34th Week OT (W) Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP St. Albert the Great, Irving Jesus is an excellent teacher. But he's a terrible salesman. Instead of playing up the advantages and rewards of following him, he says, “They will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons...You will be hated by all because of my name...they will put some of you to death.” WooHoo! Sign me up! NB. he says all this to the crowd, not just to his close knit circle of disciples. IOW, he's publicly telling everyone who's listening that joining him might land you in jail or the grave. He ..read more

34th Week OT (Th) Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP St. Albert the Great, Irving One utopia after another has fallen to pride, greed, and violence. Robespierre's France. Stalinist Russia. Maoist China. Pol Pot's Cambodia. Castro's Cuba. Hitler's Germany. The human impulse to establish the perfect society seems deeply embedded in our DNA. What these murderous regimes really are is nothing less than perversions of our supernatural desire for the Kingdom of God. But we are impatient. So, we reach for the Kingdom of God w/o God. And we get Kingdoms of Men w/o godly rule. Pope Benedict XVI warned us not ..read more

St. John Chrysostom Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP St. Albert the Great, Irving Jesus is heaping hot coals on the hypocrites again! This time his target is the disciples. And by extension, us. So, it might be a good idea to figure out what hypocrisy is. Aquinas, quoting St. Isidore of Seville, tells us that the hypocrite is one “who come[s] on to the stage with a disguised face...so as to deceive the people in their acting” (ST II-II.111.2). He goes on to say that the hypocrite is “a sinner [who] simulates the person of a just man.” Hypocrisy then is essentially a form of lying, a dissimulation (A ..read more

St. Albert the Great Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP St. Albert the Great, Irving Albertus Magus is in trouble with the Prior. In a fit of experimental zeal, he's taken some of the brothers' beer and fed it to a snake. The inebriated serpent escapes Albert's cell and is terrorizing the less scientifically curious friars by flopping around like a...well...like a drunken snake. For the sake of weak hearts and a calmer convent, the Prior forbids any future experiments with alcohol and snakes. We don't know what hypothesis Albert was testing empirically, but it was not done merely for the sake of curio ..read more

29th Sunday OT Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP St. Albert the Great, Irving The Sons of Thunder ask Jesus for a favor. He listens to their request and says, “You do not know what you are asking.” Hearing this quiet rebuke, do the Sons blush, shamefaced? Do they withdraw their impertinent request? Maybe they bristle and double-down by insisting that they deserve this honor. Or make the argument that – practically speaking – they are the best men for the job. Mark doesn't record their reaction, so we are left to speculate. Had they been paying attention to their Teacher, they would've never made th ..read more

28th Week OT (W) Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP St. Albert the Great, Irving “Licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness...” Paul says that these are works of the flesh. Works that indulge our appetites in a disordered fashion. These works keep us from entering the gates of eternal life. Not only do they prevent us from finding eternal unity with God, they also poison our witness here on earth and give scandal to those we are sent to serve. If we devote ourselves to the works of the flesh privately while bearing witness to Christ publicly ..read more

28th Week OT (M) Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP St. Albert the Great, Irving Jack comes home from work two or three times a week reeking of another woman's perfume. He “works late” frequently and seems to have lost interest in his marriage. The last straw is the way he hides his cell phone away so his wife doesn't see the texts he receives after hours. Seeing all these signs, Jill hires a PD to gather evidence of Jack's infidelity. After a month of following him around town, the PD reports to Jill that Jack is not having an affair. She sighs in relieve and says, “I knew he wasn't b/c I trust him ..read more

28th Sunday OT Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP St. Albert the Great, Irving What riches do you put between yourself and our Father’s love for you? Here's the scene: the rich young man asks Jesus how he might inherit eternal life. Jesus patiently recites the commandments given to Moses. The young man tells Jesus that he has observed the Law all his life. And then in an moment that deserves its own gospel, Jesus looks into the young man’s heart, loves him, and with this love sees the gaping hole in the young man’s soul—the lack, the longing that defines him. Jesus sees the young man’s enslavement to ..read more

St. Jerome Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP St. Albert the Great, Irving We can separate the good fish from the bad – the fat catfish from the bony gator gar. We can keep the good fish and toss the bad back. That's a decision we make according to our culinary needs and tastes. It's not likely that anyone will along and dispute our choices. Small bass go back into the water. Big ones go on the wall as a trophy or into the skillet as supper. What happens when we extend the Good Fish/Bad Fish analogy to the parsing of souls at the end of the age? We can come away thinking that it's my job and yours to ..read more

Padre Pio Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP St. Albert the Great, Irving I grew up in a world dominated by Southern Baptists. Not the suburban, semi-professional kind of Baptists, the almost non-denominational sort who are happy to live and let live. No, my Baptists were in-your-face evangelizers. The kind who would invite you over for a pizza party and then announce that we all had to go to church before dinner was served. The kind who'd take you aside and talk to you in whispers about asking Jesus into heart as your personal Lord and Savior. All this sales pressure naturally rubbed my introverted ..read more