The greatest lie of this generation – one we can see celebrated in every element of our daily lives – this lie tells us that we are nothing but random bits of matter accidentally arranged by impersonal cosmic forces, thrown haphazardly into sentience, and destined for nothing more than complete annihilation after death. This lie – both its new and ancient versions – is the creed of nihilism, the worship of Nothingness and the negation of life.

It might seem that our preacher, Qoheleth, is a nihilist. He laments life's futility, “Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!” But the vanity of the life that Qoheleth laments is simply how we mere mortals see the workings of the world. He's not celebrating life as futile, or holding out vanity as the only truth. At most, he's regretting what he sees as the overall unfairness of it all, while wanting life to be truly just and purposeful. To achieve that end, Paul offers the soundest advice, “Put to death. . .the parts of you that are earthly; immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry.” While Qoheleth wails against the futility of striving in a world that cannot reward striving, Paul suggests killing in ourselves anything that binds us too closely to the world. When the world passes, or when we pass from the world, our ties should easily unknot and see us safely free. To believe that there is Something More, that there is Someone More waiting for us when we are set free is the antithesis of nihilism. To live now in the belief that Someone More wants us with Him forever is what keeps us striving toward holiness and away from the Nothing's altars.

You might wonder how a good Catholic can be tempted to nihilism? Perhaps some of us here tonight have been seduced in some small way toward offering Nothing a pinch of incense. Paul names a few of the temptations: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and idolatry. Maybe, for example, some of us believe that sexual behavior outside marriage isn't all that bad. Or that two men or two women can be truly married. Or maybe, someone here privately believes that abortion is bad but that the State shouldn't have a say in the matter. Or maybe, that we should only allow certain races of people across our borders, or that we as a people have no responsibility to take care of God's creation, or that there are no differences btw men and women, therefore we can pick our own sex; or that science has the answers to our all problems. Each one of these tempts us to embrace an earthly lie and leads us toward renouncing our pursuit of holiness. How? By showing us how to pick away at our foundation, our faith in God. Whether we are tempted to embrace the idolatry of gender politics, or demean human life in the act of abortion, or degrade a person b/c of race, or reject the life-giving gift of sex – whatever the temptation, underneath is a rejection of God and His providential rule. Underneath is Nothing.

So, Christ asks again, “This night your life will be demanded of you. . .to whom will [your things] belong?” Forget the things you own. And answer instead: to whom will you belong? To whom do you belong now? If you belong to the things, the ideas, the values of this world, then you will follow your owners in passing into nothingness when they pass. If you belong to Christ now, then you will pass into life eternal. If you belong to Christ now, then the temptations of Nothingness seem foolish and Qoheleth is right, “All is vanity!” But if you find yourself in the company of nihilists – and you will – the pressure to submit to the Spirit of the Age will be intense, maybe even irresistible. Turn you heart and mind back to God and remember your true purpose here on Earth: to serve Him by serving His people, to always seek His will for your life, and to bear witness to His mercy for all sinners. Nothing can promise and cajole and tempt, but Nothing cannot bring you to freedom, or place you at the banquet table. Only Christ Jesus brings us peace forever.

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Who are you in prayer?

17th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA

John the Baptist teaches his disciples how to pray. The Pharisees and the Sadducees know how to pray. The Zealots and the scribes can pray. Even the Roman occupiers—with their home altars and idols—know how to pray. Why don't the disciples of Christ know how to ask God for what they need? How could they spend so much time with Christ and not understand the basic rules and methods of prayer? Well, part of the reason could be that every time he needs to pray, Jesus runs off to the hills or the desert, or gets in a boat and flees the crowds. He needs some space, some time alone to properly pray. It could be that pretty much all he does with the disciples is teach, preach, and heal. Or it could be that he is teaching them to pray all along and they don't recognize the lessons for what they are. Regardless, they wanted to learn to pray, so they ask a Master for instruction. What does Jesus teach them? He teaches them that prayer is first about knowing who and what you are in relationship with God. And that knowing and understanding this relationship to God brings exactly what you need.

So, who are we in relationship with God? “Man is a beggar before God.” So says St. Augustine. And he's right. But being a beggar before God and knowing that we're beggars before God are two very different things. What separates the truth from our ignorance is the sin of pride, more specifically, the lack of humility before God and His gifts. We are beggars but we don't know how to beg well b/c we do not yet fully understand what we truly need to thrive as children of God. To learn what we truly need, we must embrace a life of discipleship, the life of a student and learn to beg at the feet of a Master. The disciples—Jesus' students—realize this, so they ask, “Lord, teach us to pray.” And he gives them The Lord's Prayer. He gives them not only the words to pray but shows them the proper attitude of prayer: humility, not demeaning groveling or sniveling toadyism but the truly, deeply held understanding of their creaturely nature. Like all created things, we are wholly dependent on God for our being, for our very existence. Absent this basic understanding of our nature, we cannot properly ask God for anything useful, for anything at all helpful to our flourishing. Humility, then, is the foundation of prayer.

Recognizing our total dependence on God for absolutely everything, we can begin our lessons in how to beg. First, asking God for what we need is not the be-all and end-all of prayer. St. Thérèse of Lisieux writes in her autobiography, “For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.” This surge of the heart might be humility rolling out in force; or it might be delight in love, or anguish during trial. What does she recognize while praying? Does she see her end, her purpose? Does she see-again Christ's love for her on his cross? Maybe she is reminded that she is a creature, a made-being who has been remade in her freedom from sin? Begging before God is fundamentally about knowing who and what we are before a thought or a word can form; before we can even name our need, we must know that Love draws us to beg; Love seduces us into prayer and teaches us to ask. That we must ask is itself a gift precisely b/c the need to ask pulls us into a tighter union with God. This is why Jesus teaches his students to begin their prayer, “Our Father. . .” Our source. Our beginning. Our origin. Think about it: You cannot ask for directions if you do not know where you are going. And you cannot ask for directions unless you know how to speak to the One Who knows the way.

Abraham learns to speak to God, and finds his way. In what may look like a flea market negotiation, Abraham and God haggle over the fate of Sodom-Gomorrah. Back and forth they propose and counter-propose the acceptable number of righteous citizens allowable to save the city from destruction. God finally settles on the not destroying the city if Abraham can find ten righteous souls. The lesson seems to be: God is reasonable with our demands if we are properly respectable but persistent, even if we're trying to save a cesspool like Sodom. Wrong. This story has little to do with sinful Sodom and more to do with Abraham learning the true nature of the God he serves. With each step in the negotiation with God, Abraham learns that the Lord hears, listens, and concedes not b/c Abraham is persistent or respectable or desperately needful but b/c God is merciful. How is his mercy made real in the world? At the request of His faithful servants! God wills that we ask for what we need so that His mercy and generosity can be made manifest, so that His mighty works can be seen and bear witness to His saving love. But in order for that to happen, we must ask for, receive, and then make known the blessings He pours out for us.

So, the first lesson about prayer is that we must know and understand who and what we are in relationship with God: dependent creatures. The second lesson is that prayer—undertaken with all humility in recognition of our creatureliness—releases the already given blessings of God for us to receive. The third lesson is that receiving God's blessings always and immediately merits copious thanksgiving. Gratitude is the essential ingredient in humility. Try making a roux without fat. Gumbo without filé. Try celebrating Madri Gras without beads. Won't work. Humility without genuine gratitude is simply a less obnoxious form of pride. When we receive a blessing from God, our gratitude, our expressed gratitude, deepens and strengthens our bond to God and purifies our humility. If humility is the foundation of prayer, then giving thanks for the blessings we receive reinforces the ground upon which we stand to pray. We come to know ourselves more fully. We come to see and hear God more clearly. And the bonds of divine love that we share among ourselves grow stronger even as our selfishness and pride wither away. 

Jesus makes a significant promise to his disciples regarding prayer. He says, “And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find. . .For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds. . .” The keys to understanding this promise are selflessness, service, humility. He's not promising us that God will be our celestial Santa Claus, or our divine Sugar Daddy. Ask in humility and you will receive in love. Seek in service to others and you will find merit in sacrifice. Before you give voice to prayer, remember who and what you are in relationship with God. Remember that what you are given reveals God's nature to you and to the world. And never forget that God Himself has no need of our thanks or praise. Giving thanks to Him for His gifts is for our benefit not His. He calls us to prayer so that we might grow in holiness, grow closer to His love, and become beacons of that love for a darkening world. Without His prompting, without the good work of His Holy Spirit, we cannot pray. So know that every urge to pray, the very need to pray is the Holy Spirit working His loving work within you. We can nothing good without Him. With Him, every door falls open.

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Memoriae [a better pic]

Memoriae

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Painting Experiment

I've been experimenting with fluid paint lately. . .below is one example. Basically, I'm figuring out how the paint moves and what colors work best.

 Experiment I


______________________

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Why no signs. . .?

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

Up for the second time that night and headed to the bathroom in a staggering daze, I was shown a truth about my world I had never thought to question. There just about three feet from the floor, hovering in mid-air, is a small glowing object. I stare for a moment, without my glasses, in the dark, and think for just a second or two that perhaps the Lord has sent an angel to tell me something amazing. As I contemplate this greenish-yellow glow, thinking about revelations, dreams, visions, and prophecies, I am suddenly struck by the truth of what I am seeing. There it is, as plain as the shine of a full moon in October, there it is in plain view, and I realize with a nearly blinding clarity: my toothbrush glows in the dark! Then, just being me, the question arises: why would anyone think to make toothbrushes glow in the dark? Stumbling back to bed, I chuckle myself to sleep wondering what we would all look like if our teeth glowed in the dark. 

 

Strictly speaking, my “vision” of the glowing toothbrush was a discovery not a revelation. Its discovery was accidental and has no meaning beyond what I can give it in a homily about seeking after signs of God’s presence. As a divine sign my glowing toothbrush fails what we can call here the “From Test;” that is, my toothbrush shining in the darkness on the sink cannot be said to be “from” God. And though we can rightly say that anything made is made by a creature who in turn is created by the Creator and reveals his/her Creator as a creature, we cannot say that a glowing toothbrush made by a creature reveals much about God. Signs point the way and make present that which they signify. Divine signs point the way to God and make His presence knowable to those who desire to know Him.

The scribes and Pharisees are understandably both curious and worried about Jesus’ claims to be the Son of God. They approach him and make a reasonable request, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” Traditionally, those claiming to be “sent from God” provide signs that point to God’s presence and make Him knowable. These men are educated, pious, intellectually curious, and therefore rightly seek some indication from this rabble-rousing preacher that he is who he claims to be. Show us a sign. Jesus’ response is unexpected and harsh: “An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it…” We have to wonder why Jesus is being so stubborn. We know he is capable of miraculous deeds. Why not show these men what they need to see? 

 

Jesus says that no sign will be given to them “except the sign of Jonah the prophet.” Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and nights, so the Son of Man will be “in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.” Jonah is expelled from the whale and goes on to preach repentance to the decadent citizens of Nineveh. They repent and return to God’s favor. So Jesus too, expelled from the grave and risen from the dead, will be a sign to the scribes and Pharisees and a sign to us that Jesus is indeed who he claims to be. Jesus goes on to add that on the day of judgment, “the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, b/c they repented at the preaching of Jonah…” Needing no other sign than the earnest preaching of an honest prophet, the citizens of Nineveh return to God. 

 

Living here on the edge of the end of the second decade of the 21^st century, can we be counted an “evil and unfaithful generation” seeking after signs? What signs could we seek? Crying statues? Marian apparitions? Bleeding Hosts? Yes, all of these and many more. But do we need these signs? We do not. We have a magisterial Church, her Eucharist, a divine guarantee against defeat, and pews packed with priests, prophets, and kings. All of these speak with one voice to say what is good and what the Lord requires: “Only to do the right and love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

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Take the Better Part

NB. This one is short for a Sunday homily b/c I'm not sure I can stand in the pulpit for the usual length of time!

16^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

How do we go about revealing to the world the mystery of God's mercy? We have in the sisters, Martha and Mary, two models of how we might proceed. When Jesus visits the sisters, Martha begins to fuss about, trying her best to prepare a suitably hospitable meal for their guest. Frustrated that Mary is ignoring her domestic duties in order to dote on Jesus, Martha complains to Jesus and asks him to admonish Mary for her apparent laziness. Instead of scolding Mary for her inattention to duty, Jesus turns Martha's complaint back on her, saying, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.” We should notice here that Jesus doesn't chastise Martha for griping nor does he seem ungrateful for her work on his behalf. Rather than soothe Martha's hurt feelings by telling Mary to get to work, rather than tempering Martha's anger with a lecture on patience, Jesus goes straight to the root of her fussiness. Martha is anxious; she is worried. Faced with the presence of Christ in her home, Martha chooses to get busy; she deflects her anxiety by “doing stuff,” hoping, perhaps, that by staying busy she will burn off the fretting worry. Mary, on the other hand, sits at Jesus' feet and listens to his instruction. She too might be anxious. She might be just as wound up and nervous as her sister in the presence of Christ, but she chooses “the better part,” attending to Jesus as he teaches her the mysteries of his Father's revelation.

Why does Jesus consider Mary's rapt attention to be better than Martha's distracted busyness? Let's ask this question another way. Who is most likely to learn: a student who sits in class texting on her cell phone, checking Facebook, or doodling; or the student who attentively listens to the teacher – no distractions, nothing to cloud her mind or burden her heart? If you have ever tried to teach a child a difficult math problem, or convey a set of relatively boring facts, then you know the answer to this question! Mary has the better part because she is more likely to learn, more likely to “get it,” more likely to become the better teacher and preacher of the mysteries herself. Martha will get quite a lot done, but will she be open to seeing and hearing the mystery that Jesus has to reveal? Jesus tells Martha, “There is need of only one thing.” There is only one needful thing, only one thing we need: to listen to the Word, the Word made flesh in Christ Jesus.

When you take up Christ's commission to preach the mystery of salvation to the world, do you first listen to the Word; or do you get busy “doing stuff” that looks Christian, sounds Christian? Do you really hear what Christ has to say about God's mercy, His love? Do you attend to the Body of Christ in action during the celebration of his sacraments? Do you watch for Christ to reveal himself in those you love, in those you despise, those you would rather ignore or disparage? Can you set aside the work of doing Christian things and just be a follower of Christ, just long enough to be filled with the Spirit necessary to teach with all wisdom? It's vital that we understand that Martha isn't wrong for doing stuff. Her flaw rests solely in her anxiety and her worry while she's doing stuff. Being anxious and worried about many things while doing God's work is a sure sign that we are failing to grasp the central mystery of our commission to preach the Good News: it is Christ who preaches through us, not only with us, along side us, but through us. If we have truly seen and heard the mystery of our salvation through God's infinite mercy, then there is nothing to fear, nothing to be anxious about, nothing that can or will defeat the Word we are vowed to spread. Why? Because everything we do and say reveals Christ to the world. If the Church is the sacrament of God's presence in the world, and we are members of the Body of Christ, the Church, then we too are sacraments of God's presence. Individually imperfect, together we are made more perfect on the way to our perfection in Christ.

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Audio File: 15th Sunday OT

Audio file for 15th Sunday OT. . .First Mass for Fr. Sean DeWitt.


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Let God do the work

St. Kateri

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St Dominic, NOLA

Jesus tells the disciples that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Is this how we experience our lives in Christ? Light and easy? It's a fair question and one many of us ask. However, we shouldn't worry about doubting that the life we have chosen in Christ is light and easy. The demands of growing daily in holiness are few. All we need do is love God and others as God Himself loves us. Be merciful, avoid evil, witness with our every word and deed the way to salvation through Christ. The demands are few, but they are relentless – unwavering and constant. Even the smallest task done all day every day for years will eventually exhaust the strongest body and soul. It's not the weight of our work toward holiness that burdens us but the repetition this work requires that can send us into despair. Anyone can be holy, do holy work for an hour or a day. But being holy, doing holy work for a lifetime is much, much more difficult, if not impossible – well, impossible, that is, if holiness were measured by what we manage to accomplish in a lifetime, or measured against the perfection of achieved by Christ. His yoke is easy and light, and so is the life in Christ to which we have vowed ourselves. Isaiah shares the secret of being a follower and doing God's work: “The way of the just is smooth; the path of the just [God makes] level.”

If we experience our lives in Christ as a heavy burden is it probably because we believe that our work toward holiness includes the arduous task of clearing away the wreckage of our sin. How can I come to Christ and do and be what and who he demands if I am loaded down with the garbage of a dissolute life? Don't I need to be clean before I start down the Christian path? It makes sense to hold that nothing clean can come from a filthy source. We cannot do evil to achieve goodness. And this would make sense if we were talking about human goodness, human evil. But we're not. Isaiah says it plainly, it is God Himself who levels the steep hills, straightens the crooked paths, and sets us right by washing us clean. It is God Himself who prepares us for the work we must do. Christ's yoke on our shoulders is light and easy not because we come to him as self-made, ready-made holy men and women, but because the really hard work of our holiness has already been done for us. All we need do is persist, endure in the work. And even then we persist and endure only because of His grace.

If Christ's yoke is heavy and difficult around our necks it is likely because we ourselves weigh it down, because we ourselves have tried to put it on without Christ's help. Knowing that only Christ forgives us our sins, does it make sense to believe that we are burdened by sin and that we must come to Christ cleansed of that sin? Can sin remove sin? If you believe that you cannot take on Christ's yoke until you are strong enough to bear it, then how do you get strong enough w/o Christ? Can weakness strengthen weakness? Obviously not. The burden our Lord lifts is not only the actual sin that we carry but also the heavy and false belief that the job of lifting this burden is ours alone. It is not. Never has been. It is God's job to smooth the steep hills and straighten the crooked paths. Let Him do His work. It is your job to travel His smoothed-out, straightened-upped Way. Now, that your work is light and easy and the yoke around your neck is a joy, count yourself among the loved ones of the Lord, hurry to Him and find your rest.

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Loving God is Knowing God

15th Week OT (W)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Our Lord declares to his apostles and to us that he comes among us to break the bonds of sin and to bring peace btw heaven and earth, btw God the Father and His fallen creatures. With the bonds of sin forever cut, those who claim their freedom in Christ will find themselves uncomfortably set apart from those who choose to remain slaves to disobedience. The peace he establishes btw heaven and earth disrupts whatever temporary, worldly peace we might hope for in this life. Christ's explosive entrance into human history as a squalling baby and his bloody exit as an executed criminal uncovers a divine plan for creation's redemption. That plan can only be revealed. It cannot be deduced from evidence, discovered by exploration, or guessed at by chance. What God has hidden, no man may find. . .unless God Himself shows the way. In the presence of his apostles, Jesus praises the Father, saying, “. . .for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.” Thus, the sword Christ wields against the bonds of sin creates another division: those who trust their own judgment and those who trust the way of the Lord.

We might rightly wonder why learning and worldly wisdom prevents us from seeing and following the way to God's hidden truths. Knowing is not trusting. If you tell me that you trust your spouse's fidelity b/c your private detective lets you know what he/she is doing all day, every day, I would say to you that you might know that your spouse is being faithful but you do not trust his/her faithfulness. If you tell me that you trust in God b/c scientists now know that the laws of nature have an intelligent designer, I would say to you that you might know that there is an intelligent designer but you do not trust him. Knowing is not trusting; knowledge is not faith. Faith is freely given. Trust that comes from evidence, experiment, exploration is not trust. At most, it's a feeling of confidence, an assurance. If your faith is based on the testimony of miracles, apparitions, locutions, based on anything other than the apostolic witness of the Church and your own experience with the power of Christ's sword to sever the bonds of sin, then your trust is not trust; it's knowledge. And knowing is not trusting. Knowledge is not faith.

Does this mean that knowledge has no place in the life of faith? Absolutely not! It means that all that we come to know we know as those who have given their trust to God. It means that we begin with faith, a childlike trust in God, and then we walk His way to a more profound Truth, to those truths that take us behind and beyond the knowledge that reason alone acquires. Worldly learning and wisdom cannot reveal God's truth, but they can supplement all that God has revealed. The trap we must avoid is the belief that knowing all there is to know about creation tells us all there is to know about the Creator. If – in some possible future – we come to know the most fundamental elements and operations of the universe, exhaust every scientific tool we have in the exploration of matter, energy, force, motion, space, and time, and uncover the unifying law of nature, we have learned no more about trusting God than a child learns by loving his mom and dad. Loving God is knowing God. If you will know God, then love Him and love all that He has created. No matter how much we might learn, how wise we might become, nothing can replace the saving power of faith.

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Weak Love won't cut it. . .

15^th Sunday OT (Fr. Sean R. DeWitt's First Mass)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Martin d. Porres, Austin, TX

AUDIO FILE

The lawyer starts by asking Jesus a religious question: “What do I have to do to get heaven?” Jesus asks him a lawyer's question, “What does the law say?” The lawyer gives Jesus a religious answer by quoting from several different books of the Old Testament, concluding with “you shall love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus says, “Good job. You know your stuff. Do all that and you'll get to heaven.” Seemingly puzzled, the lawyer finally asks a lawyer's question, “Um, exactly who is my neighbor?” In other words: define your terms! Kids do it to parents. Students do it to teachers. Workers do it to bosses. And we, the children of our Father, do it to Him. “Define your terms, please.” We do it for a lot of reasons. Some good, some not so good. If we make the demand to better understand – truly understand – what's required of us, then we're probably on the good side. However, if we demand better definitions in order to look for loopholes, then we're definitely not on the good side. In fact, we are probably wanting to do what our lawyer friend is trying to do: to justify our weak love.

 

So, let's define our terms! What is “weak love”? Our Lord answers with a parable. Weak love is the sort of love we have for those for whom it is safe to love. The sort of love that costs nothing; never puts us in danger; always produces immediate reward; the sort of love that the world expects, even demands from us; the sort of love that marks us as “good people” in the eyes of those who watch us for signs of hypocrisy and deceit. Weak love also walks on by in fear, disgust, and self-righteousness. In other words, weak love is not love at all; it requires no sacrifice and yields no spiritual fruit. In order to justify his own weak love, to make right his own unwillingness to love as he ought, our lawyer friend asks our Lord to define his terms – who is my neighbor? Our Lord answers with a parable. Who is your neighbor? Anyone who needs your sacrifice. Anyone who requires your compassion. We can imagine that our lawyer friend is not happy with this answer. He wants to ask, “What do you mean by 'sacrifice'?” and “Can you define 'compassion'?” When you say, “go and do likewise,” do you mean that I can get into heaven by helping a robbery victim with medical care? Does that include follow-up doctors' appointments? I've done it. Maybe you've done it. Weak love compels us to ask these kinds of questions. Sacrificial love compels us to be merciful.

And we are commanded to love sacrificially. As cruel and unjust as it may seem, our Lord commands us to love as he loves us. He loved us all the way to his death on to the Cross. And he loves us still in the Eucharist. If we were left to love as we ought all on our own, we could rightly charge Christ with cruelty. As imperfect creatures incapable of doing anything good w/o him, we would necessarily fail again and again to obey his command to love as he loves us. We would forever be the priest and the Levite who rush past the robbery victim, looking back in fear, disgust, and self-righteousness. We would forever be the testing-lawyer who looks for loopholes in order to justify our weak love. If Christ is not being cruel by demanding the impossible from us, how do we love sacrificially as he commands? How do we show mercy when it seems that we are so irretrievably tied to Self? Here's the Good News: our weaknesses, our failures to love, our lapses in showing mercy – all of it – is made perfect in Christ Jesus. 

 

Paul teaches the Colossians that Christ is “the image of the invisible God.” Therefore, Christ is “the firstborn of all creation [and] all things were created through him and for him.” Himself uncreated, Christ comes before creation, and in him the fullness of divinity, all that God Is, is pleased to dwell, and so, “ in him all things hold together…” and through him all things are reconciled for him. We were created through Christ and for Christ. We were redeemed through Christ and for Christ. We are being perfected in our creatureliness through Christ and for Christ. And we will come to thrive in the fullness of God through Christ and for Christ. But we must love! We must love sacrificially. This is not a matter of weepy sentiment or mooshy affection. All things are held together in Christ, and Christ is love for us. Without the passionate divine willing of the Good for us, we simply cease to exist. So, whatever failures we cultivate, whatever lapses we tolerate, whatever targets we miss, all of it is made perfect in Christ Jesus. And if we receive his love – his sacrifice for us – if we receive his sacrifice, and if we take his sacrifice and make it our own – if we own it! – and put it to work for the glory of God and the salvation of man, then we participate in his perfection and grow and grow and grow in holiness. And we approach the supernatural end God set for us at our creation: we become Christs for one another.

Now, you may have heard me say that we shouldn't ask God for clarity; or that we shouldn't think too hard about what Christ requires of us. I'm a Dominican friar. Defining terms and making distinctions comes as naturally to me as breathing. We are all rational animals. Our reason is what makes us most like our Creator. Our reason is the “image and likeness of God” in which we are created. Our questions to God are not only not a problem, they are a necessity for our growth in holiness. Doubts, fears, questions, failures – all of it – are made perfect in Christ. When you need clarity for the sake of loving more perfectly, ask for clarity. When you need a distinction for the sake of serving God's people more zealously, ask for that distinction. However, if – like our lawyer friend – your doubts and questions are a test for God, or an attempt to justify your weak love, keep silent and show mercy to someone who needs mercy. That's your answer. Show mercy and wait for Christ to make your mercy perfect. Because you – none of us – can do anything good w/o him.

When Sean wrote to me in February of this year and asked me to vest him at his priestly ordination and to preach his first Mass, I rushed to the mirror and counted my gray hairs. . .in my beard. One of my U.D. freshmen was being ordained a priest! I first met Sean in 2007. He took Literary Traditions I & II with me at U.D. I left U.D. in 2008 and moved to Rome for advanced studies and missed out on teaching him theology. Though I was not part of Sean's formal seminary formation, I like to imagine that I had some part of play in his intellectual formation, meaning, of course, that I hope I managed to plant a Dominican seed in his head. . .one that will grow to fruition for the good of the Church. I visited with Sean only a few times in Rome while he was there. And I saw in him then a young man with a sharp mind, a faithful heart, a passion for serving the Church, and a zeal for the Gospel. Please don't tell Bishop Vasquez, but I worked overtime to lure him into the Order of Preachers. Bagging a vocation like Sean would have earned me three toasters and a shiny new habit rosary. Despite my best efforts, which I am ashamed to admit, included massive amounts of begging and bribery, Sean chose to return to home and serve you. Yesterday, Bishop Vasquez charged him with preaching the Gospel, teaching the faith, and celebrating the sacraments. Today, as the fisherman who let the Big One get away, I take this opportunity to make my own charges. Fr. Sean, I charge with the duty to bear up under both the burden and the privilege of bringing the apostolic truth to God's people in season and out, whether you or they like it or not. I charge you with the burden and privilege of hearing and listening to God's people as their spiritual father, always compassionate yet never wavering in teaching the apostolic faith. I charge you with the burden and privilege of throwing yourself on the mercy of God when you fail – and you will – and asking for forgiveness from those you offend. And lastly, I charge you with the task of growing in humility through thanksgiving and praise to God. You have been set aside for a holy purpose. Never forget that you are an instrument. You are not the Carpenter. You are his tool. And so are we all.

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Staking a spiritual vampire with Yes or No

14th Week OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Dominic Church, NOLA

Jesus carefully instructs his newly appointed apostles on how they are to do their jobs in his name. He instructs them on what to say: “As you go make this proclamation: 'The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.'” He tells them what they are to do: “Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons.” He tells them what not to take with them and how to greet those to whom they will preach. Then he concludes this lesson in practical ministry with an ominous statement: “Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet.” Among our Protestant brothers and sisters, this is what is called a “hard-saying of Jesus.” It's not hard b/c it is difficult to understand or carry out, but b/c it offers both the apostles and those who hear the gospel from them a hard choice between saying Yes or No to God's offer of salvation. This a hard choice b/c there are no soft options between receiving the Word and not receiving the Word. So, is there any sandal dust outside your house?

First, think about what Jesus is telling the apostles to do here. Notice that all of his instructions in this gospel passage give his apostles practical ways of dealing with common human flaws. He tells them what to say, thus eliminating the temptation to preach falsehood. He tells them what to do, thus ruling out a long list of work not properly done for the gospel. He tells them what to take with them, thus limiting the temporary stuff in their lives, freeing them to travel more efficiently and to bear witness to eternal matters. And finally, he tells them what to say and do when the Word is ignored or rejected, thus saving them from the temptation to hang around a stubborn household or town and waste what little time they have. Jesus' demand for either a Yes and a No to God's offer of His salvation puts one of our most obstinate habits into hard relief. We want what we want when we want it. We like options. Lots of them. And we like to change our minds when what we want turns out to be inconvenient, not what we thought it would be, or something better comes along. Jesus stakes this spiritual vampire squarely in the heart.

But why would he insist on such a black and white choice? Why stand so resolutely against the beauty of diversity and difference when choosing a spiritual path? His instruction to the apostles seems downright mean, even cruel and intolerant. Jesus is not only a careful teacher but an expert on the human soul as well, a divine psychologist, if you will. He understands the human heart and mind and knows that our love for vacillation and change is quite nearly hard-wired in us. The habit of loving and trusting our own preferences over and above what is true, good, and beautiful is too deeply settled in us to root it out with half-made choices and soft commitments. God knows that our answer must be Yes or No, or we will be tossed around with every storm that comes. We will be lost if we are not anchored. And our anchor must be unshakably caught in His Word, Christ Jesus.

Let's not pretend that saying Yes to the gospel once is all it takes to make us perfect followers of Christ. We know better. We are offered the Word everyday and everyday we say Yes or No. We live out that choice in all we say and do or fail to say and do. Does this make the sum total of our lives a long, drawn out Maybe? No. What it means is that we are committed to making the choice between Yes and No. We are refusing to settle for the lazy way of a Daily Maybe, a little life of soft compromises and easy choices. Say Yes or say No. There is no browsing in the marketplace of squeamish options. We are given the Word daily; there can be no muttered Maybe.

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Break Up a New Field [Audio Link added]

14^th Week OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

AUDIO FILE LINK

If you are confused after hearing the gospel, you're not alone! The same teacher who tells his disciples to go out into the world and preach the Good News. . .the same teacher who heals Gentiles in the presence of those disciples; talks to an unclean Samaritan woman and fusses at his disciples who tell him not to; and even eats with tax collectors and prostitutes over the objections of his disciples. . .the same teacher who sets himself the task of breaking just about every purity law on the books and earns for himself a reputation as a dangerous heretic and madman. . .this same teacher is now sending those same disciples out as apostles to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom, saying to them before they go, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” After violating so many Jewish taboos, why is Jesus suddenly so squeamish about his apostles preaching to pagans and Samaritans? Jewish officialdom has rejected him, so why waste time and energy preaching to those who have heard the Good News and said, “No, thanks”? God promised the Messiah to the Jews. And so, to the lost sheep of Israel are the apostles sent.

How do we reconcile Jesus' words and deeds during his public ministry with his parting orders to the newly minted apostles? The Lord knows something that his apostles do not: the apostolic ministry to preach the Good News will not end when the last of them dies. In fact, their preaching ministry as apostles won't truly commence until the Holy Spirit arrives and sets the whole bunch of them on fire! Given the Lord's inclusive words and deeds in their presence; then, his instructions to limit themselves to the Jews; and then, the Holy Spirit's inspiration to set the whole world on fire with his Word. . .we can safely assume that Jesus isn't limiting their ministry, he's concentrating it; that is, with a truly daunting task ahead of them – evangelizing every living creature – the Lord focuses his apostles on a workable task: just preach to the Jews. If we think about this for a moment, it makes perfect sense. Who is better prepared to hear that the promises made by God through His prophets have been fulfilled in the coming of Christ Jesus?

Hosea sets the scene for us. The nation God gave to His people is decadent, luxurious, ripe to the point of being rotten. The more it prospers under His blessing, the more it turns away from Him to idolatry, erecting altars and pillars to alien gods. They blame their spiritual adultery on political turmoil, and Hosea asks, “Since they do not fear the Lord, what can the king do for them?” Then his prophesies, “Sow for yourselves justice. . .break up for yourselves a new field, for it is time to seek the Lord.” And it is time for those who belong to the Lord to seek His lost sheep; thus, Jesus sends his apostles to those who are in most urgent need of the Good News, those who know the Covenant of Abraham yet live as if Abraham never spoke to God. Peter, James, John go to the lost sheep of Israel and along the way they find more and more lost sheep needing a shepherd. The Holy Spirit will not let them leave these abandoned, so the Word – like a wild fire – spreads. And the people of God, those adopted as His children, grows and grows, beyond the lost sheep, into a nation of priests and prophets, a body of apostles sent out to find and rescue the lost, the wounded, those thrown away, anyone who desires to be loved as a creature created in the image of God. Go out, then, and show the world that no one is too small, too poor, too idolatrous, too sinful to be called unworthy of the Father's saving mercy!

Two Revolutions

Independence Day

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St Dominic, NOLA

Jesus says to John's disciples, “No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth...People do not put new wine into old wineskins.” What does this bit of homespun wisdom have to do with weddings, fasting, the Pharisees, mourning the death of a bridegroom, and the price of camels in Jerusalem? Better yet: what do any of these have to do with the American Revolution and this country's declaration of independence from the tyranny of Old King George? Is Jesus teaching us to party while we can b/c we won't be around forever? Is he arguing that we ought to be better stewards of our antiques—human and otherwise? Or maybe he's saying that the time will come when the older ways can no longer be patched up and something fundamentally new must replace what we have always had, always known. When “the way we have always done it” no longer takes us where we ought to go; when the wineskin, the camel, the cloak no longer holds its wine, hauls its load, or keep us warm, it's time to start thinking about a trip to the market to haggle for something new.

 

We celebrate two revolutions today: one temporal and one eternal, one local and the other cosmic. The political revolution freed a group of colonies in the New World from the corruption of an old and dying Empire. The spiritual revolution freed all of creation from the chains of sin and death. Today, we give God thanks and praise for the birth of the United States of America by celebrating our 4th of July freedoms. And we give God thanks and praise for the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ by celebrating this Eucharist, the daily revolution that overthrows the regime of sin and spiritual decay.

The revolution of 1776 not only toppled the imperial rule of George III in the American colonies, but it also founded a way of life that celebrates God-gifted, self-evident, and unalienable human rights as the foundation of all civil government and social progress. The revolution that Christ led and leads against the wiles and temptations of the world fulfills the promise of our Father to bring us once again into His Kingdom—not a civil kingdom ruled by laws and fallible hearts, but a heavenly kingdom where we will do His will perfectly and thereby live more freely than we ever could here on earth. In no way do we understand this kingdom as simply some sort of future reward for good behavior. This is no pie in the sky by and by. Though God's kingdom has come with the coming of Christ, we must live as bodies and souls here and now, perfecting that imperfect portion of the kingdom we know and love. No revolution succeeds immediately. No revolution fulfills every promise at the moment of its birth. The women and slaves of the newly minted United States can witness to this hard fact. That we continue to sin, continue to fail, continue to rebel against God's will for us is evidence enough that we do not yet live in fullest days of the Kingdom. But like any ideal, any program for perfecting the human heart and mind, we can live to the limits of our imperfect natures, falling and trying again, knowing that we are loved by Love Himself. With diligence. With trust. With hope. With one another in the bonds of Christ's love, we can do more than live lackluster lives of just getting along. We can work out our salvation in the tough love of repentance and forgiveness, the hard truths of mercy and holiness.

Christ is with us. The Bridegroom has not abandoned us. His revolution continues so long as one of us is eager to preach his Word, teach his truth, do his good works. Today and everyday, we are free. And even as we celebrate our civil independence from tyranny, we must bow our heads to the Father and give Him thanks for creating us as creatures capable of living freely, wholly in the possibility of His perfection.