Things fall apart

5^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

We think of “healing” as returning a sick or broken body back to its natural state. Kill the virus. Bandage the wound. Reset the bone. Remove the tumor. We can also think of “healing” as reestablishing the balance btw mind and body. Express the disordered emotions. Work through disappointments, betrayals, and losses. Conquer demons. Find some peace. The kind of healing Jesus does this morning is really something altogether different. Yes, he physically heals Simon's mother-in-law. And all the others who come to him. But he does more than reset their broken bodies. More than give them back their health. He sets them free. Free from sin, free from death – free from the inevitabilities of mortality. By healing these people, Jesus sets in motion a wave of spiritual remediation that reconnects his Father's children to the Holy Family and brings them into an inheritance that started building at the first Word of creation. He makes them sons and daughters of the Most High. So, to be healed by Christ is to be made whole and entire a perfected creature of the Father.

Job tells us what it's like to be imperfect creatures of the Father. We are miserable drudges. Restless hirelings and overworked slaves. Our days fly by and our nights are troubled. You can almost hear the despair in his voice: “Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again.” Of course, Job's unhappiness is not his fault. He's done nothing to deserve this misery. His friends interrogate him aggressively about any possible transgressions he's made against God's law. There are none. He's been abundantly blessed with a large family, material wealth, good health, and he's accounted righteous among his peers. Yet, he's tortured physically, mentally, and spiritually. He only learns “the why” of his ordeal at its end. He is a creature – a made thing – living in a mortal world subject to failure and death. Everything he has and is is of the world. All of it subject to failure and death. Nothing of the world is permanent. Nothing in the world is exempt from passing away. Health. Wealth. Family. Friends. All of it – himself included – is temporary. At the end, Job is taught: “Things fall apart.” Only God and those who belong to God endure. Jesus heals to make us possessions of God.

We should pray that we never need Job's lesson to learn the truth of our creatureliness. 21^st century middle-class, American comfort can hypnotize us with the illusion of constancy, order, and progress. Things are tidy and always improving. And even when there are setbacks in our orderly progress, we're confident that some hard work and time will see things set right. We can turn to God for help. A good thing. We can turn to one another. Another good thing. But whether we turn to God and/or one another, things fall apart. Belonging to God in no way exempts us from the mortalities of the world. Job was as righteous as a righteous man could be. All those people Jesus healed – what had they done to deserve their diseases and broken bodies? Who deserves abject poverty, systemic violence, political oppression, or natural disaster? No one. But no one is protected from the consequences of being human. What Christ offers in his healing touch is a hope beyond the ravages of mortality. An assurance that this world is not our telos, our end. We are not abandoned, left to fend for ourselves. Created with a purpose, we have more than eating, sleeping, working, and reproducing to look forward to. When our mortality fails, Christ's healing immortality steps in to reveal the Biggest Possible Picture of God's plan for our salvation. That plan needs our cooperation. It requires our freely given assent for fruition. If you will be healed into the Holy Family, you will receive Christ and preach Christ and bear witness to your healing. In word and deed, you will proclaim your healed up wounds, your scars, and you will give God the glory.   

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Don't be a tool

St. Anthony, Abbot

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Our translation says that the Pharisees “watch Jesus closely.” Other translations say it better: they “spy on him.” In order to spy, one must watch. But not all watching is spying. Spying implies skulking for nefarious reasons. The Pharisees were colluding with the Herodians – supporters of the Roman puppet king – to put Jesus to death. More is at stake here than one man's withered hand. This gospel scene is about the force of the Law; the need for mercy; the realities of divine healing; and – most of all – the depths to which some will fall in the acquisition and maintenance of political power. Jesus' ministry is an existential threat to the power and popularity of the Pharisees and the stability of Herod's rule. At stake is the whole structure of a volatile state consumed by rivalries, betrayals, and the potential for violent revolution. So, the Pharisees spy on Jesus. They need him silenced. They need him dead. To achieve this goal, the Pharisees set aside the truth. They turn away from the Law. They lie, cheat, and set traps. All in pursuit of power. Jesus counters their plot with divine healing and mercy.

The Pharisees believe they are doing what's necessary to keep their people and themselves safe. Jesus' ministry is a radical reinterpretation of the Law. Jesus calls it the “fulfillment of the Law.” But to the power brokers of the day, his apparent violations of the Law are dangerous sparks aimed at an open powder keg. Their machinations seem justified b/c they are motivated by a desire for peace and stability. Getting Jesus out of the way – by whatever means necessary – is a Good. What the man's healing shows them – and us – is that lies cannot create truth. Cheating cannot create justice. That compromise, confusion, and political calculation cannot give us peace. And finally, that whatever is broken, sick, cast out, and impoverished can be made whole by the Word of God alone. The Pharisees believe they can control the world by using the tools of the world. But the world makes them its tool. In the end, God reveals who the Master Craftsman really is, using all of them to free us from sin and death. Keep your hearts and minds squarely focused on Christ – his truth, goodness, and beauty. Leave the tool-using and spying to the Pharisees. Nothing created can bring us peace.

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Renovation Update

That wall behind the crucifix was supposed to be finished on Dec 23rd. Didn't happen. But they are almost done. 

The acoustics in the chapel are MUCH better with the tile floors. We actually sound good singing the Office. The choirs stalls will make it even better!

Consider helping us out. We need about $90,000. We have around $8,000 with pledges for more to come in the next few weeks. 

We're looking into putting name plates on the stalls for donors. 

https://www.opdallas.com/renovate

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Becoming the Christ Child

Nativity of the Lord (Day)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

On “the Twenty-fifth Day of December...in the 149th Olympiad; in the year 752 since the foundation of the City of Rome; in the 42nd year of the reign of Caesar Octavian Augustus, the whole world being at peace, Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father...was conceived by the Holy Spirit...born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem of Judah, and was made man...” On that same day in the same year, in virtue of Christ's birth, life, death, and resurrection, you and I were given – freely given – the gift of our salvation: to become Christs in the flesh, to be made sons of God, heirs to the Kingdom; priests, prophets, and kings to bear witness to His glory in the world. We are rescued, healed, ransomed, adopted, and saved. But by far the greater gift, the greatest grace is our freedom to become Him whom we love – the Son born of Mary in Bethlehem. That son, her son, the Son of God. The Son of God and the Son of Man, the Savior, the Messiah. His name is Christ Jesus, the one sent to save us from sin and death by offering us a share in his divine nature, participation in the divine love that is the Blessed Trinity. This gift of eternal life came wrapped in the flesh of a child born in a stable, adored by shepherds and kings alike.

It is beyond strange – maybe even scandalous – that God chose to offer us a share in His divine life by taking on our human nature. He tried other ways – ritual sacrifice, the Law, the prophets – but none of these served His purpose fully: to bring us into a fundamental intimacy with Him. Human obstinance, vanity, pride, and an inordinate love of worldly things always kept us just far enough away to lose sight of our end. Maybe His older ways of saving us from ourselves were too literal, or maybe they were too difficult. Whatever the reason, we failed. Again and again, we wandered away from the covenant, finding ourselves lost in the wildernesses of the world. He used the nations to chastise us when we strayed. And He used us to show the nations His glory. Finally, at the appointed time, He took it upon Himself to fulfill the terms of the covenant that we ourselves could not or would not fulfill. The Christ Child in the stable in Bethlehem is His final means of bringing us into the Holy Family, of enticing us back into the intimacy of divine love. What the Law and the Prophets did not achieve, the infant Jesus commenced in the manger and the Christ completed on the Cross.

For 2,023 years the Church has marked the Incarnation as that singular moment in human history when the Son of God came to us like us and offered us the possibility of becoming perfectly human. From the year “752 since the foundation of the City of Rome; in the 42nd year of the reign of Caesar Octavian Augustus,” all of humanity, every single human person, received and receives an invitation from their Creator to become Christ. To live and die as a witness to the Word of liberation from sin and death. To minister to those in need of hearing His Word spoken and to see His Word lived out. Each one of us is granted – by the Incarnation – a chance to not only grow in holiness but to become the means of salvation for another. Christmas is Santa Claus, presents, decorated trees, and glazed hams. But more fundamentally, Christmas is a renewal of our Yes to the Father's invitation to be a child of Christ, to become a Christ Child. “What came to be through [the Word] was life, and this life was the light of the human race.” Remember: you've said Yes. You are that light that shines in the darkness.   

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Bro, take the win!

3rd Week of Advent (T)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great, Irving

Zechariah learns a hard but well-deserved lesson in prayer. You can pray for what you think you want. Get it. Question the veracity of the gift. Fail to be grateful. And. . .get your tongue glued to the floor of your mouth. What makes this lesson most-poignant is that Zechariah is a priest, praying in the Holy of Holies, in the presence of an archangel, who tells him that his long-prayed-for son is on his way, and he still has the audacity to bark out a dumb question like: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” I'm reminded of a recent incident in my philosophy class when a seminarian correctly answered one of my questions. I congratulated him on being correct. But he continued to argue with me vigorously. One of his classmates shouted, “Bro, shut up and take the win!” Zechariah, bro, take the win. Now, we could excuse Zechariah's incredulity as a reaction to being addressed by an archangel, or excitement at learning he's finally going to be a father – at an advanced age. But it's a safe bet to take that the real problem here is his understanding of God's providence and the purpose of prayer. I'm betting that Zechariah thought of prayer as a sort of cosmic Amazon Wish List. Put your wants on a list and God will provide when you're ready to receive. That's not how this works. God provides and we receive. That's true. God provides what we need to return to Him freely in love. Not every want that crosses our mind. He gives what we need when we need it. Our job is to be always in a receptive mode. That mode is called gratitude. Whether we have actually been given what we need or not, we remain in gratitude. By remaining in gratitude, we remain open to receiving, always ready to get what we have been given. Zechariah muddles the recipe by adding a dash of doubtful curiosity to the mix. That's like adding cilantro and garlic to your brownie batter. Not good. The result is a dire punishment for a priest: if you're not going to use your gift of speech to give God thanks and praise, then you're not going to use it all. As you prepare to receive the gift of the Christ Child six days from now, contemplate how and why you pray. Are you praying with thanksgiving? Are you praying to add to the Wish List, or praying to receive whatever it is that God has to give you? Are you daring an angel to put you on mute by doubting that God knows what He's doing? By doubting that He can do what He wills? Last lesson from Zechariah's fumble: you and I don't have to understand what God is doing in and with our lives. We've already said Yes. Just give Him thanks and praise.

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We are him whom we announce

3^rd Sunday of Advent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

When asked “who are you?” John confesses who he isn't – the Christ. He's not Elijah. He's not a prophet. When pressed for an answer, he says, “I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘make straight the way of the Lord.’” What sort of person – one who isn't the Christ or a prophet – cries out in the desert, “Make straight the way of the Lord”? We would say that this sort of person is a herald, a harbinger, one who goes out in front, giving warning that One greater than he is coming. He is not the light, but goes out to testify to the light. We know who John is and what he came to do. Who are we? What have we come to do? We could say that we too are heralds, harbingers sent out ahead to make the paths of the Lord straight. And that's true. We could say that we have taken on the work of prophets, announcing God's Word, preaching and teaching His truth. And that's true as well. But if we see who we are and what we do as mere preparation for the Lord's coming, then we miss the bigger picture: we prepare for Christ's coming again by being Christs for others now. We are him whom we announce. Each imperfect alone but more perfect together.

The Christ Child was born some 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem. He will come again as the Just Judge at the end of the age. In the meantime, what we call the End Times – that's right now –, Christ is here in his Body, the Church. In each one of us as members of his Body. He is with us always b/c he never truly left. He is in his sacraments as priest. He is in his preachers as prophet. He is in his Church as king. And yet, we wait on his coming again. What's the point of waiting for someone who is already with us? What if we're not waiting on him? What if he's waiting on us? That is, what if he's waiting on his Church, his Bride to be fully prepared to welcome him? What if he's waiting for you and me to exhaust our gifts in service to the Gospel, to receive the fullness of the Father's holiness, to totally surrender in gratitude to just being loved creatures desperately in need of his mercy? What if we are imperfect Christs waiting to be made perfect – and that is his Coming Again? It would seem that the only proper response is. . .rejoicing!

What else would we do? Cry? Laugh? Groan in disappointment? To be made perfect in Christ – to be made a Christ – is the highest glory of the baptized. And it's a transformation we must participate in. How? Paul gives us a start: “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.” Rejoice. Pray. Give thanks. This is the will of God for us. That we rejoice, pray, and give thanks. “[Keep] what is good. Refrain from every kind of evil.” Easily done if we are rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks. If we are rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks, we are growing in holiness, becoming more and more like Christ, moving away from the world and toward the kingdom. The closer we get to the kingdom, the closer we get to our perfection in Christ and the closer we come to bearing witness to Christ coming again. But we aren't just sitting around being perfected, passively being worked on by the HS. In receiving all the Father has to give us, we become conduits for those gifts, fire hoses of grace soaking the world with His invitation to repentance and forgiveness. Like the Christ we will become, we minister, attend to those with eyes to see and ears to hear, showing them the mercy we've received, and bearing witness to the mercy they show us.

Paul ends his letter with a blessing: “May the God of peace make you perfectly holy and may you entirely, spirit, soul, and body, be preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” For this blessing to take hold and bear fruit, we must acknowledge our nascent Christ-hood and rejoice. “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Rejoicing is the wordless prayer of thanksgiving that leads to surrender. And surrender leads to perfection.  

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Renovation: Kitchen & Chapel

                               

WE NEED CHOIR STALLS!

St Albert the Great Priory in Irving was finished in 2002. It was built as a home for the friars who were serving the University of Dallas as profs and chaplains. 

The house has 13 rooms for friars and one guest room. The kitchen was designed to be a "warming kitchen" b/c the friars used the catering service used by Holy Trinity Seminary. 

The chapel (above) was designed by a commercial architect in a style very much in vogue in 2002 -- lots of natural light, no ornamentation, white/beige/tan, egalitarian arrangement of the furniture, etc. Serviceable but easily mistaken for a Quaker meeting room. 

In 2005, the priory was designated as the novitiate for the province. From 2005 to 2019, we had novice classes ranging from zero to four novices and a senior community of six or seven. 

Last year, we had five novices. All professed vows and moved on to the studium in St. Louis. This year we have seven novices! We are on track to have seven more next year. 

In early 2022, the friars decided to renovate the kitchen and the chapel. In the kitchen, we needed appliances that did more than warm up catered food. And in the chapel, we needed choir stalls for chanting the Offices, an altar of repose for the re-centered tabernacle, and tiled floors for acoustics. 

We received a generous grant to begin the renovations. But we woefully underestimated the cost of the work. What we thought was going to be a $160,000 job turned into a $320,000 job!  

We are still soliciting bids for the choir stalls. . .after reducing the number of stalls and going with less expensive wood. 

Work started on Nov. 1, 2023. We've been closed to the public since then, using our tiny library as a chapel. 

We need around $110,000 to finish the work and reopen to the public. 

You can help us out: RENOVATE. 

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Get on with it

2^nd Week of Advent (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

I'm tired. I've been tired for years. Not physically tired. Not even mentally or spiritually tired. Just. . .ready to get on with it. Maybe the right word is “antsy” or “fidgety.” Jesus says his yoke is easy and his burden light. And I know this. I believe it. He's done the hard part. All I have to do is bear witness to his saving work by living a life that proclaims the Father's mercy to sinners. All the while confessing that I am the principal sinner in my one act play. This can be difficult or easy depending on whether or not I choose to bear witness from my own efforts or his. Bearing witness from my own efforts usually leaves me frustrated, confused, and feeling distinctly unfinished. Why? Because there's something dark and satisfying about holding a righteous grudge or making a mountain out of another's molehill. But doing so rubs against what I know to be the mercy I've been shown. And I'm left nursing an ulcerous ingratitude that quickly grows into resentment. What makes the upset worse is knowing that I chose to be burdened. I chose the more difficult way. All this comes together to trap me in knowing the way out AND choosing the heavier yoke.

Thanks be to God, yokes are movable. Knowing the Christ Child is coming and knowing that the Christ Child is also the Just Judge, seeing the end with the eyes of faith and a hope borne of trust, the heavier yoke falls away, and I can receive the “strength [that God gives] to the fainting” and the vigor He gives to the weak. That's the only way mercy can find its way into the world. For a reason known only to God, He wills that the only creature needing His mercy should be the only means of showing mercy. Maybe that's why his yoke is easy. He gets the apparent absurdity of it all! If, like me, you're tired – or rather antsy – ready to get on with it, then get on with it. Set aside the questions, the objections, and the quibbles, and just be merciful. Be mercy. Accept the lighter yoke, the easier burden and allow His strength and vigor to flow through and out. The alternative is a lifetime of fainting, weakness, frustration, and bitterness. A lifetime of chosen dis-ease and injury. No farmer can pull his own plow. For mercy's sake, it's better to wear the yoke of Christ.

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Are you a stubborn mule?

St. Juan Diego

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

I've never pulled a plow. But I've seen it done. Properly worn the yoke fits across the shoulders and extends back so that the animal's forward motion is pushed into the ground with blades tilling up the soil. The farmer wears his own version of the yoke, using it to stabilize and guide the plow. The yoke's burden is either heavy or light depending on the condition of the soil and how patient the farmer wants to be. No farmer in his right mind wants to increase the burden of his yoke. So he makes steady, even progress across his fields, making several shallower passes rather than one deep trough. This takes disciple and time. It takes rapt attention and patience. Jesus says that the burden of the Gospel is light. The work of plowing the Kingdom's fields is easy. Ask yourself: am I being a stubborn mule by adding unnecessary work to the work the Lord has given me to do? Am I making my burden heavier than the Lord himself demands? Our work in the fields of the Lord is to be restful. We can take this to mean that we're to laze about doing much of nothing. But that's not what he says. He says, “I am meek and humble of heart...learn from me.” Here's what we learn: I don't do less work by wearing my own yoke instead of Christ's. His fields are no less rock-strewn and stumpy than mine. The same heat and humidity wear on me whether I'm yoked to the Gospel or the world. The difference btw wearing my own yoke and his is that his sits gently on my shoulders b/c he has already plowed the field. From all eternity, my work for/with/in Christ is done. All I have to do now is bear witness to the truth and beauty of the field. Why would I insist on starting over? Why would I plant rocks or stumps in perfectly tilled soil? Why would I presume to look at Christ's field and think that I could do a better job? But that is precisely what I do when I invent obstacles to my growth in holiness. When I multiply requirements for accessing the Father. When I judge the work of other farmers as insufficiently serious or faithful or refined. Worse yet, I can find myself longing to plow a rocky plot of clay and roots, thinking that my holiness depends entirely on how difficult my work promises to be. The Kingdom needs faithful farmers not self-flagellating heroes. The work is done, brothers. Now, we have work to do.

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How ought we to live?

2^nd Sunday of Advent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

John the Baptist makes his Advent appearance, looking like some homeless guy under a Houston overpass and sounding like a street preacher at Mardi Gras. As a reputable salesman for the Good News, he lacks polish and – let's be frank – proper hygiene. Despite his appearance and fragrance, he possesses one supremely qualifying attribute: he recognized the Christ while both he and Jesus were still in their mothers' wombs. Before he was fully formed, he knew that Jesus was the Messiah. He knew this not b/c he was superhuman or angelic but b/c he was formed to be The Herald of Christ's Coming. His given purpose was to “make straight the paths of the Lord.” At the instant he encountered the subject of his purpose, he leapt in Elizabeth's womb, rejoicing that his Lord was near. From that moment until his unfortunate end at the whim of a stripper, John's life was singularly driven by the need to prepare God's people for the arrival of their Savior. He lived outside the world, just on the edge of the wilderness, preaching, baptizing, and wildly crying out that Christ Jesus had arrived. Finally, the long-awaited Messiah is here. How then ought we to live? What sort of persons ought we to be?

Advent is not Lent, but it's still an excellent time of the liturgical year to take stock of who we are and how we choose to live. You've probably heard it said that we are an Easter People. A tribe, a nation founded in the resurrection of Christ, living day-to-day in the joy of knowing that sin and death are dead and that we are free. True enough. But we can't ignore the fact that we are an Easter People living through an apparently endless Good Friday. The world we occupy is still mired in sin and death despite the divine offer of freedom. The world we occupy is still chained up in anger, bitterness, deceit, passionate excess, and the worship of Self. That this world tempts us with its temporary luxuries and easy indulgences is all too evident, especially when we invite it across our borders and give it refuge. Especially when we forget who we are and exchange our freedom for shiny new chains. Advent calls us out of our self-imposed bondage and demands that we fulfill our promise to be witnesses – like John – to the coming of the Christ. Advent admonishes us to “make straight the paths of the Lord.” We live in a Good Friday world. But we do so as an Easter People.

How? How do we hold fast to the resurrection in a world hell-bent on the daily crucifixion of Christ? Peter answers, “...since you await [the new heavens and a new earth], be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace.” While we await the advent of the Lord, we work on being w/o spot or blemish. We wait in the freedom of Christ, receiving his good gifts, sharing those gifts, bearing witness to the mercy we've been given, and giving all the glory to God. Even as the world swirls the cosmic bowl, we stand out by standing up and following after the Baptist in crying out that Christ has come, is coming, and will come again. We stubbornly refuse to surrender to despair. Not b/c we're “betting on Jesus.” But b/c we know – we KNOW – in hope that the victory is always, already his and that his victory is ours by inheritance. Even as we lose again and again in and to the world, we win from all eternity. All we need do is endure in faith. This short time before his coming as the Christ Child is the time to prepare, to make ready. It's our time to get busy waiting. It's time to decide what sort of person you ought to be.    

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HOLD! HOLD!!

First Sunday of Advent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Heavy English cavalry sweep downhill, lances dropped into killing position, charging the infantry line of Scottish rebels. When unarmored foot soldiers face a ton of horse-flesh and plate steel, the result is never in doubt. Unless you have the patience, courage, and determination of Wm Wallace, Braveheart. As the English pound closer and closer, Wallace starts screaming, “HOLD!” The tension is almost unbearable b/c we know that he has a line of hundreds of lances just waiting to be snatched up from the ground and staked into the English knights. The scene flashes back and forth btw the approaching wall of near-giant horses and the terrified Scotsmen. Each scene shift is punctuated by Wallace screaming HOLD! HOLD! HOLD! We know what happens next. But do we know why this is an Advent story? Advent is about watching, waiting, getting ready; it's about seeing the end of the charge toward Christmas but not reaching for Christmas too soon for fear of being overwhelmed. Advent is Wallace screaming HOLD! as Santa Claus, Mariah Carey, reindeer, snowmen, and elves charge our lines and tempt us to jump too soon into a season we are not prepared to celebrate. So, Jesus says, “Watch.”

Watch. For what? For whom? For the master of the house to return. OK. But we know he's arriving on the Nativity, Dec 25^th. What's the point of watching then? Why not just abandon the walls, put out the watch fires, open the gates, and party til he gets here? We could do that. We often do exactly that. But what we miss in the meantime in a chance to get ready, a chance to prepare. To allow the anticipation to build up. The waiting isn't a punishment or a penance. It's like fasting before a blowout feast. If you feast everyday then Just One More Feast is nothing special. And the Lord's arrival is just another day. So, Advent is Christmas' Lent. The Time Before for self-denial, examen, the small excitements of knowing the day is coming but not quite here just yet. You could think of your life here on Earth as one long Advent season. Christ comes at Christmas as a Child. He comes again as the Just Judge at the end of the age. If you are reaching for Christmas during Advent, then are you reaching for the end of the age before you have fully lived your life? Surely, you have things yet to do. Preparations to make. Surely, you are not NOW ready to meet the Just Judge? If you answer no, then stare Santa Claus and his elves in the eye and scream HOLD!

Christmas in my family started around Dec 13^th. That's when I got home from college to help mom buy gifts, put up decorations, and cook. Christmas ended Dec 26^th. We spent the day de-Christmasing the house. Being generic Baptists, my family had no tradition of liturgical seasons. Holidays like Easter and Christmas were one day events like the 4^th of July and Memorial Day. Nearly indistinguishable from civil celebrations and having no more religious content. It wasn't until I became an Episcopalian that holiday seasons became a thing for me, and I began to understand that the liturgical calendar was more than switching out vestment colors and whether or not we sang an alleluia. Liturgical seasons are a different way to keep track of time. They mark the passage of days by keeping us deeply embedded in the history of our salvation. When the Son became Man, he entered human history, subjected himself to the linear step-by-step process of moving through space marked by time. The historical events of our salvation happened “at the appointed time.” And so, we remember these events at the appointed time, using a calendar set outside the world's calendar.

We have about three weeks of prep time until we welcome the Christ Child. What do we do? We watch. We look for opportunities to get right with the Lord. We contemplate what it could mean for the Christ Child to also be the Just Judge. We find ways to relish the anticipation of Christmas w/o bringing Christmas into Advent. We pray for the Lord's coming again, and we also pray that we are ready to receive him. And when the temptation to bring Santa Claus and Mariah Carey and Frosty the Snowman and all the other worldly seasonal characters into our Advent, we stare them down, and we scream HOLD!

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How do we know that Jesus is the Christ?

St. Leo the Great

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Jesus says that Simon Peter knows that he – Jesus – is the Christ b/c the Father revealed this truth to him. How do you and I know that Jesus is the Christ? Has the Father revealed this truth to us? Doubtful. Did we arrive to this truth through deductive reasoning? No. Empirical investigation? No. Maybe we used a Ouija board? Definitely not. Nor did we come to know this truth through angelic visitation, lucky guesses, or alien abduction. Everyone one of us came to believe that Jesus is the Christ b/c we chose to believe a witness. Someone, somehow testified to you and me that Jesus is the Christ. And we believed. Our witnesses also chose to believe a witness. And those witnesses believed on another's testimony. And so on, all the way back to Simon Peter. Since his testimony to the other disciples in front of Christ himself, those of us who chose to believe through the centuries have developed stories, poems, plays, complex philosophical and theological systems, liturgies, and legends around the mission and ministry of the Christ. We've received his gifts, used them to bear our own witness to his mercy, and jump-started many a sinner's movement toward becoming Christ themselves. It all begins with Peter, the Rock, and Jesus' question: “Who do you say that I am?” For our witness to continue, for our witness to bear good fruit, we need to answer this question everyday with Peter's own answer, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” If we answer any other way, we betray those who witnessed to us. If we answer any other way, we call Peter a liar and deny the Father's truth. If we say that Jesus is only a teacher; only an advocate for the poor; only moral exemplar; only an agitator for liberation; only an ideal or a model or an avatar for human love – then we are liars and traitors. And our foundation is built on sand. Jesus is the Messiah. Sent by the Father to become like us in all ways but sin. To become sin for us and die on the Cross for our eternal lives. He rose from the grave. Ascended into heaven. And now he sits at the Father's right hand, drawing us to him with perfect love. Do we know every detail of how this works with absolute certainty? No. But we know Christ and him crucified. That's the truth we have been sent to witness to. That's our testimony. 

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You are a temple

St. John Lateran

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

We are flesh and blood temples of the Holy Spirit. Made for the worship of God and preaching of the Gospel. Our foundation is Christ Jesus and his mission to save the world from sin and death. When we are properly built and maintained, we are mobile tabernacles, bringing Christ with us wherever we go. Improperly built and/or poorly maintained, we risk becoming a den for thieves. We risk becoming a rented space for cheats, liars, cultural prostitutes, and intellectual frauds. Through the centuries, these spiritual squatters have changed names and faces, but the scam has always been the same: use the supernatural appeal of the Good News to prey on the anxieties and hopes of the least among us. Whether the squatters are promising material wealth, bureaucratic utopias, or a wide-open gate to heaven, they are defacing the temple of the Holy Spirit. Jesus drove them out once. He can do so again. But the best defense is a good offense. Never let them settle in the first place. Build your temple on the rock solid foundation of the apostolic faith – the unchanging and unchangeable truths of the Gospel. God's enduring love. The necessity of repentance of sin. The freely offered mercy of the Father. Christ's promise to be with us always. Never leave your temple unattended. Pray always. Keep the tabernacle lamp lit. And guard the door against anything and anyone who would bring the world's language, images, and idols to the altar. Receive gifts with humble thanksgiving and share the temple's wealth generously. Know Christ as a person not just as an idea or an ideal. Know him as a friend, a teacher, a brother. Know him most intimately in one another and those you serve. When a sacrifice is necessary, remember that God receives our fears, our desires, our lies, and our hopes. He makes them all holy when we hand them over with child-like faith, trusting fully that He bring the Good from our mess. Receive His gifts w/o prejudice for your wants. And use them to keep your temple free of the world's deadly distractions. Finally, ask yourself daily Paul's question to the Corinthians: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” 

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Apostolic foundation

Ss. Simon and Jude

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Knowing what they know about Jesus' soon-to-be bloody end in Jerusalem and his promise that all who follow him will end in a similar way, I wonder what the Twelve are thinking and feeling when the Lord chooses them and sends them out. Are they excited? Afraid? Confused? Maybe all of the above and more. Remember: since the Lord is still with them in the flesh, the Holy Spirit has yet to be sent. Meaning they have not yet been infused with the living fire of the Spirit and empowered to preach and teach Gospel in many tongues. IOW, they are – at the moment of their choosing – merely students who've witnessed the Lord ministering while he teaches them the truth of the Father's mercy to sinners. There must've been a palpable sense of anticipation among the Twelve, a vigorous wanting to-get-on-with-it that fires up the start of any monumental adventure. But they could not have known the results of their work. Millions of followers of Christ spread across the globe, working out their salvation in fear and trembling. At the moment of their choosing, whatever else they were thinking, they must've thought, “What will we do w/o the Lord?”

After the coming of the HS at Pentecost, that question is answered: “We will never be w/o the Lord!” One becomes Twelve and Twelve becomes 1.6 billion. And that 1.6 billion continues to grow by the hour. On the foundation of the faith of the Apostles, the Lord's Body grows and matures. The Church finds herself failing in one part of the world and thriving in another. Under attack here and compromising there. When the ordained hierarchy is flirting with the world, the laity are picking up the slack. At any particular moment, somewhere on the globe, the Lord's mercy is being witnessed to even if our witness as a whole is less than muscular. This is what it is to preach and teach the Good News to sinners, ourselves first and foremost. The testimony of a witness is only as good as the integrity of the witness. Being chosen and sent doesn't guarantee that integrity. To wit: Judas Iscariot. What does guarantee the integrity of the witness and his/her testimony is fidelity to the apostolic deposit of faith. The Church is established and built on the witness of the Twelve chosen and sent by Christ. W/o them we would've been little more than a book club in fancy liturgical dress.

We avoid being just a book club in fancy liturgical dress by holding firmly to the faith handed-on once for all. The Son of God became Man – fully human, fully divine – died on the Cross for the forgiveness of our sins; rose again, ascended, sent the HS; and established his Church, his Body as the living, breathing corporate witness to the Father's freely offered mercy to repentant sinners. How we understand all this can vary. How we apply it can vary. But the truth of it all is our foundation, our cornerstone. A book club in fancy liturgical dress will abandon the foundation and welcome the ever-shifting, always trendy nonsense that passes for wisdom in the world. Such a club will come to believe that truth is created by those we are vowed to seek it; that truth – that the HS – takes a poll and changes policies when the cultural winds blow in a different direction. That's not the apostolic faith. Our Lord chose and sent Twelve men, including Simon and Jude, to bear witness to all that he had taught them, to all that they had seen. Their testimony is fundamental to our salvation. It cannot change anymore than the choosing and sending of the Apostles 2,000 yrs ago can change. If you will be a witness, tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.      

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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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