text:
Domine, da mihi hanc aquam!
"A [preacher] who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental; they are necessarily reflected in his [preaching]." — BXVI
30 October 2014
Nothing less will see you complete. . .
30th Week OT (Th)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Notre Dame Seminary, NOLA
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Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Notre Dame Seminary, NOLA
We must continue on The Way – today, tomorrow, and the following day. We will not abandon God's house, so, following along behind the Lord, we must persevere. Hunted as he is by that fox, King Herod, Jesus stands strong in his mission and ministry. Why he is sent and what he is sent to do IS who he is, so there's no going back, no backing down, no giving up. If we are to be faithful followers of the One sent, then we too must become the why, the what, and the who of Christ's mission and ministry. And we cannot accomplish this alone, nor can we accomplish this with weak minds, frail hearts, and darkened souls. Paul writes to the Ephesians, "Draw your strength from the Lord and from his mighty power. Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the Devil." Draw strength. Put on your armor. Stand firm. And "words [will] be given [you] to open [your] mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the Gospel." Do you labor to make known the mystery of the Gospel – with boldness?
Paul uses the adverb noun parrēsia (παρρησίᾳ)* to describe the energy with which we are to make known the mystery of the Gospel. Parrēsia means plainly, openly, publicly, freely, confidently. In other words, we are not to preach and teach the Gospel obscurely, privately, reservedly, or hesitantly. The full truth, goodness, and beauty of God's Self-revelation to His children in Christ Jesus is not a precious secret to be kept locked away; it's not an occult system to be parceled out in meager bits by experts; it's not a self-help formula to be sold like detergent or beer. The full truth, goodness, and beauty of God's Self-revelation to His children in Christ Jesus is to be plainly, openly, freely – boldly – proclaimed as a service to creation, as a servant's work to anyone and everyone who will hear it. To take on this servant's work is to become the Gospel in flesh and bone, surrendering your heart, mind, and body, and becoming – for the greater glory of God! – a material vehicle of the Good News. Therefore, draw strength; put on your armor; and stand firm b/c your chosen work puts you in danger of being hunted. The tactics of the Devil are at once bold and subtle; public and private. Our escape from the hunt is found in fortitude, perseverance, courage, and excellence.
When told by the Pharisees that the fox, King Herod, is hunting him, Jesus responds with defiance, saying, in essence, "Tell Herod to mind his own business. I'm busy about my Father's work, and I'm not going anywhere until I'm done." Notice that our Lord's response exemplifies the virtues we need to boldly proclaim the Gospel. Fortitude – his strength of purpose. Perseverance – his determination in finishing the job. Courage – against religious and secular opposition, he pushes on. And excellence – a nearly impossible job done to perfection. The boldness with which we preach and teach the Good News marks us as followers of the One sent to open wide the gates of heaven and welcome the sinner to God's mercy through repentance. When we fail to preach and teach with boldness, when we fail to proclaim the mystery of the Gospel, we confess the triumph of the Devil's tactics in silencing us. So, Paul admonishes us: "Put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground." Have we done everything? Have you done everything to profess and announce boldly, confidently, publicly the freely offered mercy of God to all sinners? Nothing less than becoming the who, what, and why of the mission and ministry of Christ will see you complete._____________________
* I was reliably informed after Mass that this is a noun used adverbially. One of the many benefits of preaching at a seminary. . .
* I was reliably informed after Mass that this is a noun used adverbially. One of the many benefits of preaching at a seminary. . .
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27 October 2014
Varnish & Red Paint
Mendicant Painterly Thanks goes out to M.R. for sending me some varnish and red paint from the New Artiste Wish List!
Let's pray that we don't both end up regretting this. :-)
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26 October 2014
30th Sunday OT: audio file
Reaching Down for Higher Things: audio file for my homily on the 30th Sunday OT
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25 October 2014
Reaching Down for Higher Things
NB. Finally! I get to preach this 2008 Roman homily. I knew that keeping up with my homily writing while in Rome would come in handy one day. . .
NB 2. So. . .I'm sitting there in the presider's chair, listening to the readings. . .when it hits me that the reader had just said: "A reading from the first letter of St. Paul to the Thessalonians." I almost stopped her. . .I checked the missalette. Yup. She's right. I wrote this homily in 2008. I've read it dozen of times since then. . .tho never preached it. Today is the first time that I noticed that I used Corinthians instead of Thessalonians in the homily. No idea why.
NB 2. So. . .I'm sitting there in the presider's chair, listening to the readings. . .when it hits me that the reader had just said: "A reading from the first letter of St. Paul to the Thessalonians." I almost stopped her. . .I checked the missalette. Yup. She's right. I wrote this homily in 2008. I've read it dozen of times since then. . .tho never preached it. Today is the first time that I noticed that I used Corinthians instead of Thessalonians in the homily. No idea why.
30th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Anthony of Padua/Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA
Audio File
St. Paul, ever the romantic(!), writing in his first letter to the Corinthians, insists that "love is patient, love is kind. Love is not jealous, is not pompous; it is not inflated; it is not rude; it does not seek its own interest [. . .] but rather rejoices with the truth"(1 Cor 13). He goes on to write that love bears, believes, hopes and endures all things; and finally, he declares, as if he has never grieved a betrayal or lost his heart to passion: "Love never fails." The romantic whispers, "Yes!" The cynic scoffs, "Bull." The pragmatist asks, "Really? Never?" The Catholic exclaims, "Deo gratis! Thanks be to God!" Who needs for love to never fail more than he for whom Love is God? This is why Jesus teaches the Pharisees that the spiritual heart of the Law is: "You shall love the Lord, your God, will all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind [. . .] You shall your neighbor as yourself." Listen to Paul again, "Our Lord is patient, He is kind. He is not jealous, is not pompous; He is not inflated; He is not rude; He does not seek His own interest [. . .] but rather Our Lord rejoices with the truth." Though Paul is writing to the Corinthians to show them how we must love one another—patiently, kindly, selflessly—we cannot, cannot love at all except that Love Himself loves us first. Therefore, with the Lord and because of the Lord, we love Him, one another; and we rejoice with His truth.
Now, that we must be commanded to love says everything that needs to be said about the weaknesses of the human heart, soul, and mind. That we must be commanded to love tells us that we do not eagerly enthrone love in the center of our being, making all we do the children of charity. That we must be commanded to love tells us that we do not love as a way of giving thanks for our very existence, for the gift of being alive. That we must be commanded to love tells us that we do not reason with the grace of God's wisdom, with the deliberative power granted to us as creatures created in His divine image. That we must be commanded to love tells us that we are not God but rather creatures imperfect without God, longing for God, grieving our loss yet yearning for the peace and truth of His Being-with-us.
Think for a moment of the ways we have struggled in our past to find some small portion of peace and truth. Moses returns from Mt. Sinai to find his people giving themselves over to the idols of their former masters in slavery. Paul admonishes the Corinthians for turning to "worldly philosophies" for their much-needed wisdom. He lashes them for rutting indiscriminately in the flesh, surrendering body and soul to disordered passion and vice. Jesus teaches against the legalistic blindness of the Pharisees; he calls them "white washed tombs," beautifully, lawfully clean on the outside but stuffed with rotted meat on the inside. In our long past we have turned to idols, pagan philosophies, debauchery and license, and taken an easy refuge in the dots and tittles of the law. Each of these reach for the peace and truth we long for, but none grasp the love we need.
Think for a moment of the ways you yourself have struggled in your past and struggle even now to find some small portion of peace and truth. Do you look to the idols of power, wealth, possessions, or Self to find your purpose? Do you scratch your itchy ears with the wisdom of the world? With the profound systems of material science, the occult mysteries of New Age gurus, the glittering gospels of prosperity and celebrity? Perhaps you search for and hope to find some peace in your body, your flesh and bones. Do you worship at Gold's Gym, Kroger and Target, Blockbuster, or CVS, searching for peace in a perfectly sculpted body, a full belly, a house full of things, a visual distraction, or over-the-counter cures for the nausea and headache of a life that will not love God? Or, perhaps in this election season, you look to parties and politicians to give you hope and security. Do you look to the Democrats to give you the ease of a well-funded government entitlement? Or perhaps you look to the Republicans to secure your place near the top of the economic food-chain? Do you think Obama will give you hope? Or that McCain will give you security? When we reach down for higher things, we grasp the lowest of the low and in our disappointment we name the Lowest the Highest, and then, in our pride, we pretend to be at peace. To do otherwise is to confess that we are fools fooled by foolish hearts, that we are stubborn mules needing the bridle and bit.
And perhaps we are fools. Perhaps this is why Jesus finds it necessary to command us to love God and one another. Why command what we would and could do willingly? In Exodus our Lord must command that we not molest the foreigners among us. That we must care for the women who have lost their husbands and children who have no family. He must command us not to extort money from the poor or strip them of their modest possessions for our profit. We must be commanded not to kill one another, not to steal, not to violate our solemn oaths, not to worship alien gods. Why doesn't it occur to us naturally to care for the weakest, the least among us? To help those who have little or nothing? Why must we be commanded not to destroy the gift of life, not to lie or extort, not to surrender our souls to the demonic and the dead? We must be commanded to love God, to hope in His promises, to trust in His providential care because in our foolish hearts we believe that we are God and that we have no other gods but ourselves.
Are we fools? Probably not entirely. But we are often foolish, often believing and behaving in ways that give lie to Paul's declaration, "Love never fails." God never fails, but we often do. When we make the creature the Creator, giving thanks and praise to the bounty of our own wisdom, we reach down for the higher things and convince ourselves that we have grasped truth. We do this when we believe that it is not only sometimes necessary but also good to murder the innocent; when we believe that it is right to murder the inconveniently expensive, those whom the Nazis called "useless eaters," the sick, the elderly, the disabled. We reach down for higher truths when we create markets for housing in order to exploit for profit the homelessness of the poor. We are foolish when we raise impregnable borders around the gifts we have been given , gifts given to us so that we might witness freely to God's abundance. We do foolish things because we believe we are God, and so, we must be commanded by Love Himself to love. But surely this is no hardship. Difficult, yes. But not impossible. With Love all things are possible.
What must we do? To love well we must first come to know and give thanks to Love Himself. He loved us first, so He must be our First Love. Second, we must hold as inviolable the truth that we cannot love Love Himself if we fail to love one another. Third, love must be the first filter through which we see, hear, think, feel, speak, and act. No other philosophy or ideology comes before Love Himself. This mean obeying (listening to and complying with) His commandments and doing now all the things that Christ did then. Fourth, after placing God as our first filter, we must surrender to Love's providential care, meaning we must sacrifice (make holy by giving over) our prideful need to control, direct, order our lives according to the world's priorities. Wealth and power do not mark success. Celebrity does not mark prestige. "Having everything my way" does not mark freedom. Last, we must grow in holiness by becoming Christ—frequent attention to the sacraments, private prayer and fasting, lectio divina, strengthening our hearts with charitable works, sharpening our minds with beauty and truth in art, music, poetry, and while being painfully, painfully aware of how far we can fall from the perfection of Christ, knowing that we are absolutely free to try again and again and again.
Though we often fail love, Love never fails us. Remember: who needs for love to never fail more than he for whom Love is God?____________________
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Five Abstracts (II)
Here are five abstracts I recently finished. 16 x 20 canvas board. NB. all the usual caveats about my crappy little camera washing out the colors. . .
^ Lava me, Domine! (ON THE RECYCLING SHELF)
^ Ezekiel 37 (RECYCLED)
^ Across the Red Sea (ON THE RECYCLING SHELF)
^ Leaving Eden Again
^ Perfecting Graces
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24 October 2014
29th Week OT(F)
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Notre Dame Seminary, NOLA
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Notre Dame Seminary, NOLA
There's a Facebook meme that reads: "Remember—when someone asks, 'What Would Jesus Do?' Freaking out and throwing tables is a viable option." The meme has a line drawing of Jesus. . .freaking out and throwing tables. When we wonder whether or not anger is an acceptable Christian response, we think of Jesus in the temple courtyard, thrashing the moneychangers. What gospel scene do we imagine when we wonder about the acceptability of feeling and showing frustration and impatience? May I suggest this morning's gospel? Jesus accuses the crowds of hypocrisy b/c they continue to hesitate in accepting the truth right in front of their faces. They can read the signs of an impending storm. And they can read the signs for a warm, sunny day. So why can't they see that he's come to fulfill the Law and free them all from sin? Just a few verses before today's reading, we read Jesus saying, "I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!" Impatient? Frustrated? Well, what would Jesus do? He'd set the world on fire.
Lest you think Jesus is threatening an actual conflagration, let me quickly point out what he says immediately after this, "There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!" Baptism here refers to his sacrificial death on the cross, the sacrifice that must occur before the world can set ablaze with the Holy Spirit. If his reference is a little obscure, his feelings on the issue aren't. He's frustrated, impatient. And the dumbstruck crowd milling around him isn't helping matters much. Keep in mind: he's anxious to be about the business for which he was sent—our salvation. So the reluctance of those who listen to him to accept their own redemption must be extremely aggravating. As understandable as his frustration might be, why does he accuse these poor people of hypocrisy? When they see a cloud in the west, they know it's going to rain, so they scramble to prepare for a storm. They see the sign and act on it. Here he is—a living, breathing sign of the Father's mercy—and most of them just stand there gawking at him. A few want more evidence. Some even demand miracles. Fortunately, there were no tables or moneychangers in the crowd that day! And that Jesus left his whip with Mother Mary.
New Orleans is populated by hurricane experts. We know how to interpret the weather in the Gulf, but do we know how to interpret the present time? We do, even if we sometimes forget that we do. Here's a reminder. The present time is a godly gift. Call it a Saptio-temporal Gift, the divine gift of space and time in which we always live and thrive. As a gift, the present time—right now—is the only moment we have to acknowledge our total dependence on God and give Him thanks for giving us life and keeping us alive. Every second we are alive affords us the opportunity to renew and reinforce our gratitude to God; every second we're alive grants us the chance to receive His mercy and grow in holiness; every second we're alive Christ dares us to set this world on fire with his Good News. We can interpret the present time b/c for us (as followers of Christ) the past, present, and future all come together in one explosive moment of all-consuming grace: the doors of heaven are slammed open, and we are set on fire by the glory of God's love for us. One Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all. What would Jesus do? He would die so that we all might live.
We have work to do
29th Week OT(F)
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Notre dame Seminary, NOLA
The gov't will implant microchips in its citizens. And the computer that controls theses chips is called "The Beast." The leader of ISIS will be killed and then rise again in three days to become the Anti-Christ. The Ebola virus epidemic was designed by the CIA and the DHS to bring about martial law. The Blessed Mother warns that there is a Great Chastisement coming to punish us for the errors of the recent Synod. Secular powers, controlled by a cabal of modernist Illuminati-Satanists, will systematically persecute the Church. Bishops, priests, deacons, entire religious orders and even a future pope serve these Satanists even now. These are just a few of the dire predictions about the future world of our world. I won't even touch on the Protestant disaster scenarios I grew up with. Here's the problem with these predictions: even if they prove to be true, so what? I mean, what does it matter? We have a job to do and entertaining end-of-the-world fantasies isn't in the contract. We know who Christ is, therefore, we know how to read the signs of his coming again.
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Notre dame Seminary, NOLA
The gov't will implant microchips in its citizens. And the computer that controls theses chips is called "The Beast." The leader of ISIS will be killed and then rise again in three days to become the Anti-Christ. The Ebola virus epidemic was designed by the CIA and the DHS to bring about martial law. The Blessed Mother warns that there is a Great Chastisement coming to punish us for the errors of the recent Synod. Secular powers, controlled by a cabal of modernist Illuminati-Satanists, will systematically persecute the Church. Bishops, priests, deacons, entire religious orders and even a future pope serve these Satanists even now. These are just a few of the dire predictions about the future world of our world. I won't even touch on the Protestant disaster scenarios I grew up with. Here's the problem with these predictions: even if they prove to be true, so what? I mean, what does it matter? We have a job to do and entertaining end-of-the-world fantasies isn't in the contract. We know who Christ is, therefore, we know how to read the signs of his coming again.
Jesus knows that the hypocrites in the crowd know who he is and why he's preaching. He knows that they know that he's fulfilled the prophecies and that he is among them as the Christ. Though they can easily read the signs in the sky and on the earth to predict the weather, they pretend not to be able to read the signs of his coming as the Messiah. Why? Likely b/c a correct interpretation of the signs would require them to consider seriously the necessity of conversion, the necessity of starting over in a New Life in Christ; meaning, they would have to leave the old self behind and start fresh. That's frightening and arduous. In some bizarre sense a life of sin is comfortable, familiar, even boring! The prospect of having such a life revolutionized by acknowledging the arrival of the Messiah must be terrifying. But why do Catholics spend their time and energy worrying about Marian warnings, Illuminati plots, and sketchy cardinals? There's work to be done. Hard work that isn't always immediately rewarding and often quite dangerous.
Now, if you think that I am implying here that we shouldn't waste our time with fantastic predictions of our apocalyptic demise, you're wrong. I'm not implying it at all. I'm saying it outright. Don't waste your time. The only prophecy that need concern a Catholic is the prophecy of the arrival of the Messiah. He's here. It's now time move on and make sure that everyone who meets us, hears us, sees us, reads us, or even hears rumors about us knows that we have a single mind, a single heart, one Word, one miracle in faith; that we move and breath and grow and hope to die in one Spirit, preserved in unity through the bond of peace. We must be absolutely sure that everything we do and say fulfills with love the prophecy of Christ's coming, his suffering, his death, his resurrection, and his coming again. Does the world see the Body of Christ, the Church, coming in glory to suffer in love, to serve in hope, to persevere in faith no matter what comes?
When we grind away our short hours here wringing our hands over strange visions and crazy fortunes, we waste the gift of time for witnessing to Love Who saves us and Who will bring us to Him forever. A preoccupation with these visions opens us to all sorts of sins of omission. What are we not doing for God's people while decoding biblical numerologies and arguing about the authenticity of another Marian apparition. What gets left undone? Never does Jesus tell the disciples that they will find themselves among the roasting goats in Hell for failing to properly interpret and apply the message of one of his mother's visits. They will go to Hell, he tells them, for failing to clothe the naked, for failing to visit the imprisoned, for failing to feed the hungry, and for failing to welcome the stranger. In other words, for failing to do the work Christ did, we fail as his students and ambassadors, and we reject his grace. Goat, let me introduce you to Fire. Goat, fire. Fire, goat.
We have one Lord, one faith, one baptism and we have one witness: to bear with one another through love so that the world is astonished by our generosity and comes to Christ b/c our joy in his grace is irresistibly contagious! We must prove that being a prisoner for the Lord is the freest anyone can ever be._______________________
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21 October 2014
If the Church is a Field Hospital. . .
1. A severely wounded solider is brought to the Field Hospital. The doctor pokes his injuries with a stick and declares, "These wounds are self-inflicted. You can't be admitted to this hospital until you are completely healed."
2. Another severely wounded solider is brought to the Field Hospital. The doctor begins life-saving treatment. The solider blurts out, "STOP! I don't want to be healed! I want to be affirmed in my woundedness. Just accept my injuries and welcome me as I am!"
3. Yet another solider is rushed to the Field Hospital. The doctor and the soldier agree that he is OK in his woundedness and let him stay in the hospital just as he is. . .wounds and all.
4. One last wounded soldier is carried into the Field Hospital. The doctor immediately begins treating his wounds. The solider says, "Thanks, doc. I can't heal up w/o your help."______________________
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19 October 2014
He is the LORD and there is no other
29th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA
The Pharisees show Jesus a Roman coin and ask whether or not they should pay Caesar's taxes. Matthew tells us that "knowing their malice, Jesus said, 'Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?... 'Whose image is this and whose inscription?' They replied, 'Caesar's.' At that he said to them, 'Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.'" Much has been made of this infamous distinction between what is God's and what is Caesar's. And even more could be made of it during this tense political season. Ultimately, the distinction is meaningless because everything belongs to God, including Caesar himself. I won't belabor the point. The more interesting moment in this story is the moment Jesus calls the Pharisees out for questioning him, or more precisely, for "testing" him. According to Jesus, the Pharisees test him out of a malicious hypocrisy; that is, a hateful insincerity, a spiteful duplicity. Their apparently sincere question about paying taxes is really a contrived event to catch him up, a staged incident, choreographed and scripted to force Jesus into either treason against Rome or blasphemy against God. Jesus skillfully dodges the trap with an ultimately meaningless answer, but he manages to teach them and us a truth nonetheless: "I am not who you want me to be. . ."
Let's get down to the question: who do you want Jesus to be? Father, Mother, Santa Claus, mischievous elf, mythical Ego, Jungian archetype, Ground of Being? Spiritual direction often starts with a question about one's image of God. Our prayer life tells us volumes about how we understand who Jesus is for us. In desperate times, an image of God emerges. Suffering carves out of us a hard figure of God. When we reach beyond ourselves, beyond the possibilities of easy helps and cheap fixes, we usually reach out toward heaven and call on our God for His care, His rescue. And this is exactly what we ought to do. There is nothing so humbling and spiritually purifying as a moment of desperation, a flash of weakness, or damaging stupidity that drives us to God's comfort. But we must be careful: "Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?" Our God is not our student, every ready to be questioned, every ready to be tested.
Obviously, like most politicians probing an opponents weaknesses, the Pharisees are trying to trip Jesus up by asking him the "are you still beating your wife?" sort of question. No answer is good, any answer will be vacuous in the end. The point of the exchange is not to find the truth but to expose a hated enemy as worthy of one's hatred. Jesus calls this attempt malicious and hypocritical. Malicious because their intent is evil and hypocritical because they know that they are not asking a real question but setting a trap. Their insincerity is poisonous. But only to themselves. Who do the Pharisees need Jesus to be? Or perhaps the best question: who do they hope he turns out to be? Given their institutional investments in riches and political commitments to power, no doubt the Pharisees hope he turns out to be little more than some redneck preacher from the podunk town of Nazareth. Most of those guys didn't live long enough to know the truth of Christ's mission and ministry.
We've heard the truth, so let's test ourselves: given your institutional investments in riches and political commitments to power, who do you hope Jesus turns out to be? Jesus says to give to Caesar what is his and give to God what belongs to Him. Of course, this means that we give all things to God in the end b/c all that belongs to Caesar really belongs to God. For a while, while we walk around on the dirt, we give Caesar his due—his taxes, our obedience to his laws within our duties to God, our civic participation. But in giving Caesar his due now our hearts must always be inclined to a longing and a goal well beyond Caesar's temporary crown; focused fiercely, permanently on the Crown of Heaven. The Pharisees hope to use this apparently split-allegiance to force Jesus into a political-religious quagmire. They need for Jesus to be a madman or a traitor or a blasphemer, so they test him in their malicious hypocrisy, rigging the test to give them the result they hope for; and in getting the hoped-for answer, relieving them of any duty to preach his message, teach his word, or offer him their obedience as the Messiah promised by the prophets.
Rather than giving them what they hope for, Jesus says, in essence, "I am not who you want me to be." Jesus is not a traitor or a blasphemer. Nor is he a revolutionary or an institutional cog. He is not a preacher of flaccid tolerance nor a fire-breathing demagogue. He is neither a temple priest nor an institutional preacher. He is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. He is the Prince of Peace who comes with a death-dealing sword to deal death to our sin. He is the Lamb of God who comes with a scourge to beat the unfaithful for their hypocrisy and out of his temple. He is the Final Judge who died for us, making us clean before the Father's throne. He is the Lion of David's House who gently shepherds, protects, and provides. He tells Isaiah: "I am the LORD and there is no other, there is no God besides me. It is I who arm you, though you know me not, so that toward the rising and the setting of the sun people may know that there is none besides me. I am the LORD, there is no other."
And no other is the LORD! Not the state, not a political party, not an institution, not a person or an idea or a theory. Nothing made can save us. Nothing passing can give us eternal life. If it can die, it cannot give eternal life. If it can change, it cannot impart perfection. If it can fail, it cannot gift us with goodness. That we want a man, a party, a system, or an idea to save us, to give us life, to grant us goodness is a sin as old as Eve's yes to the serpent's gift. Like the maliciously hypocritical Pharisees, don't we often find ourselves testing Jesus to see who he will be for us today? Just poking him a bit to see if he will budge on a favorite issue or yield a bit on a favorite sin? We've seen and heard quite a lot of this week coming out of the Synod on the Family in Rome. One cardinal wanted to test the waters and published a report on the bishops' discussions to that point. The report contained language about divorced and remarried Catholics, co-habitating couples, and same-sex unions that directly contradicts the Church's ancient biblical understanding of marriage. Apparently, the good cardinal looks at Jesus and sees a therapist, or perhaps a man who really didn't mean it when he quoted Genesis, ". . .a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." Fortunately, a majority of the bishops called the cardinal to task and the report was rewritten to reflect the truth of the faith. The temptation to remake our Lord in our own image and likeness is overwhelming; however, we do well not to worry him with our tests. He is the Lord, not our student.
Jesus fails the Pharisees' test. Turns out that he is not who they hope he is. He is not the traitor, the blasphemer, the arch-heretic they had hoped for. Neither is he a cuddly affirming therapist, nor the fiery-eyed God of Righteous Vengeance Come to Smite Our Enemies, nor the sagacious prophet with a stoical temper. He is the Judge, the Lamb, the Prince, the Child, the King, the Seed, the Vine, the Word, the Spirit. He is the LORD. And there is no other and no other is the LORD.
Synod: desolations, tensions, and temptations
A provisional translation of the Holy Father's closing address to the Synod bishops.
The Holy Father mentioned a few moments of "desolation, of tensions and temptations". . .
- One, a temptation to hostile inflexibility, that is, wanting to close oneself within the written word, (the letter) and not allowing oneself to be surprised by God, by the God of surprises, (the spirit); within the law, within the certitude of what we know and not of what we still need to learn and to achieve. From the time of Christ, it is the temptation of the zealous, of the scrupulous, of the solicitous and of the so-called – today – "traditionalists" and also of the intellectuals.
- The temptation to a destructive tendency to goodness [it. buonismo], that in the name of a deceptive mercy binds the wounds without first curing them and treating them; that treats the symptoms and not the causes and the roots. It is the temptation of the "do-gooders," of the fearful, and also of the so-called "progressives and liberals."
- The temptation to transform stones into bread to break the long, heavy, and painful fast (cf. Lk 4:1-4); and also to transform the bread into a stone and cast it against the sinners, the weak, and the sick (cf Jn 8:7), that is, to transform it into unbearable burdens (Lk 11:46).
- The temptation to come down off the Cross, to please the people, and not stay there, in order to fulfil the will of the Father; to bow down to a worldly spirit instead of purifying it and bending it to the Spirit of God.
- The temptation to neglect the "depositum fidei" [the deposit of faith], not thinking of themselves as guardians but as owners or masters [of it]; or, on the other hand, the temptation to neglect reality, making use of meticulous language and a language of smoothing to say so many things and to say nothing! They call them "byzantinisms," I think, these things…
That's some masterful Jesuitical tight-rope walking, folks! Obviously, the Holy Father was paying careful attention to the synod discussions._________________________
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16 October 2014
Bishops Revolt!
Looks like the Synod on the Family is back in the hands of the participant-bishops rather than the appointed leadership.
Monday's relatio was roundly denounced as an inaccurate summary of the bishops' discussion, but b/c the actual language-group reports were not made public. . .there was no way for anyone to check.
Today, the bishops rose up and demanded that the group summaries be made public. Pope Francis and the synod chair relented and agreed to have them made available.
Fr. Z. has an English translation of the Italian-language article, along with his usual on-point commentary. He also provides links to the summaries on the Vatican website.
Even a cursory scan of the summaries will prove that the relatio was an agenda pushing one-sided mess.
I'm not ready to believe that this whole thing was an outright manipulation; however, given my long experience with self-anointed prophets and revolutionaries in the Church and religious life. . .it wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that it was.
Keep praying, folks!________________________
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15 October 2014
Take No Other Path
St Teresa of Jesus
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Sisters of Mt Carmel, NOLA
Our Lord is unrelenting in his condemnation of hypocrisy, particularly the hypocrisy of those who wield religious authority. He says to the Pharisees, "Woe to you! You are like unseen graves over which people unknowingly walk." Not only does he accuse his opponents of being dead and rotting in the ground, but he also accuses them of leading their unwitting followers into uncleanliness, impurity. Thus the hypocrisy of each Pharisee is both a personal and a public failure. When spiritual leaders fall, those who follow them fall as well. Jesus concludes his indictment of the Pharisees and scribes with a pointed accusation, "You impose on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them." Here lies the kernel of their hypocrisy: though they follow the Law to the letter, they do so only for the benefits that come with being seen doing so. They do not intend to see justice done nor do they love God; their only purpose is to lift themselves up and bask in the admiration of their followers. Therefore, Jesus says to them three times, "Woe to you. . ."
How do we avoid the temptations of hypocrisy? Paul writes to the Galatians, "If you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law. . .If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit." Paul is not giving us permission to live lawless lives, wildly following every impulse, every appetite. He is challenging us to do something far more difficult than living the letter of the Law. Rather than scrupulously obeying every jot and tittle of the rules, we are called upon to fulfill the Law; that is, we are freed by Christ to live out the purpose of the Law, the underlying freedom that the rules guide. For example, you can be meticulous in driving the posted speed limit and still believe that the other drivers deserve to be run off the road. You can come to Mass daily and still seek vengeance on your neighbor. You vow yourself to living a life of charity and still disparage your brothers and sisters. Despite a perfect driving record or a lifetime of perfect Mass attendance, you can still harbor hatred, anger, selfishness, and rivalry. Following the rules is no guarantee of a pure heart. But a pure heart makes the rules unnecessary b/c such a heart is ruled by none but the name of Jesus.
St. Teresa of Avila considers the power and purity of the Holy Name: ". . .it seems that no other name fell from [St. Paul's] lips than that of Jesus, because the name of Jesus was fixed and embedded in his heart. Once I had come to understand this truth, I carefully considered the lives of some of the saints, the great contemplatives, and found that they took no other path. . .A person must walk along this path in freedom, placing himself in God's hands. If God should desire to raise us to the position of one who is an intimate and shares His secrets, we ought to accept this gladly."* Walking the Way with Jesus, his name the name of freedom, and placing ourselves with him into the Father's hands – this is the perfected way of peace, the complete path to integrity and the death of personal hypocrisy. Teresa names a few of the great contemplatives of the Church as her examples: Francis, Anthony of Padua, Bernard, and Catherine of Siena. All men and women of Christ who set aside the need for power and control, the need to be right and never contradicted, the need to be seen being holy by others. Their anchor in the unmooring sin of this world: the name of Jesus, contemplated as the only path to peace.
Christ came to fulfill the Law. As his Body, the Church, we are vowed to preach his Word. So, we share the fruits of that Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If we will lead in the Spirit, we must first follow the Spirit, and that, sisters, is exactly what we have given our lives to do. Follow the Spirit first; then, lead with the Spirit in Jesus' holy name.
*from The Office of Readings
14 October 2014
Synod Freak Out!!!
Apparently, without the approval of the Pope or the involvement of the Holy Spirit, an interim report from the Synod on the Family radically altered unchangeable Church teaching on the disordered nature of same-sex attraction and SSA sexual relationships.
Who knew that an interim report from some of the bishops at a half-finished Synod could wield such authority!
Well, it doesn't. Wield any authority, that is. Despite what the anti-Catholic bigots of the MSM tell you.
The freak-out over this toothless report among otherwise faithful Catholics has been. . .epic.
What's most revealing is the level of distrust among the faithful in the Church's leadership. Given the way the implementation of VC2 was hijacked and abused, it's little wonder that we Catholics are skittish about councils, synods, and other ecclesial bureaucratic gatherings.
There's also a palpable sense among the faithful that there's a nefarious movement among some of the bishops at the Synod to influence the Holy Father toward changing unchangeable doctrine.
In answer to this suspicion, I give you Fr. Robert Barron: "One of the great mysteries enshrined in the ecclesiology of the Catholic Church is that Christ speaks through the rather messy and unpredictable process of ecclesiastical argument. The Holy Spirit guides the process of course, but he doesn't undermine or circumvent it. It is precisely in the long, laborious sifting of ideas across time and through disciplined conversation that the truth that God wants to communicate gradually emerges. If you want evidence of this, simply look at the accounts of the deliberations of the major councils of the Church, beginning with the so-called Council of Jerusalem in the first century right through to the Second Vatican Council of the twentieth century. In every such gathering, argument was front and center, and consensus evolved only after lengthy and often acrimonious debate among the interested parties. Read John Henry Newman's colorful history of the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century, and you'll find stories of riots in the streets and the mutually pulling of beards among the disputants. Or pick up Yves Congar's very entertaining diary of his years at Vatican II, and you'll learn of his own withering critiques of the interventions of prominent Cardinals and rival theologians. Or peruse John O'Malley's history of the Council of Trent, and you'll see that early draft statements on the key doctrines of original sin and justification were presented, debated, and dismissed—long before final versions were approved."
We are in the Age of Twitter/Facebook/Texting. . .so we are seeing every morsel of fat and gristle that goes into the Synod's sausage making.
The trick is to wait for the final document (ca. 2017) and pray for the Holy Spirit to do His mighty work!__________________
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Three Abstracts
12 October 2014
Invited to be transformed by the feast
28th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Mt. Carmel Academy, NOLA
The truth of the Kingdom has yet to be fully revealed much less understood. Since parables can take us deeper into the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus uses them as the only fruitful way of teaching us the features of the coming reign of God. These short allegorical stories give us an indirect peek at the bigger truth, using the ordinary elements of daily life – the familiar people, places, and things that regular folks see and hear everyday. To understand the bigger truth a parable reveals, we compare the elements of the story to what we already know. So, who are we in the parable of the wedding feast? We aren't the king, his son, or the soldiers. We could be the guests, though we've been at the party for a while now. We can't be the poor guy who gets bounced b/c he's improperly dressed. We're still at the party. That leaves the servants. We're the servants. The ones sent out by the king to summon his guests. The ones sent out to rouse the rabble and bring them as guests to the feast. That's what we do: we go out and invite to the feast those rarely invited. As servants of the king, we obey the king.
What are His orders? "The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find." Note what's missing from these orders. We are not ordered to evaluate any potential guest's wardrobe. We are not ordered to assess their moral worthiness; their social standing, wealth, health, looks, or family ties. We are not ordered to invite only those who look like us, sound like us, think like us, or believe like us. The king's order are crystal clear, "Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find." Whomever we find might be poorly dressed or morally rotten; or high-born and ugly as sin; or low-born and beautiful; or just plain folks with nothing much to do that evening. "Whomever you find" is an all-encompassing category that makes it very difficult not to invite whomever we might find. That's our job. It's what we do. After those we have invited to the feast get here, then it's the king's job to sort them all out. Not ours. The guy who's bounced out into the darkness is bounced out into the darkness b/c he's not properly dressed. In parable-terms, he's not properly disposed, not internally prepared to receive food and drink from the Lord's generous table. He's not wearing the heart and mind of one who's accepted an invitation to party eternally with the Father's Son.
The invitation we all receive to party with the Father at His Son's feast is "come as you are." Black tie. Business casual. Beach wear. Whatever you have on is just fine. In fact, the more poorly dressed, the more poorly disposed we are for the feast, the better. The point of the feast is not to show off or network, or to advertise your worthiness for the occasion. The point is to honor and celebrate the Son's marriage. Thus says the King, "Accepting my invitation makes you worthy." But the transformation from unworthy wretch to worthy guest cannot leave us untouched. You may arrive at the wedding feast "as you are," but you stay at the King's table b/c you have freely given yourself over to the celebration of His Son's marriage. In other words, no one remains at the feast dressed as they arrived. And no one leaves unless they are sent by the King to invite others. Come as you are. Be made worthy. Put on a rich, new wedding garment. And leave only to spread the word of the King's generosity. The King's feast has a purpose, a goal: to bring as many in as possible and transform unworthy wretches into guests worthy of the Son. That includes you and me.
What doesn't include you and me is the intimate process of transformation that the feast begins; that is, the internal work that God alone does to change an unworthy wretch into a worthy guest. You and I are sent out to proclaim the invitation that God has made. We are ordered to invite "whomever we find," and tell them about the feast. When they accept the invitation and return with us to the table, we are to do everything we can to help them stay; everything, that is, except lie about the transformative nature of the feast itself. We welcome. We include. We gather up and support. We pay careful attention to our own made-worthiness, and we even sacrifice to keep God's guests at the table. But the work of transformation cannot happen if the guest does not will to be transformed. And we cannot pretend that the feast does not do what it is designed to do. We cannot lie to the guest or ourselves and say that there is no need for change, there is no reason to turn around and face the King. If the guest wills to remain outside the power of the King's feast, then we can do nothing more than pray that he will return, inviting him back again and again, always welcoming, always ready to serve as the King has ordered us to serve.
Stepping outside the words and images of the parable, let's say plainly what must be said. God's invitation to receive His grace through Jesus Christ is universal. No one is excluded. Never has been, never will be. As His baptized priests, prophets, and kings, we are charged with making sure that His invitation to repentance and holiness is heard over and over and over again. Receiving His grace means repenting of our debilitating sins, confessing them, and resolving to never commit them again. It is true that God invites us to come to Him "as we are." But the purpose of His invitation is make us holy, not to affirm us in our sin or to tell us that our sin is not really a sin. We must not misunderstand His loving invitation to share in His divine life as a nod of approval or a sign that we are perfect "as is." If we are perfect "as is" – sin and all – then why send His only Son to die for us? Why establish the Church to administer His saving grace? In fact, why bother with an invitation at all if there is no one to save? As a Body, we are being challenged to ignore the need for repentance from sin in favor of being "welcoming and inclusive," meaning in practice "pretending that sin isn't sin." This is a lie, a deadly lie that kills the unrepentant and the one telling the lie.
As with all things Catholic, we are set squarely on the razor's edge, teetering delicately btw Pharisaical Judgmentalism and Wholesale Indifferentism. We cannot judge the internal transformation of any other person, nor can we ignore the obvious public signs that no transformation has taken place. Judgmentalism makes for a paltry feast. And Indifferentism renders the feast pointless. If we are to celebrate and honor the Son's sacrifice for us, then we must work hard to maintain our balance on that razor's edge: welcome and include AND expect repentance and transformation. Most especially for ourselves.
11 October 2014
Four Paintings
These are the first four paintings I've completed. Because of the lighting conditions and my amateur camera (8.2 megapixel), the paintings appear more yellow than they really are. Each one 16x20 on canvas board.
Light of the Nations (ON HOLD)
Tree of Life (RECYCLED)
Ps 150 (SOLD)
Wondrous Deeds
09 October 2014
Mendicant Thanks to the kind soul who recently browsed the Wish List and sent me some painting supplies!
I have thus far painted two canvases that I like. Both are abstract color studies.
If (and when) I get good pics of the two, I will post them for your enjoyment and/or derision.__________________
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07 October 2014
Choosing the Better Part
Our Lady of the Rosary
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
NDS/St Dominic Church, NOLA
We have in the sisters, Martha and Mary, two models, two paradigms for how we might proceed to reveal Christ's mystery to the world. When Jesus visits the sisters, Martha begins to fuss about, trying her best to prepare a suitably hospitable meal for their guest. Frustrated that Mary is ignoring her domestic duties in order to dote on Jesus, Martha complains to Jesus and asks him to admonish Mary for her apparent laziness. Instead of scolding Mary for her inattention to duty, Jesus turns Martha's complaint back on her, saying, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things." We should notice here that Jesus doesn't chastise Martha for griping nor does he seem ungrateful for her work on his behalf. Rather than soothe Martha's hurt feelings by telling Mary to get to work, rather than tempering Martha's anger with a lecture on patience, Jesus goes straight to the root of her fussiness. Martha is anxious; she is worried. Faced with the presence of Christ in her home, Martha chooses to get busy; she deflects her anxiety by "doing stuff," hoping, perhaps, that by staying busy she will burn off the fretting worry. Mary, on the other hand, sits at Jesus' feet and listens to his instruction. She too might be anxious. She might be just as wound up and nervous as her sister in the presence of Christ, but she chooses "the better part," attending to Jesus as he teaches her the mysteries of his Father's revelation.
Why does Jesus consider Mary's rapt attention to be better than Martha's distracted busyness? Let's ask this question another way. Who is most likely to learn: a student who sits in class texting on her cell phone, checking Facebook, or doodling; or the student who attentively listens to the teacher—no distractions, nothing to cloud her mind or burden her heart? If you have ever tried to teach a child a difficult math problem, or convey a set of relatively boring facts, then you know the answer to this question! Mary has the better part because she is more likely to learn, more likely to "get it," more likely to become the better teacher and preacher of the mysteries herself. Martha will get quite a lot done, but will she be open to seeing and hearing the mystery that Jesus has to reveal? Jesus tells Martha, "There is need of only one thing." There is only one needful thing, only one thing we need: to listen to the Word, the Word made flesh in Christ.
When you take up Christ's commission to preach the mystery of salvation to the world, do you first listen to the Word; or do you get busy "doing stuff" that looks Christian, sounds Christian? Do you really hear what Christ has to say about God's mercy, His love? Do you attend to the Body of Christ in action during the celebration of his sacraments? Do you watch for Christ to reveal himself in those you love, in those you despise, those you would rather ignore or disparage? Can you set aside the work of doing Christian things and just be a follower of Christ, just long enough to be filled with the Spirit necessary to teach with all wisdom? It's vital that we understand that Martha isn't wrong for doing stuff. Her flaw rests solely in her anxiety and her worry while she's doing stuff. Being anxious and worried about many things while doing God's work is a sure sign that we are failing to grasp the central mystery of our commission to preach the Good News: it is Christ who preaches through us, not only with us, along side us, but through us. If we have truly seen and heard the mystery of our salvation through God's infinite mercy, then there is nothing to fear, nothing to be anxious about, nothing that can or will defeat the Word we are vowed to spread. Why? Because everything we do and say reveals Christ to the world. If the Church is the sacrament of God's presence in the world, and we are members of the Body of Christ, the Church, then we too are sacraments of God's presence. Individually imperfect, together we are made more perfect on the way to our perfection in Christ.
05 October 2014
Will you stand on the Cornerstone come what may?
27th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA
Here's a warning no servant of God ever wants to hear: ". . .the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit." What's worse than living your life as an heir to eternal life only to discover that—in the end—you've been disinherited? When Jesus finishes telling the priests and elders the parable of the murderous tenants, he quotes Ps 118, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." By rejecting Christ as the cornerstone of their relationship with God, the leaders of God's people reject their inheritance. Their reaction to this prophetic statement? They ain't happy. However, they are more afraid than unhappy—afraid of Jesus' popularity, so they postpone arresting him. They're not worried about losing their eternal inheritance. They're worried about losing their power and prestige among the people. When we think about the arduous demands of faithfully following Christ, do we think first of our eternal inheritance, or do we first consider how following him might look to family, friends, or neighbors? Do we reject the cornerstone of our faith in favor of not being noticed, in favor of never being challenged or excluded from polite company?
Rejecting God in favor of wealth, power, and fame is not new to the 21st century. The parable of the tenants retells the history of the Jewish people's stormy relationship with God. We know the story all too well. It tells just like the history of the Church's relationship with God: lots of disobedience and great moments of heroic virtue. What the parable doesn't include is an explanation for our repeated failures. We can hear greed in the tenants' justification for killing the owner's son. But greed never poisons alone. We can hear a little wrath in the tenants' desire to wound their employer. Some pride and class envy. Why do the priests and elders reject Christ? Why do we so consistently reject making Christ the cornerstone of our lives. Making Christ the cornerstone of our everyday lives means risking one of our most valuable treasures: being a respected player in whatever social game that defines us. Family, friends, co-workers, colleagues, neighbors, fellow parishioners. If I make Christ my cornerstone, will I have to buck popular political trends, go against the prevailing attitudes of my peers, and risk losing real prestige for nothing more than a promise of future glory?
Social psychologists will tell you that there is almost nothing more difficult for an individual to do than go against the crowd. The psychology of the herd is infectious; it takes the single soul into a massed spirit where deliberation and freedom are strangled for the sake of frenzy. But few of us will ever be caught up in that sort of mob. The mobs we belong to are much more subtle and more dangerous: the workplace, the family reunion, movie night with friends, faculty meetings, events where those whose opinions of us we honor gather to socialize and strengthen the bonds of the group. When the opportunity arises, do we choose Christ as our cornerstone; or do we choose our standing in the group? When family, friends, co-workers express their support for the culture of death, do you stand on Christ; or do you back down to save face? When your peers start advocate undermining marriage and the family; or expressing racist opinions; or defaming the Church, do you stand on Christ, or back down? If Christ is to be your cornerstone, then everything you are must find its integrity and strength in Christ, regardless of the consequences. As baptized prophets of the Church, you are sent out to live the truth of the gospel. Even if and especially when it means your prestige must take a beating. When the time comes, will you "remember the marvelous works of the Lord," most especially the marvelous work of your salvation achieved on the altar of the Cross?
If contemplating your willingness to remain faithful to Christ and his Church is making you nervous, listen again to Paul: "Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." The peace of God will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus if we make known to him – in prayer with thanksgiving – all that we need. If you need strength to stand firmly on his cornerstone, ask for it with thanksgiving. If you need patience to stand diligently on his cornerstone, ask for it with thanksgiving. If you need wisdom to stand knowledgeably on his cornerstone, ask for it with thanksgiving. Nothing you need to stand upon the cornerstone of Christ will be denied you if you seek it out and simply ask for it with thanksgiving. Any anxiety you may be feeling b/c of who you are in Christ is the product of the Enemy coaxing you toward silence, toward defensiveness and silence. The peace that God gives us surpasses all understanding, all anxiety, all hesitancy and guile. When we speak up to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ, it is not our tongues that speak but his. Not our words but his. Not our time and energy spent but his. As his faithful servants, we serve his mission and ministry by continuing to speak his Word of mercy to anyone who will listen.
Paul not only tells us how to pray for what we need to stand on the cornerstone of Christ, he also tells us how to go about training our hearts and minds for the holy work that the Lord has given us to complete. He writes, ". . .whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, pure, lovely, gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." Just as we work to discipline our bodily appetites against temptation, avoiding those occasions where we might be tempted to put the things of this world before God, so too can we work to discipline our hearts and minds against the invasive ideas and passions – falsity, dishonor, injustice, impurity, ugliness, crudity, mediocrity, and scorn. Look at the tenants who murder the vineyard owner's son. They think about murder and talk about murder before actually committing murder. They fail to resist greed and anger, and they feed one another's passions until the deed is done. They would, according to the priests and elders, suffer "wretched deaths" for their failure to discipline themselves. When we make a stand on the cornerstone of Christ and lay claim to our inheritance as the Father's sons and daughters, our words and deeds must bring honor, dignity, and praise to His name.
The builders God raised up rejected Christ as their cornerstone, and Christ says to them, ". . .the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit." We stand with Christ in his Church to proclaim the Good News of salvation. Whether this stand is popular or not; prestigious or not; profitable or not. If we would be the people who produce the good fruit of His kingdom, the people to inherit the Kingdom of heaven on our last day, then we must stand with Christ as he died for us.
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text:
What could U.N. sleuths unearth at Iran's Parchin base?
SEIBERSDORF, Austria
SEIBERSDORF, Austria (Reuters) - The self-styled "Sherlock Holmeses" of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, now seeking access to a major Iranian base, say they have the capability to find tiny traces of atomic material at a site even if a country were to try to cover it up.
In talks later this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency will once again press Tehran to allow its inspectors to visit Iran's sprawling Parchin military complex. That would enable them to bring back swab samples for thorough checks at the IAEA's high-tech laboratory near Vienna.
Western diplomats have accused Iran of trying to cleanse the Parchin site of possible signs of tests relevant for the development of nuclear weapons, casting doubt on whether U.N. investigators would discover anything even if they could go.
Iran says Parchin, located south-east of the capital Tehran, is a conventional army base. It dismisses allegations that it has carried out atomic bomb research and says its disputed nuclear programme is for energy and other peaceful aims only.
Experts say that while it may now be difficult to find any evidence, it would still be possible to locate traces of nuclear materials with equipment that can study particles 10,000 times smaller than a grain of sand.
Tell-tale particles could not be removed completely from a facility where uranium was used, said Stephan Vogt, a senior IAEA official, who emphasised that he was speaking generally and not specifically about Iran or Parchin.
"You cannot get rid of them by cleaning, you cannot dilute them to the extent that we will not be able to pick them up. It is just a matter of time," Vogt, who heads the IAEA's Environmental Sample Laboratory, said.
"We won't find it maybe the first time we go there," he said. But, "the more often we go, the higher the probability that we will pick up (traces) in some corner, at some table, in some plumbing".
Former chief IAEA inspector Olli Heinonen said any attempt by Iran to purge Parchin of clues would make the agency's task considerably harder, but "complete sanitisation is very difficult to achieve if nuclear materials were actually used".
Like others at the IAEA's Seibersdorf laboratory complex outside the Austrian capital, Vogt was not authorised to discuss Iran, Syria or any other specific cases which have made the agency a key player in international nuclear diplomacy.
But he made clear his confidence in the sophisticated techniques at the scientists' disposal, including a new 3.8 million euro instrument to study tiny particles.
Likening the IAEA's investigative work to that of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, Vogt said: "You are running around, looking for the right spot to sample and then you look for microscopic particles, they can tell you stories."
Installed in a purpose-built building, the Large Geometry Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer can analyse 100-150 samples per year - up from 30-40 previously - collected around the world by inspectors using small pieces of cotton on surfaces.
"We have a much larger magnifying glass, we see much smaller particles," Vogt said, showing the machine, which occupies a room of its own. It "opens brand new doors into what we can see and what we can interpret."
The Seibersdorf facility gained a more prominent verification role in the 1990s after the first Gulf War when the IAEA was given wider powers to detect undeclared activity following the discovery of Iraq's clandestine nuclear programme.
Iraq shut down its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes under orders from the United Nations. Suspicions that it was not cooperating with investigators were used by the United States and Britain to justify their invasion in 2003.
The IAEA has shown it can find particles even when a country has worked hard to hide them. It picked up tiny traces of enriched uranium at Kalaye Electric in Tehran in 2003, even though Iran had removed equipment and renovated parts of the facility.
The IAEA also uses a network of member states' laboratories to help it study samples taken during its inspections globally.
In order to strengthen its capabilities, it is now modernising Seibersdorf, housed in an anonymous-looking complex of white, low buildings.
As part of an 81 million euro upgrade, the IAEA is building a new Nuclear Materials Laboratory where uranium and plutonium samples will be checked to make sure that materials that can be used for bombs are fully accounted for.
Hundreds of samples from nuclear reactors and fuel plants are pored over every year by experts dressed in white coats and protective gear in the present 1970s-era building. The vast majority of tests turn up nothing suspicious.
"People working here don't know where the sample comes from. We are not doing politics here. We are only doing technical analysis," said chemistry team leader David Amaraggi.
But despite the IAEA's insistence that it is a technical organisation serving 159 member states, its monitoring of Iran's nuclear programme can have geopolitical implications.
It regularly inspects Iran's declared nuclear facilities - including the Natanz and Fordow uranium enrichment sites - but has so far failed to persuade Tehran to enable it to resume a stalled investigation into suspected nuclear weapons research.
In a tenth round of talks since early 2012, an IAEA team led by chief inspector Herman Nackaerts will meet Iranian officials in Vienna on May 15 to try to end the deadlock.
The IAEA's priority is to visit Parchin, where it believes Iran built a steel chamber for explosives tests more than a decade ago, possibly using non-nuclear materials like the metal tungsten as substitutes for uranium.
Citing satellite imagery, Western diplomats have said that Iran appeared to be rebuilding the specific part of Parchin the IAEA wants to see, after earlier razing smaller buildings and removing soil. Iran denies it has anything to hide.
IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano says the U.N. agency still wants to inspect Parchin, even though it fears that the suspected clean-up will have seriously undermined its ability for "effective verification" at the site.
Robert Kelley, a former IAEA inspector in Iraq, said there would be a good chance to discover particles of man-modified uranium if such tests were conducted at Parchin, but if substitutes were used they would be harder to find.
"Environmental sampling is thousands of times less sensitive for detecting non-radioactive things like tungsten," Kelley said. (Additional reporting by Mark Heinrich in London; Editing by Peter Graff)
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Art.com "Spoons" Framed Art Print by Mike Feeley
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Lay out the silverware and admire this framed art print. "Spoons" recreates a fascinating black and white photograph that shows that even the most mundane household object can be used for great art.
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- Name: "Spoons"
- Artist: Mike Feeley
- 12.75"H x 15.75"W
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- Model no. 9373098
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text:
I am building a toy app using core data for two entities
Log (attributes
text and
date) and
Tag with a many-to-many
tags relationship from
Log to
I want to show logs in a table, so I:
- created an
LogControllerin IB with entity set to
- created a one-column
NSTableViewwhose column is bound to
LogController. pic
- linked the
LogControllerin my app delegate (
AppDelegate) using
AppDelegatealso has the
- created a custom
NSCellclass with
tagsTextthat I draw onto the cell
- I set the above two cell properties in
AppDelegatein the
- (void)tableView: willDisplayCell: forTableColumn: row:method. (
MainControlleris also the table's delegate). For the
tagsTextI get the tags for the current log and concatenate them into a single
Everything works fine, except: When I mouse-select a row that displays multiple tags the app crashes with an
EXC_BAD_ACCESS. That's the only time I have any error, but I don't know what is causing it.


text:
Steven Goossens caught a super slam on the Fly at Mango Creek yesterday. I will have pictures later this week I hope. Congrats Steven, well done.
Here is the Permit picture! hey Steven where is the 40 pound Tarpon picture?
Steven Goossens caught a super slam on the Fly at Mango Creek yesterday. I will have pictures later this week I hope. Congrats Steven, well done.
Here is the Permit picture! hey Steven where is the 40 pound Tarpon picture?
Well the cabana number 5 and 6 are here and working. Not to say they are completely finished but they are working. We still need hand rails on the dock leading there and lights on the handrail. Then we will get going on stuff to make them ADA Approved ( wheel chair accessible). Here are some shots of the process.
Now here is what it looks like.
Recent guests from Toronto had a great week at Mango Creek Lodge and they sent some photos for you all to see.
Four over the water cabanas taken from the new Cabana.
Sonya and Konrad on the boathouse roof deck.
Sonya meets, More and Less the two Amazon Parrots.
Konrad takes a sunset snorkel.
A water spout, a fairly common sight in the Bay Islands.
Hello everyone, the new cabana is available. We are still adding finishing touches but it is up and beautiful. It will be for families and also handicapped.
In this picture we had not installed all the white trim yet. The hand rails are also in the mail, would I lie to you? This cabana has flush toilet and larger bathrooms. New King Coil deluxe beds and on demand hot water from propane. They have the same vaulted ceiling as the other cabanas.
The bed skirts are also in the mail.
Other news: The solar panels are here, 24 new 245 watt solar panels. This will be a huge help in our continued march toward no Diesel generator. We also finally have our 2 KW wind generator working! I cannot say enough about our Eco and sustainability for our energy needs. If anyone is planning on a solar electric addition you might want to come see what we are doing here. The ultimate plan for Mango Creek Lodge is for a further 5 Tree houses some ready by this fall. All running on solar and wind with minimal diesel generator backup. People, yes it is a little easier to do this down in the tropics, but some alternate energy need to come into everyone's life and now is the time. We started in 1996 when panels cost $500.00 each, and gave 47 Watts. The new panels are slightly larger but give 245 Watts and cost about $210.00 each. The technology has been incredible, they also have new MPPT charge controllers that give up to 30% more usable power.
The new cabanas are officially Christened and for the most part worked out well. They of course will need some tweeking, not to mention more work on mouldings etc. etc.. We had twelve guests visit for the week and we had a lot of fun. The guests jelled into a group almost magically. We had fishermen, Divers, and a whole lot of people just having fun. They tell me our food is too good and too much of it, they just could not resist. Dalia started a new dish one morning and it went over extremely well, Lobster Benedict, and boy you need to try that! I believe a great time was had by all and here is a photo shoot to prove it. Hope you guys come back soon. Terry
Bob or Robert Singelyn is a dentist from Michigan and a bit of a legend up there for his success rate with Steelhead. Over the years Bob has been visiting Mango Creek with his wife and family. We just love these guests, they are easy keepers enthusiastic about things and we and the staff love to see them arrive. Last week they visited the Island but did not stay with us, now I'm not saying that this why his wife got hurt but there are no empty swimming pools here!
Bob came day fishing and here are some of his pictures. He was well on his way to catching the biggest Grand Slam ever at Mango Creek. When you start with a 10 pound Bonefish, follow by getting a 25 pound Permit, you would almost say its in the bag. Well the Tarpon had a bit to say about that and the 30 pound plus Tarpon that Bob hooked got off fifteen minutes into the fight and the Grand Slam was gone. Bob left and went home early to be with his injured wife at 2:00 pm in the afternoon. Hey guys and Gals there are not many Fisher people who would head home early that close to the Grand Slam. Our hats are off to you Bob and we hope Diane is feeling better soon, you really have a great guy.
Many people when visiting Mango Creek have seen my start of building a tree house, a five sided tree house, or a Pent Tree House! Pardon the humor but what I was looking at creating is more rooms with a view. When standing in the tree houses the front pointed part will be looking over the coastal bush and bamboo and having a panorama of the ocean. All the while being set back in the trees. I picture being able to watch the humming birds on the front porch while laying in bed.
I am hoping that the new tree houses will be fun and exactly what people are looking for when not wanting to be over the water. We hope to have a dumb waiter for bags and stuff and maybe even a fireman's pole to slide down. They will be equipped with shower, bathroom etc. and will have a four foot deck out front. There will be four built eventually but two right away. Plan to have them available before June.
The other thing happening at Mango Creek is we are going SUPER ECO. While we are one of very few places in the world that have our amount of sustainability we are going even greener. Plans are for a water wheel electric generator, a incinerator generator and we are expecting 24 new solar panels in the next little while. All this is to get us off the diesel generator.
We will also be eliminating the composting toilets and will be putting in two new sewage systems. These toilets have been great but sitting on that high thrown will be a thing of the past soon.
Please check in every once and a while to see how these projects are going, or better yet come have a gander for yourself.
Michael and Adam had a great but windy day yesterday with four large bonefish. Recent times have seen a bonefish over 9 pounds, they seem to be getting bigger or we are getting better. Way to go Adam and Michael.
Hello everyone, we at Mango Creek, as you say in the last blog have a new investor. We are extremely happy to be part of Janie and Autie's world. We have so many projects now I don't know where to start.
Cabana 5 and 6: We are in fact building them now, will have them completed by Feb 9th. They will be, when completed, fully ADA approved to the best of our ability. That means we will be able to welcome our wounded warriors as well as others. They will be set out about the same way as our other cabanas with about the same space. They will have marine flushing toilets instead of composting toilets.
Tree Houses: We will be going right on to constructing two tree houses when the cabanas are done. They will be five sided, making them " Penthouse Tree Houses". they will be slightly smaller than the cabanas over the water but still have the same facilities. in addition they will have bridges like Swiss Family Robinson. I have this image in my head of being up in the trees, lying in bed in the morning watching the humming birds visit the feeder, then standing up and the panoramic view of the sea and Lime Cay comes to view. We hope to have some fun things in them too, like a fireman's pole to get down quick and a dumb waiter for getting luggage up.
Solar Power: We will be adding new panels to our system to have more power. This will make us more efficient and more Eco friendly than our 5 star system that we already have.
Wind Generators: We think we have a solution to getting a lot more efficiency from our wind generators.
Toilets: One of the companies we are now part of is Marine Sanitation Inc. They are dealers for Marine toilets and sanitation systems. In the near future we will be designing a "Red Fox" sanitation system. This will eliminate our composting toilets, for you that do not know these new fantastic systems process waste and supply fresh clean water for the garden areas.
Other Projects: We are committed to trying to get away from Diesel Generators. We hope to install a " Over Shot Water Wheel" to generate Hydro Electric Power from our creek. We are not sure if this is possible or not but we are looking into it. Better solar heaters for water. Incinerator to cleanly dispose of garden and paper waste. This might also generate some power or heat water.
I will be posting progress pictures a bit later. Maybe some new cabana pics right away. please watch the blogs for more news, and start planning your trip down to see now. Terry
You may know by now that Autie and Janie McVicker are participating in Mango Creek Lodge. They are long time sailors like ourselves and have business in the US and Honduras. We met up over the usual chit chat and sips at the restaurant here at MCL. They had been building their home on the island and had visited Port Royal many times since the 1980's. Well, you guessed it. They wanted in and we allowed it so we can continue to serve our clients while improving the grounds and equipment. Autie has said some things you may be interested to hear. Their commitment here is based on the joy they feel when here and a belief that many more years of smiles are in the offing.
Things will remain the same here at MCL as we want you comfortable, full of good food and grinning ear to ear from a fishing trip or day snorkeling or diving. You may even be interested in two significant developments in the works now. First, we are adding another, larger over the water cabana which will be handicapped friendly and can also fit a whole family for their vacation. Second, the tree houses are coming along. Two of these elevated cabins will be situated near the waterfall and have connecting walkways near the tree tops! Can't wait for you to try 'em out.
Patrick and Lauren were married just about a week ago and traveled from Tallahassee to Mango Creek Lodge for their Honeymoon.
Well it turned into a Very exciting week. First there was the close approach of Hurricane Ernesto. Ernesto passed about two hundred miles North of Roatan and all was well. Some rain fell but all in all a good thing. Then there was the Earthquake a 4.3 power quake that shook the restaurants and cabana, but it was again a minor thing thank goodness. The weather somewhat cleared and we all went snorkeling. In our snorkel area we found some locals with a gil net which is against the law so we had to yell at them, so they withdrew and we saved a lot of fish from certain death. A gill net kills all species of fish and the waist is incredible, in some cases 10 fish killed for every usable fish. Thank goodness they are illegal. Patrick and Lauren had a great day down Island, walking the beach in West Bay, with no cruise ships it is wonderful. The next day Michael took them for a day at the Pigeon Cays for Picnic and snorkeling. On the way there they encountered a pod of Wild Bottlenose Dolphin and Michael got them close enough to actually snorkel with them, what a great experience. On their last full day we heard of a turtle net strung across a long distance in Port Royal. So with the help of Patrick and Lauren we went and destroyed the net. This net is also illegal here but with little infrastructure I believe it falls to us the concerned people to do our part to protect wildlife and especially turtles.
So to sum up the week, we had Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Gil Net removal, Beach walks, Pigeon Cay tours, Mangrove Dorey ride, Dolphin snorkel, Turtle net removal and to top it all off a romantic Lobster dinner under the stars on our boathouse roof. I think we got them started in their life as a married couple quite well thank you.
Best of luck in all your endeavors Patrick and Lauren Gines.
Hello out there, just thought I'd say hello from Paradise. All is well here, we have had a steady but small trickle of guests and fishermen. The fishing has been great we have been getting steady catches of Bonefish and quite a few Permit. There have not been too many Tarpon but mostly because we haven't been after them in a while. Michael Mascha from Southern Texas was back for a week here are some of his photos:
Michael's pictures are on our FaceBook page for MangoCreekLodge so please have a look.
It is now fix up time with all the varnishing going on as well as boat fix up. We are set and ready for any storms we might have so please book with us soon for the coming season. Terry
All is well at Mango Creek Lodge, we are seeing an increase in visitors, does this mean the economy is improving or did people just decide to have a holiday anyway, That is the question. We are optimistic that things are slowly getting better. Let us all hope we are right.
We have lots of projects underway. The fishing boats are being repaired and painted, new super looking stripes. Walter has been busy doing his creative painting.
We are slowly progressing on our two new Cabanas. We are planning on them being wheel chair accessible, this will require the water flush toilets instead of our composting ones in the other cabanas so we have built all the septic tanks ready for the two toilets. We plan on building the cabana and hope to have them available to guests by November. As well as being great for wheelchairs will be super for families and even just two couples. The front deck will be shared allowing a separate place for families or friends to relax. In addition to the boats we also have redone the lift rack for the fishing boats.
The fishing has been great, we are seeing bigger bonefish. I am not sure why this is but hope it continues. now is the time of higher water levels so the Permit are on the flats, they are just as picky but you see more and we catch more this time of year and again in September when waters rise again. The truly amazing fishing bews is that we are seeing more and larger Snook. Usually by this time of year they are gone, but we got a fish over 12 pounds. That is a great fish for here on a fly rod, sorry no pictures.
OK it is coming onto summer up north but this is still a great place for a holiday so come see what we have to offer.
All the way from the UK, they came they fished, they had a great time. Nigel and Vee had been here before but they brought along John and Katie. I am hoping John will send along some photos of their stay. The first picture shows guide Perry holding a beautiful Bar Jack and don't be fooled these things fight hard!
This next shot shows Katie enjoying her hammock.
Nigel got a nice Permit while here.
Dalia's special fish tea served in a fresh unripe coconut, it is becoming world famous!
Thanks Nigel for the photos, hope you come back again soon.
John and Kate have sent their photos.
John with a nice Bonefish
Giant Baracuda, glad they got that one away from the flat, they eat a lot of bonefish!
Believe it or not but this one is probably the biggest bone ever caught here, but they saw bigger ones!
Hello out there, we have just had a first! Last night a couple staying with us were given a romantic dinner up on the boathouse roof. Now for those who have never had this it is a once in a lifetime thing. The wind was blowing and clouds were scuttling across the full moon when Forest dropped to his knee and asked Leslie to be his, presenting her with a family heirloom with beautiful diamond. Let me tell you Dalia was witness to him proposing and there was very few dry eyes at Mango Creek Lodge last night. This little extra that was dreamed up to be a special night for guests has hit an all time high. Patrice and I hope that Forest and Leslie have every happiness in the world, and thank them for the honor of our first wedding announcement. I will try and get some photos of the happy couple soon.
Oh sorry for those of you trying to get us our internet has been down for over a week.
Katie and Mike were here for their vacation and had a great time. We just loved this young couple. They snorkeled, Scuba Dove, Fished and just had a great time, here are some of their photos, hope you come back soon you two.
Dom from England was here and stole the hearts of my young kitchen staff. he was on a bit of a walk about and we were lucky enough to have him visit Mango Creek Lodge for a brief stay. Although not a serious fisherman he did go fishing one day and here are some shots of the day he had. We all hope you will come back again Dom we miss you already!
Firstly sorry for not having more reports, my guests have let me down either by not sending pictures to me or forgetting to bring a camera!
Peter and Zoe were back last week and had two wonderful days fishing with Perry. The results were stunning with five Permit in just two days. The best part was that in the photos you can see the lodge in the background. Not all were caught here at the lodge but the photos I have are of the Permit caught and landed right beside Mango Creek Lodge.
Hello everyone, I am getting a lot of inquiries about safety in Honduras. So I thought it is best I do an update. First of all Honduras in the mainland and particularly the big cities are not safe. Can you travel through them? Yes, you can if you use common sense, follow a couple rules: number one, Do not travel at night! number two, know the area where you are going or use a recommended guide or Taxi. number three, watch your stuff, do not carry a lot of cash, don't flash cash, put cameras away when not in use, like I say use common sense.
There is very little of the violence aimed at tourists, doing illegal activities will put you among the very people you should avoid. Using illegal drugs will put you at risk. Honduras is a wonderful place and the nature here is second to none, there are more cloud forests and rain forests than anywhere else in the world I think but they are undeveloped and take more research and preparation than say Costa Rica.
Roatan is another thing all together. First it is 35 miles from the mainland, it is not as poor as the mainland. We still have a lot of poor people, but the tourism is starting to produce a middle class. There is very little violent crime on Roatan and the areas where it might happen is not typically where tourists go.
Mango Creek Lodge is far from the madding crowd, there are no roads to Mango Creek and we are situated in an area of mostly rural life. We have never had a violence problem ever, we have had some minor theft over the years but surprisingly little. If you come to mango creek I think you will find that there is never a question of safety, all our guests so far have found us comfortable and safe.
Hello, hope everyone had a great holiday season. We had a great one here, two families one very much into fishing the other into Eco activities. I hope to have some photos soon to show you.
We are at work removing the Australian Pines that have reached an incredible height and are now ruining our view. We have a crew here who will take the trees down and will then prepare them for use as lumber, I have been assured that it is very strong and hard and hope to use it on the building we will be doing. Invasive means they are not native to the Island, a previous caretaker planted them about eight years ago and they are taking over. I apologize to my neighbors if the are spreading their seeds over to them. They are messy too with long pine like needles. please look at this link: http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/caeq1.htm
Invasive species 2 is the Lion Fish. Last week we joined five sailboat crews who were anchored here to go and spear Lion Fish. We got quite a few and then we ate them. If you are careful to remove the spines with shears they may be handled and cleaned and are very good eating. I hope to get a license myself so that I can do my part in slowing down this destructive fish. please read this web page


text:
Youth will represent U.S. at South Africa equestrian event
Knollwood student participating in equestrian event
Nick Maupin, 18, will represent the United States at the 2012 Saddle Seat Equitation World Cup in South Africa, Dec. 4-8.
The former Arrowhead student, originally from Sussex, trains at Knollwood Farm in Hartland where he's won several awards.
"Sometimes a child will get in the saddle and there's something special there. Not everyone is like that. It's something inherent, like it's more than just going through the motions. Nick (Maupin) was like that. We saw it when he first started riding," Carol Matton and co-owner of Knollwood said.
Knollwood offers riding lessons for both new and experienced riders. All the necessary equipment is available for rent. Home and away academy showing is available for those interested in riding school. Horse adoption is also an option for those who can't afford or aren't ready to buy their own horse. Their next open house will be 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 28.
Never too young to learn
Co-owner Scott Matton says that even though hunt seat, western and saddle seat are completely different, you can never be too young to learn the basics.
"We have tiny tot programs that put children as young as 3 onto horses…" Scott Matton said, "It's not about power. You will never be able to overpower a horse. So you learn finesse, focus and confidence instead."
Maupin has been training since he was 7. By winning the National Horse Show Good Hands, the United Professional Horseman's Association (UPHA) Senior Challenge Cup and the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) Medal Finals in 2010, he secured the Triple Crown in Saddle Seat competition.
Maupin was the first and only man to do so.
"I remember when Nick (Maupin) first came to Knollwood. He barely knew a thing about a horse or how to ride one. Yet it was obvious, after only six months, that he had unique skills and related to the horses in a special way. These days, his form, his command of horsemanship and his competitive nature are all top-notch. He is an exceptional athlete," Scott Matton said.
'Against the grain'
"I stuck with it because it was something not many others were doing, and it seemed to be a great challenge. I'm the kind of guy to go against the grain, and riding is a great example of that," Maupin said.
Now, he's bound for Parys, South Africa where he will compete in a five-gaited event with teams from five different nations. He was selected among hundreds of other riders to join nine other people representing the American team. Another Knollwood rider, Angela Darrow, 21, from Hartland, will also be representing the U.S. at the Equitation World Cup this year.
American riders had to obtain references and submit footage that demonstrated their skills when they first applied. 32 candidates, from different ages across the country, were then selected to advance where they had to compete on unfamiliar horses. Once chosen, riders also had to raise the funds for their own travel and did so as a team, through raffles, meals, giveaways and other private donations. There are only twelve spots on the team (two alternates) and Maupin said he was extremely humbled and honored to be chosen to represent the United States.
Well prepared
The event brings athletes (14 years and older) together from five different countries. They compete for individual scores which ultimately accumulate toward a total team score. Traveling so far with their own horses is impossible and they're supplied with thoroughbreds from the host country. Riding with unfamiliar horses will be difficult.
"Luckily my trainers have prepared me very well for this by putting me on whatever new, unfamiliar horse they can find … Horses tend to be just about as nervous as the person on its back, so I have learned to become immediately comfortable and relaxed on almost any horse," Maupin said.
The competition consists of four segments, to be completed in two phases held on different days. Rail work, as a group, will happen on the first day. Individual workouts will happen on another day. Maupin said that he's looking forward to more complicated patterns, because they're easier to personally focus on, but the judges may not want to assign outrageous designs and aspects as the horses may not do patterns on a regular basis.
"I feel optimistic about this year's team. We have a great group of riders on both teams, varying in ages and experiences, which will help us all build off each other. We are an aggressive group, so we should match up well with the typical South African team mentality. Two years ago we came away with one gold and one silver, and I am confident we can get the second gold this year," Maupin said.
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