Let the angels do their job

St. Jerome

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

We can separate the good fish from the bad – the fat catfish from the bony gator gar. We can keep the good fish and toss the bad back. That's a decision we make according to our culinary needs and tastes. It's not likely that anyone will along and dispute our choices. Small bass go back into the water. Big ones go on the wall as a trophy or into the skillet as supper. What happens when we extend the Good Fish/Bad Fish analogy to the parsing of souls at the end of the age? We can come away thinking that it's my job and yours to figure out who gets thrown into the bucket as good souls and who gets thrown away as bad. But here's where the analogy breaks down – as all analogies inevitably do. Fishermen separate good and bad fish. Angels separate good and bad souls. The analogy is about the separation of good and bad, not who does the separating. Fishermen are not angels. And neither are we. The standards we use to decide which fish to keep and which fish to toss back cannot be translated into standards for weighing souls. That's why the job at the end of the age goes to the angels. They are not burdened with our limited vision and animal prejudices.

For your growth in holiness and the maintenance of your graced soul: let the angels do their job. At the end of the age. Right here, right now, your job, my job is to serve as a kind of bait for any fish that might pass by. By word and deed, we serve as a lure, as an attractive enticement to taste the Good News...and maybe even take a big bite. What self-respecting soul sees a sour face, hears a harsh word, or feels a building judgment, and thinks: Yeah, I'll bite! If – as bait – we radiate potential condemnation to the fiery pit of Gehenna, then who will bite the hook? The Lord's bucket could be empty on the last day. And that means we have failed as bait. What happens to useless bait? Rather than trying to do the angels' job, do yours: be joyful tabernacles of the Lord's presence. Meet anger, pride, lust, despair with peace, humility, chastity, and hope. Meet ignorance of God with knowledge of His love. Meet the shame of sin with a word of mercy. And remember: the angels do the separating at the end of the age. Not me. Not you. Pretending to do the work of the angels just might get you a lesson in wailing and grinding of teeth.  

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How do Catholic witness?

Padre Pio

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

I grew up in a world dominated by Southern Baptists. Not the suburban, semi-professional kind of Baptists, the almost non-denominational sort who are happy to live and let live. No, my Baptists were in-your-face evangelizers. The kind who would invite you over for a pizza party and then announce that we all had to go to church before dinner was served. The kind who'd take you aside and talk to you in whispers about asking Jesus into heart as your personal Lord and Savior. All this sales pressure naturally rubbed my introverted disposition the wrong way, so I went off to college and got baptized in the Episcopal Church – where Jesus was rarely mentioned! When I finally swam the Tiber at 33yrs old, I was happy to see that the Catholics weren't much into the whole We're the Sales Team for Jesus thing either. Catholics were happy to let their deeds do the witnessing. Out in the bigger world, this sort of witnessing bears much fruit. Hospitals, pregnancy centers, Catholic Charities, KoC – all and more speak volumes about the faith. But how do Catholics bear witness to the faith in a place like the very Catholic UD? How do Dominican friars witness to one another?

You might think that a place like UD or men like OP friars don't need to be witnessed to. We have the faith. We have daily access to the sacraments. We have Christ in the tabernacle and we carry him with us everywhere we go. We've got Cistercians, Opus Dei, Regnum Christi, LC, Dominicans (friars, sisters, and laity), FOCUS missionaries, seminarians, hundreds of lay faithful, and even the Jesuits! What more do we need to grow in holiness? Well, we need what every other sinner needs: constant, faithful witness to the love of the Father and His freely offered mercy. When OP friars profess simple and solemn vows, we ask for God's mercy and the mercy of the brothers. Giving and receiving this mercy is the only way any of this works. The light we refuse to hide under a vessel is the light of forgiveness. Grudges, slights (imagined and real), the desire for revenge, self-righteous anger, and the dark works of Pride prevent us from shining that light. Take a moment and ask God to reveal to you who it is you need to forgive. Who needs to see in the dark with your forgiving light? We bear witness by being Christ's instrument of mercy to sinners. And we start closest to home.

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Clericalism Sunday

25^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

We're all familiar with Divine Mercy Sunday. We have Laetare Sunday during Lent and Gaudete Sunday during Advent. I propose we call today Clericalism Sunday! While the other especially-named Sundays are celebrations, CS will serve as a warning, as a warning to avoid the hazards of ecclesial ambition. And to be clear from the start: this is a warning for the clergy and the laity alike. We begin with a definition of clericalism: clericalism occurs when the legitimate authority of the clergy is abused; this abuse is usually motivated by ambition, but it can also be motivated by any or all of the Cardinal Sins. Clericalism manifests in dozens of ugly forms: the celebrity cleric who uses his celebrity to enrich himself; the failed actor-priest who uses the liturgy as his stage to perform; the failed politician-priest who uses the pulpit for campaign speeches; the failed CEO-priest who uses the parish as his personal investment bank; or the failed therapist-priest who uses his parishioners as patients. The most egregious form of clericalism is the pervert-priest who abuses his charges sexually. The most common kind of clericalism is described in the Gospel this morning: ecclesial ambition – “Who will be the greatest among us?”

The disciples are arguing quietly among themselves. Jesus asks, “What were y'all arguing about?” But they remained silent. Why did they remain silent? Because “they had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.” Their silence tells us that they know that along the Way of Christ there is no time for wondering who's the greatest among them. At least they had enough humility to be embarrassed! Good. There's hope for them yet. Jesus could've rebuked them severely. Instead, he tells them a simple truth: “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” Jesus tells us that ambition, especially ecclesial ambition – which infects the laity as well! – is best countered with child-like wonder and trust, receiving the Father's gifts with open hands, open hearts, and open minds, always willing and able to take in whatever the Lord sends our way. How do we fail at this child-like disposition? James tells us: “You ask but do not receive. . .” We ask for God's grace, but we do not receive them. And we cannot use what we do not receive.

Why do we ask for graces but fail to receive them? Part of the problem here is that God gives us gifts we didn't ask for. I asked for a better job and God gave me more responsibility. I asked for an “A” on an exam and God gave me more time to study. I asked God for a faithful spouse and He gave me lots of chances to be faithful. Another problem is that we sometimes don't recognize His graces when they come to us. That rare moment of quiet given to us to recollect ourselves. That gesture of goodwill from a troublesome co-worker. That chance to practice patience. Both of these problems – getting what we didn't ask for and failing to recognize a gift when it comes – both of these derive from the same source: ambition in prayer; that is, wanting, needing, desiring out of a sense of entitlement. The disciples have ambitions for power in Christ's Kingdom. Priests have ambitions for positions and influence in the Church. Laity have ambitions for recognition and reward in the world. All this ambition clashes with the child-like wonder and trust Jesus tells us is essential to flourishing along the Way: “. . .whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.”

So, how do we receive in a way that moves us along the Way? First, we must let go of any notion of what God's grace will look like. Any person or event could be a moment of grace. Since God can bring good from evil, even ostensibly “evil” people and events can be instruments of grace. Second, we must learn to ask for what we truly need not merely what we want. We ask not b/c our Father is ignorant of our needs but b/c in asking we receive. We acknowledge our dependence on His providence and cultivate the good habit of gratitude. Third, we must accept and live-out the truth that we ourselves can be instruments of God's grace to others – if we choose to be. Do I act, speak, think, feel in a way that signals to others that God uses me as a vehicle for his providence? Clericalist priests and clericalized laity signal entitlement and narcissism not the presence of divine gift. Lastly, how do I pray? Do I rattle off a litany of wants? Do I pester God with pet peeves and petty desires? Or do I ask Him to open me up and help me to receive all He has to give me? Am I willing to sincerely pray: “Father, help me to be the least so that I may do your great work in the world”?

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Music to the ears

24^th Week OT (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

If wisdom is freed by her children, then who or what is keeping her prisoner? Jesus says that the wisdom to see and hear his message of liberation is held fast by a stubborn need to see and hear nothing less than what we want to see and hear. The children of the age – that's us – play their lutes for John, but he does not dance. And we sing dirges for Jesus, but he does not weep. We say that John is demon possessed b/c he fasts from food and wine. And yet we say that Jesus is a glutton and drunkard b/c he does not fast. What is this generation like? Like children who want what they want but refuse to receive what they want when it's given to them! Those who accept John's fasting and Jesus' joy as both necessary for salvation liberate wisdom from the fickleness of the age. Now, obviously, Jesus is addressing this to those who were present to hear him and John preach the necessity of repentance from sin for salvation. For some, John's mortifications were too much. Too gloomy. Too Old School Religion. For others, Jesus' enjoyment of his Father's creation and his proclamation of divine mercy were too hippyish. Too bright and shiny. Too New Age Spirituality. Taken together, however, we get the wisdom of the Gospel.

And the children of the Gospel liberate wisdom from her fickle captors. The Gospel is both fasting and feasting. It is both a Word about sin and the Father's mercy. It is both a diagnosis and a cure. The Gospel convicts and frees. Totals up a debt and forgives it. Christ's message of salvation from sin and death is both hard to hear and music to the ears. It can be difficult to dance to and perfectly choreographed. Anyone who's sincerely and persistently lived a Gospel life can tell you that there will be days of joy and weeks of despair. Accepting both and loving nonetheless is the soul of wisdom. As Paul writes, “If [you] speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, [you are] a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.” Only the truly foolish believe that following Christ brings instant relief from living in the world while being set apart from it. Christ never promises us bliss on Earth. Nor does he order us into misery to bear witness to his Word. He does, however, promise us his love and orders us to love in return. Fasting, feasting, dancing, standing against wall, whatever. . .we are ordered to love, and we are ordered to be loving.  

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Unblocking Spiritual Constipation

24th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

We can forgive Peter his panicked outburst. We know what it is to love someone and hear that someone say that they are going to die. Our impulse is to deny; to find a way around the problem; to defend. We're shocked by our loved one's apparent acceptance of death. We're surprised that they seem so much at ease with the inevitable. And we're wholly unprepared for the cold wave of grief that washes over us. Peter's outburst at hearing his friend's fate is almost instinct – “God forbid, Lord!” Jesus' response is unexpected, maybe even a little cruel: “Get behind me, Satan!” Peter goes from being The Rock to The Tempter in a matter of days. He goes from being The Keys to the Kingdom to being An Obstacle for the Lord so quickly that we have to ask what happened? Yes, Peter is upset that his beloved teacher has prophesied his own suffering, death, and resurrection. He's also upset that his teacher's enemies score a major victory over the gospel. But Jesus says that Peter is thinking like a man, like a creature, not like the Creator. He's seeing and hearing Jesus' end through the imperfect eyes and ears of someone who himself fears pain and death. And b/c of his limitations, Peter denies not only Jesus' mission of salvation, he denies his own part in that mission.

We can forgive Peter his panicked outburst. But maybe we shouldn't. He's spent three years with Jesus. Eating, traveling, teaching, healing, cast out unclean spirits. He's correctly named Jesus as the promised Christ. He's even been given the keys to the Kingdom, rising up to take charge of the other disciples and the Church. Yet, yet, he still hasn't denied himself, taken up his cross, and followed Christ. IOW, he's got the easy part of the Gospel mission down pat. But he's yet to wrestle with the costs of being a beloved disciple. Jesus' rebuke – “Get behind me, Satan!” – tells us that Peter's failure to understand what it means to be a follower of Christ is a temptation for Christ himself and for us. How so? So long as our faith remains a set of rules, or a list of beliefs, or an action plan for good moral behavior, we are an obstacle for ourselves. So long as we are pulling the minimum, doing to the least required, or playing at being holy, we are an obstacle. We are blocking ourselves from truly following Christ. And even worse – we are standing in the way of others truly following Christ. How do you move from being an obstruction to faith to being a catalyst for faith? Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Christ.

We might wish that Christ had given us a little more here. Like The Ten Easy Steps to Denying Self. Something that we can plug into our spiritual Fitbits and check off as we go. He didn't. What he gives us instead is a living witness. He doesn't tell us what denying self looks like. He shows us. Denying self looks like that [points to the crucifix]. It looks like dying for love. Not some slobbery romance novel love but agape love. The sort of love that arises from the deepest need to be of service. The sort of love that needs another to be rescued from sin and death. That sort of love can only be shown from the Cross – the tool of redemption. When Jesus tells us to take up our cross he means for us to accept, to welcome the means by which we will die for agape love. He doesn't mean to stop complaining about aches and pains, or to just learn to tolerate a rogue son or daughter. He means to search for, find, and embrace the instrument that will assist you in loving sacrificially. That instrument might be chronic pain, or a rogue child, or an intolerable injustice in the world. But it only becomes a saving Cross for you when you see it for what it is: your chance to love radically. Choose to embrace it.

Or. . .you can do what Peter does. Stare at your Cross, discern its demands, flinch, and become an obstacle for yourself and others. Find a mirror. Stare into your own eyes for thirty seconds. Say, “Get behind me, Satan!” Then. . .pick up your cross and follow Christ. Follow him all the way to Golgotha and on to the Wedding Feast!

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Your sin can't forgive my sin

St. John Chrysostom

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Jesus is heaping hot coals on the hypocrites again! This time his target is the disciples. And by extension, us. So, it might be a good idea to figure out what hypocrisy is. Aquinas, quoting St. Isidore of Seville, tells us that the hypocrite is one “who come[s] on to the stage with a disguised face...so as to deceive the people in their acting” (ST II-II.111.2). He goes on to say that the hypocrite is “a sinner [who] simulates the person of a just man.” Hypocrisy then is essentially a form of lying, a dissimulation (Aquinas says) opposed to the virtue of truth. But what does this look like in daily life? Jesus gives us one example in his parable of the Splinter and the Wooden Beam. When I judge you for your sins while ignoring my own much greater sins, I am guilty of hypocrisy. Another example might be simulating holiness or piety while judging others for their apparent lack of such. Yet another example might be holding myself out as a fine example of right-thinking and right-doing while pointing out your apparent failure to be right and righteous. But at the center of hypocrisy is one of the worst sins a Christian can commit: self-righteousness – the lie that I determine whether or not I am right with the Lord.

Here's where the blind leading the blind becomes a real problem. If I am righteous by my own standards and in my own judgment, then I am as blind as I can be. Righteousness is a relationship with God, one that we – as sinful creatures – do not get to define. That's exclusively God's job. He requires our cooperation, of course. But whether or not you and I are righteous at any given point in a day is entirely His call. Not ours. When we take this job from God and give it to ourselves, we not only presume on His mercy, we also proclaim our divinity, a false divinity. Thus we succumb to the same temptation that Adam and Eve fell for in the Garden. We make ourselves gods. And we make the Devil happy. Unfortunately for us, this usurpation of God's prerogative to judge human righteous is fairly easy to achieve. We do it every time we mentally judge that guy at Mass who we know got drunk last night. Or that girl who's not dressed modestly for class. Or that neighbor who has the wrong candidate's sign in their yard. Or that friar who comes back to the priory after midnight. We do it in IOW every time we presume to declare a sinner guilty, knowing that we don't and can't have all the necessary information. Every time we think we are righteous b/c that guy over there is a sinner. As if his sin somehow makes my sin not a sin.

Jesus gives us a way out of this hypocrisy mess. Clean up your own act before you start worrying about your neighbor's act. When our spiritual lives are pristine, utterly pure, then we can point fingers and pass judgment. When will our spiritual lives be utterly pure? The hour we come to see God face-to-face. Not one second before.

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Surrender to Providence

23^rd Week OT (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Four Blessed are you's and four Woe to you's. Old English profs like myself call this parallelism. We love this literary device b/c it allows us to do that other thing we love: compare and contrast. Taking these eight Blessed's and Woe's together, we can figure out what Jesus means by “holiness.” Holiness is not about piety; that is, you can behave piously and remain comfortably among the accursed. Who was it that described the Pharisees, in all their pious finery, as “white-washed tombs”? Nor is being holy about morality; that is, you can successfully avoid every immoral thought, word, and deed that tempts you and still remain entrenched among the accursed. Does Jesus ever bless a good moral act in his sermon on blessedness? Nor is being holy about assenting to the truth of dogma; that is, you can memorize the Catechism and the Bible, recite them both w/o error in front of the Blessed Mother; swear you believe every word, and still find yourself playing among the accursed. Even the Devil can quote scripture. Having said all that, being pious, morally good, and orthodox are all necessary to growing in holiness but none of them (nor all of them together) is what it means to be holy. Holiness (blessedness) is principally about how we choose to suffer – that is, how we choose to understand and act on the pain and deprivation we experience while separated from our Father. Who does Jesus say is blessed? The poor, the hungry, those who mourn, and those who choose to experience their mortal deprivations for the sake of his Name.

And why are these folks blessed? What's so holy about being poor, hungry, mournful, and persecuted? There's nothing especially holy about any of these conditions as such. What's special about being poor, hungry, etc. is that each of these conditions offers the ones who endure them the chance to see beyond their earthly limitations and rely completely on the loving-care of God. They are given a clearer vision of what it means to be humble before the Lord than those who might rely on their wealth and good name for comfort. We are all called to holiness regardless of our state in life or the condition of our lives. Any one of us might choose to suffer poorly and attach ourselves to the bottle, the casino, the needle, or some other false god. Or we might choose to avoid pain and deprivation by causing others pain and depriving them of their due. True holiness entails genuine piety, righteous words and deeds, and right belief about the faith. But the next step beyond these necessities is choosing to throw ourselves completely and w/o hesitation on the loving-care of God. We call this abandonment to divine providence humility. The truly humble are already among the blessed.

If you have tried it, you know that surrendering to providence is no easy maneuver. Being attached to this world makes surrender simply difficult. But if you are attached to this world by wealth, comfort, mortal loves, and the applause of the world's ruling powers, then surrender is almost impossible. Why would any sane person surrender financial security, family/friends, and civil influence for the chance to suffer well for Christ? Well, all those attachments die when you do. An attachment to Christ lives forever. So the choice is stark: attach yourself to the temporary and become temporary. Surrender to the eternal and enjoy eternity. As Paul says, “...the world in its present form is passing away.”

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Are you ready to be a witness?

23^rd Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Jesus heals the man's deafness and his speech impediment and then orders him to be silent. In fact, he orders everyone who witnesses the healing to be silent about what they saw. Mark notes, however, “...the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it.” Two questions: why did Jesus order them to be quiet about the miracle? And why did they disobey? Our interpretative tradition answers the first question this way: Jesus did not want to be seen as a magician, a local crank who went around performing for crowds. Healing miracles drew a lot of attention, and he didn't want to draw the wrong sort of attention, i.e. the Jewish religious authorities or the Romans. The second question is answered like this: the crowds disobeyed b/c they had nothing to lose by bearing witness to the miracle. They didn't understand the purpose of the order, or they maybe they thought Jesus was being falsely humble as part of his act. There's nothing quite so juicy as a bit of forbidden gossip! These answers are fine as far as they go. But something else is going on here. Namely, the healed man and the crowds were not prepared to be proper witnesses to the fullness of the Gospel. IOW, the Gospel is more, much more than having one's ailments cured. They weren't ready, and their disobedience proves it.

The next question is pretty obvious: are you, are we ready to be witnesses to the fullness of the Gospel? The fullness of the Gospel. Likely, some of us are ready to bear witness to the reality of sin. Others are more than ready to give testimony to the power of prayer. Most of us will stand up and lay claim to being Catholic, but will we do so when doing so means losing family, friends, our livelihoods, and maybe our lives? We can be quick to witness to the political realities of being Catholic: pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, pro-social safety net. And we can be just as quick to witness to the moral implications of the Gospel: go to confession; no sex outside the marriage bed; no transgender stuff; modesty in dress. All of these are indeed Catholic and worthy of being witnessed to. But taken together, they do not make up the fullness of the Gospel. They are bits and pieces, fragments loosely sewn to the whole cloth of the Gospel. But the Good News of Christ Jesus is deeper and wider than our human morality and our local politics. The Good News is about bearing witness to Christ by becoming Christ.

We are made and remade to become Christ. But we cannot become Christ on our own. The imperfect cannot bring itself to perfection. Only perfection can draw the imperfect to its completion. If we are going to become Christ, we must do so with Christ. This is the lesson Adam and Eve missed when they disobeyed God in the garden and gave in to the serpent’s temptation to become gods without God. They believed the lie that it is possible for that which is incomplete to bring itself to completion. They ended up naked, exiled, in pain, and eventually dead. And yet we are daily tempted to throw our spiritual well-being into the boxing ring of ridiculous theories and practices in order to achieve our perfection without resorting to Perfection Himself. How many Catholics believe voting for the right guy/gal is going to save them? How many believe they are morally right simply because they take the right positions on moral issues? That being registered in a parish is good enough to thread the Narrow Way? Or giving up caffeine during Lent is a sufficient path to holiness? All of these can derive from the Gospel, but – even taken together – they are not the Gospel's fullness.

We are visited daily by the serpent. Our ears are tickled by the sibilant promises of obtaining divinity w/o obedience, w/o sacrifice, w/o suffering, w/o our dark nights. We know, however, that to become Christ, we must take up his cross and follow him. The credibility of your witness rests squarely on the degree to which you are willing to surrender your imperfection to His perfecting love, and to the degree to which you are willing to share the Good News of his perfecting love by behaving in the world like one who is being polished to reflect the Father’s glory. There is a road to walk, a Way to travel, and there is a difference btw talking about walking that road and getting on your feet and walking it. If Jesus were to heal you, would he ask you to spread that good news? Would he look into your heart and mind and see a son or daughter who's willing to be obedient, self-sacrificing; one willing to suffer well for the truth and beauty of the Gospel? Or would he tell you to keep quiet b/c you are not yet – not yet! – prepared to bear witness to the fullness of all he has to offer? If you're not ready, hear again what Jesus says to the deaf and dumb man: “Be opened!”

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