How do you lose your flavor?

10^th Week OT (T)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Dominic Priory, NOLA

How does salt lose its power to season and preserve? It can grow stale with age, through lack of use. It can be diluted, dissolved into a stronger, more aggressive flavor. And salt left too long in the elements is really only good for making icy roads passable. Jesus tells the apostles that they are the salt of the earth, those sent to season the nations and preserve the Gospel. As preachers of that same Gospel, we too are called to be the salt of the earth. Are we awake to the possibility of losing our power to season and preserve? That it's possible our salty witness can be diluted by the more aggressive flavors of this world? That it's possible our commitment to the Truth can be dissolved into the corruption of sentimentalism and tribalism? If we are left too long exposed to the elements of this world – prideful self-assertion, violence, fear, hypocrisy, hatred, false humility – we can lose what power we have to offer the flavor and preserving graces of Christ. If our salt looks and tastes like everyone else's sugar, cinnamon, or sage, then – to mix a metaphor – we've hidden our light under a bushel basket. As Dominican preachers we have an 800+ year old tradition of calling on the seasoning and preserving powers of both faith and reason, a centuries-long legacy of bearing witness to the truth, goodness, and beauty of seeing and knowing God through both the heart and the mind, the intellect and the will. Jesus suggests that only salt can preserve salt. Thanks be to God then we have a vast treasure trove of Dominican salt to draw from. So, as the world around us seems to swirl the cosmic toilet bowl once again, do we have the patience, courage, and fortitude to mine these treasures?

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He is Three in One

NB. Deacon is preaching tonight, so here's one from 2013.

Most Holy Trinity
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
OLR, NOLA

If we were to wonder about the fundamental difference between scientists and believers, we could say that scientists work to expose the mysteries of the universe by use of reason alone, while believers—Christian believers—work along side mystery in reason and wonder to expose themselves to God and His handiwork. Scientists hope to learn more about the universe for the sheer delight of gaining practical knowledge. Believers hope to learn more about creation so that their joy may be complete by growing closer to their Creator. The fundamental difference btw science and faith hinges on mystery. For science, a mystery is a problem is to be solved. For faith, mystery is a truth not yet revealed. What we share with science is the alluring power of Not Yet, the seduction of knowing just enough to keep us motivated to learn more. When Jesus says, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now,” scientists hear a challenge but believers hear a promise. The promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit is fulfilled at Pentecost. And with the coming of the Holy Spirit, God reveals the central mystery of the faith: He is Three in One.

How to describe this essential mystery? We could say that the Trinity is like a single drop of water in three forms: fluid, frozen, vaporous. But the Trinity is Three in One simultaneously, while a drop of water cannot be fluid, frozen, and vaporous all at the same time. We could say that the Trinity is like a woman who is simultaneously a mother, an aunt, and a sister. But the Trinity is Three in One absolutely, relative only to one another, while a woman is a mother, an aunt, and a sister only in relation to her children, her nieces, and her siblings. We could say that the Trinity is like a person with three jobs: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. The Father creates; the Son redeems; and the Spirit sanctifies. That's not wrong as such but if the Three are One then all Three must each be Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. You begin to see the problem, right? How do we describe what is essentially unsayable, indescribable? We know that God is Three Persons in One Divinity, but how do we make sense of this mystery? We wait. Jesus says, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. . .” He doesn't say that we can never bear all that he has to tell us; we just can't bear all the truth right now. So, we wait and trust and hold ourselves in hope that the fullness of this mystery will be revealed when we are finally perfected.

What do we do in the meantime? Between knowing the little that we know and knowing the whole truth, what do we do? Jesus reassures us, “. . .when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.” If the Spirit of Truth comes to guides us, then we must make our ready to be guided. And how do we do that? Writing to the Romans, Paul, teaches: “. . .we boast in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint. . .” As followers of Christ, we boast about both our blessings and our afflictions. We boast of our blessings to show the world the mercy of God. We boast of our afflictions to produce endurance, character, and hope. What we do btw imperfect and perfect knowing is live our lives in that sure knowledge that “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. . .” When our imperfect knowledge of God's mysteries fails us, love never will b/c God is love and He never fails. And that is the definition of hope: knowing that God never fails. He never fails to provide, to forgive, to honor His promises. We prepare ourselves to be guided by the Spirit by hoping, by accepting the truth that God will not/cannot fail us.

If we accept this truth and live this truth, then we are living with God who is Three in One. We are living trinitarian lives. Since the first century of the Church, our ancestors made a distinction btw the theological Trinity and the economic Trinity. The theological Trinity is the Trinity as He knows and understands Himself. Reason alone cannot help us know or understand God as He knows and understands Himself. So, how do we know anything at all about the Trinity? Since all of creation abides in God, and we live and move and have our being in God, we can look to creation and see the Trinity's presence there. The Trinity works in creation, works through His creatures to reveal His truest nature. This is the economic Trinity. When we love forgive, provide, bless, create, trust, sacrifice, and bear witness to Christ, we manifest—imperfectly, of course—we manifest the Blessed Trinity. Each one of us is a sliver of the mystery that is the Trinity working in creation. Each one of us reveals how we are the Father's favored child, the Son's brother or sister, the Spirit's student and servant. Each one of us is a piece of God's peace, His assurance that all is well, that everything will always be well with Him. 

And we know that all will be well with Him b/c, as the Catechism teaches us, “The ultimate end of the whole divine economy is the entry of God's creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity” (n. 260). The whole point of God's cosmic plan of salvation is to bring us to Him to live perfectly united in Him. Do we need a scientific understanding of the divine mysteries to be perfect? No. Besides, science cannot perfect us. Do we need to work along side the divine mysteries in wonder and reason in order to be made perfect? Yes. B/c we cannot be made perfect, we cannot be brought to God w/o our consent and help. Mysteries of the faith—like the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection—are all revealed truths that we do not yet fully understand. We know that God is Three Persons in One Divine Being. We know that Christ is fully human, fully divine. We know that Christ was raised from his tomb body and soul. And we even have some inkling of what these mysteries mean to our daily lives as followers of Christ. What we don't yet know, what we cannot yet bear, is the weight, the fullness of these truths completely revealed. For that we must wait to see God face-to-face. And to see Him face-to-face, we must submit to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit urges us to live trinitarian lives. We read in the Catechism: “Everyone who glorifies the Father does so through the Son in the Holy Spirit; everyone who follows Christ does so because the Father draws him and the Spirit moves him” (n. 259). Open yourself to being drawn by the Father to follow Christ. Open yourself to being moved by the Spirit to follow Christ. Follow Christ—wholly abandoned to him—and you will find yourself working along side the mysteries of faith in wonder and reason, opening your heart and mind to all that God has to show you. When Jesus says, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now,” scientists hear a daring challenge but believers hear a loving promise. Christ promises to make us strong enough, whole enough, beautiful enough to bear up under every truth, all truth, fully revealed and wondrously arrayed. And because of this promise “we boast in hope of the glory of God.” 

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He destroyed death

 

Charles Lwanga & Companions

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St Dominic Priory, NOLA

Jesus quotes his Father speaking to Moses, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,” explaining to the Sadducees, who deny the resurrection, “He is not God of the dead but of the living.” Jesus is pointing out to the Sadducees that our call to holiness (how we live apart in this world) is “not according to our works but according to [God's] own design.” So, he asks them, “Are you not misled because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?” The answer, of course, is Yes, they are misled. But how? Paul helps us here by reminding Timothy that God, “did not give us a spirit of cowardice...” Most English translations render δειλία as “fear” or “timidity.” Opposed to fear, timidity, cowardice is the spirit of power, love, and self-control. These gifts are best used in the service of bearing witness, of giving testimony to the truth that God has “saved us and called us to a holy life.” The living God, the God of the living, calls us to holy life of boldness, love, prudence, and power. Knowing that the resurrection awaits us only reinforces our supernatural desire to bear witness to the mercy of God in this world. The Sadducees (both ancient and modern) see this world as the end, the only world we need worry about. They are misled. We know that Christ “destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.” As preachers and teachers of the Gospel, we are vowed to proclaim over and over and over again, “He is not God of the dead but of the living!”

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The Spirit is the soul of the Church

 AUDIO FILE

Pentecost Sunday 2020

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

Each one of us here is a body and a rational soul. A human person. All of us together make up one Body, the Church. Just as each one of us is a body and the soul, so the Body the Church has a soul – the Holy Spirit. The job of the rational soul is to animate the human body, give it life, direction, purpose; imbue it with intelligence, will, and creativity. Just so, the Holy Spirit animates the Body of the Church, gifting us with wisdom, knowledge, fortitude, piety, understanding, counsel, and fear of the Lord. Each one of us received these gifts at our confirmation and the Church received them all at Pentecost. And receives them still. While the disciples hide in fear, trembling, crying, mourning the death of Jesus, the Holy Spirit breaks through their despair with wind and fire and sets them ablaze with a supernatural mission – to out into the world and teach and preach the Good News of Christ Jesus. That same Holy Spirit abides with us even now, energizing the Body of Christ, the Church, to do all that he has commanded us to do. Therefore, “brothers and sisters: No one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit.” If Jesus is your Lord, do as he commands.

Doing what Jesus commands us to do is no easy thing. We all know this b/c we have all failed at some point and will probably fail again. But doing what he commands is how we grow in our friendship with the Lord. It's how we accomplish our holiness and bring others to Christ. Every human failure starts with a profound failure to understand a fundamental truth about our who we are as Children of the Father. As Children of the Father, adopted sons and daughters, we are persistently and unavoidably always in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Nothing we say, do, feel, or think is ever not said, done, felt, or thought w/o the presence of the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised the disciples that at his ascension into heaven he would send to them (and us) an Advocate, a spiritual guide who will be with us always. When we move to do as Jesus commands to move we do so fully in the presence of the love that the Father and Son have for one another. In the presence of the Holy Spirit. If you try to move w/o the Spirit, if you try to speak, think, or feel w/o the guidance of the Holy Spirit, you fail. In essence, you are the pinky toe trying to walk w/o the foot. The foot trying to run w/o the ankle. The ankle trying to jog w/o the shin. You are trying to succeed w/o the very source of Success Himself.

So, if we are always in the presence of the Holy Spirit, how can we ever fail? Good question. The Holy Spirit is with us always. No question about this. However, we are not always with the Holy Spirit. Here's an analogy: the local radio station is pumping out music whether you are listening or not; whether you are tuned in properly or not. The airwaves are filled with TOP40, rap, country, classical, talk, but you can't hear any of it b/c your receiver is off. The Holy Spirit is pumping out Divine Love 24/7. He never stops. He never pauses. So, the question is: are you tuned it? Is your Holy Spirit receiver properly tuned? If you are in a state of sin, then the answer is no. If you aren't praying for the Father's will to be done in your life, the answer is no. If you aren't following Christ's command to love and forgive and accomplish great things in his name, the answer is no. If you are allowing the spirits of this world – rebellion, hatred, vengeance, lust, greed, wrath – if you are allowing these malignant spirits to rule your heart, the answer is no. The Holy Spirit will be with you and me always. But will you and I always be with the Holy Spirit? 

 

How do we guarantee that we are always with the Holy Spirit? How do we make sure that our Holy Spirit receiver is always properly tuned? Immerse yourself in prayer. Always and everywhere give God thanks for everything you have and everything you are. Never cease offering Him praise and thanksgiving. Grow in holiness by looking to the saints for examples of how to grow apart from this world and closer to Christ. Surrender your heart and mind – your whole person – to the will of the Father, and seek His guidance in everything you say and do. Ask for what you need and wait on His grace. Never forget that you are a citizen of the Kingdom, an heir to a divine inheritance. You do not belong to this world. Death is nothing to fear b/c death for you and me is beaten. Christ's victory is our victory, and the war is won. And lest we take pride in this victory, remember: it was won for us not by us. Our gratitude in sharing in this victory is the measure of our humility. Lastly, know that the Holy Spirit gives each one of us everything we need to remain faithful and true. “No one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit.” Jesus is Lord! Make it so.

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Don't just stand there looking at the sky!

Audio File

The Ascension of the Lord

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

Right before their eyes “as they were looking on, [Jesus] was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.” Place yourself in this scene. You're just standing there with your friends, listening to your teacher lecture. He's repeating some of the same stuff he's said a thousand times before. You have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. One of your more impatient classmates asks Jesus if and when he plans on restoring the kingdom of Israel. Ah! Finally, a real question! Time to get this revolution started! Then Jesus starts taking about times and seasons and the Holy Spirit and Jerusalem and being his witnesses all over the world. And just as your eyes are about to glaze over. . .WHOOSH!. . .he flies up into the sky in a cloud, disappearing from sight. Like everyone else who sees this, you're standing with your mouth open, wondering what just happened. Then two guys dressed in white show up and ask, “Why are you standing there looking at the sky?” Why are we standing here looking at the sky!? Um, b/c our teacher just got kidnapped by a cloud? Here's another question just for us: why do the guys in white ask the stunned disciples why they are looking up at the sky?

Had the disciples been paying attention to Jesus' answer to the question about restoring the kingdom of Israel. . .had they been paying attention for the three years they were with him. . .they would not have been at all shocked by his ascension into the clouds. Not only would they not have been shocked, they would've been expecting it. And they would've watched his rise for a second or two and then waited for the coming of the Holy Spirit so that their work could begin. Before he disappeared into the sky, Jesus had instructed his students, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” That's pretty clear. Make disciples. Baptize them. Teach them my commandments. Not all that complicated really. So, why the hesitation? Notice how the disciples approached Jesus that day on the mountain in Galilee, “When they saw [Jesus], they worshiped, but they doubted.” They offer him due praise and adoration, but they also doubt him. How do they both worship Jesus and doubt him at the same time? The answer to that question tells us why they are standing there looking at the sky.

Seeing your teacher and friend kidnapped by a cloud is pretty amazing. It's worth a gawk or two. But when you think back to the work he's given you to do – make disciples, baptize them, teach them his commandments – his sudden disappearance is a little traumatic. He's leaving us with all this work! All that doubt that you felt comes roaring back and you start to wonder if you can really finish all that he's given you to finish. Even before he charged you with making disciples and teaching them his commandments, you knew that he would going away. Not how exactly but that he would be. So, you do what comes naturally: you worship the Son of God as you should but you also feel the pressure of uncertainty, the heavy burden of not-knowing whether or not you can do all that he asks of you. In the drama of his ascension, you forget that he said, “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Then two guys dressed in white show up and ask you why you're standing there looking at the sky. You answer, “I'm mourning. I'm wondering where to go from here, how to get started on all I have to do.” And there's another week to wait before the Answer comes in fire and wind.

Right before Jesus gives them the Great Commission, the disciples worship their teacher. They give him thanks and praise for his presence among them. But under their adoration is a shadow of doubt, just a hint of uncertainty and fear. Can we go on without him? How do we follow him if he's gone? What's happens to us once he leaves? All of them are disciples. All of them are baptized. All of them are well-educated in his commandments. Yet, they doubt. These men and women are not fairy tale heroes. They are not mythical figures that embody archetypal truths. They are men and women. Mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. Real flesh and blood folks. Jesus doesn't teach them fables to guide them through life's hard choices. He doesn't offer them sage advice or moral lessons. In word and deed, he reveals to them the purpose and plan of his Father. He brings them into the history of salvation and makes them participants, players in his Father's program of redemption. Of course they doubt! What ordinary person wouldn't doubt, knowing that he or she is cast as an agent in the rescue of Creation from sin and death? The Holy Spirit has not yet come to them, so their worship and doubt is perfectly ordinary.

Ask yourself: am I standing around looking at the sky? Do I understand my commission from Christ solely in terms of waiting and watching for his return? If so, then your doubt has won out over your zeal for witness; that is, if we still think of our faith as a life lived watching the sky instead of as a means of bringing others to Christ, then we are failing to carry out Our Lord's commission. Jesus says, “Make disciples. Baptize them. Teach them my commandments.” That's our fundamental task. Whatever else we may be doing as his followers, whatever else we may think is necessary for our growth in holiness, our job description as Christians is crystal clear. And yes, even as we carry out Christ's commission, we will doubt. We will be afraid. We'll fall and get back up. We'll fuss and fight with one another over big questions and small. But when our lives together as brothers and sisters in Christ become an elaborate picnic of standing around looking up into the sky, we must immediately remember Christ's words to his friends, “I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Why are we staring at the sky looking for Christ? He is with us always.

Jesus' ascension directly challenges the disciples and us to think hard about how we are spending our time and energy as followers of Christ. There is a heaven. And we are made and remade to spend eternity there. There is a time and place to build an interior castle, to wander around in our own souls, seeking the presence of God. We should ponder the divine mysteries, explore our vocations – run after all the things of heaven! But none of these is an end in itself, none of these is our charge. We are disciples. Baptized and well-educated in the commandments of Christ. We are still here b/c there are still some out there who have not heard God's freely offered mercy to sinners. There are still some out there who have not seen God's love at work in the world. They've not seen me or you following Christ. Do they see us standing around looking up at the sky? Wondering what could possibly be so fascinating about a cloud? Make sure they see you and hear you doing Christ's work and speaking his word. That's the only reason any of us are still here.

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Insanely guilty?

6th Week of Easter(T)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Dominic Priory, NOLA

If Nietzsche were to serve as the Church's defense attorney at the Last Judgment, he would argue that we be found “not guilty by reason of insanity.” He had no love for the Church, finding us to be “irrational, self-deceived, repressed, and arrogant...” He had even less use for Christian morality, describing it as “pettily reactionary and positively fatal to life…” Before the bench of the judge of this world, we have an Advocate, an intercessor, one who pleas on our behalf. Nietzsche would argue our insanity and ask that we be found not guilty because of it; our true Advocate knows we are guilty and makes no excuses. Our true Advocate knows our crimes better than we do because he became those very crimes for us. He can do more than merely show evidence of our sins, he can give personal testimony to them. He became sin for us, so that sin might be put to death and we might have eternal life. He knows we are guilty and loves us anyway. He loves us all the way to his cross, and he is with us as we approach ours. The Good News is that we never again have to be anything or anyone less than Christ. We are free. And we are free because we have been freed by the mercy of the One Who sits in judgment.

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Infecting the World

Audio File

6^th Sunday of Easter

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

The spirit of this world cannot accept the Truth b/c it does not see or know the Father. The worldly spirit does not see or know the Father b/c it rejected His Christ. Those who belong to the world are orphans. They have no mother or father. No home. No place to be at peace. They call this world their home, but the world is home to no one. It lives and moves, serving its own agenda, eating alive anyone who makes it their god. You see, the world isn't a person or a place; it's a spirit, the living principle of rebellion and disease, the anti-Christ – the opposite of Christ. For us, Christ lived and died in love so that we might be made heirs to the Father's kingdom in the Spirit, so that we might dwell in the Spirit of Truth and find eternal life. The world offers false promises, and baits us with the temptation of becoming gods without God. Christ frees us from sin and death, making us orphans of the world but not orphans in the world. When we abide in the Spirit of Truth, dwelling fully in the love of the Father and Son for one another, we come to know the freedom of the children of God. That freedom compels us – in word and deed – to bear witness to Christ and his works.

Now, we might be tempted to rest on our laurels and just wait out the end of the world. We might be tempted to sit pretty atop our pillar of righteousness and watch the world burn. We could say to the world, “We got ours. If you want yours. . .come to us.” This attitude is a recipe for pride. Christ did not command us to find our salvation in him and then sit back and wait for others to make their way to us hat-in-hand. His command – “Go out to all the world” – is unambiguous and final. There is no rest for us if we will be obedient to our Lord and remain in his love. Divine Love is diffusive by nature; that is, what Love is spreads around to all as a matter of Who Love Is. Our salvation through Christ is not a secret. It's not a treasure to be hoarded. It's not a priceless commodity to be dribbled out only to the truly deserving. We are left in this world as children of the Father so that we might be the living lights of His boundless mercy and love. We are not here to survive. We're here to thrive – to thrive as vocal, active, unrelenting witnesses to the power of the Father's offer of forgiveness to all sinners. Anyone who hears should hear. Anyone who sees should see. Our job is make sure that those who are of this world see and hear – from us – all that they need to come to the Christ.

Through the centuries, as followers of Christ, we have come up with dozens of ways of teaching and preaching the Gospel. We invented universities. Hospitals. Hospices. Orphanages. Schools. Religious orders. Catholic priests, religious, and laymen built the foundations of modern science and medicine. The 16^th century Dominican friars of Salamanca laid the legal groundwork for what we call “universal human rights.” The ways and means we've invented to bear witness to Christ stand under western civilization and give it its bearing toward God. We've accomplished this by being orphans of the world, that is, by submitting ourselves to the spirit of Truth and denying the world our citizenship. This is no easy thing. We know: the world is very much with us. These past three months of epidemic and economic collapse prove this beyond any doubt. However, touched and twisted as we are by the world, our lives are not centered in the world. We are pilgrims making our way through, stopping only occasionally to do the good we are gifted to do. How should we see ourselves as those who have bowed to the Spirit of Truth in Christ?

I'll suggest an image: viruses. We've been flooded with news about viruses lately. One in particular. Whether we've been to med school or not, we've all become amateur experts in virology and epidemiology. Can we see ourselves as viruses in the world? Christian viruses infecting the spirit of the world with the truth of the Gospel? The world certainly treats the Church like a virus at times. Attempts to immunize itself against our influence. Vaccinate itself against our witness. Even isolate itself to prevent further infection. But like all viruses, we are resilient. We keep our basic DNA and adapt to the new defenses. We just keep coming back to testify to the mighty power of God to accomplish great things for His glory. We keep infecting the culture with our works of mercy; with our acts of charity; our unflagging hope in the resurrection; and our absolute trust in the providence of God. The Spirit of Truth who animates our lives in love never tires of revealing the face of the Father to us, and we must never tire of sharing this revelation with the world. So, I'll ask: who have you infected with the virus of Christ? Who have you brought to the field-hospital of the Lord?

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Fear is a reflex

5^th Week of Easter (T)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Dominic Priory, NOLA

Fear is a reflex. Like jerking away from physical pain. It's job is to protect us from harm. It helps us make split-second decisions that keep us alive. Fear warns us away from danger. It works hard to convince us not to take risks. By nature, fear is irrational. It arrives w/o deliberation and does its work quickly and passes. But we can nurture fear. We can hold onto to it and feed it, giving it longer life and more control. Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” NB. do not let, do not allow, do not choose to be afraid. Fear is an animal reflex. A thing of the moment. Choosing not to live in fear is a thing of faith and reason, trusting that all things work for the good in God's own time. Jesus says that he leaves his peace with us. His peace is a part of our inheritance as sons of the Father. But that peace is not the peace of this world – security, safety, freedom from want. Christ's peace is the sort of peace that comes with knowing that come what may he has won the war. Not every battle we are called upon to fight in his name. But the war. From all eternity, he is the victor and that victory is ours to enjoy w/o fear.

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