WISDOM BE  ATTENTIVE

INTRODUCTION

One of my favorite sayings is, “Wisdom! Be Attentive.”

So that’s the title of  my homily for this 28^th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year  B.

“Wisdom Be Attentive.”

Since this is October, the Month of the Holy Rosary, last week I preached on the Rosary and I repeated a message I like to repeat. “Rosary Beads aren’t just for Hail Mary’s anymore.”

And every time I say that, different people say to me - afterwards - “I never heard that and I’ve tried that, ‘Thanks.’”

And I say things like -  you can say, “Thanks” - 59 times on a rosary beads - the number of beads on a rosary - and that will take only 2 minutes  - more or less. You can say that any time.  Or you can use it  as a night prayer for the day. Or you can just take a decade of  the rosary and come up with 10 moments from the day -  or from your life -  or what have you - moments that you are grateful for.

Or you can pick 10 regrets or 59 “Sorry” moments from your life or  simply say, “Glory to you, O God.” Or “Help!” or “Wonderful”  or “Peace” or “Praise!”

And if this method of prayer works for you - that is - in any way you make it personal for you - give rosaries to your kids or others and tell them your discovery of different ways you use your rosary beads.

This  works - if you make it work.

It works for me - you can make it 10 or 59 - fingerings of a rosary beads in your pocket - and it’s ecumenical - or you can use Muslim worry beads or a string of pearls or whatever.

WISDOM BE ATTENTIVE

I was at a lot of Eastern Rite Catholic Masses - especially when I lived in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania - at a Retreat House there. And before they read the scriptures at Mass - holding up the Scriptures, the reader says or chants, “Wisdom! Be Attentive.”

And somewhere along the line I made that one of the prayers I say on my rosary. It takes 3 to 5 minutes for the 59 beads - or less than a minute for one decade of the rosary - to say: “Wisdom Be Attentive.”

Eastern Rite Catholics use a knotted string - or rope type black rosary -called  “chotkis”  for prayer. It goes back to the 300 AD - especially with the Desert Fathers. They would often say the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” with chotkis - as a counting device.

Some credit St. Anthony of the Desert  [251-356] and Saint Pachomius [292-348]  for this practice.

Wisdom Be Attentive!

In the Western Church - France, Italy etc. there is evidence of types of rosaries in the 9^th as well as the 13^th centuries and afterwards.

In this homily, I’m simply suggesting using a rosary in hand as a reminder and a statement:  “I am now going to pray.”  Muslims use a prayer rug as well as beads as a prayer reminder.

I’m saying it’s a neat prayer method reminder.  Find your rosary - you have them in your house - somewhere - or you already know exactly where it is - in your pocket - in a prayer dish on your bureau - or next to your bed or on the mirror of your car.

Take and use.

Or continue to use it as a rosary and say the regular Hail Mary’s.

I’m also stressing using your rosary and a wisdom reminder. Wisdom be Attentive - you’ll see a lot of wisdom all around you.

ANOTHER PRACTICE: STREET WISDOM - STREET SMARTS

Last night I typed into the Google Search Box the word, “Wisdom” which is the theme for today’s readings.

I found some fascinating stuff on wisdom.

One was Street Wisdom or street smarts.

There are group of people who get together for 3 hours at a time and they walk down a street and just see what they see. They tune in to the  street.

Then they tell each other what they saw or what questions came up.

And people report things like families, couples holding hands, marriage, food, what they are hungering for, God, thoughtfulness, the rush hour, traffic, money, and on and on and on.

Doing this they reported to each other wisdom.

They came up with their questions.

Is this a better thing to do than to walk with a radio or iPhone on with ear buds?

Whatever.

Wisdom be attentive.

MISTER MELVIN

Or before coming to Mass - or at Mass you can walk through the readings - as they are being read or beforehand or during the homily or whenever.

Just walk through them and ask yourself what questions come up or what thoughts do they trigger - like walking down or up the street.

For example a lady after the 11 AM mass asked me, “In the first reading why does the author prefer wisdom to prudence? Why?”

I answered, “They just do - like preferring chocolate chip cookies to oatmeal raison cookies.”

When I listened to today’s first reading and today’s second reading I thought of Mister Melvin.

It was summer and I was spending a week with my brother and his wife and family at Chincoteague Beach in Virginia - and we went clamming and then my brother bought this clam knife and he was showing it to Mister Melvin who was in the house next door - a native Chincoteagian. He said to my brother,  “You’re crazy to have bought this knife. You just take a clam and smash the sucker on the sidewalk and then with a fork you pick out the meat.”

I thought of that wisdom when I read today’s readings.

The first reading is to pray for wisdom. The second reading says you take out a knife and pry open the scriptures and pull out the wisdom. There’s meat in there.

Or you pry open today’s gospel. The gospel has the wisdom today to not get overloaded with money or not get stuck on money - but get stuck on Christ.

That triggered a memory of a short movie I saw once of a man going down a street with 2 suitcases, a back pack and a leather briefcase and he came to the right address and it was a doorway and he couldn’t fit in - with his 2 suitcases - so he gave up and kept walking down the street.

Right then a little kid with no stuff comes running that street and goes right into that house with ease.

It’s the same as a camel being unable to get through the eye of the needle.

Wisdom be attentive.

WHEN TURNING ON THE INTERNET

I next saw on Google a blog piece on wisdom be attentive from a Deacon Harold from Portland Oregon….

“On a flight from Minneapolis to Portland earlier this year, I sat next to an airline pilot who was making his way home to Alaska.  We struck-up a conversation and, after the usual pleasantries and small talk, began talking about our families.  We spent a lot of time discussing the joys and tribulations of marriage and family life.  Since my wife Colleen and I are entering the teenage years with our oldest daughter, I was particularly interested in hearing about any challenges he and his wife faced with their daughter when she was in high school.

My new friend smiled and related the following story.  “Thankfully, we only had one incident during her freshman year in high school.  She called us after school one Friday and asked permission to stay at a friend’s house for the night.  We trusted our daughter and we knew the girl she would be staying with and her parents, so my wife and I consented to her request.

“Later that evening, we realized that we never made arrangements to pick her up, so I called the parents of the friend she was staying with.  The dad on the other line sounded surprised and said that my daughter wasn’t there and, in fact, that his daughter asked permission to stay at our house for the night!  I was very disappointed and knew exactly what was going on: there was a party somewhere and both girls were at it.

“Taking advantage of social networking, it didn’t take me long to find the party house.  I drove there and waited on the sidewalk near the walkway leading to the front door.  I stopped someone going into the party and asked them to tell my daughter to come outside.  Less than a minute later, she poked her head out the door and saw me standing there.  With a look of shock, surprise and fear on her face, she slowly came over to me.  I said to her, ‘You have two minutes to say goodbye to your friends, get your coat, and come back outside.  If you are not here in two minutes, I’m coming in after you.’

“Two minutes later, my daughter was out of the house and in the car.  I didn’t say a word to her the entire drive home.  When we arrived at the house, I told her to go to her room and that I would be there in a minute.  After debriefing my wife, I went to speak with my daughter.  I spoke to her in a calm and measured tone, not in anger, but with all seriousness.  I told her how much I loved her and what upset me more than anything was not my worrying about her doing drugs or having sex or drinking alcohol (which I knew she wouldn’t do), but that she violated my trust in her by lying to me and her mother.  It felt like she stabbed me in the heart.  When I told her that, she cried and hugged me, said she was sorry and told me that she would never do anything to destroy my trust in her again.  And you know what … she kept her promise!”

There’s wisdom talking to each other. There’s wisdom comparing notes.

CONCLUSION

There is tons of wisdom all around us.  Just be attentive.

So today I’m saying,  a good morning prayer is to take a rosary and wear it out with short prayers  like, “Wisdom be Attentive.”