Praying to Yourself

AUDIO FILE

30^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St Anthony/OLR, NOLA

The tax collector prays to God. The Pharisee prays to himself. What difference does this difference make? Self-righteous prayer attempts to change God, while righteous prayer changes the one praying. In our desire to gain and maintain control of our lives – lives that do not belong to us in the first place – we can forget a basic theological truth: Nothing we can do, say, feel, or think changes God. We live and move and have our being in Him. He does not live and move and have His being in us. We are His creatures; He is our Creator. Prayer is one way that we align our will with His. Therefore, Christian prayer is not a form of persuasion; a way of bargaining, or a means of pestering God into giving us what we think we need or want. Christian prayer is not a magic spell, or a spiritual recipe, or a religious formula that can bend God to our will. We cannot trick God with novenas or litanies, nor can we browbeat Him with adoration or processions. None of these forms of prayer are designed to change God's mind or influence Him in the least. Jesus shows us that prayer changes the heart and mind of the one praying. And that righteous prayer is always prayed in genuine humility.

The first step in praying with genuine humility is coming to know and love God as His creature; that is, acknowledging and accepting that we are made beings, beings made in His image and likeness and re-made in Christ through the Holy Spirit. Man was created from dirt with the breath of God – body and soul. Remembering that we are dirt and that we will return to dirt, and living out that memory, is what it means to be humble. Genuine humility makes it possible for us to get out of our own way and receive all that God has to give us. We set aside our wants, our perceived needs. We set aside the need to control our lives and the lives of others. We give up the lie that we know what's best for us and ours. Above all, we accept that our end – our target – is not in this world or of this world. We are here temporarily, and nothing we do, say, think, or feel will last long after we die. So while we are here, our task is bear witness to the mercy of God, giving testimony from our own lives how He has made us His heirs, His children, through Christ Jesus. Our adoption into the Holy Family is a gift not a reward for good behavior or right-thinking. But a freely offered gift that we freely receive or freely reject. Prayer is our means of giving thanks and growing in humility.

The second step in praying in humility is coming to know and love all of God's creation, especially His sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters in Christ. The self-righteous Pharisee fails to love the tax-collector, judging him to be “greedy, dishonest, adulterous.” How does the Pharisee make this judgment? He says, “I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.” In our self-righteousness, we might say, “I attend daily Mass. Go to confession once a week. Pray the rosary twice a day. And serve on the parish council.” So??? None of this makes you or me righteous. If we attend Mass, go to confession, pray the rosary, and serve on the parish council in order to be seen, to be noticed by the greedy, dishonest, and adulterous sinners who don't deserve God's mercy, then our humility is suffocated by self-righteousness, and we pray to ourselves not to God. To know and love all of God's creation, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ, is not about calling sin good. It's about seeing in them and ourselves the desperate need for God's mercy and offering to them (and ourselves) the witness we all need to come out of sin and to surrender ourselves to Divine Love. The humble pray knowing they are sinners.

The last step in praying with humility is coming to know and love ourselves as redeemed sinners; that is, as loved and saved creatures of Love Himself. Genuine humility is never about self-degradation. It's never about torturing ourselves into believing that we are worthless. Remember: we are made from dirt with the breath of God. Genuine humility requires that we remember both elements of our creation: the dirt and the divine breath. When we forget that we are dirt, we end up believing ourselves to be god w/o God. That's pride. That's the lie the Serpent whispered to Eve. But when we forget that we are also of the divine breath, we end up believing ourselves to be just dirt. That is also pride. We leave God out of our lives, living as if He has no part to play in how we came to be or where we need to go. The balance is struck when we genuinely humble ourselves and exalt God. God doesn't need our exaltation, but we need to exalt Him in order to remain humble. This is why Jesus teaches us, “. . .whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Pray like the redeemed sinner you are.

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Be a Bullheaded Pray-er

Audio File

29^th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
OLR, NOLA

Pray always. Pray always without ceasing. Pray always without ceasing, AND do not grow weary. Is there anything we can do always and without ceasing that doesn't make us grow weary? Even those things that we love to do will eventually grind us down, so why should prayer be any different? Why wouldn't a ceaseless conversation with God wear us out? The intense focus required. Memories stoking conscious thought. Fingers counting out beads. Bowing, kneeling, standing, maybe even crawling, only to stand again and genuflect. Why doesn't a ceaseless conversation with God wear us out? Maybe it should. But it doesn't. Perseverance in prayer – always, without ceasing – cannot weary us b/c prayer is our direct line to the source and summit, the center and ground of our being: God who is Love Himself.

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

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

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

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

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Tenacious Christian Bulldog

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28^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

I grew up in rural Mississippi with more or less tradition-minded Baptist parents. My younger brother and I learned from Day One to say “yessir/no sir,” “please,” “thank you,” “excuse me.” Failure to express proper respect or gratitude earned a swift and terrible rebuke. I still use “Mr.” and “Ms” when addressing adults, and I cringe a little when people call me by my first name w/o asking, or shorten it to “Phil.” It's all very old-fashioned, I know, but there's something about the habits of good manners that makes life easier. In the case of the healed leper, his deeply felt sense of gratitude actually saves him! He discovers – probably to his great surprise – that giving God thanks for his healing is not only the polite thing to do but a way to salvation as well. For us, the baptized, giving God thanks for His blessings is way to persevere, a way to remain in Christ and thus end our earthly pilgrimage reigning with him in the Kingdom. Is it possible that the good manners many of us were taught as children is what remains of this spiritual insight? Saying “thank you,” especially to God, is a path to healing and salvation.

We hear Paul say to Timothy: “If we have died with him we shall also live with him; if we persevere we shall also reign with him.” That persevering part is what most of us find difficult. Dying with him in the waters of baptism was easy. Living with him has its challenges, but we manage it with the sacraments. Persevering with him however is on another level entirely. Persevering here means staying close to Christ. Hanging on to him through the best and the worst. Living with him whether we “feel” his presence or not. Perseverance is the good habit of being tenacious in faith when every fiber of your being is screaming at you: “Compromise! Just fit in! Surrender! This is too hard!” Have you seen that video of a bull dog swinging himself around a tree, teeth clamped on the end of a rope? The rope will break, or the tree will fall before that dog lets go. That's tenacity. That's perseverance. Now, I wouldn't trust my teeth to hang on like a bull dog's. But I do trust that gratitude is the key to staying close to Christ. The leper proves this. Christ teaches this. And I can bear personal witness that giving God thanks for His blessings is essential in our long trek to holiness.

 

As a priest in an academic ministry, I don't have my own parish to run, so I spend a lot of time going out to parishes to hear confessions, give missions or talks, and basically just visiting with people over all the archdiocese. Every time I go out, I hear a lot of anxiety about the Church. I get confused questions about the faith. Angry comments about the news coming out of Rome. Questions and doubts about the future. Just generally an overwhelming sense that things aren't well with the Body of Christ. Something is wrong, something is upsetting the peace we've come to expect from following Christ. In response, I have to sharply suppress my professorial instincts and avoid giving a lecture on the history of the Church. No one wants to hear how good we have it compared to, say, the Church in communist China. Then I have to swallow the need to remind folks that the “peace of Christ” comes with a promise of persecution. What I usually end up saying is that difficult times require a bull dog's tenacity. It might be too much to say that we're being tested. But – we're being tested. Not tested in the sense that God is deliberately trying to scare us or trip us up. But tested in the sense that steel is tested under pressure to measure its purity and strength. Our test is measuring the purity and strength of our gratitude. If you will to endure with Christ, you will be grateful to God for His blessings.

You might ask here: why does God need our gratitude? The answer is: He doesn't. Giving God thanks does nothing for God b/c He needs nothing from us. Our desire to give Him thanks is itself a gift that benefits us alone. In other words, we are doing ourselves a favor by returning thanks for all that God gives us. Failing to give thanks breeds entitlement – I am owed. And entitlement is the rich soil of pride. If we nurture pride by failing in gratitude, we end up denying Christ – the ultimate gift from God. We end up being among the nine lepers who were healed but not saved. Ungrateful wretches living lives of resentment and anger b/c they believe that God owes them a debt. As followers of Christ, our best means of staying close to Christ is to be a tenacious Christian bull dog, refusing to let go of gratitude.

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We've been warned

Audio File

26^th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

All rich people go to hell when they die; and all poor people are whisked off to heaven by angels at death. Right? Rich people go to hell b/c they are rich, and poor people to heaven b/c they are poor. God hates the rich, and loves the poor, so this must be the case. . .just as our story this morning shows us. BUT our story this morning shows us no such thing. So, why does the rich man end up in hell and Lazarus in heaven? Abraham tells the rich man to remember that he – the rich man – received what was good in his lifetime and Lazarus received what was bad. Again, this doesn't seem quite right. Are we punished or rewarded for what life gives us (good or bad), or for what we have done or failed to do? The key to this parable is to start with the ending. The rich man begs Abraham to send someone to warn his brothers about hell. Abraham says that that have Moses and the Prophets to warn them. The rich man says that if someone they know is dead would appear and warn them, they would listen. Abraham, giving us the meaning of the parable says, “If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.” Why is the rich man in hell? He did not listen to Moses and the Prophets.

And since he did not listen to Moses and the Prophets, he failed to do all that God had asked him to do as a man abundantly blessed. Now, the obvious question: what did Moses and the Prophets tell the rich man – and everyone else in the Jewish world – to do? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, free the oppressed, tend the widow and orphan; and honor and obey the Lord your God. In other words, those who have been most blessed by the Lord are obligated in turn to bless those who have not been so blessed. St Paul adds a few additional elements to these commands, writing, “you, man of God, pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness. . .I charge you before God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus. . .to keep the commandment without stain or reproach. . .” Which commandment? To love God and neighbor as Christ loves us. God abundantly gifted the rich man and he failed to abundantly gift those who had nothing. This principle applies to material blessings as well as spiritual blessings. If you have been blessed with material and/or spiritual gifts, you are obligated – in the name of Christ – to share those blessings.

This whole Sharing the Blessings Thing is part of God's plan for salvation. This isn't about social justice or political equality or economic fairness. It's about your salvation and your growth in holiness. God the Father breathed over the void. He breathed the Holy Spirit, speaking one Word: Christ. The creation of the universe in Christ and its recreation in his sacrifice tells us that the diffusion, the sharing of goodness, truth, and beauty is fundamental to how God made us and intends to bring us back to Him made perfect. The rich man is given much so that he might effect his salvation in giving more. Lazarus is given heaven b/c he suffers now from having so little. Both men have the same chance to attend the wedding feast, but only one perfects his gifts on earth – Lazarus. You and I have been given the greatest gift possible: forgiveness of our sins, freedom from sin and death. Do you share this gift? Do you bear witness – out loud – to the fact that you have been reborn in water and spirit to life everlasting? I could ask as well: do you freely share the material wealth you have been given? Make no mistake. Nothing we have or are belongs to us. All of it, everything belongs to Christ. And he is telling us: give it away. Spread it around.

We are at best temporary keepers of what we have and who we are. To believe otherwise is to believe that there is something or someone more fundamental than our commitment to Christ. And if there is someone or something more fundamental to you than your commitment to Christ, then that is who or what you will become at death. The rich man withheld his riches from Lazarus and died to eternal torment. He hoarded all that God had given him, and found himself deprived of the wedding feast. By his choice. It may sound like a threat now or a punishment later, but it is actually a consequence of how he chose to live. Had he listened – truly obeyed – the words and deeds of Moses and Prophets, he and Lazarus would have shared a feast at the table of the Lord. Our job as followers of Christ is to spread the Father's blessings far and wide. Whether those blessings are material or spiritual, we are charged with the sacred duty of making sure that no one goes physically or spiritually hungry. That everyone with ears to hear and eyes to see meets Christ in our person. We are here this morning to receive the gifts of Christ and then leave here, sowing those gifts like seeds.

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Do not be lost in confusion

25^th Week OT (R)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

Why would the king who murdered John the Baptist be confused by Christ's words and deeds? Why would he be curious about who and what Christ is? Despite his horrible sins, or b/c of them,* Herod is experiencing what all men and women feel – the desire to know and love God. Each human person – from Adam and Eve to infants born just this morning – is created with a longing for union with their Creator. Given his life of sin, Herod experiences this longing as confusion and curiosity. He is both attracted to and repulsed by John's rebuke of his adultery. Now, he hears rumors about a man preaching repentance, and salvation from sin and death. That part of him created to long for union with God is provoked, and he has a decision to make. Like each one of us, he has a choice: repent and turn to Christ, or continue to live in confusion and mere curiosity. For those of us given a supernatural faith at baptism, repentance and turning to Christ is as natural as breathing. So, when you are unsettled, stressed, exhausted, or despairing – turn again to Christ. Repent and embrace your Savior. Or live with Herod, lost and perplexed. 

*Trying to say something too complex here. Decided to omit it.  

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Listen to "Can you be trusted with the faith?"

 Audio link for "Can you be trusted with the faith?"

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Can you be trusted with the faith?

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25^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

As a seminary formator I sometimes have to sit one of my guys down and tell him that he needs to get a haircut, or to lose the handle-bar mustache, or to quit smoking, or even – ironically enough – to lose weight. Most of the times these guys nod solemnly and say, “Yes, Father.” Some grumble a bit but comply. And one or two resist and argue that whatever it is that I am asking them to do doesn't make sense or violates some unwritten Bill of Seminarian Rights. I always respond, “Brother, if we can't trust you to obey a simple request to get a hair cut, how can we trust you to keep your ordination promises?” The principle here is universally applicable: “The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones.” Replace trustworthy with faithful. The person who is faithful in very small matters is also faithful in great ones. Replace faithful with loving. The person who is loving in very small matters is also loving in great ones. You get the picture. Being virtuous in small matters indicates an ability to be virtuous in larger ones. To be virtuous/faithful/loving in one area of your life but not in another is what it means to serve Two Masters. And what does Jesus say about serving two masters? “You cannot serve both God and mammon.” 

 

Well, why not? Who you to choose to serve defines who you are. In Jesus' day, servants were members of the family, part of the household. They weren't just hired help. If a servant said or did something shameful in public, the family he served would be publicly shamed. The idea here is that the servant holds his family's honor in his hands. He represents the integrity of the family as surely as the oldest son does. This familial set-up is partly why the early Church spread so quickly. If the father of the family was baptized, the whole family, the whole household was baptized, including the servants. A newly baptized servant could not serve his Christian family and, at the same time, continue attending pagan religious rites. If his family served God, and he served his family, then he served God. In other words, he was trusted with the family's faith and honor – in small things and large. And so are we. As members of the Father's household, heirs to His kingdom, we are held to account for the integrity of the faith we profess. We are responsible for upholding the truth, goodness, and beauty of our Father's faith in all things – great and small alike.

So, I ask you: are you trustworthy when it comes to keeping faith with Christ? In matters large and small? Or do you try to serve both God and Mammon, both the Lord and the World? As men and women who are consecrated to the service of God the Father but who must also live in the World, this is an extraordinarily difficult question to answer. What counts as serving the World – obeying secular laws? Paying taxes? Working for a gov't agency? Am I serving the World just by owning a house, or sending my kids to public schools? Think about the household servant in Jesus' day. He works for his family – cleaning, shopping, cooking, maybe even teaching the children. BUT. He is part of the family. Who he is is bound up with his family and their faith. In modern terms we might say that his identity as a person is tied to tightly to the family that he is no one without them and their faith. Do you serve the World in the way this man serves his household? Is your identity tied so tightly to worldly things and thoughts that you become no one without the stuff and noise of the World? If so, then you are trying to serve two masters. “[You] will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.”

As men and women consecrated to the service of God the Father we are entrusted with a Word that brings salvation to sinners. We are empowered to bear witness to God's mercy. We are charged with offering acceptable spiritual sacrifices and proclaiming the perfections of Christ. We are privileged to celebrate the sacraments of Christ and receive his healing help. We are made children of the Father and heir to His kingdom. Such greatness have we been given! Christ trusts us – each one of us – to complete his mission. To make known the manifold wisdoms of God and show those who will see that sin and death no longer hold the slaver's whip. And that whatever chains they may still wear they wear in ignorance and sloth. Christ trusts us – each one of us – to complete his ministry. To teach and preach the merciful Word to those with ears to hear. To shout out in word and deed that their freedom was not free. . .but to them it is freely given. Are you trustworthy in all things – great and small alike – to spend the faith Christ has given you? To purchase for God men and women hungry for the peace of Christ?

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Don't get lost

24^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

Here's the upshot of our three parables – the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son: if you're lost, you can found. As long as someone is looking and you want to be found, you will be found. Jesus isn't talking about being physically lost here like lost in a strange city w/o a working GPS. He's talking about being lost along The Way, lost off the path to holiness and salvation. This kind of being lost is the worse kind b/c it can end in being eternally lost. So, Jesus wants us to know that God the Father never stops looking. He never ceases searching for us. God the Father is always prepared to welcome us back, to take us in, and give us everything we need to become part of His family again. But we have want to be found. We have to will to come back. The wandering sheep is lost but doesn't know its lost. Same goes for the missing coin. The lost sheep doesn't understand the dangers of falling off a cliff or getting eaten by wolves. The coin doesn't know that it's basically worthless while wedged between floorboards. But the son, the lost son, he knows that being lost, being away from his father has caused him no end of grief. He comes back. He comes back to forgiveness, mercy, and a loving home. And so can we.

It's one thing to wander away from the Church out of neglect or just plain old ignorance. It's quite another to be thrown away from the Church, to be run out of the Church by an angry pastor or haughty parishioners. But to simply walk away, to get lost on purpose is in a whole other realm of Getting Lost. Over my years as a priest I've heard dozens of reasons people give for abandoning the Church. I don't get anything out it. Too much emphasis on boring ritual. Too many hypocrites in the parish. The Church won't celebrate my favorite sin. Always talking about money. All the tradition is gone. Father was mean to me. Too much politics. All religions are basically the same anyway. I could go on for another hour. But each of these is like the lost son taking his abundant inheritance and blowing it on wine, women, and song. Blowing all that he inherited from his father on living it up in the world. And for what? To end up working for a pig farmer and eating what the pigs leave behind. Nearly starving to death on the garbage the world feeds him. Desperate and alone he does the only thing left for him to do. He swallows his excuses and goes home. He expects to find his father in a rage. Instead, he finds forgiveness b/c his father was waiting in love.

You and I are the lost son. Every time we sin, we walk away from the Father. Sometimes it takes nearly starving to death to bring us home. Sometimes it takes being humiliated or nearly ruined to bring us back. Whatever it is that turns us again toward the Father, the Father is always waiting to give us his best cloak and roast up his fattest calf. He wants us to know all this so that no matter how far we run away from Him, He is always right where He has always been. The shepherd leaves 99 sheep to search for the lost one. And he rejoices when he returns home with that sheep across his shoulders. The woman sweeps her whole house looking for one lost coin. And she rejoices with her neighbors when she finds it. The father of the prodigal son rejoices when his boy comes home. Why? Because the son wanted to come home. He willed to return to his family. When you and I want to be found, we will be found b/c God the Father is always right where He has always been.

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Serviam, non serviam. . .you decide

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22^nd Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

Serviam. Non serviam. God has banished his brightest angel to Hell for rebelling against Heaven. Satan, the Arch-fiend, surveying his fiery kingdom and his fallen kin, boasts to his minion, Beelzebub: “Here we may reign secure, and in my choice/To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:/Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav'n” (Book 1). Non serviam. I will not serve. And b/c Satan once and always chooses not to serve, he is eternally chained by his bitter pride, “rolling in the fiery gulf,” Milton writes, “Confounded though immortal.” As a creature of God, Lucifer, receives from God not only his very being but also every gift that he needs to thrive as a servant of the Almighty. Yet, out of jealously and pride, he rebels, placing himself above the duties and obligations of a creature and settles himself into an immortal existence of bitter and ultimately impotent rage against his Father. That is pride's pay-out: bitter, impotent rage. But a rebel against God doesn't have to be an angel first. We humans are quite good at rebelling against our Creator. Every moment of every day, we are all saying, in thought, word, and deed either: “Serviam.” I will serve. Or “Non serviam.” I will not serve. We serve Self, or we serve God. There is no third option.

So, if we are not serving God, then we are serving Self. But how? Sure we avoid the obvious, public displays of Pride that might've been thought good and true in Jesus' day – like marching up to the seat of honor at a wedding feast; or boasting loudly of our wealth; or bragging about our sexual conquests. We know now that that sort of thing is impolite. I hear my grandma's voice, “That's just tacky.” But there are many other more subtle ways that we can serve Self instead of God. You can serve your passions. You can allow your fears, lusts, anger, and loves to run wild, and believe yourself entitled to a forgiving audience. You can serve your will. You can assert your choices, your personal preferences and demand that they be honored simply b/c you asserted them. You can also serve your intellect. You can come to think that your reason by itself is capable of knowing any and everything worth knowing. In other words, in each case, you elect to serve a temporary, limited, unfaithful god. YOU. And like Satan and his minions in Hell, you can become quite proud of your rebellion. An impotent, bitter rebellion against the Very One who holds you in being.

 

So, what does non serviam look like for us? What does the refusal to serve God actually look like down here on earth? Think about your daily routine, your daily life. Think of each moment as a chance to serve God in love, faith, and hope. To be a living sign, a prophet of mercy to others. Think about each of those moments and then think what it means to say No. I will not love. I will not forgive. I will not believe. I will not hope. I will not pray, sacrifice, or give thanks. I will not be generous. I will not trust nor will I praise. I will not obey. What I will do is do and think and speak as I wish when I wish to whom I wish b/c I serve ME. My life; my choice. My choice; my right. My right; I'm right! This is the bitter, impotent rage of Pride and it places us in the company of the Devil, among his minions, ruling Hell. . .b/c I will not serve. Another way to say this: I will not to serve – deliberate, conscious, voluntary. To serve Self rather than God. And therefore the consequences that flow from this choice are mine to bear. Individuals makes these choices. Couples, families, states, and nations makes these choices. . .daily. And the consequences flow accordingly.

The better seat – the Best Seat – at the wedding feast is the seat offered to you by the Host. Not the one you choose out of Pride, believing falsely that you deserve a better seat, or that you've earned the best seat. But the seat given to you by the Host, the one He knows you deserve b/c you grasp the reality of your relationship with Him. You have lived a life in service to the Truth, serving Him by serving His; always giving thanks and praise for every gift; always bearing courageous witness to His mercy; always placing yourself last – not b/c you are worthless but b/c you know you have been made worthy by His Son. Made heirs in the family. We do not earn that seat. We don't buy it or rent it. We can't steal it or bribe our way into it. We inherit a seat at the table. As loving and well-loved children of the Father, we inherit our places at the feast. And it is humility and godly service that keeps us firmly within the Holy Family. “For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Every second of every day until you die you are offered a chance to serve God and secure your inheritance. Which will it be: serviam or non serviam? Choose wisely.

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An interview with me on Youtube

I was interviewed yesterday at Notre Dame Seminary by Ms Linda C. Jones, a well-known singer and musician in the New Orleans area.

(That intermittent fasting stuff needs to work faster. . .)

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Squeezing through the Narrow Gate

21^st Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
OLR, NOLA 

Audio File 

Jesus says that the gate to salvation is narrow. This worries me. . .as I get wider and wider with age! The whole Squeezing a Camel Through the Eye of a Needle metaphor makes me wonder if there's any hope that an Ample Friar can find his way to the Heavenly Banquet. Of course, there's always hope. There's always the attempt, the hard try. Maybe I can wiggle, twist, and stretch my way through. Beg, bribe, pitch a fit. Or maybe I can try to figure out a way to widen the Gate; figure out a way to get Jesus to do a little renovation and make that Narrow Gate into some nice, wide French doors. OR! I could do the right thing: confess, repent, do my penance, and sin no more. Call it a Spiritual Diet – a way of trimming down my sin-fat soul. Here's my theory of the Narrow Gate: the gate is inversely proportional to the size of the Pride trying to squeeze through. The bigger one's Pride, the narrower the gate. Humility, however, widens the Gate. The truly humble soul strolls through a Gate large enough to pass an aircraft carrier. Jesus says that many will not be strong enough to enter through the Narrow Gate. . .so, measure your strength in terms of humility.

The first lesson in humility for us comes with the way Jesus answers – or doesn't answer – the question he's asked while traveling to Jerusalem, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” A curious question. Why would anyone want to know this? The more sensible question is, “Lord, will I be saved? Will my family be saved?” The question as asked makes it sound as though the questioner wants to be among an elite few, a chosen group. It's a nosey question designed to puff up the questioner's sense of self-importance. Jesus doesn't answer that question. Instead, he gives the questioner some much-needed advice, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.” Now, if you're sure you're gonna get through the Narrow Gate, and you want to make sure that you will be among an elite few on the other side, then this advice has to sound a bit ominous. It must strike at the core of your Pride to think that you might not be strong enough. Good! That's the point. If you're worrying about whether or not others are going to squeeze through, but simply assuming that you will. . .you may need to be the Spiritual Diet, losing some Pride and gaining some Humility.

 

The second lesson in humility comes in the parable Jesus tells about those left outside the house after the master locks the door. Knocking on the door and begging to be let inside, the latecomers will claim to know the master from previous dinners and his teaching in the streets. The master says, “I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!” Not only are they left outside but they are evildoers as well! What did these latecomers expect? B/c they had dinner with the master and heard him teach on the streets a few times that they were entitled entry into his house? Salvation is not based on knowing the Right People, on social connections or family ties. Remember: some on the Last Day will cry, “Lord, lord!” And the Lord will say to them, “I do not know you.” Pride assures us that our social standing, our wealth, our education, etc guarantees salvation. But Christ wants to know: do I know you? Do you know me? If you know him, then you know that everything you have and everything you are is a freely given gift from him, including, and most especially, your very life. Pride tempts us to confuse status in this world with salvation in the next. Just so we're clear: Pride lies!

 

The third lesson for us in humility is perhaps the harshest. After believing – falsely – that merely knowing about Jesus and rubbing elbows with him at dinner parties would get them through the Narrow Gates, the latecomers are treated to a vision of all those who will be invited in once they're refused entry – all the prophets and people from every corner of the world. And these aren't just any people. These are the last among us, those who put themselves last. They will be first through the Narrow Gate. These are men and women who have taken the time and energy to come to know Christ as their Savior. The ones who have taken on his mission and ministry and carried it out in their daily lives. These are the children of the Father who forgave, showed mercy, stood tall for Truth, followed the Way, refused to compromise with the world, and loved sacrificially. In other words, they followed Jesus to their crosses and gave themselves as an offering for others. That's Humility. If all this sounds hard, listen again to Hebrews: “. . .do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines.” Pride corrupts; humility teaches.

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Audio: 20th Sunday of OT

Fr. Colten Symmes, a former student of mine, and a priest of the Diocese of Biloxi, asked me to record my homily for the 20th Sunday of OT, "We Don't Need No Therapist Jesus!

He posted the recording on his Youtube channel, Salty Light.

Check it out!

Now that I know I can record with my cell phone -- duh! -- I will be posting audio for all my homilies.

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We don't need no Therapist Jesus!

20^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

This is NOT the Comfortable Middle-Class Jesus of the modern Church. The mild-mannered Jesus of our therapeutic culture. The peace-nik-hipster Jesus of the fashionable fringe. The tolerant, diversity-loving, social worker who never judges, never demands. Nope. The Jesus we hear tonight is the Jesus born and bred into an ancient prophetic tradition that requires its hearers to take sides, to make choices, to hunker down and endure the consequences of those choices. Come what may. There's no parsing-away his words here so that we can re-establish our image of a bland Messiah who only wants us to be nice to one another. He says what he says, “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” This is the part of the homily where most preachers will tell you what he Really Means here. The part where they will bleach out all the color, wring out all the vigor, and iron away any inconvenient wrinkles lest you experience a single moment of discomfort or challenge. But we know our history, and we know that following Christ means creating division and setting the world on fire!

The very last thing the Church needs right now is a Bureaucrat Jesus; a Therapist Jesus. Nor do we need a Lawyer Jesus or a Cop Jesus. Looking at the state of the Church and the trajectory some have chosen for her, I believe that what the Church needs is a Prophet Jesus – a Jesus that can and will call to his Body, the Church, to a radical holiness, a fundamental set-apartness that allows us to understand ourselves as Christs-in-progress. Not just Mass-goers or members of a parish. But as men and women who have been truly and thoroughly purified in the fires of divine love and set upon the path toward glory. If you are on this path, if you are indeed purified in the fires of divine love, then your daily life should be a life of division, conflict, and even warfare with the world around you. I don't mean that you should be violent, or behave like a jerk at the office, or be offensive to those you meet. I mean that everything you are should rebel instinctively against the reach and grasp of a world that's trying to seduce you, to draw you into its dark network of Christ-denying philosophies and practices. The battleground is your immortal soul. And though Christ has already won this war on the cross, we must remain in him to share his victory.

So, you might ask: How do I remain in Christ? Well, Therapist Jesus will ask you how the challenges of holiness make you feel, and affirm you in your OK-ness. Cop Jesus will want to know if you're following the Law, and he'll remind you that he's always watching for infractions. Bureaucrat Jesus will tell you that holiness is a procedure, requiring assessment, feedback, and accreditation. But Prophet Jesus will answer your question with a question: “Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?” And while you're floundering around for an answer, he'll shout, “NO! I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” Then you will know that to remain in Christ is to be burned by the world, to be rejected, and turned away b/c you refuse to hide the divine love you carry, b/c you will not fail in bearing witness to the purification that freed you and frees you from sin and death. To remain in Christ, to share in his victory on the cross is to make your life – every part of your life – a rebuke of the world, a challenge to the death-loving culture that boils around us. And that is why we carry conflict, division, and even warfare with us everywhere we go. Not b/c we are angry or violent. . .but b/c we belong to Christ.

I will say again what I have said to you many times over the past seven years: being a follower of Christ is about becoming Christ in the world. It's not about feeling a certain way about God; or filling out the correct paperwork in the correct way; or following all the rules and keeping your nose clean; or being nice to your annoying neighbors. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not suffer torture and death on the cross to show us how to be good, upstanding, middle-class taxpayers. He suffered and died to free us from sin and death. He set the world on fire with his Good News so that nothing created would escape his invitation to receive God's freely offered mercy. He sent the purifying flames of the Holy Spirit upon the Church so that we would have the courage to be witnesses to his sacrifice, so that we would be equipped to give a reason for our hope in the resurrection. He didn't die to make us cowards in the face of the world's seduction. He died to make us saints and martyrs to the Truth – the Truth that set us free and sets us free everyday. If you will remain in him, then do as he does: set the world on fire with divine love.

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66% of Catholics don't believe. . .do you?

19^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

To the great shame of every bishop, priest, deacon, and Catholic catechist in the nation, a recent survey revealed that fully 66% of Catholics either do not know what the Church teaches about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, or do not accept the teaching. There are varying degrees of disbelief described in the survey and a catalog of the various alternative beliefs about the RP – but it's all too embarrassing and painful to talk about from the pulpit. If you've ever wondered whether or not Catholic catechesis in the last five decades has been an unmitigated disaster, wonder no more. This survey reveals a level of ignorance and infidelity unmatched in modern Catholic history. If the survey had revealed that 66% of Catholic didn't understand the delicacies involved in obtaining an indulgence, I'd be OK with that. If we were talking about 66% of Catholics not quite grasping the details of Aquinas' argument that God is subsistent Being-Itself, I wouldn't be worried. But that 2/3 of American Catholics either do not know about or do not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is a scandal approaching the magnitude of the Protestant Revolution in the 16^thc. Yes, I'm exaggerating. But not by much. 

 

So, what is the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist? Simply put, the Church teaches that during the celebration of the Mass, specifically at the moment of consecration – this is my Body, this is my Blood – the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. The substance of the bread and wine – what they are – is transformed into the substance of Christ's Body and Blood. We call this change transubstantiation. The CCC (1374) teaches, “In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist 'the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.' This presence is called 'real' [. . .] because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.” Therefore, the bread and wine are not merely symbols of Christ's body and blood; and the Eucharist is not merely a symbolic meal to be shared by a community. Since Christ is made substantially present on the altar, the Eucharist is to be understood as our means of participating in Christ's sacrifice on the Cross. In the Mass, we reach up into eternity and God reaches down into history, and we are pulled back to Golgotha to bear witness to the sacrifice that makes our salvation possible. 

 

I will repeat: the Mass is not merely a symbolic meal where the community is reminded of Christ's sacrifice. The Mass is our immediate participation in his eternal sacrifice. The history of how we came to see the Mass as merely a symbolic meal is too involved for a Sunday sermon. Suffice it to say, that after VC2, there was a movement in the Church to de-emphasize the sacrificial character of the Mass in favor of a more Protestant view, the Mass as simply a memorial meal. The altar became a table. The chalice became a cup. The priest became a presider. And everyone was encouraged to receive communion. . .whether they were prepared to do so or not. The idea was: no one must be excluded; all must be welcomed! AND if all we're doing here tonight is acting out a memorial play, then why not invite everyone to eat and drink our symbols? That 66% of American Catholics do not believe in the RPC can be blamed on several factors: the rush to de-emphasize the sacrificial character of the Mass; a desire to be seen as welcoming; an embarrassment among Church leaders at the “medievalism” of the faith; and an ideological push to reshape the nature of the Catholic priesthood into something resembling Protestant ministry.

Regardless of what might have happened historically to the RPC, we must look to the future and understand why the RPC is necessary to the faith. First, the Church has always taught the RPC. From Christ himself in the Gospel of John to the earliest Church Fathers to the great medieval theologians right up to St. JPII, BXVI, and Francis. Second, if we are to be fed in the faith, we must be fed something of substance. If you were to eat an American flag, no one would say that you've eaten America. Symbols point to and denote; by definition, they are not the things they symbolize. We eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ so that we can become more and more like Christ. Eating and drinking a symbol is just eating and drinking a symbol. Third, St. Paul tells us that it is possible to “eat our own condemnation:” that is, to eat the Body and Blood unworthily is eat our own damnation. How can eating a mere symbol cause you to condemn yourself? Can you think of any symbol with that kind of power? No. But if the bread and wine really are the Body and Blood of Christ, then eating your own condemnation is real possibility. Lastly, Christ promises us in Scripture that he is with us always. When two or more are gathered. In the breaking of the bread. In prayer and fasting. In our joys and in our sorrows.

I'll end with a final exhortation: with the easy availability of on-line resources – the CCC, the USCCB website, dozens of Catholic Answers type sites, hundreds of forums to ask questions – there can be no excuse for ignorance of the faith. No one expects every Catholic to be an academically-trained theologian. I often find myself WAY of my depth when listening to the pros at the seminary debate some theological topic. We had a guest lecturer at NDS not too long ago. I was lost three minutes into the lecture, which proved pretty embarrassing for me the next day when the seminarians wanted me to explain his talk! I'm not saying that you must be able to carry on a detailed conservation about theological minutiae. I am saying that every adult Catholic should be able to answer basic questions about the fundamentals of the faith. Questions like: what does the Church mean by “the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist”? That's basic. At the very least, I would hope that you could say – w/o fudging – that you believe this truth. “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.”

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Your labor is worthless; work harder!

14^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

The CDC estimates that in the U.S. a person dies every twelve seconds. In the time it takes us to celebrate this Mass approx. 275 people will have died. We can't know how many of those people went to their graves w/o hearing the Gospel; how many went to their graves well-prepared for a final judgment. We can't know who received God's freely offered mercy for their sins, or who chose to live outside God's mercy forever. The Church does the hard work of preparing the ground, planting the seed, tending the shoots, and weeding the field. The final harvest is God's work. And that final harvest comes for someone in the U.S. every twelve seconds. The question we need to ask ourselves – as laborers in the field of the Lord – is have I done everything I can do to make sure that everyone I know and love, everyone I visit and work with everyday looks at me and sees Christ among them? If I were to ask your family, friends, co-workers, neighbors: who among you does the work of Christ for you – would your name be mentioned? If not, what do you need to do make sure they do?

I said earlier that the Church does the hard work of preparing the ground, planting the seed, tending the shoots, and weeding the field. And that God will take care of the final harvest. Christians – over the centuries – have been known to (on occasion) take on God's work in picking and choosing which crops get harvested, which plants go to fruit, and which ones go into the fire. While it is true that the followers of Christ participate in the divine life – imperfectly, we are not in fact divine ourselves. The final harvest is God's work. Leave that to Him. Our labors go into preparing the ground, planting the seed, tending the shoots, and weeding the field. It's not glamorous work. But it is necessary work. And it cannot be done by word alone. It takes deeds, actual labor. The labor of daily prayer. Faithful attention to the sacraments. Taking every opportunity to bear witness to the truth. Showing mercy by forgiving sins. Seeking forgiveness when we have sinned. It's the labor of knowing right from wrong, good from evil. Loving the sinner but despising the sin. Teaching the Way, the Truth, and the Life even when doing so may be embarrassing or difficult or offensive. It's the labor of growing in holiness by constantly embedding ourselves deeper in the world w/o becoming subject to the world. Jesus tells us that this is a dangerous task. Fortunately, you are not alone.

When Jesus appoints the Seventy-two, he says to them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few. . .Go on your way. . .I am sending you like lambs among wolves.” Three points to note here: 1). there is an abundant harvest, souls who need Christ but do not know him; 2). there aren't enough laborers to help with this harvest, pray for more help; and 3). the harvest exists in a world of wolves, and we are merely lambs among them. These truths should be discouraging. We should be distressed that there aren't enough laborers, and that we are laboring among wolves. Why didn't our Lord arm the Seventy-two? Why not give them enough money to travel safely? Why not create a militia corps to escort his preachers through a dangerous world? There are a number of practical/logistical answers to these questions, but Paul's answer is sufficient: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Our peace, our protection, our power resides in the fact that we are new creatures, born again in water and spirit. We labor crucified to the world – dead and buried already in the world of wolves. Nothing done to us here and now will survive in the presence of God the Father. 

 

This truth should bring you peace. I don't mean that you can shirk your worldly duties, or that we can all run off to the hills and commune with the squirrels. The peace of Christ isn't a narcotic state of mind, or an absent-mindedness, or a momentary relaxation. The peace of Christ is knowing and believing that your life in the world is given its final meaning in the victory of Christ on the cross; that is, your purpose is living out the always, already accomplished victory over sin and death. The labor you have chosen to take on is nothing more than living day-to-day, hour-to-hour in full and faithful knowledge that – from eternity – the harvest is done. Christ wins. The Church wins. And now we go out and about making sure that everyone we know and love knows that Christ's victory is their victory – if they choose it to be. Do you live daily, hourly as a son or daughter of the Most High whose victory over sin and death is already accomplished? Your labor accomplishes nothing that Christ has not already done for you. Your labor is a sign and invitation to others to choose his victory for themselves!

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