Mercy Crushing Comfort

13 Week OT (F): Genesis 23.1-4, 19; 24.1-8, 62-67 and Matthew 9.9-13
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation/Serra Club Mass

Listen to my homilies here!

No doubt we are meant to find some comfort in this gospel scene. Jesus picks out Matthew, a customs officer, a Jew who works for the Romans as a tax-collector. Jesus says to Matthew, “Follow me.” And he does. Jesus takes Matthew to his table and eats with him and other notorious sinners—an unclean act for an observant Jew! And the Pharisees are scandalized. They question Jesus’ students, “Why does your Master eat with sinners?” And Jesus gives them an answer that probably shocked the puritanical Pharisees but comforts us in our self-conscious frailty: “The well don’t need a doctor,” Jesus says, “but the sick do…I came not to call the righteous but sinners.” We do find this comforting. But there’s nothing comfortable about it. The biblical tradition Jesus is calling on here is this: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” And there is perhaps nothing more disconcerting to comfort than mercy.

Have you ever found yourself defending your fallenness by saying, “Like Jesus said, ‘The well don’t need a doctor.’” Or maybe when you have fallen into sin you say on your own behalf, “Thank God Jesus came to call sinners. . .” What are we doing when we use these phrases in this way? Obviously, we’re quoting Jesus from today’s gospel, but are we doing getting at the root of the teaching here or just casting off a line, hoping to excuse a sin? There is a way in which we can use these phrases to be flippant about our fallenness and our redemption in Christ Jesus. There is a way in which this fundamental lesson on mercy can be turned into a divine permission slip for ignoring disobedience.

Let your own experience bear this out: how often have you heard faithful Christians use the phrase “but Jesus ate with sinners” to gloss over the notorious public sin of those who would use a veneer of Catholicism to lend social credibility to their otherwise starkly barren spiritual lives? The implication of the excuse seems to be that by eating with sinners Jesus somehow teaches us that the sin of a notorious sinner isn’t sin at all. This is simply false. Jesus is, in fact, demonstrating something far more profound with unclean act, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

How much easier it is for us to accept punishment for our sins than it is to accept mercy! There is in us something that seems to demand balance, desire recompense; something that wants our faults whipped but not eliminated entirely. Do you ever feel justified in sinning again b/c you feel like you’ve been punished already? We want to sacrifice! We want there to be clean and unclean acts, good and bad attitudes; we want these b/c we want boundaries; we want totems and taboos. There is something immensely comforting about being told, “Do no cross the line!” Great. Now I know where to stop. The road is not endless. And Jesus is truly messing things up when he says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Mercy is a wild freedom, a near chaotic dispersal of undeserved forgiveness, of amnesty broadcast unbounded; mercy is health freed from medicine, the good end without the ugly means; mercy comes from sacrifice but not from any sacrifice you and I are capable of making. That sacrifice, made once for all, was made and is still being made by the Physician himself.

He can eat with sinners—and he calls them unequivocally “sinners”—b/c he is the sacrifice that will bring them to healing. He does not require an atoning sacrifice of them b/c he is the willing sacrifice for us all, once for all, and what he desires from us, his disciples and children, is that we live our lives—lives given to us—in the discomforting messes of mercy: that great destroyer of expected balance, the needful waster of perfectly good self-righteousness.

If you are prepared to welcome the spiritual anarchy of Christ’s mercy into your sinful life, then follow him to the table where the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the pro-abortion politicians, the war-mongers, where all your favorite sinners eat. Show mercy. And do not demand from them the sacrifice that was never demanded of you.

Lori Kay (Pic Credit)

Independence in the Lord

Independence Day USA (4^th of July): Isa 32.15-18 and Luke 12.15-21
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

If we were to look to our country for signs of the Lord’s favor, what would we find? First, would we even recognize signs of the Lord’s favor? Can we tell the difference between what the Lord has given us all as a gift and what we have earned by our ingenuity and hard work? It’s a trick question, of course. For us, that is, for Christians, there is no difference really between what we work to earn and what the Lord gives us. Those skills, those attitudes of industry and creativity, all of those spirits of innovation, commerce, longing for growth, all of it, everything we use to work for our prosperity is first given to us by God. Whatever abundance, whatever excess, whatever generous plenty that we enjoy as a result of sweat, bent backs, calloused hands, or talented minds hurting at the edges of possibility; whatever good or truth or beauty we build; all bounty, all harvest, all of our riches as individuals, as a nation of citizens and immigrants, and as a tribe of priests and prophets baptized in the death and resurrection of Christ, all we call mine, ours, and theirs is first and always the treasure of our God; His abundance first, then His gift to us in grace, and only then do we rightly call this nation’s material and spiritual flourishing “a blessing.”

Isaiah reminds us because we forget: “In those days: the spirit from on high will be poured out on us”. . .then the desert becomes an orchard and the orchard a forest; right and justice will live in the desert and orchard and God’s “people will live in peaceful country…” God says to Isaiah, “My people will live in peaceful country, in secure dwellings and quiet resting places.” When do we forget this peace? When do we forget that our wealth is a gift and not a right?

There is a forgetfulness in wealth that poverty holds at bay. The prophetic witness of scripture testifies to the inherent dangers of possessing too much. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that scripture warns against the dangers of believing that and behaving as if we possess anything at all. The greater the imaginary treasury, the more tightly the acquisitive imagination binds the greedy dreamer to things and their accumulation and security. Bigger barns! More treasure! Bigger barns! More and more treasure…! Better locks, tighter control, limited access. Mine, mine, mine. And the narcotic stupor of acquiring without giving thanks, of possessing without surrendering to generosity, of storing up without abandoning to divine providence, that sedating haze of entitlement clouds the presence of the Spirit and we fail in our avarice—just me, just you, and all of us as one in a nation—we fail in greed to look back at the font of our blessing, to remember, and to put our faith in the only place where it cannot be exhausted: the heart of Christ Jesus!

We can celebrate our independence from the British Empire today. (I have it one good authority that they were more than happy to cut us loose!) We can celebrate political and economic freedom, religious and press freedom; we can even celebrate a certain material prosperity that comes from our long and assertive history as entrepreneurial capitalists and proponents of enlightenment democracy. But if these are godly treasures, harvests gleaned from a divine bounty, then they cannot be stored, cannot be hoarded in barns of privilege, heredity, merit, or in anything as flimsy and accidental as nationality or race. Some will argue that as Americans our claim to be heroes of a progressive manifest destiny ended in Vietnam. That’s a question for historians. Here’s a question for us Christians who would be heroes (American or not!): will you surrender—in absolute trust—all that you have, all that you are; abandon entirely your life and your things, hiding nothing, holding nothing back; sacrificing for the good of others your bountiful harvest to the Source of your life and all your wealth?

If so, you are free already. And today is truly a day to rejoice in the independence of the Lord!

Reconciled in his fleshly body. . .

The reading for vespers this evening is taken from Paul’s letter to the Colossians (1.10-21). Though I have read and heard this passage many times, as Fr. Matt read out loud, I was floored by the power and clarity of what Paul is saying to us. I would be willing to argue that this passage, properly unpacked and presented, would make an excellent retreat mediation, or even something like a “mini-catechism” for reflection. Read it out loud and slowly. . .

“…we do not cease praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding to live in a manner worthy of the Lord, so as to be fully pleasing, in every good work bearing fruit and growing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with every power, in accord with his glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to the Father, who has made you fit to share in the inheritance of the holy ones in light. He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he himself might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things for him, making peace by the blood of his cross (through him), whether those on earth or those in heaven. And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind because of evil deeds he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through his death, to present you holy, without blemish, and irreproachable before him, provided that you persevere in the faith, firmly grounded, stable, and not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven…”

Print it out. Post it on the inside of your front door or on the visor of your car and read it aloud everyday as you begin your day, remembering especially that you are “ now reconciled in his fleshly body through his death,” and that you have been made presentable, “without blemish…provided that you persevere in the faith…”

Pic credit: Faces of Christ

Are you making daily deals for Sodom?

13 Week OT (M): Genesis 18.16-33 and Matthew 8.18-22
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

Listen to my homilies here

If God speaks to you today, do not harden your heart against His Word. That’s our gospel acclamation this morning. If we were to rewrite this acclamation to better suit our needs, to better reflect the reality of our spiritual lives, we might come up with: “If today you hear his voice, prepare a prioritized To Do list, noting which items are negotiable and which are deal-breakers; prepare another list of willing sacrifices—going to daily Mass, stop smoking, eating less—, prioritize these in order of increasing inconvenience and remember that July 4^th is coming up (note to self: scratch ‘stop drinking’ from negotiation list); practice sincere pleading tones on recorder; enlist help of those God likes more than me (e.g., Sr. Mary Grace, Fr. Bill, and my mom); note to self: call Mom” and so on. If today you hear His voice, alert the tactical negotiation teams! We have deals to make, people!

Now, Abraham was the first host of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Standing over Sodom and Gomorrah, the Lord tells Abraham that he, the Lord, must find out if the city is really as sinful as some claim. Abraham, hearing the voice of the Lord, launches into a negotiation that ends in a classic deal to save the city from divine destruction. Abraham, in a series of downsizing talks, persuades the Lord to spare the city if there are only fifty innocent people in the city, then forty-five innocents, and so on down to ten innocent people. It appears as though negotiating with God actually works! Does it? Not really. This incident is more about Abraham learning to ask for God’s mercy for others than it is about God’s mind being changed by a mere mortal. Nonetheless, Abraham heard the voice of his Lord, and rather than hardening his heart against the notorious sinners of Sodom, he risks the Lord’s anger, and asks that they be spared for the sake of the righteous.

In Matthew’s version of the story from Luke we heard read at Mass yesterday, Jesus is approached by a potential follower and Jesus invites a potential follower. The first is a scribe who says to Jesus, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Is this the opening line of a negotiation? I think so. Jesus could have said, “Good. Follow me.” Instead, he rather cryptically indicates that though the animals of the fields have homes, he himself has no home. Does Jesus sense hesitancy in the scribe? Maybe just a pinch of doubt about his claim of absolute fidelity? Jesus seems to be saying, “OK. You want to follow me wherever I go, uh? Fine. Know this then: my home is where I am and resting is not something I do much of. Still want to come?” The disciple that Jesus invites enters into a much more obvious negotiation: “I’ll follow you, Lord, but first let me bury my father.” Not one to pull punches or evade the truth, Jesus says simply, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.” Meaning what exactly? Those who are dead in their faith can bury the truly dead. Those alive in their faith have a duty to both those who are already alive in the Spirit and to those living who seek the Spirit—the Dead who want to live again!

One habitual way that we harden our hearts against God’s voice is the negotiation ploy—the idea that we can bargain with God to get what we want. If prayer worked this way, Jesus would not have instructed us to pray in his name. It is the name of Christ Jesus, that is, who Jesus is for us and to us, that gives our prayers their power. Alone we are merely whispering words into the air. With Christ we are participating in his One Act of Worship, his One Act of Sacrifice on the cross; we throw our prayers into his one prayer of praise to God. No negotiation. No bargaining. Just a simple trust in God’s word that His promises will be kept. We follow Christ b/c we vowed to do so not b/c we want the divine goodies to keep on flowing.

And remember, the next time you want to negotiate with God in prayer, ask yourself: what happened to that classic deal He made with Abraham to save Sodom and Gomorrah?

Pic credit: Alessandro Bavari

Wherever you go, I will follow. . .

13^th Sunday OT: 1 Kings 19.16-21; Gal 5.1, 13-18; Luke 9.51-62
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Luke’s Parish, Irving, TX (Vigil Mass) & St Paul's Hospital

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Go and proclaim the Kingdom of God! I say, then: live by the Spirit! Go, follow Christ, and live by the Spirit! Well, what are you waiting for? Go! This command is like Jesus’ command to us to love one another. If I were yell at you: Go and buy me peanut butter! Or, Go, follow the bus, and visit Houston! Well, you would know what to do, right? You have some idea of what it is I’m yelling at you to do. But when Paul yells at the Galatians: “I say, then: live by the Spirit!” and Jesus says, “Go and proclaim the Kingdom of God!”—do we have any idea what they are yelling at us to do? Maybe we have some vague notions about doing good deeds and going to Mass and making sure other people know we’re Catholic. Or, maybe we think that it means to do something really strange like joining a monastery or becoming a nun or a priest or starting to have visions of Mary or St. Agnes in the shrubs. Probably not what Paul and Jesus had in mind. So, what do they want us to do when they tell us to follow Christ, live in the Spirit, and proclaim the Kingdom of God?

How easy would it be for me to let us all off the hook here and repeat the predictable? Let me pump you up with the sweet air and tasty bits of religious cliché—to follow Christ, live in the Spirit, and proclaim the Kingdom of God are all just matters of the heart—right intention, good feelings, sweetness and light, and basically, just being a swell guy or gal. Or, I could really let you off the hook and tell you that following Christ, living in the Spirit, and proclaiming the Kingdom are all big tasks that require a lot of work and time and organization; so, tell you what: let the pros worry about it—the priests and lay ministers—and you just show up here every Sunday, do your Mass-thing, and go home as if nothing happened. Sorry. Can’t do that. Paul and Jesus are teaching us something very different. . .

Paul, quoting Jesus, reminds the Galatians that “the whole of the law is fulfilled in one statement, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Then he tells them to live in the Spirit so as to not “gratify the desire of the flesh.” What is this desire? First, “desire” is a kind of lacking; a wanting and not having, a longing for a promised completion or fulfillment. (Paul is most likely talking about inordinate sexual desire here.) He continues, “…the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh…” What is a desire of the Spirit? Most basically, this desire is a longing to be with God forever; to be brought back to Him free and whole.

Now, you might come away from this teaching believing that Paul is arguing for a kind of dualism: flesh vs. Spirit; body vs. soul. No. He doesn’t say that the flesh and Spirit oppose one another. He says that the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit oppose one another. These opposing desires prevent you from doing what you want to do. And who are you? You are body and soul, flesh and spirit. One person, undivided; one will, one intellect. And if in one person there is a battle between the disordered and well-ordered desires of both body and Spirit then that person is a slave. Thank God that “for freedom Christ set us free”!

Living in the Spirit is at once perfectly simple and immensely complex. Perfectly simple b/c all we have to do is become Christ for one another. Easy cheesy. Just become Christ! Living in the Spirit is immensely complex b/c we have to become Christ for one another. Very difficult. Becoming Christ is perfectly simple b/c we are brought to that transformation in baptism. But becoming Christ is immensely difficult b/c we must continue to cooperate with the gift of baptism all our lives. If you are consumed by a conflict between the desires of your flesh and the desires of your Spirit, how capable are you of cooperating with God’s baptismal graces? This is why Paul teaches the Galatians: “…do not use this freedom [the freedom to cooperate with God’s grace in Christ] as an opportunity for the flesh; rather, serve one another through love.” Love being, of course, the Spirit—the Holy Spirit, the love the Father and Son have for one another, the creating and redeeming passion that made us, saves us, and feeds us.

So, if you will be guided by the Spirit, you must follow Christ! Excellent. I’ll follow Christ. What does that mean? As Jesus and the disciples were proceeding to Jerusalem, Someone says to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” To another Someone along the way, Jesus says, “Follow me.” And then Another One further along says, “I will follow you, Lord. . .” To the first Someone Jesus replies, “…the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” Translation: following me ain’t easy—it’s work and hard work and long hours and rest comes only with death; there’s no “time off” or “vacation” from Becoming Christ for One Another. The second Someone answers Jesus, “I will follow, but let me go first and bury my father.” Jesus says, “Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.” Translation: right now is the time to follow; there is no postponement, no hesitation; do not wait until this and that and all those things are done; the dead are dead, Become Christ for the living now! Then the last Someone promises Jesus, “I will follow you, Lord” but then he hesitates, “but first let me say farewell to my family at home.” And Jesus says to him: “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom.” Translation: if you will do my work here and now, you must do my work Here and Now; leave behind what cannot or will not come with you. To those of us along the way to Jerusalem—to the cross and the empty tomb—to those of us along the Way who say, “I will follow you, Lord, but I must go and do this or that first,” Jesus says, “I am First. If you will follow me, I am First. If you will live in my Spirit, I am First. If you will proclaim my kingdom, I am First.”

Living in the Spirit is the day to day struggle to be free from the slavery of sin. To live free in Christ is to be guided by Love, that is, to be directed, constantly poked and prodded, by your redeemed desire to live with God forever—to serve each another with one heart and one mind; graciously sacrificing for friends and enemies alike; drowning in prayer, breathing God’s Word, breaking his body and drinking his blood; becoming, here and now, Christ for others. If you will say to Jesus, “I will follow you, Lord” do so without regret, hesitation, without burden, or debt; do so shamelessly, eagerly, without guile or presumption; do so immediately, full-throated with arms spread, without fear or foreboding; not looking back, but falling head-long and free into the field, taking on his yoke and proclaiming first with every breath, first with every muscle and every drop of sweat: Christ is Lord! And his kingdom is at hand!

Living in God

From the English translation of M.-D. Chenu’s Aquinas and His Role in Theology we find this absolutely beautiful description of our relationship to God:

“When God’s mercy and friendship are revealed to us as the real abundance of sheer generosity that they are, we are overwhelmed: our religious feeling reaches a high point, and we can only respond with the gift of our heart. The more God is revealed to us in a communion of life, the more this feeling of God’s being “totally other” grows. We become vividly conscious of the disproportion between Creator and creature in the very midst of an experience of unity. Even the most childlike trust carries with it a rush of emotion at being so greatly loved. But the point is this, that religion in it exterior worship and its interior oblation is dilated and as it were straightway transported onto another plane (without putting our indebtedness to God out of the picture). It becomes no longer a question of living for God, but of living in God—or better, living a divine life. No more is the issue how properly to relate to God (which always remains a fact of life, of course), but how to commune with God”(38).

I read this book for a class in seminary some five years ago. At the time, I remember thinking that it was extremely mushy theologically and probably dangerous spiritually. Chenu’s take on Aquinas’ teachings on grace made a bit queasy b/c Chenu seemed to want to downplay the efficacious nature of the sacraments in imparting divine favor. Reading this book again, I can see how wrong I was AND—most astonishing for me—how much Chenu (in this book anyway) has deeply influenced my own preaching about grace, faith, and our final end in God, divinization.

I highly recommend the book for those who know enough about Thomism not to get lost in the terminology but who still want something challenging, something to make them reach a little beyond the ordinary in Aquinas studies.

The English text is translated from the French by my Dominican brother, Fr. Paul Philibert, OP

The Devil's Straw Men

From David B. Hart's First Things review of Daniel Dennet's latest anti-religious mash, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon:

"All Dennett knows is that something he dreads haunts the world, something intolerant and violent and irrational, and he wants to conjure it away. This, of course, raises the now quite hoary-headed question of how, in the wake of the twentieth century, the committed secularist dare wax either sanctimonious toward faith or sanguine toward secular reason, but Dennett is not one to pause before doubts of that sort. He is certain there is some single immense thing out there called religion, and that by its very nature it endangers us all and ought as a whole to be abolished. This being so, it is probably less important to him that his argument be good than that, for purely persuasive purposes, it appear to be grounded in irrefutable science-which it can never be."

Hart captures my own view that the latest spate of "scientific" attacks on religious belief are more or less screeds pouring irrationally from prejudice. Dennett, Hitchens, Dawkins, ad. nau. never seem to be debunking anything that even closely resembles the God of Christianity. It is as if they've read a comic book of the Crusades and decided that this piece of infallible literature is the true and only testament of the faith. No wonder they've spent their adult lives babbling on about the evils of religion. Of course, when you live with Straw Men you tend to find them to be itchy after a time and not good conversationalists at all. . .

David B. Hart is the author of The Beauty of the Infinite, 2003.

Pic credit: Measuring Infinity

Wolves and Prophets

12^th Week OT (W): Genesis 15.1-12, 17-18 and Matthew 7.15-20
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory

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[NB. I don’t like this homily, or should I say “homilies.” There are at least three homilies here! I’m posting it anyway. . .]

Abram worries that he will have no heirs. God assures him that he will have his own children as heirs. Taking Abram outside, God tells him that his descendants will be as countless as the stars. Abram places his trust in the Lord who “credits it to him as an act of righteousness.” Abram’s faith is for us, the Church, the good tree that bears good fruit. Root, trunk, branch, and leaf, Abram’s covenant with the Lord is deeply planted in an act of surrender, a giving-over of his plans, his needs, his wants, everything that might mitigate against the fullest possible embrace of the Lord’s will for himself and his descendants. Abram not only receives from the Lord the land and a nation and a people, he also receives from the Lord a revelation of the divine, an unveiling of “I AM.” And this revelation, this unveiling of what we cannot know otherwise, remains with us in the preaching and teaching of Jesus Christ—handed on through the ordinary and extraordinary ministry of the magisterium, the teaching office of the Church.

Jesus warns his disciples against false prophets. Who are these false prophets? Prophets are called by God to be His voice among His people. Prophets are called and given a vision of perfection, a glimpse into the fulfillment of our human history. Then they are told to look carefully at their tribe or nation or people or church and compare the fulfilled vision with the reality of who we are right now. Glaring failures in charity, hope, obedience, trust, fidelity to the mission, all of these are fodder for the prophet. And he or she is called to point to the ideal and tell us in clarion notes: “We have strayed! Let’s get back on track, get back to bearing good fruit!”

A prophet called by God to restore His people to fidelity in the covenant cannot preach or teach against the apostolic faith or in any way attempt to undermine the legitimate authority of the Church in defining and defending the “handed on” revelation that Abram won by faith so long ago. There is nothing “prophetic” about an obstinate refusal to listen to the magisterial office of the Church. There is nothing “prophetic” in assuming a suspicious critical stance when reading and teaching magisterial documents. And there is nothing “prophetic” in presuming to hold the office of prophet for the Church w/o the Church’s participation in the selection. In other words, I don’t get to decide (contra ecclesia) that I am a Prophet. I cannot be for the whole Church, in the name of the Church, that which the Church has not authorized me to be.

Who are these wolves? Well, who claims to teach the faith yet will not accept ecclesial authority in defining the faith? Who sets him or herself up as an “alternative magisterium,” as a rival to the apostolic ministry of our bishops? Who abuses their ecclesial authority for personal gain or the promotion of allies or the destruction of enemies? Who steps into the shoes of an apostle only to lust for a bigger and more prestigous pair? Who will not serve the least, or protect the innocent? Who lifts up his or her idiosyncratic theological views as the truth of the faith, or promotes w/o the benefit of Tradition his or her eccentric readings of scripture as authoritative? The list could go on and the list could easily include me, you, all of us at some point!

Jesus is not asking us to hunt the ravenous wolves among us. We must pay attention to them to keep track of them. Our most fundamental task is preaching the gospel as the Church has handed it on to us. We do this well when we surrender pretension, guile, pride, the need for approval, and disobedience. We preach the gospel best when we use our God-given gifts to explore His revelation to us: in creation, scripture, and in Christ himself. But we cannot preach the gospel at all outside the Body that is Christ’s church. When you see or hear a wolf in sheep’s clothing, tag him or her. Watch carefully. But remember: bearing good fruit is more important than hunting wolves.

Pic Credit: Osmo Rauhala

Of eyes, judges, and splinters

12^th Week OT (M) Genesis 12.1-9 and Matthew 7.1-5
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory

PODCAST!

Do not judge! Don’t judge me! Who are you to judge? You are being judgmental. Let’s suspend all judgments and just share our feelings without fear of being contradicted. Judge not lest you be judged. What do we do when we judge? Quite apart from the spiritual narrative of judgment in this gospel, when we perform “judgment,” what are we doing? Sometimes we are simply evaluating the desirability of a thing’s or person’s qualities—do I like this wine, this sweater, this book, this woman? When we choose the white wine and not the red, the vest and not the sweater; the novel and not the non-fiction, the woman and not her sister, we are involved in judgment. Weighing all available evidence against a preconceived set of criteria, we all make judgments about our relative safety in a dark parking lot; the street where we want to go running; the level of intimacy to shoot for on a first date; which university to attend given money, reputation, etc. Making judgments is something we do like we breathe!

And yet, Jesus says, “Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as your judge, so will you be judged…” In a sentence, Jesus turns making judgments into the dirty habit of the hypocrite! And then he turns on the hypocrite and tells him to get his own life together before he starts running around fixing everyone else’s life. So, now we have to be morally perfect—“See, Ma, no splinters!”—before we can help others find and pull the splinters from their eyes? How exactly are we supposed to correct one another when we sin? How do I fraternally correct one of my Dominican brothers if Jesus is telling us not to judge?

Read but little commented on in this passage is this question: “Why do you notice the splinter on your brother’s eye?” The rest of that sentence we know well: “But you do not notice the wooden beam in your own eye?” Do we normally notice that first “notice”? Other translators render the verb as “see,” “observe,” “look,” and “consider.” Here we have intent. Focused will. There is in the hypocrite’s heart a need, a desire to find fault, to seek out, find, and hold on to the flaws and imperfections in others. When you see you do more than look. When you consider you do more than look. You are in search of. . .splinters in your neighbor’s eye and this is a problem for Jesus.

It is simply not the case that when Jesus teaches us not to make judgments, he is teaching us to avoid evaluating potentially destructive attitudes and behaviors. It is simply not the case that the often tossed-off line, “Judge not lest ye be judged” means, in effect, “You cannot tell me that my beliefs or attitudes or behaviors are immoral or heretical b/c Jesus said not to judge. Therefore, all my beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors are OK.” In other words, b/c you can’t judge me, anything I believe to be true is true. This is a serious misunderstanding of this passage.

What is it then that Jesus is warning us not to do? We are not to use the bad behavior of others as an excuse for our own bad behavior. We are not to focus on the faults of others to the point where we cannot see our own faults. I am not to argue that Br. X.’s correction of my bad behavior is wrong b/c his bad behaviors are far worse than mine. In other words, my bad behavior doesn’t magically become good behavior simply b/c a badly behaving friend points out my bad behavior.

And to end on a point of absolute clarity: there is nothing in this teaching that prohibits the charitable exercise of fraternal correction. Jesus is teaching us not to allow an obsession with another person’s sin to distract us from our own sin. Get your sin taken care of and then offer your charitable, fraternal assistance to others. Always, always, always remember: presume that grace is working in us all. To fail in that is to fail in charity twice.

Worth the Wait, or unstick your tongue

Nativity of John the Baptist: Isa 49.1-6; Acts 13.22-26; Luke 1.57-66, 80
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital, Dallas, TX

Isaiah gives us plenty of warning: He is given his name in the womb and called from birth. He is a sharp blade, a polished arrow, a servant—hiding in the shadow of the Lord’s mighty arm: waiting. This servant’s strength is the Lord’s strength. And he is made glorious in the Lord’s sight. The Lord says that he is too glorious now to be a servant, and so the Lord raises him up to be “a light to the nation, that [the Lord’s] salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” The Lord releases him from servitude into Servanthood—no longer a slave in his body alone, he is now—raised up and released—a servant in his body and soul, a servant for us: to serve us; to teach us servanthood to show us how to kneel on the brittle back of pride; and if we are still following him, he will teach us how to obey until death and how to offer ourselves as sacrifice on a cross. Our servant is a polished blade and a sharp-edged arrow. He comes to cut our bonds and to pierce our hearts.

Then he sends another herald to tell us everything we need to know. The Christ is coming. Repent and be baptized. Our Father sends to His God-fearing children a whole world of salvation! Of course, John the Herald understood his place in this cosmic drama when he leapt in his mother’s womb during Mary’s visit while she was still pregnant with Jesus. John recognized his purpose immediately; he knew instantly that his Job in Life was only a few months behind him. John, though not the polished blade itself, polishes the blade. Though he is not the sharp-edged arrow itself, he sharpens the tip. Though he cannot save all of creation in the shedding of his own blood, he makes sure that as many people as possible know that Jesus, the Messiah, can and will. He prepares the way for the Way and dies ignobly as a martyr on the whim of a gouty king goaded-on by a scorned stripper.

St Augustine argues in a sermon for today, “John…appears as the boundary between the two testaments, the old and the new. That he is a sort of boundary the Lord himself bears witness, when he speaks of the law and the prophets up until John the Baptist. Thus he represents times past and is the herald of the new era to come.” Like all prophets and priests, John is a liminal figure, that is, a person who “stands between,” reaching into both sides, fully occupying neither, influencing both, but, finally, belonging to death alone. Liminality is too hard on the faithful heart; it stretches the muscle and beats back reason—“to stand between” too long is to commit to nothing. John’s ministry in the desert, baptizing with water anyone who came forward, prepared a population for the coming of the Lord; he prepared them by setting them firmly in the doorway, right between water baptism and the coming fire of the spirit. Their liminality, our own “betweenness,” right now, today, is about waiting—patience, endurance, fidelity, and courage.

There is a sacred vigilance to our faith. That sort of commitment to truth that weights down every doubt; calms every nervous fact; holds at bay every sticky interpretation and guess, while waiting for more weighty doubt. Faith, then, is not a narcotic escape from What Is, some sort of irrational means of collapsing truths into mere beliefs; nor is faith a virtual joyride through an emotionally jam-packed church-circus. Faith is not an exercise in willful knowing or patient guessing or even our own version of trusting that someone else is right. Faith is God trusting first and then making it possible for us to trust Him. Look at David and John. God says of David, “he is a man after my own heart; he will carry out my every wish.” Of John, Paul writes, “John heralded [Christ’s] coming by proclaiming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.” John never played Messiah; he always pointed away from himself and toward Jesus: “Behold, one is coming after me; I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet.” John’s dedication to his call, his fidelity to the ministry given to him in the womb is a testimony to the fact that faith is not about believing ENOUGH. Or even believing NOW. Faith is about believing PERSISTENTLY—always, over and over; holding on to His promise; saying YES to his call; always, over and over again; being there, steady, fastened, loyal; doing his work in patience; always, over and over, one more time, over and over. You cannot believe “enough,” meaning that there is no correct “amount” of belief or faith that matters. What will name you His servant is a deep faith exercised for His glory consistently over time.

Look at Mary and Elizabeth. Do you think they were able to accept the weirdnesses thrust upon them w/o a persistent faith, an enduring trust in the Lord? Imagine if the Spirit had appeared to them on a “bad faith day” and asked the virgin to get pregnant w/o a husband’s assistance and then told the barren crone that she would be pregnant soon as well! Is there enough faith in heaven and on earth to make these ridiculous announcements appealing? NO! Mary and Elizabeth though a bit flustered never lose their composure. They know what all the priests and prophets know: deeply planted in every body and soul created by the Lord is a plan for moving forward. And part of that plan is about looking back to find out who you are, who it is that will be moving forward.

I am fully convinced that the most insidious spiritual problem facing the Church today is the lose of our sense of ourselves as Christs for one another. I think most of us “get” the idea of the Body of Christ. We belong to other clubs and groups that use similar images. We seem to get the idea of self-esteem. Though as a nation we have never been more anxious and depressed. We get success, advancement, popularity, wealth/health; and, we even get the idea of selfless sacrifice on occasion. What we don’t seem to understand as members of the Church is our identities as Christ. As Christs, we have a heritage, a lineage, a claim on the Son’s inheritance; we have a kingdom, we have eternal life. Jesus needed his herald, John, b/c he was coming into his kingdom for the first time. We don’t need heralds b/c we wake up in his kingdom everyday—not the kingdom fully revealed, of course, but the swelling possibilities of each hour reach for us and beg us to bring his throne room just that much closer. Serve one another, serve the least of his and draw that throne inch by inch closer to a terran stool, a new heaven and new earth.

John announces to the nations that our Messiah is coming. With polished sword and sharpened arrow, he will cut our bonds and pierce our hearts. One frees us from sin, the other enslaves us to Christ—the only state of true freedom! Elizabeth’s obedience in freedom gave us John. Mary’s obedience in freedom gave us Christ. Zechariah’s obedience in freedom unstuck his tongue, and he gave his son a name. Each stood at a limit, a threshold, and each reached up to God. That’s not enough faith. It is persistent faith, enduring trust. And out of trust the Lord will call you to be a light to the nations! So, unstick your tongue and declare before the world the glory of God!

And be prepared to wait.

Wait with fidelity.

Wait with courage.

Just wait.

Wait.

Image Credit: Abraham Brewster

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

PODCAST!

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

PODCAST!

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?