Woe to the spiritually complacent!

26th Sunday OT 

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 

Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA 

Pursue righteousness. Fight hard for the faith. Lay hold of eternal life. Paul lays bare for his student, Timothy, the path of perfection, the way through to Christ, and writes to him, “I charge you before God. . .to keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ. . .” Do this and you will keep the commandment until he returns. The prophet Amos shows us the way of those who chase after the world, move along with the world, and follow strange gods: “Woe to the complacent. . .Lying upon beds of ivory, stretched comfortably on their couches. . .They drink wine from bowls. . .Therefore, they shall be the first to go into exile, and their wanton revelry shall be done away with.” Amos is chastising those who waste their time with material luxury, but we can easily see time—and lives—wasted in wanton spiritual revelry as well. Woe to the spiritually complacent. . .for they live in exile already. 

God's prophets were never ones to mince words or shy away from preaching tough love. Amos' “woe to the complacent” is the Third Woe of his three woe prophecy against God's people. The First Woe (or curse) is a curse against the unjust: “Woe to those who turn justice into wormwood and cast righteousness to the ground.” The Second Woe is a curse against those who long for the Lord's day of judgment: “Woe to those who yearn for the day of the Lord! What will the day of the Lord mean for you? It will be darkness, not light!” This Second Woe is directed against those who believe themselves to be righteous but are in fact only self-righteous. They yearn for the Lord's judgment against those they see as sinners but fail to see their own sin and the dark judgment they bring upon themselves. Injustice against the poor and self-righteousness in judgment arise out of spiritual complacency, what Amos might call “wanton revelry” and what we usually experience as religious pride. Our relationship with God is established at His initiative, governed by His will, and directed toward His purpose. Religious pride tempts us to believe that we control our spiritual lives; that we are in charge of how and when we will see and hear the Lord. Such pride is born of complacency, a self-serving self-satisfaction. 

Spiritual complacency can take on many forms. For example, when we pick and choose from among God's truths those that we find pleasing and reject those that we find inconvenient, we lend aid and comfort to the enemy. It's just easier to pick those divine truths that make our lives in this world less turbulent. We can coast for a while but eventually our accommodating niceness to the world isn't going to be enough. We hear louder, more strident demands for concessions; louder, more strident cries that we renounce even those truths that once pleased the world. Before long—just to get along, just to survive—we find ourselves immersed in wanton revelry, a pride-soaked spiritual binge that destines us for exile. How does this happen? Besides all of the smaller truths we surrender, we give up the larger truths as well, and the foundational truth—that our relationship with God is in His hands—even that truth falls. And our exile is complete. How do we avoid spiritual exile? Pursue devotion, not popularity; faith, not security; love, not vengeance; patience, not passion; gentleness, not severity. Pursue Christ, not the world! Chase after holiness, not hypocrisy. Walk with the Church. And in all things, follow him. 

Luke gives us a vivid illustration of what happens when we pick and choose from among God's truths, when we surrender the whole truth of what He has to teach us for the smaller satisfaction of believing we are in control. The rich man is richly blessed by God. Such blessings require a special dedication to charity and justice for the poor. The man celebrates his blessings in wanton revelry but ignores his obligations to charity and justice; specifically, he ignores Lazarus, a diseased beggar, and ends up in everlasting torment after he dies. The rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus down with just a drop of water to cool his burning tongue. When Abraham denies this plea, the rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his five brothers about the reality of hell. Abraham's replies: “They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.” If the rich man's five brothers have Moses and the prophets to teach them righteousness, how much better then are we taught when we have Christ, his Church, his Blessed Mother, and the saints to show us the Way? If any one of us should choose to exclude ourselves eternally from the company of God and His blessed, we cannot claim that we didn't know the Way to heaven. At most, we can say that when we picked the truths we wanted to believe, we picked the wrong ones. 

Now, if all of this sounds a bit depressing, it should. We are not only encouraged by our culture to be spiritually complacent, we are rewarded for it by the powers of this world. If that's not enough to frighten us into repentance, then maybe the story of the rich man will. If that's not enough, then all we have left is our gifted desire to seek out and find our perfection in God through Christ. In an interview last week, Pope Francis said, “The most important thing [for the Church] is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you.” The fullness of God's truth, the Everything of His plan and will for us, the All of His method and purpose in our lives is given flesh and bone in Christ Jesus. We offer on that altar this evening the whole body and blood of Christ in thanksgiving. Not just his thumbs or his ears. Not just precious memories or a version of his teachings. We offer him, whole and entire. Not parts and pieces. Not symbols. But Christ. The one truth of God that cannot be divided, cannot be picked over and carefully parsed for our convenience. His Passion, death, and resurrection brought to life in us a seed planted at creation: the obtainable desire to live forever with our Creator. 

And this is where the Universal Church finds herself in the year of our Lord, 2013: always tempted; frequently challenged; persecuted at times and pressed on every side; offered compromises, negotiations, and treaties. Disparaged and demeaned, we respond with our best efforts, and our greatest weapon: our steadfast obedience to the first commandment—love. Not some fluffy-cute-little-kitty-mushiness but Divine Love! As far as we are capable, we love our enemies as God loves us. . .and our enemies. We love despite opposition, oppression, and persecution. Paul writes to Timothy, “. . .pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness. Compete well for the faith.” We can none of these if we spend our days in wanton revelry, in spiritual complacency, picking which of God's truths we will believe and which ones we will discard. We accept Christ—the whole Christ—and follow him, or we do not. He died to save us from the darkness of the world. The world has its own plans for us. But we can love it, even as we leave it behind. 

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I resent beggars. . .

Here's a homily from 2010 preached at Blackfriars, Oxford U.  

26th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Blackfriars, Oxford

I resent beggars.* I avoid them when possible and ignore them when they can't be avoided. When they can be neither avoided nor ignored, I simply refuse them. Since I live in Rome most of the year, avoiding, ignoring, and refusing the Eternal City's legions of panhandlers has become something of an art for me. It is almost possible for me to make my way to and from the priory without feeling as though I have damned myself eternally. Almost. Living in the mid-town district of Houston, TX helped to train me for the running the begging gauntlet of Rome. Daily, nightly, all through the day everyday, the doorbell of the priory would ring. My wife and kids are up on the highway in our broken down car. I need $7.82 to buy a bottle of oil. I am stranded on the interstate and need just $5 to buy some fuel to get me home. Same story, different dollar amounts. Day in, day out. Once, just once, an honest beggar said to me, “I'm losing my buzz. Need a few bucks to buy some beer!” Without fail, I refused to give them cash. Most of the time, they accepted my offer of food and water. I don't resent beggars b/c they interrupt my work or cause me a bit of trouble in the kitchen. I resent them b/c they remind me just how far I am from attaining the holiness that brings the peace of Christ, just how much more there is for me to work on, to perfect, in order to achieve the necessary detachment from fleeting things. Like Lazarus outside the rich man's door, these beggars are a sign, a memento of impermanence—no less worthy of God's bounty than the rich man in his fine garments or a friar in his only habit. In this world, we too are impermanent, a vanity made to die. How should we live knowing this truth?

The story of Lazarus and the Rich Man is not a story about the blessedness of destitution and the evils of wealth. Billionaires can be saints and beggars can be sinners. Jesus makes it clear that holiness is more readily achieved in poverty b/c a beggar's heart and mind are not focused on earthly treasure. However, a billionaire who shares her wealth in love for the sake of Christ does holy work. Beggars and billionaires both can lie, cheat, and steal. And both are perfectly capable of great charity and mercy. We could say that the question here is not what does one have or have not but rather what does one do with one's wealth or poverty. But these miss the point as well. Maybe the question is one of attachment. Is wealth or its absence the whole focus of your life, the defining quality of your existence? Closer but still not quite right. What if the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man is a story about how you choose to love, that is, how you choose to manifest love in the world? By what means—tangible, palpable, really-real—what ways do I, do you leave evidence of God's love behind? Giving a beggar in the Corn Market a pound or two may assuage my guilt, but have I loved? Organizing meetings on the causes of poverty, protesting corporate greed, and calling for the redistribution of society's wealth, all of these might edge me closer to a feeling of “getting things done,” but am I doing any of these for love, for God's love?

Let's ask an existential question: whether you are 16 or 60, who do you hope to become? Since you are here this morning, we can wager that you hope to become Christ! That's what you have vowed to strive for, promised to work toward. You died and rose with him in baptism, and you eat his body and drink his blood in this Eucharist. If you are not intent on becoming Christ, then you have come to the wrong place. Why? By participation in the divine, we become divine—perfected creatures made ready to see our Creator face-to-face. Let's break that down a bit. If God is love (and He is), and we live and move and have our being in God (and we do), then it follows that we persistently exist in divine love. Whether we like it or not, whether we admit it or not, we live and move and have our being in the creating and re-creating love of God. If we are to become Christ—fully human, fully divine—, we must participate wholly, fully. . .heart, mind, body, strength, intention, motivation, completely and without reservation, holding nothing of ourselves back, and shedding everything that prevents the light of Christ from shining through us: false charity, self-righteous indignation, token works of mercy, vicarious poverty, the delusions of worldly justice. Becoming Christ is always and only about becoming Christ for others and doing so for no other reason than to be a witness to the love that God is for us. To become Christ for any other reason is to become the Rich Man who steps over Lazarus on his way to yet another sumptuous feast.

Earlier on, I asked, how should we live knowing that we are impermanent beings? We can take the Rich Man as our anti-example. Why does he find himself in Sheol? Not because he's rich. But because he failed, repeatedly failed, to love. Like us, the Rich Man lived and moved and had his being in Love Himself. He was gifted, freely given, all that he had and all that he was. While living and moving and being on earth, he refused to allow the light of God's love to shine through his words and deeds. Lazarus was for him a sign, a memento of impermanence, a story about the vanity of all the things he held dear. But he refused to see the signs, refused to read Lazarus' story, and God honored his choice to reject His divine love by allowing him to abide forever outside that love. Sheol, or hell is by definition, one's “self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed...” God does not send us to hell, we send ourselves. Just as the Rich Man places a limit on his love, so God honors that limit after death. The chasm that separates the Rich Man from Lazarus after death is precisely as wide and deep as the chasm the Rich Man placed between the freely given love of God and the beggar, Lazarus. Failing to participate in divine love while alive, the Rich Man chooses to deprive himself of that love after death. And so, he finds himself in Sheol begging the beggar for just one drop of water. 

Our Lord commands us to love one another and to go out and proclaim his love for the world. He does not charge us with ending hunger or fighting poverty or ending war. Our goal as followers of Christ on the Way is not is turn Lazarus the Beggar into Lazarus the Respectable Middle-class Worker. When we heed our Lord's command to love, feeding the hungry and standing up for justice come naturally; these arise as works uniquely suited to the witness we have to offer. What could be more just, more perfectly humane than helping another to see and enjoy the image of God that he or she really is! Poverty, hunger, war, all work diligently to obscure the image of God placed in every person. But they are all just effects of a larger and deeper evil: the stubborn, cold-hearted refusal to manifest the divine love that created us and re-creates us in the image of Christ, a refusal that God Himself will honor at our death. 

How should we live? As if we were Christ himself among the poorest of the poor, enthusiastically loving because we ourselves are so loved.

*When I preached this homily, the irony of this opening sentence struck me.  As a Dominican friar, I am a beggar!

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Generous Souls

Multitudinous Mendicant Thanks to the kind souls who sent me:

Pieper's Enthusiasm & Divine Madness  

Craddock's On the Craft of Preaching

BXVI's The Transforming Power of Faith

Also, just today someone bought two books of poetry from the Wish List!

I never cease to be grateful for and humbled by the generosity of the Catholic faithful.
________________
 
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Religious Life: nobody buying what you're selling?

Want vocations? Here's your plan. . .

Under the heading, "Best Practices in Vocation Ministry," we find this eye-opening paragraph:

Although these practices can have a positive impact on attracting and retaining new members, the research suggests that it is the example of members and the characteristics of the institute that have the most influence on the decision to enter a particular institute. The most successful institutes in terms of attracting and retaining new members at this time are those that follow a more traditional style of religious life in which members live together in community and participate in daily Eucharist, pray the Divine Office, and engage in devotional practices together. They also wear a religious habit, work together in common apostolates, and are explicit about their fidelity to the Church and the teachings of the Magisterium. All of these characteristics are especially attractive to the young people who are entering religious life today.

Allow me to break these characteristics out for easy digestion. . .

What attracts young vocations to religious life in 2013:

--the example of members [of the institute]

--the characteristics of the institute 

--a more traditional style of religious life

--members live together in community

--participate in daily Eucharist, pray the Divine Office

--engage in devotional practices together   

--wear a religious habit

--work together in common apostolates

--explicit about their fidelity to the Church and the Magisterium 

We can easily derive from the list what young vocations are NOT attracted to:

--angry, bitter, rebellious religious

--religious life circa 1983

--"lone wolf" religious living by themselves

--institutes where Mass and daily office are avoided, mocked, or suppressed

--where devotional practices are dismissed as "so pre-Vatican Two"

--religious who dress to "blend in," i.e. hide

--"do their own thing" in ministry

--institutes whose members are explicit in their dissent from the Magisterium. 

Given all of this, I would add that religious institutes/provinces/congregations that refuse to admit vocations who long for a more traditional religious life, or actively persecute tradition-minded vocations they've already professed, do so b/c they fear the changes these young vocations will eventually bring their preferred way of life. 

IOW, the grand rhetoric of Vatican Two tolerance, diversity, and openness crashes on the sharp shoals of progressive ideology and the rhetoric is exposed as a lie.

We either believe what we preach about being open to the movement of the Holy Spirit, or we do not.

To put all of this in crass commercial terms: religious life today is a buyers' market. If no one is buying your product, you need to seriously consider radically changing what you're selling.

The alternative is a slow but inevitable corporate suicide. 

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25 Contemporary Writers of Faith

Excellent List To Consider:

The Image Top 25 Contemporary Writers of Faith

The project of rebuilding/preserving Christian culture will require the generous assistance of Catholic writers. . .and the generous support of Catholic readers!

Good Letters of the blog-journal of IMAGE, a Christian literary publication.

Check it out.

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Francis sounds a lot like Benedict!

For those freaking out about Pope Francis' interview:

Does the following sound like one of the more hotly discussed sections in the America interview with Pope Francis? 

We should not allow our faith to be drained by too many discussions of multiple, minor details, but rather, should always keep our eyes in the first place on the greatness of Christianity.

I remember, when I used go to Germany in the 1980s and '90s, that I was asked to give interviews and I always knew the questions in advance. They concerned the ordination of women, contraception, abortion and other such constantly recurring problems.

If we let ourselves be drawn into these discussions, the Church is then identified with certain commandments or prohibitions; we give the impression that we are moralists with a few somewhat antiquated convictions, and not even a hint of the true greatness of the faith appears. I therefore consider it essential always to highlight the greatness of our faith - a commitment from which we must not allow such situations to divert us.

In this perspective I would now like to continue by completing last Tuesday's reflections and to stress once again: what matters above all is to tend one's personal relationship with God, with that God who revealed himself to us in Christ.

[. . .]

Read the whole thing.


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You become what you love

NB. I've been slowly. . .very slowly. . .getting sick since Wednesday. I think it's a low-grade flu or something similar. Maybe it's a wormy case of the Existential Dreads, who knows? Anyway, the Holy Spirit is having a hard time breaking through all of the snot and sneezing. . .so, here's a re-run from 2007 w/a few updates.

FYI: as posted below this one is too long for a standard parish homily, so I will delete the fourth paragraph when preaching it this evening. 

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

What will I be when I grow up? What will you be? Most of you here are still young enough to be asking that question with all seriousness. Some of us here ask the question with a little more humor and some sense of having failed to figure this out before now. For a 49 year old to ask, “What will I be when I grow up?” is a bit sad, a bit funny, and, I will argue, a perfectly reasonable question to ask, if that 49 year old is a Christian with a burning desire to be pleasing to God!

Here’s a basic spiritual principle that you can apply to your living out the faith day-to-day: I am now and will become that which I love most. So, one way to figure out what you want to be when you grow up is to figure out who or what it is that you love most. The underlying theological truth here is that since God holds us in being and since God is love, then it is love that holds us in being and love that defines our existence fundamentally. How we choose to participate in the love that is God is a decision about how we will shape, express, and nurture love for God, self, and others. In other words, what or who you choose to love most now is who or what you will become…eventually. Love God most, become God. Love money most, become money. Love sex most, become sex. Though this may sound appealing at first glance, please keep in mind: vanity, vanity, all is vanity…except Truth, Goodness, and Beauty—that is, God. So, whatever/whoever you choose to love and eventually become, make sure that that What or Who is permanent, everlasting, eternal b/c choosing anything less is the first choice you will make for your inevitable annihilation. Just ask yourself: do I want to become something or someone that will or who will die, rot, and never rise again?

Before moving to the gospel, let’s make a quick stop in the Psalms to shore up this basic teaching about superlative love and our existential future. Psalm 115 starts with a question from the enemies of God and ends with a profound insight into human nature: “Why should the nations say, ‘Where is their God?’/Our God is in heaven; whatever God wills is done./Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands./They have mouths but do not speak, eyes but do not see./They have ears but do not hear, noses but do not smell./They have hands but do not feel, feet but do not walk, and no sound rises from their throats./Their makers shall be like them, all who trust in them.” The idols have all of the features we have as humans (eyes, ears, noses), but they do not have life. They have no souls, no spirit; they are dead matter and without love. As the psalmist makes clear: if you love these idols, these lifeless statues, then you too become lifeless, without a soul, unable to love—the makers of idols, all who trust in the idols, will become their idols, their gods. Our God is in heaven—permanent, eternal, loving, and merciful—and so our destination, if we love God most, is a permanent, eternal, loving, and merciful life in heaven.

OMIT: [From psalmist to evangelist—St. Luke, specifically. In this gospel, Jesus says to his disciples: “No servant can serve two masters…You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” The standard read on this teaching, and the standard homily derived from it, focuses on not becoming too attached to material goods—Mammon being the pagan god of wealth and all. A perfectly good approach. However, I want to bring in the prophet Amos and then go in another direction. Amos warns: “Hear this! you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land!” Who is he shouting at? Amos is shouting at those who will, after the festivals of the New Moon, begin to cheat the poor of the little that they have by rigging their scales and selling the refuse of the wheat. To them the Lord through Amos says, “…by the pride of Jacob: Never will I forget a thing [you] have done!” And just to emphasize this warning to those who would cheat the poor, the Church places Psalm 113 right next to this reading. Our response to this psalm: “Praise the Lord, who lifts up the poor!”]

Let me ask you again: what do you want to be when you grow up? Listen again to what the psalmist sings this evening: “The Lord raises up the lowly from the dust; from the dunghill he lifts up the poor/to seat them with princes, with the princes of his own people./Praise the Lord, who lifts up the poor!” Now, by show of hands: who here wants to grow up to be among the poor? Exactly! It’s not the first choice of many. But it will be the last choice of those who remain. How can I say such a thing? “No servant can serve two masters…You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” Who will be the Master of your life? In more contemporary terms: who will you choose to be your Teacher? Will you choose to love most Wealth and take your lessons, get your education from earthly treasure? Or will you choose God to love most and take your most basic education from the One Who made you and loves you most? I doubt anyone here is going to shout, “Oh! I choose Mammon!” But do you choose Mammon in quieter, more subtle ways?

Let’s see. Who is Mammon? Yes, “who.” Mammon is a “who,” a noun; he is a demon, in fact, mentioned by St. Thomas Aquinas: "Mammon being carried up from Hell by a wolf, coming to inflame the human heart with Greed.” Milton says that Mammon is a fallen angel, a devil, who lusts after treasure. Avarice, then, is the cardinal vice that Mammon tempts us to. Greed is the spirit we invite in when we love wealth more than God. How do we do this—love wealth more than God—on a daily basis? The standard answer is that we are students of Mammon when we become inordinately attached to material goods. That’s true. But can we be students of Mammon if we consistently choose not to be “among the poor,” that is, if we make daily decisions that leave us outside poverty, outside the community of those who are routinely denied what is owed them in virtue of their status as children of the Father? Aquinas is clear on this. Generosity is a matter of justice, the virtue of giving others what is theirs by right. In our liberal democracies, we see this as a “violation of human rights.” In the Church, we must see this injustice as a violation of human dignity, violence done to the image and likeness of God in which we are all created. Simply put: to violate one’s own dignity as a person, or to violate the dignity of another as a person is a demonic act, an act of greed, violence done in the name of the demon, Mammon.

Lets’ go back to our basic spiritual principle: I am now and will become that which I love most. Given everything said here tonight: what do you want to be when you grow up? Are you ready right now to pray to God to put you among the poor? How ridiculous, Father! We can’t get any poorer! Ah, but you see: that’s just a delirium brought on by all those Ramen noodles you’re been eating. You can be poorer. Much poorer. You could empty yourself entirely for another. You could give your life for a friend. You could die on a cross for your worst enemy. You could be starved to death in the Sudan. You could be tortured in Iraq or burned alive in Burma or thrown in prison in England or shot in the back of the head by the PLA in China. You die when your church is blown up in Egypt. And why? Because you profess Christ as Lord. You can have nothing but Christ and die for that alone. That is poverty. What do you love most? That for which you are willing to die.

 

One more time: who do you love most? Love Love Himself and become Love for others—emptying yourself on the cross you have been given, using the gifts with which you have been graced. Anything, anyone less than this is to squander your inheritance as a child of God; you trash that which makes you loveable, you spit on the image and likeness of God Himself; to love anything, anyone less than God Himself—to serve a Master smaller and weaker, to take your education from a Teacher who will not die for you, who did not die for you—is to choose a life of folly; it is the choice to live your life as an enormous fool. You cannot serve two Masters. Nor can you love two Masters. Nor can you grow up to be both of those Masters. You will grow up to be one or the other. Choose then to be counted among the poor, those who have nothing but Christ and will die for everything they have.

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OMG! BREAKING NEWS!!! The Pope is Catholic!!!!

In what can only be described as a Radical About Face, the Holy Father, Pope Francis, reverses his recent approval of abortion, announced only yesterday in a long interview with a Jesuit magazine, and proclaims -- in accord with 2,000 years of Catholic teaching -- that the direct killing of innocent life is morally evil. 

He says, "Every unborn child, though unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of the Lord, who even before his birth, and then as soon as he was born, experienced the rejection of the world." 

The Vatican P.R. team couldn't be reached for comment on this unprecedented development. Neither could the anti-Catholic bigots in the MSM who couldn't be bothered to spend two minutes googling the Catechism.

Film at eleven.

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Preaching Report

The third year seminarians in my homiletics class have been coming to my office this week  for tutorials on their baptism homilies.

Frankly, I'm impressed.  (But don't tell them that!)

My comments/suggestions are mostly about how to expand/elaborate on what they preached in class. IOW, not one of them has preached a Bad Homily. 

They've been energetic, authentic, orthodox, authoritative (but not authoritarian), pastoral, and interesting. 

We need to work some on presentation but other than that. . .excellence all around!

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Nothing New in Latest Papal Interview. . .

Once again, the media/Catholic Progs are all A-Gaga over the Wonderfulness of Pope Francis b/c he's saying Something New and Refreshing About the Apostolic Faith.

No, he's not. Again.

It's a great interview. Candid, personal, etc. 

But absolutely boring in terms of basic Church teaching. . .no innovations, no surprises, nothing at all that calls for the '68 Squad to break the tie-dye vestments and the peace bong.

Don't be fooled by the MSM/Catholic Progs who are desperately trying to co-opt the Holy Father for their agenda.

Here's a challenge:  find anything in the interview that contradicts the Catechism. One thing.

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Loving greatly

24^th Week OT (Th)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Notre Dame Seminary, NOLA 

Like a first-century Maury Povich or Jerry Springer, Luke sets the scene for an epic showdown between the Professional Religious Figure—proud of his social standing and secure in his holiness—and the, um, ahem, Professional Woman—humbled outcast, confident of nothing more than her sinfulness. Plopped down between them on stage: an itinerant preacher, healer, and rabbi who's been running around town hinting to the crowds that he's the Son of God. The fuse for this explosive mix of conflicting personalities and cultural norms is lit when the, um, Professional Woman cries on the preacher's feet and then dries them with her hair. The audience, cued up for outrage, gasps at the uncleanliness of the brazen act, and as the disgusted murmuring grows to a low mobbing growl, the audacious harlot dumps a jar of expensive perfumed oil on the preacher's feet! The audience goes wild, and the Religious Professional, offended but composed, raises an eyebrow, screws up his face, and clears his throat. The Preacher, his attention focused on the sinner at his feet, whispers to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then, a little louder, over the heads in the audience, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Her faith has saved her? What faith? When does the Harlot profess the faith? When does she confess her sins and express contrition? She doesn't even speak! All she does cry on Jesus' feet, wipe them off with her hair, and then rub some oil on them. Apparently, this is enough for Jesus to pronounce his forgiveness. Twice. BUT! This is exactly backwards. Note what Jesus says to the Religious Professional: “. . .her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love.” So, her sins are not forgiven b/c she has shown great love; rather, she shows great love b/c her sins are forgiven. It's her faith that saves her not her works. Her works express gratitude for her salvation and her great love for Christ. This scandalous public display of affection is best understood as testimony. The scandal of Jesus' ministry among the Jews is made manifest—given body and soul—in the scandalous gratitude of the Harlot. What is her witness? Faith forgives. Faith dares. Faith humbles and frees. So, while the Religious Professional waits for cleanliness to happen; Jesus does the cleaning. And great love flourishes.

But if great love so obviously flourishes, how does the Religious Professional misread a scene so carefully staged to teach him the rewards of faith? We might say that he is hopelessly trapped in the social conventions of his station; or, blinded by his religious ideology; or, even forever scarred by the “purity” of his moral legalism. Any one or all of these might explain his misreading. However, Jesus clearly indicates why he thinks that the R.P. fails to understand: he has no faith, no faith in Christ. And having no faith in Christ, he cannot greatly love. The Harlot's many sins are forgiveness b/c of her faith, therefore, she greatly loves. “But,” Jesus says to the R.P., “the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” Those deepest in debt rejoice loudest when their debt is canceled. And their gratitude is louder still. How much do you love? A little or a lot? If we are truly grateful to Christ for forgiving us our sins, then our love must always be great. Must always be greater than any sin we might commit and greater still than any sin that might be committed against us. Social conventions, religious ideologies, moral legalisms must not be allowed to render us illiterate when it comes to reading the signs of God's forgiveness, nor leave us paralyzed when it comes time to act in love. 

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Culture, Thomism, Preaching. . .THANKS!

Mendicant Thanks to Dr. A.O. for sending me Tracey Rowland's Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican Two. 

I highly recommend this book to seminarians, deacons, priests, bishops, even Popes! To anyone who's interested in a fresh take on the aftermath of Vatican Two.  Rowland's central claim is that the Council Fathers did not have a philosophically-theologically workable understanding of culture when they delved into their common Thomist tradition to write Gaudium et spes, thus leaving one of the key interpretative documents of the Council open to radically modernist readings. She attempts to provide the Church with a theology of culture within the Thomist tradition. . .though not a tradition that many of us are familiar with!

Also, my thanks to the kind and generous souls who sent me Preaching and the Literary Forms of the Bible AND The Sacred Conversation: The Art of Catholic Preaching and the New Evangelization.

My research library for next semester's advanced preaching seminar is coming along nicely!

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Lost, then found. . .

NB.  This is your basic Come To Jesus homily. No frills. . .

24th Sunday OT 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA 

Lost then found. Israel—not so soon out of the desert—is depraved; they turn away from God, inviting His wrath by worshiping an idol. Paul, a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an arrogant, ignorant unbeliever hunts down and arrests those Jews who dare to follow Christ. And the younger son of a rich man who takes his inheritance, parties it all away, and then returns to his father destitute and starving. Israel, Paul, the Younger Son—all lost, now found. When the Pharisees and scribes chastise Jesus for eating with sinners, he tells them a series of parables in which we hear the characters of the stories say: “Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep. Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin. Rejoice with me because my son was dead; once he was lost, and now he is found.” A nation, an apostle, a younger son. Or a mother, a daughter, a widow, a child, a city, or even the whole world. Doesn't matter who or what. No one will stay lost if they want to be found by God. Though we are free to walk away from God, He will never walk away from us. We can't be lost to Him b/c He is with us always. 

Israel, the people of Moses—freshly rescued from slavery in Egypt by God and miraculously delivered closer and closer to the Promised Land—take it upon themselves to craft a golden idol of God and offer it their worship. The Lord orders Moses, “Go down at once to your people. . .for they have become depraved.” God threatens to punish His people and relents only after Moses intervenes on their behalf. Though convicted of idolatry, God shows His people mercy. Paul, a zealous persecutor of the early Church, confesses his sins to Timothy, admitting that he acted against Christ's followers out of ignorance b/c of his unbelief. Yet, he makes his confession as an apostle, as one who has been “mercifully treated” and is “grateful to [Christ] who has strengthened” him. The Younger Son, having squandered his inheritance drinking, gambling, and carousing, finds himself during a famine working as a day laborer for a pig farmer. But like Israel and Paul, he too receives mercy when he returns to his father and asks for forgiveness. There is nothing we can do so terrible we cannot be found by God if we but ask. Of course, God never loses us; we, however, all too often lose God. 

Our readings this evening focus our attention on the joys of being found, the relief we feel at knowing—at last—that we are no longer lost. However, we're supposed to be scandalized as well, slightly shocked by the behavior of those who are lost. Scandalized by Israel's national idolatry. Scandalized by Paul's bloody persecution. Scandalized by the Younger Son's life of dissipation. But these seem like minor offenses when set beside the horrors we see everyday on CNN or read about in the NYT. It's one thing to read about Paul's conversion, or hear read the Younger Son's welcome home party. It's quite another to believe that those responsible for using chemical weapons against Syrian civilians can be shown mercy. It's quite another to believe that those who are butchering Coptic Christians in Egypt can be shown mercy. Or the greed and corruption that collapsed the economy in 2008; or, the darkened hearts that abort 1.7 million American children every year. Can these lost souls be found? You and I may find it difficult to accept, but, yes, they can be found. God has never left them. They turned from Him. 

If serial killers, genocidal maniacs, war-mongers, gang rapists, terrorists, mass murderers, and slavers can still turn to God for mercy and receive it, what worries should you and I have about being lost and found? I mean, what's the worst we do? Tell a few lies. Miss Sunday Mass. Watch an inappropriate movie. Our sins can't compare with some of what's going on out there. And that would be an important point to remember. . .if my holiness were somehow comparable to yours. Or if our holiness were comparable to terrorists or abortionists or rapists. Unfortunately, for me, my sins aren't made less damaging to me by the gravity of my neighbors' sins. Your sins aren't made less damaging to you by the gravity of my sins. Though it is absolutely true that our sins don't even come close to comparing to the truly evil things done in this world, our sins are ours. And our sins take us away from God. We are probably more like the Younger Son than we are like mass murdering terrorists, but the Younger Son ended up nearly starving to death while working for a pig farmer. Why didn't he starve? He remembered his father's loving care, swallowed his pride, returned home, and asked for forgiveness. And b/c he did all these things, his father gave him a new set of clothes, new shoes, a gold ring, and a big party. Though he'd forgotten his father while sinning his life away in a foreign country, his father never forgot him. 

Running through all of the readings this evening is the clarion call for us to return to God's ways and receive His mercy. What's keeping you lost, apart from God? Is it pride, anger, envy? Maybe lust? Is it a sexual sin: masturbation, adultery, porn? Is it hatred, vengeance, a stubborn refusal to be joyful? Have you stolen something? Gossiped, lied, cheated? Whatever it is that's keeping you from being with God, keeping you lost, apart from God, know this: His mercy is boundless. You can come home. You can stop wandering alone. You can put those sins aside by confessing them, and then rejoice that you have been found. Or, rather, rejoice b/c you have found God again. Moses' people, Paul, the Younger Son, they all believed in their sin that they were doing the right thing at the time. It took a prophet to shake Israel to its senses. Divine intervention on the road to Damascus to close then open Paul's eyes. And nearly dying from hunger set the Younger Son back toward home. We have their example to follow, so there's no good reason that any of us should require anything more than a simple reminder: God's mercy is infinite. And He wants us back where we belong. With Him, with Him always. 

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Gratitude Grounds Prayer

CCC 2559: "He who humbles himself will be exalted; humility is the foundation of prayer, only when we humbly acknowledge that 'we do not know how to pray as we ought,' are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. 'Man is a beggar before God.'"

If you've been reading this blog for more than a month or two; or, if you've come to me for confession; or, if you've asked me for spiritual direction; or, heard me preach; or, bumped into me at Popeye's Fried Chicken. . .then you know I have One Thing to Say About Prayer:  gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. 

Humility is the foundation of prayer.

Nothing builds humility like gratitude.

And nothing produces gratitude like the generosity of others.

Therefore, your generosity makes my humility possible. . .

Thus, making my prayers for you all the more efficacious!

Over the years (since 2005) HA readers have sent me books via the Wish List. Literally, hundreds of books.  For a while there in the early days of HA, I was receiving two or three books a day for weeks. 

This sort of mendicancy has caused a few raised eyebrows. A former prior (may he RIP) called me "Shameless!" He smiled when he said it. . .but I always got the feeling that he meant it just a little.  Others in the Order have called me out for seeking "personal donations." And still others have protested that begging for books is gauche. 

I've never wavered. Why? Several reasons: 1) I need the books; 2) My book budget is tiny compared to my need; 3) Offering opportunities for others to share in the preaching ministry is the Dominican Way; 4) Priory libraries tend to be small and dated; 5) more often than not I donate books I've used to priory libraries; 6) and the chance to be grateful for the generosity of God's People is too good to pass up!

SO. . .Thank You Thank You Thank You for your generosity, your kindness, your willingness to participate in the preaching ministry of this Dominican friar!

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Three umpires walk into a bar. . .

Three Major League Baseball umpires are sitting in a bar, having a drink.  They start discussing their philosophies of umpiring. . .

Ancient-Medieval Umpire:  "I call 'em as they are." (Realism)

Modern Umpire: "I call 'em as I see them." (Perspectivism)

Postmodern Umpire: "They ain't nothing 'til I call 'em." (Anti-realism)

Realism holds that there is a natural relationship between How Things Are and our ability to describe those things using language. (Aristotle/Aquinas)

Perspectivism holds that the relationship between How Things Are and our ability to use language to describe those things is primarily mental-ideational, that is, relative to the mind of the describer. (Kant)

Anti-realism holds that language only refers to itself, so any description we create is the reality we are describing. (Derrida)

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An Appreciation of Priests

Jeffrey Tucker offers an appreciation of priests. . .frankly, I get up every morning thanking God that He called me to this life, and I remain in awe of the generosity I've experienced from Catholics all over the world! 

J.T. points out that Catholics tend to expect their priests to be On Hand and Ready at a moment's notice to provide spiritual insight, pastoral care, and intelligent advice. Yup. That's exactly what we signed on to do.

If someone asked me to stand up and say something intelligent about the day’s readings, I would sweat it out and probably flop. Most people would. And yet we somehow assume that the talent to do this is built into the genetic code of a priest—and if he ever fails, he will certainly hear about it.

Not only that, everyone in the parish assumes that the priest should be there at every instant to serve us in every conceivable way—on our terms. Maybe we will be faithful or maybe not. Maybe we will lean on the priest only in hard times, or in big ceremonial occasions like weddings and baptisms but otherwise pay no attention whatsoever.

We are happy to lose interest in the Catholic faith for months, years, or decades. This is a luxury afforded to the laity. But we believe that when we are ready, the priest will be there with all the answers, with a forgiving heart, and welcoming arms. He will hear our confession, happily, and rejoice in our return. He will baptize our children, marry them later, and be there when our lives have fallen apart. We can lose the faith at will; he, on the other hand, must never waver, else we will be scandalized and cry hypocrisy.

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Excessive Mercy Overflows

St. John Chrysostom
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Notre Dame Seminary, NOLA

Paul confesses to Timothy that he persecuted the Church “out of ignorance.” He describes himself as a blasphemer, “an arrogant man.” He could've added: zealot, ideologue, and murderer. He could've called himself a scourge, a curse. And no follower of the Way who knew anything at all about the infamous Saul of Tarsus would've disputed him. But rather than lengthening this litany of sin, Paul turns instead to the one thing, that single thing that brought him out of his arrogance. He writes, “I acted out of ignorance in my unbelief. . .but I have been mercifully treated.” Despite the blood on my hands; despite my hatred and my zealous persecution of Christ's church, God showed me mercy. And, perhaps even more incredibly, my brothers and sisters in Christ showed me mercy. Though they still remember, they always forgive. The strength of our love and wisdom—given by God and received in faith—is measured by the swiftness of our mercy, the joy we experience in releasing another from the debt of sin. But how can I see my way to forgive you your debt if my own debt obscures my vision, clouds my judgment? Before passing judgment on your neighbor's debt, check your own balance and make you sure you've measured with charity. 

 

The gift of mercy we give one another is possible only b/c we are given mercy to spare; that is, the mercy we receive from God is given in excess, in abundance, out of His excellence, and it's this surplus-nature of divine mercy that moves us to mete it out with abandon. If we find ourselves unable or unwilling to freely grant mercy to a sinner, then it's likely we ourselves are being held hostage by sin. Jesus says, “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?” Why? Probably b/c my wooden beam is preventing me from accepting God's forgiveness. Unless I am willing to name my sin, confess it, offer contrition, and do penance, that beam will obscure my vision and cloud my judgment. Sin speaks to the heart of a sinner. So, my beam recognizes your splinter and neither my beam nor your splinter will free us to receive mercy. The only way out is to turn to Christ for some Sin Surgery! Afterward, you and I will share some post-op discomfort but mercy is divine medicine and the Church a skillful nurse. 

 

Look to Paul as our example. He regrets his former life as a bloody persecutor of the Church. He laments his past to Timothy, freely acknowledging his arrogance, his ignorance, his unbelief. But the point of his letter is not self-flagellation. Yes, he's confessing, but he's confessing with the full knowledge that his sins have been forgiven through the grace of Christ Jesus. Forgiven, not forgotten. So the point of his confession then is to bear witness to God's mercy. He is testifying to the power of mercy to heal the most traumatic wounds, to bring peace out of conflict, to grant wisdom when all we really want is payback. Look what mercy—God's love and the Church's—did for Paul. He is humbled. He is enlightened. He is strengthen for his mission. He finds the courage he needs to face his enemies on the road, and he is built up as a traveling tabernacle of God's presence. Not only is he freed from the burdens of his past, he is also perfected for the future Christ's has given him. None of these is even remotely possible w/o mercy. If we hope to grow in holiness, to grow in wisdom, the first step is receiving—freely receiving—the mercy God offers us through Christ. Then, we become diffusers of mercy, strengthening one another, and giving thanks to God.

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Astonishingly Stupid Media Reports

I was working on a longish post about yesterday's blaring headlines: 

CHURCH RECONSIDERS PRIESTLY CELIBACY! 

POPE SAYS BELIEF IN GOD NOT NECESSARY FOR SALVATION!

Both of these headlines and their accompanying articles are gross misreadings. In fact, if you wanted to study how the anti-Catholic bigots of the MSM choose to misrepresent the Church's teachings, you couldn't find better examples. 

Fortunately, Fr. Z. saved me the work of parsing these ridiculous excuses for journalism.

The Vatican's new Secretary of State said nothing new about the discipline of clerical celibacy.

The Holy Father did not say that belief in God was irrelevant to one's salvation. 

The inability/unwillingness of the MSM to get Church-stuff right is simply astonishing. 

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Catechism: can you pass the test?

Take the Catechism test! Below you will find a practice exam that I gave my pre-theology Catechism class. Catholics will often express ideas about the faith that are ambiguous; that is, they have a grip on some small part of the truth but let the whole truth fly away. This test challenges you to use the Tried and True Method of Thomas Aquinas to ferret out the ambiguities and clarify each statement. NB. these statements cover roughly paragraphs 1-141 of the CCC.

Can you pass the test?

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All of the statements below are ambiguous. As a theologian, your task is parse each statement in such a way that it unambiguously expresses a truth about the faith. Refer to the CCC for the appropriate language.

REMEMBER: never deny; rarely affirm; always distinguish!

1. God created man out of necessity.

2. God sent His Son as our Redeemer to save us from sin. . .whether we want to be saved or not.

3. The human desire for God is something that we cultivate over time.

4. We can find truth and happiness most anywhere.

5. Natural reason tells us about God.

6. Our language about God is limited, so we really can't say anything true about Him.

7. The CCC says, “We must therefore continually purify our language of everything in it that is limited, image-bound or imperfect. . .” (42). This means that we shouldn't use male pronouns and images to depict God.

8. The CCC says that God “creates and sustains” all of creation. This means that God and creation are basically the same.

9. God is constantly revealing Himself to us through scripture, Christ, and created things.

10. The apostolic tradition gave us scripture; therefore, our bishops can decide what's true and false in the Bible.

11. All truths of the faith are equally important to our salvation.

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Pics of New Faculty Installation at Notre Dame Seminary

Two pics of me signing the Oath of Fidelity on the altar of Notre Dame Seminary's chapel during Solemn Vespers, August 26, 2013.

That's Fr. James Wehner, seminary rector, to my left.

More pics here.
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Revitalizing the Church

10 Ways to Revitalize the Catholic Church. . .from a Jesuit, no less!  ;-)

2. A priest in France has attracted people to packed Masses largely by spending six hours every night in the confessional. (He also wears priestly garb on the street so that those who want a priest know where to find one.) Clergy here need to recommit themselves to the sacrament of confession. They must be available at convenient times for more than a perfunctory half-hour before Saturday evening Mass. Frequenting the sacrament themselves, priests can awaken in their parishioners the need for repentance and conversion.

3. A pope once said that one good catechist is worth a hundred outstanding preachers. Yet there are wealthy parishes that expect directors of religious education to work as unpaid volunteers! Catechism needs to be taken more seriously as a ministry [AMEN! And not that goofy Feelings-Are-All-That-Matter nonsense from 1973. But real, substantial, Total Catechsis.]. In many parts of the world, the minister whom Catholics see the most is their catechist, not their pastor. Parents must be willing to be trained and work as catechists. More adult Catholics must also take responsibility for handing on the faith. This also includes shouldering ministries that care for the least, such as visiting the sick.

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Thanks!

Mendicant Thanks to the Kind & Generous Soul who sent me The Company of Preachers and A Farewell to Truth from the WISH LIST.  (No name/address on the invoice.)

Both will make their way into the classroom at NDS next semester!

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