Liberalism fails the Church

10/23/23: I found this post from 2009. It is deeply relevant to our on-going crisis in the Church.

In 1966, the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, read a paper at a conference held at Johns Hopkins titled, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences."  Thus was the American academy introduced to the corrosive influence of deconstuction's radical skepticism about the ability of language to convey truth.  The history of the liberal arts in the U.S. since 1966 has been a long, sad story of decline into relativistic chaos and left-wing political manipulation.  Deconstruction is essentially (no pun) a machine of critique.  It is conceptually incapable of building anything.  It can only destroy.

In 1998, Francis Cardinal George stunned a congregation at Old St. Patrick's with this line delivered in his homily:  "Liberal Catholicism is an exhausted project."  Later, he was asked to elaborate and did so at a Commmonweal forum held at Loyola University in 1999.

An except from his elaboration:

"We are at a turning point in the life of the church in this country. Liberal Catholicism is an exhausted project. Essentially a critique, even a necessary critique at one point in our history, it is now parasitical on a substance that no longer exists. It has shown itself unable to pass on the faith in its integrity and inadequate, therefore, in fostering the joyful self-surrender called for in Christian marriage, in consecrated life, in ordained priesthood. It no longer gives life."

What started as a much-needed critical review of Church doctrine and practice in the late 19th century, peaked in the documents of Vatican Two, and found its most strident voices in the 70's and 80's has become the sterilizing practice of postmodern dissent and heresy.  The "necessary critique" of manual Thomism and semi-Janenist moral practice in the Church is indeed now "parasitical."

Just as deconstruction demolished the absurd pretenses of liberal western culture and literature with its relentless attack on language, and now sits like a bloated toad on the university quad poisoning everything in its reach, the Spirit of Vatican Two refreshed a moribund institutional Church only to find itself haunting a decimated and demoralized body of believers.

Lest we think the cure is nostalgia, Cardinal George quickly adds:

"The answer, however, is not to be found in a type of conservative Catholicism obsessed with particular practices and so sectarian in its outlook that it cannot serve as a sign of unity of all peoples in Christ."

We cannot rebuild the Church if the only vision of the Church we can see and communicate is the Church as it was in the 1800's.  The liberal project (exemplified by Newman) pushed the Church to engage the world in terms foreign to its basic philosophical foundations.  In taking on this challenge, the Church gained an incredibly fruitful means of evangelization that saw amazing results in the decades leading up to the Second Vatican Council.

Then, like most good things, one good thing was taken to be the only thing and aggressive, unrelenting critique became the mark of being a Catholic intellectual.  Left aside were the pesky admonitions of tradition, ecclesial authority, reason, and just plain good sense.  The only thing that came to matter was opposition to alleged oppression and the failure to be radical enough in one's take-down of the Church.  This is the intellectual equivalent of deciding to renovate your kitchen by demolishing your house and killing your family.

What both John Paul II and Benedict XVI have been trying to communicate to the Church and the world is this:  the time for critical demolition is over.  That project is done.  It is time to retire the dynamite, return the bulldozer, fire the demolition crews, and start to rebuild on the foundation left for us by the apostles.  At the very least, this means a return to the documents of Vatican Two, read and implemented through their continuity with the tradition and reason.  They are not calling us back to an uncritical embrace of Baroque Thomism and manual moralism.  Nor are they asking us to live in the illusions of a warmed-over 1950's nostalgia.  All they are asking the Church to do is start in the present, look back to where we came from and forward to where we are going without getting lost in the bitterness and cynicism that a life of complaint and opposition engenders.

Is that so hard?

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Doubt. . .but worship

Ss. John and Issac

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

One of the strangest sentences in the Bible occurs in the readings this morning: “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.

At your baptism, you were given the seed of a divine nature. This makes you a disciple. Learning about Christ, the Church, the Scriptures makes you an educated disciple. And faithfully living out Christ's commandments perfects your discipleship, making your sacrifices to God holy and acceptable. None of this would be possible unless you participated in the Divine Life. Since we are finite creatures, our participation in divine nature is necessarily finite. But we can cooperate in perfecting our imperfect 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, and 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 cooperate in grace, perfecting our participation in the Divine Life, living and loving more fully in the divine nature.

So, our worship is the immediate means of perfecting our participation in the Divine Life. 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 Words and Deeds in the world. With one blessing we offer ourselves to the Holy Spirit to be His presence to those who cannot yet see or receive His gifts. When you come to the altar this morning, 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. He gave us Christ so that we might be perfect as He is perfect. How do we start? Bring all you are and all you have and give it to God. Give Him everything in you and with you that isn't Christ. With Him, empty yourself out “for we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus.”

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Go to the Wedding Feast!

28^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Imagine: you go into the hospital with a terrible but curable disease. Your doc plans out your treatment. When the time comes to start the medications, you refuse to take them. Your doc is confused but honors your wishes and begins the discharge paperwork. You inform the doc that you don't want to leave the hospital. Even better, you'd like to arrange it so that you can be admitted to the hospital once every week. No meds, no surgery, no therapy of any kind. Just an hour in bed and you go home. The doc agrees and gives you a pamphlet outlining some things you can do to help treat your terrible but curable disease. You take the info, read it, and promptly throw it away when you get home. You've come to believe that your weekly visit to the hospital is sufficient to cure your ailment. You feel OK for a few weeks. Then, after one of your weekly visits, you drop dead outside the hospital. How many here tonight think that this is a truly bizarre way to behave – sick, you refuse treatment but insist on staying close to the source of your cure? Isn't this how many of us think about our faith? Weekly visits to church is just enough to treat and cure our spiritual diseases. Jesus says, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Everyone is invited to the Wedding Feast. From the lowest to the highest; from the smallest to the largest; rich, poor; black, white; male, female; Democrat, Republican; everyone! And it's possible that everyone invited to the Feast will show up. But this is no ordinary feast; it's the Wedding Feast of the Lamb – a party to celebrate the eternal marriage of Christ to his bride, the Church. Those who accept their invitation are expected to show up properly dressed; that is, properly prepared to party forever with Christ in heaven. You wouldn't show up to a friend's church wedding wearing flip-flops, short-shorts, and an AC/DC tee-shirt – especially if you were a member of the bridal party! And you are a member of the bridal party. You are a member of the Church, the Bride. So, accepting your invitation to the Wedding Feast begins with baptism. You put on the white garment of new life, and you proceed through the years to add to your Christian wardrobe, always thinking ahead to the Big Party to come. How do you go about acquiring the articles of clothing you need to Party Well in heaven? Over your lifetime, how do you choose to put your wedding outfit together?

Start by considering what you do not do. You do not come to believe that the absolute bare minimum is enough. Sure, those flip-flops, short-shorts, and AC/DC tee-shirt cover all the necessary bits. You aren't naked at the Party. And sure, baptism, confirmation, weekly Mass, and a yearly confession cover all the basics. You haven't lived a life-time w/o receiving some of the basic graces. These most basic of the graces keep you coming back – for the most part. Another thing you do not do in assembling your Wedding Garment is come to believe that just any old piece of clothing will serve your eternal end. Sure, that hot pink bandanna on your head looks good with your tee-shirt, and those black socks look comfortable under your shower shoes. And sure, praying the rosary three times a day and fasting on Fridays helps you remember that you are Catholic. Absolutely nothing wrong with hot pink bandannas, black socks, the rosary, or fasting! But your Wedding Garment needs more than the bare minimum and a few flashy accessories. Your Wedding Garment must be in fashion for eternity. It must be durable, proper to the occasion, and serve as a sign of your all-consuming love and devotion to Christ. Your Wedding Garment must be made from the organic silk of 100% pure charity.

You've received your invitation to the Feast. You've accepted the invitation. Now, you are gathering the pieces of your Wedding Garment. We know that the bare minimum and flashy accessories aren't enough. You need a lifetime of loving God, yourself, and others to put this garment together. You need a lifetime of doing spiritual and corporeal works of mercy; acts of selfless love, words and deeds that proclaim to the world that you belong to Christ. You need a lifetime of personal prayer – private conversations with God in the Spirit – listening to His will and making His will manifest in the world. You need a lifetime of allowing yourself to be transformed into Christ so that those around you can see and hear him in your flesh. A lifetime, Father? Yes. What if I've spent decades doing the bare minimum and collecting flashy accessories? No problem. Your lifetime begins again at the moment of repentance and confession. If you will stay at the Party, start now gathering your Wedding Garment. Once the wailing and gnashing of teeth begins, it is too late. Jesus says, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.” Choose to Party with Christ forever. And start now.

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There is no Christ w/o the Cross

Padre Pio

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Can you and I become Christs w/o the Cross? No. Emphatically, no. What it is to be the Christ (a Christ) is to be crucified. Christ and Cross are bound together historically, theologically, psychologically, and (big theology word alert!) eschatologically; that is, according to the logic of Christ's return in glory at the end of the age. Over the centuries, many have preached Christ w/o the Cross, attempting to extract what they like about the faith and exclude what they don't. These efforts turned the Catholic faith into a circus of ethical philosophies, or political systems, or therapeutic programs. All of these have failed, are failing, and will fail b/c the good of Christ is inextricably bound to the sacrifice of the Cross. How do we know this? Jesus says, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” He does not say, “Whoever wishes to come after me must exalt himself, blame others for his sufferings, and do his own thing.” Following Christ has never been and cannot be about settling into the world as a comfortable cog. Following Christ is about being a faithful servant, a hopeful irritant.

What the world needs us to be is poorly paid actors, mouthing a script. Shout this slogan for our politician. Process this procedure according to this policy. Buy this stuff with this currency. Make this product your idol. This celebrity your god. Kill these people. Dance. Line up. March. The world thrives on power, believing itself divine and rebelling against God. Anyone who denies self cannot be a full-time consumer. Anyone who picks up a cross cannot be self-absorbed. Anyone who follows Christ cannot be an obedient actor in the world's comedy. Anyone who does what Christ commands is an irritant b/c the world knows that Christ is King. But it will not kneel. Our mission is to live in the world and show that kneeling to Christ, becoming Christs for others, is the way to freedom and joy. We don't conquer the world by fighting the world. We can't win on any battlefield against guns and bombs. Our fight is at once larger and smaller. Larger b/c we are in a spiritual battle. Smaller b/c the battle is internal. The cosmic war of Good vs. Evil is a Manichean myth. We are not pawns in a black and white chess game played by warring deities. Rather, each one of us is in a match played against the self. This is why Paul must say, “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” If you and I can say the same, then we are only competing with ourselves for the prize of becoming Christ on the Cross.       

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Prayer is dangerous

24^th Week OT (M)

Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP

St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving

Prayer is a dangerous habit. Some might add that it is superstitious or magical, or risky but worth it. Prayer is intimacy with God. Any moment where you find yourself intimately holding the will of our Father in your body and soul, you are praying. You may petition, give thanks and praise, intercede for someone. You may adore God. And, if you are so inclined, you may contemplate the divine in a life of study in order to share the fruits of your contemplation with others. Regardless of your technique or goal, Paul makes it absolutely clear to Timothy that God expects us to pray. I repeat: prayer is dangerous…not only because you sometimes get you pray for, but because the first fruits of all prayer accrue to the Pray-er, the one praying. Prayer is dangerous because it is divinely designed to change substantially those who take it up as a habit.

So, you’ve decided to live a life of prayer. What can you expect as an eager Pray-er? In no particular order, you can expect most of the following: an overarching sense of peace and joy; a lot of turmoil and struggle day-to-day; a slow growth toward obedience and charity; an occasional tumble with angels and devils alike; long periods of spiritual productivity and emotional health; longer, darker periods of spiritual aridity and roller-coaster passions; the overwhelming presence of the Triune God; and His apparent absence. In other words, as a creature who chooses to obey God and to pray habitually, you will find yourself becoming more intensely a creature, more fully human as you work out your perfection in His grace. And it is vital that you understand that in prayer your goal is to become fully human, perfectly human as Christ is perfectly human. You will fail if you think your goal is to become an angel. Prayer does many wonderful things for us. It will not, however, help you switch species. Therefore, let God worry about making you divine in His own time.

Our centurion this morning is the perfect pray-er. What does he do? First, he is praying, petitioning for someone else, an act of charity. Second, he involves the entire community in his prayer. He asks the Jewish elders to petition Jesus for help. Next, the Jewish elders acknowledge the centurion’s largesse to their nation and persuade Jesus to do as the soldier asks. Jesus agrees. However, the centurion meets them half-way and then humbly confesses that as a pagan he is not worthy of having Jesus in his house. And then he confesses, again with humility, that he knows that Jesus has the authority to heal his slave with a word. Jesus is amazed. The slave is healed. And prayer is once again shown to be a very dangerous practice.

When the centurion confesses his absolute trust in Jesus’ power, Jesus turns to the crowd and says, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” How is this dangerous? Jesus has just publicly admitted that a pagan, a man with no filial connection to the God of Israel is a man of faith. And it is through trusting prayer – not nationality, racial heritage, family affiliation, nor religious creed – but through faith that the centurion’s prayer succeeds. It is through trust in Christ and trust in Christ alone. In Gaudium et spes, we read that Christians will die and rise again with Christ and that his promise carries us in hope. For non-Christians, they continue: “All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way. For, since Christ died for all men, and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery”(n 22). Thus, the possibility of becoming Christ through Christ in prayer. Given his end, is there anything more dangerous than that?

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Folly Thy Name is Pride

Passion of JTB

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St Albert the Great, Irving

Like any one of us who fall into sin, Herod's devolution into foolishness starts with pride. Salome the Dancer, and her mother, Herodias, take advantage of Herod's pride and lust and turn his generosity into murder. They succeed because Herod is ruled by anxiety and fear. Why else does a powerful king keep a holy and righteous man in prison? Fear makes us foolish, and foolishness is and always will be the enemy of God's wisdom. 

John persists in preaching against Herod's adultery. The king imprisons John, keeping him close but also preventing him from preaching against Herod publicly. We can almost hear Herod's internal conflict. God's wisdom and the king's conscience draw Herod to John's preaching, but power, lust, and misplaced generosity prevent him from choosing wisdom over foolishness. Having consistently chosen to accomplish apparently good ends by evil means, Herod reaches a point where Salome and Herodias tip the scale and the king murders John, becoming, in this deadly choice, a Royal Fool. 

Herod's fall into darkness shows us that fools are made not born. In fact, fools are self-made, constructed, if you will, out of pride, and played by men and women who once listened to wisdom. If Herod's power and pride started his decline, then fear accelerated it, and lust and hard-heartedness sealed the deal. Like all of our moral choices, vice is a habit: we choose again and again to call evil Good. Over time, we are no longer capable of recognizing the Good and come to believe that in choosing Evil we are choosing Good. Herod believes that keeping John in prison prevents political unrest. Even though he is distressed by Salome's request for John's head on a platter, Herod justifies the prophet's execution as an act of fidelity to his oath, fearing embarrassment if he breaks it. The king is motivated at every decision-point by vicious habits and these habits take him—step by step—right into moral foolishness.

Hearing, seeing, and doing God's wisdom are all habits: choices and actions we must take one at a time, step by step. Each decision we make brings us closer to foolishness or closer to wisdom. If living in God's wisdom is your goal, then let your prayer be: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear? The Lord is my life’s refuge; of whom should I be afraid?” Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. 

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Don't make Jesus say, "Woe to you!"

St. Augustine

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

It's never a bad idea to compare ourselves to the Pharisees. Spiritually speaking, how do we measure up? Jesus consistently points out their hypocrisies and ties their spiritual failures to a near-pathological need for control. IOW, they love to control others, but seem unable to control themselves. That they can't/won't control themselves partially explains why they want to control others. If I can't/won't control myself, the least I can do is try and control you. Do we, do you have the same problem? Have you ever been upset with someone for committing the same sin you regularly commit? Do you moralize about sin to others while rationalizing your own sin to yourself? Maybe you've granted yourself a dispensation from a moral precept but refused the same to another? Perhaps you regularly receive mercy but rarely give it? The basic idea here is that I can come to expect others to be tightly bound to the rules while I am allowed a great deal of flexibility in following the same. Any sin I commit is ultimately explicable, justifiable, and forgivable, while you – you dirty sinner! – have no excuse! Obviously, this is no way for a follower of Christ to live.

How ought we to live then given our weaknesses and the law of love? One way comes in the form of a practice: anytime I am tempted to condemn a fellow sinner, I will stop myself and perform a quick examination of conscience. What is motivating me to speak out here? Am I trying to control another b/c I can't/won't control myself? Am I trying to show all the others how holy I am? Am I hoping to distance myself from that sinner's sin b/c that sin is also my sin? Am I being moved by charity or fear? Hope or anger? Do I hate the sin but not the sinner? Or, do I hate the sin B/C I hate the sinner? Or, do I just hate the sinner regardless of the sin? Hopefully, by the time I've completed this examen, it's too late to say or do anything dumb, and I've avoided yet another temptation to hypocrisy. I've avoided another temptation to appoint myself Judge of the Law. When you commit a sin, you go to Christ for forgiveness. You know in your heart and mind that you are contrite and repentant. If you want to escape hypocrisy, presume grace in the other and firmly believe that they to are looking for mercy. Otherwise, as Jesus says, “Woe to you!”

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You gotta meet him!

21^st Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ. But does he know what this means? Do we? It took the Church about 400 years after the resurrection to settle on the answer and even then we struggled over the details over centuries. And we're still struggling. Why it took us so long and why we're still perfecting our answer would take a couple of years of daily classes to explain. The Cliff Notes version is this: who and what Christ is for us is a revelation. Who and what he is for us cannot be discovered by argument, experiment, or a proclamation from Rome. I mean, we can write the sentence – “Jesus is the Christ” – w/o divine intervention. We can say the sentence out loud. We can compose songs, poems, stage plays, and novels with that sentence as our thesis. We can even say we believe it's true and live our lives accordingly. But we cannot KNOW that Jesus is the Christ and know him as a person w/o meeting him in the flesh. 2,000 years after his bodily ascension into heaven – that takes a lot of divine assistance! So, how do we – poor limited creatures that we are – meet our Savior in the flesh? How do we even start?

Here's an analogy. I'm a young man in my mid-20's. I'm ready to get married. My parents say they know the perfect woman for me. They show me pictures. I google her and discover reams of info about her education, work history, hobbies, and favorite foods. I read her autobiography and talk to her on the phone. We have several Zoom meetings. We exchange letters. (Her grammar, spelling, and punctuation are perfect, btw!) I know just about everything there is to know about her. I propose a wedding date and a venue for the honeymoon. In my head, we're already married and living happily ever after. My parents, however, say we need one more little thing to seal the deal. We need to meet in person. In my zeal to just get on with it, I say, “Naw. I'm in love! I know everything I need to know!” Being a seasoned married couple, they insist, saying, “You know about her. You don't know her.” I agree and ask her on a date. She says yes. But. . .on the fateful day and hour, she's a no-show. I never hear from her again. Turns out – “she” was an A.I. chat bot, a computer program designed to make me think she was real. Moral of the analogy: you can know everything about a person and never know the person.

To know a person you must meet him/her person face-to-face. Even and especially if that person is Christ. How do we – poor limited creatures that we are – meet our Savior in the flesh? Jesus knew he would be with us always. He says so several times. He also knew that he would ascend to the Father. He says that too. So, how can he be with us always and with the Father at the same time? Thanks be to God, he made some arrangements before he left. He left us the apostles. Personal witnesses to his life. He left us a Church, his body, his hands and feet here on earth. He sent us his Holy Spirit, the soul of his body, the Church. He left us a vicar, a steward with the keys to the Kingdom. Even with all of these essential elements left for us so that we might know about him. . .how do we meet him? He left us two additional elements that bring him as close to us as our own souls – one another and the Eucharist. If you will meet Christ face-to-face, meet him in your neighbor; your spouse and children; your co-workers; even your enemies. The Christ you meet there will be imperfect. On the way to perfection. But the Christ they meet in you will be imperfect too. In a different way but nonetheless on the way to perfection. Your imperfections and theirs will bring you both closer to his perfection.

Granted, meeting Christ in another isn't perfect. But it is a meeting. It is a face-to-face encounter that brings us closer to him. In the Eucharist, we meet him body, blood, soul, and divinity. We meet him as he is and know him as sacrificial love. By taking in his body and blood, we become more and more like him, taking on his mission and ministry, taking on everything he is for us. And becoming Christs for others. The Eucharist is a revelation. It's rational, but it cannot be understood through reason alone. It's a personal experience, but it cannot be understood through personal experience alone. We can know the theology, the philosophy, the psychology, and history of the Eucharist and still not know him who is the Eucharist. Who the Eucharist is for us must be revealed, unveiled and shown. Jesus says to Peter, “...flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” If you will know Christ, meet him face-to-face, sit still and ask the Father to give you Peter's revelation. Ask Him to show you Christ. He is always here to be revealed. To be met in person. Ask and you will receive. 

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Father (doesn't) always know best

20^th Week OT (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

While serving as a priest-formator at NDS in NOLA, I had many opportunities to talk to seminarians about the dangers of clericalism. It was The Topic after the Cardinal McCarrick scandal broke in 2019. Power, authority, influence, money, and people were grievously abused for the jollies of one man. That this man was aided and abetted by dozens of other clerics (from cardinals to deacons) over several decades reveals the ugly, infectious nature of sin. The sin reigning at the rotten center of this scandal was Pride, “I am a god.” Surely, greed, lust, envy all played their part. But Pride gave them their marching orders. Talking to the seminarians, the formators spent a lot of time defining clericalism for them. It boils down to this: clergy are better than the laity. How clericalism manifests differs from age to age, but the basics never change: “I am a priest/bishop (etc) and b/c I am the priest/bishop I am always right.” Therefore, the cleric's will is the single, stable measure of what counts as true, good, and beautiful in any situation. To make matters worse, clericalism is almost always nurtured by some portion of the laity who say, “Father knows best.” Jesus says, “The greatest among you must be your servant.”

Humility is no easy virtue. It requires the death of Pride, the submission of one's will to the Father. At minimum, it means confessing one's total dependence on God alone and then living a life of gratitude for His abundant gifts. It means refusing the serpent's temptation to Eve: “You can be a god w/o God.” Practically, for the cleric, it means never confusing legitimate authority with naked power. Righteousness with popularity. Truth with personal preference. For all of us, humility is about knowing and deeply understanding that we are – at our very root – unnecessary creatures. Made beings brought to perfection in the loving sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. Our creation is a gift. Our re-creation is also a gift. Everything we have and are is a gift. When we serve one another, we are gifts serving other gifts for the glory of God. When we serve for self-satisfaction, to puff up our ego, we serve another Master entirely. His name is Pride. So, Jesus warns us, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” 

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Martyr of Charity

St. Maximilian Kolbe

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Whoever does not love remains in death. That's a weighty sentence at 8am on a Monday. But the truth is not limited by clock or calendar. The truth sets us free. And the truth is: if I do not love, I am dead. I may be up and waddling around; talking, doing my laundry, saying Mass, but I am w/o Life. Outside the Way. Knowing that love frees, that love saves, I have a choice: love or don't. If I receive the gift of Divine Love and choose to love in turn, then I live and walk the Way. If, however, I receive the gift of Divine Love and choose not to love, then I live a waking death. A life w/o God. A choice He will honor even after soul and body separate. John tells us that we come to know love b/c Love Himself laid down his life for us. He showed us how to love sacrificially by dying on the Cross for the salvation of the world. If we will love and follow him, that's our path. Like I said, weighty stuff for a Monday at 8am. But not as weighty as the sacrifice we celebrate this morning. We all know the martyr's story of Friar Maximilian Kolbe. He volunteered to take the place of a prisoner in Auschwitz who'd been sentenced to starve to death. With nine others, Kolbe was interred in an underground bunker. After two weeks with no water or food, the Nazis injected the four surviving prisoners with carbolic acid, including Kolbe. JPII canonized him in 1982, declaring him a “martyr of charity.” As horrific as his death was, it was a sacrifice of love. The man he saved was a husband and father. That man survived the Holocaust and attended Kolbe's canonization. As a martyr of charity, Kolbe bears witness to what it is to walk the Way of Christ, to live for the truth in love. There is almost no chance at all that anyone here this morning will be called upon to bear witness to the faith in a similar manner. But Kolbe's sacrifice shows us the limitless edge of sacrificial love. Whatever we do in love today will not match the historical drama of Kolbe's sacrifice. It will pale in comparison. Fortunately, we are called upon to compete with the martyrs. We are called upon to bear witness where and when we are in a way that gives God glory and demonstrates to the world that loving is living a life in Christ. Whoever does not love remains in death. That's our testimony. Love, therefore, not in word or speech but in deed and truth.

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Where's the doubt?

19th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Peter is having a hard week. Our Lord has called him “Satan” and described him as an obstacle. Then there's the whole failed exorcism episode where the disciples' faith is too weak to drive out a demon. Today, Peter nearly falls into the sea b/c his faith is too small. Pulling him back from the drink, Jesus asks Peter, “Why did you doubt?” Peter doesn't answer, so we're left with the accusing question. Is it fair to accuse him of being a doubter? Keep in mind: it's Peter who, seeing Jesus walking on the sea, yells out, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Yes, there's some doubt in there – “if it is you” – but it still takes some pretty solid faith and courage to test Jesus' power with one's own life. Peter had no way of knowing whether or not the “ghost” he was seeing was really the Lord. Of course, the accusation of doubt against Peter comes only after he's on the water and the sea becomes rough. Fearing for his life, Peter yells out, “Lord, save me!” Where's the doubt? Even knowing that he is looking at the Lord, Peter thinks that he has to ask Jesus to save him. As if Jesus had not already done so.

Digging deeper into Peter's doubt, we can ask: what is Peter doubting? If we take doubt to mean something like “a failure to trust” or “a hesitancy to believe,” then there has to be someone we are failing to trust or believe. Our gospel scene strongly suggests that Peter's near demise in the rough sea is caused by his lack of trust in Jesus; he hesitates for just a second to believe in Jesus' love for him. Is this the failure that nearly kills him? If so, then why does he immediately cry out, “Lord, save me!” Why cry out for help to the very person whose power you are doubting? In other words, if Peter is doubting Jesus, why turn to him for rescue? Yelling out for Christ's help when in peril seems to be an exemplary expression of faith in Christ. So, again, who is Peter doubting? Consider this: Jesus has called Peter “Satan;” described him as an obstacle; and rebuked him for his small faith. Despite all of these indications that the Lord is somehow displeased with Peter, Jesus establishes his Church on Peter and gives him the keys to the kingdom. Is it possible that Peter is experiencing just a little confusion about who he himself is? Maybe Peter – in a moment of panic – fails to trust in the faith he has been given. Peter doubts his own strength in Christ.

Think about your own relationship with God. There have been times when you doubted. Doubt creeps in a like a noxious fog no matter how tight you think you are with God. Think about that doubt and ask: was I really thinking that Love Himself stopped loving me personally? Or was I really worried about the strength of my own love for Him? See, God is Love, so His love for us is a universal given. He loves us b/c Love is Who He is. And though we are made to love Him, we are also made with a built-in free will that is subject to sin. When doubt wiggles its way into our relationship with God, more often than not we can trace that doubt back to a lack of confidence in our own “small faith,” back to our own anxiety about whether or not we are truly in love with God. When the sea gets rough and Peter panics, he does what any one of us here would do: he calls on Jesus for help! That call, that cry for rescue isn't a sign that Peter doubts Christ's power to rescue him; it's a sign that he needs a stronger sense of himself as a man already rescued. How strong is your sense of yourself as a man or woman already rescued by the power of Christ?

God knows we are limited creatures. Prone to making mistakes and even intentionally doing evil things. Part of being limited is needing to be reminded over and over again that we are loved by Love Himself. We forget that w/o His love we cannot exist. Literally, God's love is what holds us in being. At those moments when we forget that His love holds us in being, we also tend to forget that we experience His love for us as caring attention. He supplies all that we need. That we think we need all sort of things that we don't really need and never receive is not His problem. Strip away greedy wanting and all need is exactly what God provides – His love. So, when we forget that He loves us, when we forget that we live, move, and have our being in His love, our confidence fails and doubt runs wild and free. Left unchecked, doubt will play and play and play until a moment's lapse in faith becomes a lifetime of anxiety and despair. Doubts needs a soul that forgets that it is loved, rescued, and freed from sin and death.

Do you know that you have already been rescued from the storm of sin and death? Do you know that whatever disaster strikes, whatever fear grips you in a moment, that God loves you and will provide for you? He might not provide what you think you need or want, but He will provide all that you need to return His love. If your confidence fails, do what Peter did and cry out: “Lord, save me!” That's enough to remind you that you are already saved in Christ. It's just enough to strengthen your heart, to slay the doubt, and return you to knowing again the love that God always gives. Remember what Elijah discovers about the Lord – He's not in the tornado, the earthquake, or the fire. He's in the small, still voice, a voice that forever whispers, “Take courage, it is I; I am with you always.” 

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St. Dominic: there's no looking back!

St. Dominic

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

There's no looking back. Let the dead bury the dead. If you will put your hand to the plow, and keep your hand on the plow 'til the job's done – there's no looking back. Once Jesus says to you, “Follow me,” and you say, “I will follow you,” the only way forward is forward. Whether the soil is sand, rock, or rich black loam – the only way forward is behind Christ, following along; doing what he does; speaking his words; teaching, preaching, healing, feeding, freeing; and being taught, being preached to; being healed, fed, and freed. Paul confesses to the Corinthians that he doesn't preach to them with sublime words or out of sublime wisdom. His preaching is “a demonstration of spirit and power.” He doesn't preach from merely human strength or courage. Nor with a self-assured ease. But from “weakness and fear and much trembling.” Paul's not fearful of how the world will react to the Gospel, or what the world will do to him for preaching it. He's fearful knowing that the Lord will use his trembling weakness to do great things for the Kingdom. So, he is “resolved to know nothing...except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Knowing this – and just this – there is no looking back.

But what is it for a preacher to look back? The temptation to look back could arise from a disordered sense of nostalgia. My life was better back then. . .before Christ, before I said Yes. Looking back could be prompted by intellectual pride. Preaching isn't real intellectual work. It's just exhortation for the crowd. Rabble-rousing for Jesus. Looking back could be about emotional and physical comfort, or a need to be the center of attention, or an inordinate passion for good rhetoric and literary style. The preacher can be tempted to pull Christ off the Cross and take his place. Or to turn the Gospel into a vehicle for his eccentric theology and personal agenda. When the field to be plowed seems to grow and grow and the ground gets rockier and rockier, the preacher will be tempted to loosen the yoke a bit and just glide softly over the topsoil. Better not uproot the bigger stones. That just makes more work for later. Leave them be. Let them be stones for someone else. Probably the strongest temptation to look back comes when the only answers available are Yes and No. Do or do not. Choose life or choose death. The wisdom of the world loves its ambiguity, its waffling and compromise. The preacher puts his hand to the plow. The only way forward is forward, following Christ.

The great Dominican preachers of the Church – Humbert, Jordan, Albert and Thomas, Eckhart, Catherine, Martin, Lacordaire, of course, Dominic himself – did not look back to “a wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away.” Why? B/c that sort of wisdom is merely created. It's the lived experience of creatures. Temporary creatures. Limited and passing away. They preached God's wisdom. Revealed in the flesh and blood of Christ Jesus. The lived experience of the Incarnate Son. And him crucified. Their assigned ground had its share of stones. They tightened the yoke, dug deep, and never looked back. Christ sustained them in their Yes. He plowed in front of and beside them. So long as they gave their voices to his Word, he was with them. And when they didn't, he lent them his own. If you will be a preacher of the Gospel, practice now never looking back. There's nothing there to make the work lighter, to make the ground softer. Ahead is truth and love. Plow on. Prepare the field. And let the dead bury the dead.

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Apologies!

Apologies! 

I haven't posted in a while. With the end of the semester, priory duties, home visit, etc. . .it's been crazier than usual. 

I am giving the Pre-novitiate Vestition Retreat this week and next weekend is Simple Profession and then Vestition. 

Things get to be "normal" around Aug 7th. 

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Worry is how we worship Self

Ss. Martha, Mary, & Lazarus

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

Holy Family of Nazareth Center

The Enemy wants you worried. He wants you anxious. Why? If he can convince you that your worrying actually changes things in the real world, then he can keep you focused on trying to be God. While you're trying to be God – changing the world with your magical worry – you will fail to recognize that you have become your own idol. Worry, spiritual anxiety is the liturgy we use to worship Self. Martha is fretting about Mary while Mary is contemplating Christ. Martha is expending time and energy trying to control Mary, trying to will her into helping her with the chores. Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen the better part. Now, we could conclude from this that sitting in silent contemplation of the Lord is objectively better than being up and about doing stuff for the household. But notice that the issue here is not contemplation vs. action. The issue here is Martha's anxiety. Could Martha serenely contemplate the Lord while serving? Could Mary be in the throes of worry while sitting quietly next to Jesus? Yes to both. But the Enemy has convinced Martha that whining to the Lord is a good way to control Mary. And controlling Mary is a good way for Martha to worship herself. In the real world, Martha isn't serving the Lord; she's serving herself, her true god. That she is “worried and anxious about many things” is evidence of her idolatry. Now, before you conclude that Martha is some sort of horrible person – keep in mind – Martha loves Jesus. She has acknowledged him as her Lord. And she believes that bustling around fetching him tea and biscuits is evidence of her devotion. Notice what's missing. She is focused on service as service. She is focused on doing for the sake of doing. She has forgotten why she serves. Could Martha serenely contemplate the Lord while serving? Of course she could. Why doesn't she? Because she sees her service as an end in itself. The point of service – for her – is to serve. She has forgotten that loving the Lord is the point, loving Christ and giving him the glory is the goal. When Jesus tells her that Mary has chosen the “better part,” he is not telling her that active service is inferior to contemplation. He's telling her that being at peace in his love is better than worshiping the Self with worry. If anxiety is an idol for you, remember the end for which you were created and be at peace.

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Do not fear; bear witness

12^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Fear has its uses. Fear of my daddy's belt kept me and my little brother from killing each other on many occasions. Fear might've kept you from doing something stupid like driving drunk or experimenting with illegal drugs. Maybe you remained chaste until marriage b/c the possibility of having a child w/o a spouse scared you senseless. Whatever terrible thing fear prevented you from doing, it probably saved you a lot of trouble, maybe saved your life. Being cautious, being careful is just good sense. But this is not the kind of fear Jesus is warning us about this morning. The fear Jesus is warning us against is the kind of fear that kills the soul, the kind that prevents us doing or saying what we know to be the right thing to do or say. This kind of fear is deeply rooted in cowardice, the failure of courage to risk everything in bearing witness to the truth of the Gospel. If, by witnessing to Christ, you fear losing a job or a friendship or even your life, then consider Jesus' warning: “...do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”

We call that kind of fear. . .awe. Reverence. Wonder. Veneration. It's the kind of fear that Job experiences at the end. The kind that strikes us at the root of our being and reminds us that we are dust. Loved dust, yes. Dust given life again in Christ, yes. But still dust. And nothing we have and nothing we are adds even a quanta of dignity beyond what God Himself has already given us. So, when Jesus warns us not to fear those who can destroy the body but not the soul, he's warning us to put our supernatural goal above and beyond whatever we might want to hang onto down here. Whatever it might be that we think is going to heal us, make us happy, free us from death, it ain't. Anything created will die. Medicine, money, career, even family and friends – all created, all temporary, all headed toward death. It is best to make sure that a fear of losing what's always passing away doesn't prevent you from grabbing hold of him who cannot pass away. It is best then to attach yourself to that which is uncreated and permanent. When the time comes – and it will – do not deny Christ the faithful witness he is due. “Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.” That's his promise to us. He follows this promise with another: “But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.”

How do we acknowledge Christ before others? There are obvious, visible ways to witness. Wearing a cross. Praying before meals in public. Bumper stickers. Carrying a rosary and praying it. These are common and easy. Not much chance anyone is going to call you out for this kind of witness. . .esp., in TX. You can ratchet up the danger a bit by talking to co-workers about your faith. Maybe throw in a bit of witness if you teach at a public school. Privately challenge a family member's persistent and public sin. If you really want to feel the full weight of the world's opposition to the Gospel, then you have to go Big. Run for an elected office and bring the Light to gov't corruption. Get a seat on the school board and challenge the theology of Woke Religion. Threaten the Unholy Sacraments of the elites – abortion, gender ideology, and sex w/o consequences. Now you've got the world's attention! When the pressure to buckle starts to bear down on you, what do you do? “Fear no one...do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”

Now, I've been assuming here that you're looking for trouble. Actively seeking out chances to bear witness. And that's a good thing. But what happens when you're just living your Christian life, the world finds you, and demands your surrender? Whatever you do, do not play the Enemy's games. He wants you angry, self-righteous, set on a worldly victory. He wants you puffed up with indignation and fury, ready to lash out, seeking revenge for the insult. Do this and you have denied Christ. Like a cornered and wounded animal, you've attacked as you were attacked and the witness you bear denies the Father's providence. He won't take care of me, so I have to it myself. How can He take care of you if you refuse to receive His care? Do not play the Enemy's game! Meet opposition with truth in love. Bear witness to the truth and do so for no other reason than love. Truth is not a weapon to achieve victory. It's not a tool for burying your enemies. Truth is a person, Christ Jesus. He is the Way and the Life. Show the opposition Christ. Don't just tell them true things. Be the Truth for them. Demonstrate the mercy you yourself have received. Show them the Way. Walk it with them or for them. Whatever you think you have to lose, God will provide. 

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