Have you come to help our Lord set fire to the world?

20th Sunday in OT
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP 
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA 

Surrounded as we are by so great a cloud of witnesses, I must ask you all: have you come to help our Lord set fire to the world?! Have you come here to help him destroy the family; to divide the nation; and to conquer the Church? If not, remember: the waters of your baptism did not extinguish the Spirit's fire set ablaze in you; rather those blessed waters feed and spread the fire of the Holy Spirit like gasoline, consuming you, burning you to perfection. And your job, my job, our job together is to run shouting like lunatics—holy priests and prophets—to run shouting through the dry-tinder kindling of this world, setting everything cold and hard and brittle on fire with the Holy Spirit! If you will follow Christ, walk his Way, carrying his Cross as yours, then you will become a Holy Pyromaniac. 

We read in Hebrews, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that cling to us…” Fire burns its fuel first. The fire of the Holy Spirit burns away every burden and sin, releasing the grip of anxiety and freeing body and soul from the sickening weight of disobedience. Essentially, we are lightened for the race before us, unencumbered for navigating the Way and finding our Morningstar. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, “the leader and perfecter of faith,” every burden, every obstacle, every failure is lifted, surmounted, rectified, and we are propelled into the same joy that Christ saw before him through the Cross. Through the Cross. Not around it or under it or above it but through it. Only through the Cross did he and do we come to our long anticipated glory in the presence the Father's throne. 

 But what does “only through the Cross can we find joy” mean day-to-day, minute-to-minute? First, be warned: the race to the Cross is heart-wearying! It’s not a test b/c a test is too easy. You have the help of the Holy Spirit! What’s a test when the H.S. is your cheat sheet? There is no obstacle course, something like a heroic passage from Greek myth—no giants to behead, no mutant spiders to outwit. You don’t even have to memorize any arcane languages or master multiple sets of occult symbols or chase down any wizardly objects. No. What you have to do is actually much, much worse than all these combined; much more difficult and painful: you must release your pride; unclench your self-satisfaction and arrogance, your misplaced sense of duty and control; and you must be weak before the Lord, praying, “I too wish the world were already ablaze for you, Lord! Kindle in me the fire of your righteousness, burn away my burdens and sins, and make me a torch for your purifying love.” To joy through the Cross. . .

Going to the Cross for us, for our example and our benefit, Christ poured himself out, emptied himself in total subjection to the Father, becoming for us our sin. His kenosis, his abandonment to the worst of human depravity and his freely accepted death for our sake, is the spark for a holy fire, the match that pops and flares and sets all creation blazing in sacrifice. Every thing, every person and place, every relationship and bond, every right and wrong, all of it, our peace, our achievements, our grand plans and projects, our deeply held convictions and logical conclusions, our allegiances and sworn wars, our science, theology, philosophy, art, all of it, everything is transfigured, transformed in the perfecting conflagration of the Cross and the Empty Tomb. I tell you, Jesus says, I did not come to bring peace but division; neither comfort nor convenience but ferment and want. I will leave it all in ash and smoke. For I come to reorder, to re-establish, to resurrect and renew every bond, every promise, even life itself. Our Holy Father, Francis, said in his Sunday Angelus message in Rome, “. . .faith is not a decorative, ornamental thing, you do not decorate your life with a little bit of religion. . . Faith is not a decoration, as if it were simply the icing on the cake!” 

A decorative faith, a small religion cannot strike even the tiniest spark much less set the world on fire. A decorative faith, a small religion cannot resist sin nor can they proclaim the Good News. Have we resisted the world to the point of shedding our blood? Our brothers and sisters in the Egypt and Syria have. Those of us in the Sudan have bled and bled. In China, we bleed for the state’s fear of an all-consuming fire. In Louisiana? Probably not today or tomorrow. But it’s not impossible that one of us here or all of us together could be called to resist sin to the point of shedding blood. Is that frightening? Of course. Our faith, or rather our religion, is a comfort to us. We find settled patterns and rhythms here. Familiarity and peace. Should our faith be comforting? I mean, should the fact that we trust a man who willing died on a cross for us be a source of comfort to us? You have vowed to do the same for me, ya know? To die for me. And I for you. That promise of witness is greater than family or friends or neighbors. That promise to stand up and speak up and give witness to a mighty God is greater than the condolences of religion or the temporary excitement of spirituality. For the sake of your joy beg to be emptied of every burden, every sin, and then fix your eyes on Jesus. He is the only leader, the only perfecter of our faith. 

Again: surrounded as we are by so great a cloud of witnesses, I must ask you all: have you come to help our Lord to set fire to the world?! 

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Homily Podcasts 2006-2008

A faithful HA reader asked about older podcasts of my homilies. . .Where did they go?  

Well, they didn't float off into the ether!

Here they are:  Homily Podcasts 2006-2008. 

These were preached mostly to the folks at the Church of the Incarnation at the University of Dallas in Irving, TX when I served there as a campus minister.

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Dominicans: engines of ecclesial renewal!

Ran across a good article on the Order of Preachers as an engine of renewal in the Church:

[. . .]

Today the institutional effort at genuine renewal is palpable. There are notorious holdouts—especially among women religious, the Jesuits and the universities they influence (along with others like them), wide swaths of academic theologians, and some sectors of Catholic health and social services. But most dioceses have better leadership now than then, the seminaries have been largely reformed, the priesthood substantially revitalized, and the push for both the recovery of lost territory and a new evangelization is both very real and very strong. [What's striking to me about seminary reform is the role of lay professors in restoring orthodoxy to the seminary curriculum. Once again, the Church is saved by the laity!]

 
Happily, this is no longer your father’s Church.

The Order of Preachers Sends a Message

I bring this up today because I am about to describe a very telling case in point in the Dominicans of the St. Joseph Province in the United States. I have always been drawn to St. Dominic and his wonderful Order of Preachers (their initials, O. P., come from Ordinis Praedicatorum). My doctoral dissertation way back in the dark age of 1973 was devoted to the connections of the Dominican observant reform in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries—a long struggle to return the Order to the observance of its original rule after a period of laxity—with the overwhelmingly Dominican defense of Papal primacy against Conciliarism and, later, Protestantism. Then as now, the most deeply committed Catholics were also the most devoted to the Holy See. [Alternating periods of laxity and observance are par for the course in every religious order, diocese, seminary, and parish. The cause of laxity is almost always the same: an initial relaxation of observance for the sake of ministry resets the highest standard of observance and further relaxation leads to laxity. The question is: when have we crossed the line btw observance and laxity?].

In the twentieth century, the Dominicans suffered from the rising tide of secularization just as others did, but not quite so much as many. I am reliably informed by those inside that the Order today is fairly healthy worldwide, though of course it varies from place to place. For years the Western province in the United States was more prone to Modernism (including the famous Fr. Matthew Fox and his sidekick, Starhawk the witch) than the Eastern province (the Province of St. Joseph) whose men are trained at the incomparable Dominican House of Studies at Catholic University. [Clarification: Fox was a member of the Central Province and he lived in CA after he was dismissed from the Order]. There is, for example, the famous story of men from the East sitting in on a lecture given by a professor from the West, and rising en masse to shake the dust from their feet when the lecture became heretical. Happily, the dichotomy is not so great now. [I've never heard this story!]

Similarly, the Dominicans in the Netherlands have proven spotty at best; some of them made news five years ago by circulating a pamphlet advocating priestless Masses. And yet is was characteristic of the Dominican Order as a whole, as it would not have been characteristic of many other groups, that these wayward Dominican priests were officially reprimanded by their more universal superiors (see Dominican leaders rebuke Dutch theologians, 1/24/2008). [A very mild rebuke that many friars read as tacit approval of the pamphlet. Though I think it was a repudiation, the rebuke should have been much stronger.]

[. . .]

Dominican provinces are like individuals.  Each has a dominant personality that's easily stereotyped. The West is monastic. The East is institutional. The South is missionary. The Central is pastoral. Like all stereotypes, there's some truth in there somewhere. But like individuals, provinces have personality traits that balance or complement the dominant one. You will find institutional friars in the South. Monastics in the East. Pastoral types in the West. And missionaries in the Central. Sometimes individual priories will be known as embodiments of the province's dominant personality and another priory will embody the complementary traits. 

If you really want to compare and contrast Dominican provinces and find the roots of difference, look at differences in resources: institutional commitments (universities, parishes, etc.); available funds for ministry; Catholic population and culture; number of friars; and historical presence in the region. Therein lies the real difference!

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Gnostic Gibberish from the LCWR

Assuming the following quotes are accurate. . .this is why the LCWR is currently being "monitored" by the CDF:

“If we are to rethink in terms of religion, we have to think in terms of cosmology. . .” [I doubt very seriously that she means "cosmology" in the same sense that physicists understand the term. She's talking about Brian Swimme's pseudo-mystical/quasi-scientific blend of eastern bumpersticker philosophy and bad 70's head shop poetry, The New Universe Story. This book has been The Thing among the LCWR crowd since sometime in early 2000.] 

“We have to understand the order of the whole. . .There is no cosmos without God, and no God without cosmos.” [We do have to understand the order of the whole. And there is no cosmos w/o God.  So far, so good. Then she loops into pantheism: no God w/o the cosmos?  This is a complete rejection of the Judeo-Christian understanding of the Creator, His creation, and our relationship to both. Pantheism is attractive to gnostic types b/c it allows them to claim authority/power through "specialized knowledge." In the 21st century, the most specialized knowledge out there is scientific.]

The reporter paraphrases: "A mixture of Scripture, philosophy from Plato and other Greek thinkers helped develop our theory of Jesus Christ — unchanging, static — a mechanical God." [This is the standard handful of ignorant mud thrown at the scholastic theological tradition. It's nonsense. Deus caritas est. How is that static, mechanical, etc.? God is pure act, according Thomas, and there can be no more perfect act. What she's worried about, of course, isn't an unmoving God, but an "unmoving church" that won't accommodate her personal theological preferences and those of her fellow-travelers.]

“We have an incredible, dynamic, expanding universe. Simply from the point of science, this is awesome,” Sister Ilia said, adding, “Literally, we are stardust." [True, we are stardust in the most literal sense. And this is awesome from more than just the point-of-view of science. In fact, we've pretty much known for a long time now that we're stardust. . .say, since Genesis, at least. But apparently she believes that cosmic forces somehow took stardust and randomly evolved human consciousness from the assembled particles. Remember: no cosmos, no God; therefore, God couldn't have assembled the particles or given them life. He had to wait until we randomly evolved before coming into existence, which means that in some sense, God's existence is contingent on us.]

“Does evolution continue through us? The physical structure of the universe is love. The way physical life works, it is not background to the human story. It is the human story.” [Is physical evolution the sort of process that "continues through" individuals?  I thought evolution happened at the level of species over billion of years. The physical structure of the universe is matter and energy. Love is not physical; it's relational. Of course, if you're a pantheist, God is identical to the universe and since God is love, then the universe is love.  Whoa. Dude. Pass the bong.]

No mas. I'm done. This is exhausting. St Irenaeus dispatched most of this nonsense back in the 2nd century.  

Next!
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How contraception destroyed a parochial school

A pastor laments the decline of his parish and the demolition of the parochial school. He points to the contraceptive mentality of most Catholics as the cause. There's another reason too: the Protestantization of Catholics. When Fr. Bob preaches in a way we don't like, or says stuff in his homily that we don't like, we go to another parish. 

Parish-shopping is the quintessential Protestant reaction to a pastor who refuses to tickle our ears.

A stranger came into the sacristy after Sunday Mass. In an incriminating huff he said, “I have been away from the area for fifteen years; where are the people? And now you are tearing down the school? I went there as a kid.”

I put my hands up to quiet him from further talking and I calmly said, “Let me ask you a question: How many kids did you have?” He said, “Two.” Then I said, “So did everyone else. When you only have two kids per family there is no growth.” His demeanor changed, and then he dropped his head and said, “And they aren’t even going to Mass anymore.”

Sad. Read the whole thing.
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Crowdsourcing: communication skills for priests

I'm working on the syllabus for my "Proclaiming the Word" course. Basically, the class is all about public speaking, oral communication/interpretation for the Catholic priest.  We cover how to proclaim the Gospel, conduct lectio divina, teach parish classes, etc.

Think about the priests you know. . .

If you could assign these priests to take a remedial class in public speaking, what would you tell the professor that these guys need help with? 

Think not only in terms of preaching (volume, tone, projection, etc.) but also in terms of how they communicate personally with parish staff, parishioners, etc.  

Think about how they communicate in oral presentations during pastoral council meetings, catechical events, groups meetings, etc.

What do we clergy-types need to improve?

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“This is enough, O Lord! Take my life. . .”

NB.  here's another one on suffering from 2009.  This one got 27 comments when I first posted it.  Apparently, I struck a nerve!

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.

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Suffering and suffering well

By request. . .a repost on suffering from 2008:

Recently, I conducted a one-day retreat for the local lay Dominican chapter. I was asked to give three talks on the theme, “Preaching Truth in a Lying Age.” During one of the talks I mentioned the notion of suffering and gave a very brief ferverino on what suffering means for Christians. That little piece of the much bigger retreat is still sitting with me this morning. 

When I am asked to recount my vocation story, I often tell the story of how I came to a better understanding of humility. In 1998, I had injured my back at work. For about two months my doctor thought I had merely sprained a lower back muscle and he treated me as such—mild muscle relaxers, milder pain meds, and physical therapy. I was in excruciating pain, often fainting and completely unable to bathe or walk. Only after I had lost about 50lbs. and nearly lapsed into a coma with a 106 degree temperature did he finally decide to send me for an MRI.

After the MRI and during one of my physical therapy sessions I was called to the phone to hear my doctor’s nurse order me to cease therapy immediately and return to the office. Her voice was insistent and slightly frightened. Obviously, I was terrified. They had found something. Once in the office, the doctor informed me that I had a large mass growing between my two lower vertebrae. He showed me the MRI films and ordered me back to the clinic for another MRI. This time they shot me full of contrast fluid. The mass shone like a mountain. My doctor, nearly in tears because he had ignored my pleas for better pain meds, told me that he was pretty sure I had cancer. Only a biopsy could confirm this.

 

The biopsy indicated that the mass was a staph abscess. They rushed me to the hospital where I was told that my heart had likely been severely weakened by the infection. Tests showed that this was not the case. However, the staph had infected my blood, sending my sed rate to deadly levels. My infectious disease doc confided to me that he couldn’t explain that why after almost three months of an internal staph infection I wasn’t dead. He ordered a PIC line inserted into my heart and I was fed two IV anti-biotics for seven weeks. During those seven weeks I was at home with my parents recovering.*

I was unable to keep food down. Couldn’t bathe or sleep. And I was dependent on my parents for everything. I was 35 years old and once again a child. The day humility came to smack me around I had a doctor’s appointment. Since I could barely walk, my mom had to dress me. The absurdity of my situation hit me hard when it came time to put on my socks. Sitting on a low bench in my underwear with my mom kneeling in front of me, struggling through a stream of tears to get my socks on for me, I started crying in frustration, anger, gratitude, and a sense of helplessness. It was all so absurd, so surreal, and yet also weirdly peaceful.

My point? I had been in constant pain for almost four months, and I grieved my loss of independence. But I had yet to suffer. Pain is not suffering. Grief is not suffering. Since I was merely experiencing pain and not giving that pain purpose, I had refused to suffer. There was no grace for me in simply being in pain. Once I decided to allow the pain to have a purpose (i.e., “to suffer the pain”) as a gift of humility, my recovery quickened, and I was able to go back to work in month or so. Now, when my oh-so-ready pride pokes its head into my business, I remember the scene of my mom struggling to get my socks on without hurting me—the two of us crying like babies at the absurdity of the whole thing.

The question is not “do you suffer?” but “do you suffer well?” Or, rather “do you allow your pain/grief to have a purpose?”

So, suffer well.

* About three days after the staph infection was gone and the PIC line was removed, I contracted chicken pox.  Oy.

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Liberal Christianity is a clear failure. . .

A report on an Austrian priest's Dissident Tour of the U.S.

An excerpt from the report:

Nothing in Schuller’s talk indicated that he would disagree with anything found in liberal Protestantism, and in Austria he has advocated freely giving Communion to Protestants.  Liberal Protestantism began, in Reinhold Niebuhr’s famous words, with the belief that “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”  Its logical culmination is found in the likes of Gary Hall, the Dean of Washington’s National Cathedral, who just told The Washington Post that “I describe myself as a non-theistic Christian.”  Since there is no sin in the world of liberal Protestantism, except maybe holding unfashionable political opinions, and no beliefs that are necessary for salvation, except maybe the current editorial position of The New York Times, denominations that embrace liberalism have a hard time convincing people to get up early on Sundays and go to church, even though they have done everything Helmut Schuller wants the Catholic Church to do.  The United Church of Christ has lost half its members since the early 1960s, even though the overall US population has doubled during the same period of time, the Episcopal Church has lost nearly a quarter of its Sunday communicants in the last decade, and the established Protestant churches in Europe have fared even worse.  As measured by demography, liberal Christianity is a clear failure.

It cannot be repeated often enough: there is no future for the Catholic Church in the U.S. if we become indistinguishable from the zeitgeist. The liberal Prot mainline has proven this over and over again.

Back in my Episcopagan days (1982-1996), I gleefully joined in every effort to undermine the apostolic tradition of the church.  Nothing was sacred. Nothing was off-limits. Nothing was to be untouched. I even rewrote the Nicene Creed (in my hubris) to better fit my own ideological views. 

Had I stayed in the Episcopal Church, I'd probably be a bishop by now!

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Abortion fans invade Mass

Having spent many years among the abortion savages as one of their own, this isn't all that shocking to me. That they didn't assault the Mass goers is shocking. I mean, since these Great Pelvic Liberators are so morally superior to us poor religious bigots, I just figured that they would feel downright entitled to throw a punch or two.

 

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Priest no longer a mystery

That Mystery Priest that had Catholics chattering about apparitions, etc. has been identified.

Back in my atheist days I would've howled at the gullibility of religious folks for believing that the Great Fairy God Father in the Sky sent a ghost to rescue someone after the accident rather than just prevent the accident in the first place. 

I've grown up since then and have a much better (though still woefully imperfect) understanding of divine providence.

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Faith: the disposition of the spirit that seeds eternal life

NB. This is an example of a didactic homily.  'Nuff said.

19th Sunday OT 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA 

We're rather aggressively challenged by our readings this evening to think hard about what it means to have faith. What is faith? How do we use it? How do we get it? What's its ultimate purpose? Being a sensible, practical sort of people, we generally think of faith in terms of amounts of faith, or degrees of faith. How often have you prayed for “more faith”? Or asked God to “increase your faith”? We also tend to think of faith in terms of “the faith,” as in “the Catholic faith,” or “the Protestant faith,” meaning something like “everything that Catholics and Protestants believe to be true about God, Jesus, Mary, etc.” So, you might say, “I'm a member of the Catholic faith.” If you were a student assigned to write an essay on faith by your religion teacher, you would probably do what every student in the universe does when asked to define a term: grab a dictionary. There we find that “faith” is defined as “confidence or trust in a person or thing; belief that is not based on proof; a system of religious belief.” And if your teacher is any good at all, he/she would write in the margin, “This isn't much help, is it?” No, it isn't b/c a dictionary isn't a human person who lives by the grace and mercy of God. Dictionaries are not asked to sacrifice their children. Dictionaries are not asked to surrender their lives and livelihoods to the providence of God. 

Fortunately, being Catholics, we have someone more reliable than a dictionary to turn to. In his 2007 encyclical, Spe salvi, our emeritus Pope, Benedict, tackles one of the more challenging passages of this evening's reading from Hebrews. That passages reads: “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” Benedict explains that this sentence has been the focus of theological controversies for centuries b/c one of its key terms is almost impossible to translate and interpret. In order to explain the sentence he leaves that Greek term untranslated: “Faith is the hypostasis of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” The Church's early theologians choose to translate hypostasis with the Latin term substantia, thus giving us the more familiar English sentence, “Faith is the substance of what is hoped for. . .” But let's be honest: using “substance” doesn't really clear up the problem. So, Benedict continues, “. . .faith is a habitus, that is, a stable disposition of the spirit, through which eternal life takes root in us and reason is led to consent to what it does not see” (7). In order to see how this definition helps us clear up some of the confusion, we'll need to break it down. 

First, faith is a kind of habit. And a habit is a stable disposition of the spirit. What is a disposition? A disposition describes the nature of a thing. Fish are disposed to swim b/c they are fish. Birds flies. Humans think. Fire burns. Our nature—what we are fundamentally—determines (more or less) how we behave. But notice that this particular habit is a stable disposition of the spirit. Why didn't he say that faith is a habit of the soul? Faith is not a native habit of the human person. Faith is a gift, an additional habit given by God to His human children and shared through His spirit. So, I can't say, “My faith tells me that X and Y are true.” The best I can say is: “Our faith tells me that X and Y are true.” This means that it's possible that I'm wrong about what our faith says is true or false. Faith is not a personal possession, an individualized gift handcrafted just for me. As a disposition of the spirit, faith is lived and shared across the human race and is called in technical theological language an “infused virtue,” a good habit infused into us by God. We do not earn, beg, borrow, steal, buy, or barter faith. Faith cannot be increased, decreased, lost, or found. As a good habit, faith can be either exercised or ignored. We can exercise faith and see it become more and more part of who we are; or, we can ignore it and let it become a wasted gift. 

OK. Faith is an infused disposition given by God to the human person, all persons. Why? Why does God give us this gift? This is the second thing we need to notice: faith is given to us so that eternal life might take root in us. Yes, this implies exactly what you think it does: w/o the gift of faith, eternal life cannot take root in us. When we are infused with faith at conception, we are implanted with the seed of eternal life and then it is up to us—using all of God's freely given gifts—to either nurture that seed, or—refusing all of God's freely given gifts—let it go dormant. The take-away here is that God makes the first move in our journey back to Him. He plants the seed of eternal life in us by giving us faith. But what that part of the sentence from Hebrews that says faith is “evidence of things not seen”? Benedict writes that it is through faith that “reason is led to consent to what it does not see.” In other words, the gift of faith not only plants in us the seed of eternal life, it also allows us to assent to truths that reason cannot deduce from our senses. Think about how you trust a friend, a spouse, or a parent. Do you need empirical evidence to trust someone you truly love? If you do, then we might say that you don't actually trust them at all! We might even say that w/o trust, you don't actually love them. So that we might return to God, He makes it possible for us to love Him here and now by giving us the ability to trust Him even when our senses tell us that we are crazy for doing so. 

Speaking of being crazy for trusting God, let's take a look at Abraham and his encounter with God. Hebrews tells us that “by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called. . .By faith he received power. . .By faith Abraham offered up Isaac, his son. . .” Why did he obey the call, receive power, and offer up his son? Because “he thought that the one who had made the promise was trustworthy.” Abraham exercises the good habit of trusting in God's loving-care and the results speak for themselves. He receives from God an inheritance: though he was “himself as good as dead,” from him and his sterile wife, Sarah, came “descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky as countless as the sands on the seashore.” Because Abraham exercised the good habit of trusting in God's loving-care, he and his wife produced a holy family, a holy nation, a people dedicated to the love and service of the Lord. And some few thousand years later, we honor him still as “our father in faith.” Abraham believed and acted “by faith” and he received a bounty from the Lord. His faith was not measured in pounds or feet or volts. He didn't pray for “more faith,” or “extra trust.” He heard the Lord's call and he acted, knowing that his God would not fail him. 

Though your own faithful relationship with the Lord may not produce “descendants as numerous as the stars,” you are still poised to be the faithful servant who girds your loins and lights the lamps, waiting for your master’s return, “ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.” We could spend the rest of tonight, tomorrow, and all of next week dissecting the theology of faith and its implications for how we understand our relationship with God. However, in terms of real-life results nothing compares to the day-to-day exercise of trusting in God's love for you, trusting in his care for you, trusting completely that He has willed from all eternity that you spend your immortal life with Him, blessed and preserved as His child. I've spent so much time this evening teaching on the notion of faith so that we might go away from here with a better understanding of what it means to “have faith.” Not a pint of faith and hoping for more. Not seven out of ten degrees of faith and praying for eight. But understanding that we are always, already gifted with faith. God made the first move by giving it to us. We have it already. What we must do now is exercise it. Not as disconnected individuals given unique presents but as one Body blessed with a singular gift: the ability and need to serve the Gift Giver by serving one another. 

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Back in The Big Easy

Jusr got back to Nawlins' after 10 wonderful retreat day with the Dominican nuns at Mt Thabor Monastery. 

I have the 6pm Mass tonight at Our Lady of the Rosary, so if I we you an email, Facebook msg, or phone call. . .please, expect it tomorrow.

Thanks for your prayers!
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Be back Aug 11th

Headed to Michigan this morning to give a ten day retreat to the nuns of Mt Thabor Monastery.

Pray for them and for me, please!

See y'all on Aug 11th.

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On the Sharp Edge of Contemplation

Way back in 2005, I used Hans Urs von Balthasar's book, Prayer, in a graduate seminar on the theology of prayer.

I ran across this book this morning while looking for something else and opened it to notice that I'd marked it up with notes, etc.

One marked passage stood out, so I thought I'd share it with you:

If we fail to let the word's sharp edge have its effect on us, we shall always be meeting the merely imaginary Redeemer; if we fail to face the judgment of Christ every time we contemplate, we shall not perceive the distinctive quality of divine grace. The consuming fire of crucified Love is both redemption and judgment; the two are inseparable and indistinguishable (224-5).

I've never thought of divine love in terms of both redemption and judgment, but this makes perfect sense when you think about the nature of divine love: Love Himself.

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Francis and the Franciscans: deep breath, people!

It's not only the anti-Catholic bigots in the MSM that get the Church and her Pontiff wrong.

There's been a firestorm on the interwebs about yesterday's release of an order from the Vatican prohibiting the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate from celebrating the Extraordinary Form of the Mass (a.k.a. the Tridentine Mass).

Many in the Catholic blogsphere have freaked out b/c they see this as an assault on BXVI's motu propio, Summorum Pontificum, the 2007 document that gives priests the privilege of celebrating the older form under certain conditions. 

The order prohibiting the FFI's from celebrating the E.F. is specific to this congregation and has no effect outside the congregation. But many Traditionalists have blown gaskets over the order.

This morning, the FFI's released a statement about the order.  In part, it reads:

Pope Francis has also severely restricted our use of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, and this has been reported by a major italian journalist as a “contradiction” of Pope Benedict’s permission granted in the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum.  This is an unfortunate instance of an overeager journalist sensationalizing something he can only speculate about.

The restrictions on our community are specific to us and have been put in place for reasons specific to us.  Pope Francis has not contradicted Pope Benedict.  The visitation of our community began under Pope Benedict and the Commission was recommended by Cardinal João Braz de Aviz who was appointed to the Congregation by Pope Benedict.

The most impressive part of this statement, and the part that all Catholics need to study carefully and take to heart, reads:

Many of the comments in the blogosphere about Pope Francis concerning his decision in regard to our Institute are simply disgraceful, and “justified” by the most tenuous rationalizations.  He is the Vicar of Christ.  It is less than twenty-four hours since this hit the Internet and so many think they have got it all figured out.  I have also seen sheer fabrications about the situation in our Institute within some of these comments.  May God have mercy on us.  Thank God for all the holy popes we have had for the past fifty years, who all have had much to suffer.

NB. I will not publish any negative comments about the Holy Father. 

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Aquinas converts an abortionist

Wow. Just. . .wow.

A Serbian abortionist tells his pro-life conversion story:

In describing his conversion, Adasevic “dreamed about a beautiful field full of children and young people who were playing and laughing, from 4 to 24 years of age, but who ran away from him in fear. A man dressed in a black and white habit stared at him in silence.  The dream was repeated each night and he would wake up in a cold sweat. One night he asked the man in black and white who he was. ‘My name is Thomas Aquinas,’ the man in his dream responded. Adasevic, educated in communist schools, had never heard of the Dominican genius saint.  He didn’t recognize the name”

“Why don’t you ask me who these children are?” St. Thomas asked Adasevic in his dream.

“They are the ones you killed with your abortions,’ St. Thomas told him. 

Read the whole thing.
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"Men who are not ambitious, who are married to one church. . ."

In his address to the CELAM (South America's USCCB), the Holy Father addressed the role of the bishop in the missionary work of the Church:

Bishops must lead, which is not the same thing as being authoritarian. . .Bishops must be pastors, close to people, fathers and brothers, and gentle, patient and merciful. Men who love poverty, both interior poverty, as freedom before the Lord, and exterior poverty, as simplicity and austerity of life. Men who do not think and behave like “princes”. Men who are not ambitious, who are married to one church without having their eyes on another. Men capable of watching over the flock entrusted to them and protecting everything that keeps it together: guarding their people out of concern for the dangers which could threaten them, but above all instilling hope: so that light will shine in people’s hearts. Men capable of supporting with love and patience God’s dealings with his people. The Bishop has to be among his people in three ways: in front of them, pointing the way; among them, keeping them together and preventing them from being scattered; and behind them, ensuring that no one is left behind, but also, and primarily, so that the flock itself can sniff out new paths.

I am hopeful that this Pope will push to end careerism, ladder-climbing, and other forms of Miteritis. The politics involved in climbing the ecclesial ladder encourage secrets-keeping, trading favors, back-stabbing, and other worldly tactics that destroy trust in the Church. Too many priests tread to a lukewarm, squishy path in order not to draw the Wrong Kind of Attention to themselves so that their ambitions for the Miter aren't diminished. We need faithful teachers at the cathedral not CEO's and politicians.

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Francis: parodies of missionary discipleship

Before heading back to Rome after a wildly successful WYD, the Holy Father met with the bishops of the CELAM (the South American equivalent of the USCCB).

In his address, the Holy Father commented on the CELAM's Aparecida Document issued in 2007.

Taking up the theme of "Temptations against missionary discipleship," Pope Francis outlined several contemporary obstacles to preaching the Good News:

[. . .]

I will mention only a few attitudes which are evidence of a Church which is “tempted”. It has to do with recognizing certain contemporary proposals which can parody the process of missionary discipleship and hold back, even bring to a halt, the process of Pastoral Conversion.

1. Making the Gospel message an ideology.

An example: Aparecida, at one particular moment, felt this temptation. It employed, and rightly so, the method of “see, judge and act” (cf. No. 19). The temptation, though, was to opt for a way of “seeing” which was completely “antiseptic”, detached and unengaged, which is impossible. . .  The question was, rather: How are we going to look at reality in order to see it? Aparecida replied: With the eyes of discipleship.

     a) Sociological reductionism. This is the most readily available means of making the message an ideology. . .It involves an interpretative claim based on a hermeneutics drawn from the social sciences. It extends to the most varied fields, from market liberalism to Marxist categorization. [This critique hits everyone from Neo-Cons to America Magazine]

     b) Psychologizing. Here we have to do with an elitist hermeneutics which ultimately reduces the “encounter with Jesus Christ” and its development to a process of growing self- awareness. It is ordinarily to be found in spirituality courses, spiritual retreats, etc. It ends up being an immanent, self-centred approach. It has nothing to do with transcendence and consequently, with missionary spirit. [This hits LCWR-types, various New Age perversions, extreme social-justice advocates]

     c) The Gnostic solution. Closely linked to the previous temptation, it is ordinarily found in elite groups offering a higher spirituality, generally disembodied, which ends up in a preoccupation with certain pastoral “quaestiones disputatae”. . .Generally its adherents are known as “enlightened Catholics” (since they are in fact rooted in the culture of the Enlightenment).  [Another hit for LCWR-types, elitist academic theologians, those preoccupied with continental-style philosophical theology, Roger Haight's Christology comes to mind]

     d) The Pelagian solution. This basically appears as a form of restorationism. In dealing with the Church’s problems, a purely disciplinary solution is sought, through the restoration of outdated manners and forms which, even on the cultural level, are no longer meaningful. In Latin America it is usually to be found in small groups, in some new religious congregations, in tendencies to doctrinal or disciplinary “safety”. Basically it is static, although it is capable of inversion, in a process of regression. It seeks to “recover” the lost past. [Obviously, a hit at Traditionalists, certain Neo-Con tendencies, those preoccupied with Form over Substance, "law & order" Catholics]

2. Functionalism. 

Its effect on the Church is paralyzing. More than being interested in the road itself, it is concerned with fixing holes in the road. A functionalist approach has no room for mystery; it aims at efficiency. It reduces the reality of the Church to the structure of an NGO. What counts are quantifiable results and statistics. The Church ends up being run like any other business organization. It applies a sort of “theology of prosperity” to the organization of pastoral work. [This is pretty much a hit against most of the Spirit of Vatican Two interpretation of the Council. Think: bare modernist liturgy, stripped altars/churches, a focus on organizational problems/solutions, the bishop as CEO, the priesthood as a job, diocesan bureaucracy, commissions/committees/study groups, process-process-process, and my favorite functionalist bit of nonsense: referring to diocesan clergy as "personnel"]

3. Clericalism 

. . .is also a temptation very present in Latin America. Curiously, in the majority of cases, it has to do with a sinful complicity: the priest clericalizes the lay person and the lay person kindly asks to be clericalized, because deep down it is easier. The phenomenon of clericalism explains, in great part, the lack of maturity and Christian freedom in a good part of the Latin American laity. [Notice that his critique hits at the modernist version of clericalism not the pre-modernist version (Fr. Mack the tyrannical pastor of St. Bubba's). Clericalism, in its modernist version, relieves the laity of its specific baptismal responsibilities by granting it clerical status; thus, leaving lay folks to believe that only by being clericalized can they be truly Catholic. In this section the Holy Father also commends popular piety, another victim of functionalism and modernist attempts to eliminate transcendental elements from the faith]

[. . .]

Read the whole thing.

This talk effectively puts to an end any talk of the Holy Father being an advocate of Liberation Theology. He embraces certain elements of that approach (base communities, focus on the poor) but absolutely rejects its Marxist analytical tools, esp its reliance on the fiction of historical materialism.  It also puts Traditionalist elements of the Church on notice that mere "restorationism" is not a viable means in pursuing our missionary work. 

There's something in this talk to offend/energize just about everyone. This Pope is quite the dynamo!

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Lord, teach us to pray!

17th Sunday OT 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA 

John the Baptist teaches his disciples how to pray. The Pharisees and the Sadducees know how to pray. The Zealots and the scribes can pray. Even the Roman occupiers—with their home altars and idols—know how to pray. Why don't the disciples of Christ know how to ask God for what they need? How could they spend so much time with Christ and not understand the basic rules and methods of prayer? Well, part of the reason could be that every time he needs to pray, Jesus runs off to the hills or the desert, or gets in a boat and flees the crowds. He needs some space, some time alone to properly pray. It could be that pretty much all he does with the disciples is teach, preach, and heal. Or it could be that he is teaching them to pray all along and they don't recognize the lessons for what they are. Regardless, they wanted to learn to pray, so they ask a Master for instruction. What does Jesus teach them? He teaches them that prayer is first about knowing who and what you are in relationship with God. And that knowing and understanding this relationship to God brings exactly what you need. 

So, who are we in relationship with God? “Man is a beggar before God.” So says St. Augustine. And he's right. But being a beggar before God and knowing that we're beggars before God are two very different things. What separates the truth from our ignorance is the sin of pride, more specifically, the lack of humility before God and His gifts. We are beggars but we don't know how to beg well b/c we do not yet fully understand what we truly need to thrive as children of God. To learn what we truly need, we must embrace a life of discipleship, the life of a student and learn to beg at the feet of a Master. The disciples—Jesus' students—realize this, so they ask, “Lord, teach us to pray.” And he gives them The Lord's Prayer. He gives them not only the words to pray but shows them the proper attitude of prayer: humility, not demeaning groveling or sniveling toadyism but the truly, deeply held understanding of their creaturely nature. Like all created things, we are wholly dependent on God for our being, for our very existence. Absent this basic understanding of our nature, we cannot properly ask God for anything useful, for anything at all helpful to our flourishing. Humility, then, is the foundation of prayer. 

Recognizing our total dependence on God for absolutely everything, we can begin our lessons in how to beg. First, asking God for what we need is not the be-all and end-all of prayer. St. Thérèse of Lisieux writes in her autobiography, “For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.” This surge of the heart might be humility rolling out in force; or it might be delight in love, or anguish during trial. What does she recognize while praying? Does she see her end, her purpose? Does she see-again Christ's love for her on his cross? Maybe she is reminded that she is a creature, a made-thing who has been remade in her freedom from sin? Begging before God is fundamentally about knowing who and what we are before a thought or a word can form; before we can even name our need, we must know that Love draws us to beg; Love seduces us into prayer and teaches us to ask. That we must ask is itself a gift precisely b/c the need to ask pulls us into a tighter union with God. This is why Jesus teaches his students to begin their prayer, “Our Father. . .” Our source. Our beginning. Our origin. Think about it: You cannot ask for directions if you do not know where you are going. And you cannot ask for directions unless you know how to speak to the One Who knows the way. 

Abraham learns to speak to God, and finds his way. In what may look like a flea market negotiation, Abraham and God haggle over the fate of Sodom-Gomorrah. Back and forth they propose and counter-propose the acceptable number of righteous citizens allowable to save the city from destruction. God finally settles on the not destroying the city if Abraham can find ten righteous souls. The lesson seems to be: God is reasonable with our demands if we are properly respectable but persistent, even if we're trying to save a cesspool like Sodom. Wrong. This story has little to do with sinful Sodom and more to do with Abraham learning the true nature of the God he serves. With each step in the negotiation with God, Abraham learns that the Lord hears, listens, and concedes not b/c Abraham is persistent or respectable or desperately needful but b/c God is merciful. How is his mercy made real in the world? At the request of His faithful servants! God wills that we ask for what we need so that His mercy and generosity can be made manifest, so that His mighty works can be seen and bear witness to His saving love. But in order for that to happen, we must ask for, receive, and then make known the blessings He pours out for us. 

So, the first lesson about prayer is that we must know and understand who and what we are in relationship with God: dependent creatures. The second lesson is that prayer—undertaken with all humility in recognition of our creatureliness—releases the already given blessings of God for us to receive. The third lesson is that receiving God's blessings always and immediately merits copious thanksgiving. Gratitude is the essential ingredient in humility. Try making a roux without flour. Gumbo without filé. Try celebrating Madri Gras without beads or beer. Won't work. Humility without genuine gratitude is simply a less obnoxious form of pride. When we receive a blessing from God, our gratitude, our expressed gratitude, deepens and strengthens our bond to God and purifies our humility. If humility is the foundation of prayer, then giving thanks for the blessings we receive reinforces the ground upon which we stand to pray. We come to know ourselves more fully. We come to see and hear God more clearly. And the bonds of divine love that we share among ourselves grow stronger even as our selfishness and pride wither away. 

Jesus makes a significant promise to his disciples regarding prayer. He says, “And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find. . .For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds. . .” The keys to understanding this promise are selflessness, service, humility. He's not promising us that God will be our celestial Santa Claus, or our divine Sugar Daddy. Ask in humility and you will receive in love. Seek in service to others and you will find merit in sacrifice. Before you give voice to prayer, remember who and what you are in relationship with God. Remember that what you are given reveals God's nature to you and to the world. And never forget that God Himself has no need of our thanks or praise. Giving thanks to Him for His gifts is for our benefit not His. He calls us to prayer so that we might grow in holiness, grow closer to His love, and become beacons of that love for a darkening world. Without His prompting, without the good work of His Holy Spirit, we cannot pray. So know that every urge to pray, the very need to pray is the Holy Spirit working His loving work within you. We can nothing good without Him. With Him, every door falls open.

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Pope to Youth: do not dilute your faith in Christ!

An excerpt from the official English translation of Pope Francis' extemporaneous remarks at WYD in Rio:

Faith in Jesus Christ is not a joke, it is something very serious. It is a scandal that God came to be one of us. It is a scandal that he died on a cross. It is a scandal: the scandal of the Cross. The Cross continues to provoke scandal. But it is the one sure path, the path of the Cross, the path of Jesus, the path of the Incarnation of Jesus. Please do not water down your faith in Jesus Christ. We dilute fruit drinks – orange, apple, or banana juice, but please do not drink a diluted form of faith. Faith is whole and entire, not something that you water down. It is faith in Jesus. It is faith in the Son of God made man, who loved me and who died for me. So then: make yourselves heard; take care of the two ends of the population: the elderly and the young; do not allow yourselves to be excluded and do not allow the elderly to be excluded. Secondly: do not “water down” your faith in Jesus Christ.

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For those who say abstract painting isn't religious. . .

God is an abstract painter!

 

God's own nebulae!
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