NEEDLE AND THREAD
Sitting there, me,
a roll of thread,
sitting there, you,
a needle,
till you came
and asked
if we finally want
to sew together
the fabric of our lives.
© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
KEEPING ONE’S DISTANCE
Her dog was her favorite.
He didn’t know what to do
when he sensed another fight:
she with words, he with silence,
husband and wife,
former friends, former lovers.
Her dog was her favorite.
Her dog didn’t know what to do
when she barked at her husband.
He didn’t know what to do either,
except to rub his hands
on his nervous stomach,
trying to keep his distance
from the angry bark and bones
she flung at him from time to time.
Her dog was her favorite.
He wished he was her dog.
Her dog was her favorite.
He didn’t know what to do
when he sensed another fight:
she with words, he with silence,
husband and wife,
former friends, former lovers.
Her dog was her favorite.
Her dog didn’t know what to do
when she barked at her husband.
He didn’t know what to do either,
except to rub his hands
on his nervous stomach,
trying to keep his distance
from the angry bark and bones
she flung at him from time to time.
Her dog was her favorite.
He wished he was her dog.
© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2008
THE OTHER FOOT
She: “What’s your new boss like?”
He: “I’m not sure yet, but he seems to like women who are weak.”
She: “What makes you say that?”
He: “Well, the last boss seemed to be comfortable working with women who are strong. This one seems threatened by them.”
She: “I never knew you thought about women as being strong or weak.”
He: “Well, a, a, a, I really didn’t think about this till this new boss came along. I think men should be comfortable with everybody, male or female, strong or weak, seeing everyone as equal.”
She: “That’s nice. .... By the way, how do you see me?”
© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
WHAT DOESTHE CROSS MEAN TO ME + ?
INTRODUCTION
The feast of the Holy Cross – September 14th – falls on this Sunday, so instead of having the regular 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we’re focusing on this feast today.
It leads to the question: What does the cross mean to me?
If someone saw a cross around your neck – or a cross pin on your lapel – or a cross on your kitchen wall – and asked you, “What does that – [pointing to the cross] - mean?”, what would you answer?
Like all big symbols, like a flag, we know meanings, but we might not be able to put our answer, our understandings, into words.
It’s a good question and it would be worth our while to ponder it.
Would it be better if I asked you to be quiet for the next 10 minutes - the time I take for a homily - and use the 10 minutes for quiet time – to come up with your answers to the question: ‘What does the cross mean to me?’”
The feast of the Holy Cross – September 14th – falls on this Sunday, so instead of having the regular 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we’re focusing on this feast today.
It leads to the question: What does the cross mean to me?
If someone saw a cross around your neck – or a cross pin on your lapel – or a cross on your kitchen wall – and asked you, “What does that – [pointing to the cross] - mean?”, what would you answer?
Like all big symbols, like a flag, we know meanings, but we might not be able to put our answer, our understandings, into words.
It’s a good question and it would be worth our while to ponder it.
Would it be better if I asked you to be quiet for the next 10 minutes - the time I take for a homily - and use the 10 minutes for quiet time – to come up with your answers to the question: ‘What does the cross mean to me?’”
I'm a chicken - so let me give 5 comments, 5 answers to the question on what the cross means to me – to show that I did my homework. This week, I ask you to do your homework. Write out you answers to the question, “What does the cross mean to me?” or talk to each other about the cross – and see what each of your answers would be.
Maybe by doing this, we’ll discover we have profound, deep answers, to this question, and we’ll dust off a crucifix we have in the basement or a gold cross in a jewelery box and we’ll start wearing it.
While doing my half hour on the treadmill the other day, I was watching one of the old Rocky movies and there was Rocky with a gold cross around his neck. “Rocky, what does that cross mean to you?”
FIRST ANSWER: THE TWO LINES +
To me the first answer to the question, “What does the cross mean to me?” is the two lines of the cross. [Gesture +] Someone taught me early on that the cross is a great symbol of reality.
I expect today to go this way. [Gesture a line up and down], but there is that phone call – that interruption – [Gesture a line going sideways] and it cuts across my plans. The result: the cross.
Everyone plans their life to go a certain way, but cancer, another’s will, another’s choice, another’s way – cuts right across my plans. The cross. [Gesture +]
If there is one message everyone over 60 voices loud and clear, it would be, “This wasn’t the way I had it planned.”
The other dies. The other changes. The other leaves. The other has different ideas. The company goes under. The company moves. The boss calls us in and says, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but we have to let you go.” The doctor calls and says …. Our kid tells us ….
There are accidents. There are hurricanes. There are crashes. There are fires. There are floods. There are mistakes. There are sins. There is stupidity. People see and think differently than me.
Maybe by doing this, we’ll discover we have profound, deep answers, to this question, and we’ll dust off a crucifix we have in the basement or a gold cross in a jewelery box and we’ll start wearing it.
While doing my half hour on the treadmill the other day, I was watching one of the old Rocky movies and there was Rocky with a gold cross around his neck. “Rocky, what does that cross mean to you?”
FIRST ANSWER: THE TWO LINES +
To me the first answer to the question, “What does the cross mean to me?” is the two lines of the cross. [Gesture +] Someone taught me early on that the cross is a great symbol of reality.
I expect today to go this way. [Gesture a line up and down], but there is that phone call – that interruption – [Gesture a line going sideways] and it cuts across my plans. The result: the cross.
Everyone plans their life to go a certain way, but cancer, another’s will, another’s choice, another’s way – cuts right across my plans. The cross. [Gesture +]
If there is one message everyone over 60 voices loud and clear, it would be, “This wasn’t the way I had it planned.”
The other dies. The other changes. The other leaves. The other has different ideas. The company goes under. The company moves. The boss calls us in and says, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but we have to let you go.” The doctor calls and says …. Our kid tells us ….
There are accidents. There are hurricanes. There are crashes. There are fires. There are floods. There are mistakes. There are sins. There is stupidity. People see and think differently than me.
Crossed lines is the first message and meaning of the cross for me.
SECOND ANSWER: FORGIVENESS
The second answer I ponder about the cross is forgiveness.
Someone looked at the 4 gospels – and noticed that there were 7 statements Jesus made on the cross. They are called, “The Seven Last Words of Jesus.” The one that jumps out for me is Jesus’ words from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Do we really know why we do what we do?
When someone hurts us, we sometimes call this a cross. When they keep on doing it, we call that person, “our cross.” I find myself saying in these situations, “Father, forgive him because he doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Ooops. That's how I would say that in pulpit. In real life it would be quite different - and unprintable.
Forgiveness is very difficult. The more difficult the situation or hurt, the more the call for forgiveness.
Guess what? We too make mistakes, and we hope that God, others, will forgive us? Hopefully, they do. But there is still one person left who won’t forgive us: ourselves.
“Father forgive me, for I don’t know what I’m doing.”
I think St. Paul and St. Augustine speak for all of us when they wrote, “We say to ourselves: ‘Today I’m going to go do such and such a thing’ and we go out and do just the opposite.” Why? [Cf. Romans 6: 14-25] Or I tell my left hand it’s going to do this and my right hand does the opposite. [Confessions, Book 8, Chapter 9, The Two Wills] We do this all the time. We tell ourselves we’re going to be early for the meeting and we’re late every time. Why? Why? Why? Or we go on a hundred diets or we're not going to drink or we’re going to get to bed earlier and we don’t. Addictions. Distractions. Destructive behavior. They are us.
SECOND ANSWER: FORGIVENESS
The second answer I ponder about the cross is forgiveness.
Someone looked at the 4 gospels – and noticed that there were 7 statements Jesus made on the cross. They are called, “The Seven Last Words of Jesus.” The one that jumps out for me is Jesus’ words from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Do we really know why we do what we do?
When someone hurts us, we sometimes call this a cross. When they keep on doing it, we call that person, “our cross.” I find myself saying in these situations, “Father, forgive him because he doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Ooops. That's how I would say that in pulpit. In real life it would be quite different - and unprintable.
Forgiveness is very difficult. The more difficult the situation or hurt, the more the call for forgiveness.
Guess what? We too make mistakes, and we hope that God, others, will forgive us? Hopefully, they do. But there is still one person left who won’t forgive us: ourselves.
“Father forgive me, for I don’t know what I’m doing.”
I think St. Paul and St. Augustine speak for all of us when they wrote, “We say to ourselves: ‘Today I’m going to go do such and such a thing’ and we go out and do just the opposite.” Why? [Cf. Romans 6: 14-25] Or I tell my left hand it’s going to do this and my right hand does the opposite. [Confessions, Book 8, Chapter 9, The Two Wills] We do this all the time. We tell ourselves we’re going to be early for the meeting and we’re late every time. Why? Why? Why? Or we go on a hundred diets or we're not going to drink or we’re going to get to bed earlier and we don’t. Addictions. Distractions. Destructive behavior. They are us.
Life is all about déjà vu dumb.
Father, forgive us because we don’t know what we’re doing – and we keep doing it.
So my second answer to the question, “What does the cross mean to me?” is forgiveness.
THIRD ANSWER: THE STOP SIGN
For me, the third answer to the question, “What Does the Cross Mean To Me?” is this: “It’s a STOP sign.”
I have a small book* I wrote 30 + years ago on the 7 last words of Jesus from the cross and that was one of my messages. The cross is a stop sign.
So my second answer to the question, “What does the cross mean to me?” is forgiveness.
THIRD ANSWER: THE STOP SIGN
For me, the third answer to the question, “What Does the Cross Mean To Me?” is this: “It’s a STOP sign.”
I have a small book* I wrote 30 + years ago on the 7 last words of Jesus from the cross and that was one of my messages. The cross is a stop sign.
Years later that theme was developed big time for me by the writings of Rene Girard**– who said that the cross stands there on the hill above our lives with the message, “Stop doing this to people.”
Yet we don’t stop. We hurt others with our comments, our gossip, our remarks. People scapegoat other people all the time – crucifying folks. Jesus died on the cross to put an end to this hurting and killing of other folks.
Yet we don’t stop. We hurt others with our comments, our gossip, our remarks. People scapegoat other people all the time – crucifying folks. Jesus died on the cross to put an end to this hurting and killing of other folks.
Stop!
Yet we keep on crucifying people. We keep on hearing about random acts of terror – bombings of innocents in market places. Last week we stopped for a moment to remember September 11th.
The cross yells: Stop the horror. Stop the terror. Stop the crucifixions!
FOURTH ANSWER: NAME WHAT IS KILLING US
The fourth answer is to name what is killing us. This is applying the Stop sign to ourselves. What’s killing me? Is it overeating, smoking, laziness, lies, sweeping truth under the rug, or what have you?
In today’s first reading from the Book of Numbers we have the folk story about the serpents or the snakes. The Israelites were in the desert and snakes were biting them. So Moses prayed and the Lord told him to take a snake, kill it, put it on a pole – and tell the people, “This is what’s killing you. Look at it and you will be healed."
So Moses had a bronze snake made and put that on a pole and said, “This is what’s killing us.”
This symbol became the emblem of the Medical Profession – doctors and nurses, researchers – who try to find out what’s killing a person – and put it on the diagnosis sheet and show it to the person - or they show them MRI results or however that works.
Remember years ago when a group of American Legion folks on a convention got sick and some died mysteriously in Philadelphia. Research found out it wasn’t food. It was a bacteria forming in water towers – and it was called, “Legionnaires Disease.” Clean out the water towers – and people won’t be dying.
Name the poison. Name the culprit. Discover the cause of our problem.
Remember the story of the Panama Canal – when a Dr. Gorgas and others did the research and said it was mosquitoes that were causing malaria and yellow fever. Get rid of the mosquitoes and you’ll stop all these deaths. So they put up pictures of the bug – find out where they hang out – and zap them. They overcame opposition and did it. We humans tend to deny what’s killing us.
The cross announces not only what’s killing us – hurting ourselves as well as other people – but also it announces the healing – name it, shame it, face it. The cross announces death - but also resurrection. That's my take on today's three readings.
FIFTH AND LAST ANSWER: HOPE ON A HILL
The cross is a symbol of hope.
They tried to destroy Christ on a hill a long time ago – and today there are well over a billion of us Christians on the planet. There are over a million buildings on the planet with a cross on top – like here at St. Mary’s.
The idea was to have a high steeple – with a cross on top – so farmers in the field could look up and get hope – so sailors at sea could look and see home – so people around Annapolis – when looking out the window in a restaurant – or while walking up town or down town – can look up and see a sign of hope – the cross on high.
When saying Mass at St. John Neumann, we have that powerful cross in the sanctuary saying so much. Ponder its message. It will bring hope. When coming to Mass here at St. Mary’s, when your get out of your car, don’t forget to stop and look up and see the Golden Cross high on the steeple of this church and pray for the city and the county and the state and the country and the world.
CONCLUSION
So that’s your homework. This week jot down 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 things the cross means to you – and do what I just did for the past ten minutes. I told you my answers to the question what the cross means to me - tell each other your answers to the question, "What does the cross mean to me?"
* Andrew Costello, CSSR, How to Pray When Troubled, From His Cross to Yours, Liguori, 1977, p. 5
** Cf. Rene Girard, The Girard Reader, edited by James G. Williams, Crossroad, 1966; Rene Girard, Violence and the Sacred, Johns Hopkins, 1972; Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled, Humanity at the Crossroads, Crossroad, 1995
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