Fret, Fuss, & Vex: the gods of Worry

11^th Week OT/B.V.M. (Sat): 2 Cor 12.1-10 and Matthew 6.24-34
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

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If you had to stand up right now and tell us your greatest spiritual deficiency, what would you say? Lack of humility, charity, patience? Difficulties with sexual temptation, pride, anger? No discipline in prayer, study, service? All common enough struggles for the serious Christian. I wonder how many of you would say, “I serve two Masters: God and Worry.” How many of us would ‘fess up to disobeying Christ by working at being our own best deity? Here’s an outrageous claim that is no less true for being outrageous: Worrying is idolatrous! What god rules in the tabernacle of your heart when you fret about what you have no power to change or control or defeat? No one, Jesus says, can serve two Masters…You cannot serve God and, well, you cannot serve God if you will serve anything, anyone else but Him.

As always, Jesus shows us the Narrow Way. He teaches his disciples: “Look at the birds in the sky [. . .] Are not you more important than they? [. . .] Why are you anxious [. . .]? Learn from the way the wildflowers grow. They do not work or spin [. . .] seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness [. . .]” and what you need will be given to you. Lest we think that Jesus is urging us to adopt some sort of quietistic Zen laziness with regard to our daily upkeep, let’s remember that he took his disciples from among the working men of his day and he sent them out to work for the gospel. Jesus is not telling us to sit quietly in the corner and wait for God magically to pour goodies in our laps. Fine. What is he saying? Essentially, he wants the disciples (and us, of course!) to consider this question: whom do you serve? Do you serve the God of creation and provider of all our needs, or do you serve the howling little voices of impatience and worry that nag you day and night? You see, Jesus’ point is that if we serve God, truly put ourselves in His service for His greater glory, and we make His righteousness the well from which we draw our faith, our love, our daily existence, then not only is it the case that He will provide for our needs but He will transform us as well. What we “need” changes. How we experience the world changes. Who we are as His creatures with Him and one another…it all changes.

Look at Paul. Paul tells us his conversion story this morning. Dramatic. Great stuff for hagiographies. But even greater stuff for our growth. God snatches Paul up into an ecstasy and there he hears “ineffable things, which no one may utter.” Paul’s apostolic ministry to the Gentiles was a furious preaching of the Unsayable (and sometimes the Undoable!). And this from an ex-Pharisee who had the rules, the formulas, the rituals; he had everything he needed to encounter the Divine, wrapped up, stored, and tightly controlled. Now, he boasts of weaknesses, insults, constraints, and hardships. And when he cries out to the Lord for relief, he boasts about the Lord’s blunt answer to him: “My grace is sufficient for you…” Paul serves God. And the gifts our Lord gave him were enough.

Ask yourself: Will it be God or Worry? Christ or anxiety? Will I trust God’s promises or will I all burst a vein trying to turn the universe on my will? You could do something radical. You could learn from the way the wildflowers grow. Grow where nothing else will. Flourish where you are planted. Show your brightest colors. Spread your goodness and beauty wildly. Take what you need to grow. And do not worry. What to eat, what to drink, what to study, what job to take, bills, kids, mortgage...“all these things the pagans seek.” Seek first then to serve Him. Make His righteousness the source of your daily decisions. Tear down the idols of the gods Fret, Fuss, and Vex and reposition Christ in the tabernacle of your heart. After all, Jesus asks, “Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?”

No, no you can’t.

Photo Credit: Jeffrey Lewis

Renewing the Renewal of the New Liturgy (UPDATED)

Fr. Al Kimel offers a few suggestions for renewing the renewal of the new liturgy. . .

(1) Abandon the versus populum, immediately! Let priest and people face God together. The single most destructive feature of the “renewed liturgy” is its anthropocentric orientation. The people of God are sanctified by worshiping God, not by celebrating each other. (This is not a huge worry for me. I understand the theological reasoning behind putting the priest behind the altar facing the people. Like most liturgical novelities of the N.O. this one can be reverently managed by a priest who does not see himself as the focus of the Mass. I'm not opposed to returning to celebrating Mass facing liturgical east, but I think the grand hopes that some hang on this change are a bit overblown.)

(2) Restore the chanted liturgy. Prayers are to be sung according to the ancient forms. (I love a chanted liturgy...if the priest and choir know how to chant. Chanting for chanting's sake seems to put the emphasis on performance rather than celebration--properly understood. I cannot and do not sing or chant alone. This is 90% nerves, I know, but nerves or not, my chanting would not be conducive to a reverent Mass. Again, chant will make the Mass more solemn but we have to be careful not to hang too many overblown hopes for a renewal of the faith on a few liturgical changes.)

(3) Ban the musical compositions of Marty Haugen and David Haas and anything similar. Gregorian chant must be restored as the primary music of the Latin rite. Given the magnitude of the problem, it is probably best to simply ban all music composed after 1960. Perhaps one day the good music that has been composed during the past forty years can be retrieved, but that day is not now. Catholic priests and musicians today do not know what sacred music is. (This is exactly right! I had no training in music while in seminary. We had the daily office and Mass in the priory but the emphasis in hymn selection had more to do with choosing politically correct lyrics than anything else. Even now I have a tendency to throw my trust at the musicians and never interfere! The English Church has some beautiful hymns with theologically sound lyrics that also manage not to offend or alienate. I wonder if they would spare a several million copies of their hymnal?)

(4) Restore the use of incense. (I use incense all the time. I didn't know it had been banned! Watch out for the "allergic" folks, though. They will swarm you immediately after Mass complaining about the smoke.)

(5) Eradicate ritual informality. (Not sure exactly what this means but if it means eradicating the "Chatty Priest," then I am all for it. There is nothing more distracting during Mass than a priest commenting on his words and actions, or giving unnecessary instructions to the congregation. I'm also in favor of getting rid of inappropriate improvisation with the rites. And I'll add here: get rid of the announcements after the closing prayer; NEVER use homily time to beg for money or volunteers; NEVER follow the homily with an appeal for money or volunteers; move the exchange of peace to the offertory--where it belongs!; and use the intercessions from the sacramentary rather than those booklets.)

(6) Drastically reduce electronic amplification. (YES! But then we would have to build actual churches with real acoustics rather than these Danver's restaurants with popcorn stucco walls and ceilings. Those who are hearing impaired can be easily helped with targeted infrared hearing aids.)

(7) Encourage eucharistic adoration both within and outside the Mass. Let the people prostrate themselves before Christ Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. A bow of the head is not sufficient! (If this means allowing folks to prostrate as they take communion...no. Logistically, this would be a nightmare. And we would get into the same problem I've seen many times at the adoration of the cross on Good Friday: one act of extraordinary piety sets the standard for everyone who follows and everyone who follows has to reset the standard even higher. Kissing the cross is no longer enough. The last person there has to prostrate, genuflect, flagellate himself, kiss all four points of the cross in the form of a cross, and then ask to be nailed up! OK. I'm exaggerating but I've seen the Escalating Piety Syndrome before.)

After much thought, I have finally become persuaded that all Catholic priests should be authorized to celebrate the Tridentine Mass, despite the inevitable confusion this will create. While I personally believe that liturgy should be normatively celebrated in the language of the people, I also believe that the practical abolition of the Tridentine Mass was wrong and destructive. We must retrace our steps and attempt to undo the blunders of the post-Vatican II Church. In one way or another, we must forge new connections to the liturgical tradition and the Mass of St Pius V. (Couldn't agree more. Simply eliminating improvisation where it doesn't belong and training priests to be icons rather than game-show hosts would help a lot.)

NB. The entire article can be found on Fr. Kimel's impeccably argued and always insightful blog, Pontifications (no longer updated)

Messiah or Flip-flopper?

11^th Week OT (W): 2 Cor 9.6-11 and Matt 6.1-6, 16-18
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

If Jesus were running for President and I were his opponent for office, my negative ad campaign machine would be buzzing right now! We’ve caught the Son of Man in a contradiction, a HUGE flip-flop that the American people will see and understand as a sign that this hippie-weirdo is too weak to occupy the White House come next January. Since we’ve just discovered the flip-flop, we don’t have a polished attack ready just yet, but it go something like this: [grainy 35mm segment of Jesus walking among the poor of Dallas, handing out baskets of fish and loaves of bread, the frame is skewed to the left, Jesus’ voice is slightly tweaked to sound squeakier] Jesus says to the crowd of supporters: “Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.” The crowd goes wild, cheering! Jesus humbly bows and continues to hand out food. Across the screen in big red letters the words “FLIP” and then “FLOP” appear on the screen, and the scene fades to Jesus [bright light, good color, clear voices, handheld “feel”] teaching his campaign staff a little strategy: “Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father[…]when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.” At that second Jesus sees the camera, jumps up from the rock, and rushes over to cover the lenses! Cut to final shot: [huge red letters]: MESSIAH? or JUST ANOTHER FLIP-FLOPPER??? Cut and print! I’ve already picked out the wall in the White House where my new plasma TV is going to hang…

So, being a good Christian, do you obey Jesus and get out there and do good works for all to see, or do you obey Jesus and do your good works in secret so no one sees you doing them? Yes. I mean “both.” Of course. You do both. You didn’t think the answer was as simple as “pick one,” did you? How can you do both and still be obedient? Easy. Jesus is not so much worried here about WHAT we do. He’s much more worried about the state of our “inner room” while we do good works; he’s more worried about WHY we do good works. In the first lecture, he tells us to do good works in order to glorify God—a positive admonition. In the second lecture, he tells us not to do good works if we are doing them to glorify ourselves—a warning. Obviously, intent is the key. But does intent—good or bad—effect the health of the good done? $1,000 given with good intent or bad will buy the same amount baby formula for the homeless shelter.

Paul also helps us out here with this teaching: “…whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows abundantly will also reap abundantly […] God is able to make every grace abundant for you [so that] you may have an abundance for every good work.” First, “sparingly” and “abundantly” here refer to the generosity of the heart that gives and not dollar amounts or hours worked. It is possible to give $1m sparingly and $.50 abundantly. Works done with an abundance of charitable intent will sow and reap abundant grace for both the receiver and the giver. Paul says that God will “increase the harvest of your righteousness”! And Jesus tells us no fewer than three times that if we pray and give and work to glorify God rather than ourselves, our Father in heaven will repay us.

Well, my negative ad people are upset that Jesus found a clever way around our attack. Promising divine abundance to those who do good works to glorify his Father…wow…we didn’t see that coming! Nevermind though. We just heard a rumor that Jesus offended a group of pagans and then tried to impose some sort of religious litmus test on his followers, something about a rigid formula for praying. Good stuff! Americans really hate narrow-minded religious bigots. Who does this Jesus think he is telling people how to pray!? The Son of God…!?

Showing some cheek, or PKPK

11^th Week OT: 2 Cor 6.1-10 and Matthew 5.38-42
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

[NB. This is a revised version of this morning's homily preached at the 7.15 Conventual Mass.]

Neither Paul nor Jesus would pass the “Does he look and sound Presidential?” test. I take it a as a given that neither of them owned a blue suit, got $300 haircuts, or capped their teeth. More telling for their short futures in American politics is their wimpy policies of international appeasement. Reminds me of one of my college friends, Tim. During the 1984 Presidential election, we were watching the debates between Reagan and Mondale on the dorm TV. Anytime the camera rested on Mondale, Tim would shout at the screen: “Come on, dog! Roll over!” If Tim had been among the disciples the morning Jesus taught them to offer no resistance to evil but to turn the other cheek…well, I’m afraid Tim might have shown our Lord some cheek and walked off, looking for a more realistic education among the worldly. I won’t take a poll, but when it comes to today’s gospel reading, I’m willing to bet that there are more Tim’s here this morning than most of us would like to admit. . . .

The very idea that we must restrain our resistance to evil is strange. Wouldn’t we expect Jesus to be telling the disciples to get out there and battle evil! To get out there throwing out demons, casting devils into hell, slinging righteous anger left and right?! Isn’t there a spiritual war being waged right now? Why are we being taught to “offer no resistance to one who is evil”? I think we might find part of an answer in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. He writes, “Brothers and sisters: as your fellow workers, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain […] We cause no one to stumble in anything, in order that no fault may be found with our ministry…” In other words, having fruitfully received God’s grace, Paul and his co-workers demonstrate the fruitful reception of God’s grace by doing nothing out of vengeance, nothing out of hatred that would soil the pristine message of the Good News. In the midst of “hardships, constraints, and beatings,” they endure with the “weapons of righteousness,” that is, they persist in “purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in unfeigned love, in truthful speech, in the power of God[…]”

Paul gets it. The very point of being an apostle, a preacher of the Word is to go out and proclaim the Good News. What do you do when the inevitable opposition flairs and you are confronted by those who would silence you? You could 1) shut up and retreat; 2) preach louder and advance fighting; 3) compromise the message and avoid conflict by sucking up to the Enemy; or 4) keep on preaching and advancing, using every instance of ridicule, violent opposition; every attempt at suppression or persecution, turning any and all challenges into occasions to serve the needy, to teach the ignorant, to show how mercy is done, how compassion is done; to press on in purity, knowledge, patience and kindness.

Why would it ever occur to us to become the Enemy in order to witness faithfully to the Enemy? We are lost when we exchange the supernatural, unfeigned love of Christ for a grubby infatuation with the toxic-plastics of our secular culture’s spiritual landfill—a dump polluted with Gameboy warfare and Instant Message diplomacy; with the torn bodies of our infant future, sacrificed to calculated utility, the Greater Good, and our need for cosmetic immortality; polluted with all the human debris leftover after we’ve solved our inconvenient worries with a judicious (and legal!) application of merciful-death; polluted with the ugly offal of ornamental celebrity and silicone-beauty and the horror of an adolescent wasteland of desperate girls who cut themselves and starve themselves b/c the Hollywood Barbies shun the fat and poor; a cultural and spiritual landfill polluted with the machines and chemicals and processes of abandonment, rage, betrayal, and sorrow. . .How can we be authentic witnesses against the Nothingness that would consume us if we ourselves worship the Idols of Nothingness and consume everyone, everything we claim to love?

Therefore, you have heard it said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. Offer, instead, purity, knowledge, patience, and kindness.

Photo credit: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Marjory

Being a Great Love, or How You Feel Doesn't Matter

11^th Sunday OT: 2 Sam 12.710, 13; Galatians 2.16, 19-21; Luke 7.36-8.3
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital, Dallas, TX

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Let’s say you are going to confession. You pour your heart out to the priest, truly rending your soul of every sin and making an Act of Contrition that brings tears to your eyes. The priest gives you a merciful penance and then pronounces absolution, “…I absolve you from all your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Right that second! How do you feel? What do you feel right that second? Relief? A burden lifted? Do you feel happy or clean or do you feel a little mischievous, like you’ve gotten away with something diabolical? Do you feel sad or pleased, or do you feel nothing at all? Except perhaps the weight of the sins you have just confessed? Maybe you are thinking and feeling that the absolution didn’t “take.” Didn’t work for me. Maybe if I do my penance, then I will feel like it worked. Maybe if I do my penance twice or three times, it will work. Or maybe you’re on the other side of this problem; maybe you feel nothing after the absolution, so you conclude that confession and absolution are pointless. What’s the point if I don’t feel guilty for my sins in the first place, and I don’t feel relieved after I confess and receive absolution? I feel OK with God right now and that’s enough for me.

Let me ask you this—regardless of how (precisely) you are confused about confession—why does the sinful woman wash Jesus’ feet with her tears, drying them with her hair and anointing them with oil? Why does this sinful woman risk being violently ejected from Simon’s house? Why does she expend her precious oil on this gesture? For a favor? To be paid? For attention? To feel better about herself? No. No. No. She humbles herself in these acts of service to Jesus in order to show him Great Love. Have you ever been to confession for no other reason than to show your Lord Great Love?

I’ll confess: I never have! For some reason I have always thought of confession as a sacrament about Me. My confession. My contrition and penance. My absolution. Now, I feel better—even if for no other reason than I’ve completed an expected task. How very sad. How sad that anyone would approach the sacrament of reconciliation as a duty to perform, as a task to just get done. Over with and out. But given the drives and lusts of our secular culture, are we really surprised that this sort of distortion is so common? So deeply soaked and thoroughly wetted are we in our middle-class pragmaticism and materialism that we come to understand the mysteries of the Lord’s sacraments in purely functional terms, in simply practical or utilitarian terms. Have you ever heard someone say, “I don’t go to Mass anymore b/c I don’t get anything out of it?” Insert pretty much any religious practice in place of “Mass” in that sentence and you get what I think of as the typical American Catholic response to the faith. The pragmatic notion that we must “get something out of” a commitment or a promise or a vow is absurd in light of this morning’s gospel. The Great Love that Christ shows us from the Cross and the Empty Tomb is freely given, no strings attached. Can we love as freely? Even if there is nothing to be gained personally, can we love so purely, so excessively, so overwhelmingly so?

We can if we will. Paul writes to the Galatians, “I have been crucifed with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me…” You see the genuis of the Catholic faith is that nothing required of us is truly required of us alone. We admit from the beginning that we can do nothing without first receiving the grace, the gifts, necessary to complete the task. Even our desire to cooperate with God’s various gifts to us is itself a gift. Our completed tasks in grace are no more responsible for saving us than any number of goats slaughtered and burned on an altar. We are not made just by our works. In other words, we cannot work our way into holiness apart from the God of grace that motivates us to do good works. Paul writes, “We who know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ even we have believed in Christ Jesus…b/c by works of the law no one will be justified.” We are made just when we are crucifed with Christ (in baptism) and when he abides in us (in confession and Eucharist) we remain just. We can proclaim with Paul then, “I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself for me.”

Can we, then, be members of the Body of Christ, the Church, who participate in the ministries of the Church not for pragmatic gain, nor the need to “feel something,” nor in the hope of fitting-in, but b/c we long to show Christ a Great Love, the love that he first showed us on the cross and shows us even now on this altar? Can we do what the sinful woman did: freely, openly, purely, and without caring about gossip or any negative consequences, can we express our Great Love for Christ and one another with the gifts of tears—humility, forgiveness, mercy; and the gifts of service—teaching, preaching, healing, feeding? Can you show others—for no other reason or purpose than your Great Love for Jesus—can you show others the Christ That Lives In You? And can you show them that Christ did not die for nothing but that he died and rose again for everything, everyone, everywhere? And can you show them that b/c he died and rose again for everything, everyone, everywhere, that they too, saying YES to his gifts of trust, hope, and love, that they too can shine out a Christ-light for all to see, that they too can wash filthy feet with repentant tears and anoint them freshly clean with precious oil?

If you can do all this, and you can, why could it possibly matter how you feel about it? Angry, depressed, joyful, exhausted, pitiful, happy—does it matter? Truly, does it matter? No, it doesn’t. Be careful: do not let fleeting emotions (no matter how passionate!) bargain with the triumphs of Love. Feel what you feel and Love anyway. Be angry and love anyway. Be depressed, exhausted, spiteful, and love anyway. Be elated, ecstatic, on cloud nine, and nearly uncontrollably happy, and love anyway. Be bored, isolated, cranky, and mean, and love anyway. Christ did not die for nothing. He died for you. And you are not nothing. You are everything to him. We are everything to him. Yes, our sins betray us! But his Great Love forgives us. Our debt is always canceled, always forgiven.

Knowing this, can you serve others, with Christ living in you, serve others as Christ served you?

Growing a Sacred Heart

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus: Ez 34.11-16; Rom 5.5-11; Luke 15.3-7
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
DECAT Mass (St. Rita)

[NB. This homily was written for and preached to about 250 fifth graders who are finishing up their time in the diocese's DECAT program (a summer program for academically gifted children attending Catholic schools). The sound is weird b/c I was moving around a lot. Also, this is the first time I have ever preached w/o reading my homily. . .]

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Having grown up Baptist in the deep south, it took me a long time to get used to this Catholic habit of venerating holy body parts: the arm of Aloysius, the head of Agnes, the chipped up bones of Martin, Dominic, Ignatius. Pieces of clothing or keepsakes like glasses or bookmarks seemed perfectly fine. But taking a saint’s pinkie bone and locking it in a gold trimmed, vacuumed sealed glass case for safe travel around the world…well, that’s just creepy. Spending time in Rome didn’t help me being any less creeped out either. Made it worse in fact! There’s a church there made of nothing but human skulls and thigh bones. It seems like every church has a Holy Body Part in a box and some have the whole body! Now, here we are today honoring the sacred heart of Jesus. What exactly are we honoring? And why?

Let’s answer these questions with this one: what is the link between Jesus’ sacred heart and this morning’s biblical image of Jesus as a good shepherd? To start an answer to this question and the two previous questions, we need to know what the heart is and does in our Catholic spirituality. Historically, the heart for our faith is a symbol of the whole person, the person made whole by God, brought to the fullness of healing, and set right in holiness. All of the various images of the heart bear this out: the pierced heart of Mary, showing us her grief; the crowned heart of Jesus, showing us his triumph over death in heaven, and so on. The heart is also a mystical image of our covenant with God. Think of your heart as a tabernacle, a holy vault where you keep your promises to God and He keeps His to you. Your heart then is that place in your soul where you are closest to God, most intimate with the Holy Spirit; your heart is the center of our very being, the source of your life.

Now, I have to tell you what your heart isn’t, or better yet how the word “heart” gets used in our popular media and why that use doesn’t apply to us here. How many of you have heard Disney characters tell the story’s hero: “Just follow your heart! Feel your way along!” I heard Yoda say this to Obi Wan Kenobi just yesterday afternoon. I groaned out loud and switched the channel back to Mythbusters. At least they were blowing up raw chickens with nitro. The idea that the “heart” rules our deliberations, governs our passions, and serves as an infallible guide to our decision-making isn’t all that crazy if (IF!) we remember that God governs the heart. But Hollywood generally means that we should just do what we want to do and use the excuse “I was just following my heart” to justify whatever mess we cause in acting irrationally.

OK. Back to Jesus’ sacred heart and the Good Shepherd. Here’s what Christ wants for you and from you. What he wants for you is a life of holiness lived in service to others. There is no holiness for the Christian without service to others. Let me say that again: if you do not serve others—help other people when they need your help—you cannot grow in holiness. God loves you and His love for you is perfected (made complete, whole) in you when you use your talents and gifts for the benefit of others. Your job is to become Christ for other people—doing what he did, teaching what he taught, and preaching what he preached. You can do this with your brains, your hands, your back, with music, words, paints, numbers, motherly talents, fatherly talents, with technology, without it, in an office or a church, with song, dance, a poem or a novel, whatever gift God has given you to improve on: use it, use all of them, for others. That’s what Jesus wants for you.

What does he want from you? Christ is the Good Shepherd, his heart is holy, his relationship with His Father is perfect. Everything that Christ is as a person is wholly perfect in God the Father and the Holy Spirit. There is nothing we can give Christ or do for Christ that will add to his perfection. All we can do is multiple his love in the Church. So what he wants from us is to be good shepherds ourselves. To be men and women with strong hearts, clear vision, peaceful souls, and welcoming arms. Sometimes the shepherd has to redirect the flock from danger. Sometimes a sheep wanders away and must be brought back. Sometimes the wolves chase the flock and the shepherd has to defend his sheep. Each of us is responsible for the flock in his or her own way. Make sure your heart, that place in your soul where you keep the covenant, is ready for the challenge, ready to break free and get to work for God’s greater glory!

Paul writes to the Romans: “The love of God has been poured out into your hearts through the Holy Spirit…God [has proven] his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Notice here: Christ did not wait for us to stop sinning before he died for us. He died so that we might be freed from sin. The Good Shepherd came running after us. We don’t have to find him. He has already found us. Now, we walk around with the tabernacle of God’s love, with hearts brightened by the Spirit’s fire.

Do what you must to perfect your gifts and talents. And a huge part of that perfection will be using your gifts and talents for the benefit of others. Some would say to you that you are too young to be thinking about giving your life to a gift or a talent or a service. I say: now is precisely the time to take on a passion, to pick up a call to do something heroic, to do something holy and to be a saint. When it comes to God perfecting His love in you, why would anyone choose to wait until later?

The Good Shepherd's Sacred Heart

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus: Ez 34.11-16; Rom 5.5-11; Luke 15.3-7
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Serra Club Mass (Church of the Incarnation)

What does it mean to “boast of God”? Paul tells the Romans that b/c they are reconciled to the Father in Christ Jesus that they may boast of God. Are we to brag about His power? His mercy? Are we to talk him up like a presidential candidate? Or are we lifting Him up so that we might be lifted up as well? Rising in glory with Him? These all seem a little self-serving. A little too much like pride slopping over the edges of vanity and spilling out into self-promotion. Such publicity—especially for personal enlargement—does little to strenghten the source of legit boasting: a Christ-shaped heart pounding out the loving blood of service and sacrifice. Our Good Shepherd rescues us from the rugged gullies and the dark forests and brings us back to level ground and light. It is precisely his love for us that sends him out in search of just me or just you. With great joy he finds us lost and celebrates our return. That joy, that elation at the return of just one lost soul is the burst of holy fire, the BANG! of the Spirit that shakes our own hearts, lets us feel his pleasure at giving his Father one more broken spirit. So full are we then with the light and warmth and glow and crackle and silk smooth love of Christ’s sacrifice that our own hearts are set apart, consecrated for holy duties, becoming that place in us out of which we serve and serve and serve. The Good Shepherd knows his sheep because his sheep pump his blood; his sheep hold his sacred heart in their bodies and feel the pounding of all the love he can pour in. He died for us while we were still sinners. Still sinners. He died for us confident that our own hearts—tabernacles made to hold his presence—would come alive with his blood. The Psalmist says this morning, “Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life.” Can you say that? Listening to the thump of the shepherd in your heart, can you say that goodness and kindess will follow you…everyday of your life? If not, do not boast of God. Do not claim His presence or patronage. If your heart will burst with goodness, then boast! Tell it all to the world! Boast of His words, deeds, and what He has done for you. Boast your witness until the conflagration of all sacred hearts.

A surpassing Righteousness

10^th Week OT(R): 2 Cor 3.15-4.1, 3-6 and Matthew 5.20-26
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

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Jesus teaches us that “unless [our] righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, [we] will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.” Then Paul tell us that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” We are able to surpass the righteousness of those who merely comply with the Law b/c we are freed by the Spirit of the Lord to live our lives within the Law as Christ’s coming fulfilled it, that is, in his Spirit we recognize the will of the Father; by grace we are able to cooperate with His will, growing in holiness; and therefore, the Law becomes a sign for us, a structure through which we see the fullness of the truth. In Christ Jesus, the Law becomes an icon through which we meet the glory of God. And here the veil of mere compliance, of just “following the rules” is removed and the ends of the Law rise to the surface: we are to be made righteous, made perfect, made God. Paul goes on to tell us, “All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory…”

Jesus tells us that our righteousness must surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees. What is “righteousness”? It is the state of being in right relationship with God, being as holy as is humanly possible in cooperation with God’s grace. The Old Covenant is clear about this: to be righteous is to comply with the Law (dietary, temple, etc.). If strict compliance with the Law were our only measure of what counts as “righteous,” well, we’re in trouble. Those guys had the Law down pat. Jesus knew this. But Jesus isn’t talking about mere compliance with the Law. He came to fulfill the Law, that is, he came to complete the Law, to perfect it for us now so that we might surpass the righteousness of the most observant scribe or Pharisee. By showing us the ends of the Law, the eternal purposes of the Law, he shows us a way to righteousness through and beyond the Law. . .but never around it!

Now, all that sounds good. But thank God for Jesus and his good example! Look at it again. You shall not kill. A good prohibition. But is the only purpose of this law to make killing a crime? In one sense, yes. Killing is a crime. But why is killing a crime? Just b/c God says so? Jesus fully teases out the implications of this law: it is self-righteous anger that leads to killing; it is a certain disposition of the spirit that moves you to murder, moves you to treat another person as if he or she is worthy of death for making your angry. Certainly, the act of killing kills charity in your heart! But Jesus’ point seems to be: wait! the act of murder starts long before the knife slides in or the gun goes off. Therefore, the end of the law against killing is to habituate us to respect the dignity of the person as a creature of God—His image and likeness. Though murder may be the most violent act we can commit against human dignity, it is far from the only violence we are capable of. And we delude ourselves and one another when we assume that by merely refraining from killing, we are respecting the dignity of the person.

Jesus concludes his discourse on the purposes of the Law by urging us to “get right” with one another before we sacrifice at the altar. We give ourselves here. We are the gift. Given life by God through Christ, we give our lives back to Him in service. The goats and lambs for the temple altar were unblemished. And so the offerings we bring—our hearts and minds—must be unblemished as well. No self-righteousness, no pride, no envy or deceit.

If you will be transformed into the perfect image of Christ, you will accept the freedom that the ends of the Law offers. There you will find the Spirit of the Lord, waiting with mercy and love.

Of Poverty & Wolves

St. Anthony of Padua: Isa 61.1-3 and Luke 10.1-9
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation

PODCAST!

Jesus sends out ahead of him seventy-two disciples. He gives them instructions on how to greet peaceable people once in the town. And how to eat and drink what is given. And not to be jumping from house to house. And how to proclaim the Good News: “The kingdom of God is at hand for you.” Oddly, he sends them out without money, without a sack, and without shoes. And he tells them not to acquire any of these along the way. I suppose if Jesus were with us as a teacher now, he would send out his seventy-two without credit cards, luggage, and cell phones. What point is he making by imposing such a seemingly burdensome restriction on his preachers? Notice where this restriction comes in the reading; it comes just after this ominous line: “Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among the wolves.” Can we say that the required poverty of possessions is a weapon against the ravening wolves? I think so. How so?

To the degree that we are attached to this world, the degree to which we find our ultimate worth, our final end in the come and go of material creation, to that degree are we beholding to the wolves. When we look at all those things that collect around us where we live and work, all those ideas and passions that sink us firmly in the ground of the temporary, when we look closely and deeply at our weights and anchors, we look squarely into the eyes of the wolf. Lean, hungry, ruthless, and violent. To this wolf and its hunger your soul is a nibbling snack. Gobbled up like a bite of bloody rabbit in the snow. What holds you down, weighs against your escape from the wolf is the delusion that what you see and hear and taste and feel all around you is your final end, your goal. It isn’t. It can’t be. All of this too will pass away. Why invest your soul in impermanent order, in temporary things?

Jesus knows well the psychology of the wolf. The wolf is always hungry. Always hunting. Always brutal in taking down its prey. The wolves of Jesus’ day lied about him in court; paid off witnesses to testify against him; intentionally misstated his teachings to trap him in heresy; and, eventually, one of his friends betrayed him for silver. Jesus knows well how the wolf works. He also knows the temptations of the world. The seduction of power and wealth; the obsessive heart that collects things rather than love; the compulsive mind that mulls over reason and ignores truth. And the quickest, deadliest enemy of all: the temptation to despair in the face of repeated spiritual failures.

Knowing the wolf, the possible seductions, obsessions, and temptations, Jesus requires his preachers to go out among the wolves naked of ambition, freed from possessions, completely shorn of the desire to collect and accumulate. And he makes it possible for them to succeed by pointing out that success in preaching is the business of the preacher, the hearer, and the Spirit moving between them. The preacher must preach, the hearer must listen, and the Spirit will move hearts and minds to Christ’s peace.

If it is not money or shoes or books or gadgets that anchor you, what is it? What will you have to drag behind you, running in the snow, when the wolves catch your scent? Or will you opt to live the life of an Occasional Wolf, a lamb in wolves’ fur? I’m no shaman, but I hear that pretending to be an animal too well and too long will eventually change you into that animal. Will you be a wolf then?

To take this animal metaphor from the sublime to the ridiculous: we are required to be lambs among the wolves, as gentle as doves and as wise as serpents! So get out there with all the gentleness and wisdom you can muster and preach the gospel to everyone who will listen. And watch the wolves—they get hungry for mutton when they hear the truth spoken.

Tasteless & Dark, we are useless

10^th Week OT (Tues): 2 Cor 1.18-22 and Matthew 5.13-46
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, University of Dallas

PODCAST!

Where is your flavor? Where is your light? Have you gone stale? Dim? Tasteless and dark? Or do you season well everything you do with Christ’s love, season well everyone you meet? Do you shine out before others the wonders our Lord has done for you? Does your presence push shadows into the light? If not, why not? Tasteless and dark, you are useless to the Lord. To be stale and dim in the faith before the world is an anti-witness, a testimony at cross-purposes with the gospel. Instead of proclaiming in word and deed the freedom of God’s mercy, the boundless possibilities of our Father’s love, instead, being tasteless and dark, we confirm the prejudices of this world’s blackest hearts and most ruthless minds: God is a fairytale best left to children’s books. We know this is a lie. But do we live lives—out there!—in a way that provides ample, positive evidence that God is not a fairytale or a brutal projection of our desire to control chaos or a figment of a collective subconscious wish for an eternal Parent?

In other words, do you live out there in the same way you worship in here? Out there, do you love Christ openly? Freely? Do you proclaim with the words of your mouth and the work of your hands the glory of God? Do you show others The Way to eternal life in Christ? Is it plain to everyone around you that for you Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life? Do you exude the peace of Christ, the obedient YES of Mary, the remarkable surrender to divine providence of Christ’s final minutes on the cross? Do you live and move and have your being in God, living day to day trusting in His promises, believing His faithful YES’s and knowing that, though you and I are not perfect yet, we are, in Christ Jesus, being perfected for a life that glorifies God forever?

What is your light and what is your lampstand? My questions to you here should not be heard as a kind of Christian fundamentalism. I am not pushing a “Jesus alone is enough” spirituality. Our Catholic faith is never about Me and God. It is always Us and God. And in that “us” each of us exercises a nature unique to the person, a set of gifts and talents combined in a way that will, once used for the benefit of others, cooperate with God’s will for each of us and perfect His love in each of us. Your light is your set of gifts, your bag of talents given to you to glorify God. Your lampstand is how you choose to use those gifts for our good. And as a member of the Body, any perfection in God’s love for you is a grace for me and everyone else in the Body. When I grow in holiness, so do you. When you are healed, I am healthier. Let’s be thorough here: when any member of the Body is diseased, the whole Body is sick. If salvation is not about Me and Jesus, then neither is sin just about Me and Jesus. Look not, Lord, on our sins but on the faith of your Church.

Your light must shine before others! Not for your benefit alone but for all of us out here who fail so regularly, who fall so frequently, who need the whole Body for strength to go on. Tasteless and dark, we are useless to one another. This doesn’t mean moral or spiritual perfection right now. It does mean that we have promised at baptism to show Christ to anyone who looks our way; to show him as faithfully, as fully as our current progress in holiness will allow. And it means that do so with a spirit of work, working to understand His Self-revelation; working to clarify and know more deeply His wisdom; working, always working with the gifts of the Spirit—intellect and will—to purify ourselves of narcissism and disobedience so that we may come to be servants worthy of serving Him and one another.

Where is your flavor? Where is your light? You must shine before others, so that we may all see Christ more clearly.

"With more sisters wearing the habit. . ."

Check out this great video of the Nashville Dominican Sisters. Very powerful stuff!

And this Today Show piece on the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.

God is blessing these faithful congregations with energetic young women and He is blessing the rest of us with them! Amen.

Of Justification and Homies

The University of Dallas' very own Dr. Chris Malloy is interviewed over at the Ignatius Press blog. Dr. Malloy fields questions on what I think is probably the most difficult theological specialty in the discipline: the problems of justification.

Check it out!

Also, I learned today that this blog has a fan base among Homeschooling Mothers! Who knew? So, here's a shout out to all my Homies (hehehehehe) in the homeschooling world. . .

So, you wanna be a Christian...

Feast of St. Barnabas: 2 Cor 1.1-7 and Matthew 5.1-12
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

PODCAST!

Every time the Beatitudes roll around in the lectionary cycle, I am tempted to preach a homily called the “Uglititudes.” You can imagine, I think, what this homily might look like. There would a litany of ugly vices opposed to all those beautiful virtues; some wordplay that makes it sound like we should be ugly rather than beautiful; for a little humor there would be one or two unfair swipes at self-serving interpretations of Jesus’ litany—pacifism, moral perfectionism; and the whole thing would conclude with a surprising, twisty reading of the word “beatitude” and a bouncy admonition to be a prophet or to rejoice more or maybe to volunteer at a shelter or something like that. No one wants to be predictable but ruts will groove the hardest clay when traveled on long enough. What do you imagine the disciples thought of the whole Beatitude homily? Predictable? Standard stuff? Safe, middle-class prattle? I’m willing to bet that they were thinking: “You have got to be kidding with this!”

Let’s get a definition. St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his homilies on the Beatitudes, teaches us that, “Beatitude…is a possession of all things held to be good, from which nothing is absent that a good desire may want.” He goes on to write that “beatitude” is opposed to ‘misery,” which he defines as “being afflicted unwillingly with painful sufferings.” Then he says, “Now the one thing truly blessed is Divinity Itself. Whatever else we may suppose [the Divine Self] to be, this pure life, the ineffable and incomprehensible good, is beatitude.” So, for me to say that I am in a state of beatitude is to say that I possesses all the good things that I want; that I am not afflicted with any painful sufferings; and that I participate fully in the Divine Life. Who here is blessed in precisely this way?

And now this is why the disciples might be thinking to themselves, “You have got to be kidding!” As a standard of blessedness, the Beatitudes are tough. To be poor in spirit, meek, hungry for righteousness, clean of heart, merciful, to be peacemakers and ready to die as martyrs—these are our standards of holiness, our measures for blessedness. You have go to be kidding me! Nope. No kidding. There’s nothing predictable here. Nothing worn or rutted. Jesus is plainly, simply drawing out the spiritual implications of choosing to walk his Way; he is unpacking for us all the baggage that comes with sincerely calling him “Lord,” all of the consequences of accepting his death on the cross and his resurrection from the tomb as our own death and resurrection. In other words, the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ answer to this question: “Lord, what will happen to me if I choose to follow you?” Blessed are you…

For they will be comforted. For they will be satisfied. For they will be shown mercy. Future tense. How about now? I asked earlier who here is blessed in precisely the way Gregory of Nyssa defines beatitude. A better question: who here expects to be blessed in beatitude? An even better question: who here, looking to a future in Perfect Beatitude, is experiencing imperfect Beatitude now, small day to day blessings right now?

The Sermon on the Mount is best read like a map. It shows us our starting point, our destination, and all the ways to get to where we are going. But reading a map ain’t the same as taking a trip. Blessed are they (then) who travel the Way. For they will be brought to Beauty Himself. This is not a prediction but a promise. And there is nothing safe about it.

Deep fired sacramentum caritatis with pork gravy

Corpus Christi: Gen 14.18-20; 1 Cor 11.23-26; Luke 9.11-17
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, University of Dallas

PODCAST!

These are a few of my favorite things: Buttermilk dripped and deep-fried chicken. Butter beans with bacon and onions. Garlic mashed potatoes and chicken gravy. Greens with fatback and vinegar. Squash casserole, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole with pecans and brown sugar crust. Deviled eggs. Warm biscuits with honey butter. Homemade, cast-iron skillet cornbread with real butter. Fresh yeast rolls. Pecan pie. Chocolate pie. Mississippi Mud Cake. Bread pudding with whiskey sauce. Can you tell I’m a true blood Southerner?!* Each of these and all of them together do more than just expand my waistline and threaten the structural integrity of my belt—each and all of them together make up for me a palette of memories, a buffet (if you will!) of powerful reminders of who I am, where I came from, who I love, who loves me, and where I am going. Second perhaps only to sex, eating is one of the most intimate things we do. Think about it for just a second: when you eat, you take into your body stuff from the world—meat, vegetables, water, tea—you put this stuff in your mouth, you chew, you taste and feel, you smell and swallow, and all of it, every bite, becomes your body. This is extraordinarily intimate! You are made up of, built out of what you eat.

What does it mean then for you, for us to eat the Body of Christ and to drink his Blood?

Thomas Aquinas answers: “Since it was the will of God’s only-begotten Son that men should share in his divinity, he assumed our nature in order that by becoming man he might make men gods.” God became man so that we all might become god. In Christ Jesus, we are made more than holy, more than just, more than righteous; we are made perfect. Wholly joined to Holy Other, divinized as God promised at the moment of creation, we are brought to the divine by the Divine and given our participation in the life of God by God. We are brought and given. Brought to Him by Him and given to Him by Him. We do not go to God uninvited and we do not take from Him what is not first given. Therefore, “take, eat, this is my body, which is given up for you…” And when you take the gift of his body and eat and when you take the gift of his blood and drink, you become what you eat and drink. You become Christ. And together we are Christ for one another—his Body, the church.

Thomas calls the Eucharist the “sacramentum caritatis,” the sacrament of love. The Eucharist is not a family picnic or Sunday dinner. We’re not talking about a community meal or a neighborhood buffet. All of these can and do express genuine love for God, self, and neighbor. But Thomas is teaching us something far more radical about the Eucharist here than the pedestrian notion that eating together makes us better people and a stronger community! The sacramentum caritatis is an efficacious sign of God’s gift of Himself to us for our perfection. In other words, the Eucharist we celebrate this morning is not just a memorial, just a symbol, just a community prayer service, just a familial gathering, just a ritual. In Christ, with him and through him, we effect—make real and produce—the redeeming graces of Calvary and the Empty Tomb: Christ on the cross and Christ risen from the grave. Again, we are not merely being reminded of an important bible story nor are we being taught a lesson about sharing and caring nor are we simply “feeling” Christ’s presence among us. We are doing exactly what Christ tells us to do: we are eating his body and drinking his blood for our perfection, for our eternal lives. And while we wait for his coming again, we walk this earth as Christs! Imperfect now, to be perfected eventually; but right now, radically loved by Love Himself and loved so that we may be changed, converted from our disobedience, brought to repentance and forgiveness, and absolved of all violence against God’s will for us.

Thomas teaches us that God gave us the Eucharist in order “to impress the vastness of [His] love more firmly upon the hearts of the faithful…” How vast is His love for us? He gifted us with His Son. He gave His only child up to death so that we might live. And He gave us the means of our most intimate communion with Him. We take his body into our bodies. His blood into ours. We are made heirs, brothers and sisters, prophets and priests; we are made holy, just, and clean; we are made Christ and being made Christ, we are given his ministries, his holy tasks: teaching, preaching, healing, feeding. This Eucharist tells you who you are, where you came from, where you are going. It tells you why you are here and what you must do. And most importantly, this celebration of thanksgiving, tells you and me who it is that loves us and what being loved by Love Himself means for our sin, our repentance, our conversion, our ministries, our progress in holiness…

Do not fail to hand on what you yourself have received: the gift of the Christ. Walk out those doors this morning and present yourself to the world as a sacramentum caritatis. Walk out of here a sacrament of love—a sign, a witness, a cipher, an icon—walk out of here stamped with the Holy Spirit. Preach, teach, bless, feed, eat, drink, pray, and spread the infectious joy of the children of God!

A Southern blessing: as your waist expands to fill the limits of your belt, so may your spirit grow to hold the limitless love of Him Who loves us always.

*NB. To answer a question asked after Mass about my menu, "Yes, I can cook every dish listed here!" Oh, and I forgot "grits."

Your prayers, please...

I am back in Irving! The annual provincial assembly went extremely well. It was a most unusual meeting of the brothers of the Southern Province.

I would ask your prayers for the province as we continue to discern our way with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. May we open ourselves to all those changes necessary to grow and thrive as preachers of the Gospel.

I would ask your prayers for me personally. I have been presented with an opportunity and a substantial challenge. Both will require me to spend lots of time seeking the Spirit's voice and straining to hear how He is wanting me to respond. There is a fundamental question of obedience here and the paths to take lead to radically different places. . .I need wisdom!

God bless, Fr. Philip, OP

P.S. Since my prior is away at a meeting and not around to chastise me, let me mention again that my birthday is May 26th. My Wish List is fully functioning and recently updated to reflect some of my new reality. I am deeply grateful for all the books I receive!