Theotokos!

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 of 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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Becoming Sons of God

Nativity of the Lord (Day)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

A virgin gives birth to a son. That son, her son, is also the Son of God. He is the Son of God and the Son of Man, the Savior, the Messiah. His name is Christ Jesus, the one sent to save us from sin and death. On the Cross, he becomes sin and death, and now sin and death are dead, no longer masters of the Father's human children. We belong to Him and Him alone. We can say that Christ became man and died to save us. To rescue us. To heal us. We can say He ransomed us from the Enemy. We can even say that He adopted us as sons and daughters, as heirs. All true. All good and beautiful. But one of the more ancient ways of talking about what Christ did for us at his birth comes from St. Athanasius ca. 318AD, “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God” (CCC 460). TA says this means that, “[t]he only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods” (CCC 460). Every year, on the Nativity of the Lord, we celebrate the birth of the God-Man, Jesus. We also celebrate the moment, the historical instant, that God graced us with the gift of the possibility of becoming Christs. Each one of us becoming Christ. Our salvation is our entry into the divine life of the Blessed Trinity.

Yes, on this festive occasion – with the decorated trees and presents and table-bending platters of food and Jingle Bells playing in the background and Santa Claus – we have to talk about God becoming Man so that Man might become god. You came to a Dominican priory for a Christmas Mass! So, you asked for this. All the traditional Christmas stuff is decoration for why we are here. Twinkly camouflage that decorates an ancient and venerable take on what it means to be saved in Christ. The birth of the Christ Child in Bethlehem is our birth into the divine life, into the possibility of being wholly united with God after our time here is done. As far back as St. Peter writing to the churches in Asia Minor before the end of the first century, we hear that our salvation is a matter of participating in the life of God: “...he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature...” Our sharing in this life right now is what life in Christ is all about. Sharing in His life for eternity is what it is to be deified. To be made gods by God Himself.

Now, we could spend weeks unpacking what deification means for us, and the novices will be doing just that when I get back from visiting my dad in January. But the Cliff Notes version is this: God became Man so that Man might become God. That's what we are celebrating this morning. Our entry into the divine life through the birth of the Christ Child to the BVM in Bethlehem. As I noted earlier, there are simpler ways of thinking about your salvation – as a rescue, as a healing, as a ransom. All of these have their place in the story of the Church. But each one also leads us to think and speak about our daily lives in Christ in a particular way. If your salvation is a rescue, e.g., then you need to ask yourself: why am I constantly needing to be rescued? Why do I keep getting lost or putting myself in danger? If your salvation is a healing, then you need to ask: am I healed just once for all time? If so, why do I keep getting sick with sin and need to be healed again? What happens to your daily life in Christ when you think and speak about your salvation as “sharing in the divine life” of God Himself? What happens when you begin to take seriously the truth of the Son's Incarnation and understand that you yourself can become Christ?

Here's what could happen: you stop thinking and speaking about your life in Christ as if it were nothing more than a legalistic scheme of moral purity. You stop thinking and speaking about your life in Christ as if it were little more than conforming yourself to middle-class American values and expectations. You stop thinking and speaking about your life in Christ as it were limited to robotically repeating the words of a favorite devotion, or being satisfied with doing the absolute bare minimum under Church law. IOW, what happens when you begin to take seriously the truth of the Son's Incarnation and understand that you yourself can become Christ, you stop thinking and speaking about your life in Christ as if you are the source and summit of your salvation and solely responsible for getting yourself into heaven! As partakers in the divine life of God Himself, you and I are imperfect Christs being made perfect by grace. As such, our daily job is to receive with praise and thanksgiving the graces God pours out on us and put those graces to work for His greater glory. Sin is our willful failure to participate fully in the divine life. We have been given a great Christmas gift – Christ Jesus. And our year-round task is to become more and more like him just like he became like us – fully human in all ways except sin.

And so, on “The Twenty-fifth Day of December...in the 149th Olympiad; in the year 752 since the foundation of the City of Rome; in the 42nd year of the reign of Caesar Octavian Augustus, the whole world being at peace, Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father...was conceived by the Holy Spirit...born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem of Judah, and was made man...” On that same day in the same year, in virtue of Christ's birth, life, death, and resurrection, you and I were given – freely given – the gift of our salvation: to become Christs in the flesh, to be made sons of God, heirs to the Kingdom; priests, prophets, and kings to bear witness to His glory in the world. Yes, we are rescued, healed, ransomed, adopted, and saved. But by far the greater gift, the greatest grace is our freedom to become Him whom we love. The Son born of Mary in Bethlehem. That son, her son, the Son of God. The Son of God and the Son of Man, the Savior, the Messiah. His name is Christ Jesus, the one sent to save us from sin and death.

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Emmanuel!

4^th Sunday of Advent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

During my time at the studium [Dominican seminary], it was customary to start the academic year with a prayer service. Friars, lay students, sisters, professors, everyone associated with the school got together to pray. One year, we addressed our communal prayers to Peace, Justice, Mercy, and Love. Not God the Father or Jesus Christ or the Lord. But to Peace, to Justice, etc. That struck me as incredibly odd. Why are we praying to concepts? Why are we asking abstract nouns to hear us and help us? Ours is an embodied faith. Flesh, bone, blood, fire, water, bread, wine. I didn't understand why Christians were addressing Platonic Forms, generalized Ideas. As was my habit, I asked why. And I was told to “let it go.” When I pressed harder, as was also my habit, I was told more firmly, “let it go.” Apparently, there were political forces at work here that a mere student brother best avoids! So that we do not make the mistake of worshiping concepts, Isaiah prophesies, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel.” The BVM is pregnant with a child. Not an Idea. She gives birth to a baby boy. Not a concept. God-is-with-us. Not above or beyond us. But with us. Among us. And we live and move and have our being in Him.

This vice of describing God with abstract nouns is an old one. It's been around since the beginning. The very first heresies in the Church taught that Christ was an illusion, not really there, not really flesh and blood at all. Some objected to the idea that God could take on human form. Others objected to the idea that He would take on a male human form. A few argued that Christ was only human, a creature like the rest of us, just really, really advanced spiritually. All of these are heresies b/c they take a piece of The Truth and make that piece into the whole Truth. So, yes, Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is Peace, Justice, Love, and Mercy. All abstract nouns. But he is also Jesus – a divine person with both a human nature and a divine nature. Blood, bone, and flesh. Son of God, Son of Man. St. Matthew couldn't make the point any clearer, so he just quotes the prophet, Isaiah, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel.”

Emmanuel. God is with us. Here with us. Right here among us. As a man. Like us in every way except sin. Concepts do not weep. Ideas do not eat flame-broiled fish. Abstract nouns do not die covered in blood on a cross. Emmanuel, God-is-with-us, was flesh and blood and bone so that we might have a saving friendship with a man, a real person. So that our eternal lives will not be left in the ever-shifting definitions of ideology or popular opinion or corrupted power. We eat real bread and drink real wine. We light real candles with real fire. We come together shoulder to shoulder and speak real words in prayer. Our worship is real, concrete, and makes use of the ordinary things of the ordinary world. And by the invocation of the Holy Spirit all of these, all of us are taken up and made into a holy sacrifice for the salvation of the world. This is the Father's love and mercy made manifest. Born from flesh in the flesh and risen in the flesh and set to return again in the flesh. We wait for him during Advent b/c flesh and bone needs time to come together. To gestate. To grow and take full form. So, we wait. We anticipate. And we prepare.

If Christ were merely a concept, an idea, then there would be no need for us to wait or prepare. Ideas are easy to conjure up. We could all stay at home, synchronize our clocks for 9.00am, and just think about Jesus for an hour or so. We could think about Peace and Joy and Happiness. No need to get dressed and fight traffic. But our Father wants real communion with us in real time. This is why we celebrate His son's birth into the world. To reset our faith in Him. To remember our hope from Him. And to reinforce our love for Him. Joseph welcomes the pregnant Mary into his home b/c he knows that she carries the living Word of the Father. We too carry the living Word into the world. We're not always welcomed by the world. But we have said and still say Yes to the Spirit. And there is nothing else for us to do but to show the world God's mercy and love. In thought, word, and deed. . .to be the body and blood of Christ in sacrifice for the whole world. If you want to see Christ in the flesh, look around you. This chapel is filled with imperfect Christs, growing in holiness, being perfected into the Christ who died and rose again to save us all. While we wait on the birth of the Christ Child and the coming of the Just Judge, we also wait on the perfection of our bodies and souls. Christ is gestating. So are we. Are you prepared to be born again as Christ for the salvation of the world?

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Love, forgive, serve, bear witness, and rejoice!

3^rd Sunday of Advent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Isaiah is sounding like a football coach in the locker room at halftime during a tied game. “Strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak, say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not!” Well, we could all use the encouragement, right? As the world swirls the bowl – as it always does – those of us who follow Christ need the occasional pep-talk to keep us on our toes. Fidgeting with all the little things of getting along in the world takes a lot of time and energy. And our focus can become blurred. We need that random smack to snap us back to the Real and point us again in the right direction. Seasons of the year like Lent and Advent slow things down a bit and challenge us to pay attention to Who matters in the long run. Advent is particularly good at urging us to wait, to anticipate, to set aside the need for immediate results and savor our yet unfulfilled desire for the coming again of Christ. This Sunday of Advent is for rejoicing. For giving God thanks and praise. For allowing ourselves to be carried away with the joy of knowing that the Christ Child is coming and so is the Just Judge. To prepare today, we rejoice!

Experiencing any degree of joy these days is a chore, I know. I watch the evening news with the friars sometimes and wonder why any of us get out of bed in the morning. New viruses spreading. War in E. Europe. COVID riots in China. Coups in S. America. Record crime rates here at home. Inflation. Political corruption and fraud. Schism in the Church. Institutional decay across the board – banks, universities, schools, churches, media – all rotting. And all that was just last week! It seems as though we are arriving at a tipping point and it's all going to just to collapse. Where's the joy in that? How do we dare rejoice when the world is burning all around us? We should Do Something! We should. We should rejoice. Not that the world is burning, of course. We should rejoice b/c we are not of this world. This world is not our home, not our anchor. We are not defined by or limited to or in any way attachable to this passing world. All the horrible stuff happening now has happened before. And it will all happen again. And again. And again. Until the Lord returns. Will he find us exhausting ourselves trying to prevent the relentless cycles of human foolishness, or will he find us loving, forgiving, serving, and bearing witness to his mercy?

More importantly, will he find us rejoicing? Will he find us finding joy in the ruins? You see, joy is an effect of love. Love causes joy. Remember: we aren't talking about joy and love here the way the world does. For the world, joy and love are just sentiments, emotions. Sensations caused by brain chemicals. For us, joy and love are two additional names for one person, Christ Jesus. He is joy and love. And we too are joy and love when we live and breathe and have our being in him. This means that joy and love are not merely subjective feelings that we invoke at our convenience. Joy and love have objective content – a purpose, a substance; a knowable and unchangeable nature. That knowable and unchangeable nature imparts to us its purpose and goal. We do not simply love and then feel joy; we become love and joy, and we then say and do and think as love and joy commands. If, when he returns, Jesus finds you rejoicing, then he finds himself b/c you have become Christ. Will he find you rejoicing, or will he find you cramped and angry, twisted with anxiety and making your sick with worry over people and events you cannot control?

Love, forgive, serve, bear witness, and rejoice. Whatever viruses or wars or corrupt politicians or riots or schisms come: love, forgive, serve, bear witness, and rejoice. That's our To Do List until he comes again.   

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Prophets are annoying

2^nd Week of Advent (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

It would seem that “die violently” is just part of the prophet's job description. There are a few exceptions. Elijah is one of those. During his first go-round in the OT, Elijah is “taken aloft in a whirlwind of fire, in a chariot with fiery horses.” Setting aside the far-fetched notion that he was abducted by aliens, it seems that Elijah was assumed into heaven. He appears again on Mt. Tabor for the Transfiguration, and now he's the topic of conversation for Jesus and the disciples who went up that mountain with him. Jesus confirms the prophecy from Sirach that Elijah will “come to put an end to wrath before the day of the LORD...” In fact, he implies that Elijah has already come as the man John the Baptist. But no one recognized him and that he suffered the fate of most prophets – death. To make matters worse, Jesus prophesies that he too will suffer the fate of God's prophets. Why is it that God's prophets almost always end up dying violent deaths? From a merely natural standpoint, we can say, they are annoying. They pester, harangue, argue, and tell us things we don't want to hear. They are often disreputable, disheveled, and, if not actually diseased, dirty. They are not created by a Madison Ave PR firm to communicate a slick, compact message that's easily digested by the masses. God sends them to tell us the Truth and that more often than not means we have to change how we live. Ugh. So, death. Kill the messenger; kill the message. Of course, the truth doesn't die just b/c its bearer is killed. But what happens when we kill The Truth, the Way, and the Life? What happens when the prophet we kill is the Son of Man, the Son of God? His death is not just a death; it's a sacrifice. JB's death did not fulfill the covenant. His blood covered no one's sin. No other prophet – however powerful – could claim to be the Messiah, God Himself. All those other prophets preached the Truth. Christ is the Truth they preached. They showed us the Way. He is the Way. They urged us to choose Life. Christ is the Life we have chosen. Now, you and I are the prophets sent by God to bear witness – in our words and our deeds – to the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. What difference does that (crucifix) make in your life? How will his violent death change you today? Even better, how will his coming again as a Child and as the Just Judge make you a better prophet, one sent to die to bear His truth to the world?      

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Her fiat is ours

Solemnity of the I.C.

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Why are we reading about the Baby Jesus' conception on the S.I.C.? And why aren't we reading about the BVM's I.C.? And what does it have to do with the forgiveness of sin and the salvation of souls? And how does the I.C. help the poor and oppressed? How does it help me grow in holiness??? I'm glad you asked! While the Church has always believed that the BVM was immaculately conceived, it wasn't until 1854 when Pope Pius IX infallibly defined the dogma that we could clearly lay out the full implications of Gabriel's prophetic visit to young Mary. Besides clarifying several important theological issues, the pope's definition allows us to begin thinking of ourselves as “bearers of the Word.” It took nearly a century for this idea to fully mature in the Church, but we can see how every baptized man, woman, and child can model their spiritual life on the motherhood of the BVM. Mary is “full of grace.” God is already with her when Gabriel appears. When charged with bearing and birthing the Word into the world, Mary says, “Let it be done to me according to your word.” How can she so easily submit her will to the will of the Father? B/c the Father is with her; she is filled with His grace. This profusion of God's presence expands to fill past, present, and future, and at every point in creation's history, the BVM is the Mother of God, the Bearer of the Word. Her fiat to Gabriel is my fiat and yours at our baptism; our confirmation, every time we confess our sins; every time we receive the Lord in the Eucharist. We say “amen” but “amen” means fiat – let it be done. If the BVM is capable of surrendering herself entirely to the Father's will b/c she is filled with His grace, then you and I are capable of doing the same. We were not conceived without sin, true; but we were re-conceived immaculately in the waters of baptism. And through our baptism, we are tasked with being “bearers of the Word” to the world. To be living tabernacles of his presence wherever we are and in whatever we do. Like the BVM we are – with His grace – capable of remaining sinless, free from the slavery of death. The BVM is the model of the Church, the Body of Christ, and our personal model for daily holiness. Her I.C. shows us how we too can surrender to God in His grace; conceive His word in our persons; and bear that Word into the world for its salvation. So, when you hear Gabriel speak to Mary, hear him speaking to you as well: “Do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God...The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” and you will bring Christ the Word to the world. 

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Are you lost?

2^nd Week of Advent (T)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Back in 2014, I went to the March for Life in DC. I was the chaperone for 36 Catholic high school students. Anytime we got back on the bus after an event, I counted my chickens. 36. Imagine if we returned to NOLA with only 35 students, and when confronted with the fact that one student was missing, I responded, “Hey! I got 35 of them back. What's one lost student out of 36?! 35 and 1 is a great record.” Well, you can just imagine the uproar. I'm using this analogy to explain Jesus' parable b/c it's likely we're thinking what the Pharisees and scribes were thinking: the 99 sheep are more important than one lost sheep. For the scribes and Pharisees, uncleanliness is infectious; cleanliness is not. IOW, the one lost sheep is lost b/c he is unclean, and it's better that he remain outside the flock. Rabbis like Jesus shouldn't be associating with the unclean. They will get dirty. Jesus is teaching his opponents that their beliefs about cleanliness and uncleanliness are exactly backwards. Sin is not infectious; grace is. Merely sitting in the presence of a prostitute doesn't make one a prostitute. However, when a person living in grace sits with a prostitute, the shepherd is finding his one lost sheep. The Enemy tempts us to think that associating with sinners is a sign of faithlessness, a sign that we are considering participating in their sin. This is a brilliant move on the Enemy's part b/c it keeps us away from those who most need to be found. We might get dirty. Well, finding and rescuing lost sheep is dirty work. It's hard work too b/c the Enemy also tempts us to rescue sinners by telling them that their sin isn't really a sin. We may think we're being loving here, but all we are really doing is enabling their sin and throwing ourselves into uncleanliness. Thus the shepherd needs to grasp two unshakable truths to do the his job in faith: 1). the lost sheep is priceless and worthy of rescue; and 2). the lost sheep is lost b/c he has chosen to get lost. If I can't or won't admit that I am lost and in trouble, then I cannot be found and rescued. If the shepherd is telling me that I'm not lost nor am I in trouble, then why is he bothering me about rejoining the flock? When we are shepherds, we love the sinner and admonish the sin. When we are lost, we confess that we are lost and desperately in need of rescue. And we always remember – whether we are the shepherd or the sinner – grace is infectious; sin is not.  

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Are you glorifying God?

2^nd Week of Advent (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Does the paralyzed man want to be healed? We don't know. Does he believe that Jesus is the Messiah? We don't know that either. In most of the healing stories from the NT, the person healed wants to be healed, or believes in Jesus, or both. But the paralyzed man is silent. We do know that his friends want him to be healed and that they believe Jesus can heal him. But they too are silent. For Jesus, that's enough. Their determination, ingenuity, and hard work are enough. Before and during his healing, the paralyzed man remains silent. But he receives his healing as a gift, and that's enough. After his healing, the words flow. Luke tells us, “...[he] picked up what he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying God.” We are rational animals, body and soul. What hurts the body, hurts the soul and vice-versa. Jesus makes this clear when he says to the ever-vigilant Pharisees, “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?” IOW, to forgive sin is to heal the whole person, body and soul. And the healed man's response to his healing is gratitude, giving the glory to God so that others may come to know the power of God to forgive and heal. Jesus doesn't just return a man's physical mobility and spiritual purity, he creates an apostle, one sent out out to bear witness to God's power. Imagine: the soul you are is loaded down with failures, flaws, and sin, and the body you are is exhausted from carrying all that weight. You're tired, can't sleep, angry, depressed, anxious. You go to the Lord in confession for healing. You hand all that damaging weight to Christ through his priest, and the priest – acting in the person of Christ – says to you, “I absolve you...” You are healed. The burden is gone. You are no longer paralyzed. You can walk, run, dance, and you can give the glory to God. Here's the question: do you? Do you give God the glory? Do you tell others about your healing?In healing you, Christ makes an apostle, one sent out to proclaim the power of God so that others may come to know His mercy. You perfect your healing by bearing witness to the miracle of forgiveness. Are you astonished? Do your friends and family see you and say, “We have seen incredible things today.” No? Well, they can't see what you don't show them.

 

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Hark, the Heralds Angel sing: Repent!

2^nd Sunday of Advent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Here we are on the second Sunday of Advent, talking about deserts, locusts, wild honey, camel's hair, and vagrant prophet named John. We're only 21 days from Christmas. Shouldn't we be talking about Santa Claus and reindeer and elves and presents under the tree? We're hearing hymns like the “Dies Iræ,” – “Days of Wrath” – and “Go Labor On.” When we should be listening to “Jingle Bells” and “Frosty the Snowman.” The Gospel is all broods of vipers and repentance from sin and divine anger and winnowing chafe and unquenchable fire! We could be forgiven for thinking that the Church is being a Grinch or a Scrooge for throwing cold water on our Christmas Spirit. AND. . .we'd be right for thinking so if we were in the Christmas season. But we're not. We're in the season of waiting for Christmas, waiting for the birth of Christ and his second coming at the end of the age. The locusts and vipers and deserts and days of wrath are here to prod us into being ready for the Just Judge and the trial we all face after death. So, John the Baptist, crying out in the wilderness, preaches: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

Just yesterday, a UD student asked me what “repentance” means. I said, “It means to turn around, to return to God.” The Greek word in the NT is metanoia, meaning “to change one's mind,” to alter one's plans or purpose. When we put ourselves on a path, believing we are taking the best route to our goal, and it becomes clear that that path is taking us into darkness, we are urged to metanoia, to turn around, to repent. There's a time limit on our ability to repent. We call that limit “my life time.” Each one of us has exactly as long as we will live to turn around. At death, an eternally binding decision is made: to live with God, or without Him. He will honor our decision either way. Of course, He wills that we return to Him in love. However, love requires that we return to Him freely. John the Baptist is sent to sound the alarm: time is running out; the Kingdom is at hand; repent! Leave the path toward darkness and death and return to the Father. That's what Advent is all about – getting ourselves ready for the coming of the Just Judge, the One who will listen to our eternal choice and honor it. Santa Claus, reindeer, elves, and Christmas trees are wonderful signs for the proper season. Right now, however, we are in a season of repentance and anticipation.

Thus, the violet vestments and alarming hymns. And I know it all sounds so old-fashioned – repentance and judgment and days of wrath. But “old-fashioned” cannot be applied to the Gospel. The Word is eternal, so it is true now, back then, and tomorrow. It has always been true and will always be true. Pretending that we're too mature or sophisticated or modern to worry about sin and salvation is Pride writ large. Calling our sins “mistakes” or “struggles” doesn't dilute their affect on our immortal souls. Our moment before the Just Judge will not a “check in” with our Cosmic Therapist. He's not there to affirm our OK-ness, or hand us a salvation participation trophy. He'll be there to hear our choice. What do you choose? Eternal life or eternal death? And we need to be clear here: we don't make this choice after death; we make it everyday, every hour, every minute. Any time we think, speak, or act, we are making that eternal choice. We are saying to God: I want to be with You, or I can get along w/o You. Spend these next 21 days examining your choices. Spend them pondering how you have loved; how you have shown mercy; how you have been generous with everything God has given you. And if you start to think you're a hopeless sinner. . .well, repent! God always, always welcomes a sinner.

And if all this contemplation of your sin depresses your Christmas Spirit. . .good. It should. It's not Christmas yet. It will be. But not yet. Paul calls us to a life of hope, a life of endurance and encouragement. We've been given a spirit of courage not cowardice. So, we are more than able to be honest with both our sin and God's mercy. And we don't have to wear animal skins or eat bugs in the desert to find our peace. All we have to do is bring ourselves to God in confession and ask Him to show us our sins. In the presence of His perfect love, the marks of our disobedience, the times we have chosen not to love, will glow like fire. And all we have to do is take responsibility for our failures. We will receive His eternally-given forgiveness and turn again toward our perfecting end. Then we go back out with the words of John the Baptist ringing in our ears, “Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.” Now, we start again as imperfect Christs showing the world what the mercy of God can do with sinners like us. 

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Just say the Word

1^st Week of Advent (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

The Centurion's faith amazes Jesus. No one in Israel has such faith. No one? Not the priests, the scribes, the Pharisees, the Lord's own disciples? This Roman occupier of the Holy City, this worshiper of false gods has faith in an itinerant preacher who claims to be the Son of God? Apparently so. But just what is this faith? What does this Gentile trust in exactly? In refusing Jesus' offer to go to his house and heal his servant, the Centurion says, “...only say the word and my servant will be healed.” He trusts in the power and authority of Christ's word. Just say the word. He doesn't genuflect or light a candle or sacrifice a goat or rattle off a long, convoluted prayer. Just say the word, Lord. Say the word, and he will be healed. He analogizes the power and authority of his own word as a Roman officer to Jesus' power and authority as the Son of God. His orders are carried out. His word is obeyed. And so it is with Christ. The Centurion is acknowledging that Jesus is the author of creation and so has authority over creation's order. Where there is something broken, he can fix it. Where there is disease, he can cure. Where there is sin, he can forgive. Christ has the authority to make right every relationship gone wrong. Father to daughter. Mother to son. Husband to wife. Master to servant. God to Man. In his divine person – out of who he is – Christ can redeem all of creation to its original godly order. The Centurion's trust in his word amazes Jesus. He says, “...in no one in Israel have I found such faith.” If Jesus were to visit Irving, this priory, this 8.00am Mass, could he say the same of you and me? If not, we have 27 days to prepare ourselves to answer the question. We have 27 days to exercise our trust muscles, to prepare for the heavy lifting of his coming again. Will he come again at the end of Advent? We don't know. But we do know that we have this time to work out – to trust, to hope, to love, and to call on his holy name for the right ordering of our lives. If the pagan invader of the Holy City can trust God to heal his servant with a word, then surely you and I can surrender to His will and pray, “Just say the word, Lord. Just say the Word.”  

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Advent: Your Clock is Ticking

1^st Sunday of Advent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

I am an Advent Nazi. The friars did not know this when they elected me prior. But there it is. No Christmas carols before Dec 24^th. No Christmas trees. No red, green, and white decorations. No little Santa Clauses pushing Advent back towards Thanksgiving. Advent is its own season, one deserving of our respect and attention! So, we wait. We prepare. And we anticipate. Christ is coming, but he's not here yet. What do we need to do while we wait? Isaiah says we are to walk in the light of the Lord. Paul says we must wake from sleep and throw off the works of darkness. And Jesus says we are to stay awake and prepare for his coming again. IOW, Advent is set to test us, to prove our readiness for the Final Judgment. Yes, we are looking forward to Christmas and the birth of the Christ Child. But we are also looking forward to The End, the last day, and our final test before the Just Judge. Are you ready to stand before him, account for your life, and hear his judgment? If not, you have four weeks, just 28 days, to get ready. Make the most of the time you have. Everyone's clock is ticking.

Brothers, sisters: I do not wait well. It is one of my many failings. At Kroger yesterday with Br. Bede, I got frustrated b/c they had one register open. There were four people with stuffed carts in front of us. I moved us over to the self-checkout and got even more frustrated b/c the wretched machine kept booping nonsense at us, requiring a cashier to correct it. After the third time the poor woman had to exorcise the demon-possessed computer, I said, “Y'all can't be making much money with these things.” She smiled nervously, giggled a little, and said nothing. I think she's probably used to impatient customers. So, I do not wait well. And if my ego were bigger or more deranged, I might come to believe that God invented Advent just to provoke me. But my ego isn't that big or deranged, so I'll have to make do with the Church's idea that Advent is a time to contemplate The Last Four Things and prepare for the coming again of Christ. To wit: if you didn't know already, you are going to die. So am I. We are in the world but not of it, just passing through, and we need to be ready to exit. As followers of Christ, our exit is nothing to fear. . .if we are ready. How do we get ready? By observing the 28 days of Advent and then treating the other 337 days of the year as off-season Advents.

We do this by walking in the light of the Lord. By waking from sleep and throwing off the works of darkness. By staying awake and preparing for his coming again. We wait in the light. Keeping ourselves fully exposed in the direct light of our Lord's glory. We shake ourselves away from the lies, the manipulations, the scheming of the Enemy and refuse to do his dirty work. We give no room in our hearts and minds to envy, pride, wrath, or greed. We do not allow ourselves to be seduced by compromise or vanity or selfishness. We treat everything we have and everything we are as God's eternal possessions and only ours for short time. We treat ourselves and one another as embodied instances of divine love, men and women who reveal the truth, goodness, and beauty of the Father just by living and breathing. We remain stubbornly, aggressively faithful to the Gospel handed down to us, and we wear ourselves out bearing witness to His mercy. And when we fail in our preparations, we turn again to Christ and receive his absolution. Yes, we are getting ready for the birth of Christ. Of course, we are! But we are also getting ready for our death. Jesus says, “...had [the master of the house] known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake.” But he didn't. And his house was broken.

Stay awake! Vigilance is exhausting. Always being on guard against the Enemy is exhausting. We need rest and refreshment. That's prayer. Prayer is the time God floods us with everything we need to remain alert. Prayer is the time we open ourselves to receive everything God has to give us. Prayer is our chance to praise Him and give Him thanks for His gifts. Shopping, cooking, decorating, entertaining – all exhausting. By the time Christmas arrives, we just want it over. So, don't start Christmas until Christmas. Take this season of preparation and prepare. Fortify, stock up, repair, and rest. You have 12 days after the 25^th to celebrate Christ's birth. And you have 28 days – more than twice as long – to get right with God and prepare for your birth into eternal life. What I'm say here is this: become an Advent Nazi! Wait joyfully, wait peacefully for the coming of Christ. Then – when the time comes – go rejoicing to the House of the Lord! 

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Become perfect Love

St. Ignatius Delgado OP & Companions

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St Albert the Great, Irving

God owes you nothing. He owes me nothing. He created us and then re-created us in Christ Jesus. Though He owes us nothing, He gives us everything. We were freely made and freely re-made. Everything we have and everything we are is a gift. From the brute fact of our existence as male and female to the complexities of our personalities, we are wholly gratuitous creatures solely dependent on the Father's “plan of sheer goodness”(CCC 1). Understanding and receiving this foundational truth about the nature of reality is called humility. We are dust and divine love given flesh and bone. How we choose in our freedom to respond to this truth, this humility determines how we will live minute to minute until we die. If we choose to live as though we can save ourselves, making idols of ourselves, loving ourselves w/o God, then we will become what we love – merely temporary, passing things that endure in eternal bitterness and regret. If, however, we choose to live in a permanent state of praise and thanksgiving to God, loving ourselves and others b/c He loved us first, then we will become what we love – immortal men and women, abiding in perfect unity with Love Himself. We will become Love perfectly.

The Grateful Samaritan is healed. Along with nine Jews, his body is made well again. The GS returns to give Christ thanks and praise for his healing. Now, his soul is healed as well, his whole person is made new again. The nine Jews do not return to thank Christ. Why? We don't know. Maybe they took their healing as payment for a perceived debt. Maybe they thought they were entitled to the gift. Could be that they were too overwhelmed with joy to consider giving thanks. Whatever the reason, they did not choose to submit themselves in humility before their Healer and give him thanks. Jesus says us nothing about their fate. To the GS he says, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.” Your trust in God has saved you, healed you, brought you back into the household of the Father. Ask yourself: am I the GS, or am I among the ungrateful nine? God doesn't need our gratitude. He doesn't need our praise. We need to give Him thanks and praise simply b/c doing so is our confession of what's Real: we are gratuitous creatures growing in holiness, beings being perfected in the sacrificial love of Christ. 

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The only answer that matters

St. Clement of Rome

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Who do we say that the Son of Man is? Looking around the Church these days, it would appear that we say he's a bureaucrat working for a religiousy social work organization; or a fiery Traddie sporting a bow tie and fedora; or an addict living under a bridge; or a soccer mom running for the school board; or a careerist bishop looking for applause from the media. We say he is a lot of things. Most of which is false. The Enemy tempts us daily, hourly to make Jesus into our own image and deny who he really is. This is a smart strategy. If the Enemy can prod us into re-making Christ into a reflection of our sinful selves, then we can be OK with who we are in our sin. We can say, “Look! We are following Christ. He looks just like us.” Of course, the truth is we've just put Christ on a leash and made him follow us. To help you and me remember that we are his creatures and not his creator, Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?” The only correct answer is: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” This confession of faith is the only way to salvation. There is no other name, no other job title, no other process or procedure through which we can be saved from sin and death. We can eagerly attach ourselves to political platforms or reform movements or synodal processes or intellectual projects or social justice activities and sincerely believe that we are saving ourselves and the Church with the good works of good intentions. But if we re-create Christ and make him into an idol of our efforts, then he becomes just another mascot, a pet to distract us when our important work gets boring. How do you name and dismiss the Enemy's temptation to re-create Christ? Remind yourself daily that your good works are not your god. That your good intentions are not your god. That your opinions, your politics, your niche ecclesial obsessions, your devotional eccentricities – none of it is your god. Who do you say, who do you think, who do you feel, who do you know the Son of Man to be? “Christ, the Son of the living God” is the only answer that can save you. 

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Do you love God?

St. Margaret of Scotland

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

I've been a priest, confessor, and spiritual director for 17 yrs. I've served as a seminary/university professor and priest-formator for 13 of those yrs. Without hesitation, from my experience, I can tell you that the single most difficult truth for Christians to accept is that God's love is unconditionally, absolutely free. That is, there is literally nothing you and I can do to beg, borrow, steal, or earn God's love. And there is literally nothing we can do to make God cease loving us. Here's why: God is love. He is love by nature. Who He is is Love. God isn't someone above and beyond love Who loves. He isn't a super powerful human-like being Who loves this but not that. To be God is what it is to be love. We cannot beg, borrow, steal, or earn God's love b/c we cannot beg, borrow, steal, or earn God Himself. If God were to cease loving me, I would cease to exist. In fact, all of reality would cease to exist b/c God would cease to be love in failing to love me. So, how do you know – with absolute certainty – that God loves you? Easy. Do you exist? If you say, Yes, then God loves you. Freely, absolutely, unconditionally.

Now that that question is settled, we can move on to the more complicated question: do you love God? God loves b/c He is love. You and I are not love. We participate in His love (b/c we exist), but we are not love itself. IOW, we can sin. We can fail to love as we ought. This is where our problems start. One way of experiencing my sin is to feel or sense that God has stopped loving me. In the presence of Perfect Love, my imperfect love feels like abandonment. It feels like God has set me aside. Then, in my desolation, I start trying to earn back God's love with penances and prayers and weeping and gnashing of teeth. The Enemy cheers on our efforts to win God back b/c all our efforts keep hidden from us the one truth we find hard to accept: God's love for us is absolute, free, and unconditional. Nothing can keep God from us. But we are more than expert at keeping us from God. Our love for Him is almost always relative, bound, and conditional. So, Jesus says, “I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.” What did he tell us? God is love. He – Christ – is in God's love. And we remain in His love by following His commandments. What is his command? “Love one another as I have loved you.” Freely, sacrificially.

Where's the noise?

33^rd Week OT (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Jesus' healing of Bartimaeus – the blind man – isn't a big, dramatic scene. The actual, physical healing of the man's blindness, that is. Jesus doesn't demand allegiance, or question the man's faith, or slap him on the forehead, or anything fun like that. Jesus just says, “What do you want?” Bartimaeus says, “I want to see.” Jesus says, “You can see. Your faith has saved you.” BOOM! He can see! Except there is no boom. No angels' choir. No flock of glowing white doves. No one has to catch Bartimaeus as he is slain in the Spirit. No one has to rush forward to fan his sweating face. The whole miraculous healing is accomplished in 21 words. No gestures. No spit. No mud. Jesus doesn't even touch him. So, where's the action in this scene? Where's the noise? The noise comes before and after the healing. The crowd is noisy, proclaiming Jesus' presence. Bartimaeus is noisy: “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” The crowd starts yelling at Bartimaeus to be quiet. But he keeps on yelling. Finally, Jesus calls him over. [Insert anticlimactic healing here]. And Bartimaeus starts giving God the glory and the crowd starts praising God. The point of this scene is to show us that persistence is key in calling on the Lord for help. Not b/c we can change his mind with nagging but b/c persistence builds endurance and strengthens our faith. Perhaps a lesser point is that there will be some in our lives who want to shut us up b/c our faith is embarrassing. Our persistence is annoying. It draws attention and disrupts the expected. If you can't see the Lord, but you know he's near, and you want to see him, then you will be noisy, even embarrassing. You'll ignore the shushers and carry on until you meet Christ and receive your sight. This is good for you and the shushers. You get to give God the glory for your healing, and they get to see that persistent faith brings salvation. They also get to grow in holiness by giving God praise. The Lord says to the Church in Ephesus: “I know your works, your labor, and your endurance...you have endurance and have suffered for my name, and you have not grown weary.” When the shushers try to shush your faith; when they try to keep you from the Lord – persist, endure, and never grow weary. Your faith will save you. And when it does, do not fail to him thanks and praise. Give God the glory.  

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