What is fulfilled in your hearing?

Finally!  Better late than never, I guess. . .

3rd Sunday OT: Readings

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

History is prophecy fulfilled. While history looks back at events, prophecy looks forward to well-ordered possibilities. When possibility becomes reality, we see prophecy most clearly. Pushed by our history and pulled by prophecy, our lives unfold in the tidal forces of what has been and what what will be. (No doubt this is why we often feel dragged under and swirled to dizziness!) With the unchangeable past under us and the vast expanse of what could be above us, is it any wonder that we turn to prophecy for both hope and direction? And that is the purpose of prophecy: to give us a living sense that our existence is not futile, to provide our wandering hearts with a path to follow. What's revealed by God's prophets is not a detailed road map or a spiritual GPS, but rather a broadly drawn outline of His providential care for us. Acting with (or against) this plan, we help to unfold (or wrinkle) His plan, and in doing so, we benefit (or suffer) accordingly. Even the most cursory glance at our history reveals that blessing and prosperity follow obedience. And sin is its own punishment. When Jesus reads aloud the messianic prophecy from Isaiah and proclaims to his listeners that the prophecy is fulfilled in their hearing, he changes history. Not just the possibilities for the future but the hard-set events of the past as well. From the word of creation spoken over the void, the promise of the coming Messiah sweeps human history, informing, shaping, pushing, and pulling. What was fulfilled in their hearing? Everything that has gone before and everything to come: the arrival of the Word made flesh among us.

The arrival of the Word as Man is both prophecy and history. Foretold and remembered, Christ is delivered to God's people as the fulfillment of a promise made long ago. Looking back, as Jesus does in the temple that day, we can read the signs of his coming—the long awaited King, the servant who suffers for us, the Anointed who serves and rules as a priest and prophet. Think of a triangle, pointing upward. Now, imagine another triangle turned upside-down so that the points of the two triangles touch—an hourglass figure. The bottom triangle is our salvation history, the record of God's promises to His people, the ancient narrative of His word and deed among us. The top triangle is prophecy, what's to come for the Church while we strive to live as one Body. Where the points meet is the arrival of the Word made flesh—that day on the calendar when prophecy became history. Now, scroll the bottom triangle up so that the history of the Church is transformed into the Church's future as it passes through the Christ. Neither triangle is emptied, neither triangle is exhausted. There is always more history, always more prophecy. . .until the coming the Kingdom.

Now, who sits at the transformative point between the historical past and the prophetic future? Christ, certainly. But in what form? The Son of God took on human flesh to become like one of us. He suffered, died, and was resurrected to sit at the Father's right hand. Yet, he is with us still. He is still with us in the Eucharist, Body and Blood. He is with us still as the Church, the Body and Blood, constituted by her individual members. In the eternity of heaven, Christ sits at the transformative point. Within the history of Man, his Church occupies that crucial spot. For us, here on earth, progressing in spiritual perfection, it is the Body of Christ, the Church, that mediates our salvation history into our prophetic future. As we draw in more and more of our past through the Church, we bring to completion more and more of our future. Today—right here, right now—prophecy is fulfilled in our hearing.

If the Church is to be who and what she was created to be, we, her members, must be who and what we were created and re-created to be. Paul writes to the Corinthians, “As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ.” Though distinct in our gifts and ministries, our purpose is singular. Though individuals talents, we collect our talents to produce a single work: to be the sacrament of Christ that shows the world his victory and makes that victory real. Each of us is a unique sign of Christ's love. And all of us together live as a Sign of his love. We contribute our treasures and take from the treasury what we lack. Without the Church our individual deficiencies remain deficiencies. Without our individual contributions, the Church is poorer and if the Church is poorer, so are we. And if we are poor, how can we contribute? Can you see the vicious circle? The cycle of vice that supplants the progress of virtue?

We can ask ourselves what prophecy was fulfilled in our hearing today? The better question is what prophetic word have we spoken today, what prophetic work have we done today that fulfills the Father's promise of eternal love? What have you contributed to the Church's treasury today that a brother or sister in Christ lacks? What talent are you hoarding? Are you withholding a gift that weakens the Church's ministry to shape a future in mercy and love? If we see ourselves as the collective mechanism whereby God's promises are made manifest in human history, what have we done, what are we doing, what have we vowed to do to be the healthiest, strongest, most vital Body that we can be? What is missing from the treasury that yourself lack? Do you wonder: who in the Church is clinging to the wealth I need to be who God made and re-made me to be? 

None of us can claim to possess the strength of the whole Church by ourselves. But we all share in her weaknesses. If you find this to be an occasion for despair, hear again Nehemiah's admonition to God's people: “Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength!”

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On the Church & T0rture*

from the Catechism:

2297 [. . .] Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity. Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.

2298 In times past, cruel practices were commonly used by legitimate governments to maintain law and order, often without protest from the Pastors of the Church, who themselves adopted in their own tribunals the prescriptions of Roman law concerning torture. Regrettable as these facts are, the Church always taught the duty of clemency and mercy. She forbade clerics to shed blood. In recent times it has become evident that these cruel practices were neither necessary for public order, nor in conformity with the legitimate rights of the human person. On the contrary, these practices led to ones even more degrading. It is necessary to work for their abolition. We must pray for the victims and their tormentors.

* I have to use the zero in torture b/c the ridiculous nanny filter software the Vatican server uses won't let me open this post again if I spell it correctly.  I couldn't even use the searchable Catechism using the word as a search term!  The university & priory uses the Vatican server, thus we are subject the filter.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

B.O. demagoguing over the recent Supreme Court decision to invalidate McCain-Feingold.  For a former constitutional law professor, B.O. seems woefully ignorant of the basics.   Also, the S.C.'s credibility with the American electorate is far, far higher than the Won's.  He might want to back off.

". . .a shocking lack of decorum. . ." and a really dumb political move.  The amateur hour continues a pace.

Anti-ACORN filmmaker wasn't out to wiretap.  There's more to this story. . .

The Diocese of Phoenix strengthens regs for marriage prep.  This is an excellent idea.  As our culture continues to trivialize marriage, the Church is called upon to sharpen its focus on the sacramental nature of the bond. 

More on the perils of demanding ironclad definitions in the pursuit of virtue.  Definitions function as semantic limits on how words are properly used in a language's grammar.   A definition will change as a word's usage changes.  Few people nowadays declare themselves "gay" when they mean "happy."  The demand that "torture" be given a fixed definition is dangerous precisely for this reason.  What counts as torture today may not count as torture tomorrow.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

Bishop Jose S. Vasquez appointed as ordinary for the Diocese of Austin.  Excellent choice.  I met the good bishop while serving as a deacon in Houston.  He came to the priory to visit a sick friar who had preceded him as pastor in a parish in San Angelo.  His respect for our elderly brother was exemplary.  Very impressive.

Activist behind the ACORN pimp/prostitute video stings has been arrested for trying to wiretap the office of a LA Senator.  If convicted, he and his friends will spend ten years in jail.  If this allegation is true:  dumb, just plain dumb.

Socialist experiment in Israel bends toward private property rights.  This happens in religious life as well.  Communitarianism (the model for religious life) is not socialism, but sometimes the drum beat of "community life" can drown out the fruitful contributions of the individual.  As always, there's a via media that balances both community and the individual.  It ain't easy.

On facing east at the altar.  I think this is going to catch on big time in the RCC.  There's no problem here really, but the people in the pews need to be properly and thoroughly catechized about the why's of doing it.  Ad hoc changes are always a bad idea.

Personhood Initiative in Kansas.  On the face of it, amending the Constitution to recognize the personhood of the fetus seems like a good idea.  But we need to be careful and think through the legal implications of doing so.  Yes, it would make abortion a crime.  But would it open mothers to lawsuits by grown children for failing to eat properly, for drinking/smoking while pregnant, for knowingly bringing a child into an abusive home, etc.?  Lawyers are very creative.  Caution. 

Paralyzed for want of a definition:  Tom K. busts the wafflers on "torture."  Just in case there's a question. . .the Church is against it. 

Apparently, if there's any doubt in your mind that your baby will grow up to be anything other than the Next Einstein, the Next Mozart or NFL quarterback, you should just kill it.  Do we really need anymore pedophile rapists?

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Poets to Read (two lists): UPDATED

Per a reader request:  Fr. Philip's Modern/Contemporary [American] Poetry Recommendations!

Modern (deceased)

Hart Crane
Robert Lowell
Amy Clampitt (formal)
Denise Levertov
Louise Bogan
Marianne Moore
Wallace Stevens (difficult)
Sylvia Plath
James Wright

Contemporary (living)

John Ashbury (difficult)
Louise Gluck
Charles Wright
Franz Wright (Catholic)
Eric Pankey (Anglican)
Robert Hass
Mark Jarman (Christian)
W. S. Merwin
Jack Gilbert
Jorie Graham (very difficult)
Edward Hirsch

Great Mod/Cont Poets Who Aren't from the U.S.

Eavan Boland (Irish)
Seamus Heaney (Irish)
Rainer Maria Rilke (German)
Charles Baudelaire (French)
Octavio Paz (Mexican)
Pablo Neruda (Chile)
Anna Akhmatova (Russian)

The Poetry Foundation has an excellent collection of poems searchable by author, subject, school, date, etc.  

NB.  The exclusion of a poet from these lists does not mean that I don't like their work.  These are all listed off the top of my head.  I don't have my poetry library with me.  Like wine and movies, poets tend to attract devout followers and detractors.  Some poets we can all agree are Worthies even if we don't care for their work (e.g., W. C. Williams).  Some poets are so absolutely basic to the American voice that they must be read in order to understand everything that follows:  Whitman & Dickinson.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing (Mini-edition)

Words and phrases that drive progressive Catholics crazy.  I nominate "Dominus Iesus."  Drove some of my seminary professors nuts!

Like, um, ya know. . .it's like I dunno, true?  An inarticulate generation. 

Are pro-abortion women at war with their biology?



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No spirit of cowardice among us

Timothy & Titus: Readings

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

We are not born again of water so that we might wither and die in a spirit of cowardice. The spirit that binds us to one another in the Church and the Church to Christ is the spirit of power, love, and self-control—the Holy Spirit of God, the same Spirit that set the apostles on fire at Pentecost and gave birth to the Church. Hiding in the Upper Room, fearing for their lives, Christ's followers were spiritual refugees, dissidents and heretics, outcasts from their temple and rebels against the Empire. Their Teacher was dead, and though resurrected from the tomb, he had yet to fulfill his promise to send a spirit of consolation and guidance. They were weak, scared witless, desolate, and completely without a purpose. When the Holy Spirit descended upon them, they were transformed as bearers of the Word to the world, set aflame with a zeal for preaching and teaching, for witnessing and healing. And they knew—Christ has promised it—they knew that their ministry in the spirit would see them once again cast out and persecuted. But rather than gather again to complain about these injustices or plot a strategy for dominance, they went out and did what they were ordered to do: they lived lives of power, love, and self-control. In the presence of opposition to the gospel, even outright hostility or violence, do we bear witness to this spirit, or do we live cowardly lives of silence?

In a homily on Paul's second letter to Timothy, the great Patristic preacher, St. John Chrysostom, says, “. . .if we were soldiers of this world, and waged an earthly war, the chains that confine our hands would [serve to restrain us]. But now God has made us such that nothing can subdue us. For our hands are bound, but not our tongue, since nothing can bind the tongue but cowardice and unbelief alone.” Had we been charged by Christ to subdue the political powers of the world, it would be enough to throw us in jail as violent prisoners of war. Unable to kill our enemies from behind bars, the war for the Kingdom would have been quickly ended. Our courage, steadfastness, and determination would have been wasted and ultimately footnoted in history as just another zealous Judean uprising against Rome. Fortunately, as St John preaches, though our hands can be chained by the enemy, our tongue cannot. Only we can bind our witness; only we can silence the Word we have been given to speak.

If we are silent, suppressing the spirit of courage we have been given, are we silent b/c of cowardice or unbelief? What do we fear? Why would we not believe? There is a certain clarity to fear. Being afraid provides a straight path, a downhill run. For example, the discomfort we may feel in preaching the gospel is easily avoided, simply ignored. Just be quiet. Don't speak. No one is offended. No one is harmed. Everything remains as it always has been. And we can continue to enjoy the esteem of family and friends. Disbelieving is more difficult but no less effective in silencing the gospel. Love is really just being polite. Mercy is really just overlooking sin. Faith is really just a wild gamble against the inevitable, crossing your fingers and hoping for the best. Disbelieving is a cowardly way to pick and choose easy victories over our equally disbelieving enemy. It's fighting for the other side.

Paul writes to Timothy, “. . .bear your share of hardship for the Gospel with the strength that comes from God.” What is this strength? Yes, it's the spirit of power, love, and self-control, the Holy Spirit given to the Church, the Body that Christ himself identifies when he says, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” Are we brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers of the Son? If so, we will do the will of God, setting aside cowardice and stirring up the Spirit that gives us life and strength and, finally, even victory over death.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

National Book Critics award nominees announced.  I'm only familiar with three of the poets (Louise Gluck is one of my top ten living American poets) and none of the rest.  Been out of the lit business too long.

Ed Driscoll has a great round-up of various "They Warned Us He Wasn't Ready" essays.

More on the difference btw men and women.  This time it's the difference btw husbands and wives.

On recruiting Islamic terrorists in the U.K.

A Brit visits the Platonic Form of All American Mega-Churches:  Saddleback Church.  Takeaway immpression?  ". . .the butt end of Christianity: stripped of history and icon­ography, wholly immersed in its secular surroundings. . ."  Ouch.  The writer notes that research indicates that communities like Saddleback are the future of American religion.  Wrong.  They are just the latest fad.  When a church polls its "market" and relies on "occasional attenders," things will not go well in the future.

Is voodoo the answer to Haiti's problems or the cause? 

BXVI to priests:  "Blog, Fathers!  Blog!"  Been there, doing that since 2005, Your Holiness.  :-)

Sister Mary and Sister Martha buy some beer. (via New Advent)

Death Wish:  on why we in the West are obsessed with apocalyptic scenarios.  Apparently, global warming and global jihad are the two dominant scenarios at the moment.  No mention of the Zombie Apocalypse. . .no doubt the Zombies are paying this guy off to keep quiet.

Apostolic Visitator asks sisters to cooperate with her mission.  NB.  don't read the comments if you are easily provoked by nonsense.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

Lord, when will the embarrassing revelations end?  More IPCC goofs.

Creepy Scientologists in Haiti touching people. . .I'd have to shout, "Boundaries!"

Two words that make me very, very nervous:  "regime change."

Video on the origins and purpose of campaign finance reform. . .I think it's more complicated than this, but the Supreme Court's decision to strike down McCain-Feingold seems right to me.

Mutually Assured Destruction for both the Dems and the GOP:  eliminating the filibuster.  The GOP tried it in 2005, now the Dems think it's a good idea.  Think again.

Leftist media rage over the U.S. Supreme Court decision against McCain-Feingold is basically a confession:  The People are too stupid to make their own decisions.  When I was a dependable academic lefty, the idea that the Great Unwashed Masses were too stupid to govern themselves was dogma. 

I'll confess: snakes turn me into a squealing little girl. . .even movies/vids featuring snakes make me tremble.  Spiders?  Not so much.  Watch this guy try to corral Big Mama Spider-san.  Hilarious.

Ship in a bottle?  Impressive.  Ship in a bottle sculpted out of snow?  Awesome!

On the many uses of empty beer bottles:  not just for bar fights anymore!

The latest eco-friendly craze:  re-purposing.

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Coming soon. . .

There will be a homily for the 3rd Sunday in OT!

And the question have piled up, so I'll get to those as well.

Don't forget to check out the Book Depository Wish List Experiment. . .one reader has used it successfully!  (NB.  B.D.'s wish list tech isn't as posh as Amazon's. . .you have to type in the shipping address. . .found at the bottom in the right side bar -------->)

:-)

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

A painful view of B.O. from Canada:  "He is increasingly perceived as having credibility problems and of being cold, cocksure, narcissistic and intoxicated by what he modestly called 'the gift' of his own articulation. And as president, he has been quite, and quite surprisingly, incompetent."

Gobsmacked:  Sec. of Defense Gates says Taliban has legitimate role to play in Afghanistan's political future.  Then why are American soldiers fighting and dying over there?

Scott Brown and the Cistercian nuns who pray for him. . .maybe they can pray him into a truly pro-life way of thinking (anti-abortion, anti-torture).

Pro-abort feminists try to spin the annual March for Life as an anti-abortion dinosaur:  few young women at the march this year.  Keep this lie in mind next year, ladies!

For legal fan boys and girls:  five posts on how to reform the Supreme Court to make it more efficient, responsive, and less prone to propping up judicial-celebrity egos.  I'm no expert, but these reforms strike me as exactly right.

John Allen explains the ecumenical import of the Holy Father's recent visit to Rome's premier synagogue.  This isn't Fr. Oprah's ecumenism, boys and girls.

On the weirdness that is the English language.  Can you guess what part of speech non-English speakers have the most difficulty learning?  It's the part of speech that native English speakers cannot adequately explain!  [In my experience teaching ESL and living in a couple of international communities, non-native English speakers never quite figure out how to use prepositions.  It's really not much easier in Italian, though Spanish seems more logical.]

I've been curious about the French Foreign Legion

Ooooooooooooooo. . .I want one!  This thing would make my cramped flight over the Pond much nicer.

Why revolving doors?  Caution:  it's a Trump Conspiracy!


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Another blow to Global-Warming's "credibility"

Hmmmmmm. . .the "settled science" of the Nobel Prize winning IPCC isn't so settled after all:

The Indian head of the UN climate change panel defended his position yesterday even as further errors were identified in the panel's assessment of Himalayan glaciers.

[. . .]

The IPCC’s 2007 report, which won it the Nobel Peace Prize, said that the probability of Himalayan glaciers “disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high”.

But it emerged last week that the forecast was based not on a consensus among climate change experts, but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999.

The IPCC admitted on Thursday that the prediction was “poorly substantiated” in the latest of a series of blows to the panel’s credibility.

Read the whole embarrassing article here.

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Wish List Experiment

The Book Depository, the British answer to Amazon.com, has made it possible to share personal Wish Lists on-line.

So, an experiment:  I've moved seven books from my Amazon list to the B.D. list.

There are several advantages to this change. . .if it works.

First, the B.D. ships free worldwide.  International shipping from the U.S. usually runs about $13.

Second, since the books are delivered from within the E.U. marketplace, there will be no duty charge on my end.  Duties run from about $10-$50 depending on the declared value of the books.

Third, books from the B.D. arrive within 10 days from the U.K.  It can take 6 weeks to get them from the U.S. . .if they arrive at all.

The only disadvantage:  B.D. doesn't sell used books, so their prices are a bit higher than Amazon's.

Anyway, let's see how it goes!

Fr. Philip's Book Depository Wish List

NB.  In the top right hand corner there's a drop down menu that allows you to select a currency.  The Euro is the default currency for my server.  It might be the dollar for an American server.  Be sure and change it to the dollar. . .no need to add conversion charges!

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Poetry and our life in God

Philosophy vs. Poetry.  This is one of the great intellectual rivalries in the western world.  We're supposed to believe that philosophy offers clarity and precision, while poetry offers obfuscation and imprecision.  Or, philosophy offers sterile analysis, while poetry offers enriching beauty.  I always teach my literature students that poetry, in the pursuit of truth, works to exhaust the imprecision of language, thus approaching precision by negation.  The paradigms of American poetry--Whitman and Dickinson--shows us two radically different poetical means to the same truth-seeking end.  Whitman says it All in order to get to closer to Everything.  Dickinson says as Little as possible to lead us to More than we can comprehend.

Fortunately, for both theologians and poets, there is very little enmity between theology and poetry.  God's most beautiful Self-revelation is given to us in the poetry of scripture.  The Church's poet-theologians--Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, et al--demonstrate that the imprecision of poetic language is sometimes the best means for bringing us to a divine end.

Franz Wright, son of the famous American poet, James Wright, is one of this country's best Catholic poets.  He demonstrates that it is possible (and desirable) to compose poems of faith that eschew sentimentality and conventional imagery.  Wright's life-long battles with drug and alcohol addiction, depression, apostasy, suicide, and nihilism aren't sugar-coated in his poems.  They stage the scene for God's light to brighten.

“My Peace I Leave”

The next life will be darker than this so

we must prepare

a light.

Help me change.

Here on my knees

in the hell of my

heart,

on its cold star,

apart.

Because if we say we are your followers

while in reality walking in darkness

we lie and do not live

according to the truth and so

I won't lie, and I will live

according to the truth, acknowledge

I mostly live cut off

and walk in darkness.

Help me,

I still need to know

there is a place,

the temple still stands,

the unknowable

housed,

this infinite

somewhere.

Help me find

the horizontal

portal, the misplaces

sky-blue

book, which is

peace.

The world didn't give me this

word, but

the world cannot take it away--

Franz Wright, Wheeling Motel, 2010

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

Some things you just don't do:  remind guests in your home that they are guests in your home and tell ladies to act like ladies. 

Good Week:  GOP takes "Kennedy's Seat" in MA.  Air America fills for bankruptcy.  Copenhagen Climate Change Accords already a failure. 

Uh oh.  Barbara "Don't Call Me Ma'am" Boxer may be in trouble.  So sad.

B.O.'s Manhattan terror trials may be in trouble.  

Coalition for Clarity:  Because Torture is Intrinsically Evil.  Utilitarianism is antithetical to a Catholic understanding of the dignity of the human person.  A fetus is not a means to an end.  Neither is a captured terrorist.

Prayer lands a plane.  This doesn't bode well for my summer travel plans.  I fervently pray the rosary on take-off and landing!

U.S. Supreme Court guts campaign finance law as a violation of the First Amendment.  What's next?  Protecting gun ownership rights and free expression of religion? 

Fr. Robert Barron on our fascination with apocalyptic thinking.  If you are looking for an excellent, readable introduction to the thought of Thomas Aquinas, you really can't do much better than Barron's Thomas Aquinas:  Spiritual Master.  This book is really a summary of the Summa theologiae, but don't let that deter you.  I recommend this book more often than any other.

On the definition and practical uses of "Crunchy Catholicism."

On the church and the Soft Fascism of leftist bureaucracies in Canada. 

A video analogy for Congressional Democrats post-Brown win in MA.

My roommate died from malaria.  Can I eat the body?

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The difference btw the Male and Female Mind

Risking life and limb, I give you the difference between the male and female mind:

Dispute it, if you dare!


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Coffee Bowl Browsing (No Politics Edition)

So far beyond disturbing that it's unsayable:  bodies in the streets of Haiti

How is the media covering religion in the midst of Haitian suffering?

Dick Dawkins and the New Atheists help out in Haiti in order to prove that Christians aren't the only one who can do good deeds.  Of course, Christians have been saying that for 2,000 years (i.e. "virtuous pagans," anyone?)

A review of the movie, Book of Eli (Spoiler Alert!).   I've seen it.  As a movie, it's a Redneck Moviegoer's dream.  As a message about faith and perseverance, it's straight out of the Old Testament.   As a film (as opposed to a movie), it ain't art.  I also saw Avatar.  No comment.

Deal Hudson remembers an evening with pro-aborts Mortimer Adler and Justice Blackmun. 

On the dangers of those canned intercessions at Mass (When I said Mass at a hospital chapel in Dallas, I always read through the canned intercessions for the day and corrected them.  There was almost always something dodgy in them.)

Is the Mississippi Delta the next Haiti:  prospects for an American earthquake.  I hope not!  My whole family lives in the delta.

Not only are they bringing about the Apocalypse, they're getting married!

Site chocked full of documentaries. . .looks like most of the ones on religion are anti-Christian.

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The Discovery of God

I'm coming into a great appreciation for the work of Henri de Lubac.  De Lubac is one of the many theologians of Vatican Two who came to publicly oppose the "Spirit of Vatican Two" hijacking of the Council's renewal agenda.  A prominent member of the ressourcement movement ("back to the sources"), de Lubac shows Catholic theologians how to be at once responsive to modern developments in theological research and faithful to the Tradition of the Church.  He is at once a great theologian, an excellent philosopher, and a mystic.

If you are looking for a substantial introduction to the Church's philosophical grounding for her theological worldview, you really can't do much better than de Lubac's The Discovery of God.  By no means an easy read, Discovery will set you up with years of intellectual challenges and pull you through centuries of hard ecclesial thinking about all things human and divine.  This book is steeped in the Patristic and Thomistic tradition, but also makes good use of more modern and contemporary philosophical insights, including phenomenology (philosophy of experience).

Two excerpts:

The universe through which God reveals himself is not only his work:  it is his creature.  It is not merely a thing which God in his omnipresence made out of nothing; and for that very reason it is a being which exists and lives only on the life and being which it is continuously borrowing from its Author.  Or rather--since the classical metaphors of "loan" and "source" are either too feeble or too strong--the universe live and exists only in God.  In Eo vivimus et sumus.  God is "his own being," but he is also "the being of all" (Pseudo-Dionysus). He is incomprehensible, inaccessible, and at the same time familiar and close to us.  "The root and principle of every creature," he is the Being present par excellence (Aquinas).  (87)

+

Infinite intelligibility--such is God.  The incomprehensible is the opposite of the unintelligible.  The deeper we enter into the infinite, the better we understand that we can never hold it in our hands. . .(Whatever is understood by science is limited by the understanding of the knower.)  The infinite is not a sum of finite elements, and what we understand of it is not a fragment torn from what remains to be understood.  The intelligence does not do away with the mystery nor does it even begin to understand it; it in no way diminishes it, it does not "bite" on it:  it enters deeper and deeper into it and discovers it more and more as a mystery.  (117)

Great stuff!

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Homily for Day of Penance for Abortion (repost)

Day of Penance for Violations Against Human Dignity Caused by Abortion (GIRM 373)

Philippians 4.6-9 and Matthew 5.1-12

Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP

St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

Is there anyone here this morning who wants to be among the damned? Anyone? Anyone here who wants to wallow in cynicism, grievance, betrayal, or viciousness? Anyone? OK. Anyone here this morning who wants to celebrate falsehood, injustice, ugliness, or disease? Anyone? No? OK. Anyone here this morning who wants to be among the blessed? Anyone here who wants to revel in hopefulness, forgiveness, friendship, and virtuousness? Anyone where this morning who wants to celebrate truth-telling, justice-making, beauty, and health? Anyone? Good! Because today we observe a Day of Penance for those violations of human dignity caused by abortion. And we must start by repenting from any inclination to understand the human person as a means; any inclination to treat one another as merely objects for use any inclination to live together in cynicism, malice, or irrational prejudice. To be blessed, we must be a blessing and do what is honorable, just, pure, and gracious…and always in the name of God for His greater glory. Turn from the disobeying our Father’s command that we love one another as He loves us, as He loved us first, and make your life about the excellence of self-emptying service!

You might ask: Father, why are you yelling at us about repenting from abortion? We’re solid pro-lifer’s! I don’t doubt this. So, let me answer your question with a question: why are we, the pro-life Church, observing a Day of Penance in reparation for the devastation of abortion? The answer: if we don’t, who will? Who will stand up to repair this gaping wound in our social body? Who, if not the Church, will offer sacrifice for the healing of this horrific disease?

You raised your hands when I asked who here wants to celebrate beauty, justice, and health. How do you celebrate God’s beauty in creation? His justice in our social order? His health in your spiritual life? Irrelevant questions to the repentance at hand? NO! If you, a faithful Catholic, one who deeply desires the peace of Christ, cannot honor the fullness of human dignity— the sacredness of all life, the intrinsic value of human labor, our right to be free from violence and intimidation (personal and political)—if we cannot honor the fullness of human dignity, then we cannot celebrate God’s beauty, His justice, nor can we expect His health. And what’s more, we cannot hold others to a standard we’re unwilling to meet.

Abortion sits at the center of our cynical culture as a devastating failure to love, an idol to convenience, expediency, and self-indulgence. To the degree that we as Catholics have contributed to this failure to love, especially in our failure to love the women who have chosen abortions, we must repent. There is nothing gracious, lovely, pure, or true about cynically judging women who have chosen abortions. And there is nothing blessed about dismissing the killing of a child with an appeal to privacy rights or religious tolerance. Love requires us to speak the truth. And when we fail to speak the truth, we must repent. The truth is: abortion is the direct killing of innocent life. We may never call this violation of human dignity good. The truth is: the Way to forgiveness and peace is always open, always free, and we, as self-identified Christs-for-Others, we must serve as eager ushers on the Way. We cannot at once hope to be blessed and refuse to be a blessing.

You are to be hungry for justice. Clean of heart. At peace. Kind. And you must be ready, always ready to speak a word comfort in truth. You have been shown mercy, therefore, show mercy in thanksgiving. And be blessed.

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Sylvan tutoring?

My brother and his wife are considering sending one of my nieces to a Sylvan Learning Center for tutoring.  She's smart and capable but completely unengaged and uninspired at her public middle-school.

Anyone have any experience with Sylvan? 

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