How to grow in holiness

3^rd Sunday of Advent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

If you need a summary of Christian spirituality, something short and sweet as a daily reminder of who and what you are, you really can't beat these three sentences from Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians: “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks. . .” What do I do to grow in holiness? Rejoice, pray, give thanks. How often should I rejoice, pray, and give thanks? Always, without ceasing. And when should I rejoice, pray, and give thanks? In all circumstances. If Paul is being serious here – and Paul is always serious – then the Christian response to every victory, to every failure, to every set-back, to every moment of both progress and retreat should be met with rejoicing, prayer, and giving thanks! This third Sunday of Advent is a short pause in our season of preparation and repentance to remember that Christ is coming and he is coming again. The God of peace makes us perfectly holy and preserves us blameless – spirit, soul, and body – for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in response to this great gift from the Father, we rejoice, pray, and give Him thanks.

 

First, we rejoice! But how do we rejoice? Remember the Blessed Mother, carrying Jesus in her womb, visiting Elizabeth her cousin who was pregnant with John? When Mary came close to Elizabeth, John leaped with joy! John was conceived in Elizabeth's barren womb for the singular prophetic purpose of being the herald of Christ's birth into the world. John leaped with joy b/c he recognize his purpose in Christ; he “saw” his goal, the end for which he was made. And his reaction was to rejoice – to celebrate with exuberance and delight. When the priests and Levites ask John – “Who are you?” – he answers, “I am not the Christ.” He doesn't immediately tell them who he is; he tells them who he isn't (the Christ) and who it is they must come to know and love (the one who is coming after him). Each one of us, conceived in our mothers' womb by the loving will of our Father, has a purpose, a goal; and in the waters of baptism, we have been charged with a mission, the same mission that causes the not-yet-born John to leap with joy. John is the herald of Christ's birth, his first coming among us as a man. We – each one of us – is a herald of Christ's coming among us again, as our Just Judge. Accept this mission anew and rejoice! Celebrate exuberantly like John did in his mother's womb. 

 

First, we rejoice; then, we pray. What do we pray for? Paul writes, “Test everything; retain what is good. Refrain from every kind of evil.” If we will be fruitful heralds and prophets – like John – then we must surrender ourselves to the wisdom of the Father in prayer, testing, proving everything we say and do against the Truth of our faith. We cannot be authentic prophets for Christ if we lie about the faith, if we bear false witness against the Gospel, or pretend that we know what is true and good better than the Church does. There can be no such thing as a free-floating Christian prophet, someone who invents – apart from God's Word and the Church – his or her own truth in order to deceive. So, we must test everything and keep only what is good. Paul also tells us that we must refrain from doing any kind of evil. Prayer, especially joyful prayer, brings us closer and closer to God, strengthening our bonds with Him, and clarifying our purpose in the His truth. Whatever or whoever attempts to turn us away from our prophetic mission is tempting us to do evil. John came “to testify to the light, so that all might believe. . .” Ask God your Father in prayer to keep you sharply focused on your mission, to turn aside any temptation to give up. That's what we pray for.

Rejoice, then pray, and, finally, give thanks! Giving thanks to God in all circumstances builds humility and makes it possible – more and more – for us to receive His graces as He gives them. Giving thanks to God in all circumstances guarantees us against the sins of entitlement, greed, pride, and envy. Giving thanks to God in all circumstances provides us with the direction, energy, and clarity we need to bear witness to His Christ and carry out our mission as prophetic heralds. Rejoicing and prayer are themselves kinds of thanksgiving. What better way to express our joy than to shout our gratitude to God for His gifts? What better way to pray than to turn our hearts and minds to gratitude for all that we have been given? The Enemy comes against us with an array of powerful weapons: despair, cynicism, suspicion, divisiveness, unrighteous anger, and hatred. All of these undermine Christian joy and make it difficult for us to give ourselves wholly to God. So, we pause in this season of preparation and repentance to celebrate the joyful task that we have been given and have received – to proclaim far and wide that Christ Jesus will come again! His mercy is freely given. To sinners his forgiveness is absolutely guaranteed.

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What kind of person ought you to be?

2^nd Sunday of Advent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

Last Sunday, I called Advent “winter's Lent.” And there is a penitential flavor to the season. But there is also a taste of rejoicing before we celebrate the Nativity of our Lord. We turn out our sins and expose them to the Lord’s mercy, AND we rejoice at the promise of His coming again. We take stock of the time we’ve spent so far, AND we offer to for God's blessing the time we have left. Repent and rejoice. Convert and sing praise. Confess and follow righteousness. Therefore, prepare His way in your heart, your mind, your body, and your soul. Lay a clear path to the center of your covenant with Him, open the gates of your reason for His light, make a gift of your work for His works of compassion, and your soul an offering of immortal praise. Now is the time for searching faults and finding mercy, for opening wounds and finding health. Advent is the time to straighten your path to God. Advent, winter's Lent, is that time for us to ask ourselves: what sort of person ought I to be?

And so, what sort of person ought you to be? This is the perfect question for Advent because it is a question that requires us to think in terms of who we ARE and how we ought to ACT. It is a question that requires us to think about how we balance between being good and doing good. In his letter, Peter, asks his readers what sort of persons they should be given the coming of the Lord. He then immediately elaborates on the question by adding, “…conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God…” Who we ARE goes hand in hand with how we ACT. For the beloved of the Lord, being good and doing good are inseparately bound together. We wait and prepare and repent. We cultivate holiness and practice devotion. And like John the Baptist, we cry out in the desert of wherever we are: “Get ready! He’s on His way!” Who ought we to be? We ought to be prophets.

As the One Who Comes Before the Christ, John the Baptizer appears out of the desert preaching repentance. As the prophet Isaiah says, he is the messenger sent ahead, a voice from the desert urging those who hear his cry to “prepare the way of the Lord.” This makes John a prophet, a herald. He’s the guy who showed up first, told the truth about Who and What was coming, and offers those who listen a chance to get themselves straight with God. He is an alarm ringing in Jerusalem, calling everyone away from sin and toward righteousness.

John isn’t just about serving up the doom and gloom of The End. He offers more than a prediction and sharp tongue. John made it possible in his preaching for those listening to begin a better way toward God, to start over with the Father and bear good fruit. He offers a baptism of water to wash away repented sins. And he offers a vision of the straightened path to the Father: the good fruits of repentance will show that you are ready for the coming of the Lord AND make you a prophet. Yes, we ought to be prophets, but are we ready to be prophets?

It is not enough that we acknowledge our sins, wash in the baptismal waters, and come spotless to God. Our acknowledgment of sin, our willingness to be found without blemish, must produce good fruit. Being good in theory builds lovely temples in the air. Doing good for show makes good religious theater. But airy temples never last and the curtain falls on even the best theater! Living our lives as prophetic witnesses – that’s the sort of folks we ought to be!

But what does it mean for us to be prophetic? It doesn’t mean putting on camel hair shirts and eating locusts and honey. It doesn’t mean standing on the street screaming about fire and God’s wrath. It doesn’t even mean being particularly pious or holy if by “pious” and “holy” we mean being outwardly righteous for show. 

 

Nor does being prophetic mean taking all the right political positions, protesting all the wrong ones, signing petitions, and marching around with wearing little buttons and issuing self-important statements. All that can be as empty as false piety.

So, what does being prophetic mean? Let’s look at John. He comes out of the desert, a desolate place, a place devoid of life. He finds his voice there. Outside family, friends, culture, and civilization, John finds a voice to proclaim the Coming Christ. He doesn’t use this voice to promote himself. He speaks of Another. He doesn’t prepare the way for his own celebrity. He celebrates Christ. He doesn’t try to make his own life easier by claiming some sort of divine connection. He makes the paths straight for the Lord. He doesn’t try to “fit in” or blend in or “inculturate.” He preaches against the cultural grain, against the prevailing morals. He is not concerned about being comfortable with his role or finding satisfaction in his ministry or being a team player. His is a lonely voice. He does not coddle the legalists or the revolutionaries, the lawyers or the trendy academics. He calls them to repentance and a life of good fruits. He points again and again to Christ, the mightier One, the One Who Comes to baptize in the Spirit. Always pointing toward Christ, always toward Jesus. This is what a prophet does. 

 

Absolutely, we ought to be prophets. We are ready to be prophets if we will acknowledge our sin. Repent. Turn around. Face God. Produce good fruit first and then expect it from others. We will be prophets if with every thought, word, and deed we proclaim the coming of the Christ – as a child and as a Just Judge. Advent is our training season. Now is the time to get into prophetic-shape!

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How well do you wait?

First Sunday of Advent
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
OLR, NOLA

I am not a patient man. I yell at the priory coffeemaker to hurry up. I can recite the entire Nicene Creed waiting for the doors of the seminary elevator to open and close. And I'm the guy behind you at the intersection honking his horn the second the light turns green. I have Patience Issues, but I bet some of you do too. That we have to wait sometimes is inevitable. In traffic. In the register line at Walmart or the DMV. We don't have much choice then. We also have to wait for the birth of Christ and his coming again. No choice. That we wait is a given. What's not a given is how well we wait; that is, how we choose to spend our time waiting.

 

So, here's question for you: do you wait well? I mean, are you able to pause in your day and give control of your time to something or someone else? A machine (the reluctant computer, the lazy coffeemaker, the elevator in no hurry at all) or a person (the cashier discussing his break time with a coworker, the SUV driver chatting on the cell phone stopped at the green light)? Can you hold your yourself in suspension, just stop and let something or someone else’s agenda, their needs, their wants, their time take precedence? Because that’s what waiting is. Waiting is what I (we do) do when I bring myself to acknowledge that my agenda, my needs, my wants, my time are subject to change, subject to the whims and quirks of other people, the random workings of machines, the weather, and the markets. Pretty much any and everything out there that can run interference on my plans does so, and so I wait, giving over to the hard fact that I am subject to other people, other things.

That we wait is a given. The only question is: how well do we wait? Waiting well is what we are given the chance to do during Advent. And we start in earnest today.

Just in case any of us holds the opinion that Advent is a season of joy, a pre-season of cheeriness gearing up for the Real Cheer of Christmas, we have on this First Sunday of Advent a sobering reminder of exactly what Advent is. From Isaiah we have this confession: we are sinful, an unclean people, even our good deeds are like polluted rags; we are dried up like fallen leaves, and our guilt carries us away like a wind! Yes, Advent is all about confessing ours sins, turning back to God, asking for forgiveness, and waiting, waiting, waiting on the arrival of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Advent is penitential. It is winter’s Lent. And it is a season for us to live Isaiah’s confession: “O Lord, we are the clay and you the potter; we are all the work of your hands.” If Advent is going to be a season of good spiritual fruit, if we are to claim and name our sin, turn away from disobedience, and beg forgiveness from God, then we must bring fresh to our hearts and minds the wisdom of Isaiah’s confession: we are made from the stuff of the Earth, breathed into life by the divine breath, shaped, and given purpose by a God Who looks upon us as works of art, creations to be loved and saved and brought back to Him unblemished. This is our short time before celebrating the coming of our salvation for us to prepare ourselves to be found lacking, needful, and humble before the Lord.

Starting here, we wait. Yes, we wait. And if we are to wait well, we wait on edge – the thin moment between repairing and giving thanks, confessing and praising, wailing and rejoicing. There is a still, quiet eagerness, a sharp keenness to this season. It demands of us a stiff attention to who we are as fallen creatures and who we can be as children of God. It demands of us an exercise of patience and a hurrying to be done, the practice of serene persistence and a rushing to finish. Our prayers this season provoke us into knowing ourselves completely, to know ourselves as we are, and to bring that knowledge to the Lord as a gift, an offering of sacrifice.

We wait. And we watch b/c Jesus urges his disciples: “Be watchful! Be alert!” But this is not an order to sit quietly, looking to the East, waiting to be found. We are to be busy with seeking the Lord in prayer, in praise and thanksgiving, and in the good works of mercy and compassion for one another. Jesus is not ordering his disciples to complacency, to quietism. He is ordering them (and us) to alertness, to strict attention to the source and summit of their mission as those sent to preach and teach the gospel. We are to be working for the good of our Master’s kingdom while he is gone, laboring to produce a good harvest to celebrate his return. We watch b/c we know he will return, he will fulfill his promise to come back to us, bringing with him our reward for faithful service and strict attention.

And so we wait. But do we wait well? Waiting is how we give to one another some measure of control, some small piece of power over us in order to admit that we are joined with those who live beside us. I know men and women who will drive themselves crazy refusing to admit to themselves or anyone else that they need others or are needed by others. Their false independence poisons everything they do, everything they are, and they slowly disappear from sight. They cannot wait well on the Lord b/c they cannot live lives of confession, repentance, forgiveness, and praise.

To confess, to repent, to forgive, and to praise are all moments in the divine life that clearly speak the reality of our total dependence on God and express our willingness to work with His other children in the kingdom for His greater glory. Our Advent season is that time of the Church year when we are given the chance to pay strict attention to who we are as fallen creatures and who we can be as children of the Father. It is a time for us to wait well on the Lord—to give him control, to give him lordship of our lives, to rule and reign as Lover of our hearts, Master of our souls, and God of everything we have and everything we are. This next week, allow the Lord find you in need of his salvation, ready to be forgiven in repentance, and impatient to offer him thanks.

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Feast or Fire? Who's Your King?

Christ the King (A)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

What do you think of when you hear the word “authority”? Not so long ago here in the U.S. that word would have brought up images of security, certainty, limits, comfort. Scientists in lab coats solving problems. Military personnel defending the nation against our enemies. Police officers keeping the peace. Mothers and fathers raising families. And Catholic priests and religious teaching the apostolic faith. Pick another point in human history and “authority” might conjure images of the National Guard fighting rioters; overcrowded ration stations; or the church burning heretics. These days, “authority” seems to be something of a dirty word. Our national and cultural establishments have surrendered most of their moral authority to secularism's “long march through the institutions.” It is no longer entirely clear to many of us who we are, why we are, or where we are going. And waiting on the arrival of some person or event to give us direction is leading us to a national emotional breakdown. The solemnity of Christ the King is celebrated this morning in order to remind us that when the authority of the world betrays us, when it fails, as it inevitably does, Christ our King never has and never will.

We can imagine the Christ the King in hundreds of ways. Glorious Ruler. Wise Leader. The Great God-Man. All would probably capture some aspect of his sovereignty and might. Matthew shows us what Christ the King looks like on the Last Day. The Just Judge. The Righteous Measure of Souls. Taking into his view the length and breadth of our lives in his service, the Just Judge weighs our deeds against our misdeeds, our generosity against our stinginess. He weighs the degree to which we have absorbed his love and shared it with our brothers and sisters through concrete acts of charity. He tests how well we have forgiven; how well we have hoped; how often we have depended on his gifts; and how sincerely we have submitted to his authority as our King. Those who stand transparent before him, the ones through whom he can see his own face, he will say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” For those souls muddied by stinginess, hatred, self-righteousness, and greed, he will say, “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” It is the feast or the fire.

The sharp clarity of this parable is shocking. There's no wiggle-room here. No “but what he really means is” interpretation. If Jesus had wanted to remain somewhat obscure in this teaching he could've done so. . .easily. He's done it before. But what we have here is a stark, black and white, Yes/No choice. (I don't think we modern, American Catholics are used to this sort of thing!) Our choice is simple: serve Christ the King by serving the least of his, or don't. The result of each choice is laid out for us as plainly as they can be. This is my choice. Your choice. How you and I are judged on the Last Day is up to you and me. Am I a sheep or a goat? An obedient servant of Christ? Or a self-serving sinner? Lest you think this whole parable about guilting you into being good boys and girls, keep in mind – there's nothing hidden here. Christ the Just Judge is laying out before us what Judgment Day will entail. There's no guess work, no gotcha's, no “if I had only known's.” With his authority as our Redeemer, our King, Jesus tells us – “Serve me by serving the least of mine.” 

 

How do we serve the least among us? Start with Christ; that is, from the root of your service make Christ the top, bottom, and center of your work. Your motive is Christ. Your inspiration is Christ. Your strength and resilience is Christ. Above all, your final goal, your end is Christ. Good works are good works. BUT good works done for the sake of Christ and his ministry are good works with everlasting effects. Don't feed the hungry b/c they hungry. Feed them b/c Christ in them is hungry. Don't visit the sick b/c they are sick. Visit them b/c Christ in them is sick. IOW, treat the hungry, the naked, sick, the imprisoned as if Christ himself is hungry, naked, sick, and imprisoned. Gov't agencies, secular relief services, non-profits can feed, clothe, and visit those in need. But only Christ can minister to Christ. And on the Last Day you want Christ the Just Judge to look at you and see himself. You served him and in doing so perfected the Father's love in you.

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Watching for Vultures

St Elizabeth of Hungary

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St Dominic, NOLA

On the day the Son of Man is revealed we will be doing what we always do – shopping, eating, texting, cleaning house. If we are watching rather than just seeing and listening rather than merely hearing, we can watch his coming and listen to his revelation. In fact, if while we are shopping and eating and texting and cleaning house, if while we are doing the things we always do we also attend to the Lord, pay attention to his Word and his presence, we won't miss his coming again. Those left behind are the ones who make their lives about the things they do and only about the things they do. We were not created to shop, eat, text, and clean house. We were created to love God and to serve Him. We were born again in water and Spirit to grow in holiness and arrive at our perfection in Christ. The disciples ask Jesus where this revelation of the Son of Man will occur. He replies, “Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather.” IOW, where there is smoke, there is fire. If you attend to the Lord's presence and his Word, you will witness his coming again. Watch and listen.

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We serve b/c we are servants

32^nd Week OT (T)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Dominic, NOLA

Our Lord is sounding a bit. . .irritated. . .with the disciples. They've asked him how many times must they forgive their brother. Jesus tells them. Seventy times seven. Taken aback by his response, the disciples say, “Lord, increase our faith!” Apparently, Jesus hears this plea as a request for a reward, a prize for doing nothing more than what the disciples are duty-bound to do. He answers their prayer – in no uncertain terms – with a biting analogy. The sharp point of his analogy is this: servants serve b/c they are servants. They do not serve b/c they expect a reward. Jesus asks, “Is [the Master] grateful to that servant because [the servant] did what was commanded?” Think long and hard about your own service to God – in worship, in works of charity, in prayer, in giving alms. Do you expect a reward for doing what you have been commanded by God to do? All that God commands us to do is commanded for our benefit. Nothing we do – not worship, not ministry, not alms-giving – nothing we do or say benefits God. Our obedience to His commands is our reward, our benefit. Waiting for God to thank us for our service is folly. Doing what He commands is wisdom. “Those who trust in him shall understand truth, and the faithful shall abide with him in love. . .”

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There are no fools in heaven

32^nd Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

Are you wise? Or, are you foolish? What's the difference? According to Jesus, the wise live their lives prepared to enter the Kingdom at a moment's notice. The foolish live moment to moment gambling that the next moment isn't the moment they will be called to judgment. We could interpret Jesus' parable of the wise and foolish virgins as a scare tactic, one designed to frighten us into a constant state of paranoid readiness. You've probably seen the billboards: “If Jesus returns right now, where will you spend eternity?” There's certainly an element of “you had better get ready and stay ready” in the parable, a kind of “Jesus is going to jump out of the clouds and catch you by surprise.” However, if we can go to the foundation of the parable, we find a slightly less paranoia-inducing truth: every decision we make, every word we utter, every thought we think, everything we do prepares us or does not prepare us to enter the Kingdom of God. The wise know this and live accordingly. The foolish choose evil and call it good. And as our Lord makes clear, there are no fools in heaven.

Say you wanted to try being a fool. How would you go about becoming foolish? It's really very simple. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us a foolish man acquires his folly by “. . .plunging his sense into earthly things, [by which] his sense is rendered incapable of perceiving Divine things” (ST II-II.46.2). Preoccupied with the things and thoughts and actions of the world, an otherwise wise man can become foolish by making worldly things, thoughts, and actions his principal occupation. IOW, when he forgets that his primary goal in this life is to serve God and prepare for the Kingdom, he chooses evil and calls it good. The vice of mistaking evil for good twists the conscience over time and drops the fool into deeper folly. In sophisticated theological circles we refer to this process with the phrase: “Stultus facit peccatum.” “Sin makes you stupid.” Sin must make us stupid b/c sin results from a deformed intellect informing the will that an evil act is in fact a good act. The foolish virgins, knowing that the Bridegroom could return at any moment, chose not to prepare properly for his arrival. This is no accident. They didn't “forget.” The didn't “fail to anticipate.” They chose not to be ready. When they plead with the groom, “Lord, Lord, open the door for us!” He replies, “Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.”

There are no fools in heaven b/c the Lord knows no fools. Avoiding folly in order to grow in wisdom is fairly straightforward. With every word, every deed, every thought ask yourself: does this word, this deed, this thought prepare me to live in the Kingdom of God? Ask yourself: does this word, this deed, this thought bind me more tightly to the world or to Christ the Bridegroom? Keep foremost in your heart and mind your deepest desire to find your perfection in the One Who created you and saved you. Keep front and center your longing for peace, your hope for resurrection, and your need to see the Father face-to-face. Do not grieve like those who have no hope, believing their beloved dead are dead forever. We will all die. But we cannot be dead in Christ. Only a fool chooses to live his or her life as if these few years on earth are all there is to living. Only a fool chooses to attaches himself to the passing things of this world and call himself content. We are made for eternal life. And while we live in the world, we live in wisdom, knowing that Christ the Bridegroom loves his Bride and will never abandon her. Choose wisely. Live wisely. There are no fools in heaven.

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Ignoring Jesus' command to love

NB. Another late post. . .oh, and you really need to read this one in an ironic tone!

St. Martin de Porres
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
NDS, NOLA

We should ignore Jesus’ command to love one another. (Oh, “loving God,” by the way, is fine b/c that’s mostly an abstract sort of thing that doesn’t really require us to do much beyond saying that we love God. It’s not like the God-lovers glow or anything). OK. Back to the reasons to ignore Jesus:

First: Love is messy and it makes you act stupid: as a passion love is fine, but when indulged it turns the lover into a hopeless mess and promotes really dumb decision-making. Take Jesus, for example. Because he indulged in loving us, he ended up a bloody mess on a whipping post and nailed to a cross. He could’ve stopped the blood bath at any point, but he didn’t. He died for us instead. 

Second: Love is expensive: show me one act of love that is free, and I’ll show you some land on Grand Isle that’s guaranteed not to flood. Love always has a price. What’s the point of willing the Good for others when it will likely lighten your wallet, cost you a gallon of gas, or force you to spend several minutes of your life doing something charitable. Again, just look at Jesus. Was his act of love for us free? Well, OK, free for us! That’s fine. But it cost Jesus his dignity and his life. Expensive, indeed.

Third: Love requires us to focus too much on others: it would seem that the basic point of love is to fawn all over other people, wait on them hand and foot, and pretend to be all about their needs and their hurts. It’s all about them, them, them! What about me?! I have my needs and my hurts and my wants and me, me, me. . .Perfect example of this problem: Jesus tells his little band that if they want to be first they have to serve others! What is that? What kind of logic is that? To be first I have to be last, willing to sacrifice prestige, place, honor, and power in order to SERVE!? Jesus does this for us – again – but look how he ended up. Great for us. Not so great for him.

Fourth: You have to lie when you love: not that lying is a problem when you have to do it, but loving is doubly difficult b/c to keep people liking you you have to tell them what they don’t want to hear. You can’t “love” if you make people uncomfortable or if you say unpleasant things to them. It would seem that charity requires us to lie in order to keep the peace. Being peaceful is more important than speaking the truth. Obviously! Didn’t Jesus say that he came to divide with a sword, to both cut the bonds of sin and to split apart families and friends? Is that what love does when it forces you to tell the truth? Who thinks that’s good? He spoke the truth and ended up dead. Not a good example of peacekeeping.

I’ve given you four good reasons why loving one another is a problem: love is messy and makes you do dumb things; it is expensive; it requires you to focus too much on others; and it makes you lie. All good reasons to forget about love. And this is why Jesus doesn’t just suggest that we love one another or hint at the possibility of loving one another. He commands us to love. Commands. Do it! Love is the greatest commandment b/c our relationship with God depends on it. We cannot understand what God is saying to us through the prophets if we fail to love. And we cannot know what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, and excellent if we will not love. What’s worse: we cannot know anything of Goodness, we cannot imitate God, we cannot become Christ if we will not love.

It’s a command. Not an argument or a suggestion or a Facebook meme. It is a command, an order. And if you will be more than you are, if you will be made perfect in the Father’s love, you will love – Him, us, yourself and you will rejoice in the Lord always b/c He loved you first. . .and loves you still.

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I command you to love!

30^th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
OLR, NOLA

I'm here this morning to check your obedience! Let's see how well you do. I command you to stand. I command you to clap your hands. I command you to say hello to the people around you. I command you to sit. So far, so good. One last command: I command you to love one another. Ah, not so easy, uh? It's a bizarre command! Loving one another is not as simple as standing, clapping, saying hello, and sitting, is it? Surely, loving is a behavior. It is something we can do. I hope, it's something we do everyday. But it doesn’t seem to be that sort of behavior that can be demanded of us. And yet, that's exactly what our Lord is doing: "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” You shall love. We seem to get commands that forbid certain behaviors. Do not kill; do not covet or steal; do not commit adultery. Worship no other god but the Lord. These make sense to us as basic commands. But what does it mean for us to love God and to love our neighbor? If the whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments, then I think we had better get this right! 

 

What Jesus is doing here is truly astonishing. Basically, he takes a lawyer's question – which of the 248 observations and 365 prohibitions of the Law is the greatest? – and says that what is absolutely fundamental about the Law and the Prophets is that we love our God like a father and that we love our neighbors like we love ourselves. Jesus fulfills Moses' Law of Stone with the Law of the Heart. He moves the center of our moral lives from legal compliance to loving obedience, from mere procedural observation to perfection in charity. From the Law carved on the tablets to the Law carved into our hearts, Jesus orders our moral lives to the Divine Love of the Father for His Son in the Holy Spirit. As members of the Body of Christ we participate in the Divine Life of the Blessed Trinity, loving Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and with them loving everyone else as we love ourselves and our own. In charity – works of mercy, acts of compassion, labors of love – we show the world the love of the Blessed Trinity for us, for all of His creation, and we bring to perfection, to completion everything that He has made us to be. Not just good boys and girls. Not just morally pure robots. But truly free, truly liberated men and women who celebrate their slavery to God’s will. The virtue of charity – the good habit of loving God and neighbor – makes your will holy, that is, charity divinizes your will, makes your will God’s will and you flourish as a creature growing closer and closer to the Father.

Now I'm channeling Thomas Aquinas! But it is vitally important that we understand that our moral lives are not simply a matter of crossing all our moral “T’s” and dotting all our moral “I’s.” There is more at stake here than being good boys and girls. Certainly, being morally good is important. It's impossible to behave immorally and love God and neighbor at the same time. But do we understand that our moral lives, that is, our lives in Christ, are not given to us by God b/c we behave morally? Your ability, your need to act with charity, to love God and neighbor, to be compassionate to others is God’s gift to you for your use in the service of His greater glory. We are graced with the need to praise, to thank, to bless the Lord!

Jesus says that you are to love God will all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. You are to love God from the very center of your being, with everything that you are. With your heart you will love God intimately, passionately. With your soul you will love God with the breath He breathed into your body at your creation. And with your mind you will love God with His gift to know His Truth, His Goodness, and His Beauty.

None of this is possible without God giving you a share in His Divine Life, a piece of the life of the Blessed Trinity. We have done nothing to deserve it, nothing to merit it. Nor can we. It is a gift. Freely given. That is love. The freely given gift of living with God here and now. You live a truly liberated, truly freed moral life when you act out of this freely given gift of the Divine Life.

And Jesus wants you to understand that you live the Divine Life more perfectly when you love us as you love yourself. Now, what does this mean for you, for us tomorrow morning, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.? At the very least it means that you do not think of the rest of us as tools for your use, as instruments for your work or toys to play with. You do not act as if we are here merely to benefit you or to serve your needs. It means that you look at us as fellow creatures, images of God, likenesses of the Trinity, and you think of us and treat us as the divinely gifted, much-loved children of the Father that we are. It means that you, all of us must move beyond the relatively easy moral life of stony laws and come to live fully, perfectly in the much more challenging life of love, imitating our Lord in His works of mercy, receiving the Holy Spirit with joy, and becoming models for all believers. That’s moral perfection, that’s a life lived fully in divine love.

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Peace is not the absence of violence

NB. I'm a little late posting this one. . .

Feast of St Luke

Fr Philip Neri Powell, OP

NDS, NOLA

My younger brother, Andy, and I loved to fight. To this day we scare our mom by retelling old battles that she knew nothing about. Bricks to the head. Butcher knife chases. Pro-wrestler moves on the gravel driveway. That either one of us managed to get past high school is a miracle. Sometimes our battles drew parental attention and were ended by a belt and an order to go outside and split some cord wood. And even though we were busy fighting hickory trees with chainsaws and mauls, our hearts and minds were planning the next fight. No, we weren't beating up on one another. . .but we were hardly at peace. Peace is not merely the absence of violence. Nor is it the absence of emotional turmoil or spiritual distress. Peace can be comforting, sure, if peace is just a species of tranquility. But it isn't. At least not the sort of peace that we can expect when we detach ourselves from the things of this world and attach ourselves to Christ.

 

Our Lord says to the Seventy-two: “Go on your way. . .I am sending you like lambs among wolves.” What sort of peace does a lonely lamb experience among a pack of wolves? He adds, “Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals . . .” What sort of peace do we experience going out into the world w/o cash, credit cards, shoes, or even a sack of snacks? We're to eat and drink whatever we are given. Is that vegan? Gluten-free? Low-carb? No sodium? Do you have a vegetarian option? What sort of peace reigns when all of our choices are made for us by strangers, and our only task is to heal their sick and proclaim the Kingdom of God? When we say to them, “Peace to this household,” what are we saying? 

 

We are saying, in fact, declaring, that Christ the King rules here. Because you and yours have received us as disciples of Christ, and b/c you and yours have shown us hospitality, we acknowledge in the name of Christ that this household is indeed ruled by Christ. And b/c he rules, you and yours are at peace. Not without some worry. Not wholly lacking some turbulence. But firmly, gratefully subject to the Eternal King, confidently guided and supported by the sacrificial love he demonstrated on the cross. As disciples, we bear Christ's peace to anyone and everyone who is willing and able to receive it. Without vicious attachments to worldly things and worldly passions, we bear Christ's peace in word and deed, demonstrating ourselves his sacrifice of love on the cross.

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ALL of it belongs to God. . .even Caesar

29^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

What belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God? Notice that Jesus doesn't say, “Repay Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is yours.” Or “Give to God what is ours.” Or “Give to God what is theirs.” Caesar gets back what is his. God gets all that belongs to Him. So, what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God? Whether we know it or not, this is the question that lies under all of our other questions about how we are participate in the affairs of the world. These are daily questions, of course, but they tend to cause us more problems around election time than any other. How can we be both citizens of this world and heirs to the Kingdom? How we think, feel, speak, and act as citizens of the world can determine whether or not we inherit the Kingdom. With our eyes firmly focused on the Kingdom, won't we eventually end up in conflict with Caesar and his rule? Absolutely. And the history of the Church bears this out. And continues to bear it out even now. What belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God? For us, members of the Body, the Church, the answer is easy but not uncomplicated: it ALL belongs to God! You, me, mine, yours, theirs, ours. It all belongs to God, including Caesar himself.

Is this the point Jesus is making when he says that we owe Caesar what is his and God what belongs to God? Why not just say, “It all belongs to God”? Remember what Matthew tells us about the Pharisees. They are plotting against Jesus, trying to entrap him with a legal problem. When they ask their question, our Lord “knows their malice,” and asks them in turn: “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?” Jesus knows that they aren't interested in a learned opinion on the Law. They aren't genuinely intellectually curious about his response. They're trying to snare him in an impossible political/religious position that they can then use against him. Jesus' brilliant response to their fake question explodes the trap. The coin has Caesar's face and inscription on it. It's his. Give it back to him. Everything else goes to God. The Romans can't fault his reply. The Pharisees can't either. But Jesus knows that everything belongs to the Father. And so do we. So, what do we – in 21^st c. America – do with this bit of teaching? 

 

We all know the standard answer here. We obey just laws. We pay our taxes. We vote in elections. We support our communities. We serve in the military. In other words, we participate in Caesar's state as upstanding, patriotic citizens. There is no contradiction btw being an exemplary citizen and a faithful Catholic. That's the standard answer. And there's nothing wrong with it. However, what happens when we come to understand that everything belongs to God? My life, your life, everything we are and everything we possess first belongs to God. You and I were and are gifted with everything we are and everything we have. Gifted. Given. You might say, “But Father! I worked all my life for my house! Nobody gave it to me!” God gave you life. He gave you the time and talent you needed to work for that house. He's giving you your life now to enjoy your house and your family and friends. At best, we can say that the things we have are borrowed from God, including our very lives. So, what happens when this truth becomes a daily reality for us? What happens when you wake up – alive and well – and note that you are alive and well? Do you give God thanks and then go about your day noticing the abundance of gifts you've been given? I hope so! Because Jesus says that we have to give it all back. At some point, it all returns to the One Who gave it to us in the first place.

The moment it all returns, the moment our borrowed lives and borrowed things go back to God is the moment we spend our short lives preparing for. Jesus says to repay Caesar what is Caesar's. Repay. Nothing more than what is owed. That's what counts as good civil citizenship. But we are also heirs to the Kingdom. On loan to this world for the salvation of the world. When we and all we have are called back, we bring back with us more than we were given. Or, at least, that's the goal. If we have used God's gifts to do His holy work, then we bring back to Him all that we owe plus substantial interest. His love in us has been perfected through our sharing of His love with others. When the Christ the Just Judge looks at you on the day of final judgment, will he see his face and inscription stamped on your soul? Will he be able to lift you up to the Father and say, “This one is mine returned to me in greater love”? Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar while you live. But remember, in the end, it ALL belongs to God.

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Top Ten List

NB. Eight years ago, while languishing in the Roman heat, I grew cranky. . .okokok. . .crankier and decided to lighten my mood and this blog with a Top Ten List. A friend recently suggested that I re-post that list. So, here it is:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Fr. Philip Neri's Top Five of Just About Everything!

Top Five Weird Food Combos:

1. blackeyed-peas & mayo on cornbread
2. peanut butter & banana on Ritzs
3. roasted chicken with yogurt & peanuts
4. apple/celery soup with pesto
5. vanilla ice cream with peanut butter and balsamic vinegar

Top Five Fav Halloween Costumes He Has Worn:

1. creepy surgeon with bloody knife
2. albino vampire with handcuffs
3. High Goth magician complete with goatee and earring!
4. Spartacus with sword (my mom's icing spatula)
5. ghost of a gorilla killed by poachers

Top Five Fav Christmas Gifts:

1. a doctor's home visit kit (three years in a row! yes!)
2. a LED digital watch in 1979. . .only kid in school with one of those
3. a tuition check from my parents in 1986
4. Santa's Magical $50 that appears in my stocking annually (yes, I have stocking!)
5. a stereo system with my first ever cassette: Huey Lewis and the News

Top Five Fashion Statements I Wish I Had Never Made:

1. getting my ear pierced in 1990 (ugh)
2. wearing a paisley shirt with poofy sleeves and an antique broach in 1985 (ugh-ugh)
3. letting my hair grow down to my shoulders a la George Michael ca. 1989
4. daily wear of all black--jeans, turtle-neck, boots, overcoat, glasses
5. plaid golf pants, burgundy IZOD shirt, pink IZOD sweater, loafers w/the penny ca. 1982

Top Five Dumb Things I Have Done That I Can Admit to in Public:

1. Frequently going out of town to parties with a drunk friend driving (stupid, stupid)
2. Moving into a large antebellum home with colleagues from my department who eschewed cleanliness and domestic responsibility like a rabid squirrel on crack
3. Agreeing to purchase a package of three-year magazine subscriptions that cost $600 (yea, I got out of it)
4. locking myself out of my apartment minutes after my roommate drives off for the weekend and then breaking the small window on the kitchen door only to realize that the small window is in fact not just a piece of the door but the entire window: $80 for replacement.
5. Helping some friends "clear out" their liquor cabinet before a move (shudder)

Top Five Dumbest Things I Have Ever Said:

1. 1986: the women's bathroom in the lobby of our dorm had no interior door. I was the RA on desk duty during fall sign-in for the freshmen. A mom comes in and asks for the bathroom. I directed her. Not wanting anyone to walk in on her unexpectedly, I offered: "Would like for me to watch?"
2. 1991: I was giving a literature exam, sitting at the desk in front of the class. After about fifteen minutes of quiet, for no apparent reason, I barked out: "KNIFE!"
3. I was at home one Christmas and my mom asked to me mix up some walnut brownies. I read the directions on the box and proceeded to mix. My mom comes into the kitchen and watches me mix the batter with my hand. My defense? "The directions say 'mix by hand'"!
4. To a psychotic patient on the adult unit of a psych hospital: "Are you going to throw that at me or come with us to time out?"
5. To my future housemate wanted to confess something to me before I allowed him to move in. We sat down, and he very solemnly declared, "I'm a Wiccan." I said, "Oh, I thought you were gay."

Top Five Books I Wish I Had Never Read:

1. Creative Visualization
2. Jonathan Livingston Seagull
3. It
4. The Book of Mormon
5. Handbook of Witchcraft

Top Five Things I Would Change in My History:

1. Go to grad school in psychology rather than English
2. Go to teach English in China ten years later than I did
3. Work for several years btw undergrad/grad school
4. Play sports/habituate myself to the gym in high school
5. Never start drinking

Top Five Religious Names that I Rejected in Favor of Philip Neri:

1. Br. Michael Mary of the Five Wounds of Jesus, not including the One on His Shoulder
2. Br. Philippe-Marie of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary
3. Br. Dominic of the Most Holy Face and Most of the Neck
4. Br. Angelo of the Litany to Baby Jesus, Son of Mama Mary
5. Br. Aldred of the Stocial Countenance, Brick of Westhamptonshire.

Title of my autobiography (to be published posthumously): Sittin' in the Shade With the Fat Kids Reading: The Life and Most of the Good Times of Philip Powell



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You do not have to go to the Wedding Feast

28th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

Another parable of the kingdom and another warning that those unprepared for the heavenly feast will find themselves cast into darkness. Our Lord has been on a roll these last few weeks, preaching a gospel message that contemporary Catholics aren’t quite used to hearing! Maybe I’m wrong, but my sense is that most of us don’t often hear many homilies about the goats, the weeds, the bad fish, the lazy virgins, or the poorly dressed wedding guest. We hear a lot about the sheep, the wheat, the good fish, the well-prepared virgins, and the festively dressed wedding guests. These images better fit a comfortable, American vision of who we hope Jesus was back then, and who we want him to be now. Don't worry. I don’t intend to blast you with Hellfire and Brimstone this evening! But I can’t claim to be a preacher of the gospel, and then fail to preach the gospel right in front of me. This evening, we aren't hearing from our familiar, comfortable, American Jesus. We're hearing from Christ, our Righteous Judge!

We need to get something straight right from the start: you do not have to spend eternity with God. You do not have to receive or make use of the grace you’ve been given. You do not have to repent, confess, or enjoy freedom from sin. You don’t have to go to confession, come to Mass, take communion, say your prayers, do good works, live charitably with one another, or even forgive a single offense against you. You can ignore the grace you’ve been given. You can stride along the path of rebellion and disobedience. You can remain a slave to sin and do the bidding of your lowest passions as much as you want. You can skip confession, blow off Mass, forget your prayers, ignore the needy among us, hate one another and wallow in self-pitying angry and regret. You can be, if you choose, a goat, a bundle of weeds, a bad fish, a lazy virgin, or a badly dressed wedding guest. God will honor your choice out of His limitless love, and you can spend your afterlife as you lived in this life: without Him. And that’s the Catholic definition of Hell: “[a] state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed […]” (CCC n.1033).

In the parable of the Wedding Feast, the guest who arrives poorly dressed is thrown out into the darkness b/c he has refused to put on the garments of repentance. He wears his slave clothes. His rags are a gift from the Liar who has convinced him that he’s wearing Gucci! In fact, his rags identify him as a willful servant of disobedience. The master of the house invites good and bad alike. But to be allowed in – good and bad – have on the garments of repentance. Not the garments of absolute moral perfection. Not the garments of spotless holiness. But the garments that identify them as willing – even if imperfect for now – to be servants of the Master Himself.

The poorly dressed guest, the unrepentant one, is not tossed out b/c he comes to the feast for the free food, the free liquor, the good company. No, he’s tossed out b/c he comes seeking all the benefits of the Master’s Truth and Goodness and Beauty, but he himself is unwilling to take on truth, goodness, and beauty in return. In other words, he wants to feast at the Master’s banquet table, but he’s unwilling to abide by the Master’s Party Rules. “Many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Paul gives us the secret of the Wedding Feast: “I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me. . .My God will fully supply whatever you need, in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” God will provide the party dress, the tux for the feast. There is no reason for any of us to show up at the feast improperly dressed. From the limitless riches of Christ Jesus we are provided with everything we need to celebrate the feast when we are and where we are right now. Just ask. Paul says that he is able to live with scarcity, live in abundance, live well-fed and hungry, in every circumstance b/c his strength, his purpose, his drive comes through the Father. Not through his own willpower. Not through his own mighty character. Not through his own education or his social standing. But through Him who empowers us all.

The Good News this evening is that you don’t have to be a goat, a bundle of weeds, a bad fish, a lazy virgin, or a poorly dressed wedding guest. You can be. But you don’t have to be. Jesus died to give you the option of coming to the Wedding Feast decked out in the spiritual equivalent of Prada, Gucci, Chanel, and Burberry. Just ask. Just ask and gratefully receive. “[Our] God will fully supply whatever you need.”

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Dangerous for Mary, dangerous for us!

Our Lady of the Rosary
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
OLR, NOLA

It is the most dangerous announcement ever made: “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.” The angel Gabriel, sent by God to Mary, greets the virgin by telling her that she is most graced, wholly blessed, chosen, and attended to by the Lord. Very, very dangerous. And Mary knew Gabriel's announcement was dangerous. Luke tells us, “. . .[Mary] was greatly troubled…” Greatly troubled?! Troubled…and wise. Mary pondered the angelic greeting with dread. She understood that this particular, unique grace picked her out of all God’s human creatures. She understood that receiving an angel from the Lord meant a mission, a purpose beyond a mortal end; a life of singular graces; an honored life of doing the Father’s will for His glory. Dangerous for Mary? Absolutely! Dangerous for us? O, Yes!

Mary is being asked by the Lord to serve as bearer of the world’s salvation. To be the vessel of the Word, and the Mother of a redeemed nation. Saying yes to this mission places her in that moment of human history where the Divine Son takes on human flesh, and sets out toward a selfless, loving sacrifice so that we may all be healed. In her ministry to all of creation, the Virgin gives her body, her will, for the rest of us so that the Infinite Word might speak Himself as a Finite Word and gather us together into a single heart, a single mind, one voice in witness to the mercy and forgiveness of the Lord.[1] She is the mother of our salvation, the perfected vessel of our eternal healing. Mary is a preacher of the gospel, the first preacher of the Word in a fallen world that has been given over to the Enemy to rule. As the Mother of the Christ Child she has an incredibly dangerous job, giving birth to the Word of God among those who would reject His Word.

When you and I took on the responsibility of bearing the Word to the world – when we became preachers – we took on the dangers of opposing all that the world worships as good. Speaking the Word of Truth against the Lie riles up the worst resentments and the most violent frustrations of those in the world who resent Mary’s Yes, who resent the gift of the Christ Child, and who turn their faces against his invitation to participate in the Divine Life. The danger for us here is twofold: 1) that we are seen as the causes of resentment and frustration among those who reject the Word, and 2) that we succumb to the temptation to see these people as hopeless, beyond reach, and deserving of immediate punishment. The first – that we are blamed – is becoming common enough. The second – our unjust judgment of others – is scandalously common and unworthy of the Virgin-child who made our own Yes to bearing the Word possible.

 

This feast of Our Lady of the Rosary celebrates the BVM's intervention during the battle between Europe's Christians and the Turks of the Ottoman Empire in 1571 at Lepanto. Calling upon a 500 year old Dominican tradition, the Christians, the Holy League, dedicated their fleet and their fight to the BVM of the Rosary. And the Dominican pope, Pius V, called upon all of Catholic Europe to recite the rosary, praying for the Holy Mother to intercede on behalf of Europe's desperate defense of Christendom. Despite being woefully outnumbered in ships and sailors, the Holy League prevailed, and the Ottoman Empire's dreams of dominating the Mediterranean were crushed forever. This feast was originally named “Our Lady of Victory,” but over time a succession of popes have named and re-named the feast until Pope John XXIII, in 1960, settled on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. Imagine for a moment. . .if our Lady of the rosary can intercede and help defeat an armada, how likely is it that she can intercede for you in prayer and help you defeat the temptations that threaten to take you away from her Son? If she help prevent an empire from conquering Christian Europe, surely she can help prevent temptation from conquering one Christian! The rosary is our weapon against the despair that the world pours out on us, and our way out of self-destructive judgment. With the rosary in hand, we can meet the dangers of violent opposition and avoid the dangers of judging others by submitting ourselves in both cases to the ministry of the Virgin Handmaid: “Lord, let your will be done in me according to your Word.”

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