On praying for death. . .

[NB.  As I spend part of my Squirrel Vacation contemplating, discerning, praying, etc. this homily from 2009 came to mind.]

19th Sunday OT: 1 Kings 19.4-8; Eph 4.30-5.2; John 6.41-51
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, Univ of Dallas

Elijah, the prophet of God, prays for death: “This is enough, O Lord! Take my life. . .” How thick, how deep must your despair be to pray for death? How heavy must your desperation be before you can no longer lift it? When do you cry to God: this is enough! Here and now, I am exhausted, weary beyond living. Elijah killed 450 prophets of Baal. For this reason, he confesses to his Lord, “. . .I am no better than my fathers. Take my life.” Elijah challenges Baal's prophets to a contest of power. He pits the real power of the Lord against the demonic power of the Canaanite god. Baal loses. And so do his prophets. Elijah marches the demon's priests to the River Kishon and cuts their throats. Fleeing the wrath of Jezebel for killing her prophets, Elijah goes into the desert and there he discovers—among the stones and sage brush—that he no longer wants to live. “This is enough, O Lord. Take my life. . .” Elijah, prophet of God, touched by His hand to speak His Word, despairs because he has murdered 450 men. What weight do you lift and carry? How thick and deep is the mire you must wade through? At what point do you surrender to God in anguish, walk into the desert, and pray for death? When you balance on the sharp point of desperation, poised to ask God to take your life, remember this: “When the afflicted call out, the Lord hears, and from all their distress He saves them! Taste and see the goodness of the Lord!” 

To varying degrees and in different ways, all of us have discovered in one sort of desert or another that we are tired, exhausted beyond going another step. Overwhelmed by studies, financial stresses, marital strife, family feuds, personal sin, physical illness, we have all felt abandoned, stranded. We might say that it is nothing more than our lot in life to rejoice when our blessings are multiplied and cry when the well runs dry. These deserts look familiar. We've been here before and doubting not one whit, we know we will visit them again. We hope and keep on; we pray and trust in God. This is what we do, we who live near the cross. But there are those times when the desert seems endless and only death will bring rescue. We find hope in dying. And so, we cry out to God: “Take my life, O Lord!” Is this the prayer we should pray when we find ourselves broken and bleeding in the deserts of despair? It is. There is none better. 

The witness of scripture pokes at us to remember that our God provides. Beaten down and hunted by Jezebel, exhausted by his prayer, Elijah falls asleep under the broom tree. An angel comes to him twice with food and drink, ordering him to wake up and eat: “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!” Elijah obeys. Strengthened by the angelic supper, he walks for forty days and nights; he walks to God on Mt. Horeb. The Lord provides. Jesus reminds the Jews who are murmuring about his teaching that their ancestors wandered around in the desert for forty years, surviving on angelic food. Though they died as we all do, and despite their constant despairing, they survived as a people to arrive in the land promised to them by God. As always, the Lord provides. Paul reminds the Ephesians (and us) that Christ handed himself over “as a sacrificial offering to God” for us, thus giving us access to the Father's bounty, eternal access to only food and drink we will ever need to survive. Paul writes, “. . .you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Therefore, “. . .be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.” We always have before us the feast of mercy. The Lord provides. So, wake up! And eat! 

What are we promised, and what is provided? Even the slightest glance at scripture, even the most cursory perusal of our Christian history will reveal that following Christ on pilgrimage to the cross is no picnic. To paraphrase Lynn Anderson, “He never promised us a rose garden.” Sure, Christ promised us a garden alright. But it's the Garden of Gethsemane. Betrayal, blood, and a sacrificial death. He also promised us persecution, trial, conviction, and exile. He promised us nothing more than what he himself received as the Messiah. A life of hardship as a witness and the authority of the Word. The burdens of preaching mercy and the rewards of telling the truth. An ignoble death on a cross and a glorious resurrection from the tomb. What he promises, he provides. All that he provides is given from His Father's treasury. Food and drink on the way. The peace of reconciliation. A Father's love for His children. And an eternal life lived in worship before the throne. 

All of this is given freely to us. But we must freely receive all that is given. Elijah flees into the desert, seeking his freedom from Jezebel's wrath. The former slaves of Egypt flee into the desert, seeking their freedom from Pharaoh's whip. The men and women of Ephesus flee into the desert of repentance and conversion, seeking their freedom from the slavery of sin. Each time we flee into a desert to despair, we are fleeing from the worries, the burdens of living day-to-day the promises we have made to follow Christ to the cross. Our lives are not made easier by baptism and the Eucharist. Our anxieties are not made simpler through prayer and fasting. Our pains, our sufferings are not relieved by the saints or the Blessed Mother. Our lives, anxieties, our pain and sufferings are made sacrificial by the promises of Christ and all that he provides. We are not made less human by striving to be Christ-like. We are not brought to physical and psychological bliss by walking the way of sorrows. We are not promised lives free of betrayal, blood, injury, and death. By striving to be Christ-like, by walking behind our Lord on the way of sorrows, we are all but guaranteeing that we will suffer for his sake. And so, the most fervent prayer we can pray along this Christian path is: “This is enough, O Lord! Take my life. . .!” Surrender and receive, give up and feast. Surrender your life and receive God's blessing. Give up your suffering and feast on the bread of heaven. 

What Christ promises, he provides. He says to those behind him, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Exhausted under a tree and running for your life; pitiful and despairing, wandering lost in a desert; chained to sin, wallowing in disobedience, yet seeking mercy. . .where do you find yourself? Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Are you exhausted? Spent? Do you need to be rescued? Cry out then, “Take my life, O Lord. . .” Pray for death. Pray for the death of Self. Pray for the death of “bitterness, fury, anger, reviling, and malice.” Pray for the death of whatever it is in you that obstructs your path to Christ; pray that it “be removed from you. . .So [you may] be [an] imitator of God, as [a] beloved child[], and live in love, as Christ loves us.” Remember and never forget: “When the afflicted call out, the Lord hears, and from all their distress He saves them! Taste and see the goodness of the Lord!” The bread come down from heaven, Christ himself, is our promised food and our provision for eternal life. 

The 2009 comments for this homily were interesting. . .check them out. 

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Speaking in tongues at the LCWR

The Redneck Squirrels have released me from bondage long enough to post this. . .

BEHOLD!  The New Agey Neo-Paganism on triumphant display at this week's LCWR general assembly.

NB.  There's no solid evidence that the Good Sisters of the LCWR are taking this gobbledegook seriously; however, by inviting this woman to address their assembly as the keynote speaker, we may safely assume that they do not find her gibberish in any way odd or offensive.  

They refused to allow Bishop Blair to speak at their gathering.  They didn't even want him to attend!  

So:  Freaky New Age guru--YES!  Catholic bishop--NO!

Go figure.

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Bye

Headed out for two weeks of books, squirrels, and a deepening of my southern accent.

No cell phone. . .limited internet access.

God bless!  Fr. Philip
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Get some beautiful feet

Solemnity of St. Dominic
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Audio File

Brothers and sisters, I would begin this morning with a question: are your feet beautiful? Up and down the mountains, do you walk with beautiful feet? If you bring glad tidings; announce the Lord's peace; bear his good news; and proclaim salvation through his mercy; if you raise a cry of joy; break into song; rejoice at his marvelous deeds; and give witness to the Lord restoring his people, then your feet are indeed beautiful. Your feet are beautiful b/c they bring you among us as a preacher of the Good News! A prophet of the Lord's salt and light, his blessing and fire. Are your feet beautiful? In word and deed, do you bring his Good News to the world? Do you rejoice, sing, give witness, bear his glad tidings? Are you Christ-for-others out there? We collect ourselves together this morning for one purpose: to become more like Christ than we were yesterday. To accomplish this, we will pray in thanksgiving; hear his Word proclaimed and preached; and we will eat and drink his Body and Blood from the altar. Then we will go out there and present ourselves to the world as evidence, as living, breathing testimony to the truth of the Gospel. We are sons and daughters of the Father. Brothers and sisters to Christ. And with St. Dominic, we are preachers of the Good News! 

Whether we know it or not, we are all preachers. Through baptism, we were all made priests, prophets, and kings along with Christ. Now, let's be honest: some of us are better at preaching than others; all of us have good preaching days and bad ones. There are times when being a witness for the mercy of God is more aggravating than it is delightful. The burden of forgiving those who hate us can be crushing. Most of the time, the temptation to dive into the flow of the world and revel in passion is overwhelming. No Christian who wakes up to an ordinary day can deny that following Christ out there can test one's patience, endurance, and resolve. It would be easier not to bother, safer to just walk away. Jesus knows this, and this is why he says to us, “You are the salt of the earth. . .You are the light of the world.” Salt preserves, enlivens, seasons. Light shines through the darkness, reveals what's hidden. As his disciples, his students, we are charged with being salt and light for one another and for the world. So, not only are we to be preachers, we're to be bright, salty preachers of the Good News! 

Jesus knows all too well the realities of being a faithful servant of the Father in this world. His life and death provide us with ample evidence that preaching the Father's word of mercy is a dangerous gamble for the preacher. Just being a Christian these days, even a bad Christian, invites persecution and death. Look at the mass murder of Christians in Nigeria, Sudan, Egypt, Afghanistan. There have been no car bombs exploding outside American churches yet; however, militant secular humanism, disguised as a human rights movement is building its case against Christ and his Church in the U.S. Through bureaucratic regulations, employment anti-discrimination laws, “hate speech” codes, social engineering in the military, and the redefinition of marriage through judicial fiat, the Church is being bullied out of the public square and silenced as a voice for the least among us. Facing this secular challenge as preachers of the Good News requires more than political savvy and good media skills. It requires courage, strength, perseverance, and, most of all, an absolute trust in God. Given all this, Jesus warns us that though we are the salt of the earth and light for the world, salt can lose its power to season, and a light can be extinguished. How does this happen? How does salt become tasteless and light become darkness? 

To put the question more directly: how do we as faithful preachers of the Good News become “go along to get along” pewsitters? The answer lies in our reading this morning from Isaiah. If we fail to bring glad tidings; fail to announce the Lord's peace; hide his good news under a bushel basket; and only whisper about our salvation through his mercy; if we stifle our cries of joy; break into griping, whining instead of song; begrudge his marvelous deeds; and give witness to only to our disappointment and despair, then our feet, the feet of Christ's preachers, become anything but beautiful. Salt loses its taste when it is stored too long, never used. The fire of the Spirit, its light will dim and go dark unless it is fed. Like any normal human person, we are all prone to being intimidated into silence by ideological opposition, threats of violence and protests, ridicule, and public bullying. And our courage and faithfulness are easily compromised by our sin. Whatever joy we have, whatever elation we may want to express with Christ can be beaten into hushed and private words. Being all too aware of our own sinfulness, our own failings, we can easily be shamed into taking our faith indoors, away from those who are all-too-ready to be offended by it. We can find ways to accept the division of our public and private selves and only show our acceptable faces outside these walls. But when we do these things, we cease being preachers of the Good News. We become dim lights and tasteless salt. 

 Jesus says that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. He also says that salt can lose its power to season and light its power to shine. What happens to the preacher who become tasteless and dim? Jesus says, “. . .if salt loses its taste. . .It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” When we are confronted by opposition to our preaching, to the proclamation of the Good News with our words and deeds, we must remember that this world passes away; it's nature is change. The kingdom of God is eternal, unchanging. And if we hope at all upon the promises of God, we trust, have full faith in the Spirit's guarantee that we will given what to say, shown what to show when the Enemy sends for us. What we cannot do, as preachers, is run after weak compromises, faithless accommodations, and hope upon the temporary promises of this world's princes. Paul encourages Timothy, “. . .proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.” Paul knows what Christ himself knew: that when made to feel the heat of opposition, we are likely to ask for relief from those who are stoking the fires. Paul writes, “For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine. . .and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths.” 21st century myths abound! How tolerant are we of sound doctrine? Do we listen to God's truth and preach it? Or do we beg for negotiation, hoping to just be left alone? 

Do you have the beautiful feet of a preacher? In word and deed, do you bring his Good News to the world? Do you rejoice, sing, give witness, bear his glad tidings? Are you Christ-for-others out there? We are sons and daughters of the Father. Brothers and sisters to Christ. And with St. Dominic, we are preachers of the Good News! In season and out, convenient or inconvenient, shout it out: The Lord is king! And there is no other! 

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Skilled in Love: a vesper's homily

From 08 Aug 2007. . .

Solemnity of St. Dominic, Vespers: Philippians 1.3-8
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

We begin with an innocent question: are you skilled in love? Do you possess the distinguishing talents, the connoisseur’s gifts for hunting, finding, and cultivating love? If so, Paul is writing to you on this evening feast of St. Dominic, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion…” In fact, he is writing to all of us who are skilled in love, promising us the achievement of the Good Work, a sterling finish to the gospel race we have vowed to run. If we are to be graced love-makers, committed craftsman of our Lord’s saving charity—looking to our Dominican brothers and sisters: Jordan, Thomas, Catherine, Rose, Martin, fra. Angelico, Margaret, Lacordaire—if we are to light even the smallest fire among the wet woods of this wearying world, we will imprison our hearts and minds in the gracious, re-creating Word, defending and confirming with every word we speak the Good News of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no joy for us in anything less. Our fiery brother, Savonarola, preached the Lord’s Passion, saying, “Our preaching will be refined and not refined, yet everyone can receive it, particularly those skilled in love. Those who are not skilled will know their distance from Love.” And that distance we must make our own and then travel to those who do not yet know Love. Our sister, Catherine of Siena, preached this ministry, saying, “The soul in love with [the Lord’s] truth never ceases to be of service in a small enough way to all the world…” Surely, it is a small enough way for us to walk, gifted as we are with the work of preaching Christ Jesus and skilled in nothing less than giving voice and volume to the advent of our Father’s Kingdom! We can find those who do not yet know Love even when we ourselves forget to love, forget to be Love. From our long history, we Dominicans know that it is never enough for us merely to preach. We must be the preaching—with all our anxieties, human quirks, tongue-tied failures, and even the occasional cold heart. The sacred preaching is never just an imitation of Dominic. We do not channel Hyacinth or Peter of Verona from the pulpit. Love shapes each voice of the Word given the nature of the tongue that speaks it, so that all the syllables of the Gospel will find their artful expression. And all those skilled in love will hear One Word, One Voice, One Herald of the Good News. 

Lord, on this solemn feast of our Holy Father, Dominic, free us from the silent death of fear and worry and jail us in your saving Word. Bring to perfection the Good Work you have begun in us and take us with ready hands and hearts to serve those who are not yet skilled in your Love. Amen.

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Standing with Truth

St. John Vianney
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Please bear with me. I want to take a shot at explaining why those who proclaim God's truth often end up decorating silver platters with their heads; or, to be a little more up-to-date, find themselves the target of protests, hate mail, death threats, and demonization by the media. Back in John the Baptist's day the evolution from prophet to corpse is a bit easier to explain. It shouldn't surprise you that you land in jail after you tell the king—you know, the guy who commands an army—that it's illegal for him to marry his brother's wife. Add to the mix a party, a beautiful dancing girl, a spiteful mother, and a foolish vow, and you get a how-to manual on getting a prophet's head on a platter. Explaining how truth-tellers in our own day find themselves drowning in manufactured outrage and media scrutiny is more difficult. The circumstances are certainly different now—we have 24 hr news, blogs, twitter, Youtube. We also live a democratic culture where political speech is free of gov't interference. What's not so different is that those who seek to punish truth-tellers (then and now) do so for the same reason: those with darkened hearts lust after power and the light of truth can enlighten even the darkest heart. Hearts given to Christ know that worldly power is trap. 

By the early 20th c. it was clear to Antonio Gramsci that his beloved Marxism was an economic and political failure. No industrialized nation had undergone the workers' revolution that Marx had predicted. What went wrong? He concluded that orthodox Marxism fails to address the basic human need for cultural and spiritual expression. He admired the Church for her success in achieving cultural dominance in Europe through art, music, and literature. But this dominance was unacceptable b/c it kept the capitalist middle-class in power. The workers needed their own culture, a secular culture. To achieve this, Gramsci argued that force and coercion had failed to bring about the workers' paradise, so the machines of culture—the press, educational institutions—needed to be revolutionized to serve the working-class. The principle target for this revolution was language. Traditionally, language is used to describe reality. Words match things in the real world. Gramsci argued that this theory made it impossible for the working class to overthrow the capitalists b/c the capitalists attached their moral and political values to reality. Institutions such as marriage, family, the Church all worked against the working-class. How to undermine their influence? Detach language from reality and make language the creator of reality. 

I know this sounds crazy, but this is exactly what has happened in our pop-culture—the media, the academy, even some churches. Two generations of Americans have been trained in the art of constructing their own realities by manipulating language. For these folks, words no long describe a reality independent of the mind. If I want the word “marriage” to refer to a relationship btw two people of the same-sex and you say that this is an impossibility, I can accuse you of oppressing me with your hatred. Reality is nothing more than what I choose it to be, so how dare you deprive me of my right to choose my reality! Off with your head! When we stand up to proclaim the truth of the Gospel and all that it entails for our culture, we make ourselves a target for those who have darkened their hearts. For them, this is a battle about power, about who gets to control the construction of reality. For us, this is a mission to tell the truth about God's creation and how His creatures can be freed from darkness and brought to His light. There is nothing new about this mission, nothing at all novel about this battle. The ancient Enemy thrives in lies and chaos. Our task, our prophetic duty is to stand with Christ and shine with the Spirit's fire, proclaiming over and over again: the truth will set you free! 

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Shame the Devil

17th Week OT (F)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Jesus' neighbors openly question his credentials as a prophet b/c he's a local boy. If we focus on this part of the story, we risk overlooking a truly puzzling step in their reaction. We have to smash together two sentences to see this puzzle clearly. Here they are: “Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds?. . .And they took offense at him.” Do you see the puzzle? Jesus' neighbors confess that he is teaching wisdom and doing mighty deeds. And this offends them! Rather than be grateful for his imparted wisdom and his healing miracles, they choose to be offended that a local boy would come home and. . .do what? Show them up as rubes? Flash his divine power around? Demonstrate how much he's learned? What are they upset about? On what grounds are they offended? It would seem that they are unconvinced that Jesus is who he says he is. It would seem that they are put off by what they see as his boasting. But there's more here than that. What if they are offended b/c they know he's the Real Deal and having the Son of God as a long-lost neighbor and a current visitor is deeply, deeply unsettling? 

Sometimes it's easier to find a natural explanation for a miracle. Sometimes it's just simpler to write off a bit of uttered wisdom b/c the one uttering it is probably crazy. Sometimes it is more comforting to look for hidden motives or psychological explanations to dismiss a friend's conversion or a relative's experience of the divine. Familiarity, they say, breeds contempt. Knowing someone well often tempts us into quickly discounting a real change in that person. Oh, he's just having a streak of bad luck, so prayer is the only thing he's got left. She's a Jesus freak now b/c her husband left her, and Jesus is the only one who'll have her. He just wants to be a priest b/c he doesn't want to work for a living. Could it be, just possibly, that a streak of bad luck has served to show this guy how necessary it is to stay in touch with God? Could it be that this poor woman is giving her grief to Christ as a sacrifice? Could it be that that young man is truly called to serve the Church as a priest? Of course, it is! But if we allow familiarity to breed and nurture contempt, we risk rejecting two very real possibilities: 1). that God can and will move us to repentance and contrition; and 2). we can find ourselves so moved, and radically changed. Do we really want to gamble against God and His will that we be converted? 

What happens when contempt prevents us from trusting in God and His promises? Matthew tell us, “[Jesus] did not work many mighty deeds [in Nazareth] because of their lack of faith.” No faith, no mighty deeds. So, not only does contempt for God and His works demean those upon whom He chooses to work His mighty deeds, it also prevents the rest of us from receiving the inevitable graces of those deeds. Will contempt and scorn feed us, heal us, or free us? Doubtful. In fact, we can just about count on hearing this day's prophet proclaim, “I will. . .make this the city to which all the nations of the earth shall refer when cursing another.” When we strain ourselves looking for the answer that allows us to dismiss God's work, or confirms us in our current rebellion, we are straining against the tide of God's will for us; we're rowing against the flow of His desire to see us reconciled in Christ. If you witness a mighty deed of the Lord, or hear His gracious wisdom uttered, stop and give Him thanks. Look for no other explanation than the only one that matters to your eternal goals. And even if you were right to show contempt for a fraud, you will have shamed the Devil with an act of love. 

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Fav Southernism???

Headed home for a two week vacation in Mississippi on Monday.

Yes. . .reading with the squirrels!

Going home always provokes in me memories of my fav "Southernism's."

Once, in the studium at table with a few of the student brothers and our student master, I commented on the epidemic of friar's coming to Office with astonishingly foul breath.  

Our student master, Fr. Michael Mascari, said, "Philip! Basta!"  

I finished with: "OK. But their breath could scare a buzzard off a carcass. . ."  

The milk Father was drinking shot out of his nose.

What's your fav Southernism?

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Weed or flower, sheep or goat?

[NB. An edited repost from 2009.]

17th Week OT (Th)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Dominic Church, NOLA

Generally speaking, Dominicans prefer to teach folks into heaven rather than scaring them away from Hell. We would rather persuade than cajole, influence rather than frighten. It is better to touch a rational soul with the Light of Christ than it is to scare the snot out of a sinner with visions of Hell. But sometimes the rational soul of a sinner might need to be shown a scene or two of eternal life without God. Doesn't a soul twisted in folly, unable to choose the Good and come to God deserve the mercy of wisdom's most immediate remedy? Jesus, the Master Philosopher, knows that even a mind deeply dedicated to right reason but steeped in sin may need a hot-shock, a whack upside the head in order to see through foolish to wisdom. The “fiery furnace” he refers to so often in Matthew's gospel is just that jolt of reality we sometimes need. It's not pretty, but it sure is helpful. 

As helpful as images of Hell may be, we tend to shy away from preaching about eternal damnation these days. Too 1950's fundamentalist. Very “pre-Vatican Two.” But if we are going to preach the gospel, there is simply no way to avoid the subject given the lectionary readings! These last two weeks alone Jesus has separated the goats from the sheep; pulled the weeds from among the flowers; culled the good fish from the bad; and his angels have set the midden-heap of pruned branches ablaze. So, let's not mince words; let's study the truth as Jesus presents it to us: make a choice—goat or sheep, flower or weed, good fish or bad, fertile soil or barren dirt. All you need to do is make the right choice. The consequences of making the wrong choice are—shall we say—extremely unpleasant! Our choices and their consequences really are just this stark. Few of us, however, experience the choices in such stark terms. 

So why is Jesus presenting the choices in such glaring black and white terms? Why the threat of eternal punishment in the fiery furnace for making the wrong choice? Jesus is a Master Philosopher and a Master Psychologist. Think about how Jesus preaches and teaches. He uses parables, scriptural allusions, conversation, examples, even miracles. Sometimes he interrogates and cajoles. Rarely does he argue like a Greek philosopher or a Pharisee. The people in the crowds respond to him b/c he sparks to life their intuitions about what is true and good and beautiful about being well-loved creatures. He knows that his very presence jump-starts that nagging desire for God that we are born with and strive to satisfy in this life. And he knows that without God's help we will consistently fail to reach high enough when reaching for our happiness. Settling for imitation happiness, faux-joy but it takes the real-deal to enter the kingdom. And if Jesus has to scare the snot out of us to get us to pay attention to our eternal choices, then get the hankie ready—here comes the scare! 

If you were frightened into the faith, you might not be particularly proud of the fact. It would be more embarrassing, however, to remain faithful out of fear, to remain a believer because the fiery furnace looms large in the imagination. The threat of the furnace is meant to scald a foolish soul into seeing the light of reason, to awake a sleepy desire for God. Clearly, Hell is a very real option for anyone who chooses to live without God for eternity. But Hell is not the be-all and end-all of the gospel. Once the furnace-option has been rejected and we have joined the flowers, the sheep, the good fish, and the fertile soil, Hell might linger as a whiff of smoke to remind us of our wise choice, but the daily life of a Christian is not dominated by the fear of an already and always defeated enemy. We chose to receive the extravagant graces poured out from the cross and the empty tomb. Though the heat of the furnace may have turned us from its punishing flames, setting us on the right course, we stay the course for Christ b/c nothing else, no one else can bring us home. For us, no one else is home.

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Chick-fil-A & the PC Police

 Hmmmmm. . .b/c the P.C. Police, their professional whiner-goons, and everybody else in the world knew that B.O. was lying about opposing same sex "marriage"?

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Prophets whining to God

St Alphonsus Liguori
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

WANTED: One prophet to serve as Mouthpiece for the Lord. Adventurous individual who is not afraid of causing trouble; willing to speak up against wickedness, injustice; eager to call out sinners in My Name; must be repentant, humble, obedient, not easily dissuaded by ridicule or mob violence; persuasive public speaker; able/willing to relocate at the Lord's command. Sackcloth/ashes provided. Salary: one pearl of great price. No self-starters, please. You won't find this want-ad in The Times-Picayune. And you probably can't imagine many jumping at the chance to be a Mouthpiece for the Lord. If Jeremiah is typical, it's easy enough to see why being a prophet is not exactly a growth industry. Even in an economy as bad as this one, a job that requires you to wander around the city yelling at sinners to repent seems less than attractive. But the salary sounds good: one pearl of great price. And then again, Jeremiah reports in his first HR review: “Woe to me, mother, that you gave me birth! I'm a man of strife and contention to all the land!” Is being a prophet worth the trouble?

Before we answer that question, we need to be reminded of a potentially inconvenient truth: whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not, we are all prophets. What? You don't remember sending the Lord your resume? You didn't apply for the job? When did that I become a prophet, you ask? We were all made prophets the moment we were baptized. Becoming a member of the Body of Christ entails being made a prophet. You can't be a Christian and not be a prophet as well. So, let's dispense with the idea that the job of prophet is found only in the Old Testament; that it's a job given to someone else. It's our job. And it's time to punch the clock! 

 Now that we're on the clock, what are we supposed to be doing? If Jeremiah is our guide, we're supposed to be sitting alone with our indignation; bent over by the curses of our neighbors; and in continuous pain from our many wounds. Is being a prophet worth the trouble? Sure doesn't sound like it. One minute we're living our sinful lives and the next we're telling God that His words are our joy and our happiness. Then He calls us to be His prophets and we obey. Our sinful lives are suddenly set against His Word and all that we've been seems small, mean, incredibly trivial. Set against His Word, our own words and deeds are made to seem futile, selfish; they are whispers lost in His whirlwind, gestures unnoticed in His glory. And we would be right to shrink away from the prophet's mission if we went out without His blessing. What does the Lord say to Jeremiah in his despair? “If you repent, so that I restore you, in my presence you shall stand. . .I am with you, to deliver and rescue you.” Well, that's good to know, but what have we done as prophets that requires God to rescue us? First, no prophet can do his/her job as an unrepentant sinner. If we despair as prophets, it's b/c we preach repentance but do not ourselves repent. Second, who enjoys hearing that they are sinners? It's not an announcement that many are going to welcome. But repentance brings us the Kingdom, that pearl of great price. 

By word and deed, by what we say and do, we prophesy for Christ; we announce his Good News to the world and attract those who most need his mercy. Prophets are magnets, drawing in all those who feel the emptiness of sin and long to be filled with the freedom God's mercy bestows. Whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not, by our words and deeds, we attract/repel those whom God sends to us. Prophets always prophesy to themselves first. 

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Coffee Cup Browsing

WHAT!?  Holder's DOJ lied to someone?!

The Olympics. . .yawn.

More outrageous outrage-hypocrisy on the whole Chick-fil-A nonsense.

Teachers' union helps to protect child molesters.  Imagine the headlines if this were about the Church!

So much for that "gutsy call" to assassinate Bin Laden.  

Episcopal bishop spends a lot of pixels trying to justify her job.  The Zeitgeist is an adulterous harlot and there is no future in wedding her.

Speaking of wedding the Zeitgeist to one's detriment. . .

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Even the smallest seed. . .

17th Week OT (M)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Poor Jeremiah! Because the people of Judah are a “wicked people who refuse to obey [God's] words,” poor Jeremiah is ordered by God to buy a loincloth, travel to Parath, bury the garment under a rock, and then travel back to Parath to fetch the loincloth, which, by this time, is rotted, and good for nothing! All this to make a point: God's people have become an adulterous mob, a people “who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts, and follow strange gods to serve and adore them. . .” Poor Jeremiah! He is given the task of going to God's people and telling them what they already know—that they are no longer an obedient nation; they are no longer thriving with the grace of their God. They are rotten and good for nothing. In their disobedience—their refusal to listen to the Word of God—they have grown stubborn and idolatrous. How will they be punished for their disobedience? God will simply allow their preferred condition to follow its natural course. Their pride, their integrity as a nation will be allowed to rot. The Lord will not rescue a people who refuse to be rescued. He will not cut away the rot from an uncooperative patient. However, even the smallest seed of faith can leaven a nation. 

What have the covenanted nations of Judah and Israel lost in their disobedience? God says to Jeremiah, “. . .as close as the loincloth clings to a man's loins, so had I made [them] cling to me; to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty.” And now they wallow in stubbornness and the worship of alien gods. How does the rot begin? It begins in disobedience—the failure, the refusal to listen to God's Word. At the root of this failure is yet another failure: to trust that God pours out His goodness and truth for the long-term benefit of the nation. We could call this “spiritual short-sightedness,” but it could just as easily be called “self-destructive pride.” It's the moment that we as individuals, as a nation, or a Church decide that God's promises, His Word to us, is no longer sufficient for our daily thriving, no longer necessary for our struggle to become perfectly human. It's the moment we decide to give our allegiance, our worship to a more pliable god, a less demanding god. When we choose to walk in the stubbornness of our hearts by giving thanks and praise to this permissive deity, the rot begins. But to rot we must first be dead. 

What kills us as a nation, as a people? If disobedience, stubbornness, and idolatry are the rot that comes after death, what kills us? The loincloth is the sign of Judah's covenant with God, the sign of His people's faith in Him. God tells Jeremiah not to wash it, then to bury it, to put it out of sight. Under the rock, the filthy linen rots. When we fail to keep the faith clean, when we fail to keep our trust in God pure, and then bury the evidence of our faithlessness, we die. And the rot begins. Our faith in God is not a spectacle to be observed, a theatrical display. Neither is our trust in God a shameful habit to be buried under polite indifference or hidden away as an embarrassing cultural leftover for ages past. Only a living seed can grow into a thriving plant; only living yeast can leaven flour into bread. Our faith, our love, and our hope must be living, breathing habits of the heart and mind put into action, taken into the world so that God's glory in our lives might draw in all those we seek His mercy. There are more pliable gods—science, politics, business—but none of these will say to us, “Come! Be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty!” None of these can save us from ourselves. And all of them would watch us rot. 

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Thanks

A kind and generous soul sent me a volume of poetry from the Wish List!

There was no packing slip, so I can't thank you by name. . .

Thanks & God Bless, Fr. Philip
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Coffee Cup Browsing

Someone is threatening The WalMart.  Prolly an Occutard.

Tolerance?  I don't think you know what the word means?

How draconian are the gun laws in Chicago?

Couldn't care less about the Olympics if I tried.  The opening ceremony was a Leftist propaganda-fest?  Well, I guess I actually can care less about the Olympics.

Atheist poet finds Christ in the Church!

Nothing those Jesuits do surprises me anymore. . .well, OK, this did.

Stuff Catholic Guys Say. . .

Queen Michelle Antoinette Obama says, "Let them wear off the rack!"  Yes, $6,800 for a jacket.

An unexpected--though welcomed!--post from Crdl. Roger Mahony on Chick-fil-A hatred.

"Diversity is our greatest strength," so let's ban/demonize/boycott all those who disagree with us!
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All that we need to come to Him in love. . .

17th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Audio File (Wow. . .my southern accent really shines in this one!)

Let's talk about divine providence. That's what our readings this morning/evening prompt us to reflect upon. Here's a definition that pretty much says it all: “Providence is God Himself considered in that act by which in His wisdom He so orders all events within the universe that the end for which it was created may be realized. That end is that all creatures should manifest the glory of God, and in particular that man should glorify Him, recognizing in nature the work of His hand, serving Him in obedience and love, and thereby attaining to the full development of his nature and to eternal happiness in God.”* Did you get all that? I hope so. There's going to be a quiz at the end of this homily. Should I repeat it for you? No? OK then. That's a complex definition for a fairly simple idea: God takes care of us so that we might come to Him in love and live with Him eternally. When it comes to providing for His people our God is never stingy, never thrifty. By nature, He is always generous, abundantly gracious, even extravagant. But here's the thing. . .He provides in copious amounts all that we need to come to Him in love. What God knows we need to thrive is not always what we think we need to survive. Our daily challenge is ask for and receive all that we truly need and not worry about the stuff that cannot bring us closer to God. 

 How do we begin to tackle this daunting challenge? How do we effectively separate what we truly need from what we desperately want? One way to do this is to think about The Basics for Survival. Ask yourself: what can I not live without? Literally, not live without. Meaning, if I didn't have this, I would die. Food and water come to mind. Some sort of shelter from the elements. Clothing would be good. For some of us, we could add this or that medication. With access to these things we could keep body and soul together. That's a good start but our goal here is not mere survival. Yes, we need to be alive in order to get closer to God in this life but just getting by isn't the same as thriving under His care. We need more than the material necessities to fulfill our goal, our end. Remember the purpose of creation is “that all creatures should manifest the glory of God” and for us in particular it is to attain “the full development of [our human] nature and to eternal happiness in God.” What do we need on a daily basis to assist us in fully developing our human nature so that we might attain eternal happiness in God? The one thing we need more than anything else is God Himself. We cannot become the men and women we were made to be w/o Him. And we certainly cannot attain eternal happiness w/o the source of that happiness working in our lives. 

If you knew this already, then you know that merely surviving as an intelligent animal is not your reason for being. If you didn't know this, then hear it again: we need God not only to exist, to survive as we are, we also need Him to thrive, to grow, and to become perfectly human, perfectly happy as Christ himself was perfectly human and perfectly happy. God's providence, His loving-care for us, comes to us as graces, gifts, freely given. The long definition I quoted to you earlier makes it clear that “Providence is God Himself,” God gives Himself to us for our spiritual provision. He gives Himself to us in our existence—that we exist at all is His gift. He gives Himself to us in our ability to love one another—that we are capable of loving is His gift. He gives Himself to us in our desire to return to Him—that we long for happiness, peace, consolation is His gift. He gives Himself to us in His sacraments, His Church, His Word—that we are one Body in Christ is His gift. He gives Himself to us in faith, hope, charity—that we are able to trust Him and His promises is a gift. All we need to flourish and grow toward happiness is provided; freely, abundantly, extravagantly given. Why then do we find ourselves so often wallowing in unhappiness? It's not for lack for divine provision. It's b/c we have yet to find a workable way of separating what we truly need from we desperately want. When we are unhappy, we are dwelling on what we do not have. We have locked ourselves in the prison of scarcity, a self-made spiritual illusion. 

Paul is in prison—a real prison—for preaching the Good News. He writes a letter to the Church in Ephesus, urging them “to live in a manner worthy of the call [they] have received. . .” What call have they received? They were called to Christ by Paul to live lives of repentance and sacrificial love. This sort of life must be lived with “all humility and gentleness, with patience. . .” There's no mention here of a new car, a better paying job, a better-looking spouse, smarter kids, the latest electronic gadget, or an off-shore tax shelter. Humility, gentleness, and patience. All divinely provided free of charge. Have you received these gifts so that you might be happy? If you have received them, do you use them? How should we live together? Paul writes that living lives worthy of our call means “bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace.” No mention of liking one another; agreeing with one another politically; being thrilled to bump into one another at Wal-Mart; or going to the movies together. Bear with one another in love; strive to be one in the spirit b/c we all want peace. Also, all divinely provided. Have you received these gifts and do you use them if you have? From the prison-cell of scarcity, all we will ever see is what we do not have. Wanting is not needing. If we need it to grow in holiness, it has already been given to you. 

Look at the 5,000 who gather around Jesus to hear him preach and watch him heal. When Jesus sees the crowd, he wants to feed them. He turns to his disciples and asks a perfectly reasonable question: can we afford to feed this many with what we have? Philip, avoiding the question, anxiously notes that even if they spent the wages earned over 200 days, they wouldn’t have enough food. Andrew pushes forward a boy who has some food, but gloomily notes that the little he has won’t be enough for the crowd. Can’t you hear and see Jesus sigh and roll of the eyes!? At this late date, these two still don’t get it! Philip and Andrew see only scarcity; they see only what they don't have or how little they have. Jesus doesn’t berate them. He teaches them: “Have the people recline.” Have the people prepare to feast. And they do. And afterward Jesus tells his disciples to pay attention to the excesses of the feast, what’s leftover, the abundant remainder of what they could only see at first as scarcity. Is this a lesson about how to stretch a meal on a budget? No. Jesus feeds us with the bread of eternal life—all that we need to attain perfect happiness. Philip and Andrew do not see the possibilities packed into the bread Christ offers the crowd. Not only is there enough for everyone, there's an abundance of leftovers. In other words, there is mercy and love and trust enough for everyone to attain their happiness and leftovers besides. God provides in copious amounts all that we need to come to Him in love. What He knows we need to thrive is not always what we think we need to survive. Our daily challenge is ask for and receive all that we truly need and not worry about the stuff that cannot bring us closer to God. We are free from the prison of sin; do not lock yourself up in the prison-cell of scarcity. Receive what God has given you—all that you truly need—and thrive onto eternal happiness in Him! 

*Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911.

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Coffee Cup Browsing

Heh. Boston's Dem mayor:  Chick-fil-A BAD. . .Nation of Islam GOOD. 

Well, OK then. . .as long as your Christian beliefs are deeply held.

The lesson here?  Ban knives and require everyone to carry a handgun.

Why we can't trust the Left when it comes to the 2nd Amendment. . .

First legal win for Christians against ObamaCare condom mandate! 

In the absence of Reason & Truth, only Power matters. . ."Tolerance" is all about Power.

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3 seeds, 3 soils

16th Week OT (F)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Our Lord says that the seed of his Word falls on various kinds of soil. Each kind of soil presents it own difficulties in the nurture and growth of his Word. Like all of Jesus' parables, this one lends itself to multiple interpretations, depending on how you choose to identify the different elements. We could say, for example, that the various kinds of soil represent different sorts of people; or, different sorts of situations; or even, different stages in just one person's growth in holiness. Regardless of how we choose to interpret these elements, the difficulties remain the same. Let's focus on what prevents the seed of the Word from doing its job and think about how these difficulties might be overcome. 

The first seed fails to take root b/c it is sown on a path. Jesus tells us that this means that the hearer of his Word fails to understand what he is teaching. Because he fails to understand, the Evil One comes along and steals it away. This tells us that one way to prevent the devil from stealing what Christ sows in us is to make sure that we understand what Christ is teaching. As baptized Christians who are vowed to a life of holiness and charity, we are morally obligated to know and understand all that Jesus taught and all that the Church teaches. Yes, all of it. This means time and energy spent actually learning all that we claim to believe as Christians. Not just memorizing the Creed, the Mass responses, and devotional prayers, but coming to “stand under” Christ's teachings and allowing them to filter to us everyday, all day our waking experiences and moral choices. Get a Bible; get a copy of the Catechism; and learn all that you can about the faith you profess! 

The second seed is joyfully received but quickly lost at the first sign of trial or tribulation. We're told here that joy alone is not sufficiently deep to grow strong roots. Of course, there's joy in receiving the Word! But receiving the Word while living in the world almost always brings trouble. Is your initial joy deep enough to grow strong roots? Roots strong enough to endure persecution? It can be if your joy is strengthened over time with knowledge and tempered by wisdom. However, if your joy remains nothing more than a purely emotional response, then you will likely find yourself searching for thrilling religious experiences—the churchy version of going to see an action movie or riding a roller-coaster. A joy deep enough to allow the Word to take root is achieved only by the commission of radical acts of charity. 

The third seed is choked by the thorns of worldly anxieties and the lure of riches. Though Jesus doesn't show us a link btw anxiety and riches, there is one that will choke the seed of his Word. The more attached we are to the world, the more concerned we are about losing what we have. This isn't a warning about having too much stuff. It's about the strength of our spiritual attachment to the stuff we have. Think of it this way: the more attached you are to the things of this world, the more thorns you have to avoid to seize Christ's Word. Can you lose everything you have and everyone you love and still find a deep joy in being an adopted child of the Father? If not, here's a warning for you: you will become what you love most. If you love temporary things, you yourself will become a temporary thing. 

So, how do we cultivate a soil—a heart and mind—deep enough, rich enough to receive, nurture, and grow Christ's teachings in our lives? First, we must understand what it is that we profess to believe. We don't have to be another Augustine or Aquinas or BXVI. But we do have to understand to the limit of our ability to understand. Second, our joy in being Christians must be deepened by radical acts of charity—acts of sacrificial love that give witness to God's mercy. Third, we must love God first and foremost so that we might become Him Whom we love. 

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Ecclesial earthquake in SanFran

B.O.O.M!

The Holy Father has appointed Bishop Salvatore Cordileone as the new archbishop of San Francisco.  I can hear the wailing and gnashing of Prog teeth here in Nawlins'!

From Whispers in the Loggia:

After a half-century of occupants accused by conservatives of soft-pedaling church teaching in favor of a more conciliatory approach toward constituencies ranging from gays and lesbians to Nancy Pelosi -- a group of prelates among which even the recently-retired lead guardian of church doctrine, Cardinal William Levada, was not exempt from stinging criticism -- the move delivers the long-desired "Holy Grail" of the American Catholic Right firmly into the faction's hands, in the form of a prelate already known widely both for his forcefulness and a stringent doctrinal cred almost unequaled among his confreres on the national bench. 

For liberal Catholics, meanwhile, the appointment is likely to be received as something akin to the city's Great Earthquake of 1906, or even more apocalyptic events. In a nutshell, an appointment of this dramatic, potentially explosive nature is enough to make even last year's blockbuster move in the States -- likewise a final US move of the Curia's annual work-cycle -- appear almost mild by comparison. 

It's time to start praying and fasting for Bishop Cordileone!  

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Report: Boxes O'Books

Been busy unpacking boxes o'books. . .just four more to go. . .but no room left for them.  

Seeing all these books again reminds me that I need to say. . .

THANK YOU!

. . .to all my Book Benefactors.  Please know:  I pray for all my benefactors daily. . .at Office and at Mass.  You are all well-prayed-for.

I'd say 90% of my library comes from the Wish List and other contributions from you guys.

The sweetest box o'books opened this morning:  about 10 vols. on the history and practice of Catholic preaching from the Church Fathers to post-Vatican Two.  Sweet. . .indeed.

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My boxes and me. . .

Just got back into New Orleans and unloaded my boxes. . .all 22 of them!!!

I remember storing around 12 boxes.  Do boxes of books reproduce? 

Thanks for the prayers. . .everything went off without a hitch.

Fr. Philip
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Fr. INTJ, or not all astrologers see stars

In what seems like a life-time ago, I took a personality test.  Yes, I have a personality.  And it has been tested.  In fact, it's been tested quite often.  One of my grad school roommates was a psych doctoral student, and he used me as practice for his Measures and Diagnosis seminar.  I've also been through two psych evals during the application process for religious life.

Anyway, this personality test--the Myers-Briggs--indicated that my personality is best described by the initials INTJ.  That stands for something or another that I'm authoritatively told is an unusual type.  

Never paid it much attention until someone recently asked me if I had ever taken the Myers-Briggs.  She wanted to know my type.  I told her.  She giggled (yes, giggled!) and said that she could've won a bet b/c she would've guessed that I am an INTJ.

Needless to say, I had to find out what was so giggle-worthy about INTJ's.  So, to Google I went!

And found among the detritus of the intertubes lots of info on INTJ's.  Apparently, we are a rare breed of arrogant jerks who spend most of our time wandering around inside our heads entertaining ourselves and mostly ignoring social norms.  

My take on all this info is that it's much like a Zodiac sign, though spruced up with psycho-babble and the "astrologers" have Ph.D.'s.  Though I have to say that most of what I found applies to me: loves ideas, books, the Big Picture, averse to displays of emotion, aloof, introverted, low tolerance for B.S., etc.  The negative stuff is pretty true too: blunt, argumentative, hyper-critical, sarcastic, bordering on cynical, etc.  The one thing that doesn't fit me at all:  INTJ's are supposed to be obsessively orderly.  Not me, bubba.

This post really made me laugh b/c so much of it is true for me!  Of course, being a priest, I've learned to temper a lot of the more publicly negative aspects of my personality.  Thank you, Jesus. If I was called into the student master's office it was almost always b/c I had spouted off at table in some ridiculously pompous fashion and one of the sensitive friars took me seriously.  Yes, it was his fault for not having a sense of humor.  (See.  That's how a real INTJ works!).  :-)

BTW, I'm a Gemini in the western Zodiac and a Dragon in the Chinese Zodiac, which means I'm a schizophrenic big mouth who breathes fire.  HA!

BTW2, yes, I'm procrastinating b/c there's packing/unpacking to be done.  Blech.

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Audio file for St. Bridget (homily)

Tried preaching w/o a text this evening.

Meh.

I prefer preaching from a text.  There were several points I wanted to make but didn't b/c I was too busy trying to remember them.

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An unexpected surprise. . .

I'm one of the Kool Kids now!

All last week, Catholics bloggers were taunting the rest of us poor schmucks with the fact that they'd received a review copy of Sherry A. Weddell's new book, Forming Intentional Disciples.  I'm looking at you and your ginormous facial hair, Mark Shea!

I'll confess. . .yes, I was just a tiny bit envious.  But, I reasoned, even though Sherry works with Dominican friars and I'd met her once in Irving, TX. . .that was no reason for her to send me a copy of her book.  

Besides, it's only $12. . .

THEN! In the mail today. . .neatly wrapped. . .and lovingly signed by Sherry Herself. . .a copy of the very book I'd been coveting!

So, now that I'm one of the Kool Kids. . .I can suggest that you join Our Cadre by getting a copy of the book that's got everyone who's anyone in the Catholic blogosphere talking.  :-)

Oh, and thanks, Sherry!

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Road trip!

Taking a two day roadtrip to Irving, TX tomorrow and Wed.  Going to get the boxes that I stored there before going to Rome in 2008.  

Lots of books, clothes, and other useless but sentimental junk!

Pray for a safe trip, please.

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Are you ready to do a great deed?

[NB.  The deacons are preaching at St Dominic's this weekend.  I'm celebrating the vigil Mass today at Our Lady Star of the Sea.  This parish, I'm told, is used to slightly longer homilies.  So. . .]

16th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Our Lady Star of the Sea, NOLA

Brothers and sisters, it will come as no surprise to you to hear it said, though being reminded of the fact never hurts, that God has done great things for us. He has done great things to us. And—if only if we will—He will also do great things with us! This bit of Good News is not news to us b/c we have long lived in the light Christ. No, not always perfectly, for sure, but living in his light most of the time is always better than living in the darkness all the time. And if, on those occasions when we are all too ready to listen to the enemy whisper, and if, when we listen, we hear what we want to hear, and do what we want to do, Christ's light always shines through that darkness to show us a smooth and level path back to the righteousness that is ours as heirs as the Father's kingdom. But you know this already. None of this is surprising. None of this is news to those who walk the way of love, behind the Lord, carrying a cross, looking forward, looking upward, looking beyond, beyond this world to the peace that passes all understanding in the world to come. If we know all this already, why do we need to hear it announced again? Well, the Good News of Jesus Christ might not be news to you. But it might be news to somebody, and that somebody is waiting to hear from you that he or she is profoundly loved, sacrificially loved, redemptively loved by the same God Who spoke the Word of Love into nothingness, and established by His love everything that is, everyone who is; and that same God holds by His love everything that is, everyone who is in being. Do not say—b/c you cannot say—that the Creator and Sustainer of all that is does not love you. He abandoned His Son to death for you, so that you might have life and have it abundantly, eternally. God has done great things for us. He has done great things to us. And—if only if we will—He will also do great things with us! Paul reminds the Ephesians of one great deed accomplished in the flesh of Christ. Christ, Paul says, is our peace. He made Jew and Gentile one, breaking down the walls of hatred and hostility, and abolishing the law with its divisive commandments. Why? So “that he might create in himself one new person in place of the two,” thus establishing peace, reconciling both Jew and Gentile with God, in his body and through the cross, putting that ancient enmity to death by his death. Is this a great deed we are prepared to imitate? To put an end to hatred and hostility through the faithful practice of sacrificial love? 

Let me be frank with you. Maybe even a little blunt. If you found the courage once upon a time to lay claim to your inheritance as an adopted child of the Father, and you found the time and energy to reap the benefits of God's abundant graces and His mercy, and you found the strength to walk this far along the crucified way, then you have the courage, the time, the energy, and the strength to present to this fallen world a mind and body formed in the likeness of Christ; a ready voice to speak the Word of Mercy and Truth to sinners; and the hospitality necessary to welcome into this family every leper, every tax collector, every prostitute, every politician, every Pharisee and scribe that crosses your path. You have everything—b/c it has been given to you—everything you need to live and die in love for the sinner, announcing the Good News of Jesus Christ to anyone with ears to hear, and—most importantly—you possess the power to grant mercy to all those who have offended you, showing them and reminding yourself that you too are a sinner in desperate need of receiving God's forgiveness. Anyone here w/o sin throw a stone, a hymnal, a shoe. Who isn't in need of mercy? Someone out there falsely believes that their loving Father, their Creator, does not love them, and they are angry, hateful, hostile, driven by despair, and quite possibly armed to the teeth. Can this lost soul look to me, to you, to all of us and see the face of Christ shining back at him, shining out the love that saved us from a darkness that never ends? If not, you and I, the whole Church have failed, miserably failed to be who and what we were re-created to be. We are a den of liars and thieves, deceiving ourselves and stealing from God souls that rightfully belong to Him alone. We cannot fault the world for its hatred and violence if we harbor in our own hearts the despair that feeds hatred and violence. If there is room in the soul of the Church for nurturing despair, disobedience, dissent, then there can be no room for Christ. We must be empty so that Christ might fill us up. We must be empty so that God's love fits perfectly, fully, and overflows and overflows and overflows. We must ask ourselves as individuals and as a Church: what takes up space in our hearts and minds that deprives us of the room we need for Christ? Truly, honestly can we pray with the Psalmist, “The Lord is my shepherd; there is NOTHING I shall want”? If we are busy wanting what has not been given, then we are too busy to love as we ought. 

You have heard it said: God has done great things for us. He has done great things to us. And—if only if we will—He will also do great things with us! The apostle Mark tells us in his gospel account that Jesus and the disciples are overwhelmed by the crowds and decide to jump a boat and escape across the sea. When they arrive on the other side, they discover that the crowd has followed them. Jesus surveys the masses before him and, Mark tells us, “[Jesus'] heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.” Note well the connection Jesus himself makes btw “lost sheep” and the need for instruction. Note well that it is compassion that motivates our Lord to teach these lost sheep “many things.” Out of his loving-kindness for the lost souls who follow him around yearning to know his truth, Jesus teaches them all that they need to know to live righteous lives; he teaches them all that they need to know to live in peace with one another and to live with justice for the least among them. We might want to ask here: what exactly does he teach them? To answer that we would need to spend several hours reading all four gospels! Or, we could look again at Paul's letter to the Ephesians and recall that Christ creates in himself one new person to replace both Gentile and Jew, thus establishing peace, thus placing the divine order over the natural order, thus dissolving the hardened hearts of accidental neighbors, so that both Gentile and Jew are reconciled with God, in his body, through the cross, and finally putting to death an ancient enmity that benefits no one but the Enemy and his legions. All that Christ teaches the lost sheep that day on the beach is tightly packed into one tiny word: love. No, not romance. Not being sweet like your mama said to be. Not indifference or passion or overwrought emotion. Rather, agape. Charity. Caritas. That Love Who spoke His creating word over the void and yanked into being all existing things. That Love Who spoke to the patriarch Moses and inscribed His commandments in stone. That Love Who spoke to Abram and made an everlasting covenant with a people not yet born. That Love Who spoke to His covenant-nation through the prophets and called them back to fidelity. That Love—agape, caritas—Who sent His holy spirit to the virgin, Mary, and gave to His creation a savior, a Son, to fulfill the obligations of the old covenant and establish a new covenant with a universal nation, a universal people. 

When Christ teaches the crowd on the beach, he says much and more but he exudes in his person and mission just one word: love. Packed tightly into that one little word is the salvation of man, the redemption of creation, and the whole promise of the Old Covenant: you are My people and I AM your God. When we do and say and think as we have vowed to do, say, and think, we too exude in our person and mission the healing power of Christ love. And nothing—not hatred, violence, anger, oppression, greed—nothing vile, nothing that abides in darkness or feeds on despair can withstand the creating and re-creating majesty of Holy Love! God will do great deeds with us. He will accomplish through us works mightier than the princes of this world will allow. When I fall, you continue on. When you fail, I will try all the harder. When both of us stumble—and we will—there will be brothers and sisters there to pick us up and move us along. We are one Body, reconciled in his flesh and blood, so that the Good News of God's love will always have the hands, the feet, the mouths, the hearts and minds of a holy people, a nation renewed to speak the Word of Truth and accomplish the righteous deed. Jesus tells the disciples to come away and rest for awhile. Well, break-time is over. There are lost souls out there and possibly in here that need to see and hear us acting and speaking in love. So, I will ask again: are you, are we prepared to submit ourselves in obedience to the law of love and put an end to hatred and hostility in our families, our parish, our ward, our city, our Church? Are we ready—through the faithful practice of sacrificial love—to forfeit the demands of pride and surrender the need for vengeance? If those of us sworn to love one another cannot/will not readily agree to reconciliation in the Body, how will those souls already swimming in hatred and violence ever see the light for rescue? The Church, the Body of Christ, demands nothing more from us than everything we are—the whole person, all that God has given us for his greater glory. We grow tired. But that's why we are here. We grow frustrated with our own failures. But that why we're here. We aggravate one another like siblings do. But that's why we are here. Take all that you receive here and go out there. Take Christ, the first Son of Love, take him out there and show the lost, the lonely, the hateful, the hostile, show them all that he has done for you and yours. Show them his light, show them a way home.

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With a text, or without? That is the question!

At 5.30 this morning the USCCB lectionary webpage indicated that today is the memorial of Mary Magdalene.  

I prepared a homily on the proper readings for the memorial.

When I got to the Missal in church, I realized that the USCCB webpage was wrong.  So, my homily was useless.

Tossing aside the text of the prepared homily, I solidered on with an improvised homily on what it means to say "Christ has fulfilled the words of the prophet."

After Mass, four different parishioners told me that it was my best homily ever.  One, a literary sort like myself, very excitedly said, "Father, I'm praying that your printer breaks down, or you spill remoulade sauce on your keyboard!"    

From all this, I take it that some would rather have an off-the-cuff homily than a prepared text.

So, there may be some experimentation in my homiletic future!

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Mercy IS a Sacrifice

[NB.  Feeling puny today. . .so, I'm borrowing from myself for today's homily.]

 

St. Appollnarius

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Like the sniping political operatives that they are, the Pharisees attack Jesus and his merry band for violating the Sabbath Law. Their crime? Some of the disciples absentmindedly pick grains of wheat and snack on them during a lesson. When the Pharisees pounce, Jesus—ever the scholar of Jewish history and the scriptures—remind them that David and his friends went into the temple and ate the bread of offering. Then he lowers the boom: “If you knew what this meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned these innocent men.” This is a triple accusation. The Pharisees do not know their own history. They do not understand mercy or sacrifice. And they have condemned innocent men. Of course, their most egregious error is their failure to recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah. Had they done so, they would have known that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, thus making their condemnation of the disciples into a chance to show mercy. So, what does this scene tell us about the relationship btw mercy and sacrifice?

We might be inclined to conclude that the two are opposed. Jesus says that he prefers one to the other, therefore, we can either show mercy or offer sacrifice. The Law requires sacrifice, but Christ requires mercy. The two are incompatible. But this can't be right since Christ is the fulfillment of the Law. In the City of God, Augustine clears it all up for us. When Jesus quotes Hosea, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” Augustine writes, “. . .nothing else is meant than that one sacrifice is preferred to another. . .mercy is the true sacrifice. . .All the divine ordinances. . . concerning the sacrifices in the service of the tabernacle or the temple, we are to refer to the love of God and our neighbor” (X.5). In other words, every act of mercy is a sacrifice, an embodiment of the love God has for us and a demonstration that we love Him in turn. To set aside judgment and condemnation in favor of mercy is the sacrifice God desires from us. 

What might be confusing here is that we seem to be using the term “sacrifice” in two different senses. When Jesus says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” he uses “sacrifice” to mean “the ritualistic slaughter of an animal in the temple by a priest according to the Law.” This is not the sort of sacrifice the Lord desires. Augustine gives the term “sacrifice” its contemporary meaning in the context of Christ's fulfillment of the ritual Law of animal slaughter. That is, he goes to the root of the word and discovers that sacrifice is what we do when we love the sinner and show him/her mercy. For Augustine, following Christ, without love, the sacrificing priest is just a butcher and his sacrifice is just killing. What makes “showing mercy” a sacrifice is our giving up on the prideful need to sit in the Lord's place as judge and executioner of His justice. When we show mercy to a sinner, we first acknowledge our own sinfulness and confess the need to be forgiven. None of this means that we're to be “soft on sin” or make a habit of excusing disobedience! It means just the opposite. Only a sinner needs mercy. Only a sinner can be called to repentance. 

Jesus tells the Pharisees that they are in the presence of something greater than the temple, something more fundamental, more vital than the Law. They are in the presence of Love Himself, mercy-made-flesh. Had they acknowledged this truth, their desire for sacrifice would have turned to pleas for mercy. And their accusations to songs of praise.

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Say NO to a Grand Bargain on Marriage!

Brilliant essay by Robert George of Princeton on the "inevitability/right side of history" rhetoric used by same-sex "marriage" pushers to pressure the rest of us into believing that we are cultural neanderthals for opposing their radical social experimentation.

[. . .]

The fundamental error made by some supporters of conjugal marriage was and is, I believe, to imagine that a grand bargain could be struck with their opponents: “We will accept the legal redefinition of marriage; you will respect our right to act on our consciences without penalty, discrimination, or civil disabilities of any type. Same-sex partners will get marriage licenses, but no one will be forced for any reason to recognize those marriages or suffer discrimination or disabilities for declining to recognize them.” There was never any hope of such a bargain being accepted. Perhaps parts of such a bargain would be accepted by liberal forces temporarily for strategic or tactical reasons, as part of the political project of getting marriage redefined; but guarantees of religious liberty and non-discrimination for people who cannot in conscience accept same-sex marriage could then be eroded and eventually removed. After all, “full equality” requires that no quarter be given to the “bigots” who want to engage in “discrimination” (people with a “separate but equal” mindset) in the name of their retrograde religious beliefs. “Dignitarian” harm must be opposed as resolutely as more palpable forms of harm.

As legal scholar Robert Vischer has observed, “The tension between religious liberty and gay rights is a thorny problem that will continue to crop up in our policy debates for the foreseeable future. Dismissing religious liberty concerns as the progeny of a ‘separate but equal’ mindset does not bode well for the future course of those debates.” But there is, in my opinion, no chance—no chance—of persuading champions of sexual liberation (and it should be clear by now that this is the cause they serve), that they should respect, or permit the law to respect, the conscience rights of those with whom they disagree. Look at it from their point of view: Why should we permit “full equality” to be trumped by bigotry? Why should we respect religions and religious institutions that are “incubators of homophobia”? Bigotry, religiously based or not, must be smashed and eradicated. The law should certainly not give it recognition or lend it any standing or dignity.

The lesson, it seems to me, for those of us who believe that the conjugal conception of marriage is true and good, and who wish to protect the rights of our faithful and of our institutions to honor that belief in carrying out their vocations and missions, is that there is no alternative to winning the battle in the public square over the legal definition of marriage. The “grand bargain” is an illusion we should dismiss from our minds.

[. . .]

George makes an excellent observation: early 20th century eugenics programs and abortion "rights" were framed by the Left as "inevitable evolutions" in science and reason.  Eugenics has been soundly defeated and abortion is well on its way to becoming a stinking political albatross gracing the throat of every Leftist in America.  

Please! Read the whole thing and share it.

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