25 December 2017

I Became a Child Among You

NB: A Christmas homily from 2006 -- Vintage Fr. Philip Neri, OP!

The Nativity of the Lord 2006
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, Irving

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The Word speaks and everything is. The Word names everything that is “Very Good.” On stones, the Word etches wisdom and truth and promises His human creatures abundant blessings, strength, prosperity, and children like the stars. Wild men wander out of the desert to speak the Word again and again to bring back to memory and mind promises made and received, vows of obedience and fidelity, a covenant of identity, power, singular divinity. The Word of the Law and the Prophets recites for us a litany of loving deeds—miraculous acts of mercy, rescue, healing—deeds done for us, and repeats with near-chant solemnity His promises of salvation, fidelity, holiness, belonging, love, peace, fruitfulness, and friendship. The Words calls. Whispers. Bellows. Pleads. Bargains. Threatens. Cries. The Word came to what was his own, but his people did not accept Him. And so, the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we saw—finally!—His glory.

What have we heard of this Word? What have we seen? We hear the cry to repentance and holiness, the cry for justice and peace. We hear the promises of eternal healing and glory. We see the reparation of disease and injury, the repair of sin’s ruin among us. We see the blessings of God’s hand in our lives, the abundant flood of riches—for some: health, wealth, education, children, loving family, a perfecting vocation; for others: gifts of intelligence, influence, generosity, strength to persevere, patience, peace; and still others: gifts of music, speech, art, wisdom, counsel, true holiness and insight. We hear the rustling Word moving in hearts spacious with joy, emptied of anxiety and fatigue, and the whispered invitation is clarion-clear: become my children! I became a Child among you so that you might become my children.

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we see His glory. The Nativity of the Lord celebrates a unique event in human history, a miraculous intervention in space and time—Bethlehem some 748 years after the building of Rome: the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son takes on human flesh—one person, two natures: human and divine. The Word at creation, the Word of the lawful stones and the prophets, the Word of the whirlwind, the pillars of fire and dust, the Word of destruction, and the Word spoken to Mary, our Mother; this Word, the Son of God, becomes the Son of Man and lives here among us. The Christ Child has arrived. Infant Grace, Infant Mercy is here. We see and hear his glory as the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth and ready to fulfill for us His promise of salvation!

Are we ready to hear this promise? Ready to reach and grasp the covenant that will save us? Our history with God has not been an exemplary story of careful attention and compliance! As a race we have been willfully ignorant, prideful, disdainful of being taught, and violent with God’s prophets. And we have been sacrificially generous, gracious, truly humble, and welcoming to the stranger and the outcast. It is this spark of charity, this flicker of holy light in our history that speaks to our readiness for the promises of God. A readiness, by the way, that is fundamentally a readiness to love and a readiness made ready only b/c God loved us first!

If you will stand to receive the promises of God in His Son’s birth among us as Man, you will stand ready to receive the promise of your own godliness, that is, you will stand ready to become God with God. Our salvation is no mere rescue mission, no simple matter of healing the God-Man rift. The purpose of the Incarnation is our divinization. God became Man so that we might become God. The purpose of the Incarnation is our transformation into the Christ Child, our transformation into the Anointed One for the mission of preaching the Gospel to the world. If the Son became flesh to reveal the Father, then flesh, once healed, is revelatory of divinity, that is, made ready to show out Christ. The Son did become flesh to reveal the Father. Your flesh is healed in baptism—freed from sin, no longer bound to disobedience and angst. Therefore, you, O Healed Flesh!, you reveal the Father!

If you think your job as a Catholic is to show up here for Mass, drop a check in the plate, and shake Father’s hand on the way out…stop right there and consider what you do here this morning: you will come forward and eat the flesh of Christ, drink the blood of Christ and you will pledge to go out into the world as Christ to be Christ for everyone you meet! Christmas, the Mass of Christ’s Birth, is most certainly a celebration of our Lord’s nativity, but it is also a celebration of our birth as Christs for his mission of grace and truth. You see, this Mass can’t be just a matter of remembering some ancient event, some legend or myth; it can’t be about simply calling to mind again a pleasant childhood story of barn animals, shepherds, and a little drummer boy! This Mass is your Nativity. You are born as Christ b/c Christ took on flesh in birth. Your flesh. You hands. Your feet and tongue and eyes and ears. Your gifts for his mission. From his fullness we have received grace upon grace, gift upon gift, goodness upon goodness, a beautiful completion and a stunning perfection polished for loving everything into eternal life.

The Word made flesh is Love made with bone and blood, mercy given stature and weight. We celebrate a singular event this morning, a one-time grace in history—the sending of the Son among us as Man. We also celebrate a daily event, an hourly grace: our own persistent transformation into Christ, our magnificent fight to be born as Christ, to see and hear His Word rustling in our hearts—a determined murmur or a dramatic call or a silent pause—to see and hear His Word occupying the tabernacle of our one desire: to be filled, satisfied with His presence; all our longing for love and peace, given freely; hunger assuaged, thirst slaked, gnawing need emptied; to breath His glory and to be free. Our one desire: to be free as His slaves.

And the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us and we see His glory! The Christ Child is here. Infant Grace, Infant Mercy is among us. Full of grace and truth He is here. History bends to account for this miracle of giving, this wonder of the Father’s gift of His only Son to us. Make your lives wonders around which history must bend; miracles around which all the stories we will ever tell must flow. With Christ, be the true light which enlightens the world. Go out and be yourselves the Word made flesh.




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17 December 2017

How to grow in holiness

3rd Sunday of Advent
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
OLR, NOLA

If you need a summary of Christian spirituality, something short and sweet as a daily reminder of who and what you are, you really can't beat these three sentences from Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians: “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks. . .” What do I do to grow in holiness? Rejoice, pray, give thanks. How often should I rejoice, pray, and give thanks? Always, without ceasing. And when should I rejoice, pray, and give thanks? In all circumstances. If Paul is being serious here – and Paul is always serious – then the Christian response to every victory, to every failure, to every set-back, to every moment of both progress and retreat should be met with rejoicing, prayer, and giving thanks! This third Sunday of Advent is a short pause in our season of preparation and repentance to remember that Christ is coming and he is coming again. The God of peace makes us perfectly holy and preserves us blameless – spirit, soul, and body – for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in response to this great gift from the Father, we rejoice, pray, and give Him thanks.
 
First, we rejoice! But how do we rejoice? Remember the Blessed Mother, carrying Jesus in her womb, visiting Elizabeth her cousin who was pregnant with John? When Mary came close to Elizabeth, John leaped with joy! John was conceived in Elizabeth's barren womb for the singular prophetic purpose of being the herald of Christ's birth into the world. John leaped with joy b/c he recognize his purpose in Christ; he “saw” his goal, the end for which he was made. And his reaction was to rejoice – to celebrate with exuberance and delight. When the priests and Levites ask John – “Who are you?” – he answers, “I am not the Christ.” He doesn't immediately tell them who he is; he tells them who he isn't (the Christ) and who it is they must come to know and love (the one who is coming after him). Each one of us, conceived in our mothers' womb by the loving will of our Father, has a purpose, a goal; and in the waters of baptism, we have been charged with a mission, the same mission that causes the not-yet-born John to leap with joy. John is the herald of Christ's birth, his first coming among us as a man. We – each one of us – is a herald of Christ's coming among us again, as our Just Judge. Accept this mission anew and rejoice! Celebrate exuberantly like John did in his mother's womb. 
 
First, we rejoice; then, we pray. What do we pray for? Paul writes, “Test everything; retain what is good. Refrain from every kind of evil.” If we will be fruitful heralds and prophets – like John – then we must surrender ourselves to the wisdom of the Father in prayer, testing, proving everything we say and do against the Truth of our faith. We cannot be authentic prophets for Christ if we lie about the faith, if we bear false witness against the Gospel, or pretend that we know what is true and good better than the Church does. There can be no such thing as a free-floating Christian prophet, someone who invents – apart from God's Word and the Church – his or her own truth in order to deceive. So, we must test everything and keep only what is good. Paul also tells us that we must refrain from doing any kind of evil. Prayer, especially joyful prayer, brings us closer and closer to God, strengthening our bonds with Him, and clarifying our purpose in the His truth. Whatever or whoever attempts to turn us away from our prophetic mission is tempting us to do evil. John came “to testify to the light, so that all might believe. . .” Ask God your Father in prayer to keep you sharply focused on your mission, to turn aside any temptation to give up. That's what we pray for.

Rejoice, then pray, and, finally, give thanks! Giving thanks to God in all circumstances builds humility and makes it possible – more and more – for us to receive His graces as He gives them. Giving thanks to God in all circumstances guarantees us against the sins of entitlement, greed, pride, and envy. Giving thanks to God in all circumstances provides us with the direction, energy, and clarity we need to bear witness to His Christ and carry out our mission as prophetic heralds. Rejoicing and prayer are themselves kinds of thanksgiving. What better way to express our joy than to shout our gratitude to God for His gifts? What better way to pray than to turn our hearts and minds to gratitude for all that we have been given? The Enemy comes against us with an array of powerful weapons: despair, cynicism, suspicion, divisiveness, unrighteous anger, and hatred. All of these undermine Christian joy and make it difficult for us to give ourselves wholly to God. So, we pause in this season of preparation and repentance to celebrate the joyful task that we have been given and have received – to proclaim far and wide that Christ Jesus will come again! His mercy is freely given. To sinners his forgiveness is absolutely guaranteed.


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10 December 2017

What kind of person ought you to be?

2nd Sunday of Advent
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
OLR, NOLA

Last Sunday, I called Advent “winter's Lent.” And there is a penitential flavor to the season. But there is also a taste of rejoicing before we celebrate the Nativity of our Lord. We turn out our sins and expose them to the Lord’s mercy, AND we rejoice at the promise of His coming again. We take stock of the time we’ve spent so far, AND we offer to for God's blessing the time we have left. Repent and rejoice. Convert and sing praise. Confess and follow righteousness. Therefore, prepare His way in your heart, your mind, your body, and your soul. Lay a clear path to the center of your covenant with Him, open the gates of your reason for His light, make a gift of your work for His works of compassion, and your soul an offering of immortal praise. Now is the time for searching faults and finding mercy, for opening wounds and finding health. Advent is the time to straighten your path to God. Advent, winter's Lent, is that time for us to ask ourselves: what sort of person ought I to be?

And so, what sort of person ought you to be? This is the perfect question for Advent because it is a question that requires us to think in terms of who we ARE and how we ought to ACT. It is a question that requires us to think about how we balance between being good and doing good. In his letter, Peter, asks his readers what sort of persons they should be given the coming of the Lord. He then immediately elaborates on the question by adding, “…conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God…” Who we ARE goes hand in hand with how we ACT. For the beloved of the Lord, being good and doing good are inseparately bound together. We wait and prepare and repent. We cultivate holiness and practice devotion. And like John the Baptist, we cry out in the desert of wherever we are: “Get ready! He’s on His way!” Who ought we to be? We ought to be prophets.

As the One Who Comes Before the Christ, John the Baptizer appears out of the desert preaching repentance. As the prophet Isaiah says, he is the messenger sent ahead, a voice from the desert urging those who hear his cry to “prepare the way of the Lord.” This makes John a prophet, a herald. He’s the guy who showed up first, told the truth about Who and What was coming, and offers those who listen a chance to get themselves straight with God. He is an alarm ringing in Jerusalem, calling everyone away from sin and toward righteousness.

John isn’t just about serving up the doom and gloom of The End. He offers more than a prediction and sharp tongue. John made it possible in his preaching for those listening to begin a better way toward God, to start over with the Father and bear good fruit. He offers a baptism of water to wash away repented sins. And he offers a vision of the straightened path to the Father: the good fruits of repentance will show that you are ready for the coming of the Lord AND make you a prophet. Yes, we ought to be prophets, but are we ready to be prophets?

It is not enough that we acknowledge our sins, wash in the baptismal waters, and come spotless to God. Our acknowledgment of sin, our willingness to be found without blemish, must produce good fruit. Being good in theory builds lovely temples in the air. Doing good for show makes good religious theater. But airy temples never last and the curtain falls on even the best theater! Living our lives as prophetic witnesses – that’s the sort of folks we ought to be!

But what does it mean for us to be prophetic? It doesn’t mean putting on camel hair shirts and eating locusts and honey. It doesn’t mean standing on the street screaming about fire and God’s wrath. It doesn’t even mean being particularly pious or holy if by “pious” and “holy” we mean being outwardly righteous for show. 
 
Nor does being prophetic mean taking all the right political positions, protesting all the wrong ones, signing petitions, and marching around with wearing little buttons and issuing self-important statements. All that can be as empty as false piety.

So, what does being prophetic mean? Let’s look at John. He comes out of the desert, a desolate place, a place devoid of life. He finds his voice there. Outside family, friends, culture, and civilization, John finds a voice to proclaim the Coming Christ. He doesn’t use this voice to promote himself. He speaks of Another. He doesn’t prepare the way for his own celebrity. He celebrates Christ. He doesn’t try to make his own life easier by claiming some sort of divine connection. He makes the paths straight for the Lord. He doesn’t try to “fit in” or blend in or “inculturate.” He preaches against the cultural grain, against the prevailing morals. He is not concerned about being comfortable with his role or finding satisfaction in his ministry or being a team player. His is a lonely voice. He does not coddle the legalists or the revolutionaries, the lawyers or the trendy academics. He calls them to repentance and a life of good fruits. He points again and again to Christ, the mightier One, the One Who Comes to baptize in the Spirit. Always pointing toward Christ, always toward Jesus. This is what a prophet does. 
 
Absolutely, we ought to be prophets. We are ready to be prophets if we will acknowledge our sin. Repent. Turn around. Face God. Produce good fruit first and then expect it from others. We will be prophets if with every thought, word, and deed we proclaim the coming of the Christ – as a child and as a Just Judge. Advent is our training season. Now is the time to get into prophetic-shape!




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