Do not receive the world's rejection

6^th Sunday of Easter

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

This Ole English Professor would like to note that there are a whole lotta verbs working in the readings this morning. Proclaiming, hearing, crying out, curing, rejoicing, receiving, praising, giving, suffering, loving, keeping, remaining, asking, seeing, loving, revealing. And my favorite verb of them all: being. It warms my Grammatical Heart to hear so many nouns verbing and so many direct objects receiving the action! Yes, there's a lot going on. As it should be. Jesus is leaving the disciples. He's not abandoning them. He makes that clear. But he is leaving. You can almost feel the anxiety vibrating off the disciples at this news. The near panic at being left to fend for themselves – w/o a teacher, w/o a shepherd, w/o direction. It must've been brutal for them. And, no doubt, Jesus feels their terror. So, he promises, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth...I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” That Spirit comes to us at Pentecost. And remains with us still – proclaiming, loving, revealing, fortifying, and just being.

One of the first lessons I teach seminarians in my preaching classes is to always present the Gospel using present-tense, active verbs. This is harder than you might think. We're reading about events that happened centuries ago. Jesus healed the sick. He died and rose again. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit. Historically accurate, yes. But not exactly thrilling. Using past-tense verbs leaves us the distinct impression that these events are one and done. Over. And in some sense that's true. Jesus doesn't die more than once. Nor does he resend the Spirit when necessary. But thinking about our life in Christ as an historical account, something that happened long ago and far away, can lead us to believe that we are merely Readers About the Faith, latecomers to the glories of the Gospel who are charged with occasionally dusting off the text and wondering what it was like “back then.” Philip urges us: “Always be ready to give an explanation...for your hope.” Does our explanation go something like this: “Well, you see, there's this story where this guy Jesus teaches about love and then dies on a cross and now we get together once a week to read about his life.” Is that our hope? A story? A weekly get-together to catch up on life? 'Cause if it is, we're the biggest dupes to draw breath since Adam and Eve trusted a talking snake!

Fortunately, we're not dupes. We're not dupes b/c we do not believe that our faith is based on a book, a story. We have a book – lots of books – and we have a story, a powerful, life-giving story. But books and stories don't create great saints, faithful-to-the-end martyrs, or hope-filled witnesses to the truth. Jesus promises his disciples that they will not be left orphaned. He promises to send them the Spirit of Truth. Not a trendy ghost who will show them how to negotiate with the powers of the world for approval. Not a spirit of individual empowerment or a spirit of collectivist subservience. Not a spirit of cowardice, compromise, or corruption. But a Spirit of Truth. An abiding, enduring, on-going Spirit of Love who clarifies, sharpens, and focuses our witness in and to a world determined to commit suicide just for the fun of it...and take us with it. Jesus tells his disciples that the world cannot and will not accept this Spirit. Why? Because the world “neither sees nor knows him.” The world neither sees nor knows this Spirit b/c it does not know the Father. In fact, the world has rejected the Father. It has rejected His fatherhood, His guidance, His discipline, His creation, and so, it must also reject His children. The Spirit of Truth teaches us even now: do not receive the world's rejection!

That's right. Do not receive the world's rejection. Don't worry about opposition. Don't worry about embarrassment or ridicule or persecution. What's the saying? You know you're over the target when you start getting flak. Amen. Bring to bear the faith's most devastating weapon against the Spirit of the Age: veritas in caritate. Truth in love. A 500 gigaton bomb, 500 billion tons of truth dropped in love. Not a “once upon a time” fairy-tale told in the past-tense. Not a philosophical system or theological method. Not a bureaucratic institution with policies and procedures. And certainly not a global process-meeting with predetermined outcomes. Truth in love. The universal solvent for all the world's illusions, lies, and death-dealing vices. Do not receive the world's rejection. It's what the world wants. It needs you and me to abandon it to its suicidal/homicidal tendencies. That's not what the Spirit of Truth demands of us. Whoever observes my commandments loves me. [So] I give you a new commandment: love one another. Present-tense, imperative, active voice. Love one another. 

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Show me the Father

4^th Week of Easter (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

We already know that knowing is not believing. Knowing is a piece of what it is to believe, but the two are not synonymous. We know that there are various sorts of knowing – knowing what, knowing that, knowing how, etc. Belief doesn't really get distinguished in this way. We just believe. Sure, we say things like “I believe that is true” or “I believe that is how it is done,” but what it is to believe remains the same. True to our Enlightenment traditions as modern Americans, we tend to prefer knowledge to belief. Even among Catholics, I think this is true. Would you rather go to an atheist doctor who possesses knowledge of how to heal, or a Christian doctor who possesses beliefs about healing but no knowledge? Why do so many faithful Catholics flock to reported apparitions or spend so much time discussing alleged Eucharistic miracles? Isn't belief enough? Like Philip, do you need to be shown the Father before you can believe? And if you are shown the Father and assent to His existence as a result of seeing Him, can you say that you believe in Him? Maybe Jesus is bridging the gap between knowing the Father and believing in Him. “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?”

So, why does Philip ask to see the Father? There's a tradition of God's prophets asking to see Him. Philip is echoing Moses in the Book of Exodus where Moses asks to see God's glory. Maybe Philip thinks he's supposed to ask to see God. Maybe he's just curious. Or maybe he's disbelieving and wants to believe. Whatever his real intentions, he says, “Show us and that will be enough.” Enough for what? To obey? To believe? To die as witnesses? Remember: Jesus has just announced to the disciples that he is leaving them. Show us and that will be enough for us to endure our grief and carry on with all that you've asked of us. Jesus answers, “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me... whatever you ask in my name, I will do.” Believe, ask, and you will know that I am with. Always with you. Belief is knowing without being shown. Belief is trusting Christ before trusting yourself. It's trusting yourself because you trust Christ first. Philip needs reassurance because his beloved Teacher is leaving him. What he gets instead is a promise from Christ that he will never be left alone. Christ is with us always.

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Plain Talk

St. Athanasius

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

The crowd demands that Jesus speak plainly. They want a plainly spoken answer to the question: are you the Christ? Jesus replies, “I told you and you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me. . .The Father and I are one.” The Father and I are one. How much more plain can you get? If he's shown them who he is by doing his Father's works and said to them plainly that he and the Father one, then what's the problem? Why are they still yammering for him to identify himself? Jesus knows why: “I told you [who I am] and you do not believe.” They know who he is, but they do not believe. They know, but they do not trust. When it comes to the faith, knowledge without belief is no better than rank ignorance. So, the ignorant continue to demand more evidence as if more evidence will move them to the saving truth. William Blake, the great British Romantic poet, wrote: “Rational truth is not the truth of Christ, but the truth of Pilate.” Rational truth is indeed true, but it's a truth constituted by the human mind. It's not a truth revealed in divine love. We call that a mystery.

Here's the thing we need to remember about mystery: mystery is not about not knowing; it's not about being ignorant of the relevant facts. You can have all the facts, the critical skills to interpret these facts, and the will to put them all together to form a reasonable conclusion. But even with a reasonable conclusion in mind, with all the facts neatly lined up to support you, you can still have a mystery to contemplate. So, if mystery is not about being ignorant of the facts, then what is it about? Note again what Jesus says to the crowd, “I told you [who I am] and you do not believe.” Knowledge is not enough, knowing is not sufficient to relieve the tension we experience when confronted by the unknown. To understand the mystery of who Christ really is, we must first believe; we must transcend facts, logic, experiment, and evidence, and submit ourselves to the dangerous adventures of trusting Jesus at his word, trusting his work among us: “The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me. . .The Father and I are one.”

It would be too easy to dismiss the art of believing without evidence as a fool's game, a trick to trick the gullible. But dismissing belief as irrational misses the point of what it means to experience mystery. For those who know the facts about who Christ is and put their trust in the revelation of his words and deeds, the mystery he presents produces joy rather than suspense, hope rather than anxiety. There is no temptation to remain in ignorance, demanding irrelevant evidence, “I told you [who I am]. . .The Father and I are one.” We don't resolve this mystery, we live it.

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Entering through Repentance

4^th Sunday of Easter

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Thieves, robbers, wolves, strangers with strange voices. Creatures of malice and deceit, trying to steal the Lord's sheep from his sheepfold. It's nothing new. It's been going on since the beginning. How the wolves and robbers attack the flock differs from age to age. But their intent is the same: the destruction of the flock. Early on, it was the Judaizers, demanding that Gentiles be circumcised before being baptized. There were dozens of Gnostic sects – exclusive, expensive, occult – that appealed to the elite social class in the Church. More recently, the flock has been attacked by wolves pushing their death-cult ideologies – abortion rights up-to-birth, transgenderism, neo-pagan eco-terrorism, and, of course, the ever pervasive and pernicious Wokeism that's metastasizing through our institutions. It's nothing new. In it's essentials, none of this is new. It's all just the Serpent's Lie using updated vocabulary. Jesus says, “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved...A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” So, how do we enter through the gate of Christ?

Peter and the Eleven tell us. Preaching to the crowds in Jerusalem – this is on the day of Pentecost – Peter proclaims, “Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made [this Jesus whom you crucified] both Lord and Christ.” The text tells us that when the crowd hears this proclamation “they [are] cut to the heart,” meaning the truth Peter speaks slices through their hesitation, their fear, their worry, all of those years of religious indoctrination; everything and anything that pads their consciences from feeling the full force of God's Truth. Their next question is obvious: “What are we to do, my brothers?” Peter's answer is simplicity itself: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you […] and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” How do we enter through the Gate of Christ? “Repent and be baptized...” How do we re-enter the Gate of Christ if we have allowed ourselves to be deceived by a wolf in sheep's clothing? Repent. How do we re-enter if we have abandoned the flock through serious sin? Repent. How do we become a sheep again if we ourselves chose to be a wolf among the lambs? Repent. The Good Shepherd's voice never changes, never wavers, never speaks an untrue word. So long as we have ears to hear, we are welcomed back through the Gate of Christ in repentance.

Repentance – turning around and running back to Christ – is how we answer the wolves that try to seduce us. Peter preaches: “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” The generation he's warning us about is every generation from the birth of Jesus to the Second Coming. Any generation a Christian has lived in, is living in, or will be living in is a corrupt generation. It is the nature of the world to be corrupt. From this we might conclude that it is better for us that we run to the hills and live in caves until the End. That's not our mission. Our mission is to sanctify the world not abandon it. We're charged with preaching and teaching the Good News of Jesus Christ to every nation. We can't do that if we're hold up in a bunker or running scared from the agents of the Enemy. Nor can we complete our mission if we see those agents themselves as the Enemy. They aren't. We cannot confuse the advocates of evil with Evil Itself. Those advocates can repent. Evil cannot. Our charitable witness can “cut to the heart” of persons who do evil. Our mission is to bear witness to them – in the way we live our lives – to the divine mercy we ourselves have received. They can still hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. As sinners ourselves, we are tasked with being Christ's hearing aids!

I know the temptation well. We want to fight. We want to conquer; we want to prevail, achieve a final victory over the enemies of the Church. That's not the goal of the Church in this age. Christ won the last victory on the Cross. From all eternity, the Enemy is defeated. And he knows this. He wants to take as many as he can down with him. Our mission as a Church is to be the sacrament of reconciliation and mercy in the Enemy's world. Our mission is to remain steadfast in the flock while going out into the world to show the wolves that we are free. To show the wolves that they are the ones chained to misery, deceit, and temporary power. Our mission is to show them that death is defeated. That sin is self-chosen-defeat. That this world is both beautiful and passing. And that coming to Christ, coming back to Christ is always an option. Ask yourself this: am I speaking, acting, thinking like a shepherd looking for the Lord's lost sheep? If not, maybe it's time to repent. It's time to turn around and start over...again.

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Born again

2^nd Week of Easter (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

No one chooses to be born. No one chooses their parents. We do not choose the time and place of our birth. Existentialists philosophers bemoan the fact that we are “thrown into being” and left to deal with the reality of having no choice in the matter. They say we are brought into the world naked and screaming and, if we are lucky, we leave it naked and at peace. The time between birth and death is our time to choose. To make choices about who and what we will be in the time we have. For those choices, we are radically, irrevocably responsible and there lies the source of our sometimes crippling anxiety. One way to soothe our worries is to take control and steer circumstances to our liking. Another way is to medicate ourselves into a stupor and forget. Yet another is to submit our will to the Spirit of the Age and float along w/o a fight. None of these can bring us the peace we most desire. Circumstances are always bigger and louder than our control. Forgetting ends when the meds wear off. And the Spirit of the Age is always hungry. Christ offers another, better way: “You must be born from above.” Born once more from water and spirit.

If we are thrown into being and left to deal at our first birth, then why would a second birth be any different? Because our second birth is a birth into the Body of Christ as imperfect Christs. Our second birth throws us into the always, already present gift of the One Who died for us. Who rose for us. Who sent his Spirit to set us on fire for his Word. If we born the first time naked and screaming, we are born again clothed with the Spirit and at peace. There is no anxiety b/c we have no control. God provides. We receive with praise and thanksgiving. God loves, so do we. God forgives, so do we. God gifts us with everything and everyone we will ever need to move relentlessly toward our reunion with Him. We choose to use His gifts for His glory, or we do not. If we do, our choices are made before we make them, and they bear abundant fruit. If not, then we turn to those ways of soothing anxiety that sell us to the Enemy. We become willing customers of sin and death. We have chosen to be born again in water and spirit. To be thrown into the Body of Christ, to live like Christ. It's a choice we once made. And one we must remake everyday until we no longer can. Blessed are all who take refuge in the Lord.

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Can you ask Christ, "Who are you?"

Octave of Easter (F)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

At the very core of our being-creatures, we desire intimacy with God; our imperfection as creatures desires His perfection as our Creator. This yearning brings us to a radical choice: (very simply put) I either embrace my lack of perfection and seek the perfection God offers through Christ; or in my folly, I make my imperfection a god and worship it with my whole being, pushing God further and further away, adding to the distance btw us; making gods of my passions and adoring my creatureliness. For most of us, we walk the fine line somewhere btw surrendering to God and surrendering to Self. Like the disciples on the Sea of Tiberius, we can be afraid to ask Christ, “Who are you?” We can hesitate to ask the question b/c we know who he is, and his answer means we must make a choice. Surrender to God or surrender to Self.

Peter puts this choice in unequivocal terms. Filled with the Holy Spirit, he preaches to the leaders, elders, and scribes in Jerusalem: “There is no salvation through anyone else [but Christ], nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.” That makes the choice easy, right? You'd think so anyway. But don't you sometimes experience the anxiety of the choice? What does choosing Christ mean for my daily thoughts, words, and deeds? What happens to me if I choose Christ? My friends? My job? My freedom? Can I trust God's will for me if I give Him mine? No doubt the disciples squatting on the seashore are thinking along the same lines. If this guy is the Lord (and he is!), then what about all those promises he made about persecution? Trial and defeat? Death at the hands of our enemies? Can I really call him Lord and do what he commands, knowing what I know about what's to come? There is no other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved. No other name. So, the choice is clear. And when we make the choice – to follow him – he arrives with food and drink, his Body and Blood, and takes us up with him in glory so that we too can know God his Father and ours and get on with our business – the business of surrender, thanksgiving, and praise; the business of being love and mercy in the world; the business of showing everyone that choosing Christ is the way to perfection. The stone the builders rejected is the cornerstone.

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Leave your expectations behind

Octave of Easter (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Why do we find belief so difficult at times? Like Cleopas and the other disciple on the way to Emmaus, we want to believe but don't. Why? One small answer from the gospel: God tends to act in ways that disappoint our expectations. How do we trust someone who often acts contrary to our expectations? Someone who frequently surprises us? Or shocks us? Trusting someone else to do things correctly is exhausting work. Besides, bending all of creation to my will, forcing things to work out My Way, takes time and energy! It's not fair when God ruins my carefully laid plans with His own! How am I supposed to trust that He's doing what's right for me? From our 2,000 year old vantage point, we can call Cleopas and friend foolish for not believing b/c we know what happens. But – be careful – we walk our own road to Emmaus everyday and everyday our trust in the Lord is challenged by the temptation to despair in disbelief – disbelief rooted in expectations we have no right to hold. Cleopas and friend have expectations – maybe they expect a Messiah with an army at his back. Or a Savior come with hordes of raging angels to smite their enemies. Regardless, they have expectations and Christ surprises them.

The Big Surprise is the revelation of who he is in the breaking of the bread. The instant they recognize him, he vanishes. He leaves them with the Word of the Prophets and the breaking of the bread. The same surprise we will witness this morning. Cleopas and friend will come to believe b/c of this revelation. Not b/c Christ gives them empirical evidence or a logical argument. He shows them who he is in the Word and in the breaking of the bread. It's all they need. It's all we need. What expectations are keeping you from belief and surrender to God's will? What carefully laid plans are you protecting from God's plan for you? When you entered the chapel this morning, you started along the Road to Emmaus. And you will continue on after you leave. Place your expectations, your plans, your disbelief, your despair on the altar – give them all to God and allow Christ to thwart whatever designs you've drawn for how your life will play out. Listen to all that he has to say to you in the breaking of the bread.

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Why did he wait four days?

5^th Sunday of Lent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Two weeks before he exits his own grave, Jesus re-animates a four-day old corpse. We call this foreshadowing – a neat literary trick to connect distant parts of a story. Of course, foreshadowing isn't really necessary in the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. He's been laying out the plot and characters almost from the beginning. That his disciples are still confused about his end is less amazing than simply frustrating. Raising Lazarus from the grave is one more plot line in his tale and one more tell-tale sign that his time among us is coming to an end. With all the characters, dialogue, and action, the central motive of this longish miracle story is easily overlooked. Why is Lazarus given new life? For that matter, why does Jesus linger for two days before heading out to Bethany? As Martha mournfully notes, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Martha knows what Jesus himself knows – he could've healed her brother and spared him death. But he waited. He waited until Lazarus was dead and dead for two days before he started out. His reason for waiting foreshadows his own exit from the grave. His reason gives purpose to our work in his name.

Why did he wait? When told that Lazarus was ill and near death, Jesus says, “This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” IOW, the end, the purpose of Lazarus' illness is not to kill him but to give Jesus an opportunity to give glory to God by returning him to life after death. Jesus waits to attend Lazarus so that there can be no doubt that he is good and dead. Four days in the grave. No embalming. No refrigeration. Desert heat. Martha warns of the stench. And yet, when the grave stone is rolled away and Jesus says, “Lazarus! Come out,” he does. We have to imagine Martha's reaction to seeing her four-day-dead brother emerging from his grave. We have to imagine Lazarus' response to being alive again. What does he say? What does he do when his hands and feet are untied? We have to imagine these reactions because they are not recorded in the gospel. They aren't recorded b/c they aren't important to the motive of the story. What's important is this: “Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him.” Jesus returned Lazarus to life so that many might believe.

Martha believed before this miracle. The disciples followed Jesus even though they struggled at times to believe. Maybe they needed another show to be convinced. But Martha and the disciples aren't the audience for the miracle. There are two audiences here. The Jews and us. Many of the Jews came to believe and many of us have come to believe. The Jews – at the time – didn't know about the resurrection. It was still two weeks in the future. We do know about the resurrection. Have known about it for over 2,000 years. That knowledge and our belief in the Christ compel us to take up his mission and ministry where and when we are. And we do. Sometimes zealously. Sometimes lazily. And often with confused motives. Why do we do the good works that we do? Why did Jesus wait four days to raise Lazarus from his grave? To give glory to God and reveal the glory of the Son of God. Jesus allowed a beloved friend to die. Rot in a grave for four days. And raise him to life again so that God the Father might be glorified. So that the Jews – and we – could bear witness to the glory of the Son, the Christ and believe in him. Why do we do the good works that we do? To bear witness to the glory of the Son, the Christ, so that all may come to believe in him.

Lazarus' resuscitation foreshadows the Lord's resurrection. The Lord's motivation for reviving Lazarus is a foreshadowing of what should be our motivation for the work we do in his name. The only legitimate agenda for our schools, hospitals, universities, social services – the only agenda that matters eternally is to give God glory and to reveal the Christ so that all might come to believe in him. Ask yourself: is everything I do, say, and think everyday focused on giving God the glory and revealing the Christ? Yeah, I know. That's a big job description. I should've been fired years ago. How about you? Think of Lent as one, long job evaluation. You're sitting across from The Boss, going over your work history. Day in, day out over your lifetime. Every word, every deed, every thought. Are you thanking and praising God? Are you bearing witness to His mercy? Are you revealing Christ to others so that they can believe in him too? How are you doing? Me? Not as well as I could. Fortunately, The Boss is merciful. We have another week for evaluation and improvements. He showed us how it's done. He let his friend die, rot in a grave for four days, and raised him to life again – to show us how it's done and why. We do his work now, and now we can do it for the right reason. 

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