Knowing he will die. . .

Palm Sunday (A)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

Between today and next Sunday we will hear again and again how Christ emptied himself out for our sake. How he took on the form of a slave for us. How he “humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Palm Sunday remembers the day he entered Jerusalem in triumph, hailed as a conquering king. What a difference one week can make. From King to Criminal, from Conqueror to Crook. He will be celebrated and honored, betrayed and falsely accused, wrongly convicted and executed. . .all this week. . .and for no other reason than to free you and me from the bonds from sin and death. He goes to Jerusalem – knowing he will die – he goes to Jerusalem b/c it is in Jerusalem that every righteous sacrifice must be made. He dies in this one place so that every place from then on will be made right for offering the Father worthy praise and thanksgiving. Spend this week before his death giving God thanks and praise for making His mercy freely available. For making His Son the means of your freedom from the darkness of sin and death. For making us His children again.

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Survey on Preaching the Homily

St. Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis have all called the Church to engage the New Evangelization at the beginning of this new millennium. 

One of the areas most often cited for improvement is preaching. 

Tell me:

1). What does "effective preaching" look and sound like?

2). What have you heard and seen from the pulpit that didn't work, or actually made it more difficult for you to participate in the Mass?

3). If you could sit down with a class of third year seminarians and transitional deacons, what would you tell them about preaching? 

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Untie him. . .let him go!

5^th Sunday of Lent (A)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA

John twice tells us that Jesus is “angry within himself.” Once when Mary falls at Jesus' feet crying. And again after the Jews wonder why he couldn't save Lazarus' life. So, why is Jesus angry? What's more, why start a homily on the last Sunday of Lent by pointing out Jesus' anger? All of the Lenten Sunday readings build to this Sunday. Jesus is tempted in the desert for 40 days. He is transfigured on Mt. Tabor. He meets the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. Then he heals the Man Born Blind. The 5^th Sunday Lenten readings reveal the theme: Jesus' humanity – his consistent, undeniable humanity. And the interaction between his humanity and the physical world he inhabits. As we rapidly approach the solemn celebration of his resurrection from the dead, the gospel writers want to point us back again and again to Christ's human nature, back to his body and bones and blood. Lest we forget that Christ's resurrection was a physical, historical event, we are reminded – by his anger – that is he one of us, like us in all ways but sin. And like him, we too will be resurrected.

Now, it's a bit odd to think of Jesus as an angry man. It is even odder to think that he allows Lazarus to die in order to raise him to live again. But it appears that this is exactly what happened. Jesus waits two days after hearing about Lazarus' deadly illness before he leaves for Bethany. That two day delay plus two days of travel and our Lord arrives four days after his friend has died. When Jesus arrives, Martha says to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Her words may sound confrontational, so she quickly adds, “But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Imagine Martha's emotional state. Grieving her brother's death. Angry with Jesus for not arriving sooner. Relieved that he is there. And believing that he will be able to do something miraculous. Riding this roller-coaster of pain and barely suppressed joy, Martha believes. And Jesus chooses this moment to reveal a mystery. To the mourning sister he says, “Your brother will rise.” This is why our Lord waited to attend Lazarus: to uncover the mystery of faith, to reveal an eternal consequence of believing that he is the Christ – new life out of death.

Jesus lays it out: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” Then he turns to Martha and asks the fundamental question of faith, “Do you believe this?” Martha's answer is exemplary. Is ours? I mean, do you believe that Jesus Christ is the resurrection and life? Do you believe in him? Do you believe that by believing in him you will rise again to new life? And let's not piddle with spiritualized metaphors or psychological interpretations here. Jesus means exactly what he says. Do you believe that you – body and soul – will be given an eternal life after you physically die? The whole point of waiting for Lazarus' death is to reveal the mystery of life after death. The whole point of showing Jesus at the tomb with a four-day old corpse is to reveal the mystery of life after death. Martha warns Jesus when he orders the tomb opened, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.” Spiritualized or psychologized metaphors do not emit a stench, much less a stench that deserves a warning! We're talking about a corpse. A dead human body. No embalming. No refrigeration. Martha's warning about the smell is not just a courtesy to Jesus. She deadly serious.

And so is Jesus when he answers her warning, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” He did tell her that. Martha believes. So, she sees the glory of God. Lazarus walks out of the tomb when Jesus calls his name. Lazarus risen from a four-day old death is the glory of God that Jesus promises. That's the same promise he makes to us: believe and be raised. And not just on the last day either. But raised again and again from the little deaths that sin inflicts on us daily. Yes, there will be one, final resurrection – some into eternal life and some into an eternal death – but there is also an ongoing, daily resurrection that we experience along the way to perfection. As our joy is being completed along the Way, we experience everything that Martha and Mary experience after Lazarus' dies – joy, anger, disappointment, wonder, grief. And with Christ among us we experience each one of these passions as a whole human person, a complete creation made complete by Christ's miraculous resurrection from his tomb. But our perfection in him must wait until the last day and our job 'til then is to do as Martha does – to believe that Christ, the Son of God, “the one who is coming into the world.”

Our Sunday readings in the season of Lent draw us toward Lazarus' emergence from his tomb in order to prepare us for Christ's resurrection on Easter morning. Each Sunday reading pounds on the theme of Christ's humanity so that the glory of his miraculous resurrection doesn't outshine the truth that he is one of us in all but sin. He cries. He bleeds. He feels and expresses anger. He mourns and believes. And he loves. Just like we do. And if we place our trust in him, believing in his Lordship and acting on that belief in our lives, we will rise as he rose. With just one week of Lent left before we begin the Easter season, you ask yourself all day everyday: do I believe? Do I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, risen – body and soul – from the dead on the third day? If you say yes to this question, our Lord will say, “Untie him, untie her and let them go.”

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Hello, Darkness. . .

Hello, Darkness (18x24, acrylic, canvas board)

This is an experiment with chromatic black. The foundation layer is composed of Mars Black, Primary Blue, Burnt Siena, and Phyto Green. The "colored" portions are (top to bottom) green, black, blue.

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Healing thru Obedience

4^th Sunday of Lent (A)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

How does a little bit of dirt and spit smeared on the eyes heal blindness? It doesn't. The Man Born Blind isn't healed by Jesus' rather unsanitary ad hoc remedy. He isn't healed by the magical waters of the Pool of Siloam either. Nor is he healed through his faith in Christ. So, what heals him? The man's disability is healed by his obedience to Christ's Word, by his willingness to listen to and comply with Jesus' order: “Go wash in the Pool of Siloam,” Jesus tells him. The result? “So he went and washed, and came back able to see.” Notice that there's no declaration of belief or faith by the man, no proclamation or confession, nothing that would indicate that he even knows who Jesus is before he is healed. As far as we can know from John's account, the man doesn't speak until after the miracle occurs. Jesus heals the man as a gift, out of abundant generosity and as a sign of his Sonship. The man's subsequent testimony to the religious authorities bears out Christ's wisdom in choosing this man as a witness to his power. Later Jesus catches up to the man and asks him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The man says, “I do believe, Lord.” 

 

Belief comes easy; obedience, not so much. We can believe all sorts of things – sensible and nonsensical – without much effort, without worrying too much that we may be proven wrong. We've come to accept that one's beliefs are an intensely personal/private matter that no one can justly dispute or deny. If I were to tell you that I believe that the Earth is flat, you would probably think I'm just being eccentric and ignore me. Well, it's his right to believe that nonsense if he wants! So long as my beliefs don't hurt anyone – what's the big deal? Like I said, belief is easy. Obedience is an entirely different matter. Obedience is about listening to and complying with something someone else says. Obedience necessarily involves another person. Belief is personal and private. Obedience is communal and public. For me to obey my religious superiors means listening to them and complying with their requests. I'm told to move back to Rome, or given job within my province, or asked to take another ministry site. I don't want to do any of these things, but obedience requires me to listen and comply. That's hard. Being obedient can change my job, my living arrangements, my personal comfort; it can challenge my gifts, and require me to be open to all sorts of potentially unpleasant outcomes. Believing is easy; obeying is not.

And maybe this is why the story of the Man Born Blind is told the way it is. Jesus healed some according to their belief. He healed others b/c of the faith of family and friends. But the Man Born Blind is the only person to be healed according to his obedience. And this is good news for us! Belief and faith can often seem difficult to conjure. All sorts of sins can interfere with our natural desire to come closer to God. When we focus too much on the emotional effects of believing, we sometimes come away empty. We expect that believing will necessarily erupt in us like a whirlwind. Taking us to heights of spiritual ecstasy and mystical union with God. When we don't feel those effects, we imagine that our faith is lacking. That our belief is somehow weak. But if we can be healed – like the Man Born Blind – by obedience, by listening to and complying with Christ's Word, then there is another way to seeing his light in our life. There's another way for us to come closer to God that can get us through those times when faith and belief seem distant and sore. We can be children of the light through obedience. 

 

Paul writes to the Ephesians, “Brothers and sisters. . .try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness; rather expose them. . .” Paul describes the work of Lent. Learn to please God. Do nothing to assist the work of darkness. Expose the shameful works of evil. We learn to please the Lord by hearing, listening to, and complying with His Word, Jesus Christ. We do this not for His sake but our own. God doesn't need our obedience; we do. We are obedient for our healing, so that we might come out of the blindness of sin and into the light of our salvation. We avoid participating in the fruitless works of darkness by knowing always doing, saying, and thinking only what is good for the Gospel. As long as we put the Gospel before our thoughts, words, and deeds and act only through the Gospel, we can avoid helping those who preach the sin and death. And the only way to expose the works of darkness is to always and everywhere live, breath, eat, sleep, and work in the Truth of Christ who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We have two weeks left in this Lent. It's time to work harder at our God-given mission of being Christ's light to the darkening world. “You are light in the Lord. Live as children of light”!

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Making good on our deal

3^rd Week of Lent (W)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
NDS, NOLA

Back in the Dark Ages, music-lovers could join the Columbia House Record Club. Join up to buy just one cassette tape for $9.99 and you would receive ten free cassettes of your choosing! Sounds like a great deal. . .until you realize that ninety percent of their stock consisted of third-rate 70's disco bands and glam hair bands from the 80's. Of course, I signed up. Many, many times. Each month – for years – I'd receive a catalog in the mail with a reminder that I had to buy just one more cassette to fulfill my obligation. Just one more. On occasion I'd break down and buy something. Hoobastanks' They Sure Don't Make Basketball Shorts Like They Used To, or Twisted Sisters' Love is for Suckers. Anything to stop the catalogs. Anything to get out from under the obligation. I discovered, however, that once you're member of the Columbia House Record Club, you are always a member. The catalogs don't stop. The pre-paid return envelopes don't stop. The glitter-glam bad hair guitar bands haunt your dreams. Forever. You make a deal under legal obligation, and there's no one to save you. 

 

The Jews made a deal with some legal obligations – though none of these involved monthly catalogs. As time moved away from the Original Deal, the terms of the contract began to grow, layer upon layer; the obligations piled up and the procedures for meeting one's obligations became more intricate. Underneath the desiccated barnacles of interpretation, application, amendment, and nuance the heart of the Original Deal still beat. Love God. Love self. Love neighbor. In order to expose the still beating heart of the Original Deal, God sent His only Son to become one of us, to assume – as his own – our inability to carry out of our end of the bargain, and to teach us how to live freely as children of the Original Deal Maker. In other words, Christ came to fulfill the terms of our deal, to meet all of our obligations under the Law. He did not accomplish this feat of mercy by sweeping away the Original Deal. He did it by bringing together in one divine person the perfection of God and the imperfections of man; by dying so that our imperfections might be made perfect; and by rising back to the Father, carrying with him everything that makes us prone to the sickness of sin and the permanency of death. The Law he fulfilled remains. 

 

The Original Deal still stands. Love God. Love self. Love neighbor. And do so knowing that your failures have already been forgiven.

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Confession Advice

NB. A repost by request. . .

1).  Confession is all about receiving the forgiveness we have all already been given.   We cannot earn forgiveness by works, attitude, or even confession itself; if we could, it would be a wage not a grace (i.e. a gift).

2).  Penance is not a punishment for sin.  Completing the penance you've been given is a sign that you have received God's forgiveness and resolved not to sin again.  This is why I always assign sin-appropriate psalms as penance.

3).  Priests rarely remember the sins of individual penitents.  Some believe that this is a grace from God given so that the confessor is spared the difficulty of carrying around the memories of sin.  Sounds good to me.  Frankly, I think the explanation is more mundane: priests have heard it all and sin is boring.

4). Explaining your sins in the confessional is unnecessary and time-consuming.  Just say what you did and leave it at that.  If more info is needed, your confessor will ask.  Explanations generally come across as attempts to excuse the sin.

5).  Ask for counsel if you need it.  Most experienced confessors will know when counsel is needed, but it never hurts to ask.  Just keep in mind that there are others waiting to confess!

6).  This is your confession, so stick to your sins.  You cannot confess for your kids, your spouse, your neighbors, etc.  And please avoid using your confession time to complain about your kids, your spouse, your neighbors, etc.

7).  Faithfully assisting at Mass (actually participating) absolves venial sins.  Why else would we recite the Confiteor and the celebrant pray for our absolution?

8).  If you are unsure about whether or not X is a sin, ask.  Remember:  mortal sins are acts of disobedience that "kill charity" in your heart.  You cannot sin mortally through accident or ignorance. Don't turn a venial sin into a mortal "just in case."  

9).  Keep your eye on the clock and the line.  Make a thorough confession but balance your thoroughness with economy.  Others are waiting.  One way to do this (if there's a long line) is to stick to your mortal sins and save the venial sins for Mass.

10).  Tell your confessor that you will pray for him. . .and then go out there and pray for him! 

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Coffee Cup Browsing

Time to shake up the judges! 

More bad news for the Church of Climate Change. . .Pope Gore unavailable for comment.

Snowflakes take classes on how to be adults. Geez. I had my first job at 15.

Victims can sue San Jose for not protecting them from "protesters." Discovery should be very interesting.

If B.O. had issued Trump's travel ban, would it be constitutional? Of course it would.

The infantilization of academia continues. . .OUCH! 

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To Whom do you return?

NB. The priests of the Archdiocese of New Orleans gathered this morning for Daytime Prayer with the Archbishop. I was invited to preach. . .

Thursday of the 2^nd Week of Lent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Daytime Prayer for Archdiocesan Clergy

We are in the season of return. After a season of waiting and another of rejoicing, we stepped into that time between birth and rebirth, btw the birth of Christ and our rebirth in him. But before we can be reborn, we must return. That's what we do in Lent. We return. We bring ourselves back to the Lord – triumphs, wounds, failures, modest victories – we bring it all back to him. And we lay it all out for his judgment. If we were to rely on ourselves alone to accomplish this necessary return, we would be forever lost in the humiliating grind of gathering and packing all that we have done and left undone. Even with a little help from our friends, we'd forget a thing or two. Leave behind some fault or drop a sin or two along the way. But b/c we are heirs to the Kingdom, the adopted sons of the Father, we never truly do anything alone. We can only bring ourselves back to the Lord with His help, with His mercy. There can be no question about whether or not we can do any good w/o Him. We can't. The question is: when we return – loaded with all we have to sacrifice – to whom do we return? When you return to the Lord in His mercy, who do you see?

 

Who do you see when you return to the Lord?! That's a bizarre question for a church filled with Catholic priests! Maybe. Think for a moment about your failures. Your faults. Your omissions. Think for a moment about your idols. What lesser goods have you worshiped instead of your Greatest Good? (I could list mine, but I only have seven minutes!) We could all probably list a few – popularity (or an aversion to controversy); a need to be right, to be vindicated; a need to be seen as holy (as opposed to actually being holy); a need to be revered, to be honored; a need to be thought particularly intelligent or pastoral or relevant; a need to be innovative or precise; a need to be sought after, followed, listened to. All of these are goods, lesser goods, and all of these are perfectly human needs. But to lift them up and place them along side the Greatest Good, or to use them as replacements for the Greatest Good, threatens not only our vocation as ministers of the Gospel, it threatens our access to the only One who can save us. We become who or what we love. Idols of silver and gold cannot see. They cannot breathe. Idols of popularity and comfort cannot hear. They cannot speak. If we will return to God with all we have to sacrifice, we will return to the only God capable of receiving and blessing all that we have and all that we truly are. 

 

Scripture urges us: “. . .heed [the Lord's] voice all your heart and with all your soul.” All my heart and all my soul. This is the Lord's way of admonishing me to leave nothing behind in my return to Him. I cannot hide a favorite sin, or stash away just one well-loved idol and expect that my return to the Lord will anything but futile. I cannot serve God in spirit and in truth if I am spiritually half-blind, mostly deaf, struggling to breathe, and stuttering. Our work for God's people – the preaching of the Gospel and the care of souls – is too important to be done in half-measures. Priestly service in His name requires the discipline of a well-trained soldier; the zeal of a prophet; the authenticity of a saint; and, most importantly, the love of a father for his family. We're not talking about moral perfection or human impeccability here. We're talking about desire. Wanting what we lack. It's one thing to lack zeal or strength or even love. It's quite another to lack these essentials and never desire them. What we lack – all that we lack – we can receive when we turn again to the Lord and ask. 

 

“The Lord, your God, will change your lot, and take pity on you.” We are in the season of return. After waiting and rejoicing, we step into the long season of turning again to God. Who, what do you see when you turn to your God? Ego? Disordered passion? Power? Or do you see the source and summit of your call to serve in sacrificial love? The source of your strength in hope? When you turn again to your God, do you see the summit of your end in perfect union with Him? What we lack to serve we are given in abundance when we open our hearts and minds to receive the gift that only God can give us – Himself. There is room in the human heart for only one god, one ruler, one source and motivator for loving perfectly. Everything else, everyone else must be sacrificed – made holy through surrender – so that All that He Is is free to equip us for service. Scripture teaches us that the Lord provides. Our task is to receive His provision with praise and thanksgiving so that we can get on with the work we have been given to accomplish. Ask for what you lack to serve and receive from the Lord all that you need.

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One foot in front of the other. . .

NB. I'm not preaching today, so here's a Vintage Homily from 2007. . .

1^st Sunday of Lent(A): Gen 2.7-9, 3.1-7; Rom 5.12, 17-19, Matt 4.1-11
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Paul Hospital and Church of the Incarnation

John baptizes Jesus. Coming up out of the Jordan River, Jesus sees the Spirit as a dove and hears the voice of his Father, “This is my beloved Son…” Stepping onto the bank of the river, Jesus is seized by the Spirit and lead into the desert “to be tempted by the devil.” Jesus fasts for forty days and forty nights. When he is weak from hunger, possibly addled from lack of sleep, and vulnerable to attack, the Tempter comes to offer him what we all would imagine is foremost in his mind right that moment: food! Jesus refuses food. The Tempter then offers him two more enticements: one of pride (to exploit his status as the Son of God) and another of avarice and power (to become the ruler of the world). Jesus deftly turns both away, leaving the Devil to flee in order to make room for the Father’s ministering angels. Though we are no doubt delighted that Jesus won his battle of wills with the Devil, we may wonder why the Son of God, the Word Made Flesh, is “lead by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil” in the first place? Does the Father need to test His Son? Does the Spirit suspect a weakness in the resolve of the Lamb to be sacrificed? Why is Jesus tempted in the desert? And how do these temptations lead him and us with him to Jerusalem and the Cross?

With a smudge of ash on the forehead and the solemn greeting on Ash Wednesday, “From dust you were made, to dust you will return,” we begin in earnest another Lenten trek with Christ to Jerusalem and his Cross. What are we marking with these ashes? What does that frightful greeting bring to mind? First, we are beckoned by an undeniable reality: our mortality, our frailty as creatures: the inevitability of death. Ash Wednesday is a crowded day at Church because we know we are dust and breath and that eventually we will die. Those ashes mark us as impermanent things…and they are a blessing on our transience. Second, we are summoned on Ash Wednesday to commit ourselves to the forty day/forty night trek across the Lenten desert with Christ. Nowhere else will our frailty, our weakness be tested so completely. Random chance, freak accident may surprise us with a test of faith and courage, but at no other time in the year do we knowingly step up, stare the Devil in the eye, and dare him to tempt us. Lent is our bravest Christian adventure. Finally, third, we are reminded again that though we are frail creatures subject to devilish temptation and the chaos of nature’s chance, we are Creatures—Made Beings, beings made, created in the image and likeness of a loving Creator! And what’s more, we are Redeemed Creatures—finally, mercifully saved creatures, loved into the Father through His Son by the Spirit. This is who we are as we touch the first tempting grains of Lenten sand.

Now that we are reminded of who we are, let’s go back to my first questions: why is Jesus tempted in the desert? And how do these temptations lead him and us with him to Jerusalem and the Cross? We have already run into the question, or one almost exactly like it: why must Jesus, the sinless Son of God, be baptized? Jesus is tempted for the same reason that he is baptized. For us. Jesus is brought through the desert to Jerusalem and his Cross for us as one of us. Fully human. A man like us in every way but one: he was without his own sin. With needs, passions, hurts, loves, and temptations, the Son of God was made flesh by the Spirit through his mother and ours, the virginal Mary. Why? So that every human wound, every human frailty, every human sin could be healed. His Cross—the tool of his torture and death—is our medicinal tool of salvation. Fully human, fully divine, he was baptized to baptize human flesh. He was tempted to temper human flesh against temptation. And he died so that we might live.

 

The story of the Fall told to us in Genesis tell us that our first father, Adam, was tempted to become a god in disobedience to God. He failed. Our first mother, Eve, was tempted to become a god in disobedience to God. She failed. Mary, the new Eve, was tempted by the Spirit to give flesh and birth to God, Jesus the new Adam, the Christ. She said YES! And as Paul teaches the Romans, “For if, by the transgression of [ the one Adam], death came to reign in life through [him], how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of [salvation] come to reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.” Through the living and dying of Christ then we come to “reign in life” as Christs, New Adams and New Eves. And because of our baptism into the Body of Christ and because we eat his body and drink his blood at the eucharistic altar, we march through the desert of Lent guarded against the wiles of disobedience, protected against the lie that brings us constantly to the brink of damnation, the lie that we can become gods without God.

 

We have forty days and forty nights to confront head on the One Sin that all sins call “Father”—the single sin of believing that we are our own gods. Every sin we assent to, every sin we give flesh and blood to gives life to the serpent’s temptation: disobey God so that you might know what it is to be God. There is no thornier path, no road so crooked as the one that starts with disobedience and travels through the arrogance of believing that we save ourselves from ourselves, that we are able to lift ourselves to heaven and accomplish reconciliation with God without God. Such a belief, and the daily habits that result from believing so, are the deadly vices that kill us over and over again, that punch us in the heart and throw us back again and again into the serpent’s company. The stripped bare audacity of the Lenten desert is our training ground, our yearly boot camp for exercising the gifts of love and mercy that always bring us, again and again, brings us back to the Father. A successful Lenten trek will bring us to Jerusalem and the Cross bare and ready to walk the passionate way with our Lord, bare and ready to die among the trash of Golgotha, and rise with him on that Last Day.

We are able to put one foot in front of the another all the way to Easter morning because Jesus did it first. Along the way we will be shown the glories of power, the majesties of celebrity and infamy, we will be offered all that the Devil has in his kingdom. We do not need to resist temptation, to fight against the black jewels of the devil’s chain, we need only remember that Jesus met the devil first, always before us, and said, “Get away, Satan!” There are no battles left for us to plan, no wars against temptation for us to fight. The last battle was fought and the war won on the Cross in Jerusalem. All that we need do is follow Christ. One foot in front of the other, walking lightly on the sand in the shadow of his healing presence.

"Quod non assumpsit, non redemit." (Gregory Nazianzen, Letter to Cledonius) H/T: Fr. Dominic Holtz, OP

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"Ave, Maria. . ." (a new painting)

 AMGP, (18x24, acrylic, ink, oil pastel, canvas board)

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