Don't be a circus monkey

St. Boniface

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

The handout is titled, “The Temptations of a Preacher.” It's an expose on how the Devil lures the preacher away from his anointed task – to preach the Good News in its entirety w/o making any dishonest adjustments or compromises. I pass the handout around to the seminarians, and the discussion begins. After nearly two hours of dissecting the topic, we conclude that all of the Devil's temptations can be lumped into One Big Temptation for the preacher: You Can Be a Star! You can have a fan base. Lots of applause. Influence across media platforms – even a YouTube channel! All you have to do is: never say anything of substance; never preach the hard stuff; always scratch itchy ears; affirm prejudices – cultural, political, economic – ; and put on a good show. The preacher's job once this temptation is yielded to is simple – you're an over-educated circus monkey wearing an anachronistic costume. Contrast that image with this one: “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Circus monkeys don't die for their groupies.

St. Boniface, not a circus monkey but rather an eighth-century English Benedictine bishop, martyr, and missionary to Germany, writes to a friend, “Let us be neither dogs that do not bark nor silent on-lookers nor paid servants who run away before the wolf…Let us preach the whole of God’s plan…in season and out of season.” No dishonest adjustments. No compromises. Boniface barked at the wolves. And he died a martyr for refusing to run away. Same with Paul. We read in Acts that Paul was seized by the Jewish leaders and almost killed because “[he] preached the need to repent and turn to God, and to do works giving evidence of repentance.” Paul preaches the truth; he barks at the wolves. He too dies a martyr for not running away. Faced with the temptation to be an Ecclesial Star and the promise of martyrdom for preaching the truth, do you bark and die or whimper and slink away? Lest you lay folks are too comfortable, I'll add: these temptations aren't limited to pulpit preachers. All the baptized are charged with preaching the Good News, veritas in caritate. The truth in love. You can be a circus monkey getting laughs, or you can be a dog for the Lord. You can dance for applause, or bark at the wolves. Guess which one takes the Devil's coin.

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Feed my sheep. . .follow me

St. Philip Neri

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Peter is distressed. And rightly so. He denied Christ three times before the crucifixion. Now, Christ is asking him to repudiate his denials and declare his love. Three times. Peter must've been squirming mightily during this interrogation! Imagine having to look the person you betrayed in the eyes and say, “Yes, I love you.” Yes, despite the fact that I abandoned you when you needed me most, yes, I love you. The guilt, the shame, the humiliation. And then add to all that what appears to be the other person's reluctance to take your admission of love at face value. So, yeah, Peter is distressed. But notice how Jesus ignores Peter's anxiety. How he just gently glides over Peter's squirming and flop sweat. Rather than rub his nose in his failure, Jesus commands Peter to take care of the little ones who follow the Way. Feed my sheep. He doesn't say, “Wallow in your misery” or “Wring your hands and wail with regret.” He says, “Feed my sheep.” Because you love me, Peter, provide for my people. Lead them. Watch over them. Keep the wolves at bay. There's no time for self-pity or regret. Follow me.

If we can confess to loving Christ, then we follow him. Not just a vague emotional attachment to his overall philosophy of life but a real following-after, a walking-behind to go where he went. We'll have our moments of retreat into the desert. Our time to enjoy a meal with friends. We'll be there when others need prayerful healing. We'll also be betrayed, abandoned, and crucified. All because we confessed our love for Christ. All because we found joy in the Spirit. We will be tempted to see the evils done to us as punishments for sin. Consequences of some long ago denial of God. Remember Peter. Remember Christ ignoring his distress and commanding him, “Feed my sheep. Follow me.” No attempt to soothe or reassure. No placating bumper sticker aphorisms. Or hand-holding. Just: “Feed my sheep. Follow me.” When Peter followed Christ to his own Cross in Rome, did he recall his denials in the Garden, or his confessions of love on the shore of Tiberias' sea? Well, he died a martyr's death for love. So, he died a martyr in joy.

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Do not receive the world's rejection

6^th Sunday of Easter

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

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

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

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

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

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Show me the Father

4^th Week of Easter (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

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

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

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Plain Talk

St. Athanasius

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

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

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

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

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Entering through Repentance

4^th Sunday of Easter

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

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

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

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

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

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Born again

2^nd Week of Easter (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

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

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

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Can you ask Christ, "Who are you?"

Octave of Easter (F)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

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

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

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Leave your expectations behind

Octave of Easter (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

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

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

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Why did he wait four days?

5^th Sunday of Lent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

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

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

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

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

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Why do you return to the darkness?

4^th Sunday of Lent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Sin blinds, and Christ heals blindness by forgiving sin. The story of the healing of the Man Born Blind bears this out. He is blind physically and spiritually. His physical healing comes from a bit of wet clay and obedience. Jesus orders him to bathe in the Pool of Siloam. And when he obeys, his afflicted eyes are afflicted no longer. His spiritual healing will wait until Jesus seeks him out. In the meantime, the Once Blind Man tells the Pharisees that he believes Jesus to be a prophet. They don't like hearing this and kick him out of the synagogue. Having tested his obedience, Jesus finds him again and tests his faith. Do you believe, he asks. I do believe, comes the response. “I do believe, Lord.” And John tells us that the Once Blind Man worships Jesus as his Lord. Two healings, two miracles. The eyes are both physically and spiritually opened to the truth. To what they can actually see and to all that can't be seen but still believed. Paul admonishes us to “take no part in the fruitless works of darkness.” Why once healed physically and spiritually with the light of Christ would we be tempted to work fruitlessly in the dark? Would the Once Blind Man willingly return to his darkness?

There's a scene in the Monty Python movie, The Life of Brian, where an ex-leper is panhandling near the city gate. Brian asks him how he was cured of his leprosy. He says that Jesus healed him, thus ruining his livelihood. No one wants to help an ex-leper. The rest of the scene is the ex-leper wondering aloud if Jesus would inflict some other, lesser disease or disability on him so he could go back to earning a living as a beggar! Now, I doubt any of us would ask Jesus to re-afflict us with the spiritual diseases he cured us of. But we are more than able and willing to re-afflict ourselves, returning to the darkness all too quickly and all too often. Thus Paul's admonition not to take part in the works of darkness. Freed of our slavery to sin, we nonetheless return to our slave master and put his collar back on. And the results are entirely predictable. Try cleaning your kitchen in total darkness. Or tidying up your garage. Without light, we can't see what you're doing. You can't know what to throw out, what to wipe down, or even when you are done. The resulting mess is more work for you once the lights come on again. If you can't see your end, your goal, then you can't work toward it. You can't know if what you are doing is helping or hurting your progress.

If your end, your goal is Christ, then the only light that helps is the light of Christ. We have all bathed in the Pool of Siloam – baptism. We've been obedient to the need to be washed clean. And we have all declared our faith, “I do believe, Lord!” We know the way, the truth, and the life. We know our mission and ministry – to bear witness to the mercy we have received. We know that sin takes us off track, off the way and into a shepherdless wilderness. And yet. . .we return to our once healed afflictions and take part in the fruitless works of darkness. Why? Maybe for the same reason the ex-leper considered asking Jesus to give a severe limp – he needed a disability or disease for his livelihood. Maybe we think we need to work in the dark to save our jobs. Our reputations. Maybe we're afraid of losing status among family and friends. Maybe we believe that the works of darkness will earn us some prestige and power in the world. The chaos I make of my life when working in the dark looks like my neighbor's chaos, so my chaos can't be all bad. Besides, I have friends and allies in the darkness. People to help me. But they are as blind as you are. And more likely than not, want to keep you in the dark for their reasons. “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

Christ has given you light. He's healed you. And you are perfectly free to never return to the darkness. Your work can be done in the full light of his grace. You can see how his mercy has removed you from your afflictions, from the chaos of your life before you were healed. And you can follow the Once Blind Man and bear witness to your healing. If you are tempted to return to the darkness, ask yourself: what's in there that will bring me closer to my perfection in Christ Jesus? You can't answer that b/c there is no light in the darkness, and you cannot see. In the darkness, you gamble with your soul and the house always wins. So, take no part in the fruitless works of darkness, rather stay firmly stood in the light of Christ. When tempted, look at the temptation in his light and see it for what it is – a return to disease, disability, and spiritual destitution. Why would you return to the wreck you were before you were healed? It's a fool's gamble. One designed to part you from your inheritance as a child of the Father. Take the cure you've been given and run, bearing witness all the way to the Wedding Feast.

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Despising the sinner is the Devil's job

3^rd Week of Lent (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

How do I become convinced of my own righteousness? There are several ways, of course, but the way Jesus focuses on in his parable is the Way of the Pharisee. In sum: follow the Law to the letter; show God how serious I am about our relationship by never breaking a rule; never deviating from even the smallest regulation. To be fair to the Pharisee – this is more or less how things worked in the Jewish world for centuries. Men and women demonstrated their fidelity to the Covenant by doing as they were told. They weren't made righteous by their obedience, but they were “accounted righteous,” said to be righteous by their works. You can think of this as being in compliance with the terms of a contract. Your internal disposition toward the other party is largely irrelevant to whether or not you are in compliance. CHASE bank doesn't care whether or not I love it, so long as I pay my bill. Pay my bill according to the terms of the contract, and I'm righteous with the bank. They “account me righteous.” When it comes to our relationship with the Father, Jesus says, “Not good enough.” It's not enough that I follow the rules, especially if following the rules leads me to despise another as a sinner. Despising another is evidence that I am, in fact, not righteous at all.

Yesterday, Jesus brought two laws together and called them The Greatest Commandment: the Lord is the only God of Israel; love Him and love your neighbor. “There is no other commandment greater than these.” Every rule, every regulation; every jot and tittle of the law is grounded in these two commandments. But the Lord's parable makes clear that we must start with the greatest and move into the least. Perfecting our obedience to the lesser rules and regs doesn't guarantee our fidelity to the Greatest Commandment. In fact, we may end up convinced of our own righteousness and hating another for their sin, thus violating both the spirit and the letter of the Commandment. How do we avoid this Pharisaical trap? Begin by acknowledging that we are made righteous as a gift. Righteousness is not earned; it doesn't come as a reward for being good boys and girls. It's given. Freely given to us while we are still sinners. The gift of righteousness then enables us to love God first so that we can love our neighbor. Loving God and neighbor doesn't produce righteousness. The righteousness we are freely given frees us to love God and neighbor. Everything else in our growth in holiness flows from this. We pray, fast, give alms; attend to the sacraments; do good works b/c we love God and neighbor. When we encounter a sinner, we love them – as fellow sinners – so that they may come to see and hear the mercy of God and receive the righteousness He gifted us all through Christ Jesus. Despising the sinner may appear to be a good strategy for moving him/her out of sin, but that's the Devil trying to talk us into a trap. Hate the sin and the sinner, and the sinner will abandon the sin, he says. No. That strategy instantly violates the Greatest Commandment and makes us tools of the Enemy. He has another lie that tempts us: love the sinner and his/her sin. That will convince the sinner that they are welcomed, accepted, and included. No, again. We are to love God first, then our neighbor. We cannot love sin, God, and neighbor all at the same time. Trying to do so may feel righteous, and we may get lots of applause from the world for the attempt, but ultimately, all we are doing is telling the sinner that he/she doesn't need divine love or His mercy. Is that our mission and ministry as followers of Christ? Obviously not. Our job is to be His love and mercy for sinners. He died for sinners. Not sin.

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Return to the Father

2^nd Week of Lent (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Did the Prodigal Son entertain any doubts about going back to Dear Ole Dad? If he did, he didn't allow them get in the way of his redemption. Suffering the consequences of his sin in a foreign land, he comes to the only rational conclusion available: it's time to go home and ask for forgiveness. We can imagine him walking home dejected, remorseful, and wanting nothing more than to go back in time and make better choices. What does he expect to find once he arrives? A told-you-so lecture on the dangers of wine, women, and song? Verbal and even physical abuse from his family, esp. his older brother? He most certainly expects to be rejected as a wastrel and given little or nothing as a homecoming gift. He's prepared to be ridiculed and placed among the servants in humiliation. But. . .he isn't returning home to extort his family into accepting his sins as right and true, nor to explain his bad behavior away with a claim of mental or emotional breakdown. No, he's returning contrite and resolved to amend his life. He's returning knowing that his choices placed him in both physical and spiritual danger. Rather than seeing him as he sees himself – humiliated, embarrassed – imagine instead that as he approaches his father's farm, he becomes more beautiful, truer, better. With each step, he grows heavier in holiness, more densely set apart. . .until his life of dissipation is itself dissipated by a humble desire for forgiveness. Imagine that by the time he reaches the front door, all he needs is a word from his father. . .and he is a New Creation, a creature once again made whole and set on the right path. We don't have to imagine it, that's what happened. And it's what happens every time one of us – sinners in need of mercy – returns to the Father contrite and resolved to amend our lives. We may – in our disgust with our sins – be tempted by the Enemy to think that our disobedience is especially evil or somehow uniquely awful. That God is so offended, so repulsed by our rejection of Him that He can't bring himself to forgive us. This is a lie. One of the Enemy's favorites. God is by nature Love. Love is who He is and what He does. Not to forgive us would violate His nature, an impossibility. Knowing this to be true, the Enemy strokes our pride, telling us that we are a special sort of sinner, one who has achieved the greatest feat of all sinners everywhere: to sin so evilly that Love Himself refuses to love us. So, we remain in that foreign land, wallow in our dissipation, and come to hate the Father for His refusal to forgive – the forgiveness we ourselves have refused to ask for or receive. If Lent is about anything at all, it's about acknowledging the reality of our sins and their consequences, and returning to the Father with contrite hearts and minds ready to begin again. As many times as it takes, to begin again. One step at a time toward home, toward our Father. 

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Could you measure up?

2^nd Week of Lent (M)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Lent focuses the heart and mind on sin. How to avoid it. How to overcome it if not avoided. How to forgive when we are sinned against. And what happens when we refuse to forgive. Forgiving someone who's sinned against you isn't a simple thing. In fact, there are a lot of reasons not to forgive. Will forgiving the sinner invite more sin? Will he/she see me as a target? What about how I feel about being sinned against? If I forgive, am I saying that I'm not angry or offended at the sinner? Could the sinner think I am giving my approval to the sin? Like I said, lots of reasons. None of them good. First, lose the notion that you have to feel good about forgiving someone who's sinned against you. Feelings are irrelevant to the act of forgiveness. You either forgive or you don't. How you choose to feel about it is your problem, not the sinner's. The point of forgiveness is to free the sinner from their debt to you, thus freeing yourself from their sin. Feel good, bad, angry, relieved, whatever. Doesn't matter. Just do it. Being freed from the burden of sin is worth whatever emotion you choose to attach to it. Second, while pondering whether or not you will forgive the sinner, carefully consider what standard you are using to judge the sinner. We tend to judge the sins of others more severely than our own. Bad idea. Guess which standard God is going to use to measure you? Jesus says, “For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” Therefore, pick your measure very, very carefully. If you think you deserve quick forgiveness when you sin, then you had better be doling quick forgiveness when you are sinned against. Third, don't confuse judging the sin with judging the sinner. We have to be able to call a sin a sin. Otherwise, confession would be impossible. What we have to avoid is calling a sinner a sinner. Whether or not your friend is a sinner is for God and your friend to determine not you. I cannot know the mind of my friend. I cannot perfectly measure his motivation or intent. I cannot begin to understand his circumstances or how he deliberated on his actions. I can judge his behavior to be sinful but not his person. And I don't want to. Why? Because he can't know my mind, my intention, my circumstances, and I don't want him to judge me. Let God and the sinner handle the interior struggle, and just forgive the sin done against you. Unless, of course, you relish finding yourself before the judgment seat and hearing the Just Judge repeat back to you your exacting standards of holiness, purity, and righteousness. I have to ask: could you measure up?

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Surpassing righteousness

1^st Week of Lent (S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Does your righteousness surpass that of the Pharisees and scribes? Yesterday, Jesus said that it must. Note that he's not saying that the Pharisees and scribes are unrighteous. They aren't. They are as exactly as righteous as the Law requires. And no more. They know where the lines are, and they do not cross them. These lines – the rules, the regulations – are both a comfort and a temptation. When in doubt, what's the rule? Follow it. But there's also always the sneaking suspicion that the line is merely arbitrary or maybe even a cruel joke. This tension in the rules tends to create a doubled mind. On the one hand, I obey the rule and remain righteous. On the other, I don't really think the rule is just or important or I don't understand its purpose; so while obeying it, I mock it. Over time, my double mind turns to hypocrisy and my righteousness is tainted. Here's where Jesus comes in and says that our righteousness must surpass that of the obsessive rule-followers. How do we do that? We place all of the rules inside the Greatest Commandment and figure out how the lesser rules express the greatest. Love God, self, and neighbors is the whole of the Law. The whole of the Law is not another Law. The whole of the Law is a divine command rooted in the nature of God Himself. Since we live, move, and have our being in God, divine love itself, then all of our thoughts, words, and deeds must accurately reflect who and what we are as creatures who participate in divine love. All created things – me, you, our friends, our enemies, everything and everyone – live in divine love. Jesus says, “[God] makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” Therefore, our righteousness, our rightness with the Father, is a matter of being divine love with one another regardless of our relative social, economic, political, or religious positions. In fact, our righteousness is called surpassing if we are loving to those who are counted “less than” by the world. All of this loving as the Father loves and being perfect as the Father is perfect is made possible by His gift of the Son on the cross. When we receive His gift, we are no longer pagans but pilgrims on the Way. And walking the Way is how we become Christ right where we are. The world is polluted with Pharisees and scribes. What we need is more Christs made perfect in Christ. 

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