06 June 2021
Are you disposed to being transubstantiated?
Corpus Christi
Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP
OLR, NOLA
If you follow Catholic news, you are probably aware that some of our bishops are currently having a very public debate about how to handle Catholic politicians who openly support and promote morally evil acts like abortion and euthanasia. The basic question is whether or not these politicians should be given communion when there's no evidence that they've repented of their rebellion against Church teaching. All of the various issues involved – sacramental, canonical, theological, political – are neatly wrapped up in what's being called “Eucharistic coherence.” Now, since God has mercifully spared me the punishment of being a bishop – and I thank Him for that – I will not weigh on the basic question. But I can't imagine a better time to review the Church's teaching on the Eucharist than the Solemnity of Corpus Christi. In fact, many of the bishops embroiled in the debate on Eucharistic coherence have called for a major push in the U.S. to catechize the faithful on this very subject. So, I will fulfill my duties as Pastor of the 6pm Mass by doing just that! “[Jesus] took bread, said the blessing, broke it, gave it to [his disciples], and said, 'Take it; this is my body.'”
We begin with a four-word sentence: this is my body. Not “this is a symbol of my body,” nor “this is a sign of my body” nor “this is a token of a memory of my body.” This IS my body. Just a moment later, taking a cup of wine, he says, “This is my blood of the covenant. . .” Again, not a symbol of his blood nor a sign nor a token of a memory. This IS my blood. That little two-letter word, IS, has been the focus of centuries of controversy, centuries of theological and philosophical debate. What does it mean to say that the bread and wine at the Eucharist becomes (is) the body and blood of Christ. At the 4th Lateran Council (1215), the bishops adopted the term “transubstantiation” to describe what happens to the bread and wine at Mass. The substance of the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. At the Council of Trent in 1551, the bishops will affirm this teaching: “Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity”(CCC 1413). True, real, substantial. We call the presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine the Real Presence.
Christ is truly, really, substantially present on the altar under the appearances of bread and wine. What follows from this? After presenting his Body and Blood to the disciples at Passover, Jesus tells them to eat and drink. Eat my body and drink my blood. So firmly did the early Church believe in the Real Presence that her Roman persecutors often accused Christians of being cannibals! Obviously, we are not cannibals. But we do eat and drink Christ's Body and Blood. Why? First, because Christ commands we do it to remember him. Second, because doing so allows us to participate in the eternal sacrifice of the Cross. Third, because we are One Body, the Church, united by the Holy Spirit and a body needs food and drink. Fourth, because doing so strengthens our familial bond as brothers and sisters in the holy family. And, finally, we eat and drink Christ's Body and Blood because we know that we become what we eat. As sons and daughters of the Most High, brothers and sisters to Christ and one another, our goal, our telos is to become Christ for the salvation of the world while we live and perfect union with the Father in heaven after death. Christ must be made truly, really, substantially present under the appearances of Philip, Cathy, Burt, John, Mary, Eddie, Lesley, Patrice, Dorothy, Shelly. . .Christ must be made present in you.
And we have the sacraments to help us achieve this. Every sacrament of the Church offers us Christ. Every sacrament offers us God's transforming gift of love. To properly receive His gift of transforming love, you and I must be disposed, inclined, ready to receive. If we are not properly disposed (unprepared) we cannot receive. We can take. But we cannot receive. Taking is not receiving. Taking a sacrament occurs when we go through the motions, unprepared. The gift is offered, but rather than being gratefully received, it is snatched like something one is entitled to, like a debt one is owed. The gift is not only ineffective as a gift, it can actually be harmful to the snatcher! When the Church teaches us that we should not present ourselves for Communion if we are in mortal sin, she is not trying to punish us for being bad little boys and girls. She is warning us that we risk spiritual damage, maybe even spiritual death, if we attempt to receive unprepared. She is a mother warning her children not to play with fire. To the sinner, God's infinite Love feels like a searing inferno. To the one properly prepared, His Love is a transfiguring breeze. Being properly disposed to receive Divine Love in the sacraments is the primary means we have of becoming Christ for the salvation of the world.
During this Mass this evening, I urge you to open your hearts and minds to the reality of Christ's Real Presence. Yes, it's a mystery. Yes, it's complicated. And yes, it's easily misunderstood. BUT. . .it is nonetheless real. Christ is here in his priest. He's here in you, the baptized. His presence is symbolized by this altar. During the Easter season, he's symbolized by the great Easter candle. Christ is with us always. But he is present to us most immediately and especially in his Body and Blood of this sacrifice. We are offered the chance to touch eternity in this sacrament. To reach up to God as He reaches down to us. To meet Him outside our history and experience a glimpse of the banquet He has waiting for us. He gives us everything we need to become Christ for the salvation of the world. He gives us the strength to persevere. The courage to bear witness. He gives us His Spirit of Love to forgive and to endure. And He gives us an abiding desire to grow in holiness, to grow – perfectly human – out of this world and into His kingdom.
30 May 2021
Doubt but Worship
Most Holy Trinity
Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP
OLR, NOLA
One of the strangest sentences in the Bible occurs in the readings this evening: “When [the disciples] all saw [Jesus], they worshiped, but they doubted.” They doubted him, but they worshiped him despite their doubt. I think this sentence strange b/c we moderns usually need to have something like “without a reasonable doubt” before we grant the status of fact to a mere claim. Jesus has made all sorts of bold claims in the disciples' hearing. Now, (at the end of Matthew's Gospel) he's been crucified, dead, buried, resurrected, and is appearing to them, making more claims that sound a little dodgy. Yet. They worship. What does this sequence of events – we doubt yet we worship – teach us? It teaches us that we can have our doubts, we can be not quite sure and still offer to God through Christ our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. To the finite mind only finite knowledge is possible. A plastic gallon jug can only contain a gallon of liquid. It cannot contain two gallons, nor can it contain a bonfire. Nor can we say that that jug contains all the liquid in the world simply b/c it's full. The disciples doubt. But they worship. So, we can say: worship is a means of coming to know.
What we can't come to know through our human reason must be revealed to us. We have to be shown that which we cannot figure out on our own. Jesus reveals in his last commission to the disciples the central mystery of the faith: the Holy Trinity. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. He doesn't explain the mystery. He doesn't give them a handy diagram or a flowchart or a glossary of philosophically useful terms like person, nature, substance, procession. What he does give them is a mission: go out; make disciples of all nations; baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to observe all I have commanded you. Make disciples through baptism and then teach them. NB. being a baptized disciple comes before the learning. Why? Because whatever the disciple learns must be grounded firmly in faith. For this to happen he must first through baptism receive the gift of faith – the God-given habit of trusting in God's loving-kindness and that He has kept His promises. With faith, the disciple can bring worthy worship to God, offering Him praise and thanksgiving and, as a result, experience the mystery of the Divine Life to the limits of his capacity. With the revelation of the Holy Trinity, Jesus plants a seed and provides a way for that seed to be sown.
At our baptism, we were planted with the seed of the Holy Trinity. Baptism makes us disciples. Learning about Christ, the Church, the Scriptures makes us educated disciples. And faithfully living out Christ's commandments perfects our discipleship, making our sacrifices to God holy and acceptable. None of this would be possible unless we participated in the Divine Life of the Holy Trinity, unless we shared in the one divine nature of the three persons of the Trinity. Since we are finite creatures, our participation in the Trinity is necessarily finite. But we can perfect our finite participation through worship. Grounding ourselves in baptism and discipleship, we approach the altar of God fully aware that we are not worthy of His love, yet He has made us worthy to be loved. And so we are. And b/c we are, we are gifted with the possibilities of coming to know and love Him to the limits of our capacity. If and when we exhaust our capacity to know and love Him, He readily enlarges us, increases our capacity, giving us more and better opportunities to perfect our participation in the Divine Life, to live and love more wholly with the Blessed Trinity.
Our worship is the immediate means of perfecting our participation in the Divine Life of the Trinity. Worship brings the whole person to the task. Body and soul. Intellect and will. Worship gives us ways of encountering the Divine Life that nothing else can. We are together. One Body, one Faith, one Baptism. With one voice we offer thanks and praise to God. With one sacrifice we offer ourselves as an oblation to the Father. With one love we offer ourselves to the Son to become his hands and feet in the world. With one blessing we offer ourselves to the Holy Spirit to be His word and presence to those who cannot yet see or receive His gifts. When you come to the altar bring it all! Bring everything you have collected. Bring your anger, your impatience, your hatred, your need for revenge, your failures. Bring your tribalism, your prejudices, your cramped biases. Bring your legalism, your entitlement, your selfishness. But also, bring your joys, your triumphs, your loves, and your blessings. Bring thanks and praise. You live and move and have your being in the Divine Life of the Blessed Trinity. Bring all you are and all you have and give it to God. Be perfect as He is perfect.
27 May 2021
You are NOT your disease. . .
8th Week OT (Th)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP
St. Dominic Priory, NOLA
Why do the disciples tell Bartimaeus to “take courage” (Θάρσει) when they call him to come to Jesus? Why would he need courage to approach Christ when he – Bartimaeus – was crying out to Jesus in the first place? It's not like he's shy about begging to be healed. Some have translated this phrase as “cheer up” or “take comfort.” But these miss the nuances of the imperative – strengthen your heart; be bold; rid yourself of fear. What does Bartimaeus have to fear in being healed of his blindness? Why would he need courage to have his sight restored? When I worked in drug/alcohol rehab with adults and teens, we often ran into a problem with recovery: the addict's entire life was defined by drugs and alcohol. What would his/her life be w/o these props? Who would they be? The same can be said for Bartimaeus. Without his blindness his entire life would radically change. What would happen to the effectiveness of his begging? How would he live? Being healed is a gift. No doubt. But it's also a direct and serious challenge to how we understand ourselves, esp. if we see ourselves fundamentally defined by our sin, our disease, our disability. Bartimaeus' healing is both physical and spiritual. By accepting Jesus' miracle, he's now in relationship with the Christ, a life-long relationship that will challenge him even more: to bear witness, to tell his story of lifelong blindness and how he came to the promise of eternal life.
25 May 2021
Make it rain!
I'll be 57yo on May 26th, so. . .a birthday fundraiser for my province.
23 May 2021
Live by the Spirit!
Pentecost Sunday 2021
Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP
OLR, NOLA
The disciples lock themselves away, terrified of being found by the Jewish and Roman authorities. They are heretics, rebels, outcasts. They have not only defied their religious leaders by following Christ, they have also conspired to subvert the political power of the Empire. In the eyes of the Temple and the Imperium they are criminals, deserving nothing less than execution. Their savior is dead, buried, and his body is missing from his tomb. Whatever courage they may have had when Jesus was with them is long gone. So is their trust, their strength, and their desire to carry on. And just as despair begins to eat its way through their final resolve, Jesus appears to them and says, “Peace be with you.” They rejoice when he shows them the wounds on his hands and feet. And he says again, “Peace be with you.” As his peace settles on the once-frightened disciples, Jesus gives them a new identity, a new mission: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” The disciples become apostles, those sent to do his will: to preach his word; to teach his truth; and to accomplish good works that give all the glory to God. Jesus does all this through the breath of the Holy Spirit.
Some fifty days later, the Holy Spirit will descend again on the apostles and on those disciples gathered with them. We mark this day as the birth of the Church. Created by God the Father, Re-created by the sacrificial love of God the Son, and given new life by God the Holy Spirit, the Church bursts out onto the streets of Jerusalem, proclaiming the Good New of Jesus Christ in every tongue spoken by the pilgrims visiting the great city. The crowds were astonished and amazed. Some thought the Christians were drunk. Others thought them possessed. A few may have thought them insane. But none could deny that the Church spoke one Word in many languages, one clear message in a multitude of tongues. The Church proclaimed – so that all may know – the mighty works of God! The covenant is fulfilled. You are free. A slave to sin and death no more. Christ is risen and ascended. And the Holy Spirit is among us. The kingdom of God is here. Repent and believe the Gospel. Your inheritance as a child of God awaits you. Do not allow the Enemy to steal what the Christ died to give you. Take off the flesh and put on the armor of righteousness. Live by the Spirit. And obey the Law of Love.
How do we live by the Spirit? First, what is it to live w/o the Spirit? Paul tells us that the works of the flesh are obvious: “immorality, impurity, lust, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies,” basically, all the things we humans love to do. These works of the flesh have something in common: they are all selfish, self-centered; obsessed with I, me, mine. They are all perversions of the appetites, disordered hungers that take control of the person and drive him/her to sin. When we indulge these disordered hungers we usurp the Holy Spirit from the throne of our hearts and replace Him with the Self. We make the flesh our Savior. And the flesh is temporary, quickly passing away. What use is a Savior that passes away as quickly as it arrives? With a Savior made of flesh, we will inherit the world, which also quickly passes away. If we will live by the Spirit, then we will put away our disordered desires, our perverted appetites, and submit ourselves to the Law of Sacrificial Love. To live by the Spirit is to participate fully in the love that the Father has for the Son and the Son for the Father. IOW, we will produce the fruits of the Spirit.
Paul tells us opposed to the sins of the flesh are the fruits of the Spirit. And they are: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” Notice that each one of these fruits of the Spirit points away from Self and toward the Other. Love is sacrificial. Joy is what happens when we love. Patience defeats the need to control. Kindness always assumes the best. Generosity acknowledges that nothing is my own. Faithfulness submits doubt to trust. Gentleness subdues anger. And self-control proves reason over passion. Each of these fruits of the Spirit pulls us out of the Self and demands that we treat the Other as a person created in the image and likeness of God. And as such, offered the gift of eternal life through the repentance of sin and baptism by water and the Spirit. So, to live by the Holy Spirit, we put aside fear, anxiety, and despair. We take up sacrificial love, the works of mercy, the forgiveness of sins. We bear witness to the workings of the Spirit in our lives, and proclaim the Good News of Christ Jesus wherever we are. To live by the Spirit is to become Christ for Others. To live by the Spirit is live and die as Christ lived and died for us.
20 May 2021
We are gifts
7th Week of Easter (R)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP
St. Dominic Priory, NOLA
Jesus prays to the Father “not only for [the disciples], but also for those who will believe in [him] through their word.” He makes an extraordinary statement while praying, “Father, they are your gift to me.” A gift, properly understood, is freely given and freely received. A gift cannot be requested, earned, borrowed, coerced or stolen. A gift cannot create a debt or an obligation. Nor can something belonging to another be given as a gift. Likewise, receiving a gift cannot be forced or obliged. Giving and receiving a gift – for it to be truly free – must be entirely unattached from any and all conditions that muddle the exchange. When the Lord says that we are a gift to him from the Father, he is saying that we, His creatures, first belonged to the Father. Now, we belong to Christ. If we are now one with Christ in this free exchange, then we also belong to one another as gifts. Our growth in holiness depends in part on the difficult task of being gifts to each other, living daily as freely given and freely received subjects of charity and mercy. As the kids say these days, “The struggle is real.” But the struggle is more than worth the work.
19 May 2021
Who is truth?
7th Week of Easter (W)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP
St. Dominic Priory, NOLA
Jesus prays to the Father, asking Him to consecrate the disciples in truth. To set them aside for the particular purpose of sending them out to be truth in the world. Pilate's question echoes here: what is truth? Even better: who is truth? Jesus says, “Your word is truth.” And we know that Christ is the Word – the Way, the Truth, and the Life. So, Jesus is praying to the Father to set us aside for the particular purpose of sending us out to be Christ in the world. To accomplish this mission we need to remain in the Father's name, I AM. Or rather, we need to be kept in the Father's name, protected. Why? Because we remain as Christ ascends. And the world is not our home. He will send the Holy Spirit to keep us in his Word, to keep us protected along the Way, in the Truth, for eternal Life. His protection is freely offered, so it must be freely received; and once received, freely given to anyone who asks. Paul warns that savage wolves will come among us, and they will not spare the flock. Neither will they spare the shepherds – as we know all too well! So, we remain in the Truth b/c Christ is Truth, and the Truth sets us free.
09 May 2021
Loving as Christ loves us
6th Sunday of Easter
Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP
OLR, NOLA
Every year on the 6th Sunday of Easter, I am tempted to put on my philosophy professor's hat and dive into making the proper distinctions among the various kinds of love – caritas, eros, philos, agape. But I remind myself that you did not come to Mass for a philosophy lecture. You came to Mass to hear the Word preached and to participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar. But then it occurred to me that by coming to hear the Word preached and by participating in the Sacrifice of the Mass, you are here to more perfectly receive the Self-Gift of God, who is Love! No, don't worry. Despite this revelation, I'm not going to lecture you with philosophy. What I am going to do is attempt to show you Who God is as Love and how we imperfect receivers of His love often miss the mark when receiving Him. To understand Who God is as Love and how we often miss the mark receiving Him, we can start here: “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love.” Christ loves us with the love of his Father. If we will remain in his love, we will keep his commandments. God as Love is our end, our goal, our telos. We miss the mark when we fail to keep His commandments.
So, God is our end, our telos. Commenting on the reading from 1 John, the CCC teaches: “God's very being is love. . .God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange” (221). Who God is is Love. God doesn't love sometimes and not others. He is Love. God doesn't love this and hate that. He doesn't pick and choose who or what gets to participate in His Being as Love. All created things live and move and have their being in God by nature. As human persons – rational animals – we are given the chance by grace to participate here and now in the Divine Life, in the exchange of Divine Love that is the Blessed Trinity. God the Father created us for this. God the Son re-created us for this. And the Holy Spirit ensures that the invitation to share in the Divine Life is always fresh, always new. So, when we say that God is Love we are saying – in part – that God Himself is our ultimate Good. He perfects us. Makes us whole, gives us life eternal. God as Love is our target, our goal, our only objective. He alone is our final design and our perfect destination. Everything we say, do, and think is best done with hearts and minds intensely focused on this Good.
So, how do we get ourselves in trouble, knowing that Divine Love is our ultimate goal? The most common way we get lost along the Way is by confusing human love for Divine Love. Human love has come to be understood as little more than an emotion, a fleeting twinge in the gut, or an infatuation. A soup of neurotransmitters in the brain. We also use human love as a tool of manipulation, or a weapon against our enemies. How often are we told that if we truly loved sinners, we would approve of and applaud their sin? How often do we tell ourselves that if God really loves me, He would approve of and applaud my sin? Merely human love is all about unconditional acceptance and approval of whatever choices we make. Even if those choices are obviously harmful, maybe even deadly. Human love – to be truly loving – participates in Divine Love. God loved us into being. His love holds us in being. So, any real love we experience and share is an imperfect expression of His love. To remain in Christ, to remain in the Father's love, we must obey the Lord's commandments. These are the stones that line the Way and keep us from confusing human love with Divine Love.
Jesus tells his disciples that he is revealing the truth to them so that their joy may be complete: “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.” In the same way that our Lord loves us, we must love one another. Our Lord loved us to the Cross. He died so that our suffering may be turned to joy as we live and die for one another. He died in the Father's love so that we may know the Way of perfection through the pursuit of holiness – living in the world w/o being consumed by the world. We remain in Christ by striving everyday to become more and more Christ-like. To love, sacrifice, and forgive as he loved, sacrificed, and forgave. Being Christ-like is not about dismissing sin as irrelevant to love. Being Christ-like is about recognizing that true love and disobedience cannot co-exist. We do not love ourselves or our neighbors when we pretend that sin is not sin. When we soothe a seared conscience by congratulating ourselves on being tolerant and accepting. We always, always love the person. That's a given. We can never love the lie that takes that person off the Way of Divine Love. Remain in Christ's love. Love as he loves you. And remember: his love found him on the Cross.
06 May 2021
Perfect Joy
5th Week of Easter (Th)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP
St. Dominic Priory, NOLA
We know that charity is the cause of joy and joy is opposed by sorrow (ST II-II.28.1). But what is it to experience “complete joy”? It would seem to follow that complete joy is an effect of complete or perfect charity. God, of course, is perfect charity. And we desire to participate in His charity as a matter of grace. To the degree that we are far from His perfection, our desire for Him is imperfect. “[Our] joy is full, when there remains nothing to be desired” (ST II-II.28.3). Our Lord tells us how we can come to complete joy: “Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love. . .” What obstructs us from keeping his commandments? The demands of disordered desires, desires not properly ordered toward charity, i.e., we desire, we love that which cannot save us. To participate more perfectly in God's love, Jesus teaches us to desire, to love nothing and no one more than God Himself. Complete joy is possible for us only in the Beatific Vision. But while we are here, we can – with God's grace – approach perfection in joy through gratitude and surrender. Give thanks. And give up what cannot save.
03 May 2021
Please! Help!
If you read and enjoy the homilies I publish here, please consider giving to my Province.
The money goes toward the tuition, room and board for our student brothers (seminarians) in St. Louis.
They are skinny and malnourished. Also, their bookshelves are a disgrace.
Christ is the only way
Ss. Philip and James
Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP
St. Dominic Priory, NOLA
Can it be any clearer: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”? This truth is what we have given our lives to. There is no salvation through any other name except Christ Jesus. Not sociology, psychology, or philosophy. Not BLM or the Republican Party or the NRA or socialism or capitalism or the Democrats or the State or social justice or racial purity or feminism or holding and professing whatever the currently correct ideology happens to be. We hold and profess the Apostolic Faith, a faith that transcends politics and cultures and nations, leading us to our ultimate end – God in heaven and our place at His table. The pressure to worship the idols of this age is tremendous. We see it everyday. And this is nothing new. Our ancestors in faith were pressured to swear allegiance to race, to politics, to ethnicity, to gender, and a myriad of others gods that cannot save. The apostles were sent to proclaim a simple message: Christ Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Anything beyond this, anything other than this is a lie. We preach the truth. Jesus Christ and him alone is our salvation.
02 May 2021
Remain on the vine!
5th Sunday of Easter
Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP
OLR, NOLA
[After reading the archbishop's letter reinstating the Sunday Mass obligation June 6th. . .]
Hear again what the Lord teaches: “Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.” I'll put this in less-literary terms for you: you cannot “grow in holiness as a Catholic” on your own. Neither can I. To be Catholic is to be a member of the Body, attached to the vine of the Church, receiving nourishment and support from the source of our salvation – Christ Jesus. There is no such thing as a “personal Catholic,” or a “private Catholic,” or a “do-it-yourself Catholic.” You are a fruit-producing branch attached to the vine of Christ's Body, the Church; or, you are not. So, how do we remain “in Christ”? How do I stay attached to the vine and produce good fruit? Archbishop Aymond notes one way we have of staying attached to Christ – the obligation to attend Sunday Mass. This obligation has been dispensed for the last year b/c of COVID. Come June 6th – the Solemnity of Corpus Christi – that obligation will be re-instated. And thanks be to God that we are so obliged! If you, like me, struggle to grow in holiness, a firm rule always helps!
You see, the Church is an expert in human nature, an ancient Mother who understands her children. Every child sees “the rules” as unjust, unfair, maybe even mean-spirited. Surely, true freedom comes from having no rules, no laws, no restrictions whatsoever! And that would be true if there were no natural or supernatural consequences to our behavior. But we know – our choices have consequences; our actions cause effects. So, Holy Mother Church, in all her ancient wisdom, lays down a few rules for us to follow. One of these rules is: “You must attend Mass every Sunday and all holy days of obligation.” Missing a holy day or Sunday Mass when you could've attended is a mortal sin. This is the minimum required to stay attached to the vine of Christ and produce good fruit. NB. you are not required to receive communion every time you attend Mass. In fact, if you are carrying a mortal sin, you should not receive communion! To help with this problem, Mother Church requires that we all go to confession at least once a year. The older Catholics among us will remember this rule as “the Easter Duty.” Why all these rules? Didn't we get rid of these after VC2? No, we didn't. What we got rid of (apparently) is the truth that these rules are in place not to control us but to help us remain in Christ.
The Easter season is quickly coming to a close. We are on the edge of the summer months and Ordinary Time, that time of year where we turn toward Everyday Holiness and the sometimes sweaty work of repairing and fortifying our relationship with Christ. Where to start? Easy! Go to confession. A broken vessel cannot hold water. A broken soul cannot receive grace. Going to confession can be scary. You're worried that Father will laugh at you, or yell at you, or maybe be shocked at your sins. I can guarantee you none of that will happen. Priests are sinners too. We go to confession. And we've heard it all before. I've been hearing confessions for 16yrs. There is no new sin under the sun. Whether it's been a week since your last confession or 30yrs. . .come in and repair your relationship with God so that you can receive the Body and Blood of Christ at Mass and produce excellent fruit. The Church's rules are given to us to strengthen us, to point us in the right direction, to guide us around obstacles to holiness. So, bend a little and grow a lot. Your immortal soul depends on it!
29 April 2021
Surrender! Do or Do Not
NB. this is from 2016. The readings are not from today's Mass.
St. Catherine of Siena
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Notre Dame Seminary, NOLA
Our Lord doesn't ask much of us. Love one another. Trust one another. Believe in one another. Correct one another. Remain in his love. Write our papers. Keep his commandments. Receive his peace. Take our final exams. Teach and preach all that he has taught us. Baptize in his name. Remember him. Forgive. Show mercy. Serve. Write evaluations. Keep his word. Feed the hungry. Visit the sick and imprisoned. Mourn the dead. Bless the poor. Grade exams and papers and turn in the grades. Drive out unclean spirits. Heal the blind and crippled. Complete faculty evaluations. Deny ourselves. Pick up our crosses. Finish up paperwork for accreditation. Compose syllabi and book orders for fall of 2016. Follow him. Oh, and, at last. . .die for the love we have for him.
O Lord! I am tired. My knees are swollen! My back aches! I have calluses on both my typing fingers! My eyes itch. I haven't slept well in four days. And I'm breaking out like a high school freshman. My room looks like a FEMA camp after Katrina. And I've not done laundry since the third Sunday of Lent. . .2014. I've forgotten how to read and I can no longer do basic addition or long division. I'm tired, Lord. I'm tired. What do you have to say, Lord? “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you.” Well, thank you, Lord. One thing: can you unchose me?
The answer, of course, is no. He can't. Or, he won't. He knows our limits. And the limits beyond those limits. And he knows all that we give and all that we hold back. When we've given everything we have, all that we've held back. . .he gives us a new limit and the strength to reach it. The strength he gives is not some sort of magical grace-dust or a boost of sanctifying merits. He gives us himself. He's the limit. Not as an example, or a model, or a roadmap. He is the Limit. The Omega of all our striving. Think about it. Our end, our goal – Christ himself – comes to us in our soreness and sleepiness and crabbiness and hands himself over to us so that we might be made perfect as he is perfect. The Perfection we seek surrenders himself to us, the Imperfect, and dares us to surrender ourselves to him in return. How do we accomplish this astonishing task of surrender? “This I command you: love one another.” And forgive, show mercy, preach and teach, deny yourself, and follow him.
Looking for answers, or maybe just some small consolation, I've searched the ancient libraries of the world – Oxford, Cambridge, Rome, London, Beijing, Ole Miss. . .and I've read hundreds of books and manuscripts. Talked to masters, professors, mystics, seers, soon-to-be saints, and quite a few sinners. How do I surrender? How do I hand over my life, everything that I am to God? I found the answer. My guide: a diminutive mystic of the Thomistic kind, a fellow renowned for his wisdom, patience, and kindness. I asked him my desperate question. He hefted his walking stick. Climbed a chair. And locked his eyes with mine and said, “Do, or do not. There is no try.” Expecting further distinctions or a citation from the Summa, I hesitated for a moment before breaking into tears. Love, or do not love. Forgive, or do not forgive. Believe, or do not believe. There is no try. Surrender, or do not. There is no try. There is no limit to surrender in love. Love one another as Christ loves you. He will not unchose you to complete the work he has given you to do. Therefore, with sore knees, cramping fingers, grouchy disposition, blurry eyes charge head long and recklessly into the work you have to do. . .knowing, knowing that Christ is your end, and he is always with you.
25 April 2021
The wolves know our faith. . .do you?
4th Sunday of Easter
Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP
OLR, NOLA
What makes a shepherd a “good shepherd”? First, and most importantly, a good shepherd protects the flock from predators. He watches for wolves and does what's necessary to either drive the beasts away or get his flock to safety. A good shepherd makes sure the flock is properly fed, sheltered, and given medical care when needed. He also guides them into green pastures and rescues them when they get lost. It should be obvious why we call the priest in charge of a parish “a pastor.” Now, it might not be entirely flattering to think of yourselves as sheep, but the point of the comparison is to highlight the relationship between the parishioner and the pastor. Your pastor is your spiritual father, your shepherd in the faith. He does for you spiritually what the sheep herd does for his sheep materially. I'm not your pastor. But. . .Msgr. Hedrick once designated me as The Pastor of the 6pm Mass, so I'm going to take advantage of that entitlement and do some pastoring this evening! As the wolves of the world gather in the forest around our green pasture, I remind you of this truth: “There is no salvation through anyone else [but Christ], nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.”
Each generation of wolves invents a trap for the Lord's sheep, or reuses an old one. The simple strategy of these traps is to lure a wandering sheep away from the flock and slaughter it for a quick meal. Each trap follows a basic pattern: take a teaching of the faith, exaggerate just one element of that teaching, and call the exaggeration the whole truth. For example, the human person is composed of a body and a rational soul. The wily wolf will approach a wandering sheep and convince the poor thing that the human person is nothing more than a body, purely physical. If that's the case then the whole of the Christian life can be reduced to working selflessly for social justice in the political realm, improving living conditions for the poor and needy here on earth. That's all that it takes to be a good Christian. The truth is that our faith is both physical and spiritual – body and soul, heaven and earth. How does the wandering sheep counter the wily wolf? By knowing the faith intimately. By staying close to the flock and the flock's shepherd. By recognizing a wolf on sight and getting a whiff of its stench. So, do you know your faith well enough to battle a sheep-hungry wolf?
We could spend the rest of this year going through the thousands of lies the wolves have told about the faith over the generations. But there is one lie that stands above all the others for its effectiveness in capturing and killing the Lord's sheep. There are many paths to the mountaintop, little lamb. All those paths lead to the same place. IOW, Christ Jesus is not the only way to salvation. He is one of many possible options we can choose. This is an ancient trap that the wolves use generation after generation. It's appeal is obvious. If Jesus is just one of the many possible gates to heaven, then I needn't worry about being virtuous, charitable, forgiving, or holy. I can invent my own path – mix and match traditions from different religious sources and make-up my own moral system. My sins aren't really sins. My choices are automatically right and holy simply b/c I say they are. And best of all, I get to feel powerful when others applaud my inclusivity and open-mindedness. Heck! Even the wily wolves are clapping! And yet, and yet, “There is no salvation through anyone else [but Christ], nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.”
Here and now, the wolves aren't likely to tell the sheep that there are other, equally powerful religious saviors. They are more likely to ply the sheep with the lie that political ideologies will save them and create paradise on earth. These ideologies run the gamut from the extreme left to extreme right. The State is God. Race is God. Wealth is God. Politics is God. Self-Identity is God. Sex is God. Party is God. The Markets are God. Being a Victim is God. Diversity is God. Inclusion is God. Equity is God. What all of these boil down to is Power is God. Political, cultural, social, economic, medical power is God. Any one of these or all of them together – used aggressively against the right groups of people – will save you and establish heaven on earth. And yet, and yet, “There is no salvation through anyone else [but Christ], nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.” Why is it so easy for the wolves to corner and kill good Catholics? Because we believe that economic, political, cultural, social power can and should be used in ways that bring true justice to the least among us. And the wolves know this. So, they do what they do best. They take part of the truth, exaggerate that part, and call it the whole truth. And b/c many do not know their faith as well as they should. . .they swallow the lie and find themselves a meal for wolves.
Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd; I know mine and mine know me; and I will lay down my life for the sheep.” And he did. On the cross. And he rose on the third day. Just as he said he would. He is our Savior. Not the State. Not our race. Not our money or our politics or our gender. Christ Jesus alone died for his sheep. To save us from sin and death. Not a politician or an actor or an athlete or an activist. Christ Jesus is our Good Shepherd. Not a president or a SC justice or a governor or a talk-radio host. We are enlightened and brought to holiness by the Word of God. Not the words of self-promoting academics. Not the words of HR bureaucrats in mandatory training sessions. Not the words of gov't rent-seekers and career functionaries. We work for God's Justice and Peace. Not the justice and peace that comes with slavery to a worldly ideology or violent revolution. Our revolution begins with conversion from sin and a return to God through confession and contrition. There is one faith, one baptism, one Church, and one Shepherd. The wolves, they know your faith, and they know it well. Do you?
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