Are you ready? Are you sure?

First Sunday of Advent: Is 63.16-17, 19b; 64.2-7; 1 Cor 1.3-9; Mark 13.33-37
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS Domenico e Sisto, Roma

Advent is to Christmas what Lent is to Easter: the time right before the arrival of an much anticipated divine revelation, a time when we make ourselves ready to be shown what God has to show us. Both Advent and Lent—though in profoundly different ways—prod us into remembering that not everything we can know about God and His will for us is knowable through argument, experiment, and rational deliberation. Yes, we are naturally graced in His image and likeness with every means we need to fine-tune our understanding of how we come to know, to sharpen the edges of what we know, to apply artfully, scientifically, technically the knowledge that we grow and harvest. But like children with little experience in the world of big things and predatory dangers—too ready to jump, so eager to do it on our own—we have to be shown, we have to be led to the show; however, what we need to know most is too bright, too sharp, so beautifully detailed and wondrously simple that to know it as it is would shock our natural apprehension, our graced comprehension, searing all our gifts of reason and will like food stamp baloney flash-fried in a hot buttered skillet. What we need is immeasurable holiness, Wisdom Himself. What we need to know of Wisdom is shown to us by Wisdom Himself. And like any adventure, like any enlightening quest we must be ready, fully prepared, wholly poised and trigger tight, at attention right on the blade’s edge set to see and hear and taste what Wisdom will expose to us. The days of Advent are the razor’s edge of the Incarnation, the blade against the skin of not-knowing-just-yet who comes to save us.

Though we are a month away from the solemnity of the nativity of our Lord, someone has already died for Christmas; or rather, someone has been killed at the beginning of another consumerist orgy before Christmas morning arrives. A stocker at Wal-Mart in Long Island, NY was trampled to death by shoppers rushing into the store to buy bargains. Every item bought in that Wal-Mart that day is an accessory to murder. What do we need to say about those who trampled him? Those who watched? Those who continued to snatch up the bargains? What a way for us to prepare for the coming of the Lord.

In some ancient pagan city long before the coming of Christ, this kind of human sacrifice might have been the perfect start to a holiday season of feasting and gift-giving, a raucous frolic of wailing and blood while waiting for the coming of a god in the flesh. Today, it is a headline. A link on Drudge. One of those news-of-the-bizarre items that we click on in order to watch the vid from Youtube, and then, bored with the shaky camera work and the lack of decent sound, we move on to the gossip about best-dressed or the least desirable relocation spot or top ten tips for knowing if he’s cheating on you. This man’s death is a passing moment, like a shampoo bottle over the laser-eye of the UPC scanner at the place of his death.

What do we need to know? Ask the question this way: what have we forgotten? We have forgotten too much. We have forgotten this: “You, LORD, are our father, our redeemer you are named forever.” And we are afraid to ask this: “Why do you let us wander, O LORD, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?” Why are we afraid to ask? Because we might hear this: “There is none who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to cling to you; for you have hidden your face from us and have delivered us up to our guilt.” If this doesn’t freeze your blood, you aren’t paying attention. The Lord has something to show us. And we are not ready. What do we need to see? What does the Lord want to show us? Our guilt. Yes, our guilt. Do you think that showing us our guilt is unnecessary? Or maybe you think that showing us our guilt is somehow unloving or unforgiving or mean-spirited? Maybe it is. For now. But we need to see it nonetheless. Why? Because if we see our guilt, if we give a knowing nod to our guilt, we recognize that at our roots, from our deepest selves, we are good people. Have we forgotten this?

If so, Advent is here to remind us. What will you wait for this next month? The opportunity to break out the carols? The tree? The Santa Claus cut-out? Or will you wait to remember that you are a loved creature, wholly prepared and waiting, anxiously anticipating and sitting on the blade’s edge, poised to be shown your perfection? Think: who is coming? Who is it that comes in the name of the Lord to take flesh and bone in the womb of the Blessed Mother to be born and raised as a man and to live as a teacher of the truth of his Father’s mercy to his passion and to his death on the cross and his burial in a fresh tomb and his rising again from the grave? Who comes? For whom do you wait? You say, “I wait for the coming of the Lord!” Really? Do you? Do you really wait for the coming of the Lord? Or do you wait for the coming of Christmas? For the sales? The stampedes? The chaos?

For whom do you watch? We are children too small and too fragile to see and hear what comes. But we must. We must be ready. Having spent at least a month praying for the coming of the Lord, we must be wholly prepared, entirely ready to receive among us the Son in the flesh, our means of becoming all that we were created to be. Our waiting is not simply about doing a duty. Our waiting is about sharpening, polishing, shining, clearing out, and making ready—what?—our heart, our minds, our souls. Making room, creating space and time, shoving aside in order to pull in. He Who Comes to us is the Child of the Spirit of God, the flesh and bone of the Mother, the Word given hands and feet to walk and do among us. This is as much as we can see and hear and taste. And maybe not even this. Maybe with all the preparation, all the time before, all the time we have to make ready for the revelation, even so, even still, we are not wholly still, utterly set to take in, to absorb, to stand under the event—the coming of the Son in the flesh. Emmanuel. He is with us. Our God is with us. For our sake, He is returned.

Now what? Are you different? Have you changed? If not, why not? Why did you wait? Why did you bother? Is your God with you? If so, who are you? Who were you before; who are you now? If for you Advent is about Christmas, about Wal-Mart and the stuff under the tree, don’t bother. Guilt will mean nothing to you anyway. Long ago you accepted that you are bad person. If, however, you feel the guilt, you feel the separation from God, rejoice! Yes, rejoice! Because your guilt means that you have an inkling of He Who Waits with you, for you. You know you need to know him. And He knows that you want to. Advent is not a stepping stone to Christmas any more than Lent is leads naturally to Easter. Advent is that long space before that makes Christmas into a feast about Christ. Without that, without the waiting, Christ’s coming in the flesh is a predictable miracle, a practiced trick of magic and rehearsed belief.

Make ready. The pan is hot. The butter is melted. Are you ready to be fried?

The Ten-Year Solution to War

We all know some Obama Catholics who would think that this is a splendid idea! In fact, given the published arguments of some Obama Catholics, I'm not sure how they would distinguish their opposition to outlawing abortion in favor of reducing the number of abortions with the solution these folks have come up with.

This solution fits all the moral criteria that any modernist utilitarian Catholic would worship:

1). It's done by consensus of the "womenfolk," so it must be wise.
2). It's done to "reduce the number of killings in the future."
3). It's death--someone elses death--as a quick and easy solution to a complex problem.
4). It's an evil done with the good intention of preventing future inconveniences.
5). It's done in the name of peace and justice.
6). It's done in good conscience, no doubt.
7). We should not judge out of respect for cultural differences (see comments on the article).
8). Something about poverty, women's health, condoms. . .
9). Besides George W. Bush is evil.
10). The Pope is out of touch with mainstream American Catholics, so it's OK to ignore him.

Truly, this is a frightening world we live in. . .

Vampire Queen to Catholic (again)

Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession, Anne Rice.

It's old news now. Anne Rice--vampire queen, Goth diva, gay icon--has returned to Mother Church. Her book, Called Out of Darkness, chronicles her journey back to the Church after years of wandering low and lower in the wastes of atheism, radical politics, neo-pagan fantasy, and the blackness forest of all--grief.

I won't spoil the book by answering the Big Question--what happened to bring her back? I will tell you how God lured her back. He used the author's sacramental imagination. He used the stuff of creation and the art of His greatest love, man, to seduce our vampire queen back into the fold.

Rice goes into some detail when describing how the last few occult books lingered in her mind as pseudo-Christian tales of redemption. But the spark that lit the fire of the Holy Spirit in her was that human faculty that Augustine and Aquinas argue is vital to art: memory. She remembered her Catholic upbringing. She remembered the sisters. Her high school. The Mass before the Council. She remembered the Baltimore Catechism, the devotionals, the sacramentals, and all the things whose absence now left her without anchor or bearing.

She came back and now professes a love for Christ. And here's where things get muddled for our goth diva. She comes back to the Church but not to the fullness of the faith. She comes back to her pre-Vatican Two Catholic cultural identity but not to the difficult parts of being a Catholic. She embraces confession, the Mass, the Holy Father. She embraces all those parts of being Catholic that make being Catholic something special in the eyes of the world. What she has not embraced quite yet are those parts of the Catholic faith that the make us look like Old World peasants in the eyes of our WASPY neighbors: opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage, all male priesthood, etc. If one wanted to be cynical, one might point out that our vampire queen has embraced just enough of the Catholic faith to seem weird among her NYC cocktail party friends but not enough to get her booted off the circuit list as an intolerant right-wing freak. That would be cynical.

Here's what I'm very happy about: Anne Rice has returned to the Church. Like any of us she will likely spend some time figuring out how to embrace the Whole Truth of the Faith without losing herself in a bizarre kind of Romish fundamentalism. I think this book is the very first step among many steps she will make to come to the fullness of the faith.

I will recommend the book as a great boost for anyone whose faith in God's Self-revelation in His creation is lagging. To anyone who needs to hear that someone from the Bad Ole Days before the Glorious Revolution of 1965 has been saved from the wreck that their generation has made of the Church since 1965. The book is very readable, chatty almost, beautiful in places, and even prayerful. We can't overlook Rice's reluctance to embrace the fullness of the Church's moral teachings, but we can rejoice that now that she's one of us again, she has a much better chance of finding that oh-so-narrow, oh-so-long road to holiness.

Questions...

Random questions. . .

1). What is your thesis about?

Very, very broadly: I will be researching and writing on the medieval debates about the temporal nature of creation and how these debates might help cosmologists today better understand how to talk about their theories of the origins of the universe in philosophical/theological terms. All cosmologies have philosophical/theological implications. More often than not, the scientists composing these theories have little or no philosophical/theological training, so they fail to grasp how their theories work or do not work when discussing existential or theological questions. Very often, scientists simply assume that the modern western scientific worldview is all-encompassing and omni-explanatory. In other words, they are reductionists, reducing everything to material processes signifed by mathematics. Whatever is not immediately reducible in this way is assumed to be either non-existent or existent in such a way that current technology cannot measure it. Now, this reductionist attitude is widespread but not wholly controlling in the scientific world. Lots of scientists embrace a healthy spiritual view of the universe and struggle to understand all that is with various non-materialistic theories, or theories that do not necessarily exclude the possibility of non-materially existing things. These are the scientists I want to talk to!

2. Did you ever get a response to the email you sent the DLC?

No, I never received a response. This question refers to a post earlier this month about the Dominican Leadership Conference's document on social justice, Call to Action. Evidence surfaced that the OP social justice promoters discussed the inclusion of our opposition to abortion in the document but decided against it for reasons that none too few of us think are dubious.

3. Response to a comment.

Earlier this morning I received a comment on this post via email that I initially deleted b/c it was posted anonymously. I'm posting it here b/c it is a perfect example of what I call "hit and run" commenting.

Posts like this remind me of the reason why I don't read Catholic blogs - of either the left or of the right, for there really isn't anything to choose between. Both are simply given over to the passions.

I have known holy Dominicans, but if this is the future of the Order, then may God have mercy on us all.

Note the following features: 1) the insincere attempt to establish credibility by confessing a lack of editorial bias ("either the left or the right"); 2) the know-nothing leveling of the left and right ("there really isn't anything to choose between"); 3) the stereotyping of all Catholic blogs as unworthy of attention b/c they are passionate (speaking of passions, that's hardly a rational conclusion); 4) another attempt at establishing credibility ("I have known holy Dominicans") and by implication, "You ain't one of them, Fr. Philip!"; and 5) a hasty judgment made based on one post on one blog run by one unholy Dominican ("if this is the future. . .God have mercy. . .").

Really, the interesting part of this for me is the assumption made by the commenter that holiness seems to somehow entail niceness or diplomacy. It certainly entails charity but charity is not charity if it is not also true. Charity is not equivalent to being sweet or polite. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for someone is kick their rear-end. For a charitable rebuke to be spoiled, it must be shown to have been given out of ill will. Unless this commenter has better access to my motives than I do, I can't think why he/she would find the truth I've expressed in that post at all uncharitable.

The several attempts at establishing credibility to comment are laughable. If you want your observations to be taken seriously, resend the comment with your real name on it. Otherwise, you're just a hit and run ghost wailing "foul!" on the sidelines.

4. What are your summer 2009 plans? Can you come be our chaplain/retreat director/pastor, etc.?

The academic year here ends the last week of June. I will spend a week in St Louis at a preaching conference and then, I hope, head down to Irving to teach second term summer classes at the University of Dallas. This will help my 2009-2010 budget; give me time to work on my dissertation using UD's and SMU's libraries; get my books out of storage and shipped to Rome; and just generally reconnect and relax a little. Then I will spend some time with the Parentals in MS. Visit friends. Go on retreat. I will head back to Rome first week of October. So, yes, there is some time in there where I could give a talk or direct a retreat. But I need to firm up my schedule before committing to anything.

New Arrivals...and some news

Some of you have asked whether or not the books you purchased for me have arrived. . .I've received books from the following benefactors in the last two weeks:

Taryn K. (1), William M. (1), Elizabeth R. (1), Anita S. (1), Martha L. (3), Lynn C.(1), Alice B. (1), and Kevin H. (1).

Thank You notes have either been dispatched or will be dispatched today!

I've already been warned by the Roman vets here that postal service around this time of year is dreadful. . .packages get delivered months after they are sent or lost forever.

Over the Christmas break, I will be outlining my license thesis and praying all the while for all my book benefactors. Since study is a form of prayer for Dominicans, you will all be placed before St. Thomas Aquinas in my prayer and his intercession invoked on your behalf.

NEWS: I briefly discussed my thesis topic with the philosophy dean. He nodded approval and noted that the topic is very large for a license thesis. I promised to focus it more. He said, "Use the license thesis as the first chapter of your doctoral dissertation."

Looks like I will be writing another doctoral dissertation. . .

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

A very Happy Thanksgiving to all of my readers in the U.S.A.!

My readers, commenters, critics, book benefactors, prayer warriors (oh-rah!), spiritual mothers/fathers, spiritual son/daughters, all those who help to keep me on the straight and narrow and help to push and pull me through that %$#@ eye of the needle--you are all on the top of my list of those for whom I am deeply grateful!

Also on my list of those for whom I am grateful, all of those professors in my long academic history who have endured my procrastination, my weird mood swings in theory and focus, my often-time inexplicably bizarre writing style, my monkey-mind antics--Ann F.-W., (The Dissertation Director), Ellen G., Doug R., Deborah B., Chris F., Barry H., Michael M., Rick P., Jean DeB., Pat W., Denis M., Simon G., and many others who would probably rather just forget the whole nasty business!

On a list all her own is my Italian language teacher, Sabina! For her good cheer, determination, patience, and her willingness to lie to my face and tell me what a good Italian student I am, I give God thanks!

And on a list all to themselves are Mom & Pop, Andy & Marilyn, Megan & Melanie, Patrick H., Perry S., Michael K., and Rudy B. . . .those who know me and love me in spite of knowing me so well.

Being grateful builds humility.
Humility is necessary for prayer.
Prayer is the best way to God.
God is the Source of our blessings.
Therefore, bless God with your gratitude!

Here's a list of great poems for gratitude. . .

Fr. Philip, OP

Dissenters "Leaping Forward" Into Deeper Irrelevance

Aging Hippie Dinosaur Alert!!!

Most of the dissident "Catholic" groups in the U.S. are planning a gathering in 2011 to stamp their feet and publicly pout because the Evil-Phallocentric-Celibate Hierarchy of Roman Catholic Church has repeatedly refused their demands to ignore Christ and turn his Church into the world's largest group-therapy session.

Here's what I found:

from a newsletter sent to ARCC members on Friday Professor Swidler writes:

The Reform Movement of the Catholic Church in America — in the spirit of Vatican II [WARNING!!! This guy is seeing ghosts! The actual Spirit of Vatican Two is the Holy Spirit who founded the Church on the Rock of Peter and his successors, the Popes.]— is on the cusp of a "Great Leap Forward", to borrow a phrase from Mao [Yes. You read that correctly. This "Catholic" is quoting Mao, the genocidal commie dictator of China, a man who destroyed over 5,000 years of Chinese history and culture in a decade, not to mention millions of lives. . .go no further in looking for the spiritual inspiration of this conference.] ARCC has for several years been promoting the idea of all the major Catholic Reform groups in the U.S. joining together in an American Catholic Council to move our common agenda forward. That Great Leap Forward is now being launched! [Google "great leap forward" and read about how Mao's little plan for economic and political reform worked for the Chinese. . .hint: it threw China back into the middles ages, straving millions, ruining whole industries, and collapsing the nation's economy]. The largest of the American Catholic Reform organizations– Call to Action and Voice of the Faithful–are on board, along with, of course, ARCC, and others. [On board and ready to sink the Church in the U.S.!]

Professor Swidler goes on to outline four major points that have been agreed upon in the discussions that have taken place at the leadership levels of the reform organisations. They are:

1. The basic Resources of the American Catholic Council are the documents of Vatican II [interpreted according to the ghost that this guy claims to see on occasion, of course] and the processes and documents of the 1976 Call To Action led by the National Council of Bishops and involving massive numbers of laity, religious, and priests. [CTA persistent citation of the NCCB as support for its dissent is a farce. Yes, initially, the bishops did endorse the 1976 CTA meeting, but quickly withdrew and repudiated the whole thing b/c the process was hijacked by Maoist moonbats like Swindler here. Again, let a google search show you the way.]

2. The major focus will be on church governance. None of the diverse concerns of the various U.S. Catholic reform organizations will be attainable unless there are structural means to work toward their implementation. That means, minimally, striving for Catholic Church decision-making structures that are built on the democratic principles of accountability, transparency, representativeness, and due process of law. [Christ didn't found a democratic church for a reason. . .that reason? Check out the Episcopal Church in its current state and tell me if that's what you want the Catholic Church to look like. The real goal here, of course, is not democratization but the elimination of the RCC as a teacher of the objective truth of the gospel. Once the Nicene Creed is up for majority vote, the Church as Christ found it loses all authority to oppose the pelvic politics of the aging Baby Boomers.]

3. There will be the widest possible solicitation of input from all levels of Catholics around the country [Yea, right. I bet that input will not include orthodox believers. Much like the '76 CTA fiasco, the panels, podiums, polls will be stacked with dissenters and heretics.] Techniques that have already been discussed include national public hearings (as was done in 1976), approaches to parish organizations as well as organizations of laity, religious, and clergy, internet and other electronic means. Concrete suggestions in this area are especially solicited from you! [And we'll even consider them if they neatly fit into our pre-baked notion of what counts as truth from our side of the bonfire!]

4. The initial aim will be the coming together of thousands of chosen delegates and interested Catholics from around the country in an American Catholic Council in the year 2011. [Hold your nose! This one is gonna stink. Of course, I have to wonder how many of these AHD will still be with us in body come 2011.]

Fair Warning: This part is a rant. . .

Go to bed tonight giving God thanks that most of the young men in our nation's seminaries are orthodox Catholics. Give Him thanks for the thriving orders of orthodox sisters and brothers and the up and coming ranks of educated lay folks who have wised up and shown Sr. Moonbat and Fr. Rainbow to the door of their classrooms.

This dissident circus is one of many "last gasps" of a revolutionary generation in the Church that has failed to knock the Church off her Rock. Expect more these public temper tantrums before they finally hang up their felt banners, their tie-dye vestments, and douse the coals of the Spirit of Vatican Two Peace Bong.

Though they have failed to destroy the Church from the root, they have done wonders for the Enemy along the way. They have driven millions out of the Church; vandalized the Mass and the other sacraments; emptied the seminaries and convents; radicalized Catholic universities against the Church; raised at least two generations of Catholics who know next to nothing about their own faith; ushered in a sexualized spirituality that allowed, encouraged, and then covered up the molestation scandal; created a fake shortage of priests by excluding orthodox vocations on ideological grounds; gave us a Catholic electorate so confused morally that they voted in huge numbers for the most extreme supporter of baby killing ever to run for public office in this country.

Rather than gathering to celebrate their alleged "wisdom" these ego-manical clowns should be gathering to offer this country's Catholics an apology for the disaster that their narcissistic experimentation and dissent has left my generation and those younger to clean up. CTA, VOTF, etc. are little more than organized swarms of spiritual leeches, sucking the life from the Church for no other reason than that the Church will not yield to their tantrums.

There is hope, brothers and sister. I give you the Tick-Tick Solution to our Generation Narcissus problem: "ticktockticktockticktock. . . ."

(And please spare me the finger-wagging in the comboxes about how we are supposed to love one another. . .I am well aware of that. . .I am also aware that very often "being polite in matters of politics and religion" is little more than a cowardly excuse for keeping quiet so that the dinner party invitations keep coming. . .not a big concern of mine. Time to speak truth to lies.)

NEW PODCASTS! (UPDATED)

I've put the last three homilies on Pod-O-Matic. . .scroll down on the right until you find the Roman Homilies player. . .

More coming. . .

AND. . .Br. Thomas, OP heard your pleas and has now finished recording Dei verbum (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation) from the documents of the Second Vatican Council. Our Holy Father, BXVI argues that understanding Dei verbum is the key to understanding the whole Council--the intent, spirit, and all the documents!

The thesis thickens...and narrows...

As of yesterday, with the help of one of my former tutors from Blackfriars, Oxford, Dr. Bill Carroll, an expert in the theology and philosophy of creation and the religious world's conversation with science, I have narrowed the broad area of my thesis topic down a bit more.

I am pretty sure I will be focusing on how the medieval debates about the (a)temporality of creation could shed some much needed philosophical/theological light on contemporary cosmologies. The issue at hand is divine action in creation. How we understand God's interaction with creation has everything to do with how we understand time. What I may end up doing is simply showing what sort of interaction is possible given a particular view of time. . .

Fortunately, most of the primary medieval texts are in our library. Some of the secondary texts, however, will have to be bought, found, stolen, or smuggled to me! Most of the texts on contemporary cosmologies are brand new. Also, fortunately, the thesis is usually restricted in length from 50 to 75 pages. So, no worries.

Fr. Philip, OP

How should we respond?

I'm very interested to hear what HancAquam readers think about this "call to arms" video. I have a very definite opinion (imagine that!), but I would like to hear from others how they were or were not moved, persuaded, put-off, etc.

As I watched via Youtube supporters of legalized same-sex "marriage" attack supporters of traditional marriage out in California after the passage of Prop 8, I was struck by the raw hatred, violence, and near demonic intolerance of some in the gay community toward supporters of this amendment.

I'm not surprised that they were upset with the success of Prop 8; I am just shocked at how quickly and how completely the more radical elements of the community adopted the violently repressive tactics of street thugs.

I was also surprised and somewhat disappointed when conservative Catholic commentators called for these activists to be arrested for committing "hate crimes" against Christians. Now, this is a strategic question, a question about tactics: do Christians really want to use the rhetoric of "hate crimes" and then urge the state to patrol the speech of our political and spiritual enemies? It seems to me that if we do this, we concede the question of free speech to the forces of leftist politically correct fascism and admit that speech is that sort of thing that needs government regulation.

Please note here I am not talking about behavior--the assaults, the church-invasion,s the destruction of propery, the so-called "prank threats"--all need to be handled according to applicable law. I'm just not sure it is in our best interest as Christian citizens to use the brainless P.C. tactics of the Left against the Left. As satisfying as it is to watch these radical morons destroy what little credibility they had with the larger community, we risk setting a precedent for future persecution if we admit by surrender to the Left that the tactics of the Left are ours as well.

NB. Commenting: on a topic as controversial as the Church and sexual morality the passions get heated and folks write things they shouldn't. I'm going to protect you from your intemperance (yea, me!) by deleting comments that attack persons rather than arguments, that name-call, or appear to me to be "hit and run," that is, swoop in, drop a bomb, and run. And please show some intellectual integrity and avoid embarrassing yourself by dropping the 1980's canard about "you hate gays, so you must be gay." It's just dumb beyond all believing.

Moving Peace? YES!

Pope pondering change to Mass liturgy

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A high-ranking Vatican official says Pope Benedict XVI is considering introducing a change to the Mass liturgy.

Cardinal Francis Arinze, who heads the Vatican office for sacraments, says the pope may move the placement of the sign of peace, where congregation members shake hands or hug.

Arinze told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in an interview published Friday that the pope has asked bishops to express their opinions and will then decide.

Under the change, the sign of peace, which now takes place moments before the reception of communion, would come earlier. Arinze said the change might help create a more solemn atmosphere as the faithful are preparing to receive communion.

Properly done I have no problem with the exchange of peace where it is now. However, the exchange is rarely, if ever, properly done. In my seminary days, we had a Dominican sister who came to the conventual Mass everyday. She took the exchange of peace as an opportunity to make lunch dates, ask for class notes, or just casually visit.

There was a friar--no longer with us--who went away to do his summer Clinical Pastoral Education and came back convinced that we were all body-hating celibates who needed to loosen up. He took the "kiss of peace" quite literally, laying big wet kisses right on the mouths of the nearest friars. Needless to say, he found himself without pew-neighbors very quickly.

Then we have all of the gymnastic contortionists, the Hugger-Back Slappers, the "V" for Peace throwers, and the "Party All the Time" marathon runners who sprint around the Church high-fiving everyone.

All of this jumping around, socializing, chit-chatting is disruptive to the solemnity of that moment in the Mass when we need to be most aware of both our unworthiness to receive the Lord and His grace in making us worthy to do so!

Moving the exchange of peace to either right after the rite of penance or the general intercessions makes the most sense. In the Episcopal Church, Rite II, you have the general intercessions, confession/absolution, and then the peace. The peace concludes the liturgy of the Word.

Expect a great deal of oppositon from "Spirit of Vatican Two" types. They like the peace where it is because by the end of the consecration prayer, folks are starting to get way too serious and way too focused on the Lord in the sacrament. Since they hold that the Lord is primarily (if not only) present in the assembly, they want to break up any potential lingering over the solemnity of communion and forcefully remind us that "community" is what communion is all about--thus, the need for a great deal of noise and motion and distraction right before taking communion. This is also the reason for singing during communion, standing rather than kneeling during and after communion, and rushing head-long into the closing prayer.

A Parable about Booze, Pot & Condoms

Justin, a 16 year old Catholic high school junior, comes home from football practice one day and tells his dad that he finally asked Mary Kay out for a date on Saturday night. His father is very happy and gives his son $100 to spend on the date.

Saturday night comes and dad waits and waits and waits for Justin and Mary Kay to come home. Finally, around 1.00am Justin walks in the front door, drunk, smelling of pot, and his clothes in disarray.

Dad confronts Justin, "Son, what have you been doing?! You spent the $100 I gave you on booze, weed, and condoms?!" Justin, slurring his words and swaying rather dramatically said, "Not all of it. I gave $20 to a homeless man outside the liquor store. The rest went to the liquor store, my dealer, and the drug store."

Dad, a grant manager for the diocese's CCHD, responded, "Oh OK. That's good. You're off the hook then b/c you didn't spend the whole $100 on party favors. I can tell your mom that at least 20% of the money we gave you went for a good cause. Here's $200 for next time. Give the homeless guy $40."

Lesson: don't fall for the excuse: "Well, CCHD does some good with my donation so that mitigates any potential evil that might slip in."

Always remember this when dealing with questions of Doing Evil to Get Good Results: "You cannot draw a pail of pure water from a poisoned well."

Curiosity is not enough

Dedication of SS. Peter and Paul: Rv 3:1-6, 14-22; Lk 19:1-10
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma


There are any number of reasons that people will clamor to see the Lord as he passes by. There are the merely curious. Those who love a good crowd and the potential for entertainment that a crowd offers. There are the pitiable, those who seek the attention of the famous and infamous alike. Those who flock to celebrity hoping to become celebrities themselves. There are those who seek mystery, those who long for hidden knowledge and run after any and every teacher who comes to town. Some rush around looking for spectacular signs of prophecy, wondrous markers for the end of days, hoping to be better prepared just in case today or tomorrow is the day of judgment. And there are likely those in the crowd waiting for Jesus who are seduced by his promise of mercy, that is, like fish drawn to fresh bait, they are lured and hooked by the Word Jesus preaches. Despite their gross spiritual negligence—or perhaps because of it—because of their incessant wallowing in sin, they find themselves snatched from the disobedience of pride and begging at the feet of Christ for forgiveness. We have Zacchaeus, short in stature but hardly short on zeal. He is not clamoring to see Jesus out of a need for entertainment or out of mere curiosity. He knows his sin; he knows he needs forgiveness; and he knows that Christ is the font of the Father’s mercy. Do we? Do we know what this sinner knows?

We can easily make two simple mistakes reading this story from Luke. We can make the mistake the crowd makes and find ourselves outraged that a holy man like Jesus would defile himself by speaking and eating with a notorious sinner. The more contemporary mistake is to assume that since Jesus speaks and eats with this notorious sinner, he approves of the sinner’s sin. We think: Jesus is openly declaring that this sinner’s sins are not sins after all and that he, the sinner, is welcomed unrepentant to the Lord’s table. How many times have we heard about Jesus’ “radical hospitality,” that Jesus “never turned anyone away.” True. As far as it goes. But what makes this understanding of Christ’s radical hospitality a mistake is that it leaves unsaid the equally radical implication of accepting Christ’s hospitality. The story of the Chief Tax-collector of Jericho, Zacchaeus, is the story of what happens when we run to the opened-arms of the Lord: to run toward Christ with our sin is to run away from sin altogether.

Do we know this? Very likely. But do we climb trees, peering over the heads of our peers, hoping to catch a glimpse of the source of our forgiveness? How zealous are we in pursuing the need for repentance? Exactly how eager are we to throw our sins out there, have them examined by a judgmental crowd, and then embarrass ourselves by begging Christ for forgiveness? Have we grown luke-warm? Or do we have the zeal of a true sinner for mercy? Can we imitate this despicable tax-collector? This traitor?

Christ greets Zacchaeus with joy. Not because he rejoices in the tax-collector’s sin but because Zacchaeus comes to him despite his sin to have that sin washed away. Jesus announces to the crowd, pointing to Zacchaeus: “Today salvation has come to this house. . .For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” Zacchaeus was found but only because he knew that he was lost.

The pain of failure

33rd Sunday OT: Prv 31.10-13, 19-20, 30-31; 1 Thes 5.1-6; Mt 25.14-15, 19-21
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma


Never having been pregnant myself, it’s difficult for me to imagine how a pregnant woman might be surprised by her labor pains. Surely after nine months of bloating, vomiting, hormonal surges, that maternal glow, and the all-too-popular weight gain, she is more or less ready for the inevitable cramping and eventual spasms of birth. Oh sure, the exact moment—day, hour, minute—might be a surprise. Who would put real money on that bet?! But that she will experience the pain of pushing out a wet, screaming human watermelon really can’t come as much of a last minute shocker. All the more unusual then is Paul’s metaphor for the surprise that Christians will experience when the Lord returns. He writes to the Thessalonians: “For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night. When people are saying, ‘Peace and security,’ then sudden disaster comes upon them, like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape…” So, in what way will our surprise at the return of the Lord be like the suddenness of “labor pains upon a pregnant woman”? Though the pain of childbirth is dreaded, the reward of a child is anticipated with great joy. Our surprise at the return of the Lord will be both dread and joy, trepidation and elation: the long anticipated relief of our tensed waiting.

Paul tells us that our Lord will return like a thief in the night. He also tells us that our surprise will come like labor pains—hard, clenching, sweaty, but not entirely unexpected. It makes sense to say then that though the thief comes in the night, we have been expecting his arrival for some time, waiting for him to pop the lock of the backdoor, to lift the latch of the window and sneak in. We don’t know the day, the hour, the minute of his break-in, but we know that he will arrive, and we know that what he has come to steal has been his all along. At baptism we make ourselves the Lord’s debtors, owing all we are and all we have to him, everything held in trust until he returns to claim the principal with interest. What have you done with the Lord’s largesse? What have you done with all the Lord has given you? With who the Lord made you to be?

Jesus, ever the lover of a good parable, says to his disciples: “A man going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one—to each according to his ability. Then he went away.” The man gave talents to his servants according to their ability. Makes sense. Except that we have to ask: according to their ability to do what? This is the crux of the parable. Knowing his servants well, the man does not distribute his possessions uniformly, giving each servant the same number of talents. Rather, precisely because he knows the varying abilities of his servants, he distributes them equally; that is, he gives each the number of talents equal to the ability of each servant. The man is not foolish. He is not going to give those with little ability the chance to squander his talents on a grand scale. However, by giving them talents equal to their abilities, he is giving them the opportunity to show that they are worthy of more—an opportunity that they would not otherwise have.

Now, here’s the interesting part of the parable: by giving the servants talents equal to their abilities, the man is actually adding to their abilities. Presumably, without the responsibility of keeping the talents none of the servants would have the chance to move much beyond their given abilities. So, on top of their natural talents, the man adds some investment capital. He “invests” in each servant an excess of talents to supplement what they have received naturally. In theological terms, we can say that the man has used his grace to build on their natures, gifting them the chance and the tools necessary to grow well beyond their natural capacities.

What happens? The man returns and the servants line up for inspection. Who has taken advantage of their gift of talents? Jesus continues the parable: “The one who had received five talents came forward bringing the additional five. He said, 'Master, you gave me five talents. See, I have made five more.' His master said to him, 'Well done, my good and faithful servant.’” This servant, having received talents equal to his abilities, took his master’s principal investment and used it to double his worth. Any of the servants could have done the same. At all of them did. Why not? Out of fear that his master would simply take any interest he might accrue on the investment, one servant simply buried his talent. Out of fear that his work to improve his master’s gift would benefit his master alone, this servant refused to make good on his chance. He planted a dead seed, and not surprisingly, nothing grew. No growth, no harvest. No harvest, no feast. The fearful servant loses his talent to the more gifted servant and the master calls him wicked and lazy!

When our master returns—the night like a thief long expected—will you present him with his principal investment alone, or will you return to him his initial gift with interest? According to your ability you have been gifted with exactly those talents that you need to grow in holiness. You have been given everything you need to invest wisely and move beyond your natural abilities. But what is most important to remember is this: every step beyond your abilities, every level of increasing perfection that you reach is the result of our Lord’s initial investment in you—his gift of talents that equals your abilities. Upon his return he expects to receive a return on his investment. What will you present to him? Who will you present to him? Will you, like the “good and faithful servant,” show him double the talent? Or will you have to go dig up his gift and return it unused? How will you excuse yourself? To say that you had no idea when the master would return is true on its face. You cannot, however, claim that you did not know he was returning. Like the pregnant woman who knows the pain of childbirth is coming though not precisely when, you know the time of judgment is before us. Called to account for yourself, what will you say, “Sorry. But I knew you were just going to take it all back, so I did nothing”? Wicked and lazy, indeed!

Paul writes, “…brothers and sisters, [you] are not in darkness, for that day [of the Lord’s return] to overtake you like a thief. For all of you are children of the light and children of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober.” Because we see clearly in the light of the Lord, we must take the gifts we are given, invest to the limits of our abilities, tend the growing fruits, and harvest the abundant graces that mature. Though we do not know the day and time of the Lord’s return, as his good and faithful servants, we must be ready always to account not only for our abilities but for wisely investing his gifts as well. The pain of childbirth is nothing compared to the pain of failing in this duty.

One World, One Religion (or else...)

In the news recently are two global initiatives that faithful Catholics should be watching with critical vigilance :

The Charter for Compassion and the Earth Charter.

Both of these efforts are Utopian fantasies that will directly challenge the Church's autonomy in matters of religious freedom. The Earth Charter has been embraced by a number of Catholic religious communities (including Dominican sisters' congregations) as a suitable umbrella statement of social justice priorities. Even a summary glance at the Charter will reveal that many of the stated priorities and goals conflict with Church teaching and classical liberal democracy. In effect, the Charter is a constitution for global socialism, pantheistic dogma (global warming), and the pseudo-religious practices of the Church of Environmentalism (the sacrament of recycling).

There is almost no chance that either charter will be adopted as international law. That's not the real danger. The real danger comes in the subtle influence each could have in shaping the minds and attitudes of young adults and children. Imagine the Earth Charter as it stands being used in elementary schools as a model of global ethics. Though many of the proposals are perfectly just and compatible with Church teaching, many directly conflict, advocating positions contrary to the faith. The language is very subtle in places and those not willing to take the time or make the effort to examine that language carefully will be duped.

The Charter for Compassion is in the works. The conceit of this document is that it will be drafted "by the people," i.e. those who choose to go to the website and contribute ideas. Ideally, this sounds like an egalitarian effort; however, one glance at the so-called "Council of Sages" and you see none other than professional Catholic dissident and Earth-Mother devotee Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB. Chittister is described on the Charter's website as "one of the Church's key visionary voices and spiritual leaders." The fix is in before global participation begins. No doubt the Charter will include ringing language about the integrity of human dignity and not one word about the evil of abortion.

The core problem for Catholics in both these efforts is that the uniqueness of the Church's authority to define her faith and advocate in the public square for her ideas will be labeled "exclusionary" or "narrow" or "partisan and sectarian." Enormous pressure will come to bear on the Church to submit her more "controversial" positions to the lowest common denominator of amorphous New Age gibberish that lauds diversity, difference, integrity, and global vision. Of course, all of these will be defined in practice so as to exclude any possibility of holding to objective moral norms and revealed truth. For example, a passage in the Earth Charter calls for the elimination of all discrimination based on sex and sexual orientation. There are already efforts underway in the E.U. to challenge the Church's teaching on the all-male priesthood, and non-discrimination against sexual orientation would undermine the Church's teaching on marriage.

One Catholic response to the Earth Charter. . .

Watch carefully. . .and pray!