EVERGREEN

The evergreen tree envied
the attention the other trees
received in the spring, the summer,
but especially in the autumn.
Everyone kept talking about
the bright blaze
in the red, orange, yellow colored leaves,
everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.

Then they were forgotten
as they lay there on the ground
in their tan brown sameness,
feeling the humiliation that
decaying leaves must feel,
everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.

Time changes what we see;
time changes what we talk about.

With November come
quick cold conversations,
after work, after church,
as we run to our cars.

Some stop to spot
the naked branches of November –
especially in late afternoons,
glove less fingers nervously scratching
darkening skies –
quiet, quiet, quieter,
cold, cold, colder.

Then comes December.
Everyone wants indoors.
Okay, there are the shopping
trips to the stores
and the Christmas parties.

Lights, more and more lights,
keep appearing
in windows and trees.

Then, all of a sudden,
it's December 25th.

December is always a rush.

It's evergreen time.
Every Christmas tree says,
“Look at me! I’m lights. I’m ornaments.
I’m tinsel and silver strings. I’m beautiful."

Then, the Christmas tree
says to itself, "Enough of that."
It knows, "It's not about me!"

Then it adds,
"But under me is the place
people put all these gifts
for those they love.
Under me is the space,
where some put the Stable:
the reason for the season."

Then on December 26th or 27th,
Christmas trees start to get nervous.
Every evergreen tree knows
the story of the leaves.
They have around long enough
to know about life and death.
They know they have been cut down
soon to be thrown out.

Yet there is joy.

Like the leaves
they have done their job.

Silent night - day - night -
and then the long wait for spring:
there will be resurrection,
there will be repeat performances.

© Andrew Costello, Reflections, 2007

CELL PHONE

Whom are all these people talking to
on their cell phones walking and driving by me?

Then the obvious hit me: they are talking to
all these other people talking on their cell phones
walking and driving by me?

Then my next question:

"I don't get it. What are your talking about? "

Then came an answer:

Talk to someone on their cell phone.

They’ll explain it.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2007

BALLYNAHOWN, GALWAY

Rock walls – many, many rock walls,
low lying rock walls everywhere,
parceling out the land,
all along the up and down, twisting and turning, dirt roads.
I took notice of the yellow green stains in the stones.
Time and weather pockmarks everything,
including the faces peeking out at us
from curtained cottage windows,
“Probably American tourists checking out their roots.”
Our Aunt Nora was taking us down to see our ancestors
in the little cemetery right at the edge of the sea.
Standing there with my two sisters, Peggy and Mary,
my Aunt Nora, my brother-in-law, Jerry,
I was listening to the moaning cows, the wind,
the lapping and clapping of the grey sea.
I was looking at the ever, forever background
of Ballynahown. I began wondering,
“Did mom and dad stand here many years ago,
looking at the cemetery stones, the rock walled pastures,
the dirt roads, and then turn and look to the sea,

dreaming of having a family, us, another life,

on the other side of this rocky, rugged coast?"

© Andy Costello, Poems, 2007

Picture taken by Mary Connolly

in September 1999,

West Coast of Ireland,

right where my parents were born.

QUESTION AND  
ANSWER PERIOD  

Question: “Below, behind, beneath,
under, in back of what counts,
the answer is hidden there,
so why do I remain on my surface?”

Answer: “It’s ME
and it seems you don’t want ME.
I walked the surface once
and you walked away from me.
I reached out once
and you crucified ME.
You buried ME,
so now if you want to rise,
you'll have to find ME,
not only
in the gentle breeze
and the baby's smile,
but also
in crushed grapes and ground wheat,
in the mix and the muddle,
in the mystery of cancer and death,
in breakdowns and breakups,
in the below, behind, beneath,
under, in the back of what counts –
otherwise
you’ll always be a question, period.

© Andy Costello, Poems, 2007

DOUBTS ABOUT JESUS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Doubts About Jesus.”

What are your doubts about Jesus?

“Don’t have any!”

“You’re kidding?”

“Nope!”

“You mean to tell me you never had any doubts about Jesus?”

“Never!”

"You mean to say you didn't hear about the new book on Mother Teresa of Calcutta - and how she had years of doubt - or the so called Dark Night of the Soul?" [Cf. Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light - The Private Writings of Mother Teresa, authors Mother Teresa and Brian Koludiechuk]

"Nope!"

“Okay! But I’m still going to preach this homily entitled, “Doubts About Jesus.”

TO BE HUMAN IS TO HAVE DOUBTS

To be human is to have doubts. Doubts are part of relationships. Doubts are part of love. In fact, if doubts were not part of love, love wouldn’t be as great as it can be.

Doubts get us thinking. Doubts get us talking. Doubts get us listening to each other better. Doubts can bring us reassurance. Doubts can get us to love another even more.

A LOVE STORY

I never forgot the love story a woman told me a long time ago – and she said I could use it in public anytime.

Her father was a disaster – and so she had problems with any notion of God as Father.

She knew this about herself.

I had heard while studying to become a priest – that you’ll meet people who will have doubts and difficulties about calling God “Our Father” – because they will have had trouble with their own fathers. Here I was experiencing the reality, not in a classroom, but in a one on one conversation with this lady.

She was having trouble, having doubts, about God, about believing that God loved her – even more, that God knew she existed – and if God even knew that – whether God cared about her.

Out of the blue in response, I said, “Do you know anyone who loves you – anyone who knows you exist – anyone who cares about you?”

“Oh yeah,” she said, “my husband loves me.”

I remained quiet – hoping she would flesh that out.

She did.

She continued, “Once I was sick in bed for the longest time and he had to care for me – clean me – help get me better."

Then she added, "I was amazed at his patience. I don’t know if I would have his kind of love.”

Then she said, “One day I asked him, “Why are you doing this?”

“He said, ‘What?’ – then added, ‘Oh, because I love you.’”

She became quiet – then said, “I guess at times I doubted his love – but that cemented it.”

Being the priest I suggested, “Why not see God as husband?”

At that, the light went on in her eyes.

TODAY’S READINGS

In today’s gospel John the Baptist is in prison. While there he starts hearing about what Jesus was doing.

In the other John the Baptist stories that are embedded in the gospels – there are not that many – we see that John the Baptist was one tough person – calling for strict, tough, changes in one’s life.

Compared to James – whom we hear in today’s second reading, John the Baptist is not a person who has patience as one of his main characteristics.

James tells us to be patient – like a farmer waiting for the fruits of the earth – being patient for rain to fall – especially when it’s not falling.

John the Baptist is not like a farmer on a rocking chair on a porch pondering calmly the evening sky. No, he’s like a farmer who has an ax in hand and is chopping, chopping, chopping, at roots – and pulling them out of the earth with muscle and might, sweat and strain.

John called for a violent revolution in how we live our life.

He’s the type of person who would end up in prison because of his words. He did, because of his prophetic attacks on Herod – who stole his own brother’s wife. He was the type of person whose words were written not on nice pink paper – but on sand paper.

He could rub others the wrong way. [Cf. Luke 3: 19-20; Matthew 14:1-12; Mark 6:17-29.]

So when he hears that Jesus is healing the blind, helping the lame to walk, cleansing people from leprosy, making the deaf hear, raising the dead, and preaching good news to the poor, John the Baptist, while in prison, asks some of his disciples to go and ask Jesus if he is the one who is to come or should we look for another?

John the Baptist was having doubts about whether Jesus was the one we’re all waiting for.

THE SIX PEOPLE IN MARRIAGE

Sometimes I say to couples getting married that there are six people in the getting married situation. The he, you think he is. The he, he thinks he is. The he, he really is. The she, you think she is. The she, she thinks she really is. And the she, she really is.

Say that ten times fast.

APPLIED TO JESUS

Is it the same way with Jesus?

Is Jesus, the Jesus we think Jesus is?

Maybe doubts will help us discover Jesus in a new way.

THE NEW TESTAMENT & CHURCH HISTORY
I have discovered that the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament are constantly dealing with the Jesus Question?

The Jesus Question is: "Who do you say I am?"

The question is put there for us.

How do we answer that question?

I have discovered that the history of the Church is constantly dealing with the Jesus Question.

I have discovered that we are blessed with many answers to the Jesus Question.

Peter answers the question this way: “You are the Christ!” [Cf. Matthew 16:16; Mark 8:29; Luke 9:20.]
We all know that when Jesus was arrested, Peter was asked three times if he knew Jesus. And we all know that Peter denied knowing Jesus three times. So I’m sure on the morning after the Resurrection when Peter saw Jesus at the Lake of Galilee, Peter answered the question this way: “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You are the one I denied three times.” But Jesus asked a new question. He simply asked three times, “Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?” [Cf. John 21]

As I was preparing this homily, it hit me to pick 4 different ways Jesus is presented in the 4 gospels.

Matthew answers the question many ways. I like to read that Matthew describes Jesus as the New Moses – who will lead us out of the slavery of our Egypt - across the desert so we can be cleansed - to the Promised Land, to New Life, to the Kingdom, to a New Vision on how to live the life we’re all looking for - the Will of God. The Old Moses gave us the Ten Commandments on the Old Mountain; this New Moses gives us those commandments and a lot more – for example the Beatitudes on the New Mountain – challenge us to more than a life of avoiding sin, but to a fuller life with Christ.

Mark answers the question many ways. I like to read Mark seeing Jesus as doing a lot more than speaking – that the Christian serves more than he or she talks. I think that Mark is saying that action speaks much louder than words. Mark is the shortest gospel.

Luke answers the question many ways. I like to read Luke seeing Jesus as the one who sees the people we don’t see – the poor, the children, the unnoticed. The Mediterranean world was a world dominated by males. Women were kept in the back room. Luke begins with Mary out front – and the stone ceiling and walls for women in his day begin to disappear – and then we see Jesus coming through all walls – meeting and greeting all kinds of women and men. Women of today talk about glass ceilings. Obviously, we have a long way to go.

John answers the question many ways. I like to read John seeing Jesus as the poet – that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, that Jesus is the Living Bread, the Living Water, the Good Shepherd, and the New Wine – the Husband, the Image of his Father and on and on and on.

CONCLUSION: THE THREE COMINGS OF CHRIST

We’re preparing for Christmas – so we're preparing for coming of Christ.

As I reflected on this, I would say, "We're preparing for three comings of Christ."

We're preparing for the first coming of Christ - the memorial of what happened over 2000 years ago.

We’re preparing for the great so called, "Second Coming of Christ" at the end of the World. In the Early Church they thought this was immediate, so there are lots of parables and hints that it was about to happen. Surprise! Here we are in the year 2007 and we know the sun and the earth promise to be around for a long, long time, in spite of global warming and nuclear threats and disaster movies from time to time.

We're also preparing for personal comings of Christ in new ways - and this is where I would put the stress in this homily. At this point in my thinking, I would call these "Third Comings of Christ."

I think the first step is to have a few doubts – maybe Christ wants to be born again in me – not inside my cozy "Inn Places" – but outside - in my "stable" - better unstable places. I might have boxed Jesus into a Jesus that isn't Jesus.

Christmas is a time to open boxes. Christmas is a time to receive gifts. Christmas is the time to journey like a shepherd, shepherdess, King or Queen, Wise or Unwise, to Christ, with or without gifts.

I know that the Jesus I knew at 20 is very different than the Jesus I know at 68 – and right now I hope for at least 10 more years of a challenging relationship with him – and I’m sure there will be more doubts and denials – as well as more and more insights and challenges – and probably a hope for more years after that.

Maybe Jesus wants to be born in the messy manger of the me I really am – and not the me I think I am.