26 October 2007

Jingle bells, jingle bells...NO Scrooges, please


The PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Wish List has been updated!

Now featuring New & Improved, Better Tasting, 100% RDA of Critical Realism. . .the sensible Christian's defense against the PoMo Virus (French strain).

Hey, look! Christmas is only two months away. . .hehehehehehe. . .hey, give me a break! If Wal-Mart can start putting out Christmas decorations in September, I can start hinting for gifts the last week of October. . .

Ummmmm. . .tasty!

29th Week OT(F): Romans 7.18-25 and Luke 12.54-59
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert
the Great Priory and Church of the Incarnation

[NB. Not recorded just yet...]

The classroom is empty. Again. Third day in a row. I walk to the departmental office and spend about fifteen minutes with the secretary trying to figure out why my students—all 320 of them in nine courses—are not coming to class. Her English is as bad as my Chinese. Finally, she takes me into the hallway and points at a small chalkboard and says, “Away, away.” Apparently, the beautifully rendered pictographs— some resembling row boats on a river of bamboo and others complex computational formulae—apparently these explain to me that my students are in Shanghai for a week, practicing their English on unsuspecting American tourists. I am illiterate and therefore incapable of acting according to the signs.

My failure as a reader of Chinese pictographs was (and still is) a matter of ignorance. I just don’t know how to do translate Chinese. The multitudes facing Jesus are in a slightly different predicament. They can read the signs shown them, properly interpreting and translating the cloud formations and wind temperature to predict correctly upcoming weather conditions. But they will not to translate and interpret properly the signs Jesus has given them, signs that point to his identity as their long-awaited Messiah. For Jesus, this is a matter of their hypocrisy rather than their ignorance.

How are these “illiterate” people being hypocritical? First, they are clamoring after Jesus, asking for sign after sign to prove that he is who he says he is. Each sign seems to demand another until he yells at them exasperated: “You generation of vipers! No sign will be given you but the sign of Jonah!” Their calls for more signs is not a desire for certainty but a lust for spectacle. Second, if their “illiteracy” is willful, that is, if they are merely pretending ignorance of the significance of Jesus’ signs, then they are indeed hearing the Word but failing to welcome the Word into their lives. And, third, and probably most frustrating to Jesus, is that their hypocrisy is an outright denial of their prophetic heritage as a priestly people. The observant Jews in the crowd have celebrated the Passover annually and know that their people await the coming of the Messiah. They know the signs. They know what to look for with Christ’s coming. Yet, still they clamor for more miracles, more evidence, more and better theater.

Paul helps us understand this a little better: “…if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me…when I want to do right, evil is at hand.” Here we have a common, human experience of confronting our disobedience: we know the right thing to do, but we choose not to do it. Evil is at hand. Not an external, demonic force but an internal desire to have our own way contra God’s will for us. Repulsed by what we are called to do in God’s will, we instead wait for another sign, clamor for yet another showing, a tastier, prettier warning.

Though we may empathize with our ancestors here, it is too late for us to feign illiteracy! We are well beyond the moment of convincing that Jesus is who he says he is. We do not have the luxury of leisurely, willful doubt. Paul, the miserable one, asks in his misery: “Who will deliver me from this mortal body?” Who will save him from his flesh, the skin and bones of his disobedience? Of course, this is a rhetorical question! Surely, Paul, converted to an apostle from his life as a persecutor of Christ’s family, converted by a direct encounter with the resurrected Christ, surely, he knows who has saved him from his disobedience. For us too, we who will come forward to eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ in our eucharist, we too know who has saved us from our disobedience. The question for us now is: do we leave here wanting more, running after more and better signs? Tastier, prettier, more dramatic indications that we are loved by a merciful Father? What more do we need?

Is there a tastier, more beautiful miracle than the one we witness this morning?

24 October 2007

Everyone's Secret

29th Week OT(W): Romans 6.12-18 and Luke 12.39-48
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

[Click on Podcast Player to listen]

Secrets require vigilance. Keeping secrets secret requires vigilance, a studied readiness to deny information, or better hide the contents of the secret, or limit the secret’s dissemination. We can encode a secret to pass it more easily between those who know the code. We can whisper the whole secret to another in plain language, risking an eavesdropper but also insuring no mistake in the transmission. Or, to be perfectly clear, we can encrypt our secret in a parable; use the parable to teach our friends the secret; and then, trusting their good sense, their intelligence, and experience, leave the interpretation and implementation of the secret in their capable hands. To those who hear the parable, much is given and much will be required. So, after hearing the parable of the master’s house and the thief, to be sure that he is hearing Jesus correctly, and to be sure that he is being charged with being vigilant, Peter asks a very reasonable question, “Lord, is this parable meant for us or for everyone?” In answer, Jesus explains the parable.

For some time now in Luke’s gospel, Jesus has been promising his apostles a share in his kingdom. Their status as loyal friends, studious disciples, and industrious apostles has won them a special place at both the earthly and the heavenly banquet. Of course, they think this special place is at the head of the table with Christ. Little do they understand (though Jesus has said it many times) their place of honor is among the servants serving the guests. As those who will lead after the Master has left, they serve now and serve ever after. It is in rendering service as stewards, as slaves, that Jesus’ inner circle, his most intimate friends, lay claim to their inheritance. Their vigilance then is not primarily against doctrinal error or the Pharisees or the Romans or even against the Devil himself. Their vigilance is against their own anxiety and imprudence. When the Master is delayed in returning to them, it will be their faith in his promised return and their prudence as ones left in charge that will be tested. In other words, truly their status as faithful servants is tested most severely during that time between the Master’s expected return and his actual return. Here are they (and we!) most carefully examined for infidelity and sloth.

The “secret”—given to the disciples and anyone else with ears to hear and eyes to see—is openly articulated by Paul in his letter to the Romans: “…although you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient from the heart to the pattern of teaching to which you were entrusted.” Note carefully: we have been entrusted to Jesus’ teaching and made obedient; the teaching has not been entrusted to us. Jesus’ teaching guards us against sin. Given this then, we are “freed from sin, [we have] become slaves of righteousness.” Our righteousness in Jesus’ teaching, that is, our “rightness” with the Father guarded by Christ’s teaching, satisfies that longing for freedom that is encoded in our human nature: we desire, more than anything, the divine excellence for which we were created, for which we are re-created.

Against the thieves of imprudence and sloth, especially the thief of righteousness rooted in self-aggrandizement, we are given the most powerful weapon of obedience! Paul writes that we are to present ourselves to God “as raised from the dead to life…” No longer dead in sin, we are alive—always living—in the truest, most beautiful, the best friendship possible. We are slaves of Christ, stewards of his palace, entrusted with the keys to his kingdom. And because much has been given to us, much will be required, and more and more and more.

The secret is: there is no secret. The parable is for everyone. We know the Master’s will for us. And since sin has no power over us, and since we are not under the law but purchased through His gift of freedom, we do his will as a matter of our perfection. Let him return and say to each of us then, “Blessed are you, faithful and prudent servant, you have been vigilant in your duties! Here is your reward: a broom and miles of halls to sweep.”

Items Purchased, ad experimentum

If you have sent me a philosophy/theology book in the last three months but you haven't received a Thank You note from me, please check the ITEMS PURCHASED listing for my Phil & Theo Wish List. If the book you bought for me is listed there it means that I haven't received it yet.

Also, please note that books purchased from Amazon's used bookstores usually do not come with a packing list, so I frequently get books and have no idea who sent them.

Regardless: THANK YOU for your generosity!!!

Check out my new blog venture later today. . .say, late afternoon. . .for the first of what I hope will be a series of kNOt+homi(lies). These are homilies with a postmodern flavor ad experimentum.

22 October 2007

If only women, married folks, and lay people. . .

This just in!

Being male, celibate, and ordained DOES NOT cause child molestation. Therefore, ordaining married women and turning the Church's governing authority over to lay folks will not prevent child molestation.

Or, so the Church of England (and now the rest of us) has discovered: Anglican child abuse ignored for decades.

21 October 2007

If only women and married folks could be teachers...

























While driving all over Texas today, I heard this report on sexual abuse in the public school system several times.

And I bet I thought the same thing every faithful Catholic thought when he/she heard that public school teachers were molesting our kids: "I wonder if the media will call for radical reform of the public education system? Or, perhaps argue that women and married folks should be allowed to study for and be hired as public school teachers? Or, maybe call into the question the very idea of 'public education' at its root?"

And then I bet most of them concluded this brief fantasy in the same way I did: hysterical laughter and teary eyes.

Frankly, I'm surprised to see this much coverage. Wanna bet it's gone by Friday?


I made it...

I'm back in Irving safe and sound. . .though I did hit Texas stadium traffic on the way back in--post Cowboy game. I can't wait for that stadium to move to Arlington. The priory has one entrance/exit onto the access road parallel to 114. On game days/nights we are basically trapped by the bumper-to-bumper traffic. Fans use the access road as another lane of 114. Of course, the they don't observe basic traffic law or common courtesy, so they block the intersections-- rendering the lights useless--. . .aaarrghghghhhhhh!

NEVERMIND!

The meeting with the ILC was. . .interesting. . .no word on a decision yet. I'll keep you posted.

Fr. Philip

19 October 2007

Not Homilies (not exactly)

Postmodern Catholic preaching! Jesus, Mary, Joseph. . .help us!


My new project: kNOt + homi(lies) : ad experimentum. . .an experiment in postmodern Catholic preaching. . .

This is a project that I've wanted to take on for some time, but I was forever letting This or That get in the way.

My intention here is to write and publish experimental homilies using the daily Mass readings. These homily-texts will be very tentative in nature, very much examples of "writing after the death of modernism."

To say the least: these will not be to everyone taste.

Just remember that we're in the kitchen now with our Homiletic Cuisinart and an exotic array of completely foreign ingredients. Will our dishes be tasty? Who knows! BUT. . .we gotta try.

Fr. Philip, OP

I AM with you always

Fractal Flesh

Ss. John de Brebeuf and Isaac Jogues: 2 Cor 4.7-15 and Matthew 28.16-20
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Serra Club Mass and Church of the Incarnation


Jesus says to his eleven friends on the mountain near Galilee, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations…” Sending them out into the world, he vows: “I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Surely his students wondered how much a thing was possible. With us how? In memory, of course. Who could forget Jesus!? With us in spirit? Yes. He had made that promise too, but what does it mean for him “to be with us in spirit”? Will he haunt us? Surely not. He can’t mean that he will “be with us physically” b/c he has told us his end. Will he abide with us as a form of Law or in prayer as his body or perhaps in our doubts. Pay attention: I AM with you always.” Not: I WILL BE with you always. Jesus is not promising that at some future point he will be with his friends. He is telling them that right now and always he IS with them. As he is with us right now.

Paul clarifies: “We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained;…persecuted but not abandoned;…always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.” Jesus is with us always. His body, the Church—because of the surpassing power of God—is becoming Christ; in his dying and in his living, Jesus is being manifested in our mortal flesh; and we, you and I, though often perplexed by the mysteries of our rescue from sin and death, we are never driven to despair; though we are sometimes struck down, we are never destroyed. The victory of the Church of over sin and death is accomplished in the “defeat” of Christ on the Cross—the scandal that ignites our transformation into those who follow Christ to his cross. We follow him to his cross, into his death, and down under his tombstone, therefore “the One who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus,” placing us in His presence.

If we follow Christ now, die with him now, and live always in the hope of rising with him, then we must do what he did and teach what he taught. To do or teach anything less or other-than is a betrayal of, treason against the manifestation of his living and dying in our mortal flesh. And so, to all the nations we go out “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that [he] has commanded [us].” Our success in this commission is more than a force of history, more than the accuracy of our story told over and again; our success in this assignment as mortal-flesh-transformed is guaranteed by the living presence of the one who is himself the Word Made Flesh. Though afflicted, persecuted, and struck down, we cannot fail because what we do in our mortal flesh as his Body is “not from us” but is the fruit of our God’s surpassing power, the power of “I AM with you always.”

I believe, therefore I speak: Live as Christ. Die as Christ. Rise with Christ to the Father “so that the grace bestowed in abundance” may be given again and again to more and more and more and the harvest of thanksgiving for our Lord’s life and death will “overflow for the glory of God.” Go, therefore, be fruitful and multiply! Christ is with us always!

18 October 2007

Postmetaphysical theologies

Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Derrida and their band, The Categorical Imperatives

Here's a partial reading list for my spring seminar: THEO5317: Postmetaphysical theologies

J.L. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition

G. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine

J.-L. Marion, God Without Being

J. Milbank, Radical Orthodoxy

M. Wrathall, Religion After Metaphysics

There will be many other articles and book chapters assigned, including work from Caputo, Vattimo, Derrida, Heidegger, and many others. There will also be a few on-line articles to read such as this one.

17 October 2007

A stillborn life of fear

St Ignatius of Antioch: Philippians 3.17-4.1 and John 12.24-26
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX


[Click on Podcast Player to listen]

Maybe it isn’t death that you fear most. Maybe there is something or someone, the thought of which or whom, clutches your gut in a vise-grip and wrings your adrenal glands dry, sending you into a hard-breathing panic—run or fight, flee or do battle! Or maybe your fear is more subtle. Not the sort of spiked shock that jolts us when a door slams in the night or when we round a street corner and there, only inches away, stands a stranger. Perhaps your fear is more intricate, more complex; a fear with some finesse—a long fear, anxious, spiced with apprehension and that not-knowing sense of a soon-to-arrive surprise, grim and dark with vicious possibilities. Imagine the terror of slowly losing control of your mind. Or the darkness of addiction. Or the daily dread that rises from a failed marriage, or an unsuccessful career, or an arid spiritual life. Imagine believing that God is abandoning you, pulling away, becoming distant and angry. Imagine hating your life. Then the fear of death seems like a welcomed wind.


Jesus teaches his disciples that they must die like a grain of wheat before they are can produce much fruit. How are they to die? Except for John, all of them are martyred—the seeds of their blood sown for the Church. Jesus means literal death, literally one must die to bear the best fruit. Our martyrs, our witnesses in death, bear this out. He also means that before death you must die to self so that what gifts you have may be used for others: “Whoever loves his life loses it…whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be.” Is there any sign for us here and now that we have lost of our life for Christ and stand ready to follow him? How do we know that we have fallen to the ground like that grain of wheat and are now ready to produce much fruit?


Are you afraid? What do fear? Whom do you fear? Is there a fiber of dread in you? Even a sliver of apprehension about who you are or what you will do or who it is you need to serve? I ask b/c fear is the soul’s signal to us that we love our lives too much. Anxiety is our defense against surrender. To be afraid is a sign that we still need control, still hope to be in charge, still want to own our future—a future, by the way, that in virtue of your baptism properly belongs to Christ alone. Jesus says, “Whoever loves his life loses it…” We have lost our lives to him. That worrying disquiet, that nervous vigilance against submitting fully to grace, the fear you feel welling up when your plans go awry, when your strategy for your soul’s progress is thwarted, that fear is your billboard announcement that you are not willing yet to be a servant. The thick hull of your seed is not yet willing to crack, to germinate, to produce much fruit.


Listen to Ignatius of Antioch, writing to the first century church in Rome, asking his brothers and sisters in Christ not to rescue him from martyrdom: “I plead with you: show me no untimely kindness. Let me be food for the wild beasts, for they are my way to God. I am God’s wheat and shall be ground by their teeth so that I may become Christ’s pure bread…Do not stand in the way of my birth to real life; do not wish me stillborn…Let me attain pure light. Only on my arrival there can I be fully a human being.”


We are citizens of heaven, so our minds must not be occupied with earthly things. Does this mean that you are to wall yourself up in a cave? No. It means that the country of your soul, the territory of your Spirit is ruled by the sacrificial love of God Himself, and no other spirit—not anxiety, not hatred, not envy or pride, no other vicious spirit—must be allowed to occupy the land of your love for Christ and his Church. Desire only to die in Christ for Christ and pray with the martyr Ignatius that you may obtain your desire.

Texas' First Red Hat?

Texas' First Cardinal?

Rocco over at Whispers in the Loggia is reporting that Archbishop Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston will be wearing a spiffy red hat very, very soon. The Archbishop's elevation to the College of Cardinals will be a first for the Church in the great state of Texas.

Congrats Archbishop DiNardo and to the Church of Galveston-Houston!

Psssssssssttt, Archbishop, if you need a good personal theologian, you know, like the Pope has one, just give me a ring, I know a jolly Dominican friar who'd make a great one. . .I'm a mean cook too!

Fr. Philip, OP

15 October 2007

Sighing, fidgeting, groaning

Teresa of Jesus: Romans 8.22-27 and John 15.1-8
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

[Click on the Podcast Player to listen!]

Perhaps all this groaning in Romans this morning is a near eastern tradition, a traditional way of expressing a kind of frustrated anticipation. Nowadays, we fidget. Bounce our legs, tap our fingers, or grind our teeth. Or, my personal favorite, the exasperated sigh. Whatever artful way our impatience blows out of us, we can be sure that being impatient about the perfection of our bodies and souls in Christ will do nothing to move things along. Groan, sigh, tap, bounce, fidget and end up not one iota closer to being perfected in Christ. Paul says in Romans that all this groaning in expectation is just fine, “For in hope we were saved…if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance.” So, when we hope over and against impatience and we do so with endurance, the Spirit comes to our aid in our weakness and gives us a mouth and tongue for prayer. In fact, we aren’t the only ones groaning. Since we do not how to pray as we ought, “…the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.” Ooohhh, now I get it: groaning in anticipation of being perfected in Christ through the Spirit is not just noisy, windy impatience at all but an expression of our own labor pains as each one of us struggles—along with all of creation—to give birth to the Word for the world!

This image of “giving birth to the word” connects with our sisters in Christ better, I think, than it does with our brothers. Though some of us may look as though we are about to give birth, images of motherhood require some intimacy with the biological processes involved to be effective as a teaching method. John gives us another image of our familial connection to Christ that is a bit more universal in its appeal—the analogy of the God the vine grower, Christ the vine, and the we the branches. First, Jesus tells the disciples, “You are already pruned because of the word I spoke to you.” Jesus has cut away the obstacles of sin, the ties that bind, the relationships that impede growth in holiness with him. We are branches prepared to be grafted onto the vine. Next, Jesus admonishes them, “Remain in me, as I remain in you.” As a pruned branch, a cut limb, we cannot live apart from the vine. We wither and die without the nourishment of Christ the Branch. We need that organic feed, that biological bond not just to survive but to prosper, to bloom and bear fruit. And if we fail to grow that organic bond—to bloom, to bear good fruit—we die on the branch. And we are pruned away, gathered up, and thrown into the fire. Then the real groaning begins!

Jesus says to his disciples: “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.” Now, we can go back to fidgeting and tapping and loudly sighing; waiting as our bounce our knees, groaning for our redemption. And while we wait—happily impatient, hopefully annoyed for having to linger here—we remain in Christ and he remains in us, and the Spirit, himself a groaner of the inexpressible, intercedes for us before the throne, insuring that when our impatient hearts are searched, our Father finds a field of good fruit, acres of fresh produce. Remember Christ’s promise: “Remain in my love; whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit.”

14 October 2007

Hermeneutics of Books


The more I read the more I need to read. . .

The cycle is neverending!

I've updated the Buy Fr. Philip PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Wish List. It now includes more texts on philosophical hermeneutics, i.e. the uses of philosophy in interpreting texts, or the philosophical issues involved in reading texts and interpreting them. You would be surprised to know just how many problems there are in the interpretations of various kinds of texts.

I'm going to need more boxes before I move. Sigh.

How to Ruin Your Life

Your life can be a car wreck too! Keep reading to find out how!


28th Sunday OT: 2 Kings 5.14-17; 2 Tim 2.8-13; Luke 17.11-19
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital and Church of the Incarnation

[Click the Podcast Player to listen!]

Here’s the surest way to ruin your life: never say “thank you.” Live as if you are entitled to everything you have, everything you receive. Live as if you are responsible for your successes, your moments of greatness (large or small). Live as if you are self-sufficient, independent, in need of no help, in need of no one else. Clench you fist when a hand is offered. Close your heart when a hand reaches out. Recoil in horror when someone suggests that you could use assistance. Believe that you can do it all by yourself. When you fail there is no one else to blame. When you succeed there is no one else to credit. And when you die, you die alone. Never say “thank you” and watch your days unravel behind you like an ugly scarf snagged on a barbed-wire fence. A life of ingratitude is a life without grace, without gifts and it is a life unworthy of life. It is better to be a healed leper who returns to God with thanks than a well man who will not come to God with thanksgiving. Therefore, “in all circumstances, give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”

Paul writes to Timothy that he, Paul, is a criminal for the gospel, a man put in chains for preaching the Good News to Jews and Gentiles alike. And though he is suffering in chains for the sake of Christ and Christ’s body, “the word of God is not chained.” We can add here: “…and the word of God will never be chained.” Though courts, kings, governors, and states may strive to whip the Word with judicial rulings or bury it in paper prisons or poison it with the deadliest medicines, the Word will not be whipped, buried, or poisoned. In fact, Paul, noting the persistence of the Word for him, says, that because the word is not chained, “[he] bear[s] with everything for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus…” The Word endure, carries on, lives always. And for this, we must give thanks. You must be the one healed leper in ten who returns to give God thanks, or Christ will wonder about you, “Where are the other nine?”

Before asking how gratitude works for us spiritually, let’s take a moment to explore the possible reasons for being ungrateful. Why do we sometimes fail to give God thanks? First, we may not understand the “giftedness” or “givenness” of our lives, that is, we may not understand the fundamental animating principle of human life. My life, your life is a gift, meaning that that we exist at all is a present from God. God did not need us then. Does not need us now. And will never need us. Reality’s creation from nothing was a gratuitous, singular event, a wholly unnecessary one-time occurrence. The on-going presence of Something rather than Nothing is gratuitous as well. That we are still here is a gift. Second, the psychological motivations we need to accomplish anything often rely on the notion that we achieve our successes and that we fail in our failures. In other words, it seems that in order for us to do anything good at all we must believe that anything we do well results from personal talent and hard work. Why give thanks to someone not directly involved in the work of my success? Of course, this denies the first principle of creation: eveything I am and everything I have is a gift from God. My talent, my drive to work hard, my need to succeed—all are gifts. Third, so delighted are we in our successes we often need to claim total credit in order to feel worthy of the success. If I am to succeed again, I have to come to the conclusion that I am solely responsible for that success. To do anything less is to risk a future failure. Finally, since the first bite of the apple in the garden we have been tempted to believe that we can become god w/o God. One god has no need to thank another god for anything. Our declaration of independence from the engines of divine perfection means that we think we are capable of saving ourselves. All we need for salvation is determination, the right doctrines, sufficient work, and a heart cold enough to reject any outside help offered—human or divine. We fail to give God thanks out of ignorance, pride, a cold heart, and vanity.

Why should we give God thanks? Given what we already know about our creation—that we were created gratuitously—we can see that acknowledging our existence is first and foremost a matter of justice: we owe God our gratitude. Our thanks is due. Our thanks to God is also a matter of acknowledging the most basic truth of our lives: we are creatures created by a Creator. We are not random collections of chemical and electrical processes. We are not genetic productions accidentally generated by ideal climatic conditions. We are beloved creatures, loved by our Creator. And as creatures first loved by God, we love back and give thanks for that love. The spiritual benefit, that is, the advantage that accrues to us when we are grateful to God is an increase in humility, an increase in our appreciation of our givenness, our total dependence on God as our Creator and Sustainer-in-being. Humility is the measure we use to determine the degree to which we are radically aware of our dependence on God. Your humility means that you know you are a gift given for no other reason than to love and be loved.

Here then is the surest way to ruin your life: fail daily to give thanks to God. Get up in the morning and go to bed at night as if you are entitled to everything you have, as if you were owed everything you have received. Get up in the morning and go to bed at night as if you alone achieved all of your successes, as if you orchestrated all your moments of greatness. Go day to day through your life utterly alone, in need of no one, in need of nothing but your own ingenuity and hard work. Grit your teeth when help is offered and say, “No, thank you.” Lock up your heart when a hand reaches out and say, “No thanks.” Shrink back in disgust at yourself and everyone around you when you fall and refuse help. Know in your ungrateful heart that you can do it all by yourself.

Or, you can be trustworthy. You can be grateful and flourish in blessing. You can be the one healed leper who returns to thanks to God. You can be Naaman, who is healed in the Jordan, his flesh like the flesh of a little child. And you will be the one to hear Christ say, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.” Our Lord has revealed his saving power to the nations. Whatever you do, do not be among the nine ungrateful hearts who think that their healing is an accident. There is nothing accidental about the Cross, or Christ’s death on it. He died with intent. For us, he died knowingly, freely. And because of his love for us, we are free. Give thanks to God and make your life, this life right now, a living sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving!

13 October 2007

Murphy/Tassin Wedding

Holy Matrimony: Murphy & Tassin Wedding
Song of Songs 2.8-16, 8.6-7; 1 Cor 12.31-13.8; Matthew 7.21, 24-29
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, Irving, TX

[Click Podcast Player to listen!]

Paul preaches: “Love is always patient and kind, never jealous, never boastful or conceited, never rude or selfish; love never takes offense, and is not resentful.” The Song of Songs sings, “Love is a flash of fire, a flame of the Lord himself…Love no flood can quench, no torrents drown…love is as strong as Death…” Love, above all, is dangerous! Rains come, gales blow, flood waters rise, lightening strikes, and we are shaken in our bones by the thunder. Love remains. Love remains, more dangerous, more perilous, and never more necessary than right now. Nothing happens without love b/c there is nothing but Love. As the divine passion that took the dark vacuum of nothing and spoke its Word, making all things; as the divine passion that divided day and night, male and female, good and evil, making creation His kingdom; as the divine passion that became Man so that we might share in His life beyond this one—Love is the rock foundation, the indestructible frame, the everlasting Word; Love is the Lord Himself given to us, freely, without cost to us. When we give ourselves to one another in love, we are loved first by God Himself.

What are we without Love? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Paul says, “If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing.” Song of Songs makes clear that without love we are locked away, mute, crippled, weak; we are jealous, drowned, burned away. Matthew tells us that without the rock of love upon which to build our lives together we are too easily washed away, blown away, fallen. We are nothing…at all. Thanks be to God, then, that we are made to be “ambitious for the higher gifts,” desperate for sweet beauty, the seal of joy on our hearts, the house built against the storms. Paul preaches, “that [we] have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then [we] are nothing at all.” Thanks be to God, then, that when we give ourselves to one another in love, we are loved first by God Himself.

Tara and Jeremy are not here this afternoon to show us how they love one another. They are not here to declare a love that has gone, up until now, unspoken. And we are not here to witness their love—as if we knew nothing about them before now! Tara and Jeremy are here this afternoon to bind themselves together in the sacrament of matrimony, becoming one heart and mind, to show us that God, Who is Love Himself, loves us all first. Once bound together, under vows, Tara and Jeremy become living sacraments, living signs for the rest of us of exactly how and how much God loves us. When Jeremy looks at Tara and sees her beautiful face, hears her sweet voice, and says, “My beloved is mine and I am hers,” we all see the beautiful face and hear the sweet voice of Christ, speaking directly to us. When Tara sets Jeremy’s love for her on her heart as a seal and leans on his strong arm for support, we all know that Christ has set his seal on us and offered to us his strong arm. For them, God’s love is flash of fire and for us all the fire is the Lord Himself.

Rain comes. Flood waters rise. Gales blow. And all the debris of the storm will be hurled against a house built on the rock of love. Let’s not make the mistake of thinking that love is magic. There is no voodoo in the sacrament this afternoon, no spells or charms that make love easy or simple. Tara and Jeremy both know that being bound together in love is dangerous. There are perils to saying Yes to another. Those beautiful faces aren’t always so pretty. Those sweet voices sometimes crack and screech. Even the strongest arm grows weak with use. The everyday living of life, just moving from sleep to sleep, from breakfast to dinner, can be a storm. There will be dark days. Hard moments. Times when today, looking back, might look like a huge mistake! There is no secret to living through these. No romantic magic to hold you up. There is only your love for one another and the sure promise from God that He loves you more.

Tara and Jeremy, today is the day! You become sacraments of Christ’s love for his Church. Remember: patience, kindness, humility, and selflessness; remember that jealousy and resentment kill a gift quicker than a knife through the heart. Remember that you are not trapped in a marriage but freed in love; not locked in your vows but let loose by them. Remember that you are always ambitious for the higher gifts and that there is no higher gift than that you be Christ for one another—teaching one another, healing one another, feeding one another, loving one another, and perhaps, as Christ did for us, even dying for one another. Remember, finally, this: love delights in the truth; it is always ready to forgive, to trust, to hope, and it will endure whatever comes, whatever comes! Because “love does not come to an end.”

12 October 2007

Al Gore: Master of Peace? (Updated)

That thundering crash you heard sometime last night was the credibility of the Nobel Peace Prize dropping through the earth's crust.

Apparently, one contributes to world peace best with junk science, political ambition, sophomoric logical fallacy, and self-referentially incoherent hypocrisy and exaggeration. Throw in some leftist-academic intolerance of dissent and. . .VOILA!. . .you get a Nobel Prize from the Swedes.

Oh, how you have fallen!

Update: I think AL (and the rest of the world) would have been better served had he been awarded an Ig Nobel Prize.

Also, check out Junk Science for a rather humorous take on AL's science of global warming. You could also win $125,o00 if you prove global warming is the product of the human consumption of natural resources. That amount of dough could buy Father a whole lotta books!

Spiritual Warfare: who's the enemy?

Satan in victory?

27th Week OT(F): Joel 1.13-15; 2.1-2 and Luke 11.15-26
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory and Church of the Incarnation

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We are rushing headlong into God’s Kingdom. The war with Satan is over. He lost. With the advent of our Father’s Christ, the kingdom of God is at hand. We are wasting our time and treasure when we spend our lives fighting the Devil. Why continue to fight a defeated enemy? Spiritual warfare is not a war against evil. Rather it is a war to conquer our hesitation, our reluctance to claim the victory Christ won for us on the Cross. Our sign of victory is the Empty Tomb and the coming of the Holy Spirit. We don’t need weapons or strategies or a martial mindset to defeat Satan. Satan has lost. We are now fighting spiritual war against our own fears, our own faint hearts.

Do we gather? Or do we scatter? If we gather with Christ, we gather victories. If we scatter against him, we scatter his victory.

What is the problem with the notion of “spiritual warfare” when “spiritual warfare” is understood to be a fight against the forces of darkness? There are a number of problems. Here’s just two. First, we have to ask, why fight a defeated enemy? What aren’t we doing while we prepare to fight a war we have already won? Focused on fighting Satan, we fail to expend our spiritual resources on the real problem: human disobedience, the failure to hear the Word, to see the Word and to believe with heart, mind, body, and soul that no word or deed of a mere devil can stand against The Word himself. In other words, we play anxiously with a distraction and give the Devil hope.

Second, fighting the defeated Devil is an act of betrayal against Christ. How so? What exactly do you think Christ accomplished on the Cross? What exactly do you think the Empty Tomb testifies to? If the Devil still has power in your life and you need to fight him, then the Cross was always empty and the tomb littered with some rascally rabbi’s bones. Jesus clearly states to the doubters in the crowd, “…if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.” If you believe that Jesus drives out these demons with his Father’s power, then you believe the Kingdom has arrived and continues to manifest until Christ comes again. If you don’t believe that Jesus drives out demons with heavenly power, then it must be case that you believe he does so with the power of Hell. Either we live in the Father’s kingdom or the Devil’s dungeon. Unite the kingdom, or divide it. Gather victory, or scatter it.

Our Holy Fathers John Paul II and Benedict XVI teach us that we have come into the Paschal Mystery of Christ in our baptism. Meaning what? Meaning, when we were baptized, we took the first step along the Way to following behind our Lord in his public ministry, his suffering, death and his resurrection—his final victory over death. In other words, following Christ means doing what Christ did, suffering what Christ suffered, dying as Christ died, and rising with him when he rose. Do you believe that Christ was ever subject to Satan? Or that he is subject to Satan now? Of course not! Death is dead. Sin is powerless. The war is over. And Christ is the victor.

If you don’t believe this, then what are you doing here?

11 October 2007

Books for the Novices (update: BOUGHT!)

As always I am overwhelmed by the generosity of the readers of this blog!

I have received several books this week from used bookstores. . .this means that there was no shipping invoice, so I don't know to whom to send a THANK YOU card! Bee, I know which ones you sent me. . .thanks again.

I've received a few worried inquiries about the nature of some of the books on my PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Wish List. There's lots of Nietzsche and Derrida and other strange characters on the list. Yes, there are. And with good reason. Right now, these guys dominate a lot of what happens in theology programs all over the world. Directly or indirectly, postmodern philosophies have seeped into the ways we "do theology" and there is simply no way to ignore this cold, hard fact. Anyone wanting to engage in serious theological discussion has to be able to refer intelligently to these figures. So, I have to read them. I don't have to like them or think that they are right or even think that they have a lot to offer the Church. But I have to read them. I will write papers on them and take exams on their work. Fortunately, I am not a 23 year old first year grad student, so there is no danger of being "going native" and streaking off into the sharp angles and kitschy montages of PoMo theory. Been there, done that. Got the collage to prove it. As I have said before: please think of my training in Continental philosophy as something like the training the students at Hogwarts go through when they take classes in Defense Against Dark Arts. I'm training to be their Prof. Let's just hope my fate is better planned. . .

So, help me defend against the dark arts of pOmO theory and buy me a few tomes of post-Nietzschean mutterings. Just click here, look for the priority rating, and send them on: PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Wish List.

[Update: the books have been purchased!] While I'm begging for books. . .I'm hoping someone out there has $80 to spare and would be willing to spend it on a book for the novices. I'm teaching a seminar this semester here at U.D. in the history of Christian spirituality. One of the books I use is Jean Danielou's God and the Ways of Knowing. This is a terrific book. Fr. Danielou is probably one of the most lucid writers I've run across in this genre. I would use the book as a text for discussion in the class the novices have with me, Fundamental Theology. We're reading Pope Benedict's book, Jesus of Nazareth in the spring. We have six novices. My shipping address is on the left-hand sidebar.

If you decide you can buy one or more of these for us, please drop me a note in the combox. Thanks in advance for your generosity!

Fr. Philip, OP