"...O Lord, do come along..."

Most Holy Trinity: Exo 34.4-6, 8-9; 2 Cor 13.11-13; John 3.16-18
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation & St Paul Hospital

Imagine my delight this morning to discover that Moses was a southern gentleman! Having climbed Mt Sinai as God had commanded him, Moses hears the Lord say, “The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” Moses does the only thing he could do with such an announcement from the Lord Himself: he bows down in worship! But then he does the perfect southern thing; he says, “O Lord, do come along in our company.” God knocks and Moses invites Him in for a visit—a visit that will take Moses and his people on a forty-year trek across the desert, leading them to the land promised by God. Forty-years visiting! That’s a whole lotta iced tea and pecan pie. But that’s what God does: He promises, He abides, and He makes all things right. For His people then and for us now, our Lord is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and rich in kindness and fidelity. And what’s more: He loves us despite our stiff-necks, our wickedness, and our sins. He receives us as His own, loving us so much “that He gave [us] His only Son so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” That’s not a friendly visit. That’s family moving in for good!

We might expect on this Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity that the gospel would be something more philosophical, something a little more esoteric than John 3.16—“For God so loved the world…” Maybe one of the traditional Easter readings from John would be more appropriate, something like “I am in You and You in me and they in me and so also in You”—you know, one of those passages you need to diagram in order to follow, all pronouns and prepositions. But what we have is this elegantly simple teaching on the nature of God’s love for us and the consequences of believing or disbelieving “in the name of the only Son of God.” Three verses that state in unambiguous language why God sent the Son to us and what happens to us when we believe or fail to believe. What does this straightforward, plain-spoken passage have to do with the intricacies of the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity? Absolutely everything!

Here’s how. In all of the passages this morning—Exodus, 2 Corinthians, John—we read how God reveals Himself to His people. First, He reveals Himself to Moses before giving Moses His Ten Commandments as a voice declaring His divine nature (mercy, fidelity, kindness). Then He reveals Himself to the Corinthians as a family both human and divine, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, admonishing them to mend their ways and live in peace with one another. And then He reveals His final plan to whole world as the Word Incarnate, Jesus Christ, His Son sent for our eternal lives. In each case, what is revealed is the nature of the Blessed Trinity—Father, Son, Holy Spirit. In each case, who is revealed is God Himself—persons, actions, intentions, and goals. And in each case, why He reveals Himself is made clear—to receive us as His own. Despite our sins, He makes us His.

Moses says to God, “…O Lord, do come along in our company.” Walk with us. Talk with us. Eat and drink with us. Be with us everyday and always. Teach us. Admonish us. Show us the Way. Die for us. And then, despite our sins, bring us to You to live with You forever. Moses could have said something entirely different. He could have said, “…O Lord, until we are pure, until we are worthy, leave us alone, walk apart and away so that we might earn your love.” He could have said, “…O Lord, we are filthy sinners, punish us severely!” He could have said, “…O Lord, we know best, we know what is good for us, You go your way and we will go ours. Oh, and thanks for that whole Red Sea thing; oh, and the manna.” In other words, Moses could have said what we are tempted to say everyday in word and deed: “O Lord, thanks but no thanks for the offer of Your love…ya know, I’m good as is.” And what does God take this to mean? John writes, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned…” Therefore, we say, along with Moses the Southern Gentleman, “…O Lord, do come along in our company!”

I noted earlier that all of our readings this morning reveal something to us about the nature of God and His purposes. Of course, we are eager to have God along with us. Our presence here this morning is the surest indication that we hunger for God, that we thirst for His love. But do we love the The Blessed Trinity, The Hypostatic Union of Three Divine Persons? Yes and no. Yes, we love God; but no, we rarely think to love this cumbersome notion of Divine-Threeness-in-Divine-Oneness. Too abstract, too distant, too intellectual. So, who is this Love that we desire to love? Who is this Love that loves the world so much that He sacrifices His only Son for it? We are tempted in this age of pop-psycho-prattle to limit love to the human affection of “being nice” or “being kind.” We are tempted to understand and to practice love as a sort of “live and let live.” The peace that love brings is the peace and quiet of being left alone to do as I will. But here’s the real kicker about Divine Love: divine love is not a passive flood of God’s sweet affection for us; no, divine love is the active working of the Trinity in His creation, in His creatures. God loves us to change us, to re-form us, to shape us again into the perfect creatures He made us to be.

We say “God is Love.” True enough. But we also say “God became Man so that Man might become God.” Think about the implications of this notion! Are we saying here that God sacrificed his only Son on the cross so that we might be nice to one another, merely kind to one another? Hardly. Are we saying that Christ suffered a bloody death, an ignoble public execution so that we might come to understand that we need to be sweet to one another? Again, hardly. Divine Love is our rescue and our anchor, our reach and our goal. We are made in the likeness and image of Love Himself so that we might be perfected as Love. Stiff-necked, wicked, and sinful, we are made perfect in Love so that we can love. And there is nothing sweet or kind about being reshaped, about being twisted back into the creatures we are made to be. It hurts! We know that this process works through medicinal pain. And yet, we are tempted to make Divine Love into a grandmotherly affection, into a cute and cuddly infatuation. What a loss for us when we do.

Now that we know Who Love Is, let’s remind ourselves of what Love does. Love is always the True and Good. Love seduces us to charity, seduces us to always speak the truth and do the good merely for the sake of Truth and Goodness. Love never worships at the altar of Man, of creation, making that which is made into a god. Love does not lie, cheat, steal, murder, or abuse its divine gifts. When we love in Love Himself, we love rightly, even if imperfectly now, we love in righteousness and fidelity. Our love for one another forgives offenses as God forgives us and though Love makes us want to forgive sin, Love does not blind us to sin, ours or anyone else’s. Rather Love sharpens our sight so that we might see more clearly His work ahead of us. Finally, and most importantly, Love perfects in us He Who Loves us most.

So, yes, of course, imitate our Father in father, Moses, and be the good Southern Lady or Gentleman and invite God to keep company with you. But know that the Blessed Trinity is no benign houseguest. He comes as family. He comes to re-create the world, and He will start with you.

Deny, Take Up, & Follow

6^th Week OT (F): James 2.14-24, 26; Mark 8.34-9.1
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Serra Club Mass, Church of the Incarnation

Is it possible to desire to follow Christ but fail to take up Christ’s cross? Is it possible to want to be a Christian but fail to follow after Christ? Jesus tells the disciples and the crowd, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” How do we deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow him? Good questions. The better question, for now, is: what does it mean “to wish to follow Christ”? And what does it mean to wish such a thing and fail to do what is required in order to see this wish come to fruition? James, in his oh-so-pointed manner clarifies this murky problem for us: “…faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” In other words, you cannot wish to be a Christian and refuse to trust God; likewise, your refusal to trust God is all the evidence we need to conclude that you do not, in fact, wish to be a Christian.

Jesus is a genius. What he understands better than we do is that it is impossible for us to desire what we lack and at the same time fail to do what is lacking. In our very desire to be Christ, we do what Christ did. To have faith in Christ is to do Christ’s faithful work. Think of the alternatives: faith without works, works without faith. Faith is the good habit of trusting God. How does one possess a habit without actually doing the habit? If I say that I have the bad habit of lying, you rightly assume that I lie. What if I then say, “No, I never lie.” You can justly accuse me of being very confused about what it mean “to have a habit.” If I say that I have the good habit of loving others, you rightly assume that I am a loving person. What if I then say, “No, I pretty much hate everyone.” Again, I am showing that I am very confused about the nature of habit. The same sort of confusion flows from the notion that I can do truly good works without faith. Let’s say that you catch me feeding the poor on a regular basis. You can justly say that I love the poor. If I say, “No, I really hate the poor, so I feed them on a regular basis,” you are again right to point out my confusion.

Christ denies himself, takes up his cross, and leads to Calvary anyone who wants follow. So, if you deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Christ, you are a Christian. You do what Christ did. Faith is a good work. Good works are always faithful works. However, we can neither trust God nor do trusting work without God Himself. Our desire to follow Christ and the works we do that mark us as followers of Christ are themselves gifts given to us by God. We do not want God until God Himself shows us what we lack without Him. And when we are shown what we lack, or more precisely “who we lack,” we are moved to desire Him and His perfection. This is not an Armchair Desire, a merely abstract wanting that we can safely rope off and hold at bay with appeals to practicality or common sense. Nor can we simply intellectualize this gnawing hunger as a delightful puzzle or amusing concept. Once the starving man is shown the feast, he must eat or die. And so it is with us: once we are shown the perfection of following Christ, we must follow or die…or rather, follow and die: for what good is it for us to be given the riches of the whole world and refuse to love the one, the only one, who gives us a life to live richly?

We cannot desire to be Christ without doing what Christ did. We cannot do what Christ did without desiring to be who Christ is. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow. There is no wanting without working, no desiring without doing. To quote Master Yoda, “Do or do not. There is no try.”

Here's your sign...

6^th Week OT (M): James 1.1-11 and Mark 8.11-13
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Church

Can’t you just imagine how weary Jesus must be at this point, tired of being doubted, tested, wrung through the wringer of having to prove again and again who he really is. His word alone is not enough for most. For some, even his miracles lack the umph that pushes the incredulous over their disbelieving hump. This is not to say that there aren’t perfectly good reasons for believing that Jesus is not who he says he is. His claims are fairly ridiculous, not just odd but downright bizarre. It would take a massive exertion of will to move oneself from disbelieving to believing w/o some sort of external assistance. The Pharisees are again clamoring for signs, bugging Jesus for more and better evidence. They are harassing him not b/c they are committed to the pursuit of truth and seek the truth of his nature; they are testing him in order to find fault so that they might then charge him, arrest him, and execute him. His teachings are too dangerous. Even so, they risk their incredulity by asking for more signs. They risk their critical distance, their practiced cynicism by approaching him and asking him to do that which might confirm their worse fears about him. What if he did something, something spectacular, miraculous, something so bold and beautiful that even the hardest Pharisaical heart is torn open and the truth of his identity and mission pour in? That’s what they risk by asking for a sign. Does any of this sound familiar? How often do we ourselves hold Jesus at arm’s length on the pretense that we don’t really understand fully who he is, but at the same time we’re willing to mull over the possibility that he is who he says he is, but then we recognize what such a revelation would mean for our daily lives, so we demand further proof, more signs, knowing (hoping!) that such proof will be denied us, and then we can rest comfortably in our polite but practicing Christian agnosticism defended against the extremes of charity and not at all roused from the routine of stopping Christ at the threshold of our hearts and gently inviting him to take a seat and wait on our need for more information. There will be no further signs. The Church herself, born yesterday at Pentecost with the coming of the Holy Spirit, is the sign of Christ’s presence. If we are not enough, there will never be enough, and Jesus will sit in the waiting room of our soul, while you, the suspicious Pharisee, poke at his arguments and ponder his words and sift his motives and slowly but ever so surely waste the body and soul you have been given, picking apart ever syllogism, every piece of evidence. But you won’t do this, will you? The Holy Spirit has you gripped by the heart and mind, otherwise you wouldn’t be here this morning. Jesus got in a boat and went across the sea to get away from the nagging doubters. Put yourself in that boat with him, go across the sea with him and ask him the only question that finally matters: Lord, how do I serve you?

Receive the Holy Spirit!

Pentecost Sunday: Acts 2.1-11; 1 Cor 12.3-7, 12-13; John 20.19-23
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital and Church of the Incarnation

We start in fear, shaking in darkness. The doors locked against our enemies.

On the evening of the first day of the week, while we huddle together, fearful and dreading the noises of the dark, Jesus comes and stands in our midst. He says, “Peace be with you.” To show us his peace, he shows us the violence done to him on the cross; he shows us his hands—pierced, bloodstained—and he shows us his side—cut open, leaking water and blood. There is a small, quiet pause in our fear, just a whisper of doubt, of hesitation; we just barely slow our racing hearts, just long enough for hope to possess us again, and then: we rejoice! The Lord is with us…as he promised. He is with us always, even to the end of the age! He calmed the raging sea with a word; he calmed our dark-terror with a word; now he asks that we calm ourselves again and listen: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” The Father sent Christ. Now Christ sends us; breathing on us, he says: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And we are sent.

Indeed, we ARE sent! But sent where? To whom? Why? What are we sent to do? These questions assume that we understand Who it is we are receiving! Jesus says to us, “Receive the Holy Spirit” and so we are prepared to receive. But it is one thing to hear the command to receive and quite another to obey. If we obey, if we receive the Holy Spirit at Christ’s command, Who or what is it that we are receiving? We could say that we are receiving the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. We could say that we are receiving the Word of Creation, the Wisdom of the Father, the Fire of Divine Love. We could say that we are receiving the Pure Mercy of God, Divinity Himself, Perfect Beauty. What if we say that when we receive the Holy Spirit we receive the Gift of God Himself from Himself? God gives Himself to us, freely hands Himself over to us. Not a divine power, an ability, a function. Nor are we given a divine title, an energy, or a name. We are given—gifted with—God Himself, as such, Himself: Father, Son, Holy Spirit!

Now that we know that the gift is God Himself, and we receive this gift rejoicing, we may ask: where are we sent? To whom are we sent? Why are we sent? And what are we sent to do? All of these questions are answered in a single command: “Peace be with you”—our Lord’s simple imperative, his singular order to rest serenely, without fear, without any anxiety; to rest in the all-consuming fire of his love for us, for all his creation. Peace be with you. We are sent to every nation, every continent, the four corners of the world. Peace be with you. We are sent to every soul—the poor, the oppressed, the slave to sin—every living thing. Peace be with you. We are sent to be the peace—the quiet, the stillness, the certainty—of everyone and everything he rules. Peace be with you. We are sent to be Christ for the world. Baptizing in his name, teaching what he taught, preaching what he preached, and accomplishing everything that he commanded us to do. Therefore, peace be with you and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, God Himself freely given to us by God Himself.

All of the disciples are in one place together. As a Body they come together, hearing the Word, receiving the grace of baptism, giving everything they have and everything they are to the Body. Together they are in one place at the one time of Pentecost, fifty-days after our Lord’s resurrection from the dead. And together they hear “from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind…Then there appear[s] to them tongues as of fire, which [divide] and [come] to rest on each of them.” And because they have received the gift of sanctifying water and because they have received the gifts of charity and faith and because they have received the gift of unity together as one Body, “they [are] all filled with the Holy Spirit…” And the Church is born. And here we are: the Church, born of the Spirit, the gift of God Himself given to us by God Himself to be Christ for the world. We too are gifts for the world, given to the world by God Himself.

Paul writes to the Corinthians, “As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ.” The fire of the Holy Spirit arrives in the locked room as a single flame, then divides to rest on each disciple. One flame, many fires—the same Spirit setting diverse souls on fire, each soul receiving as he and she can the gifts of the Spirit. Paul writes, “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.” The first benefit for each soul is the peace of a mission, a purpose, a designated task written by the Word in the flesh and the spirit. Each will walk away—Jew, Greek, slave, freed slave, man, woman—each will walk away full to the brim with the gift of God Himself. Paul writes, “…we [are] all given to drink of one Spirit.” One Spirit, one drink, one Body, one mission.

Looking at the Church in the 21^st century, it is too easy to point out our differences. We can point to differences in language, politics, morality, health and wealth, ease of witness, difficulties with sin. We can point out how we differ theologically, philosophically, liturgically. We can point out the incredibly wide-ranging differences among those who believe with the Church, those who believe against the Church, and those who believe despite the Church. Some would have us celebrate these differences as Creative Diversities and others would have us mourn our differences as Destructive Divisions. Both of these groups—those who would make an idol of diversity and those who would make an idol of conformity—both would impose on the Body ideological straitjackets, chains that would bind us to a particular era of our history (whether the 1940’s or the 1970’s) or a particular idea of our identity (whether the church as Perfect Society or the church as religious democracy). This is not the peace that Christ gives us when he breathes the Spirit on us. This is not the peace that makes us Christ, sends us to the ends of the earth, gives us the Word to preach and teach, or heals the sins of the world. When we celebrate our diversity at the expense of our unity, we are a broken body divided against itself. When we celebrate our unity at the expense of our differing gifts, we are a broken body held together by a fearful conformity.

You fall to the temptation of schism when you believe that any of what you do as Christ for the world is primarily about you and your wants, your desires, your needs, your choices and preferences. When your spiritual focus is centered in your belly, your appetites, when your spiritual eye is trained on yourself alone, you fail and the rest of us fail along with you. The heart cannot be diseased without the whole body falling ill. The coming of the Holy Spirit, the birth of the Church, is not an opportunity for us to impose a narrow ideology, a singular means of being Christ for the world. The coming of the Holy Spirit, the birth of the Church, is not an opportunity for us, each in his or her own special way, to twirl off into the cosmos, celebrating any and every thing as good and holy. The coming of the Holy Spirit, the birth of the Church, IS the breaking open of human history for the entrance of Truth into our common lives. He comes among us to make us One. And so, we must, if we are to accomplish what we have been given to do, we must, always, always, we must always think with the Church, preach with the Church, teach with the Church, be together in the Church—his One Body given life and purpose by the Spirit. For the Christian, baptized and anointed, there is no life outside the Church, no purpose outside the Church. There is nothing for you, for us, beyond the Church, beyond the Body of Christ. We live and grow together, or you die and rot alone.

If you would return to the locked room, shaking in fear, then make an idol of our past, worship the cold heart of a museum-Church and fall prey to the Devil’s own pride. Likewise, if you love the locked room and its dark fear, make an idol of this age, worship the Zeitgeist, the ebb and flow of human fantasy, and fall prey to every snake that tempts you. However, if you will to do what Christ has ordered you to do, do it all with the Church, do it with us, the body and soul of the Church, the Holy Spirit among us, with us. Do this, and peace be with you “for in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” to be Christ, the one Christ, the only Christ, to be the suffering servant of our Father’s needful creation.

Loving Jesus More than We Do

7^th Week of Easter: Acts 25.13-21 and John 21. 15-19
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory and Church of the Incarnation

“________, do you love Jesus more than the rest of us here?”*

How many times in the gospels does Jesus ignore a question asked of him and instead answer the question that should have been asked? Easily, most of the time. The few times he directly addresses the question put to him, he answers in a parable or turns the question around on the questioner and ask his own penetrating question! This shouldn’t surprise or confuse us given who Jesus really is, but it is nonetheless frustrating when we consider the tremendous faith required to believe what Jesus is teaching. Wouldn’t it just be easier if Jesus answered the questions we all have about life, death, heaven, and our salvation? Instead we get stories about mustard seeds, vines and branches, sheep and shepherds, mansions, rocks, houses built on sand, and a wayward son returning home to a grand welcome. This morning/evening, however, we read that Jesus decides to put a question to Peter: “Do you love me more than these [other disciples]?” Peter, thinking that this must a trick question or some sort of weird, last minute test of his faith, replies, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus, unsatisfied with the answer, puts the question to Peter two more times. Why does he do this? One possibility is that Peter, following his Master’s example, doesn’t answer the question!

The classical interpretation of this passage—that Jesus is portending Peter’s three-time denial in the Garden—is very likely the best interpretation of this scene. Jesus knows Peter’s heart but he also knows Peter’s weaknesses. To shore up his faith and his fortitude, Jesus gives Peter the chance to instill in his heart a last moment of intimacy between them, a moment that Peter will remember after the coming of the Spirit and call upon to invigorate his preaching-witness. Nothing wrong with that reading. Another interpretation holds that Jesus is questioning Peter and using Peter’s answer to place him in charge of the other disciples, making him the leader of the group based on his love for Christ. This recalls Jesus’ earlier question about his identity and Peter’s answer: “You are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus names Peter the Rock. Also, nothing wrong with that reading. However, when we look at how questions and answers are exchanged in the gospels, can we come to another reasonable conclusion?

Notice that Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me more than these?” “These” being the other disciples. Peter answers, “Yes, you know that I love you.” That doesn’t answer the question directly. Peter doesn’t say, “I love you more than the others do.” Maybe this is nit-picking, but given the earlier disputes about who takes precedence among the disciples, you would think that Peter would jump at the chance to take the more honorable place. He doesn’t. Instead, he gives Jesus a response to an unasked question. Peter says, “Yes, Lord, I love you.” Jesus puts the question to him again and again. Finally, deeply distressed by the questioning, Peter answers, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Satisfied with this answer or perhaps sensing Peter’s anxiety, Jesus goes on to give Peter one of his famous, cryptic stories, concluding with “Follow me.” Even so, Peter never directly answers the question put to him: do you love Jesus more than we do, Peter?

Why does the man named “the Rock” by Jesus himself shy away from this question? What if I asked you now in front of everyone here, “Do you love Jesus more than the rest of us, ______?” What could you say? Yes? Maybe? I don’t know? You would likely shy away from any answer b/c any answer you would give would pick you out as either prideful or ignorant or boastful. You might also shy away from the question b/c any answer you would give would come with a potentially dreadful task, a commission based on that excessive love. If you said, Yes, we might say, “Good! Lead us to our martyrdom preaching the gospel.” If you say, No, we might say, “Where is your faith?” If you say, Maybe, we might say: “You don’t know how much you love Jesus?” Do you see Peter’s dilemma?

Jesus sees that same dilemma, so says in reply to Peter’s anxious answers: “Follow me.”

*I directed this question to members of the congregation.

The person of Christ, the Church

7^th Week of Easter (T): Acts 20.17-27 and John 17.1-11
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

This priestly prayer, prayed by the High Priest himself, Jesus Christ, marks for us, the Church, a transfer of authority, a transfer of mission and purpose from the person of Christ Jesus to his Church. Jesus goes to great lengths in the prayer to point up several truths about the relationships between and among the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and those chosen to form the earliest Body of Christ; principle among these is the relationship between the Father and the Son, and the Son and his Church born in the Spirit. Of this relationship Jesus says, “I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you them gave them to me, and they have kept your word.” There were those in the world who belonged to the Father whom the Father gave to the Son so that the Son might reveal the Father’s name to them, and in revealing the Father’s name to this elect, the Son showed them the means to their supernatural end: eternal life. But before the enlightened elect join the Father and Son in their glory in heaven, there’s work to be done down here, so Jesus says, “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me…I have been glorified in them. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.” And so, we are in the world but not abandoned to the world because we are the Father’s children and everything of Christ’s is the Father’s and everything of the Father’s belongs as well to Christ.

Did you get all of that? Sometimes these passages from John sound a bit like an auctioneer: I in you, you in me, we in them, them in us, and we in thee and thee and me; so, it’s we and me? It’s almost like a pronoun/preposition smoothie whirling around in an incarnational blender! How easy is it to get completely lost in this apparently very tangled web of relationships. But, of course, Jesus is not just being strangely Greek here. He is, as I said earlier, pointing up some vital truths about who we are as the Church and what we are supposed to be doing down here. What we have in the priestly prayer of Christ for us is a description of how the Blessed Trinity operates in the world. That operation, that mechanism is the Body of Christ (the Church) and the Holy Spirit. Body and soul, if you will, the person of Christ in the world, us, all of us.

Christ prays, “And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.” We just celebrated the Ascension, Christ going, body and soul, to the Father’s right hand. But in leaving us, he sends the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; thus making us his presence in the world. So, though he has left us, he is with us always in the person of the Church. The Fathers of Vatican Two call the Church a sacrament, the sign of Christ presence for the world’s salvation. And so, we are the glory the Blessed Trinity, those elect who do what Christ did so that the promise of eternal life for all believers might be preached to the end of the age.

Luke reports in his Acts of the Apostles that Paul, before heading off to Jerusalem, says farewell to the priests of Ephesus, “I served the Lord with all humility…I earnestly bore witness for both Jews and Greeks to repentance before God and to the faith in our Lord Jesus.” Paul, fully aware of the dangers in returning to Jerusalem, continues, “…I consider life of no importance to me, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I have received…to bear witness to the Gospel of God’s grace.” Our task as the Church, the continuing presence of the person of Christ in the world, is no different. We serve the Lord with all humility. We earnestly bear witness to repentance and to the faith of Jesus Christ. And we must consider life itself of no importance if we are finish this course and the ministry we have been given.

Paul, like Christ, and we, like Paul and Christ, are “compelled by the Spirit” to go to Jerusalem and Rome and London and New York City and Dallas, to go where we are sent to bear witness, to bear up and under the gospel of God’s grace and to offer the weightless yoke of His salvation to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. As the psalmist sings, “Blessed day by day be the Lord, who bears our burdens; God who is our salvation.”

R. I. P.

The Southern Dominican Province has lost two wonderful brothers in just four days. Fr. Albert died May 1st and Fr. Boley died today. I knew these men while serving as a deacon at Holy Rosary Parish in Houston, TX. Fr. Albert, a pioneer in Catholic bio-medical ethics, was always stretching my mind by challenging my assumptions. Fr. Boley, a pioneer in the art of the Really Bad Pun, was always stretching my funny-bone with his outrageous jokes. I am truly saddened to see these men gone from us! Please pray for them. . .

Fr. Albert Moraczewski, OP

Fr. William "Boley" Brenda, OP

Heaven and Hell

Never done one of these before. . .better late than never, right?

When the organizer for this event contacted me about speaking, I agreed before asking about the topic. . .typical Dominican response: "Sure! I'll talk. . .oh, what's the topic?" I sent him an email with my fingers crossed that he wouldn't ask me to speak on eschatology (i.e., The Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell). This is my least favorite sub-category of systematic theology b/c so much of what happens to us after death is simply unknown. Anyway, he writes back: "How about heaven and hell?" HA! This is the third time in as many years that someone or some group has asked me to speak on heaven and hell. . .do you think the Lord is trying to tell me something?

Anyway, I will give it my best shot. . .

Y'all come!

P.S. Here's a link to the only definitive pronouncement on life after death made by the Church, Benedictus Deus, issued by Pope Benedict XII in 1336. Good luck!

Just standing here looking at the sky

The Ascension of the Lord: Acts 1.1-11; Eph 1.17-23; Matthew 28.16-20
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital and Church of the Incarnation

Why are you standing there looking at the sky?

The Eleven go to Galilee. On the mountain there they meet Jesus—again—and he gives them their final orders. Having lost him in the garden, having betrayed him by fleeing in fear, the disciples find themselves again and again in the company of Jesus. After his resurrection, our Lord stays with his students, instructing them, comforting them, promising them his constant company. And yet, they doubt. They obey, but they doubt. They worship, but they doubt. Jesus lays out for them their mission as apostles, their duties as men who will receive from him his Holy Spirit. And he gives them these final instructions just before he departs to sit at the Father’s right hand in heaven. Fully God and fully man, Jesus rises to the Father, body and soul, and leaves his friends to do what he has ordered. Even as they stand there, hearing his words, watching him with worshipful hearts, they doubt. Nothing he has done has moved them to fully believe, to accept, completely, with whole hearts who and what he is. They worship, but they doubt. And so, they stand there looking at the sky.

On this side of Pentecost’s history, we know that that doubt is burned away by the fire of the Holy Spirit. We know that whatever hesitations, whatever reservations they might have had about Christ and his mission are set on fire and turned to ash with the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. But we are on this side of history, looking back. We read in Acts, Jesus says to the disciples, “…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” We read in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, “…[God] put all things beneath [Christ’s] feet and gave him as head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.” This is not the witness of timid men, men who doubt yet worship. These are men who worship in spirit and in truth! We can easily understand how such faith and passion is possible, looking back as we do, standing here after the coming of the Holy Spirit. But then, way back then, as they stand on that mountain in Galilee, looking at the sky, they doubt.

And how does Jesus treat their doubt? How does he answer their vacillation, their dithering? Before this moment he indulges their need for evidence, presenting his glorified body for their inspection. Before this moment he chastises them, “Do you still not believe!?” Before this moment he teaches them again where to find him in the prophecies of scripture. And they still doubt. Do we find this doubt so difficult to understand? Probably not. How often do we find ourselves in the throes of questioning our faith, struggling with answers to questions we barely understand? How often, when evil seems to defeat us, do we question God’s promises? Question His love for us? More often than we would like admit? And yet, we worship. We pray. We come to praise His name and Him thanks. We do what they did and will likely do so again. How does Jesus handle this all-too-human distrust, our misgivings about his witness? He gives them, his Church, he gives us, his Church a monumental job to do.

It makes no sense at all for you to give a job to someone you do not trust, a job, which left undone, undoes everything you hold dear. And it makes no sense for you to be given a job, which left undone, leaves you and the one who has given you the job wholly defeated. We entrust important jobs to those we know will do what needs to be done. We are given jobs because we are trusted. And yet, there Jesus stands, on the mountain in Galilee, in front of his doubting disciples, saying to them, “Go…and make disciples of the nations, baptizing them…teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Why does he trust them? Why, knowing their hearts to be brimming over with fear and hesitation, why does he give them this monumental task? Because he knows that the work he is giving them to do is his work and that because he is ascending to the Father, he will send them the Holy Spirit, thus fulfilling his final promise to them: “And, behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

The ascension of our Lord is the fulfillment of his promise to be with us always. By leaving us, he remains with us. By going to the Father, he sends his Spirit, who abides, even now, always, forever with us. This solemnity is not about celebrating another miracle or recalling another sign of his heavenly power. Do we really need such a thing? This solemnity is about teaching us again that Christ’s work is our work and the job we have to do, we do not do alone. Even together, as the body the Church, we cannot witness, cannot teach, cannot preach, cannot do justice, cannot pray without his company. Without his company, we are nothing. And Nothing cannot do what needs to be done. With him, we are Christ, baptizing, teaching, observing his commandments. With him, we are his heirs among the holy ones; we are the very revelation of the Father to the world; we are this world’s hope, this world’s sacrament, this world’s salvation. Without him, we are nothing. With all of our doubts on full display—our faults, our failures, our sad little sins—we are everything with him. And everything we are is Christ.

I am firmly convinced that the Devil’s greatest power is his ability to convince us that we cannot preach or teach or do God’s work in this world because we are not yet good enough to do so. When he shows us our sins and points out our failures, we humbly confess that we are not worthy and flee into the desert of a crippling doubt. Though ultimately temporary, he triumph over the Church is complete when we accept the lie that we must be perfect in order to witness. The Devil shames us into bending our necks to stare humbly at our bellybuttons and we let the world pass by untaught, unevangelized, unloved. We say, what good am I as a witness when I remain so vulnerable to sin? What good am I as a sign of God’s love when I cannot love as He does? I have done nothing to be worthy of this task. I am nothing in my sin and Nothing cannot do what needs to be done. But Nothing can stand there looking at the sky!

Are we sinful? Yes. Are we unworthy to do Christ’s work? Yes. Will we fail? Yes. On these counts the Devil is absolutely correct! We can’t baptize. We can’t teach or preach? We can’t show the world God’s by doing good works. The Church is powerless, faithless, utterly without hope or love. To believe anything else is prideful! But to believe that we are forgiven in Christ, made worthy by Christ, successful with Christ; to believe that we work for the Good because of Christ, to accept, believe, and exercise these truths is humility itself. To see and love the Church as powerful with Christ, faithful with Christ, hopeful with Christ is to see a bald-faced reality so clear, so distinct that all doubt is burned away, all fear is swept away, all hesitation, all of our dithering is killed, dead, and buried.

So, standing there on the mountain in Galilee with his anxious disciples, our Lord charges his friends to complete his work despite their doubts; he gives them the greatest commission found in scripture in order to spite their false pride. Who says you will do these things without me? Who is telling you that I am relying on your good will and human strength? I am with you always. You will not do my work without me. And so, immediately after Jesus is taken up, two men in white appear and ask the dumbfounded disciples, “Men of Galilee, ummmm, why are you standing there looking at the sky?” What are you waiting for?

That’s an excellent question for the Church! What are we waiting for? We have our mission statement—“Go, baptize, teach, observe God’s commandments.” We have the leadership. We have the personnel. We have the training. All the resources we need are at hand—scripture, tradition, magisterium, sacraments, the communion of saints in heaven, one another. We have Christ. So, why are we standing here looking at the sky? If you are paralyzed in your faith, unable to move, grow, to do what needs doing for the gospel, remember Jesus’ promise to his friends, to us: “…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses…I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

I am with you always.

Playing for keeps

St Athanasius: 1 John 5.1-5 and Matthew 10.22-25
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory and Church of the Incarnation

Some say humans are competitive by nature; we are genetically geared to strive to be better than our peers. Others say that we are trained to compete with one another by a testosterone-poisoned male-dominated capitalist western culture. Whether we are programmed to compete by our DNA or brainwashed into surrendering our natural instincts for cooperation in favor of bloodthirsty sport, I think it is safe to say: everyone likes to win! And whether that win is confirmation of our obvious physical and mental superiority over inferior peers, or the vindication of natural selection in the primordial struggle to pass on survivable genes, a victory is a victory is a victory, and few of us would pass up the chance to do a little Glow Basking if the opportunity presented itself. But we have to ask ourselves whether or not Glow Basking and victories over enemies and conquering unconquered hearts and minds, whether or not these competitive pursuits are really good for the humble Christian to be running after. So, in what sense can we say that we as Christians must conquer the world?

In a world that hates the Word of Truth, we can say that it might be necessary for the Church to conquer the world just so we can survive as free believers. But conquer in what sense? Surely, we no longer think in terms of political rule or military conquest. We could say that we defeat the world as a source of temptation; that is, we overcome the seductive lure of the world and make a radical choice for Christ against the world. John, in his first letter, writes: “…we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments…whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.” So our victory, our win in the game is our trust and obedience to God’s commands, making God first, foundational, and our end. This victory, this triumph—faith—then goes on to conquer the world. Faith first, then the game against the world, then our triumph over the world.

Two victories are at play here. The victory of faith gifted to us by God and nourished by our obedience to His commandments, His commandment to love; and our successful resistance to the world’s temptations using faith. Notice that the second win is contingent on the first. No faith, no trust then no defeat for the world. We understand that faith is a gift, a grace to trust in God wholeheartedly. God is the source and object of our trust; it is our belief in Christ that makes us “begotten by God.” Again and again, Christ—everything he was/is/will be and everything he did/does/will do—Christ is the priority, the right of Way, and the only way.

Given all of this, we cannot be smug or righteous or triumphant in our defeat of the world. Though we have believed and still believe, it is God’s gift of trusting His promises that lends us the strength, the power, and the ability to do what we do when we overcome a hostile world. Our conquest is not the result of DNA, the survival of the fittest, nurtured training, or social engineering; it is begotten, not made, our victory is Christ himself.

Everyone likes to win. Everyone likes the affirmation that he or she is good enough, strong enough, smart enough to take on a challenge and complete the task. Lest we take credit too quickly, lest we come to think that we have done something that will endear us to the world, Jesus offers a warning and a promise: “You will be hated by all because of my name [the warning], but whoever endures to the end will be saved [the promise].” We are hated b/c we compete with an advantage: we play on Christ’s team. And we will be saved b/c we play his game by his rules; we play as Christs, begotten and loved because we love, and we play for keeps.

Summer Class Reading Lists

Western Theological Tradition
First Summer Term 2008
Fr. Philip Powell, OP

Augustine. Essential Augustine.
Hillerbrand, Hans J. The Protestant Reformation
Pegis, Anton. Introduction to Thomas Aquinas.
Richardson, Cyril. Early Christian Fathers.
von Balthasar, H. U.. Love Alone is Credible.
Handouts from ecumenical councils, papal documents, etc.

American Literature
First Summer Term 2008
Fr. Philip Powell, OP

The Scarlet Letter and Other Writings (Norton Critical Editions)

Chopin, K, The Awakening.

Faulkner, Wm. As I Lay Dying. Vintage.

Melville, H. Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street.

O’Connor, F. The Complete Stories.

Roth, Philip. American Pastoral .

a poetry packet will be provided

Prayer Request

Please pray for my mom, Becky.

She found out late last week that she has emphysema.

She quit smoking six years ago, so the problem won't get any worse. But it's not going to get any better either.

Send a few prayers up for me as well. . .it's gonna be a tough week!

Thank You for the many promises of prayer for my Mom and me!

God bless, Fr. Philip, OP

"Lord, let me be killed..."

6^th Week of Easter (M): Acts 16.11-15 and John 15.26-16.4
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

In a poetry writing workshop, one of the most damning comments a reader can make is: “This is cliché.” This comment cuts straight to the bone of what it means to write good poetry and exposes quite possibly the scariest insecurity of any writer: “You are not being original!” Where we look to good writing to show us something new, we look to the conventions of polite conversation to free us from the potential embarrassment in social situations. In college, my friends and I called these “formal noises.” A phrase like, “Hey, how you doing?” Phrases and words that we hear so often that we no longer tag them as requiring anything of us other than that we play the game and politely utter another formal noise. We can find examples of formal noises in scripture…we’ve heard them a thousand thousand times. Clichés in polite conversation are one thing, however, allowing scriptural language to become cliché, allowing the words of the Word to become dull with use or to utter biblical language like a formal noise is dangerous. We have an example this morning. Let’s see if we can reclaim a clichéd phrase and restore it to its proper luster!

Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, is attending to one of Paul’s homilies. Scripture tells us, “[She] listened, and the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying.” How many times in your life as a Catholic have you heard someone use the phrase “open my/his/her/our heart(s)”? Don’t you hear this phrase as white noise? Just formal speech, meaningless filler? We pray all the time: “Lord, open our hearts and minds …” And we do this very casually, very matter-of-factly. When, in fact, this is an incredibly dangerous thing to say! How much more so to pray! But the habit of repetition, the pattern of sound and occasion has dulled the burn of the fire in these words and so we mouth them too easily and expect little to happen b/c we did so.

Let’s take a moment to look a little closer at what the heart is for us as believers. In the Catechism we read, “The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live…the heart is the place ‘to which I withdraw.’ The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others…The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as the image of God we live in relation : it is the place of covenant”(CCC 2563). For us then our heart is that place where who we are most fundamentally rests. To open this place and offer it to another is an awesome, perhaps fearful task. And because we are no one unless we are in a relationship, in a covenant, we are defined essentially by the one who rests in our heart…whoever He or It may be.

Lydia’s heart is opened by the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth promised by Christ as he says farewell to his disciples: “When Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father…he will testify to me.” Paul testifies. Lydia listens. Her heart is opened. And the Spirit of Truth seizes her. She and her household are baptized. This is very dangerous. Dangerous? Yes. Jesus goes on to tell the disciples that b/c they have listened to his Word, received the Spirit of Truth from his Father by his agency, that their hearts will be opened. This is a good thing? Yes and no. As a result of this gift they will be expelled from the synagogues and killed as act of worship by those who have not listened to Word, have not received the Spirit of Truth, by those whose hearts—perhaps wisely in this case—remain closed.

As a prayer, “Lord, open our hearts,” means “Lord, let us be killed for knowing Your Truth.” Will we be so quick to mumble this religious cliché in the future? I hope so. But we should do so remembering what Jesus tells his disciples: “…the Spirit of Truth [I send you from the Father]…he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.” Even as we pray to be killed for knowing his truth, we remember: Christ is with us, then, now, always.

Are we orphans?

6^th Sunday of Easter: Acts 8.5-8, 14-17; 1 Peter 3.15-18; John 14.15-21
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital and Church of the Incarnation

Was it easier back then, I wonder, to believe and to witness to Christ? “Back then,” of course, being during the first few decades after the resurrection. Was it simpler? You just believed, experienced Christ in the Spirit, and then ran about telling everyone what you now know to the truth: He is risen! And that was enough: he is risen. It had to be less complicated, less involved to be a follower of the Way way back then. Well, it wasn’t easier in the sense of having to run for your life every the temple guard or the Roman soldiers showed up. Then there were the crowds who weren’t happy about you blaspheming their elder gods when you preached the gospel. Not to mention the growing factions of Christians who split from the apostolic faith and polluted the Word with Egyptian cultic practices, Roman blood rituals, esoteric Greek mystery philosophies, and such nonsense. Oh yea, and then there’s that whole martyrdom business—arrows, blades, fires, crucifixions, drownings, mass murders by imperial decree. Belief itself was easier, I think. Though believing came at a much higher price than it does for us now. Of course, by “us” I mean, “western Christians.” You can still find the blade, the jail cell, the shot to the head in some parts of the world—mostly those places dominated by certain sects of Islam or the few remaining dictatorships. Still, reading the Acts of the Apostles you get the sense of a greater faith among the Christians, a brighter glory, a more urgent spirit of holiness and fervor than we sometimes experience now. Jesus had to know that the fire he kindled would burn hot for a while and then begin to settle into a warm glow before turning to ash altogether. How much more would his friends and their students begin to feel the pressure of family, friends, neighbors to return to the traditional ways once it became clear that he wasn’t coming back tomorrow or next week or even several years down the line. You would think that someone as smart as Jesus would have a plan in place to keep his Word burning down through the centuries. The Good News is: he did and that plan is called the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, our Advocate and Counselor!

Look at Philip in Samaria. The crowds paid attention to him because he “proclaimed the Christ to them.” He freed people from unclean spirits, healed the paralyzed, and “there was great joy in [Samaria].” So successful was Philip’s preaching there that “the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God…” They sent in the Big Guns, Peter and John, who “prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen upon any of them…” Philip had preached and healed baptized, but Peter and John laid hands on these new members of the family and “they received the Holy Spirit.” Notice here that though Philip brought the Word to Samaria, the larger Church—Peter and John—brought the Holy Spirit. Look at Philip in Samaria! He went down to that city and the Samaritans paid attention to him. Why? Because he “proclaimed the Christ to them.”

Who then is this Holy Spirit? Surely, Christ is enough! Go back a little while and remember the promise of Christ as he says farewell to his friends, “…I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth…” This is the first part of his promise. What’s the second? Jesus promises, “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” Who then is this Holy Spirit? Christ himself, that’s who: “In a little while the world will no longer see me,” Jesus says, “but you will see me, because I live and you will live.” If we live and he lives then it must be the case that we—all of us and Christ himself— we live together. What do we live in, together? The Holy Spirit! But then Jesus says, “…I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.” So, it’s not the Spirit but the Father we live in? Not quite. It is the Father and the Spirit that we live in…we live as Christ, the one who had made us sons of the Father through the Spirit. Do you see the picture here?

Now, who are “we”? We are sons of the Father. We live in the Spirit. We are the brother and sisters of Christ. Who is “we’? Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments…and whoever love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him…” “We” then are those of us who keep Christ’s commandments and love him. So, if we are those who love Christ, living in him, the Father, and the Spirit and live with them in love, then can we say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are Love? You better believe it! No, seriously, you had better believe it. Why? Because there is no way for us to abide with Christ other than this: to love God, love neighbor, love self in exactly the same way and to the same degree than we love God Himself. In fact, we cannot say that we love God while we hate our neighbor, while we hate ourselves. There is no room in a hateful heart for the love that gives us life in Him!

How then you do you love God? This is not a rhetorical question. This is a question about your eternal destination. It is a question that answers the question: who am I? Most deeply, most basically, at the heart of everything you are and hope to be, ask the question: how do I love God? Peter gives us some insight here. He writes, “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.” Meaning, make the One who died for you, everything he is and everything he did, make him ruler of your very being, God of your thinking, your believing, your doing, your living and your dying. He must rule, or someone else will. Peter continues, “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope…” Why do you hope? Why are you hoping? Seduced as you are toward being with God in eternity, why do you trust? Directed as you are toward your perfection in Christ, why do anticipate? Why is following Christ in his passion, his death, and his resurrection a Good for you? Knowing that your answer might lead to ridicule, abuse, violence, even death, why would you tell anyone why you hope? Peter says, “For it is better to suffer for doing good…than for doing evil.” If it is God’s will that you suffer, it is better to suffer telling the truth; it is better to hurt witnessing to Christ’s suffering for you.

Jesus, looking at his friends, knows that such a witness will draw the darkest spirits, the most maligned accusations against them. He knows this because he himself knows that even his friends—those sitting in front of him—will betray him. If your friends will abandon you in your most painful moment, why would you expect those who never knew you, even your enemies, to hang around and help? Peter writes, “[Jesus] was put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the Spirit.” And so it must be for us as well. Given this truth, why do we stay the course to the Cross?

Don’t you think that it was easier back then? They were closer to Christ. They knew him in the flesh. They heard him with their own ears, watched him with their eyes. They knew him in a way we never can. And yet, here we are. Gathered together in his name as his Body, offering his gifts on the altar of sacrifice, saying AMEN to lives bound to one another in charity. Here we are—loving him as he loves us so that he might reveal himself to us. What does he reveal? He reveals, he shows us that in his love, we are Christ! We abide, live, move and have our being, we plan grow, thrive, harvest in his love; we work, play, sleep, eat, study in his love; we do everything we do, think everything we think, feel everything we feel in his love. It is no more difficult now than it was then. The Spirit moved then, moves now. The Spirit set them on fire then, he sets us on fire now. The Spirit gave them what they needed to explain their hope; he gives us now the words, the courage, the power to preach and teach our hope in him now. Yes, he suffered; so do we. Yes, he died; so do we. But he lives, and so do we…in him, with him, through him. We live as Christ.

It is no easier now than it was then. Unclean spirits still plague us. Aren’t are tempted to surrender to our neighbors and say yes to this culture’s lust for death? Aren’t we ridiculed for our naïve faith in ancient tales of miracles? For believing that we need salvation from the stain of sin? For our hope that one day he will return in the flesh to take us away? Sure, of course, we are. The same spirit of despair, darkness, loathing, and destruction still haunts the Church. We must remain unmoved by this spirit of desolation. Love Christ. Follow his commandment to love. Remain in him, and he will remain in you. If He can change the sea into dry land and deliver His children from slavery, then he can give you the Word of Life to speak in His name. Keep your conscience clear and be ready. The devil prowls like a hungry lion hunting for someone to devour. If you want to be the meat between the devil’s teeth, then let go of Christ, surrender to despair, abandon your friends in the Body, and run toward the easier choice of living without our Father’s rule, without His love. This is the freedom the world has for sale. Purchase it with your immortal soul.

Second Conference

Two: "Penetrating the hearts of all things": Eucharist as Moral Fission

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Day of Reflection, Kenrick Seminary
St Louis, MO
April 24, 2008

I. Pulled in, sent out

This morning I attempted to draw a parallel between the transformation of the Passover meal into the Eucharist and the individual Christian’s transformation from being a person “about Christ” to being Christ. Pope Benedict sees the latter transformation into terms of Jesus transfiguring the foreshadowing of the Passover (the figura) into the truth of the Eucharist (the veritatem). Our Holy Father goes on to note that this transfiguration occurs through the Cross, bringing the promise of the Passover meal into completion, fulfilling the prophetic history of God’s people, and changing our memory of liberation into our liberation in truth. Picking up his mediation on the Eucharist in Sacramentum caritatis, I want to offer for your reflection this afternoon the following question: having shown us our final end with God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, and having accepted this end with our repeated “amen’s” at prayer, what are the moral implications of celebrating the Eucharist; in other words, now that Mass is over and we have been sent out, what do we do and how? Our Holy Father, in the most striking passage I’ve ever read in a papal document, writes that we are to become graced agents of a cosmic moral transfiguration, “a change meant to set off a process which transforms reality, a process leading ultimately to the transfiguration of the entire world, to the point where God will be all in all”(SC 11). The catalyst and the fuel for this radical change is to be found in the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.

II. Renewing history & cosmos

At the precise moment that Jesus identifies himself as the lamb of sacrifice in the Passover meal, “[he] shows the salvific meaning of his death and resurrection, a mystery which renews history and the whole cosmos”(SC 10). It is very important to note here that this is not just the renewal of a single people or a single tribe or race, but the re-creation of the cosmos and the re-vision of our history as prophecy fulfilled. We must be very cautious about giving a stingy interpretation to the revelation Jesus makes here. It is tempting to see this revelation as a metaphor, or as a clever way of warning his friends about his fate. Metaphors and clever warnings cannot serve as the re-presentation of Jesus’ sacrifice, what our Holy Father describes as “a supreme act of love and mankind’s definitive deliverance from evil.” I’ve come across a lot of metaphors in my 22 years of teaching English. Never met one that delivered me from evil! Jesus means precisely what Jesus says here. He is the lamb. The sacrifice. And he is the priest and the altar. He is the giver and the gift. When we receive what he offers—himself—we are transformed into a giver and a gift. So, in our service to others, we are not simply “using our talents” or “exercising our graces.” We are, literally, sacrificing self—making the self holy by surrendering the self to service. Remember: we are not baptized to be “about Jesus” nor are we called to be a Body of those who are “about Christ.” It is our re-created nature now to be Christ per se. For this to happen, Christ had to die on the cross.

Now, by taking such a sharp focus on the saving act of the cross and then expanding our view to include the whole of creation, Pope Benedict is both pulling us in and sending us out, pulling us toward the cross and Christ, and sending us out toward the world with Christ. Between being pulled in and sent out there is a space for growth and development. Our Holy Father says about this space: “By [Christ’s] command to ‘do this in remembrance of me,’ he asks us to respond to his gift and to make it sacramentally present. In these words the Lord expresses…his expectation that the Church, born of sacrifice, will receive this gift, developing under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the liturgical form of the sacrament”(SC 11). And it is the liturgical form of the sacrament of remembrance and thanksgiving that fills the space between being called to the cross and sent out from the cross. In other words, the Mass seduces us in, transforms us in sacrifice and communion, and sends us out to do the same to the world.

III. Offering

Now, we know that it is Christ’s death on the cross and his resurrection from the tomb makes it possible for us to participate in the divine re-creation of the world. But how do we, right here and now, actually participate in this divine work? Sure, we can run out to feed the homeless at the shelter, or protest in front of the abortion clinics, or help sort donations at St Vincent de Paul. These are certainly acts of charity. But even these acts of charity as “acts of charity” participate in a pre-existing habit of willing the good for others. Where do we get that will, that habit of loving?

First, our Holy Father notes that we, as the Church, must receive the gift of Christ’s death and resurrection. This only makes sense. Something given to you only becomes a gift once you have received it as a gift. Sacramentally, we receive this gift in the Mass every time we say “amen.” Second, it is not enough that we remember Christ’s perfect gift of himself for us. The Passover meal was a remembrance. We have been delivered from slavery; so, though we may remember our liberation, who we are is free, looking out and forward. Benedict writes, “The remembrance of his perfect gift consists not in the mere repetition of the Last Supper, but in the Eucharist itself, that is, in the radical newness of Christian worship. In this way, Jesus left us the task of entering into his ‘hour’”(SC 11). We enter into Jesus’ hour through the Eucharist. Quoting his own encyclical, Deus caritatis est, Benedict says, “The Eucharist draws us into Jesus’ act of self-oblation. More than statically receive the incarnate Logos, we enter into the very dynamic of his self-giving”(SC 11).

As followers of Christ, we go where he goes. If he goes to the cross and the tomb, so do we. If he gives himself in sacrifice for others, so do we. If he empties himself out in an act of selfless oblation, so do we. And when we do these things, these acts of selfless oblation, we are doing more than just “serving others;” we are connecting ourselves to the “dynamic of [Christ’s] self-giving.” We are also participating in setting the stage for the dramatic re-creation of the cosmos. Having accomplished the possibility of our salvation and having brought to consummation the prophetic history of God’s people and having drawn the Body, the Church into his service, Christ prepares us to do the most extraordinary thing: transfigure the entire world!

IV. Transfiguring the world

Our Holy Father’s focus in Sacarmentum caritatis is the Eucharist as the “sacrament of love.” For us, the Eucharist is a sign of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary, pointing to and making present the once-for-all self-oblation of Jesus on the cross. When we step into the Eucharist as those redeemed by Christ’s sacrifice, we step out of history and into eternity. The Mass is not a re-sacrifice of Christ. Such a thing is wholly unnecessary because the man on those wooden beams is God. And since it is God incarnate who died for us, our flesh, our human nature, is “taken up” into his death and resurrection. Everything he healed, he assumed; which means everything about us is healed! Every injury, every disease, every breach of the covenant since the garden, every sin we have ever committed or will commit is cured, closed-up, made fresh and new. And not only that—yes, there is more!—the whole of creation is brought back into “right relationship” with God’s plan.

The liturgical celebration of Christ’s sacrifice is not just a pageant that forces us to remember. Of course, we remember; but we also re-collect, re-store, re-new that which makes us perfect in Him—His likeness and image that makes us His sons. The work of the Eucharist is to make us God, to bring us into the perfected participation of the divine, to share His life intimately, passionately. Aquinas teaches us that we come to be “deiformed.” He says that “God become man so that man might become God.” Cyril of Alexandria says that we “become Christs,” we live the life of Christ. And as such, we are agents of a creaturely transfiguration. How?

Benedict, in a highly underappreciated passage in SC writes, “The substantial conversion of bread and wine into [Christ’s] body and blood introduces within creation the principle of a radical change, a sort of ‘nuclear fission’…which penetrates to the heart of all being…” As we are pulled into Christ’s self-oblation as members of his Body, we are transformed; then our transformed hearts and minds and bodies, once we are sent out, spreads out to all of creation. Literally, we take Christ to the world in our bodies. The principle of radical change introduced to creation is this: God is love, He is the Will that wills the Good, and we are His transfiguring instruments. However, we are not merely human instruments, merely agents of social change or cultural revolution, we are His Christs sent to offer ourselves in sacrifice for others. There is no half-participation, no means of simply playing along to play along. We change the world or we stay at home.

Benedict uses the phrase “nuclear fission” to describe what happens at the prayer of consecration. At that moment, the divine touches the human most intimately, and we are forever altered. The purpose of this transubstantiation is not merely ritualistic or symbolic or something akin to changing the meaning of the bread and wine for us. All of there are forms of weak participation, pale imitations of a wholly beautiful reality. Think for a moment: if all we are going in the Mass is redirecting our attention to our final goal or shifting the meaning of food and drink in order to build up community with a shared meal, then we have tragically limited the work of the cross and the empty tomb! In the same way, if we believe that what we are doing is simply remembering his sacrifice, recalling again his confession to being the sacrificial Lamb of Passover, then nothing substantial has taken place. We have jogged our memories, soothed our immediate need for comfort, and ignored the most powerful means we have for transfiguring the world.

Note again that Benedict describes the Eucharist as a “process leading ultimately to the transfiguration of the entire world, to the point where God will be all in all”(SC 11). Do we want God to be all in all as a symbol? As a shift in definition? As a re-set goal post? No! That’s not why Christ died. These are not worth the Passion and the blood of the cross. And what’s more, none of these sparks us out into the world like a nuclear fission. From the altar at the prayer of consecration the body and blood of Christ from the cross on Calvary splashes out, flies out to the “heart of being” and readies all of creation to receive its Creator. The sacrament of love—Who Is God Himself—can do nothing less!

V. Now what?

If everything said here is true, then we have only one Path to walk, one Work to complete: we follow Christ doing what he did—preaching the Good News, teaching sound doctrine, admonishing the sinner, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, honoring the poor, and loving, loving, loving. And because the world is ruled for now by a dark spirit, we prepare ourselves for resistance, for enmity, and dissent. But because the world is a gift from Goodness Himself, we do not despair rather we work in joy and hope.

For your reflection: how am I a spark of the nuclear fission that flies from the altar of sacrifice? How do I contribute to the transfiguration of the world? Am I prepared to live in creation where God will be all in all?