On eating with sinners

2nd Week of Lent (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

Way back in the early 80's, my university's Episcopal chaplain told me that he frequented a local pub wearing his collar. I was a just a little scandalized. When he saw my discomfort, he went on to tell me that he went to all sorts of bars in his collar—biker bars, “alternative-lifestyle” bars, pool halls, honky-tonks, and even truck stops! I asked him if he went to these places to preach. He smiled and said, “No, I go to get a beer. But I always end up hearing confessions. When people won't come to church, the church has to go to them.” Though I undersstood his point, I was still a just a little scandalized. Wouldn't people see a priest hanging out in a bar as a sign that he approved of what might be going on there? Shouldn't a Christian—especially a priest—give a better example by avoiding these places and the people who go to them? Tax collectors and sinners were drawn to Jesus and they listened to him. The Pharisees and scribes saw this, and they began to grumble about this imprudent rabbi, “He welcomes sinners and eats with them! They will start to believe that they aren't traitors and sinners!” Jesus answers the complainers with the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The Bad Son returns to his father after wasting his inheritance on wine and women. The Good Son complains to their father that his own goodness has never been celebrated. The father says, “My son, you are here with me always. . . your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.” 

Very often this parable is misused to dismiss or downplay the seriousness of sin. Or to justify merely socializing with notorious public sinners. Not every instance of eating with pagans, prostitutes, or enemies of the gospel is used to preach or to hear confessions. Sometimes, the excuse, “Well, Jesus ate with sinners and the Pharisees accused him of being impure too!” is just that, an excuse, a convenient alibi for rubbing elbows with the people we want to be seen with—the rich, the powerful, the prestigious, the popular people who might be able to sprinkle a little of their glitter onto us. Yes, the father welcomed his Wayward Son back into the family with a grand celebration; and yes, the Good Son is whining about having his goodness ignored. But the father is crystal clear about one thing: before returning to the family, the Celebrated Son was lost. Now, he is found—contrite and reconciled. 

The parable Jesus tells in answer to the Pharisees' accusation is the story of each of us returning to the Father. Our Father doesn't celebrate our leaving. He doesn't celebrate our sin. Had the Bad Son returned to the family unrepentant, demanding his place at the table and arguing that his dissolute behavior wasn't sinful or that it is his right to live anyway he chooses, his father wouldn't be celebrating. But b/c his son returns to him, repentant and resolved to live righteously, the party goes on! So, there are two cautions in this parable. The first caution is for those of us who would accuse Jesus of impurity for eating with sinners. Sinners are the ones who most need to hear God's mercy proclaimed. Do not assume then that Christians who eat with sinners are merely socializing. The second caution is for those of us who would see in the father's celebration an implicit approval of sin, or assume that the father is ignoring the son's sin just be fatherly. The son was lost. But now that he has repented, he is found. 

Each of us is a sinner. All of us are called to repentance. Between sin and God's mercy, we need all the help we can get.

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Another (failed) attempt to rescue God from the Bible

The Rev. Albert Mohler (Southern Baptist theologian) reviews the controversial new book, Love Wins:  a book about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived by Rob Bell.  Mohler correctly points out that Bell's book is nothing new; it's rehashed universalist heresy dressed up in hipper duds: 

The liberals did not set out to destroy Christianity. To the contrary, they were certain that they were rescuing Christianity from itself. Their rescue effort required the surrender of the doctrines that the modern age found most difficult to accept, and the doctrine of hell was front and center on their list of doctrines that must go.

As historian Gary Dorrien of Union Theological Seminary — the citadel of Protestant Liberalism — has observed, it was the doctrine of hell that marked the first major departures from theological orthodoxy in the United States. The early liberals just could not and would not accept a doctrine of hell that included conscious eternal punishment and the pouring out of God’s wrath upon sin.

Thus, they rejected it. They argued that the doctrine of hell, though clearly revealed in the Bible, slandered God’s character. They offered proposed evasions of the Bible’s teachings, revisions of the doctrine, and the rejection of what the church had affirmed throughout its long history. By the time the 20th century came to a close, liberal theology had largely emptied the mainline Protestant churches and denominations. As it turns out, theological liberalism is not only a rejection of biblical Christianity — it is a failed attempt to rescue the church from its doctrines. At the end of the day, a secular society feels no need to attend or support secularized churches with a secularized theology. The denial of hell did not win relevance for the liberal churches. It simply misled millions about their eternal destiny.

All Bell and his theological minions need to do is become Catholic and their concerns about hell are instantly relieved.  According to the Catechism, hell is the "definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed" (n. 1033).  Bell's unnecessary anxieties about hell and God's wrath result from the Protestant rejection of the magisterial authority of the Church.  He has rightly rejected a false notion of hell and replaced it with another.  

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Read and Weep

The following is part of a critical analysis of a Youtube vid of some teenage girl's pop-song.  The song is trite, repetitive, and very much in keeping with what passes for music among her generation:  me, me, me.   The article about the vid is also trite and very much in keeping with what passes for academic writing among our Postmodern Betters.  Confession:  in my grad school days, I wrote many a paper that read like this.  Dominie, mea culpa, mea culpa, maxima mea culpa!

She offers the camera a hostage's smile, forced, false. Her smoky eyes suggest chaos witnessed: tear gas, rock missiles and gasoline flames. They paint her as a refugee of a teen culture whose capacity for real subversion was bludgeoned away somewhere between the atrocities of Kent State and those of the 1968 Democratic Convention, the start of a creeping zombification that would see youthful dissent packaged and sold alongside Pez and Doritos.

“Look and listen deeply,” she challenges. An onanistic recursion, at once Siren and Cassandra, she heralds a new chapter in the Homeric tradition. With a slight grin, she calls out to us: “I sing of the death of the individual, the dire plight of free will and the awful barricades daily built inside the minds of all who endure what lately passes for American life. And here I shall tell you of what I have done in order to feel alive again.”

Read the whole awful thing and weep for America, folks.  

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Ransom for the many

2nd Week of Lent (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

We've all heard it a million times before: Jesus upsets the conventions of polite society. He revolutionizes religious expectations by pointing us beyond traditional models of power. Jesus spends his public ministry redistributing spiritual capital from a greedy priesthood to the “workers in the field,” rewarding those who sacrifice for the poor and the marginalized. Yes, we've heard it all before. . .largely b/c it's true. Put in more theological and less political terms, Jesus teaches his disciples (and us) that each of us is a priest, a prophet, and a king. Each of us—in virtue of our baptism in Christ—has a duty to sacrifice, to prophesy, and to rule. Along behind the Christ—the High Priest, the Final Prophet, and the Only King—we follow as servants, serving to the limits of our gifts, exhausting our time, talent, and treasure in the service of the Kingdom of Heaven. Each of us alone and all of us together pitch in to get the work of God done. And along the way, we suffer; we rejoice; we fail; we get back up; and we soldier on b/c “the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” How does serving others as a priest, a prophet, and a king lead us to ransom our lives for many? 

Priests offer sacrifice to God and mediate between God and His creatures through prayer. The service we render to the world as priests is mediation—by example and by intercession. By example, we sacrifice; that is, through surrender to God we make our lives and the work we do holy. We are not called to do “good deeds.” We are called to do good deeds for Christ's sake, in his name and for his greater glory. By example, by doing what he himself did, we stand between the world and Christ, inviting the world to see and hear the mercy that Christ proclaimed to all. By intercession, we do the work of prayer on behalf of the world; in some cases; we do the work of prayer in the stead of the world. Our lives as priests ransom the many—pay for the many—when we pick up their debts and pay them from our own spiritual treasure.

Prophets see the fulfilled promises of God and measure our successes and failures in living up to our end of the covenant. With the death and resurrection of Christ, God's covenant promises are complete. However, we are still working toward meeting our obligations. The service we render to the world as prophets is judgment. Not through condemnation but through assessment and correction. If we see our godly end clearly, then we can see our how work is succeeding or failing. Measured against our obligations under the new covenant, are we on the Way or have we strayed? Alone and together, are we at our best, doing our best for the coming Kingdom? Our lives as prophets are ransomed for the many when we sacrifice popularity in the pursuit of Christ's perfection for ourselves and for the world.

Kings rule in order to guard righteousness, to preserve right relationships and protect the helpless. The service we render to the world as kings is justice. Not the worldly justice of vengeance or retribution but the justice due to the image and likeness of God in all. Guarding human dignity, the imago Dei, in all God's sons and daughters guards His sacred will that all come to Him freely in love. As servant-kings we are charged with ensuring that no one is prevented from answering his or her call to holiness, that no one is prevented from perfecting the image and likeness of God that gives them life. We ransom our lives for the many when we fight against the injustices that subjugate and destroy life.

When we serve Christ as his priests, prophets, and kings we sacrifice our lives to the service of his gospel—all are invited to the one table; all are called upon to repent; and all are forgiven. The greatest work that the least can do is serve the many by showing them the Christ.

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Coffee Cup Browsing

Anti-bullying programs aren't working b/c our Betters preach one thing and do another.

"Please, Your Holiness, may we have some more. . .philosophy, that is?"  Updated seminary formation guidelines = job security for Yours Truly!  :-)

For the umpteenth time in the last 100 yrs, social scientists predict the End of Religion.  Maybe they need to brush up on Freud's notion of wish fulfillment.

Can't make a decision?  Want to dodge all responsibility?  Need a political scapegoat?  Form a committee!

Looks like the somnambulant anti-war Left is starting to stir against B.O.'s war in Libya. 

Union bosses conspiring to topple U.S. economy in order to achieve socialist ends? 

How is the Roman Missal translated from Latin into English? 

Weekly Mass attendance has dropped by 50% since 1958. 

Gender Studies:  if the genders are interchangeable, why bother making two kinds?

Contra abortion on the basis of reason alone.

On the Church and unions.  Public sector unions are not the kind of unions Leo XIII or JPII had in mind.

How to know if you're really rocking. . .is there a diaper on your head?

This week on FOX's "Doggie Intervention". . .Chi-chi goes to rehab.

On the dangers of being a parent of a creative kid

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Choose your measure carefully

2nd Week of Lent (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

Forgiveness doesn't come naturally. If you've ever been called upon to forgive a serious offense, to absolve a grievous injury, you know that the ability to forgive the one who sinned against you is truly supernatural, a thing of God. The most difficult part of relieving the offender of his or her guilt is surrendering what you imagine to be your right of vengeance, the privilege of getting even. An imbalance in the scales of justice must be rebalanced. Hurt for hurt. Injury for injury. How else do you ensure that the offender will not offend again? Where else will I find peace except in the sure knowledge that the one who dared to sinned against me knows that any future misbehavior will be roundly and soundly retaliated against? And besides all this, there's a certain delight in being the victim of a sin. I'm set aside as a creditor, someone who is owed a debt. Collection of the debt—with interest—is a moment to relish, a heady moment when the offender realizes that his or her sin against me is going to cost them and cost them dearly. Resisting the temptations of exacting human justice and a little personal vengeance is a supernatural task, one that we accomplish only with the generous help of a loving God. Jesus puts the supernatural task of human forgiveness in practical terms, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. . .For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” 

We don't have to be a god or an angel in order to forgive. All we need to be is prepared to be measured by the same yardstick we have used to measure those who have sinned against us. Choose that measure carefully. Unless you are already morally perfect, spiritually whole, you might want to set aside Vengeance as your measure. You might want to rethink using Victim or Judge as your yardstick. Jesus has no illusions that we will easily set aside these all-too-human measures. He knows as well as we do—better even—what forgiveness costs in purely human terms. To be merciful as God is merciful means that we must trust that our generosity will not be abused. That our willingness to absolve an injury will not be seen as a weakness to be exploited. That we are not abandoning the need for law and order in favor of dreamy illusions that everyone has become a saints overnight. Fortunately, being merciful doesn't require us to forget about justice. But we are required to be merciful first, if for no other reason than we would want mercy for ourselves before justice is meted out.

The psalmist this morning has us praying, “Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins.” Amen to that! Deal with us according to your mercy. Deal with us according to the faith of your Church. Deal with us according to the love you have for your children. Just please don't deal with us according to our sins. If it's reasonable for us to ask for this kind of treatment from God when we sin against Him, then it is right and just that we treat those who have sinned against us in exactly the same way. Granted, thinking this way, acting this way does not come naturally to us. But the whole point of following Christ with our cross is that we are living supernatural lives, lives beyond our fallen natures. And we do so only b/c we have received the grace—the supernatural help—we need. Being merciful as God is merciful is not super-human; it's divine. And if we will be measured by the divine yardstick of mercy, we will give up vengeance, surrender beings victims, and always grant mercy before seeking justice. We were promised a cross. Pick it up and move on.

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Coffee Cup Browsing (Link Fixed)

B.O. has not only adopted and expanded most of W.'s anti-terror policies. . .now he's adopted his speeches as well.

Ironies just keep on piling up. . .B.O. bombs Libya on the eighth anniversary of W. bombing Iraq.

Time to lower the legal drinking age.  Vote, die in war, get married/make babies, enter binding contracts, borrow money; buy tobacco, a house, a car, a gun. . .but somehow beer is off limits.  

Interview with Andrew Breitbart. . .His mission?  "To expose the counternarrative that has been hidden by those controlling the reins of popular culture."  More power to him!

Jets over Libya as H. Clinton Assumes Presidency

I saw Battle:  Los Angeles.  Perfect redneck movie.  Aliens?  Check.  Explosions?  Check.  Exploding aliens?  Check!  Go see it. . .if for no other reason than that the lefty critics hate it.

Raising expectations to keep things in perspective. . .

(Link fixed) This is why I didn't that Zombie machete gun I wanted for Christmas!   @#$% illegal aliens.

Bottle water. . .tears of the damned? 

Philosopher Kitty says. . .

Mille grazie. . .

Thanks to all those who have been on the Wish Lists and sent me a book recently!  Individual notes will be in the mail as soon as books arrive.

I appreciate it more than you can imagine. You are in my daily prayers. . .

God bless, Fr. Philip Neri, OP

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Tired of Lent? Rise, and do not be afraid!

2nd Sunday of Lent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St Joseph Church, Ponchatoula

The motto for the second week of Lent:  “Rise, and do not be afraid!” 

Are you tired of Lent yet? Wondering why you chose you favorite bad habit to give up? Are you finding yourself counting the days, just waiting it out, maybe twitching a little now and then? Thinking about marching right into Burger King or making a quick stop at the bakery? Is your tongue just itching to really tell someone off? Or maybe your credit card is keeping you up at night softly sobbing from loneliness. Imagine calling the whole thing off. Right now. Just stop Lent and get off. Stop the fasting, the abstaining; stop the extra prayers and just break those promises of weekly confession, daily Mass, nightly rosary. Just stop it all. Just say NO to Lent. And get off this crazy roller coaster of a liturgical season! I mean, really now…is Jesus coming back anytime soon? Who knows? 

Imagine the disciples for a second. There they were with Jesus, their beloved teacher, and they are having trouble understanding all his mysterious talk of suffering and dying and coming back to life again. The disciples! The guys who know him best are struggling with this whole going-into-the-desert-thing. Here we are 2,000 years later, and we’re trying to understand and benefit from the example of his temptations. You had better believe I would conjure up some bread after forty days without food. Not to mention a case or two of beer! Of course, I would call down an army of angels if the Devil appeared and started tempting me. And, yea, ruling the world seems like a heady vocation with lots of perks. But I, like you, must do what Christ did. And in case we’re scared out of our minds at the very idea of what’s ahead for the Church, we have Christ on the mountain with Peter, James, and John. And we have Christ's promise: “…his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as light.” What sort of promise is this? What exactly is the promise of the transfiguration?

The disciples, gawking in fear at the sight of the transfigured Jesus, Moses and Elijah with him, fall flat on their faces in the dirt. Jesus touches them and says, “Rise, and do not be afraid!” When they rise, Jesus remains alone standing before them, shining brilliant white. Moses and Elijah are gone. The joyous light around him dissipates. All he says to the dumb-struck disciples is: “Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” That’s it. That’s his explanation of what just happened. Um, what just happened? We received a revelation. And now that we have it, what are we supposed to do with it?

Let’s go back to Paul and his second letter to Timothy. Paul writes to this friend, “[God] saved us and called us to a holy life, NOT according to our works but according to His own design and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus…” What makes this holy life we are called to possible? Nothing other than the gifts we have received from God, the grace “now made manifest through the appearance of our savior Christ Jesus…” Paul, writing long after the revelation on the mountain, is reminding Timothy that he must “bear [his] share of hardship for the gospel…” How? “…with the strength that comes from God.” Jesus’ transfiguration, his transformation before Peter, James, and John is our Lord’s seal on an ancient promise: endure with my strength, endure with the gifts you have been given, endure with one another, and you too will be transfigured; you too will shine like the sun, white as light. 

What do we do ‘til then? Jesus touches his frightened disciples and says to them, “Rise, and do not be afraid!” In this one command, we can hear the echo of all of the promises our Lord made to Abram: “I will make you a great nation…I will make your name great…I will bless those who bless you…All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you.” None of these gifts are ours by right or inheritance. It is ours in faith by the promise of the One who blesses His creation with His presence. We cannot lay claim to a single blessing, not one gift from our Lord if, trembling in fear of our future, we are face down in the dirt. Or if we will not look up into the eyes of Christ; or if we refuse in our sinfulness to be transfigured, to be changed into He Whom we adore. So, rise and do not be afraid! Do not fear small sacrifices or large ones; do not fear little fasts or days of abstinence; do not fear that the Body of Christ is sick beyond healing, or that the Word is silenced against the world’s unbelief and violence. Meet your temptations for what they are: lies. Meet the Devil for who he is: a liar. And rejoice that you have been given a seal on the promise of your salvation! A bright shining promise made by he “who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

What awaits our Lord in Jerusalem is an ignoble death on the Cross. He knows this. Yet he rides into Jerusalem like a slave on a donkey. And though he is cheered as a king, he is abandoned like a beggar to beg for his life. . .even as he dies. His face shone like the sun on the mountain. But it bleeds on the Cross. His clothes become brilliant white on the mountain. But when he is lifted up on the Cross, he wears a king’s purple, red with his own blood. And when he stands before the disciples shining and bright on the mountain, he stands with Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets; yet in the garden he is alone. On the Cross he is a criminal among thieves. He knows all of this. And he appears to his disciples to seal an ancient promise of mercy. He appears, transfigured, to ease their doubts, to strengthen their resolve, to bolster their lagging faith. 

Are you ready yet to abandon your Lenten fasts? Your sacrifices? Are you ready to deal with the Devil and shop among his lies? Are you ready to stop this crazy ride and get off? If so, hear this one more time: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” Listen to the Cross. Listen to the fall of the temple veil as it crashes. Listen again to Paul: “Beloved, bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.” Listen to Jesus say as he touches your hand, “Rise, and do not be afraid!”

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The New Youth Catechism

A sneak-peek at YOUCAT: Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church.

To view sample pages of YOUCAT, click here.

H/T:  InsightScoop

Mary, Theotokos

This morning I will celebrate Mass for the children of St Joseph's parish school.  The Children's Lectionary follows a different cycle than the one we use in the regular lectionary.  The gospel for this morning's Mass is taken from Matthew 1.16-24, the story of the angel instructing Joseph to complete his betrothal to Mary despite her obvious pregnancy.

This reading and my classes on the Creed reminded me of the 5th century controversy over whether or not Mary can be properly called "the Mother of God."  

Thus, a repost:

The Solemnity of the Mary, Mother of God, celebrates the decision taken at the Council of Ephesus (431) against the teaching of the Patriarch, Nestorius, who held that a human person could not be said to have given birth to God. The Patriarch of Alexander, Cyril, argued that Mary, as the chosen instrument of the Incarnation, conceived and gave birth to the Word, Jesus, fully human and fully divine, one person with two natures. Mary, then, is properly understood to be “Theotokos,” God-bearer.

Cyril wrote (in part) to Nestorius:

"And since the holy Virgin brought forth corporally God made one with flesh according to nature, for this reason we also call her Mother of God, not as if the nature of the Word had the beginning of its existence from the flesh.

For In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God, and he is the Maker of the ages, coeternal with the Father, and Creator of all; but, as we have already said, since he united to himself hypostatically human nature from her womb, also he subjected himself to birth as man, not as needing necessarily in his own nature birth in time and in these last times of the world, but in order that he might bless the beginning of our existence, and that that which sent the earthly bodies of our whole race to death, might lose its power for the future by his being born of a woman in the flesh. And this: In sorrow you shall bring forth children, being removed through him, he showed the truth of that spoken by the prophet, Strong death swallowed them up, and again God has wiped away every tear from off all faces. For this cause also we say that he attended, having been called, and also blessed, the marriage in Cana of Galilee, with his holy Apostles in accordance with the economy. We have been taught to hold these things by the holy Apostles and Evangelists, and all the God-inspired Scriptures, and in the true confessions of the blessed Fathers."

Cryril published twelve anathemas against Nestorius. Cyril's letters and his anathemas became the primary texts from which the council fathers drew up their canons for the council.

The first anathema reads: “If anyone will not confess that the Emmanuel is very God, and that therefore the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God (Θεοτόκος), inasmuch as in the flesh she bore the Word of God made flesh [as it is written, The Word was made flesh] let him be anathema.”

The fifth anathema reads: “If anyone shall dare to say that the Christ is a Theophorus [that is, God-bearing] man and not rather that he is very God, as an only Son through nature, because the Word was made flesh, and has a share in flesh and blood as we do: let him be anathema.”

As is the case with all Marian dogma and doctrine, we are immediately directed back to Christ as our Lord and Savior. No Marian dogma or doctrine is declared or defined in isolation from Christ. She is always understood to be an exemplar for the Church and a sign through which we come to a more perfect union with Christ. Though our Blessed Mother is rightly revered and venerated, she is never worshiped as if she were divine. She is rightly understood as the Mediatrix of All Graces in so far as she mediated, through her own body, the conception and birth of Christ, who is Grace Himself. In no sense are we to understand our Blessed Mother as the source of grace. Rather, she was and is a conduit through which we benefit from the only mediation between God and man, Christ. In her immaculate conception and assumption into heaven, our Blessed Mother is herself a beneficiary of Christ's grace. As such, she cannot be the source of our blessedness, our giftedness in Christ.

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Coffee Cup Browsing

Public Union Thuggery in WI:  a compilation. Crickets chirping at ABC-CBS-CNN-NBC-NPR-PBS-NYT, etc.  Warning:  the language from some of these school teachers in the vids is NSFW.

U.S. prepares to bomb Arab dictator who's oppressing his people.  Can B.O. tell us why dropping bombs on Hussein was horrible, but dropping bombs on Gaddafi is just dandy? Let the rhetorical circus begin. . .this oughta be good.

Monk vs. Psychic!  Bulgaria heats up over age-old grudge match btw Orthodox Church and goofy New Age nonsense.  NB.  the Reuters reporter thinks it's necessary to tell us that the monk is from an "all male Orthodox monastic community."  Duh.

Message from the USCCB:  New Ways Ministry ain't Catholic.  Also, NWM receives lots of $$$ from anti-Christian hate group, the Arcos Foundation.

Debunking the "Gospel Conspiracy" theory. . .this monster pokes its multi-heads out of its cave every Lenten/Holy Week/Easter season.

Inevitable:  Lent and the Zombie Apocalypse!  It had to be done. . .it just did.

No, Pope Paul VI did not ignore the recommendations of his birth control commission.

Deconstructing the grand jury report on clerical abuse in Philadelphia.  Looks like a lot of that report is hogwash, rehashed hogwash.

MSM ignores the good work of faith-based relief organizations in Japan.  Apparently, only gov't agencies are worthy of praise from our Media Betters.

This is funny.  Don't know why.

Vegan Zombies. . .annoying you even after death.

Disco elevator. . .'nuff said.

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Sparks will fly!

St. Patrick

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatula

One of the pillars of America's Protestant work ethic is summed up in the adage: “God helps those who help themselves.” Very ambiguous. Does God actually help those who help themselves? Or is this just another way of saying, “Stop asking God for help and help yourself”? We don't have to figure out which interpretation is really true b/c it's easy enough to see that there is no contradiction between the two. When we ask God for help and then go on to help ourselves, God is helping us. We can nothing good w/o God's help. This is called “cooperating with grace.” Or to put it another way: using God's gifts to do good works. When good results from our work, we have God to thank b/c He is the source of all goodness. Jesus says to his disciples, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find.” There's no guarantee here that we will be given exactly what we ask for or that we will find exactly what we are seeking. The only guarantee is that we will be given and will find whatever gifts we need to start and finish God's good work in us. The help we need is not always the help we want.

Jesus elaborates on his point, “Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asked for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asked for a fish?” We might take this to mean that God is going to give us exactly what we ask for. But that's not what Jesus is saying. All he's saying here is that God is not going to give us anything harmful, anything that would make our situation worse. Ask for a loaf of bread and you might be given an opportunity to take a free baking class. Ask for a fish and you might be invited by a friend to go fishing. I've learned the hard way that asking for patience usually results in being given several opportunities to practice patience! You might think of God's help as the spark you need to start a bonfire. No spark, no fire. But the spark by itself quickly dies if it isn't carefully tended to and given something to burn. The trick for us is to learn to watch out for God's sparks and learn to tend to them properly. 

How do we learn this trick? Jesus ends his lesson with the disciples by quoting a piece of universal wisdom: “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.” The Golden Rule. If diligently practiced with sincerity and fervor, the Golden Rule perfects our ability to discern the presence of God's help whenever we need it. Assuming that we love God, our neighbors, and ourselves, we would seek to do the good whenever given the chance. Since we can't accomplish any good deed without God's help, anytime we help our neighbors or ourselves, we are actually cooperating with God's grace. Repeat the process of helping self and neighbor often enough, with seriousness and zeal, and eventually you've formed the excellent habit of charity! Before long, seeing the sparks of God's graces will be child's play. When you ask for help, sparks will fly. When you seek for answers, sparks will fly. 

Just remember: the help you need is not always the help you want. Similarly, the help you give is not always the help you are asked for. But if you give the help that you yourself would need to receive, God's spark will be properly tended and the bonfire lit. We can offer no help, do no good deed, or even approach God in prayer w/o His help. Humility requires us to give Him the glory for any goodness we achieve. So, even in the midst of disaster and despair, help yourself by giving God thanks. He is never closer than when we need Him most.

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Coffee Cup Browsing

Jesus gave Judas communion. . .yea, but Judas wasn't the cause of public scandal.

Trial judge warns "fact-finders" to be wary of dissident Catholic groups and doctrines.  Though I agree with the judge's sentiment, it makes me very nervous that a judge would decide what's orthodox for the Church.

The Curt Jester notes Catholic Media Promotion Day!  An extensive list of Catholic media outlets on line.

The record on how the B.O. administration kept an illegal alien in the country and how that illegal killed a nun.

L.A.'s religious education convention begins this weekend.  Now that Archbishop Gomez is in charge, can we expect this event be slightly less scandalous than it has been in the past? 

Five myths about atheists.  Numbers 1 and 4 are particularly interesting to me as a Dominican.  Aquinas understood that non-Christians would not accept the Bible or Church authority as guarantors of the truth of an argument's premises.  That's a large part of what motivated him to make monotheism philosophically palatable.  But arguments alone are never enough!  (H/T:  Curt Jester)

Warning:  check your kid's homework before it's turned in to the teacher!

Still prefer the term "gravitationally enhanced."

I think I saw this sign in Jackson, MS on my way to the delta.

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No more signs for an evil generation

1st Week of Lent (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Joseph Church, Ponchatula

I spent most of the day Monday reading signs. Driving to the Mississippi Delta and back for my grandfather's funeral was mostly an exercise in patience, endurance, and determination. Though I'd visited that part of the state many times over the years, I'd never driven, and my visits were always made north to south. There and back the weather was stormy—dark, wet, visibility was very limited. The google map I'd printed out was too detailed to read on the go and my sense of direction is much like my common sense: it appears randomly and it's not always reliable. Needless to say, I relied heavily on road signs to show me the way. Since I got there and back, we can say that the signs were helpful. But on a few occasions they were useless—mostly b/c I didn't know how to read them. For example, to get to 49W you have to take 55N to 220N. Easy enough until you realize—going 70mph in a storm—that to get to 220N from 55N you have to go east on 20 for just a mile or two outside Jackson. You have to know this b/c the signs don't tell you this. Reading signs—whether they are road signs or signs from God—requires literacy and a little wisdom. Jesus tells the crowd that b/c they are an evil generation, they will receive no more signs from God. They have all the signs they need. What they lack is the wisdom to read them correctly.

Think of all the signs God gave His people in the Old Testament—the miracles during the exodus from Egypt; the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; the various chastisements for disobedience meted out by foreign invaders, etc. All of these signs point to one unvarying truth: God always keeps His word. That's what the covenant is all about. God gave His word that the Jewish people are His people and He is their God. Part of the covenant is the coming of the promised Messiah, the suffering servant who will take on the sins of the world and die as a living sacrifice for world's salvation. One sacrifice made for all. Throughout his public ministry, Jesus goes to great lengths to show that he is the Anointed One promised by the signs of the covenant. Over and over again in his public teaching and preaching, he shows the crowds and the nation's elders that his arrival is the fulfillment of God's promises. The failure of most to read these signs is more than just a failure of their literacy; it's a failure of their wisdom. Having lived their lives with the covenant's prophecies as their road map, they still can't/won't read the clear signs that Jesus is the one sent by God to bring them redemption. Jesus calls their stubbornness, their blindness evil.

What's the cure for this kind of blind obstinacy? There is only one surefire cure: “My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit; a humbled and contrite heart, O God, you will not spurn.” An evil generation that demands a sign from God that He is being faithful to His word is a generation living with a proud heart, a heart closed and clogged by its demands for miraculous proof, demands for absolute clarity, demands for divine guarantees: “We will not risk surrendering ourselves to the Christ based on historical signs alone. We will submit ourselves only after we are absolutely sure that we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Give us new signs that we might read them ourselves.” Wisdom comes when we humble ourselves before God's Self-revelation, setting aside our panicky need for reassurances and trusting instead in the Spirit. Then His road map is clear: wisdom assists literacy when we risk everything and sacrifice our contrite hearts to God. That's His guarantee.

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