SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that sank in
a Lake Superior storm
on November 10, 1975, with the loss of the entire crew of 29. When launched on
June 7, 1958, she was the largest ship on North America's Great Lakes, and she remains the largest to have
sunk there.
“There is no stronger bond of friendship than a mutual enemy.”
Frankfort Moore [1853-1931]
Thursday, November 8, 2018
TESSIE’S LOST TEETH
INTRODUCTION
In order to touch people, in order to touch their lives, you have to try to reach them where they are, or where they have been. You have to tell a
story that is their story, so that they will say, “I’ve been there.” You have
to connect with people through their experiences. TODAY'S GOSPEL: LUKE 15: 1-10
In today’s Gospel Jesus tries to reach us and touch us with
2 basic human experiences:
1)
loosing something, searching frantically for it and then the joy we feel when
we have finally found what we lost.
2)
being in a situation where we say, what's he or she doing here?
FIRST: LOOSING
SOMETHING
Everyone has had the experience of loosing something: a
wallet, a watch, car keys, a book, etc. We can all relate to the people in the
American Express commercials - who discover their money has disappeared. Help!
I’ve lost something.
So Jesus tells two stories: that of a man losing a sheep and
a woman losing a coin. He wants to touch the garment of everyone in his
audience.
SOME MODERN
EXAMPLES
A priest I was stationed with told me about one of his nephews. The kid had
very poor eyes. Once he and his buddies were swimming in a large public pool
and his nephew lost one of his contact lenses. He shouted to his friends to try
to help him find it. No luck. The guy who was in charge of the pool let this kid and his friends stay after closing time so they could do some more
searching. Finally, someone came up with a way of dividing up the pool. Sure
enough they found it. A contact lens in a pool. A needle in a haystack. A sheep
in the hills. A coin in a dark house.
Mark Link in one of his Homilies gives
this example for today's gospel story, “A teacher instructed his students to rewrite Jesus’ `Parable of
the Lost Sheep’, putting it in a modern setting. One student wrote, “Suppose
you have just finished typing a 100 page term paper. You discover one sheet is
missing. What would you do?”
“You would forget about the ninety-nine sheets and go
looking for the one lost sheet. When you find it, you are so happy that you
take the other 99 sheets, throw them in the air, and yell, “Super! I found my
lost sheet.” Well, that’s how God feels when you’ve come back to God and church again.”
When I was stationed at Most Holy Redeemer Church, Third Street, New York City, I had an unique experience.
One Thursday morning I got a call from a woman named Tessie who worked at the
school lunch program over at theschool.Since I was in charge of
Bingo, she asked me if anyone who had worked in the kitchen the night before
had found her teeth. Evidently, she worked without here teeth at times. I said
“no”, but I’d be right over. As I walked down 4th street I noticed a garbage
truck at the top of the block. I ran to the school and talked to Tessie fast. I
found out that she was in the habit of wrapping her teeth in a napkin and
keeping them on the counter while she worked. I said that they were probably
scooped up and thrown out. I checked the garbage bags in the garbage pails. All
were empty. Next I said, “Tessie, get your coat on and bring a few plastic
garbage bags. We got outside and started searching.” The garbage men were still
coming down the block. Wouldn’t you know? It started to rain. We started
emptying out each full bag, into a clean bag and as we did, we searched through
each napkin. We found interesting items: orange peels, apple cores, half eaten
sandwiches, bingo papers, cigarette butts, and a few hundred other kinds of
items, some unmentionable. We were in the third bag when the garbage men
stopped in front of the school. One guy said, “Hi Tessie!” Another said,
“Father, what you looking for?” I said: “You ain’t going to believe this one.
Tessie here lost her teeth and we’re hoping to find them.” Someone said,
“That’s a new one.” Another guy said,“Ok, guys, let’s find them. And the first one who finds them gets a big
kiss from Tessie - without her teeth in of course.” And so they joined in the
search. In about the seventh of the eleven bags, there they were: Tessie’s
false teeth. She rejoiced - giving everyone a big toothless kiss.
Well, that’s a kind of human experience we’ve all had. And notice.
It’s communal. We need to tell others our story. Tessie probably tells the
story till today. Here I am telling you, almost 50 years after it happened.
SECOND: WHAT’S HE
DOING HERE
Now losing something is an experience we don’t mind sharing,
but this second experience is the one we don’t like to mention.
Haven’t we also had the experience of saying under our
breath, “What the heck is he or she doing here?” No nerds allowed. No weirdos
allowed. No gays allowed. No people who are mistake makers allowed. No people
who look like that allowed.
There is a tendency when we get religion to get our nose
out of wack. We can become holier than thou. We can become pharisaical.
So there is a great advantage then in sin - in falling -
because it brings us back to the first story. We’re the nerd, the one who is
lost, the sinner, the one others say, “What’s he doing here?”
God will search high and low for us when we are lost sheep.
God will search every garbage bag till he finds us lost teeth. Lost teeth.
Uuuh. Yuck.
So the point that Jesus wanted the Pharisees to see, hear and feel, is that
they we are sinners - lost sheep - lost coins.
And once we reflect deep down in ourselves, who we are, then
the tendency is to stop looking down on others.
One good way to learn humility, is to be humbled -
especially by our own mistakes - our own blunders.
We’re all lost sheep. we’re all lost teeth. Lost contact
lenses. Lost pieces of a term paper or a section of our autobiography. Lost
children on milk containers in garbage bags.
CONCLUSION
Now I would contend and conclude this sermon with this
important point: we better learn and live both messages.
Last night I was checking out William Barclay’s
Commentary on Luke 14: 25-33. That’s today’s gospel. I often find his comments helpful
- very readable - and grabbing.
In this gospel textJesus talks about someone building a tower and not being able to finish
it. The result is peoplelaugh at the
builder. That triggered for Barclay mention of a tower in Scotland - where this actually
happened.
He tells the story about a guy named M’Caig who built a
structure in a place called Oban.It
became known as M’Caig’s Folly.
I never heard about it - so I looked it up on theGoogle search engine. There, I found, some
interesting comments and some good pictures of the “Tower”.
There above the city of Oban in Scotland is this gigantic
round - about 3 stories high - structure that looks like the coliseum in Rome.
It has no roof and its walls are too weak to be anything
but a big round wall of stones - with openings as if for windows. It may be as
big as a baseball infield.
This rich guy, John M’Caig, built it - with his own plans. It was his way
of giving his workers - stone mason work in the winter. He finished the façade
- the walls - in about 5 years - just in time for his death. It doesn’t look
like a tower. Perhaps he was going to put a tower in the center. It’s called, “M’Caig’s
Tower” - but it became known as “M’Caig’s
Folly”.
It never served as anything but a big round wall with
niches. Some think he was going to have statues of himself and his family
placed in the open spaces.
It has a great view of the harbor that leads out to the
Atlantic.
In time, it turned out to become a unique tourist
attraction - for those who would find such a building interesting. It certainly
is an unexpected sight.
I checked out what tourists wrote after experiencing the
sight/site.
One tourist said if you have 10 minutes - go for it.
Someone else said that it’s worth seeing if you want to
take a nice walk up a hill - see a great view - and besides that they have a neat chocolate
factory nearby.
A POSSIBLE MESSAGE FROM TODAY’S READINGS
Today’s readings raises the question: “How do I do life?”
Both readings ask us to be smart and have a clear plan
for building our life.
In today’s gospel Jesus is saying to plan ahead - and be
careful of family - as well as what might get in the way.If you want to follow me in the plan of your
life or the plan for your life, put first things first. Carry your cross. Don’t
let family or anything else get in the way.
If you’re going to build a tower, be smart and plan
ahead. Nobody wants to be called foolish. Nobody wants to have a folly named
after them.
Last night in thinking about this I also looked in my
many quote books some quote about all this.
Neat, I found the following words from Ralph Waldo Emerson that go like this:
“One man’s justice is another’s injustice;one man’s beauty another’s ugliness; one
man’s wisdom another’s folly.”
I assume that Jesus wants each of usto be wise and to look ahead and plan ahead -
and choose wisely with our individual talents - what we want to do with our
lives.
Today’s first reading says we don’t want to spend our
lives with a blurred vision - to live with fear and trembling - and to spend
our times grumbling or questioning.
CONCLUSION
So that’s my homily - entitled, “Wisdom or Follow.”
“When the good people of Beauvais were building their cathedral, the cathedral of Amiens, was just
completed. It excited the admiration of all France.
"Well, the people of
Beauvais, in their jealousy and determination to beat the people of Amiens, set
to work to build a tower to their own cathedral as high as they possibly could.
They built it so high that it tumbled down. They were never able to finish
their cathedral at all.It stands a
wreck to this day. A tribute to their vain quest for glory.”
Anonymous
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
I GOTTA’S
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “I Gotta’s.”
An “I gotta” [SPELL
IT OUT“IGOTTA”]is one of those inner self-complaints or self-hopesor self-calls to get something done or
accomplished - to take care of unfinished business - to resolve a resolution.
“I gotta clean out the trunk of my car.”“I gotta finish that book that is still
sitting there and I paid $29.95 in Barnes and Noble for it .” “I gotta call my
buddy Charlie. Haven’t talked to him in a year.” “I gotta pray more.”
A guy recently told me that herealized he had a lot of unfinished business
in his life. And thinking about his multi-inner- naggings, he said he chose one
that he has been able to do.
He writes one specific letter - one a week -to someone who had been part of his life.
That’s 52 a year. It’s handwritten. It’s a few pages. And he’s been doing it
for a few years now. And receivers say,
“Wow. Thank you.”
If someone did something like that as a result of this
sermon, wow, that would be nice. But don’t tell me about doing one of your “I
gottas” as a result of this homily till you do one of your “I gottas” for at least 2 years. Then send me a letter
about what you did and make my day.
TODAY’S GOSPEL
Today’s gospel could be entitled, “Excuses!Excuses!”
As you know, Jesus was not
inviting folks into a church. He’s inviting people into an attitude - into a
state of the mind and heart - called, “The Kingdom.”
The
Church is not the end - but a means to do and practice and live the Spirit of
the Kingdom - Jesus’ dream and hope on how we live life for each other each
day.
As you know very well, the church forgets this all the
time - and the result is we get ourselves mixed up - thinking of self - being
self-centered rather than being other
centered - our purpose for being in our world.
TODAY’S FIRST READING
Today’s first reading is one of those “Have to know
texts” from the Bible.
You don’t have to read the whole Bible - but key Bible
words ought to becoming us.
So for starters, it helps to know key texts - knowing,
learning, chewing upon, digesting, praying, making them part of our being.
One every week is too much. Maybe 2 or 3 a year is more
like it.
I learned this by accident from a Jesuit - Frank Miles
-whom I went to for Spiritual Direction
for a few years. He said after a long life as a priest he owned about 75 texts.
About 75 texts is me.
It’s been my experience that most Catholics - and most
Christians- have about 5 texts they
own. Just ask folks, “What’s your favorite Bible text?” and most will give you
one or two.”
If a person has to run to a Bible to tell you, their
text, that’s a nope. They have to know
it up front and out front. However, they can look up chapter and verse
afterwards. Besides that chapter and verse werenot put into the bible till after the year 1000.
So tell me five texts you own.
I would say I own Galatians 6:2: “Bear one another’s
burdens and in this way you’ll fulfill the Law of Christ.”
I would say, “Luke 15!”Those 3 stories in there. They are mine.
I would say, “Matthew 25: 31- 46” nags me all the time. I
was hungry … thirsty …. needing clothing - sick - in prison and you did or did
not help me. Thatdetermines whether we’re
in heaven or hell right now.
I have done lots of funerals so the last section the of
the 23 Psalm is mine: “Only goodness and kindness shall follow me all the days
of my life.” That’s why that text is read at almost every funeral because isn’t
that a goal in life.
I own a bunch more, but for my 5th text that I
own, let me throw in today’s first reading. It’s called the Kenotic Text or the
Emptying Text:The secret of life is to
do what Jesus did. Empty yourself of self - so others will be filled with
Christ.
The title ofmy brief homily or thought for this morning, November 5, 2018, the 31st
Monday in Ordinary Time, is, “In You, O Lord, I have found my peace.”
That’s the Psalm Response for today.
Have we found the Lord in our life?Have we found peace in our life?
We all know the Beatitude: “Blessed are the peacemakers
for they will be called the Children of God.”
CHILDREN
I don’t have children - but one of my surprises I’ve
noticed about little kids is this: one
minute they are laughing and smiling. Beautiful. Then I turn my back and I hear
a child crying - actually screaming -
and I turn to see who it is. It’s that same child - a second later. Then his or
her parents do something or give the kid something - food or attention - and
the kid is laughing again.
That scene which is repeated every day in many, many
ways.
It gets me asking: “Is that child all of us? Do all of us want what we want when we want it - and if we don’t get what we want when we want it, we’ll scream.” Warning ....
And when another gets screamful, we want them peaceful.
TODAY’S READINGS
Today’s readings got me thinking about that scene I’ve
seen in kids.
Today’s readings - especially the first reading gives
several secrets of peace.
The scriptures are all about peacemaking.
Today’s first reading says: encourage each other. Will we
do that today?
Today’s first reading says, pray for the Holy Spirit. Will
we do that today?
Today’s first reading says, have compassion and mercy. Will we do that today?
Today’s first reading says be united. Will we do that
today?
Today’s first reading says, don’t be selfish. How will we
be today?
Today’s first reading says the other person is more important
than me. Will we work on that today?
Today’s gospel says invite everyone into the banquet of our
life: especially the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind.
I
used to feel guilty, that I don’t do that - till one day it hit me: I am the
poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. I'm it - and Jesus has invited me today to be here at this banquet of life.
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily is: “In You O Lord, I Have Found
My Peace.”
Going back to my opening image of the little child: who
laughs one moment and the next moment screams.
Who will I be today? We’re watching.
November 5, 2018
NOVEMBER RAIN
It’s raining….
November rain ….
Cold …. But not icy….
The water colored brown
and rust colored and
orange colored leaves
are water colored on
the ground …. but half are
still holding on to their moms:
the trees. It’s November ….
Pain.... Rain .... Remembrance .... Three weeks to remember
Today’s gospel opens up with someone walking up to Jesus
and ask him a question and it ends up with this comment: “And no one dared to
ask him any more questions.” [Cf. Mark 12: 28b to 34]
People are still walking up to Jesus and asking him
questions.
So the title of my homily is, “Do You Have a Question?”
We’ve all been at talks - when they have a Q and A
session after the talk - and someone gets up and goes on and on and on. And the
person running the Question and Answer period finally asks,“Do you have a question?”
Sometimes the person does and sometimes they don’t.
The title of my homily is, “Do You Have a Question?”
When I’m preaching the thing I worry about is that people
have questions - but I’m probably not answering them in my homily.
FOR EXAMPLE
For example are you going to say something about the
Bishops and Priests and Church’s problem with sexual abuse of minors - as well
as cover-ups.
For example: are you going to say something about the
Pittsburgh killings or the elections or the march or voting next Tuesday orwhat have you?
For example: what does that comment about Babylon in the
first reading mean?
CLEMENT JEDRZEJEWSKI
In the early 1970’s I was stationed in a retreat house in
Long Branch, N.J. and we used to say Mass in the morning at another retreat
house - also on the Atlantic Ocean. Neat spot.
In this other retreat house - run by the Sisters of Peace
- an old man - Clement Jedrzejewski - got a room there.He was the only man in the place and he
didn’t have a car - and this was way before Uber or Lyft.
I once said to him, “Clement if you ever want to go
shopping - or go to the drugstore and you need a lift, just ask me. Maybe you
want toothpaste or what have you.
Well he took me up on it - and it became a great move.
While driving I asked him what he did before New Jersey
and he said he was a professor at a small college in Brooklyn: St. Francis
College.
He said he taught teaching methods.
On one trip I told him I did about 15 high school - 3 day
retreats - each year and did he have any suggestions.He asked a few questions and said, “Let me
think about it.”
On another trip to a drugstore he said, “When the kids
arrive, let them check out the whole place. A dog when it comes to a new house
sniffs everywhere.”
Then he said, “Get their questions. Say there are no
stupid questions, just stupid answers.”
Then he said, “Hand out pieces of paper. Have them by
themselves write down all the questions they have about their life: the future,
work, family, relationships, school, drugs, booze, what have you.”
Then tell them, still by themselves, put a circle around
the top 3.
Then put that piece of paper in your pocket.
Next do the same thing with one other person - a whole
page of questions - then the top3.
Next do that with 4 or 5 others - whole page - circle top
3.Tell them to pick 4 or 5 friends or
people you know - not strangers.If you
want this retreat to go beyond the 3 days - pick people you hang with.
Then do this with the whole group. Large pieces of paper
on the wall - then agree on 3.
This took two hours that first evening, but we had 3
areas they agree upon.
Then for the next 2 days, we tackled those 3 questions.
QUESTION
Try it. Jot down or put on your electronic pads and
computers all your questions - then pick out your top 3.
What are your top 3 questions about your life, your
future, your past - and talk them over with your closest people.
Questions are great. They are shaped like fish hooks - and
if you want to go down deep below the waters: fish.
Jesus walked around Palestine and began by catching 4
fishermen.
Abraham Heschel wrote, “It is not enough for me to be
able to say, `I am’’ I want to know who I
am, and in relation to whom I live. It is not enough for me to ask
questions; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to
encompass everything I face; What am I here for?”
Alexander Eliot wrote, “Personal answers to ultimate
questions. That is what we seek.” Alexander Eliot
I jotted down in my quote book,
a great quote from Betty Friedan. It’s in her book, The
Feminine Mystique, 1963, “Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As
she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate
peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and
Brownies, lay beside her husband at night—she was afraid to ask even of herself
the silent question -- `Is this all?’”
Didn’t Peggy Lee have a song way
back then, “Is that all there is? my friend. Is that all there is?”
TODAY’S
READINGS
Today’s readings trigger the big
question: “What am I supposed to do with my life everyday?”
As I began, we find the scene in
today’s gospel - where a scribe - that’s someone who could write - comes up to
Jesus with a question:
"Which is the first of all the
commandments?"
Jesus replied, "The first is this: Hear, O Israel!
The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.
The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these."
This was something people went to Rabbi’s with all the
time - as well as wisdom teachers - in all the religions and philosophies of
our world.
CONCLUSION
What is your question?
Start with a page full…. Narrow
it down to 3.Narrow it down to 1.
Then get answers.
You’ll find them everywhere.
And when you ask the best
question and you get a great answer, hear Jesus say, “Do that and you shall
live - really live.”
