Can you ask Christ, "Who are you?"

Octave of Easter (F)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

At the very core of our being-creatures, we desire intimacy with God; our imperfection as creatures desires His perfection as our Creator. This yearning brings us to a radical choice: (very simply put) I either embrace my lack of perfection and seek the perfection God offers through Christ; or in my folly, I make my imperfection a god and worship it with my whole being, pushing God further and further away, adding to the distance btw us; making gods of my passions and adoring my creatureliness. For most of us, we walk the fine line somewhere btw surrendering to God and surrendering to Self. Like the disciples on the Sea of Tiberius, we can be afraid to ask Christ, “Who are you?” We can hesitate to ask the question b/c we know who he is, and his answer means we must make a choice. Surrender to God or surrender to Self.

Peter puts this choice in unequivocal terms. Filled with the Holy Spirit, he preaches to the leaders, elders, and scribes in Jerusalem: “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.” That makes the choice easy, right? You'd think so anyway. But don't you sometimes experience the anxiety of the choice? What does choosing Christ mean for my daily thoughts, words, and deeds? What happens to me if I choose Christ? My friends? My job? My freedom? Can I trust God's will for me if I give Him mine? No doubt the disciples squatting on the seashore are thinking along the same lines. If this guy is the Lord (and he is!), then what about all those promises he made about persecution? Trial and defeat? Death at the hands of our enemies? Can I really call him Lord and do what he commands, knowing what I know about what's to come? There is no other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved. No other name. So, the choice is clear. And when we make the choice – to follow him – he arrives with food and drink, his Body and Blood, and takes us up with him in glory so that we too can know God his Father and ours and get on with our business – the business of surrender, thanksgiving, and praise; the business of being love and mercy in the world; the business of showing everyone that choosing Christ is the way to perfection. The stone the builders rejected is the cornerstone.

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Leave your expectations behind

Octave of Easter (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Why do we find belief so difficult at times? Like Cleopas and the other disciple on the way to Emmaus, we want to believe but don't. Why? One small answer from the gospel: God tends to act in ways that disappoint our expectations. How do we trust someone who often acts contrary to our expectations? Someone who frequently surprises us? Or shocks us? Trusting someone else to do things correctly is exhausting work. Besides, bending all of creation to my will, forcing things to work out My Way, takes time and energy! It's not fair when God ruins my carefully laid plans with His own! How am I supposed to trust that He's doing what's right for me? From our 2,000 year old vantage point, we can call Cleopas and friend foolish for not believing b/c we know what happens. But – be careful – we walk our own road to Emmaus everyday and everyday our trust in the Lord is challenged by the temptation to despair in disbelief – disbelief rooted in expectations we have no right to hold. Cleopas and friend have expectations – maybe they expect a Messiah with an army at his back. Or a Savior come with hordes of raging angels to smite their enemies. Regardless, they have expectations and Christ surprises them.

The Big Surprise is the revelation of who he is in the breaking of the bread. The instant they recognize him, he vanishes. He leaves them with the Word of the Prophets and the breaking of the bread. The same surprise we will witness this morning. Cleopas and friend will come to believe b/c of this revelation. Not b/c Christ gives them empirical evidence or a logical argument. He shows them who he is in the Word and in the breaking of the bread. It's all they need. It's all we need. What expectations are keeping you from belief and surrender to God's will? What carefully laid plans are you protecting from God's plan for you? When you entered the chapel this morning, you started along the Road to Emmaus. And you will continue on after you leave. Place your expectations, your plans, your disbelief, your despair on the altar – give them all to God and allow Christ to thwart whatever designs you've drawn for how your life will play out. Listen to all that he has to say to you in the breaking of the bread.

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Why did he wait four days?

5^th Sunday of Lent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Two weeks before he exits his own grave, Jesus re-animates a four-day old corpse. We call this foreshadowing – a neat literary trick to connect distant parts of a story. Of course, foreshadowing isn't really necessary in the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. He's been laying out the plot and characters almost from the beginning. That his disciples are still confused about his end is less amazing than simply frustrating. Raising Lazarus from the grave is one more plot line in his tale and one more tell-tale sign that his time among us is coming to an end. With all the characters, dialogue, and action, the central motive of this longish miracle story is easily overlooked. Why is Lazarus given new life? For that matter, why does Jesus linger for two days before heading out to Bethany? As Martha mournfully notes, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Martha knows what Jesus himself knows – he could've healed her brother and spared him death. But he waited. He waited until Lazarus was dead and dead for two days before he started out. His reason for waiting foreshadows his own exit from the grave. His reason gives purpose to our work in his name.

Why did he wait? When told that Lazarus was ill and near death, Jesus says, “This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” IOW, the end, the purpose of Lazarus' illness is not to kill him but to give Jesus an opportunity to give glory to God by returning him to life after death. Jesus waits to attend Lazarus so that there can be no doubt that he is good and dead. Four days in the grave. No embalming. No refrigeration. Desert heat. Martha warns of the stench. And yet, when the grave stone is rolled away and Jesus says, “Lazarus! Come out,” he does. We have to imagine Martha's reaction to seeing her four-day-dead brother emerging from his grave. We have to imagine Lazarus' response to being alive again. What does he say? What does he do when his hands and feet are untied? We have to imagine these reactions because they are not recorded in the gospel. They aren't recorded b/c they aren't important to the motive of the story. What's important is this: “Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him.” Jesus returned Lazarus to life so that many might believe.

Martha believed before this miracle. The disciples followed Jesus even though they struggled at times to believe. Maybe they needed another show to be convinced. But Martha and the disciples aren't the audience for the miracle. There are two audiences here. The Jews and us. Many of the Jews came to believe and many of us have come to believe. The Jews – at the time – didn't know about the resurrection. It was still two weeks in the future. We do know about the resurrection. Have known about it for over 2,000 years. That knowledge and our belief in the Christ compel us to take up his mission and ministry where and when we are. And we do. Sometimes zealously. Sometimes lazily. And often with confused motives. Why do we do the good works that we do? Why did Jesus wait four days to raise Lazarus from his grave? To give glory to God and reveal the glory of the Son of God. Jesus allowed a beloved friend to die. Rot in a grave for four days. And raise him to life again so that God the Father might be glorified. So that the Jews – and we – could bear witness to the glory of the Son, the Christ and believe in him. Why do we do the good works that we do? To bear witness to the glory of the Son, the Christ, so that all may come to believe in him.

Lazarus' resuscitation foreshadows the Lord's resurrection. The Lord's motivation for reviving Lazarus is a foreshadowing of what should be our motivation for the work we do in his name. The only legitimate agenda for our schools, hospitals, universities, social services – the only agenda that matters eternally is to give God glory and to reveal the Christ so that all might come to believe in him. Ask yourself: is everything I do, say, and think everyday focused on giving God the glory and revealing the Christ? Yeah, I know. That's a big job description. I should've been fired years ago. How about you? Think of Lent as one, long job evaluation. You're sitting across from The Boss, going over your work history. Day in, day out over your lifetime. Every word, every deed, every thought. Are you thanking and praising God? Are you bearing witness to His mercy? Are you revealing Christ to others so that they can believe in him too? How are you doing? Me? Not as well as I could. Fortunately, The Boss is merciful. We have another week for evaluation and improvements. He showed us how it's done. He let his friend die, rot in a grave for four days, and raised him to life again – to show us how it's done and why. We do his work now, and now we can do it for the right reason. 

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Why do you return to the darkness?

4^th Sunday of Lent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Sin blinds, and Christ heals blindness by forgiving sin. The story of the healing of the Man Born Blind bears this out. He is blind physically and spiritually. His physical healing comes from a bit of wet clay and obedience. Jesus orders him to bathe in the Pool of Siloam. And when he obeys, his afflicted eyes are afflicted no longer. His spiritual healing will wait until Jesus seeks him out. In the meantime, the Once Blind Man tells the Pharisees that he believes Jesus to be a prophet. They don't like hearing this and kick him out of the synagogue. Having tested his obedience, Jesus finds him again and tests his faith. Do you believe, he asks. I do believe, comes the response. “I do believe, Lord.” And John tells us that the Once Blind Man worships Jesus as his Lord. Two healings, two miracles. The eyes are both physically and spiritually opened to the truth. To what they can actually see and to all that can't be seen but still believed. Paul admonishes us to “take no part in the fruitless works of darkness.” Why once healed physically and spiritually with the light of Christ would we be tempted to work fruitlessly in the dark? Would the Once Blind Man willingly return to his darkness?

There's a scene in the Monty Python movie, The Life of Brian, where an ex-leper is panhandling near the city gate. Brian asks him how he was cured of his leprosy. He says that Jesus healed him, thus ruining his livelihood. No one wants to help an ex-leper. The rest of the scene is the ex-leper wondering aloud if Jesus would inflict some other, lesser disease or disability on him so he could go back to earning a living as a beggar! Now, I doubt any of us would ask Jesus to re-afflict us with the spiritual diseases he cured us of. But we are more than able and willing to re-afflict ourselves, returning to the darkness all too quickly and all too often. Thus Paul's admonition not to take part in the works of darkness. Freed of our slavery to sin, we nonetheless return to our slave master and put his collar back on. And the results are entirely predictable. Try cleaning your kitchen in total darkness. Or tidying up your garage. Without light, we can't see what you're doing. You can't know what to throw out, what to wipe down, or even when you are done. The resulting mess is more work for you once the lights come on again. If you can't see your end, your goal, then you can't work toward it. You can't know if what you are doing is helping or hurting your progress.

If your end, your goal is Christ, then the only light that helps is the light of Christ. We have all bathed in the Pool of Siloam – baptism. We've been obedient to the need to be washed clean. And we have all declared our faith, “I do believe, Lord!” We know the way, the truth, and the life. We know our mission and ministry – to bear witness to the mercy we have received. We know that sin takes us off track, off the way and into a shepherdless wilderness. And yet. . .we return to our once healed afflictions and take part in the fruitless works of darkness. Why? Maybe for the same reason the ex-leper considered asking Jesus to give a severe limp – he needed a disability or disease for his livelihood. Maybe we think we need to work in the dark to save our jobs. Our reputations. Maybe we're afraid of losing status among family and friends. Maybe we believe that the works of darkness will earn us some prestige and power in the world. The chaos I make of my life when working in the dark looks like my neighbor's chaos, so my chaos can't be all bad. Besides, I have friends and allies in the darkness. People to help me. But they are as blind as you are. And more likely than not, want to keep you in the dark for their reasons. “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

Christ has given you light. He's healed you. And you are perfectly free to never return to the darkness. Your work can be done in the full light of his grace. You can see how his mercy has removed you from your afflictions, from the chaos of your life before you were healed. And you can follow the Once Blind Man and bear witness to your healing. If you are tempted to return to the darkness, ask yourself: what's in there that will bring me closer to my perfection in Christ Jesus? You can't answer that b/c there is no light in the darkness, and you cannot see. In the darkness, you gamble with your soul and the house always wins. So, take no part in the fruitless works of darkness, rather stay firmly stood in the light of Christ. When tempted, look at the temptation in his light and see it for what it is – a return to disease, disability, and spiritual destitution. Why would you return to the wreck you were before you were healed? It's a fool's gamble. One designed to part you from your inheritance as a child of the Father. Take the cure you've been given and run, bearing witness all the way to the Wedding Feast.

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Despising the sinner is the Devil's job

3^rd Week of Lent (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

How do I become convinced of my own righteousness? There are several ways, of course, but the way Jesus focuses on in his parable is the Way of the Pharisee. In sum: follow the Law to the letter; show God how serious I am about our relationship by never breaking a rule; never deviating from even the smallest regulation. To be fair to the Pharisee – this is more or less how things worked in the Jewish world for centuries. Men and women demonstrated their fidelity to the Covenant by doing as they were told. They weren't made righteous by their obedience, but they were “accounted righteous,” said to be righteous by their works. You can think of this as being in compliance with the terms of a contract. Your internal disposition toward the other party is largely irrelevant to whether or not you are in compliance. CHASE bank doesn't care whether or not I love it, so long as I pay my bill. Pay my bill according to the terms of the contract, and I'm righteous with the bank. They “account me righteous.” When it comes to our relationship with the Father, Jesus says, “Not good enough.” It's not enough that I follow the rules, especially if following the rules leads me to despise another as a sinner. Despising another is evidence that I am, in fact, not righteous at all.

Yesterday, Jesus brought two laws together and called them The Greatest Commandment: the Lord is the only God of Israel; love Him and love your neighbor. “There is no other commandment greater than these.” Every rule, every regulation; every jot and tittle of the law is grounded in these two commandments. But the Lord's parable makes clear that we must start with the greatest and move into the least. Perfecting our obedience to the lesser rules and regs doesn't guarantee our fidelity to the Greatest Commandment. In fact, we may end up convinced of our own righteousness and hating another for their sin, thus violating both the spirit and the letter of the Commandment. How do we avoid this Pharisaical trap? Begin by acknowledging that we are made righteous as a gift. Righteousness is not earned; it doesn't come as a reward for being good boys and girls. It's given. Freely given to us while we are still sinners. The gift of righteousness then enables us to love God first so that we can love our neighbor. Loving God and neighbor doesn't produce righteousness. The righteousness we are freely given frees us to love God and neighbor. Everything else in our growth in holiness flows from this. We pray, fast, give alms; attend to the sacraments; do good works b/c we love God and neighbor. When we encounter a sinner, we love them – as fellow sinners – so that they may come to see and hear the mercy of God and receive the righteousness He gifted us all through Christ Jesus. Despising the sinner may appear to be a good strategy for moving him/her out of sin, but that's the Devil trying to talk us into a trap. Hate the sin and the sinner, and the sinner will abandon the sin, he says. No. That strategy instantly violates the Greatest Commandment and makes us tools of the Enemy. He has another lie that tempts us: love the sinner and his/her sin. That will convince the sinner that they are welcomed, accepted, and included. No, again. We are to love God first, then our neighbor. We cannot love sin, God, and neighbor all at the same time. Trying to do so may feel righteous, and we may get lots of applause from the world for the attempt, but ultimately, all we are doing is telling the sinner that he/she doesn't need divine love or His mercy. Is that our mission and ministry as followers of Christ? Obviously not. Our job is to be His love and mercy for sinners. He died for sinners. Not sin.

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Return to the Father

2^nd Week of Lent (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Did the Prodigal Son entertain any doubts about going back to Dear Ole Dad? If he did, he didn't allow them get in the way of his redemption. Suffering the consequences of his sin in a foreign land, he comes to the only rational conclusion available: it's time to go home and ask for forgiveness. We can imagine him walking home dejected, remorseful, and wanting nothing more than to go back in time and make better choices. What does he expect to find once he arrives? A told-you-so lecture on the dangers of wine, women, and song? Verbal and even physical abuse from his family, esp. his older brother? He most certainly expects to be rejected as a wastrel and given little or nothing as a homecoming gift. He's prepared to be ridiculed and placed among the servants in humiliation. But. . .he isn't returning home to extort his family into accepting his sins as right and true, nor to explain his bad behavior away with a claim of mental or emotional breakdown. No, he's returning contrite and resolved to amend his life. He's returning knowing that his choices placed him in both physical and spiritual danger. Rather than seeing him as he sees himself – humiliated, embarrassed – imagine instead that as he approaches his father's farm, he becomes more beautiful, truer, better. With each step, he grows heavier in holiness, more densely set apart. . .until his life of dissipation is itself dissipated by a humble desire for forgiveness. Imagine that by the time he reaches the front door, all he needs is a word from his father. . .and he is a New Creation, a creature once again made whole and set on the right path. We don't have to imagine it, that's what happened. And it's what happens every time one of us – sinners in need of mercy – returns to the Father contrite and resolved to amend our lives. We may – in our disgust with our sins – be tempted by the Enemy to think that our disobedience is especially evil or somehow uniquely awful. That God is so offended, so repulsed by our rejection of Him that He can't bring himself to forgive us. This is a lie. One of the Enemy's favorites. God is by nature Love. Love is who He is and what He does. Not to forgive us would violate His nature, an impossibility. Knowing this to be true, the Enemy strokes our pride, telling us that we are a special sort of sinner, one who has achieved the greatest feat of all sinners everywhere: to sin so evilly that Love Himself refuses to love us. So, we remain in that foreign land, wallow in our dissipation, and come to hate the Father for His refusal to forgive – the forgiveness we ourselves have refused to ask for or receive. If Lent is about anything at all, it's about acknowledging the reality of our sins and their consequences, and returning to the Father with contrite hearts and minds ready to begin again. As many times as it takes, to begin again. One step at a time toward home, toward our Father. 

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Could you measure up?

2^nd Week of Lent (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Lent focuses the heart and mind on sin. How to avoid it. How to overcome it if not avoided. How to forgive when we are sinned against. And what happens when we refuse to forgive. Forgiving someone who's sinned against you isn't a simple thing. In fact, there are a lot of reasons not to forgive. Will forgiving the sinner invite more sin? Will he/she see me as a target? What about how I feel about being sinned against? If I forgive, am I saying that I'm not angry or offended at the sinner? Could the sinner think I am giving my approval to the sin? Like I said, lots of reasons. None of them good. First, lose the notion that you have to feel good about forgiving someone who's sinned against you. Feelings are irrelevant to the act of forgiveness. You either forgive or you don't. How you choose to feel about it is your problem, not the sinner's. The point of forgiveness is to free the sinner from their debt to you, thus freeing yourself from their sin. Feel good, bad, angry, relieved, whatever. Doesn't matter. Just do it. Being freed from the burden of sin is worth whatever emotion you choose to attach to it. Second, while pondering whether or not you will forgive the sinner, carefully consider what standard you are using to judge the sinner. We tend to judge the sins of others more severely than our own. Bad idea. Guess which standard God is going to use to measure you? Jesus says, “For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” Therefore, pick your measure very, very carefully. If you think you deserve quick forgiveness when you sin, then you had better be doling quick forgiveness when you are sinned against. Third, don't confuse judging the sin with judging the sinner. We have to be able to call a sin a sin. Otherwise, confession would be impossible. What we have to avoid is calling a sinner a sinner. Whether or not your friend is a sinner is for God and your friend to determine not you. I cannot know the mind of my friend. I cannot perfectly measure his motivation or intent. I cannot begin to understand his circumstances or how he deliberated on his actions. I can judge his behavior to be sinful but not his person. And I don't want to. Why? Because he can't know my mind, my intention, my circumstances, and I don't want him to judge me. Let God and the sinner handle the interior struggle, and just forgive the sin done against you. Unless, of course, you relish finding yourself before the judgment seat and hearing the Just Judge repeat back to you your exacting standards of holiness, purity, and righteousness. I have to ask: could you measure up?

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Surpassing righteousness

1^st Week of Lent (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Does your righteousness surpass that of the Pharisees and scribes? Yesterday, Jesus said that it must. Note that he's not saying that the Pharisees and scribes are unrighteous. They aren't. They are as exactly as righteous as the Law requires. And no more. They know where the lines are, and they do not cross them. These lines – the rules, the regulations – are both a comfort and a temptation. When in doubt, what's the rule? Follow it. But there's also always the sneaking suspicion that the line is merely arbitrary or maybe even a cruel joke. This tension in the rules tends to create a doubled mind. On the one hand, I obey the rule and remain righteous. On the other, I don't really think the rule is just or important or I don't understand its purpose; so while obeying it, I mock it. Over time, my double mind turns to hypocrisy and my righteousness is tainted. Here's where Jesus comes in and says that our righteousness must surpass that of the obsessive rule-followers. How do we do that? We place all of the rules inside the Greatest Commandment and figure out how the lesser rules express the greatest. Love God, self, and neighbors is the whole of the Law. The whole of the Law is not another Law. The whole of the Law is a divine command rooted in the nature of God Himself. Since we live, move, and have our being in God, divine love itself, then all of our thoughts, words, and deeds must accurately reflect who and what we are as creatures who participate in divine love. All created things – me, you, our friends, our enemies, everything and everyone – live in divine love. Jesus says, “[God] makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” Therefore, our righteousness, our rightness with the Father, is a matter of being divine love with one another regardless of our relative social, economic, political, or religious positions. In fact, our righteousness is called surpassing if we are loving to those who are counted “less than” by the world. All of this loving as the Father loves and being perfect as the Father is perfect is made possible by His gift of the Son on the cross. When we receive His gift, we are no longer pagans but pilgrims on the Way. And walking the Way is how we become Christ right where we are. The world is polluted with Pharisees and scribes. What we need is more Christs made perfect in Christ. 

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Calling all sinners!

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

The Church is a like a field hospital. Great image! If this is true, and I think it is, then her members are like field medics. You and I are like EMT's working to save lives – bodies and souls – in a world filled with both physical and spiritual hazards. Imagine you're working one day in this field hospital and a guy drags himself in – broken, bleeding, barely conscious – and you move to work on him when suddenly your fellow medics start yelling at you to kick him out! He's getting blood everywhere! Look at him – he's dirty and his clothes are all torn up and he screaming and just making a mess. He's got to go! The poor guy drags himself out. He may die or maybe he'll find another more welcoming hospital nearby. You confront your fellow medics about their refusal to help the guy and discover that they think of their hospital as a pristine almost museum-like facility for perfectly healthy people. People who do not need a physician, people who are already whole in themselves. You say to them, “Healthy people don't need a hospital; the sick and dying do. I'm not here to save the healthy but to help save those you need saving.”

Now, imagine the same scene. Badly wounded guy drags himself into your hospital, and you start to work, prepping him for surgery. But you notice that your fellow medics are following you, undoing all your work. Removing the IV, throwing out his meds, unwrapping his bandages, reopening his wounds. You confront them. And they respond angrily that we must accept everyone who comes into the hospital just as they are. They are furious at you for trying to change the guy's condition. “Who are you to decide that he's injured? You are being judgmental for saying he has to be helped or fixed or cured! All are welcome here – just as they are!” They refuse the guy treatment; applaud him for his injuries, call him brave, and watch him die. Totally dumbfounded, you ask your fellow medics why we have a field hospital if we aren't going to help save lives. They respond, “We're here to celebrate everyone's life regardless of their injuries or diseases. It's not our job to help people get well. It's our job to make them feel loved.” You say, “I'm not working here to applaud disease and death. I'm here to cure the sick, repair the injured, and care for those in need.” If the Church is a field hospital, and I think it is, then it cannot be a museum for the healthy only, nor can it be a place where the sick and injured are encouraged to stay sick and injured. Jesus says, “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.” 

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Dust is never proud

Ash Wednesday

Fr. Philip N. Powell OP

St Albert the Great, Irving, TX

Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning. Rend your hearts! Not your garments. Where do we begin this pilgrimage of forty days? How do we get this time away started? Jump start your Lenten pilgrimage by acknowledging your dependence on God for absolutely everything. We are wholly unnecessary beings. Creatures of God's goodness. Our lives are fundamentally gratuitous – freely given – and graced at the root. Begin with humility and give God thanks for your life. If your Lenten pilgrimage is going to produce good spiritual fruit you cannot spend these forty days obsessed with sorrow, self-pity, and doubt. We deny ourselves always if we would grow in holiness, but this isn’t the kind of denial that looks like the public posturing of the Pharisees. Our Lenten denial is the self-emptying of Christ, that is, the work of doing daily what Jesus did on the cross just once. Lenten denial is about making our gratuitous lives sacrificial. And we sacrifice when we give something up and give it back to God.

Therefore, turn your heart over to God. Give your life back to Him. Repent of your disobedience, rejoice in His forgiveness, and then get busy doing His holy work among His people.

If your Lenten sacrifice is going to be just a pious public display, don’t bother with Lent this year. Jesus teaches his disciples that performing righteous deeds for show – fasting, giving alms – will win you nothing from our heavenly Father. He calls those who strut around showing off their piety hypocrites. It’s a show, pure theater. Nothing but a skit for public consumption. He says, “[…] when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to be fasting[…].” Jesus warns us here about our tendency to think that we’re doing something substantial by superficial means. Does that rosary around Madonna’s neck really mean she venerates the Blessed Mother? Does the cross of ashes most of us will wear today mean that we’re truly humble before the Lord? That we’re wholly given over to repentance, to a conversion of heart, and a life of holy service? If that cross of ashes is going to be a mark of pride for you today or a temptation to hypocrisy, wash it off immediately. If that cross of ash is going to be the sum total of your witness for Christ today, wash it off immediately.

Our Lord wants a contrite heart not an empty gesture. Our Lord wants our repentant lives not public piety. When you pray, go to your room and close the door. When you fast, wash your face. When you give alms, do so in secret. Rend your hearts not your garments.

The Lenten pilgrimage we begin today is an excursion into mortality, a chance for us to face without fear our origin and our end as dust. It is our chance to practice the sacrificial life of Christ, giving ourselves to God by giving ourselves in humble service to one another. Lent is our forty day chance to pray, to give alms, to fast and to do it all with great joy, smiling all the while, never looking to see who’s noticing our sacrifice.

Remember, brothers and sisters: dust is never proud.

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Pagans do that too

7^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Jesus is tempting me to despair. I'm only partially serious here. But his admonition to be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect makes me wilt a little inside. When I do a quick examination of conscience, I come away feeling and knowing that my heavenly perfection is about as far away as me fitting into my 32in Levi's ever again. 1982. That's the year I was last able to squeeze into a pair of 501's. And it might be the last year I felt remotely holy. I was a college freshman and didn't know any better. Now I do. And the distance between where I am and where I ought to be is frightening. If you feel this way, well, welcome. . .we've got work to do! Thanks be to God He doesn't abandon us to work this holiness-thing out for ourselves. We've got all kinds of help. Sacraments. Prayer. Fasting. Good works. Spiritual friends. Best of all, we've got God Himself cheering us on and throwing His considerable weight behind our progress. If we will to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, we can be. But we can't do it if we use our pagan neighbors as our measure of progress. Jesus couldn't be any clearer: doing merely what the pagans do cannot get us closer to the Father's perfection.

So, who are these pagan neighbors? Jesus' pagan neighbors were Romans, Greeks, and a variety of Semitic peoples – all of whom worshiped a pantheon of gods closely associated with Nature. Lots of idols – stone, gold, ivory, wood –; lots of bloody animal sacrifices on temple altars; lots of seasonal festivals and ancient religious customs. Their gods embodied a specific human passion – love, war, wealth, revenge. Or were sovereigns over some part of Nature – mountains, the sea, rivers, forests. These gods were typically fickle about helping their followers. And often prone to getting upset. They rarely issued moral commands or set out ethical guidelines for good behavior. In essence, the gods were just Big Humans who lived forever and used their power to play with the humans who worshiped them. Pagans indulged their appetites and passions – lust, greed, pride, anger; they sought revenge for offenses – real and imagined; they also loved their children and helped their neighbors; tried to be virtuous – as they understood virtue; and worked to be faithful to their gods. What the pagans didn't do was strive to live in the world w/o being of the world. They worshiped the world. They worshiped creatures not the Creator. And for Jesus – and for us – that's the difference that makes the difference.

We need to be quick to note here that Jesus doesn't condemn the pagans for loving their neighbors, their children, or for greeting one another as friends on the street. We have long accepted that there are “virtuous pagans,” those who to the best of their ability and circumstances embody prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude. God bless them! Jesus' admonition is aimed directly at us not the pagans. Even the pagans do the things we call good. Our perfection in the Father requires we go beyond the merely Good Enough and strive for the Best. Why? Because we are striving to be and to do something otherworldly while remaining firmly grounded right where we are in the world. The only way to accomplish this holy task is to set our hearts and minds irrevocably on God and do and say and think only those things that bring us closer and closer to our end. Look to the pagans and their natural virtue. What are they doing right and how do we do it better as followers of Christ?

Pagans welcome strangers to their temples. We welcome strangers to our Masses. But that's not enough. Do we testify to the mercy we've received? Do we show them sacrificial love? Do we tell them about the power of repentance and the confession of sin? It's not enough to be welcoming. Even the pagans do that. Pagans can and do heal the sick, feed the hungry, and visit the imprisoned. So do we. But that's not enough. Do we give God the glory for providing the food? For giving us the medicine? For infusing us with hope to share with the hopeless? It's not enough to do good works. Even the pagans do that. Pagans love, forgive, show mercy, and tell the truth. So do we. But do we do these things for social advantage or b/c we live and move in love and forgiveness and truth? Because we are Love, Forgiveness, and Truth in Christ Jesus? It's not enough to be virtuous. Even the pagans do that. Yes, we have a lot of work to do. But there's no good reason to despair. We have the Church – one another; we have the sacraments; the Word of God, and we have the gift of God Himself to see us through. We can be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect. . .if we receive all He has to give us. 

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Is the Spirit asking us to do a New Thing?

6^th Week OT (F)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

Serra Club, Irving

Some say that the Spirit is moving through the Church. That the Spirit is inspiring us to do “a new thing.” To re-establish the Church as a “radically inclusive” community that “listens and welcomes” unconditionally. To achieve this level of inclusivity, the New and Improved Church will no longer preach the Gospel of confession and repentance. Confession will not be necessary b/c nothing will be sinful. If nothing is sinful, then repentance is unnecessary as well. Rather than exhorting the faithful to deny themselves in charity, the NIC will encourage the newly included to celebrate their diversity and explore alternatives expressions of Self. Rather than supporting the faithful in carrying their crosses, the NIC will rename those burdens “structures of oppression” and find someone else to blame. Rather than showing the faithful how to follow Christ, the NIC will invoke the Spirit of Age and point to the world as our model of holiness. What is now a straight and narrow path to heaven will become a twisted, wide-open ditch leading us back into the world and eventually straight into hell.

Some say that the Spirit is inspiring us to do “a new thing.” That the Spirit is moving through the Church. Wrong. The Spirit is not moving through the Church. The Church moves within the Spirit. Even better: the Spirit and the Church move together in the person of Christ Jesus. And his words to us couldn't be clearer: “Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this faithless and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of when he comes in his Father's glory...” Like every other generation, this one battles the temptation to edit the Gospel to its tastes, to revise the words of Jesus into something more pleasing and less likely to get us in trouble with the world. The promise we hear is this: if we would just change one or two of the Lord's harsher teachings, the world would reward us with applause and acceptance. We wouldn't have to be embarrassed by our outdated morality or silly rituals. The world will love us! And we could be proud of identifying as Catholics. Of course, this is a lie, a lie bought wholesale by the Episcopalians, some or most of the Methodists, the Presbyterians; the UCC, the Anglicans, most of the Protestant world, and, of course, the Catholic bishops in Germany. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Follow Christ. Not the world and its fashionable but deadly nonsense.

What Christ is asking us to do is repent, believe the Gospel, love God and one another, and bear witness to the mercy we have received. He is not asking us to rewrite the Bible or edit the Apostolic faith once for all delivered. He is not asking us to love both the sin and the sinner and to pretend that sin isn't sin. He is not asking us to dismantle structures of exclusivity in the Church by adding diversity, equity, and inclusivity to the Ten Commandments. There is a Spirit demanding that we do all these things. But it is not the Holy Spirit. It is the Zeitgeist. That infernal spirit that applies pressure to applause-seeking clergy and theologians to tweak the faith just enough to confuse the message of the Good News. The Good News is that the Church is already as radically inclusive as she can be. No one is excluded from receiving the grace needed to repent and take up the Cross. No one is excluded who desires a life of holiness. No one is excluded from the straight and narrow path who wills to walk it. “Whoever [WHOEVER!] wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

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You don't need a sign

6^th Week OT (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Why are the Pharisees seeking a sign from Jesus? They've heard him preach. They've seen a couple of his healing miracles. They know Scripture, so they understand who and what he is claiming to be. Why do they need (or want) another sign? Maybe they are on the fence, leaning Jesus' way and just need a little push to bring them over all the Way. Could be they are just curious and want to see if he'll perform for them. Since they consider Jesus a dangerous influence on the faithful, they probably want him to refuse so they can say, “See! He can't show us a sign. He's a fraud!” Jesus refuses them, “I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” He doesn't explain why they won't get a sign. He just hops into a boat and rows away. Strange as it might sound, this is an ingenuous evangelical tool. Preach a bit. Teach a bit. Give a sign or two of heavenly approval. Refuse all requests to perform another sign, then leave. Jesus' approach here says, “I know who and what I am. I know my mission, my purpose. I have nothing to prove to you.” The Pharisees can't be argued into having faith. They have too much to lose if Jesus is telling the truth. They can't be bullied, or bribed, or tricked into following the Way. Again, too much to lose. The only path open to them – to anyone, really – is to believe, confess belief, repent, and follow Christ. The bottom line is: you believe or you don't. If you believe already, signs only confirm your belief. If you don't believe, you'll find a way to debunk the sign. Signs quickly becomes irrelevant once the initial surprise of their appearance wears off. Besides, the Enemy can perform signs too. Without a grounding in faith, a sign can be read, misunderstood, and followed to one's destruction. Jesus knows this, so he refuses the Pharisees. If you find yourself asking God for a sign, think twice. Are you testing Him? Are you admitting a lack of faith? Maybe you're just curious? Regardless, signs are one thing, knowing what they mean is another. Faith can show you what the sign means. But if you have faith already, the sign is pointless. Faith is the good habit of trusting God. Asking for a sign is not a sign of trust. The Pharisees have a lot to lose if Jesus is telling the truth. What do you and I have to lose? Slavery to sin, anxiety and worry; the threat of eternal death. Well worth a life of faith and foregoing an unnecessary sign. 

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WHY we do good works matters

5^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Upon hearing of my interest in Catholicism, my 11^th grade English teacher asked me, “Don't you think it's enough just to be a good person?” I asked him what a good person is. He replied, sounding like the prophet, Isaiah, “Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them...” I was all of 16, so my response faith was weak: “I think there's more to it than that.” Indeed, there is. A group of folks in Delaware recently to collected blankets, socks, hats, gloves, and canned food for the homeless. They collected donations to help with the medical bills. Another group in Austin set up a permanent organization to fight for religious freedom, human rights, and justice for those marginalized by economic hardship. The organizer of this campaign was quoted in the paper, saying, “I applaud all [those] who engage with their community to help end undue suffering...” Sounds like these folks are doing Good Work. Like typical Catholic parishes. Except they aren't Catholic parishes. Both groups are congregations of The Satanic Temple. And their project is called Satanic Good Works. Is this the kind of good works Isaiah is urging us to do?

Yes...and no. Yes, the good works are good insofar as they help alleviate human suffering. No, b/c these works are done to glorify the Enemy not God. Now, you might ask, “What difference does it make to the homeless if their food comes from Christians or Satanists?” None. Hungry is hungry. Food is food. Atheists, Satanists, humanists can feed the hungry and clothe the naked as well as Christians can. The question here is for the Christians: why are we doing good works? Why did we invent, build, and still maintain universities, hospitals, orphanages, hospices, nursing homes, and schools all over the planet? The why here matters b/c even the enemies of God can do the what. Isaiah lays out our – for lack of a better phrase – social obligations. We call them the corporeal works of mercy. The Gospel tells us that our failure to do these works will see us herded with the goats and thrown into the fire pit on the last day. So, very serious obligations. But is doing these good works enough to see us herded with the sheep and welcomed into heaven? If so, then we can expect to share the Father's table with atheists and Satanists. If not, then what else is necessary? What makes our good works different?

I said before – the why of our work matters. If we do good works for the sake of the work itself, or even for the sake of those we work for, then our work is indistinguishable from the works of the Satanists – as good as it may be. Our work must be done for no other reason than to give glory to God. Any other reason tempts us to pride or self-righteousness. Any other reason gives us reason to think that our work is ours alone. We may be tempted to believe that our work will save us. Or that it's possible to buy a place at the Father's table. Or – perhaps the worst – that our work makes us better than the poor, holier than those we serve. Jesus says that we are the salt of the earth and a light to the world. Our saltiness is not our doing. Neither is our light. Both belong to him alone. We merely participate. And to the degree that we freely participate, giving him the glory for his generosity, we grow in holiness. Our saltiness and light are given to us. And we are charged with passing them on to others in need. This “passing on” is our good work. But the source of our goodness is God alone. By following Isaiah's admonitions, we point to God and reveal His goodness and providence. The whole point is to lead others into a healing relationship with their Creator. When we lose sight of The Why of our good works, we lose sight of who and what we are as freed children of the Father. Jesus says, “...your light must shine before others...” Why? Why must our light shine? “[So] that they may see your good deeds...” Why do others need to see our good deeds? “[So they may] glorify your heavenly Father.”

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The truth is always pastoral

4^th Week OT (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Let no one say that Our Lord was not a great Dominican! Mark bears witness to this: “...his heart was moved with [compassion] for [the vast crowd], for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.” In the Order, we call this compassionate impulse to teach the truth, misericordia veritatis – the mercy of truth. What we know and want to make more widely known is that revealing the truth and receiving the truth are acts of mercy, manifestations of compassion. IOW, speaking the truth and hearing the truth will set you free. Free from what? Whatever is binding you to sin and death. Our Lord is moved to teach the truth b/c – looking out over the vast crowd – he can see everything holding his Father's people down. Material and spiritual poverty. Disordered passions and appetites. Intellectual pride and the desire for worldly recognition. Crippling disease. Loneliness. All flowing together to create a suffocating cloud of despair. Our Lord has two choices: 1). teach the truth and risk the anger of the world, or 2). comfort with a lie and soak up the world's appreciation. We can see the choice he made. [point to crucifix]

He chose to be the Good Shepherd of his sheep. Not the choice everyone makes. Recently, a newly minted American cardinal published an essay calling on the Church to abandon her ancient teachings on sexual morality in the name of “compassion” and “inclusion.” B/c some feel excluded from the Church, he argues, it's imperative that the Church soothe their feelings by lying to them. There's nothing new here. Pushing the Church to forsake the Gospel in favor of the Lie is as old as the Church. And there is nothing merciful, compassionate, or pastoral about lying. The truth is always pastoral. Veritas in caritate is always pastoral. Jesus doesn't say to the crowd, “If your poverty makes you sad, just pretend you are rich!” He doesn't say to those suffering physically, “You're not in pain if you believe you aren't!” Nor to those w/o hope, “Your despair is who you are. Embrace it!” Instead, he show them compassion and teaches them the truth, a way to be free of their slavery to sin and death. If and when we are willing, he heals us, lifts us up, and offers us a place at his Father's table. Mercy is offered but it must be received in repentance. That's misericordia veritatis.

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