Repent first. . .mercy follows

26th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
OLR, NOLA

So, you're in line before the Pearly Gates, and who do you see in front of you but the crooked IRS agent who audited your taxes and ruined you financially. And the infamous D.C. Drug Dealer who kept a client list and caused the downfall of several prominent politicians and televangelists. That abortionist who bragged on TV about performing more than 300,000 abortions in his lifetime. Imagine these folks ahead of you in line and think about how they might have gotten where they are. A tax collector, a drug dealer, a serial killer. We could add several others: the guy who intentionally spreads his venereal disease; the greedy bankers and portfolio managers who helped cause the 2008 economic disaster; political leaders in countries all over the world who deprive their fellow citizens of their human rights through corruption and murder. . .the list could go on, and so the line into heaven could get longer and longer. But the question here is: seeing these people ahead of you in line, you have to wonder, how did they get here? Such profoundly evil people in line to heaven. . .how?

The quick and easy answer, of course, is God’s grace. But that’s not much of an answer because no one is in that line without God’s grace. What does it mean for a serial killer or a greedy banker to experience God’s grace, repent of his sin, and find himself in a line to heaven? Remember our question from last week: are you envious of God’s generosity? Man’s capacity to receive God’s grace is not limitless. However, there is no limit to God’s generosity. Limitless grace poured into a limited vessel means one thing: overflow; assuming, of course, that the vessel is indeed filled. But for a sinner to be filled requires a certain awareness that he/she is empty in the first place. IOW, a sinner must acknowledge his/her sin as sin first.

Is this the point that Jesus is making about the son who refuses to work but then repents and does as he is asked to do. Having refused to work, the son is ripe with disobedience, rigid with refusal and dissent. Being so far from his father’s will, he is keenly aware of being lost. That despair drives him back to his father’s will and saves him. The other son, accepting his father’s will, eagerly agrees to work but fails to follow through. His disobedience is compounded by deceit. Believing himself to be filled with his father’s will, he is not “empty enough” to repent. He coasts, if you will, on his initial good will, believing that this is sufficient to save him from his father’s wrath.

How do serial killers, corrupt politicians, prostitutes end up in heaven with you, the righteous son or daughter? If they end up there, they do so first because being outside the Father’s will hurts too much to ignore. How long can a creature turn from its Creator and not feel the yawning emptiness of His absence? To be created is to have purpose. We are Purpose given flesh and spirit. You cannot NOT be what you were made to be for very long and fail to feel the corruption of your refusal. To repent of your refusal is like a tremendous rebound, the further you stretch away from God’s will, the harder, the faster, the tighter the comeback! A glorious SNAP! right back into the will of the Father.

Standing there in the heavenly line with the other former sinners – all of those who recognized the emptiness of their disobedience and repented – you can look around you and see some of the infamous wretches of history. If they are there with you, you are all there because you figured out that you are limited vessels, overflowing with the limitless graces of a loving God. The ones you are not likely to see standing in line are those who believed to the end that they were vessels once filled, always filled, and needing nothing more from God than His push for their own one-time yes, they pursue other, smaller desires. Having taken a sip of His grace, they believe their thirst is quenched and drink no more. Is that one little sip enough to keep them going for all eternity? I doubt it. We come back to the Father again and again, sometimes in joy, sometimes in tears, but always knowing that when we surrender ourselves and our sins to His mercy, we will be made new again. That newness – each and every time – pushes us out into the world to bear witness to the reality that any sinner and all sinners can receive the Father's mercy . . .if they first acknowledge their sins and turn to His will. It does no one any good to pretend that sin isn't sin. Or that God loves sinners despite their sin. Of course He does! He is Love, Love is who and what God is. That's not a serious question. The question is not: does God love the sinner? (Yes, He does!). The question is: which does the sinner love more – his/her sin or God? Our Father loves us so much that He wills that we choose, and He will honor our choice: eternal life with Him. Or eternal life w/o Him. If we choose eternal life with Him, the first step is to confess our disobedience and welcome Him into our lives with open hearts, open arms, and open minds. Then. . .our joy is complete.

_____________


Follow HancAquam or Subscribe ----->

Magnify Christ in Your Body

NB. I woke up this morning *much* later than I usually do, so I didn't have time to finish my homily for the 9am Mass at OLR. Had to reach into the archives for this one. . .

25th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
OLR, NOLA

Sounding very much like Mary saying YES to the Lord’s angel at the Annunciation, Paul proclaims without pride: “Christ will be magnified in my body…” Christ will be made larger, brighter, sharper, denser, louder, and more skilled in Paul’s body. Fearlessly Paul adds, “…whether by life or by death.” Christ will be magnified in his body, whether by life or by death. Like Mary at the feet of the angel, Paul turns his life and his death over the Lord – and the work of the Lord – and confesses to his brothers and sisters that his life as a worker for the Lord will be larger, brighter, sharper, and more skilled precisely b/c the work he does will be done for the greater glory of God. And this is just the work of his life! Death is no obstacle for Paul b/c “life is Christ, and death is gain.” So choose! Live in Christ and magnify His work on earth. Die in Christ, be with Him eternally, and still magnify His work in His presence. Now that’s commitment.

But here’s what I want you to notice: Paul does not donate his time, talent, and treasure out of his excess. He doesn’t give over to the work of the Lord the overflow of his riches – the leftovers. Paul does not say “Christ will be magnified in my checkbook.” “Christ will be magnified in my volunteer hours.” “Christ will be magnified in my talent.” He says that Christ will be magnified in his BODY. His very flesh. And whether he lives or dies the work he does for the Lord will bear abundant fruit for others. Paul does not divide his life (or his death!) into neat packages addressed to different and equally worthy recipients: his family, his career, his friends, and, oh, one for the Lord too here on the bottom somewhere. Paul’s whole life – the first fruits, the abundant works, the failures and misgivings, and, finally, his last breath – all, his whole life is given to Christ for the enlargement of Christ.

What does it mean for Christ to be magnified in the body? The idea, I think, is to pull us out of the very human habit of abstraction, the very human temptation to lift our religious obligations to one another into the heavens where we can keep them safe from our duty to perform them on earth. So long as the obligation to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, visit the imprisoned remain abstracted moral imperatives far, far away, we are tempted to honor them in the abstract, neglect to perform them, and remain confident that the work of the Lord is getting done. Paul’s insistence that Christ will be magnified in his body is the clearest indication we have that the work of the Lord is to be DONE. Not just thought about. Not just written about. Not just preached about. And certainly not abstracted and lifted onto some kind of spiritualized “to do” list. The work is to be done. And done first for God’s greater glory.

Now. I know what you’re thinking! “Wow, Father is wound up this morning. He must think we’re all lazy bums laying around thinking about the good works of mercy, but watching Saints football instead!” Not quite. I’ve seen the generosity of this community, and I know what motivates you to be the Lord's instruments in the world. There is a hunger here for others to see and hear what the Lord has done in your lives. There is an eagerness here, a tangible need to draw others to the Lord and to witness to them the power of Christ’s mercy – to forgive, to heal, to bless. I’m not wagging my finger at you, but merely reminding us all where we came from, where we are, and where we are going. You came from Christ. You are with Christ. And you will be with Christ.

But there is a temptation waiting for us. An eager little devil waiting to pounce on our witness to the Lord. It is an opportunity for us to sin and delight the Liar. What is this temptation? It is the temptation to believe that we work for the Lord out of our own generosity, out of our own time, out of our own resources, and we are therefore entitled to a greater reward when we outwork our neighbors.

This is exactly the parable of the whiny workers from Matthew, a parable about our salvation and our growth in holiness.

The whiny workers begrudge the landowner’s generosity in paying full wages to the latecomer laborers. Why? For some reason they feel that their own labor and their own wages are diminished by the generosity of the vineyard owner. Somehow their day’s labor is diminished. Their dollar is devalued. They worked harder and longer under the fiery sun, so they deserve more than those who sauntered in at the last hour and barely broke a sweat!

These guys are upset b/c they are working out of a very human notion of justice, a temptation, I think, to believe that compensation is earned; to get what is owed you, what you deserve. But remember, this is a parable about salvation and holiness not a lesson on capitalist economics. Is it a human notion of justice you want applied to your eternal life? Do you want forever what you deserve? What you’ve earned in this life? Do you want the Father to give you a just compensation for your life’s work? The whole point of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ is that we won’t be given what we deserve; we won’t receive from the Father what is owed to us. As I have said to you many times: we don’t want God’s justice! We want His mercy! And Christ has bought that mercy for us.

Our Final Wage was offered on the Altar of the Cross once for all. Unearned. Free. Whether you came to your salvation sixty years ago, or ten years ago, or three hours ago, your Final Wage comes from the bottomless cache of the Father’s generosity. Salvation is free. Holiness – the living out of that salvation morning, afternoon, and night – is work. But even that work is graced by a loving God Who would see us with Him for eternity. That grace is sufficient to help us magnify the Lord. 

Make Christ larger, brighter, louder, sharper, sweeter, stronger, kinder, truer, better, more beautiful, more loving, more faithful, more humble, more generous, and make Christ bigger, and bigger, and bigger in your life. Magnify the Lord til your knees buckle. Magnify the Lord til your back hurts. Magnify the Lord in your body til there is no room for sin. And when the Lord asks, “Are you envious b/c I am generous?” Say, “No, Lord! I am grateful in life and death, and I live and die to magnify you so that everyone may see and hear you as I do!”

Follow HancAquam or Subscribe ----->

On the failure to forgive

24^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Mt. Carmel/OLR, NOLA

In Dante's Inferno, those who lived and died as slaves to anger are consigned to the Fifth Circle of Hell.* The violently angry spend eternity attacking one another on surface of the swampy waters of the River Styx. The sullenly angry sulk beneath the slime, forever stewing in their self-imposed loneliness. Though they share in the sin of inordinate anger – expressed in different ways – what these sinners have most in common is their stubborn refusal to forgive. . .while they could. Rather than release her offender from his debt, the violently angry sinner slashes out in a rage, causing him harm. And rather than release his offender from her debt, the sullenly angry sinner retreats into a silent, brooding resentment that slowly consumes all of his charity. When our Lord urges us to forgive our offenders as many times as necessary, he's not giving us some Hallmarkish therapeutic advice for Better Living. He's telling us outright that the failure to forgive – in the end – is tantamount to choosing to live for all eternity basting away in the slimy waters of the River Styx, Hell. The failure to forgive another is the failure to receive forgiveness from God.

If forgiveness were easy to give, we wouldn't need our Lord to command us to do it. We wouldn't need that image of the master turning his unforgiving servant over the torturers. That forgiveness is difficult to give is part and parcel of our fallen humanity. But why is forgiveness so hard to give? It might be b/c we are afraid that forgiving someone who has offended us might come to believe that his/her offense wasn't really all that offensive to begin with. If I can easily forgive being hurt, then maybe I wasn't that badly hurt in the first place. Maybe forgiveness is hard b/c we are afraid of being hurt again by the same person, by the same offense. If I forgive this hurt, maybe he/she will hurt me again in the same way. Or perhaps forgiveness is hard b/c we like the feeling of another being in our debt for sin. She hurt me and I'm not forgiving her b/c I like that she owes me. As our Lord makes clear, my failure to forgive is a trap for me. There is no justification, no way to make right, my refusal to grant to another what God has freely given to me. Yes, I've been sinned against – terribly wounded – and my fallen nature urges me to seek justice, to seek balance. But when I seek that balance w/o acknowledging that my own sins have been forgiven, what I am truly seeking is vengeance. 

 

And unrepented vengeance earns me a dip in the River Styx, or a visit with the master's torturers. Our Lord recounts at the end of his parable: “I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?'” The obvious answer here is: “Yes, Lord!” If you can't bring yourself to answer that question in the affirmative, why not? The most common reason I've heard as a priest goes something like this: “I could say that I've forgiven, but I don't feel like I've forgiven.” Our Lord requires us to “forgive from the heart,” meaning a genuine forgiveness that relieves the other person of his/her debt to us. No where does the Lord require us to feel good about forgiving another. No where does he demand that we be happy about it. Forgiveness is an act of the will – from the heart – we just do it. And then we go on with our lives knowing that no one owes us a debt of sin, knowing that we ourselves owe no one a debt of forgiveness. “Wrath and anger are hateful things,” Sirach tells us. And only a sinner holds them tight.

*Cantos VII - IX
____________________________

Follow HancAquam or Subscribe ----->

Discerning a priestly vocation?

For those discerning a vocation to the Order of Preachers, there's a new website operated by the OP friars of Memphis, TN. . .

Priest Vocation

Check it out!

Don't be a stubborn mule!

23rd Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
OLR, NOLA

Long after celibacy and poverty have become routine for us priests and religious, obedience remains a struggle. We can get used to not having that one special someone, and we can get used to relying on the community treasury for our basic needs. But surrendering my stubborn will to the authority of another? That's a very different story! When I'm asked to do something I don't want to do, I can hear that sneaky spirit of rebellion whispering to me – You're an adult! You're well-educated and entitled to your opinion! You know what's best for you! You have rights too, you know! That's the Self rising in pride to war against a vow made long ago. And because I am being perfected and not yet perfect, I need to be reminded of the wisdom of humility. Constantly reminded. The hand cannot grasp without the wrist. Nor the wrist bend without the arm. And so on. Humility – at the least – is the submission of one’s body and soul to the necessity of playing well with others. In other words, as Christians we don’t get to take our ball home just because we don’t like the rules of the game. We’re in this game of holiness together (like it or not) and sometimes that means (like it or not) that we have to hear that we aren’t playing well with others.

Despite our discomfort with delivering or receiving such a message, deliver and receive we must. The Lord tells Ezekiel, “If I tell the wicked, ‘O wicked one, you shall surely die [for disobeying me],’ and [if] you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way, the wicked shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible for his death.” My hand may stick a knife into my enemy’s heart because my enraged brain sends the order; however, I am held responsible for his death – Me, body and soul. Not just my hand, not just my brain. And when I am brought to justice for murder, it is perfectly reasonable to ask: who knew he was capable of murder? Who failed to teach him the sacredness of life? Who failed to speak out and dissuade him? The law will call this “culpable negligence.” Our Lord will call it “a failure to love.”

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, referring to Christ’s teaching on the greatest commandment, writes: “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. . . Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.” Taking Ezekiel and Paul together we can see that love and obedience are inseparably bound together. Love without obedience is just sentimentality. Obedience without love is just groveling. Love with obedience is fraternal correction done well. This why Jesus, all too aware of our fragile egos and nonetheless painfully aware of the consequences of our failure, lays out a process for calling another to obedience in love: first, one on one; then, one with two or three more; then one with the whole Church. If the Church cannot extract obedience in love from the dissenter, then “treat him as you would a Gentile or tax collector,” that is, treat the stubborn one like an unclean stranger or a traitor to the family. This is not cruel. It is responsible stewardship. 

 

Reflecting on why fraternal correction is so difficult to deliver and receive, I am forced to look carefully in the mirror. I won’t claim to be an average American Catholic since most Catholics aren’t Dominican priests. However, my stubborn will was trained in the modernist assumptions of a rural working class family. Persons are highly autonomous individuals. Freedom is the unhindered right to choose whatever I want. And whatever I want is right for me. Years in religious life have done a lot to inform my intellect about the problems I face as a stubborn mule, but they have done little to move my will. What does Paul say, “I do what I do not want to do. . .” Essentially, the problem is this: when confronted with fraternal correction I immediately argue myself to two conclusions: 1). the person correcting me is not qualified to correct me because he is sinful too, and 2). I refuse to listen because my corrector is motivated by envy, or control issues, or a personal dislike, or political enmity, so he can't be correcting me in love. In one fell swoop I have committed two sins: presumption and lack of charity. And the dry well I have dug for myself just gets deeper and deeper.

That explains why I don’t hear correction well. Why don’t I deliver correction well? Basically, I distrust my own motives and I fear that the one I am correcting will point them out to me. Who wants to hear the ugly truth about one’s prejudices? There’s also the danger that the other guy will rebut with a correction of his own. And that correction might be true! Ouch. Like most of you, I do not want my freedom violated by a questionable correction, and I certainly don’t want my freedom restricted by someone with an agenda that fails to take love into account. . .even if what my corrector is trying to tell in love me is true. . .maybe especially if what he is trying to tell me is true! My experience tells me that it is truly the extraordinarily holy person who can deliver and hear a correction without the sins of pride and rebellion stirring up an over-the-top reaction. But holiness is required of us. For better and worse, we are nothing without love and we cannot grow in holiness without obedience.

Paul’s wisdom is our salvation here: “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another. . .” Said another way, possess no debt except the debt of love that you owe to those whom you have promised to love. Alone, we are nothing. Together we are Christ, made one body in one baptism for the preaching of the Word. The discipline of humility that comes from fraternal correction is made possible by and strengthened by a closed mouth and an opened heart. Difficult? Not at all. It’s almost impossible. But if this life in Christ were easy we would have no need for the Church, no need for one another.

Follow HancAquam or Subscribe ----->

Dogma

Follow HancAquam or Subscribe ----->

Don't put down your cross!

22^nd Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

Our Lord names Peter “Satan.” Last week, he named Peter “the Rock,” the rock upon which his Church would be built. How does Peter go from being “the Rock” to “Satan” in a week's time? Having declared his belief that Jesus is the Christ, and receiving his title, “the Rock of the Church,” Peter ends up doing what many of us do when confronted by a crisis of faith. We panic. . .and do or say something dumb. When Peter hears Jesus say that he – Jesus – must go to Jerusalem and die at the hands of his enemies, Peter blurts out the dumbest possible thing he could, “God forbid!” Apparently, in his panic, Peter forgets that Jesus is God – a confession he himself made just last week – and that God is telling him what must happen. Rather than comfort Peter or accompany him or engage him in encounter, Jesus rebukes him, “Get behind me, Satan!” Sorry. But Jesus would get an “F” in pastoral practice at the seminary! Rather than coddle Peter's lack of faith, Jesus calls him out as a tempter, giving him the name of humanity's greatest spiritual enemy. Jesus knows that he must carry his cross and die. Not even the Rock can be allowed to deter him.

So, what does all this have to do with the price of crawfish at Dorignac's? Besides showing us how even an Apostle, Peter the Rock, can allow his fear to overrule his faith, Jesus is revealing to us a truth bound to make us a little queasy – we all have a cross to carry and Satan's self-appointed task is tempt us into putting it down. Jesus knows that he is bound for Jerusalem and death. He knows he's going to be betrayed, tortured, and executed. He bears all this as his cross, along with humanity's sinful nature. If he were to allow Peter to tempt him into laying down his cross, humanity's salvation would be thwarted. We would – even now – dwell in darkness and death, without any hope for redemption. Instead, Jesus does what he must. He rebukes Peter and reveals another hard-to-hear truth: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” That's God's thinking not Man's. It is Satan who encourages us to set aside our crosses and make ourselves more comfortable. It is Satan who teaches us that our crosses are unbearable burdens; that our crosses are unnecessary restrictions on our liberty. It's his job to make us believe that we can still receive God's love even as we set aside the very tools we need to receive His love.

If you think it's strange to look at the cross you carry as a tool for receiving God's love, think again. Think this way instead: Jesus' cross was his tool for receiving God's love for all of humanity. The cross was the instrument – the tool – by which Jesus took up our sinful natures and gave them to our Father in sacrifice, freeing us from sin and death. If this is true for Christ, why can't it be true for us as well? Jesus himself says that taking our crosses is a condition for following him. Following him where? If you follow him, you end up where he did – dying sacrificially on your cross; that is, dying to self for the sake of Christ to become holy. In his desperation to prevent you from dying to self and becoming holy, Satan will tempt you with every trick at his disposal. One of his oldest tricks – the one Peter tries out – is to try and convince you that your cross is an unnecessary burden; that you have been unfairly treated in the games of crosses; that somehow or another you have been especially picked out of the crowd to endure extra trials. And b/c you have been so sorely mistreated by God, you deserve a break, you are entitled to set your cross aside and just coast for a while. And when you do, Satan slithers up next to you, and says, “Let me show you an easier way. . .”

And that “easier way” is indeed easier. . . and shorter, faster, less expensive. . .and deadlier. Set your cross aside – your tool for receiving God's love and growing in holiness – and your way is most definitely easier. Because there is nothing easier than choosing to be separated from God. . .forever. What Satan knows and we must never forget – no cross of ours is ever bigger than our Father's love for us. No cross of ours is ever deadlier than life lived in shadow of the devil's lies. Whatever your cross is – disease, poverty, bad marriage, sexual vice, alcohol, drugs, whatever it is – your cross is temporary, and Christ is always, always, always with you. Carry that cross while following Christ's teachings, dying to self in loving sacrifice for another, and you will better receive God's ever-present love and mercy; you will grow in holiness. Our crosses are not lifestyle choices, or a harmless bad habits, or unfair impositions on our freedom. They are living, breathing tools for lifting up our brokenness. By lifting up to God that which threatens to smother us in sin, we give Him glory, and He takes our contrite hearts as worthy sacrifice. When Satan tempts you to lay down your cross and take it easy, say to him, “What profit would there be for me to gain the whole world and forfeit my life?”

Follow HancAquam or Subscribe ----->

Glittering gold, burdensome lead

St. Augustine
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
NDS, NOLA

Painting a vivid picture of their woe, Dante consigns Hypocrites to the Eighth Circle of Hell: “Down here, a people of elaborate design/perambulated at a mournful pace;/their attitude was hollow and resigned.//The lurid cloaks in which that are encased/had monkish cowls made in the Cluny mode,/obscuring almost all the upper face.//Without was dazzling filigree of gold;/within was lead, of such a density/that Frederick's copes were lighter sevenfold.//O weary mantle for eternity!”* Hypocrisy is not only a “weary mantle for eternity”; it is also a burdensome disguise for any Christian in the here and now, most especially the Christian minister, or those aspiring to become Christian ministers. In Dante's Hell, sinners live-out their principal sins. . .forever. Because they have chosen to be in Hell, sinners cannot leave their punishments behind. They made their eternal choices while alive on Earth. And now, God honors – forever – their choice to be separated from Him. For the hypocrite, he lived his life on Earth glittering in gold on the outside, while carrying his sin like lead on the inside. His spiritual progress on Earth is mirrored in Hell – he walks in circles, going nowhere, slowly. 

 

Our Lords says to the scribes and Pharisees, “Woe to you, you hypocrites. You lock the Kingdom of heaven before men. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.” The spiritual leader who practices hypocrisy lives that sort of life that, in word and deed, glitters like gold on the outside but rots on the inside; and, in effect, locks the door to heaven, forbidding entrance not only to those whom he leads but to himself as well. A life lived in hypocrisy is an inauthentic life, a life where the freedom of the Child of God is shoved into a joyless, merciless spiritual straitjacket, and its misery is spread with the rule of a father's authority. Our Lord condemns the scribes and Pharisees to eternal woe b/c they deprive themselves and others of the Father's freely offered mercy, burying His offer in mounds of religious acrobatics – hoops to leap, walls to climb, moats to swim. Where these men should be bridges to God, they are instead obstacle courses. Where they should be teachers, they are scolds. Where they should be preachers, they are haranguers. And b/c they are hypocrites for money, they are triply-damned. “Woe be to you” (x3).

This all sounds severe. Maybe even terrifying. And it should. As ministers and aspiring ministers of the Gospel, we are doubly responsible to Christ the Judge for how we carry out his work. We are responsible for ourselves and those we are charged to serve. How do we avoid hypocrisy? Dante's infernal punishment of the hypocrite is our answer. Everything that glitters gold on the outside must be matched and even surpassed by the glittering gold on the inside. This doesn't mean constant moral purity! It means that we first receive the Gospel, teach and preach the Gospel, live out the Gospel, and then spend ourselves doing everything possible to lift up those who look to us for help. We unlock doors of mercy. We build bridges to Christ. We knock down walls around forgiveness. And we go to God – in the end – confident that we have done His work, bearing witness to His truth in love. 

*Inferno, Canto XXIII (trans. Carson)

Follow HancAquam or Subscribe ----->