Is the Spirit asking us to do a New Thing?

6^th Week OT (F)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

Serra Club, Irving

Some say that the Spirit is moving through the Church. That the Spirit is inspiring us to do “a new thing.” To re-establish the Church as a “radically inclusive” community that “listens and welcomes” unconditionally. To achieve this level of inclusivity, the New and Improved Church will no longer preach the Gospel of confession and repentance. Confession will not be necessary b/c nothing will be sinful. If nothing is sinful, then repentance is unnecessary as well. Rather than exhorting the faithful to deny themselves in charity, the NIC will encourage the newly included to celebrate their diversity and explore alternatives expressions of Self. Rather than supporting the faithful in carrying their crosses, the NIC will rename those burdens “structures of oppression” and find someone else to blame. Rather than showing the faithful how to follow Christ, the NIC will invoke the Spirit of Age and point to the world as our model of holiness. What is now a straight and narrow path to heaven will become a twisted, wide-open ditch leading us back into the world and eventually straight into hell.

Some say that the Spirit is inspiring us to do “a new thing.” That the Spirit is moving through the Church. Wrong. The Spirit is not moving through the Church. The Church moves within the Spirit. Even better: the Spirit and the Church move together in the person of Christ Jesus. And his words to us couldn't be clearer: “Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this faithless and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of when he comes in his Father's glory...” Like every other generation, this one battles the temptation to edit the Gospel to its tastes, to revise the words of Jesus into something more pleasing and less likely to get us in trouble with the world. The promise we hear is this: if we would just change one or two of the Lord's harsher teachings, the world would reward us with applause and acceptance. We wouldn't have to be embarrassed by our outdated morality or silly rituals. The world will love us! And we could be proud of identifying as Catholics. Of course, this is a lie, a lie bought wholesale by the Episcopalians, some or most of the Methodists, the Presbyterians; the UCC, the Anglicans, most of the Protestant world, and, of course, the Catholic bishops in Germany. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Follow Christ. Not the world and its fashionable but deadly nonsense.

What Christ is asking us to do is repent, believe the Gospel, love God and one another, and bear witness to the mercy we have received. He is not asking us to rewrite the Bible or edit the Apostolic faith once for all delivered. He is not asking us to love both the sin and the sinner and to pretend that sin isn't sin. He is not asking us to dismantle structures of exclusivity in the Church by adding diversity, equity, and inclusivity to the Ten Commandments. There is a Spirit demanding that we do all these things. But it is not the Holy Spirit. It is the Zeitgeist. That infernal spirit that applies pressure to applause-seeking clergy and theologians to tweak the faith just enough to confuse the message of the Good News. The Good News is that the Church is already as radically inclusive as she can be. No one is excluded from receiving the grace needed to repent and take up the Cross. No one is excluded who desires a life of holiness. No one is excluded from the straight and narrow path who wills to walk it. “Whoever [WHOEVER!] wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

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You don't need a sign

6^th Week OT (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Why are the Pharisees seeking a sign from Jesus? They've heard him preach. They've seen a couple of his healing miracles. They know Scripture, so they understand who and what he is claiming to be. Why do they need (or want) another sign? Maybe they are on the fence, leaning Jesus' way and just need a little push to bring them over all the Way. Could be they are just curious and want to see if he'll perform for them. Since they consider Jesus a dangerous influence on the faithful, they probably want him to refuse so they can say, “See! He can't show us a sign. He's a fraud!” Jesus refuses them, “I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” He doesn't explain why they won't get a sign. He just hops into a boat and rows away. Strange as it might sound, this is an ingenuous evangelical tool. Preach a bit. Teach a bit. Give a sign or two of heavenly approval. Refuse all requests to perform another sign, then leave. Jesus' approach here says, “I know who and what I am. I know my mission, my purpose. I have nothing to prove to you.” The Pharisees can't be argued into having faith. They have too much to lose if Jesus is telling the truth. They can't be bullied, or bribed, or tricked into following the Way. Again, too much to lose. The only path open to them – to anyone, really – is to believe, confess belief, repent, and follow Christ. The bottom line is: you believe or you don't. If you believe already, signs only confirm your belief. If you don't believe, you'll find a way to debunk the sign. Signs quickly becomes irrelevant once the initial surprise of their appearance wears off. Besides, the Enemy can perform signs too. Without a grounding in faith, a sign can be read, misunderstood, and followed to one's destruction. Jesus knows this, so he refuses the Pharisees. If you find yourself asking God for a sign, think twice. Are you testing Him? Are you admitting a lack of faith? Maybe you're just curious? Regardless, signs are one thing, knowing what they mean is another. Faith can show you what the sign means. But if you have faith already, the sign is pointless. Faith is the good habit of trusting God. Asking for a sign is not a sign of trust. The Pharisees have a lot to lose if Jesus is telling the truth. What do you and I have to lose? Slavery to sin, anxiety and worry; the threat of eternal death. Well worth a life of faith and foregoing an unnecessary sign. 

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WHY we do good works matters

5^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Upon hearing of my interest in Catholicism, my 11^th grade English teacher asked me, “Don't you think it's enough just to be a good person?” I asked him what a good person is. He replied, sounding like the prophet, Isaiah, “Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them...” I was all of 16, so my response faith was weak: “I think there's more to it than that.” Indeed, there is. A group of folks in Delaware recently to collected blankets, socks, hats, gloves, and canned food for the homeless. They collected donations to help with the medical bills. Another group in Austin set up a permanent organization to fight for religious freedom, human rights, and justice for those marginalized by economic hardship. The organizer of this campaign was quoted in the paper, saying, “I applaud all [those] who engage with their community to help end undue suffering...” Sounds like these folks are doing Good Work. Like typical Catholic parishes. Except they aren't Catholic parishes. Both groups are congregations of The Satanic Temple. And their project is called Satanic Good Works. Is this the kind of good works Isaiah is urging us to do?

Yes...and no. Yes, the good works are good insofar as they help alleviate human suffering. No, b/c these works are done to glorify the Enemy not God. Now, you might ask, “What difference does it make to the homeless if their food comes from Christians or Satanists?” None. Hungry is hungry. Food is food. Atheists, Satanists, humanists can feed the hungry and clothe the naked as well as Christians can. The question here is for the Christians: why are we doing good works? Why did we invent, build, and still maintain universities, hospitals, orphanages, hospices, nursing homes, and schools all over the planet? The why here matters b/c even the enemies of God can do the what. Isaiah lays out our – for lack of a better phrase – social obligations. We call them the corporeal works of mercy. The Gospel tells us that our failure to do these works will see us herded with the goats and thrown into the fire pit on the last day. So, very serious obligations. But is doing these good works enough to see us herded with the sheep and welcomed into heaven? If so, then we can expect to share the Father's table with atheists and Satanists. If not, then what else is necessary? What makes our good works different?

I said before – the why of our work matters. If we do good works for the sake of the work itself, or even for the sake of those we work for, then our work is indistinguishable from the works of the Satanists – as good as it may be. Our work must be done for no other reason than to give glory to God. Any other reason tempts us to pride or self-righteousness. Any other reason gives us reason to think that our work is ours alone. We may be tempted to believe that our work will save us. Or that it's possible to buy a place at the Father's table. Or – perhaps the worst – that our work makes us better than the poor, holier than those we serve. Jesus says that we are the salt of the earth and a light to the world. Our saltiness is not our doing. Neither is our light. Both belong to him alone. We merely participate. And to the degree that we freely participate, giving him the glory for his generosity, we grow in holiness. Our saltiness and light are given to us. And we are charged with passing them on to others in need. This “passing on” is our good work. But the source of our goodness is God alone. By following Isaiah's admonitions, we point to God and reveal His goodness and providence. The whole point is to lead others into a healing relationship with their Creator. When we lose sight of The Why of our good works, we lose sight of who and what we are as freed children of the Father. Jesus says, “...your light must shine before others...” Why? Why must our light shine? “[So] that they may see your good deeds...” Why do others need to see our good deeds? “[So they may] glorify your heavenly Father.”

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The truth is always pastoral

4^th Week OT (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Let no one say that Our Lord was not a great Dominican! Mark bears witness to this: “...his heart was moved with [compassion] for [the vast crowd], for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.” In the Order, we call this compassionate impulse to teach the truth, misericordia veritatis – the mercy of truth. What we know and want to make more widely known is that revealing the truth and receiving the truth are acts of mercy, manifestations of compassion. IOW, speaking the truth and hearing the truth will set you free. Free from what? Whatever is binding you to sin and death. Our Lord is moved to teach the truth b/c – looking out over the vast crowd – he can see everything holding his Father's people down. Material and spiritual poverty. Disordered passions and appetites. Intellectual pride and the desire for worldly recognition. Crippling disease. Loneliness. All flowing together to create a suffocating cloud of despair. Our Lord has two choices: 1). teach the truth and risk the anger of the world, or 2). comfort with a lie and soak up the world's appreciation. We can see the choice he made. [point to crucifix]

He chose to be the Good Shepherd of his sheep. Not the choice everyone makes. Recently, a newly minted American cardinal published an essay calling on the Church to abandon her ancient teachings on sexual morality in the name of “compassion” and “inclusion.” B/c some feel excluded from the Church, he argues, it's imperative that the Church soothe their feelings by lying to them. There's nothing new here. Pushing the Church to forsake the Gospel in favor of the Lie is as old as the Church. And there is nothing merciful, compassionate, or pastoral about lying. The truth is always pastoral. Veritas in caritate is always pastoral. Jesus doesn't say to the crowd, “If your poverty makes you sad, just pretend you are rich!” He doesn't say to those suffering physically, “You're not in pain if you believe you aren't!” Nor to those w/o hope, “Your despair is who you are. Embrace it!” Instead, he show them compassion and teaches them the truth, a way to be free of their slavery to sin and death. If and when we are willing, he heals us, lifts us up, and offers us a place at his Father's table. Mercy is offered but it must be received in repentance. That's misericordia veritatis.

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Choose the largest measure

Ss. Timothy & Titus

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

The world teaches us to be victims and hold grudges. There is no more powerful claim in our culture at the moment than “I am the victim here!” There's real, worldly power in being aggrieved. For every grievance there's a just and equitable remedy to be found. More often than not, that remedy is some sort of public punishment meant to deter future offenses. What that remedy is really about, of course, is control. The power to subjugate, exile, or execute one's opponents. It's about vengeance and domination. This is not the Way of Christ. The world wants us to think in terms of oppressor and oppressed, slave and master. Christ teaches us to think in terms of brother and sister, family and servant. We serve because we are gifted with divine love and that love – by its very nature – is diffusive. If we are loved, then that love must be shared. The most immediate way of sharing divine love is to imitate divine love in the act of forgiveness. To forgive is to relieve another of his/her debt to you. You eagerly and sincerely surrender your status as a creditor in favor of willing the Good of another. If you cannot bring yourself right now to forgive in name of divine love, then start by forgiving for your own sake. The measure you use to measure will be used to measure you. If your measure is stingy and mean, then your capacity to receive forgiveness will be stingy and mean. Think of the act of forgiveness as a stretching exercise. The more and more easily you forgive – the further you stretch your mercy muscles – the more and more easily you are able to receive forgiveness. Generally, our reasons for not forgiving others are really just excuses to cling to our sense of having been offended. My dignity. My pride. My position. My status as a victim. None of which matter in the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. In the divine economy, both the creditor and the debtor become richer when a debt is forgiven. Both the creditor and the debtor are freer, better equipped to grow in holiness, and more able to move on toward Christ. God has forgiven us. From all eternity, we are free from sin and death. That's a debt that cannot be repaid. All He asks of us is to be instruments of diffusion, little nodes of dispersion for His divine love. Our measure must be as large as God Himself. That's the measure we want and need when comes our turn to be measured.           

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There is only Christ

3^rd Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Do you belong to Paul or Cephas or Apollo? To Trump, Biden, Obama, or Cruz? Do you belong to JPII, Benedict, or Francis? Or are you a pre-VC2 Catholic or a Spirit of V2 Catholic? Maybe a Traditionalist or a progressive? A New Mass or Old Mass Catholic? A recent survey of some 4,000 American priests concluded that younger priests are more conservative than their older, more liberal brother priests. You will search in vain for a definition of liberal and conservative in the survey. The author of the survey dodged every request to define the terms in a recent interview. As a priest-formator, seminary professor and spiritual director for 11 years, I'd say that the survey is absolutely correct. But I too would struggle to define my terms. What is a “conservative Catholic,” a “progressive Catholic”? For that matter, what does it mean for a follower of Christ to say, “I belong to Paul” or “I belong to Apollo”? Being a follower of Christ means that one has heard Jesus say, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand,” and followed him. It means one has received an invitation from God to become a “fisher of men.” Why follow the sheep when you can follow the Shepherd?

I don't need to go into detail about the division and polarization in the contemporary Church. It almost perfectly reflects the division and polarization of the world. If this isn't a scandal, I don't know what is. And I confess my own contributions to the problem. I am as likely as anyone else to use secular political terms to describe Catholic partisans. And I encourage seminarians and young priests to lean heavily toward the more traditional side of churchy disputes. My training as a Thomist and a Stoic prevent me from embracing Traditionalism in all its polyphonic and lacy grandeur, but I'll also grab a silk chasuble (even fake silk) over a burlap chasuble every time. I confess all this to make sure you understand that I know that I am part of the problem. The preacher preaches to himself first! The Father's prophetic Word on our current mess is clear: those who follow Christ confess that they follow Christ. Not the Democrats or the Republicans or the progressives or the Traddies. But Christ. And Christ alone. I belong to Christ. And that means I can belong to no one else. Follow the Shepherd not the sheep.

So, does following Christ mean that we cannot also be a progressive or a Traddy or some other adjectival add-on? No, it doesn't. But notice how English works. Adjectives modify nouns. So, if I say I am a “BXVI Catholic,” then I have used BVXI to modify Catholic. If this means that I have read, understood, and accepted BXVI's understanding of what it means to follow Christ, then fine. I am following Christ (first) in the manner of BXVI (second). However, if it means that I have given my allegiance to a partisan camp for the sake of being identified as a partisan of that camp, then not so fine. Why? Because being a partisan is what matters to me here, not following Christ. If being a progressive is more important than being a Catholic, or being a Traddy is more important than being a Catholic, then you are saying, “I belong to Progressivism” or “I belong to Traditionalism.” Is Christ divided? Was Obama or Trump crucified for you? Did LGBTQ ideology or the Constitution suffer for you? Were you baptized in the name of JPII or Francis? No, of course not. Nor is it the flesh of politicians or popes or theologians that you eat this morning. We eat Christ this morning, so it is to Christ that we belong.

Matthew reports that Jesus moves into the area of Galilee and “from that time on, [he begins] to preach and say, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'” Not the kingdom of Progs or Traddies or Democrats or Republicans. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. And it's time to repent. To turn away from the sins of divisions and parties in the Church, away from laying claim to this or that ideology as a modifier for our faith. It's time – beyond time! – for us to return to Christ and him alone and do the job we've agreed to do: fish for the souls of men and women who desperately want to be free from sin and death. Only Christ can free them, free us. The politicians can create programs. Popes and bishops can create processes and policies. Ideologues can create the illusion of secular utopias or perfectly ordered Christian societies. But only Christ can rescue us from sin and death and make us partakers in his divine life. If you will receive the gift of eternal life, you will order your life first to Christ. Everything else – family, friends, neighbors, politics, religion – everything else will flow naturally from your fundamental relationship to Christ. For salvation, there is no Trump or Biden or JPII or Francis or Progressivism or Traditionalism. There is only Christ. Why follow the sheep when you can follow the Shepherd?

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Is Jesus crazy?

St. Agnes

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Is Jesus crazy? Well, here are some of the promises made by Christ to those who follow him. He promises us persecution at the hands of our family and friends. He promises trial and imprisonment by governors and princes. He promises ridicule, opposition, and outright violence for his name's sake. He tells us that his Way is straight but exceedingly narrow, difficult to navigate at times. Along the Way, he promises us battle after bloody battle in a war he has already won. We have before us a long, hard struggle against an Enemy who cheats, steals, lies and has no moral qualms about using whatever he needs to ensnare us. Finally, he tells us that to follow him with our whole hearts and minds and bodies, we must follow him all the way to the Cross and the Tomb. That's a promise too. Yet, here we are, following him around, looking forward to seeing all these promises fulfilled. Jesus' family and friends think he's out of his mind. Maybe they should be more concerned about those who follow him! Maybe they should take a look at those of us who know what it means to follow him. . .and do it anyway. Obviously, we're the ones out of our minds.

It could be that we're perfectly sane and simply believe that we will somehow escape the consequences of following Christ. And we might escape the more gruesome consequences. But we can't escape the most basic consequence of following him: we will not be comfortable in the world; we cannot be content while we live in the world. The reason for this is simple: the world opposes everything Jesus tells us is good, true, and beautiful. While we practice mercy, forgiveness, and love, the world demands revenge, reparation, and selfishness. While we trust, hope, and work toward our end, the world is suspicious, cynical, and without purpose. When the world watches us thrive in divine love, it becomes enraged at our peace and rails against our care and defense of the least among us. Our eagerness to submit to the Father's will makes the world crazy b/c the world will submit to nothing and no one. Or so it claims. Is Jesus “out of mind”? By the world's standards, yes. And thanks be to God! Otherwise, we'd be tied to a prophet who serves a temporary god. Are we crazy for following the Word Made Flesh? No. What can be more sane that following him who created and recreated all there is?

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The law serves us

St. Anthony, Abbot

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Who here got out of bed this morning and thought: “I'm going to commit a crime today”? I'm betting no one. We are law-abiding citizens. We do not seek out opportunities to cause trouble nor do we do out of our way to look for unjust laws. So long as we are left alone to study, pray, enjoy our basic freedoms, and flourish as children of God, we are happy to go along with whatever Congress or the city council legislates. But as government grows bolder and bolder in its attempts to infringe on basic human rights through legislation that violates the natural law, our peace with the legal status quo grows more and more uneasy. It may not be inevitable that we find ourselves in jail for civil disobedience but it seems that the chances grow with every time a council or court convenes. Forcing doctors to perform transgender surgeries. Teaching elementary school children about deviant sexual practices. Banning prayer outside of abortion clinics. Denying the dignity of the human person through euthanasia and the death penalty. How do we respond?

We remembered Martin Luther King yesterday. In 1963, from his jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama, he reminded the Church of her successful historical witness and current failure: “There was a time when the church was very powerful—in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. . .Small in number, they were big in commitment. . .By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. . .Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent—and often even vocal—sanction of things as they are.” Jesus says to the Pharisees, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.” 

Being just is easy in the absence of challenge. Doing justice in the face of government sanctioned oppression – especially the oppression of our natural right to religious freedom – is difficult at best, impossible if we surrender. Our fight will not be against local politicians but with an Ancient Lie: man serves the law. When the time comes, remember Jesus standing in the field, teaching the Pharisees: “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.” There is something larger, more important, and infinitely more fundamental to being fully human than obeying man's law, especially a law that defies God's law: the eternal worth of every human creature in the love of God our Creator. No merely man-made law can outlaw divine love and our need to say Yes to being loved.

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