WHY we do good works matters

5^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Upon hearing of my interest in Catholicism, my 11^th grade English teacher asked me, “Don't you think it's enough just to be a good person?” I asked him what a good person is. He replied, sounding like the prophet, Isaiah, “Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them...” I was all of 16, so my response faith was weak: “I think there's more to it than that.” Indeed, there is. A group of folks in Delaware recently to collected blankets, socks, hats, gloves, and canned food for the homeless. They collected donations to help with the medical bills. Another group in Austin set up a permanent organization to fight for religious freedom, human rights, and justice for those marginalized by economic hardship. The organizer of this campaign was quoted in the paper, saying, “I applaud all [those] who engage with their community to help end undue suffering...” Sounds like these folks are doing Good Work. Like typical Catholic parishes. Except they aren't Catholic parishes. Both groups are congregations of The Satanic Temple. And their project is called Satanic Good Works. Is this the kind of good works Isaiah is urging us to do?

Yes...and no. Yes, the good works are good insofar as they help alleviate human suffering. No, b/c these works are done to glorify the Enemy not God. Now, you might ask, “What difference does it make to the homeless if their food comes from Christians or Satanists?” None. Hungry is hungry. Food is food. Atheists, Satanists, humanists can feed the hungry and clothe the naked as well as Christians can. The question here is for the Christians: why are we doing good works? Why did we invent, build, and still maintain universities, hospitals, orphanages, hospices, nursing homes, and schools all over the planet? The why here matters b/c even the enemies of God can do the what. Isaiah lays out our – for lack of a better phrase – social obligations. We call them the corporeal works of mercy. The Gospel tells us that our failure to do these works will see us herded with the goats and thrown into the fire pit on the last day. So, very serious obligations. But is doing these good works enough to see us herded with the sheep and welcomed into heaven? If so, then we can expect to share the Father's table with atheists and Satanists. If not, then what else is necessary? What makes our good works different?

I said before – the why of our work matters. If we do good works for the sake of the work itself, or even for the sake of those we work for, then our work is indistinguishable from the works of the Satanists – as good as it may be. Our work must be done for no other reason than to give glory to God. Any other reason tempts us to pride or self-righteousness. Any other reason gives us reason to think that our work is ours alone. We may be tempted to believe that our work will save us. Or that it's possible to buy a place at the Father's table. Or – perhaps the worst – that our work makes us better than the poor, holier than those we serve. Jesus says that we are the salt of the earth and a light to the world. Our saltiness is not our doing. Neither is our light. Both belong to him alone. We merely participate. And to the degree that we freely participate, giving him the glory for his generosity, we grow in holiness. Our saltiness and light are given to us. And we are charged with passing them on to others in need. This “passing on” is our good work. But the source of our goodness is God alone. By following Isaiah's admonitions, we point to God and reveal His goodness and providence. The whole point is to lead others into a healing relationship with their Creator. When we lose sight of The Why of our good works, we lose sight of who and what we are as freed children of the Father. Jesus says, “...your light must shine before others...” Why? Why must our light shine? “[So] that they may see your good deeds...” Why do others need to see our good deeds? “[So they may] glorify your heavenly Father.”

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The truth is always pastoral

4^th Week OT (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Let no one say that Our Lord was not a great Dominican! Mark bears witness to this: “...his heart was moved with [compassion] for [the vast crowd], for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.” In the Order, we call this compassionate impulse to teach the truth, misericordia veritatis – the mercy of truth. What we know and want to make more widely known is that revealing the truth and receiving the truth are acts of mercy, manifestations of compassion. IOW, speaking the truth and hearing the truth will set you free. Free from what? Whatever is binding you to sin and death. Our Lord is moved to teach the truth b/c – looking out over the vast crowd – he can see everything holding his Father's people down. Material and spiritual poverty. Disordered passions and appetites. Intellectual pride and the desire for worldly recognition. Crippling disease. Loneliness. All flowing together to create a suffocating cloud of despair. Our Lord has two choices: 1). teach the truth and risk the anger of the world, or 2). comfort with a lie and soak up the world's appreciation. We can see the choice he made. [point to crucifix]

He chose to be the Good Shepherd of his sheep. Not the choice everyone makes. Recently, a newly minted American cardinal published an essay calling on the Church to abandon her ancient teachings on sexual morality in the name of “compassion” and “inclusion.” B/c some feel excluded from the Church, he argues, it's imperative that the Church soothe their feelings by lying to them. There's nothing new here. Pushing the Church to forsake the Gospel in favor of the Lie is as old as the Church. And there is nothing merciful, compassionate, or pastoral about lying. The truth is always pastoral. Veritas in caritate is always pastoral. Jesus doesn't say to the crowd, “If your poverty makes you sad, just pretend you are rich!” He doesn't say to those suffering physically, “You're not in pain if you believe you aren't!” Nor to those w/o hope, “Your despair is who you are. Embrace it!” Instead, he show them compassion and teaches them the truth, a way to be free of their slavery to sin and death. If and when we are willing, he heals us, lifts us up, and offers us a place at his Father's table. Mercy is offered but it must be received in repentance. That's misericordia veritatis.

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Choose the largest measure

Ss. Timothy & Titus

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

The world teaches us to be victims and hold grudges. There is no more powerful claim in our culture at the moment than “I am the victim here!” There's real, worldly power in being aggrieved. For every grievance there's a just and equitable remedy to be found. More often than not, that remedy is some sort of public punishment meant to deter future offenses. What that remedy is really about, of course, is control. The power to subjugate, exile, or execute one's opponents. It's about vengeance and domination. This is not the Way of Christ. The world wants us to think in terms of oppressor and oppressed, slave and master. Christ teaches us to think in terms of brother and sister, family and servant. We serve because we are gifted with divine love and that love – by its very nature – is diffusive. If we are loved, then that love must be shared. The most immediate way of sharing divine love is to imitate divine love in the act of forgiveness. To forgive is to relieve another of his/her debt to you. You eagerly and sincerely surrender your status as a creditor in favor of willing the Good of another. If you cannot bring yourself right now to forgive in name of divine love, then start by forgiving for your own sake. The measure you use to measure will be used to measure you. If your measure is stingy and mean, then your capacity to receive forgiveness will be stingy and mean. Think of the act of forgiveness as a stretching exercise. The more and more easily you forgive – the further you stretch your mercy muscles – the more and more easily you are able to receive forgiveness. Generally, our reasons for not forgiving others are really just excuses to cling to our sense of having been offended. My dignity. My pride. My position. My status as a victim. None of which matter in the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. In the divine economy, both the creditor and the debtor become richer when a debt is forgiven. Both the creditor and the debtor are freer, better equipped to grow in holiness, and more able to move on toward Christ. God has forgiven us. From all eternity, we are free from sin and death. That's a debt that cannot be repaid. All He asks of us is to be instruments of diffusion, little nodes of dispersion for His divine love. Our measure must be as large as God Himself. That's the measure we want and need when comes our turn to be measured.           

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There is only Christ

3^rd Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Do you belong to Paul or Cephas or Apollo? To Trump, Biden, Obama, or Cruz? Do you belong to JPII, Benedict, or Francis? Or are you a pre-VC2 Catholic or a Spirit of V2 Catholic? Maybe a Traditionalist or a progressive? A New Mass or Old Mass Catholic? A recent survey of some 4,000 American priests concluded that younger priests are more conservative than their older, more liberal brother priests. You will search in vain for a definition of liberal and conservative in the survey. The author of the survey dodged every request to define the terms in a recent interview. As a priest-formator, seminary professor and spiritual director for 11 years, I'd say that the survey is absolutely correct. But I too would struggle to define my terms. What is a “conservative Catholic,” a “progressive Catholic”? For that matter, what does it mean for a follower of Christ to say, “I belong to Paul” or “I belong to Apollo”? Being a follower of Christ means that one has heard Jesus say, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand,” and followed him. It means one has received an invitation from God to become a “fisher of men.” Why follow the sheep when you can follow the Shepherd?

I don't need to go into detail about the division and polarization in the contemporary Church. It almost perfectly reflects the division and polarization of the world. If this isn't a scandal, I don't know what is. And I confess my own contributions to the problem. I am as likely as anyone else to use secular political terms to describe Catholic partisans. And I encourage seminarians and young priests to lean heavily toward the more traditional side of churchy disputes. My training as a Thomist and a Stoic prevent me from embracing Traditionalism in all its polyphonic and lacy grandeur, but I'll also grab a silk chasuble (even fake silk) over a burlap chasuble every time. I confess all this to make sure you understand that I know that I am part of the problem. The preacher preaches to himself first! The Father's prophetic Word on our current mess is clear: those who follow Christ confess that they follow Christ. Not the Democrats or the Republicans or the progressives or the Traddies. But Christ. And Christ alone. I belong to Christ. And that means I can belong to no one else. Follow the Shepherd not the sheep.

So, does following Christ mean that we cannot also be a progressive or a Traddy or some other adjectival add-on? No, it doesn't. But notice how English works. Adjectives modify nouns. So, if I say I am a “BXVI Catholic,” then I have used BVXI to modify Catholic. If this means that I have read, understood, and accepted BXVI's understanding of what it means to follow Christ, then fine. I am following Christ (first) in the manner of BXVI (second). However, if it means that I have given my allegiance to a partisan camp for the sake of being identified as a partisan of that camp, then not so fine. Why? Because being a partisan is what matters to me here, not following Christ. If being a progressive is more important than being a Catholic, or being a Traddy is more important than being a Catholic, then you are saying, “I belong to Progressivism” or “I belong to Traditionalism.” Is Christ divided? Was Obama or Trump crucified for you? Did LGBTQ ideology or the Constitution suffer for you? Were you baptized in the name of JPII or Francis? No, of course not. Nor is it the flesh of politicians or popes or theologians that you eat this morning. We eat Christ this morning, so it is to Christ that we belong.

Matthew reports that Jesus moves into the area of Galilee and “from that time on, [he begins] to preach and say, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'” Not the kingdom of Progs or Traddies or Democrats or Republicans. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. And it's time to repent. To turn away from the sins of divisions and parties in the Church, away from laying claim to this or that ideology as a modifier for our faith. It's time – beyond time! – for us to return to Christ and him alone and do the job we've agreed to do: fish for the souls of men and women who desperately want to be free from sin and death. Only Christ can free them, free us. The politicians can create programs. Popes and bishops can create processes and policies. Ideologues can create the illusion of secular utopias or perfectly ordered Christian societies. But only Christ can rescue us from sin and death and make us partakers in his divine life. If you will receive the gift of eternal life, you will order your life first to Christ. Everything else – family, friends, neighbors, politics, religion – everything else will flow naturally from your fundamental relationship to Christ. For salvation, there is no Trump or Biden or JPII or Francis or Progressivism or Traditionalism. There is only Christ. Why follow the sheep when you can follow the Shepherd?

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Is Jesus crazy?

St. Agnes

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Is Jesus crazy? Well, here are some of the promises made by Christ to those who follow him. He promises us persecution at the hands of our family and friends. He promises trial and imprisonment by governors and princes. He promises ridicule, opposition, and outright violence for his name's sake. He tells us that his Way is straight but exceedingly narrow, difficult to navigate at times. Along the Way, he promises us battle after bloody battle in a war he has already won. We have before us a long, hard struggle against an Enemy who cheats, steals, lies and has no moral qualms about using whatever he needs to ensnare us. Finally, he tells us that to follow him with our whole hearts and minds and bodies, we must follow him all the way to the Cross and the Tomb. That's a promise too. Yet, here we are, following him around, looking forward to seeing all these promises fulfilled. Jesus' family and friends think he's out of his mind. Maybe they should be more concerned about those who follow him! Maybe they should take a look at those of us who know what it means to follow him. . .and do it anyway. Obviously, we're the ones out of our minds.

It could be that we're perfectly sane and simply believe that we will somehow escape the consequences of following Christ. And we might escape the more gruesome consequences. But we can't escape the most basic consequence of following him: we will not be comfortable in the world; we cannot be content while we live in the world. The reason for this is simple: the world opposes everything Jesus tells us is good, true, and beautiful. While we practice mercy, forgiveness, and love, the world demands revenge, reparation, and selfishness. While we trust, hope, and work toward our end, the world is suspicious, cynical, and without purpose. When the world watches us thrive in divine love, it becomes enraged at our peace and rails against our care and defense of the least among us. Our eagerness to submit to the Father's will makes the world crazy b/c the world will submit to nothing and no one. Or so it claims. Is Jesus “out of mind”? By the world's standards, yes. And thanks be to God! Otherwise, we'd be tied to a prophet who serves a temporary god. Are we crazy for following the Word Made Flesh? No. What can be more sane that following him who created and recreated all there is?

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The law serves us

St. Anthony, Abbot

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Who here got out of bed this morning and thought: “I'm going to commit a crime today”? I'm betting no one. We are law-abiding citizens. We do not seek out opportunities to cause trouble nor do we do out of our way to look for unjust laws. So long as we are left alone to study, pray, enjoy our basic freedoms, and flourish as children of God, we are happy to go along with whatever Congress or the city council legislates. But as government grows bolder and bolder in its attempts to infringe on basic human rights through legislation that violates the natural law, our peace with the legal status quo grows more and more uneasy. It may not be inevitable that we find ourselves in jail for civil disobedience but it seems that the chances grow with every time a council or court convenes. Forcing doctors to perform transgender surgeries. Teaching elementary school children about deviant sexual practices. Banning prayer outside of abortion clinics. Denying the dignity of the human person through euthanasia and the death penalty. How do we respond?

We remembered Martin Luther King yesterday. In 1963, from his jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama, he reminded the Church of her successful historical witness and current failure: “There was a time when the church was very powerful—in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. . .Small in number, they were big in commitment. . .By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. . .Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent—and often even vocal—sanction of things as they are.” Jesus says to the Pharisees, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.” 

Being just is easy in the absence of challenge. Doing justice in the face of government sanctioned oppression – especially the oppression of our natural right to religious freedom – is difficult at best, impossible if we surrender. Our fight will not be against local politicians but with an Ancient Lie: man serves the law. When the time comes, remember Jesus standing in the field, teaching the Pharisees: “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.” There is something larger, more important, and infinitely more fundamental to being fully human than obeying man's law, especially a law that defies God's law: the eternal worth of every human creature in the love of God our Creator. No merely man-made law can outlaw divine love and our need to say Yes to being loved.

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Knowing about is not knowing

2^nd Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

John the Baptist makes an unnerving confession about Jesus the Christ, “I did not know him.” Twice he confesses, “I did not know him.” Why are these confessions unnerving? He's John the Baptist! He leaped in his mother's womb at the presence of Christ in Mary's womb. He's lived in the desert, eating bugs and honey and talking to God for three decades. He's roamed up and down the Jordan River dozens of times, baptizing sinners for the repentance of sin and proclaiming the advent of the Christ – the Christ he now claims not to know! How is this possible? We could say that John knew about Jesus the man but didn't know that the man Jesus is the Christ. Or we could say that John had a natural knowledge of Jesus, a merely human knowledge of Jesus but not a supernatural knowledge. A distinction helps here: I can know about a person w/o knowing that person. I wrote my doctoral dissertation on Whitman. I know a lot about him. But I cannot claim to know him personally. He died in 1892, 72 years before I was born. John's confession sets up a question for us: do I know about Christ? Or do I know him? The difference here determines our place in eternity.

I grew up in MS hearing: “Have you accepted Jesus into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior?” This question usually makes Catholics squirm a little b/c it requires us to think about our salvation in a way that makes little sense to us. It's formulated to make us think “outside the Church,” outside the Body of Christ and to consider ME in a relationship with HIM. Catholics think in terms of US in relationship with HIM. This question also invokes images of religious passion, conviction, and maybe even some wild hand-raising and shouting. It's all very Baptist – subjective, emotional, and messy. Catholics prefer the orderly, scripted, and routine encounter with Christ we find in the liturgy. Or a quiet, contemplative rest in front of the tabernacle. We know what to expect, and we're perfectly happy when nothing more than the expected happens. Whether we claim Christ as a personal Savior or as the Savior of the Church, we can know a lot about him w/o knowing him as a person. We can know (e.g.) that he was born in Bethlehem to Mary and Joseph. That he was a carpenter. That he died at the hands of Pilate by crucifixion. He was around 33yo when he died. That he claimed to be the Son of God, and so on. We know about him. But do we know him?

John answers the question: No, I did not know him. John knew a lot about the promised Messiah from scripture. But it took the HS's intervention to reveal Jesus as the Christ: “...the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.'” The Spirit descends on Jesus and John then confesses: “Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.” Now, John knows the Christ. How do we move from knowing about Jesus to knowing the Christ? And why is this move necessary for our salvation and our growth in holiness? Starting with the second question first. Knowing about someone requires nothing more than the ability to acquire and store facts about them as an historical figure. Date of birth and death. Significant events. Major achievements. Quirky facts and figures. We have all this info about Jesus. None of this info saves us from sin and death. None of this info brings us into his death and resurrection. None of it alone helps us partake in his divine life. None of it will get us to heaven. If we will to be saved and grow in holiness, we must know him and know him as a person.

So, how do we move from knowing about Jesus to knowing the Christ as a person? There is only one way: we meet him in another person; we meet him in one another. The liturgy, our prayer life, our good works, fasting, alms giving – all these prepare us to meet Christ in another. Everything we do as faithful Catholics fine tunes our ability and willingness to meet the Christ in one another. Sure, we are all imperfect Christs, no one on Earth is perfectly Christ as they are, but each one of us reveals something of Christ to everyone else. Why do we come together as The Body once a week if not to bring all of our imperfections into one place so that our witness may be more complete? Why do we insist on scripted prayer if not to train our voices to speak to God as one?We find Christ in one another. Imperfect. Incomplete. But knowing that my imperfections may be perfected in you. And you can show me the Way. That's what the HS reveals everyday. You are Christ. I am Christ. And we are Christs b/c The Christ rose to the Father and sent the HS among us to show us the way to perfection. Go and testify: He is the Son of God come to save us from sin and death. Find him in me. 

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Are you looking for him?

1^st Week OT (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Everyone is looking for Jesus? Literally, everyone? Every creature capable of forming intent and seeing that intent carried out? Not just those who've recently heard him preach and witnessed him heal but all rational creatures everywhere? Like most things Catholic, the answer is yes and no. Obviously, Simon is saying something like: “You were among us earlier, then you just disappeared. We've been trying to find you ever since!” But Simon's simple declarative sentence is also a revelation, an unveiling of a fundamental truth about all men and women throughout history: we are always and everywhere looking for our salvation. We are always and everywhere looking for our perfection in the divine person of Christ Jesus. The CCC puts it this way: “God [...] freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life”(1). We were made so that we might come to share in the divine life of the Blessed Trinity. That's our created purpose, our end. We experience this purpose as a longing, a desire for completion and fulfillment. In our fallen state, we often attempt to satisfy this desire for perfection by choosing to give ourselves to lesser goods. Food, sex, power, wealth, all the usual suspects that compete for our love. In vain, we try to fill the God-shaped hole in our lives with things that are less-than-God. When we do this, we settle for an idol, a false god, and our search for completion comes to an unhappy end. The unclean spirits move in and feed on our despair. Never abandoning us to our own stupidity, Christ comes and shows us the Real Deal, the divine life we were created to enjoy. Then we can see that our idols are deaf, dumb, blind, and totally useless in seeing us to our perfection. Then – free from our slavery to merely created things – we can turn again to the Father, coming back again to our desire to live with Him forever. When you hear Simon say to Jesus, “Everyone is looking for you,” do you include yourself in that everyone? You and I are always among those who desire him. Even in our sin, we long for God. But do you freely look for Him, seek Him out? Do you freely choose Him as your Lord, or do you give that honor to a lesser good? Every breath we draw is a choice to live free in Christ, or to die enslaved to made things. Christ died for you. No made thing can. 

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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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