BROKEN

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Broken.”

We all know about broken: broken dishes, bones, a rosary, a heart, a family, a  marriage, an egg, window, cookie, life, etc. etc. etc.

Broken….

TODAY’S FIRST READING: EARTHEN VESSELS

We all know the theme in today’s first reading for this feast of St. James.

Our bodies are earthen vessels.  We are made from the clay of the earth and our bodies break at times like a fragile earthen vessel.

The dream seems to be Unbroken - as in the movie, the book, or an expensive vase - but the reality is that we go through life - and we are broken at times.

The middle east is filled with broken vessels - lots of pieces of clay pots are everywhere.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in earthen vessels in caves and the museum that holds the Dead Sea Scrolls is formed in the shape of those same earthen vessels.

A clay pot is a great prop for preaching.  It’s a very clear image in the song that the St. Louis Jesuits came up with: Earthen Vessels. Why don’t we sing that more?  It’s in our Breaking Bread Missalette, #408.

Speaking of broken, how about out missalettes in our church benches. Every year - if they are used -  they break - a page or two comes out by November, the plastic breaks, pages get ripped and folded.

So too people, if we work, if we serve, if we are useful, if we help others, we break. Life.

THE TREASURE WITHIN

The key to the message is what’s inside the earthen vessel.

In the middle east people kept property deeds - in earthen vessels.

So too coins, jewelry, and  what have you.

We’re all made of clay.  It’s what’s inside that counts.

And Paul tells us all the things in life that can be inside us. They are realities of life that can make us valuable. We heard them again this morning: afflictions, persecutions, sickness, death - yes death. Get cancer or any sickness inside this clay pot, and  the struggle that results - the faith struggle that comes,  the questioning God that happens - can cause us growth. Suffering can bring us the treasure of wisdom and understanding. 

And it’s not just cancer - lots of other sufferings can be our teachers.  Loss of spouse, loss of children, family misunderstandings, loss of jobs, addictions, all that can make and/or break us.

I know a priest whose alcoholism - and his recovery in AA - helped make him a treasure house of kindness, understanding and wisdom.

I would guess the embarrassment that the Sons of Zebedee experienced because of their mom in today’s gospel - and the anger against them of the other 10 when they saw this happening - her wanting her sons to be #1 and # 2 - brought some changes into their life and her life. [Cf. Matthew 20:20-28.]

The glue of humility and learning from our mistakes is a crazy glue that works and repairs broken vessels.

Brokenness can do that….

AN EXAMPLE: THE CRACKED POT

Last night - in reading up on this first reading - I found a neat example called, “The Cracked Pot.”  It was in a sermon by a Missy Butler entitled, “Wonderfully Flawed.”

“Many years ago, in a very poor Middle East village, stood an ancient stone well. Alongside of that well sat two large watering pots [which people would use to bring water from the well to their homes]. One of them was like new, beautifully formed, even had graceful etchings along its curved handle.

“The other, not as new yet still useful, had become cracked over the years. Time after time, the pot was passed over by the people with the exception of a little village girl. She had grown fond of the neglected pitcher. Every day she would chose it instead of the beautiful pot.

“One morning, the old pot asked the little girl, ‘Why do you continue to use me, when you know I am flawed and cannot hold the water you and your family so desperately need?" The little girl spoke not a word, but carried the broken pot to a familiar pathway that she traveled daily.

“With her tiny voice she said, ‘This is why I pick you.’ There before the pot was a row of delicate wild flowers that had bloomed along the trail because of the water that had trickled and leaked from the pot. The buried seeds of the flowers had been watered as she made her way home each day. The cracked pot for the first time had seen its worth through the eyes of a grateful little girl.”

CONCLUSION

My conclusion is the last sentence in today’s first reading. Notice the word “overflow” in it. The sentence: “Everything indeed is for you, so that the grace bestowed in abundance on more and more people may cause the thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God.”

July 25, 2017

DIED LAST YEAR....

I didn't know that.
Uh oh....
Will that happen to me?
Yes, to some.
Will that happen to you?
To some, yes,
but I hope not to me
when it comes to you.

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017

BIG  NUMBERS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 16^th Monday in Ordinary Time  is, “Big Numbers.”

TODAY’S FIRST READING

When I hear the story about the Egyptian Army in today’s first reading about to be drowned, I think of other major mass deaths. Obviously, one major source for picturing this is Charlton Heston in the movie, Ten Commandments as well as in Bible and Bible school pictures.

WHAT HAPPENS?

What happens in heaven when there is a big rush on deaths?

Sometimes I think of that when it comes to major catastrophes.

Sorry, maybe you came to church today - to think thoughts of peace.

Or when it comes to God.  should the question be different,?

If God sent his Son in the fullness of time, way back when, because of our behavior, then does God go “Oh no!” with major murders and killings?

I think of questions like this at times.

So when there are massive deaths, there is an impact on us - and I assume on God.

But ….

BIG NUMBERS

Between 1970-2013  in the United States there is an estimate of 51,888,303 abortions.

Last year I read Immaculee Ilibagiza’s book, Left to Tell: One Woman’s Story of Surviving the Rwandan Genocide. It was a page turner as well as a stomach turner. Families, children, villages, people were machetted to death. The numbers - as in any reporting of genocide - were estimates. In the Rwandan, there were from 500,000 to a million Tutsis  killed in a 100 day period from April 7, 1994 till July 1994.

We have often heard of the Aremenian genocide starting in April of 1915. The Turks killed perhaps 1.5 million Armenians.

We might remember Pol Pot and the Cambodian Genocide. Between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge are estimated to have killed from 1.5 to 3 million Cambodians.

Then from time to time we read or hear about the Nazi holocaust against the Jews - 6 million and so many others killed.

In the last century, we hear that Stalin and the Soviets, Mao and the Chinese communists,  killed up to 100 million people.

Then there are lists of Salvadorans, Guatamalians, and lots of other people killed in wars and genocide and on and on and on.

Big numbers ….

OUR REACTION

What is our reaction to such horror stories?

We hear in the psalms the refrain, “The Lord hears the cries of the poor.”

I respond to God, “It’s not enough to just hear the cries of the poor, what are you doing about helping them?” 

I know we’re supposed to do our part and more - but God, what about you?

Didn’t the police in Florida last week want to arrest some teenagers for filming a drowning man and doing nothing - except to laugh?

I don’t know about you - but I wonder about God - and all this.

OUR THOUGHTS

I know my thoughts and feelings - at least some thoughts and feelings - when I walked through the Holocaust museum in both Jerusalem and Washington D.D. I see that book by Immaculee Ilibagiza’s, Left to Tell: One Woman’s Story of Surviving the Rwandan Genocide. I still feel the horror.

I remember the nausea I felt Thanksgiving 1978 when the TV news reports showed the hundreds of bodies that Jim Jones asked to take the Non-Kool-Aid poison and die.

I know we’re all going to die, somehow, but with horror, that’s horrible.

I realize that death is part of life. I realize life would not be life, if there wasn’t death. Death forces us to ponder meaning, our existence, our time line. Death gets us to care for the dying. We can’t imagine a world with everyone who ever lived, never dying. Talk about geography, space, health care centers, etc. etc. etc. No….

We learn life from death. It gives us plenty of thoughts.

We know people have free will and can do crazy things like kill other people.

As to the question of God intervening, I have my questions. I have my major answer, “I don’t know.”

I have heard a dozen sermons where a priest tells the story of the man in the flood. He prays and prays to be saved. A row boat comes, but he won’t get on it. A helicopter hovers over his house with a ladder, but he won’t get on the ladder. He keeps praying till he dies. Then when he sees God, he asks, “Why did you let me drown?” And God says, “I sent you a rowboat and  I sent you a helicopter, but you refused my help.”

It’s a fine story, but there were few helicopters over the crowds in Rwanda or Auscwitz. How does all this work.

I love the saying, “Pray for potatoes, but pick up a shovel.”

I’m sure millions of people escaped massacres - but billions didn’t.

How does all this work?

Single deaths and big numbers of dead - trigger these life thoughts and prayers. 

July 24, 2017

DIDN’T YOU KNOW?

Didn’t you know that life

is rarely a straight line:

it wiggles and waves,

it twists and turns,

it shakes and quakes,

it rattles and rolls,

and just when we think

the line is final -

it unravels and it unfolds….

Smile, surprise or did

you simply forget?

We’re just like God,  

made in in God’s image

and made in God’s likeness?

 © Andy Costello, Reflections  2017

WHEAT AND WEEDS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 16^th Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]  is, “Wheat and Weeds.”

There are three parables in today’s gospel.  Let me just look at the first of the 3 parables - that of the wheat and the weeds. [Cf. Matthew 13:24-43.]

That’s the one the disciples asked Jesus, “Please explain?”

THE STORY

I read a few times in commentaries about this gospel story of the wheat and the weeds that there was a story that floated around in Jesus’ time about someone planting in the night some weed seed in another farmer’s wheat field - to get back at him or for spite or what have you.  I have trouble picturing someone coming up with weed seeds, but that’s the story.

Well, as the weeds grew they looked like wheat - but then - it became evident that there were weeds. Someone ruined this farmer’s wheat  crop with weeds.

His farmhands asked, “Should we pull up the weeds?”

“No” -  the owner of the field said, “The roots are intertwined and you’ll ruin both. We’ll wait for harvest time and then we’ll separate the good from the bad. The bad will be burned.”

Guess who did the separating?

Answer: Women!

JESUS’ EXPLANATION

Commentators on the scriptures said that Jesus must have heard the story and adopted it for his preaching.

So today we heard the parable and we heard  the following explanation from Jesus.

The field is the whole world.  The Son of Man is the sower.  The Good Seed are the children of the kingdom.  The Weeds are the Children of the Evil One. The devil is the one who sows evil.  The harvest is the hereafter. The harvesters are the angels.  The bad - the weeds  - will be collected along with the good stuff - the wheat.  The bad goes into the fiery furnace. The good become good bread - for communion for all at the eternal banquet.

I think most people get that.

THE BRAIN AS A FIELD

It’s 2017. Few of us are farmers - but I’m sure some of you have gardens and lawns - and you deal with weeds.

How to make this parable have a practical message?

I think we can make this parable of Jesus more personal if we see our brain, our minds, our memory as a field.

Good and evil has been planted in this field called me.

We’ve all heard the TV commercial that says, “What’s in your wallet?”

Well, let me ask, “What’s in your brain? What’s in your mind? What’s in your memory?”

We speak the language we speak, because that’s the language we heard all around us, growing up.

We are the sum total of a lot of experiences - the parents, the grandparents, the schools, the teachers, the friends we had.

Question: are we more malleable, more ready to be formed, when we are younger?  Does our brain, our memory, have a saturation point? How much random access memory do we have?

BUY ME

TV commercials have the job to plant a lot of commercials in our brain so that when we walk down the aisle of the supermarket - we buy what we heard on TV, “Buy me!” When we drive up or down West Street we stop in Wendy’s instead of McDonald's or Burger King.

Our memories are memorizing lots of stuff as we go down the roads and aisles of life - or when we’re couch potatoes - watching TV and ads about potato chips.

When I’m standing up here babbling out a homily, I’m wondering where people are. Let’s be honest, most of us are elsewhere most of the time. I look at people and at times I want to go WAVE - WAVE - WAVE with my hand.  When we’re watching television isn’t the TV commercial trying to interrupt our thoughts - because we could be actually watching TV - or we're elsewhere. We’re into tomorrow or last week or wondering about a cookout or a parent who is getting Alzheimer’s.

After Mass or after  a Baptism or a wedding, moms and dads are often standing here with little kids in their arms. I often ask myself or parents, “What is your kid looking at?”

Parents often say, “Taking it all in. They don’t miss a trick.”

And it’s a good sign when older folks get nervous when kids are present and someone is making a fool of themselves - drinking or cursing or what have you.

We’ve all heard the message, “Garbage in; garbage out.”

DOCTOR WILDER PENFIELD

I read about Doctor Wilder Penfield - Neurosurgeon - way back in the 1970’s. In brain operations - trying to help people with epilepsy - and other brain problems - he kept people awake for some procedures and operations, so as to map the brain. Some of his findings are still used. Of course people were sedated and numbed etc.

The sensational news was that he was able to touch people’s memories and out came past history.  In time this discovery was toned down - and minimized and clarified - but there were at times by touching certain parts of a person's brain, they got in touch with memories. His teams also mapped out what part of the brain moves our left big toe or what have you.

What I got out of that was an “Uh oh!”

I thought: If it’s all in here, I better be careful what I let in here [Point to head.]

Our long term memory is amazing. At times - memories pop up about something that happened when we were kids - and we say, “What triggered that?”

For example this morning I was at the 7:30 Mass at St. John Neumann and I remembered something my Godmother said 50 years ago. Nan, my Godmother is long dead - but she said to me, “You have your dad’s smile and your dad was the perfect gentleman - all the ladies said that.”

Why did that hit me today? I don’t know - but I’ll give it some thought.

It was a good experience and a good memory - because my dad was absolutely quiet and I’ve often wondered in my old age about my dad.

The latest story about my dad went like this. My sister, Mary, is sorting out family papers. In a box, she found a newspaper clipping about my dad’s brother falling 4 floors in a building construction job in Pittsburgh.  My dad had to take a train from New York to Pittsburgh to get the body and take it to Portland, Maine for burial. Both brothers were single at the time. I would love to ask my dad what that was like for him. I thank God for my dad giving me the gift of life and his smile. I don’t want to lose that legacy. Yet I have so many questions and my dad’s black box, his flight recorder, his brain, his memory, is long gone.

AUDIO TAPE

In thinking about all this for this homily, I remember going for a 7 hour drive by myself. I began looking for some audio tapes.  I didn’t have time to shoot over to the library for talking books.

I'm driving along listening to a tape that I hadn’t listened to in 25 years. Surprise I’m hearing a story from a Jesuit priest that I thought I made up.

I shut the tape off and began listening to myself about what had just happened.

I began wondering if I was ever original?

I asked if I ever got caught for plagiarizing.  If I use someone else’s material I try to get that person credit.

I laughed.

I realized we’re all in this together.

Is anyone original?

I realized that we can listen to another when it comes to politics - and know what TV stations they use.

Just like trying to selling Nikes or hamburgers, people are trying to sell a political stance or value or what have you.

I began thinking, “Do people who put out ads or political commentary ask themselves, ‘Is this true?’”

Is anybody willing to be a whistle blower when it comes to promoting anything?

THE PAUSE - THE MORAL PAUSE

The best message and the message I would stress this morning would be, “The Moral Pause.”

Many times each day I can think before I speak - especially when it’s about another person.

I have to think before I preach - but I also have to think before I speak about the preacher.

I can’t fathom how anyone could come up with a virus and send it out to ruin other person’s computers  - but I know people do that. Does anyone ever say, “You can’t do that.” Just as did the guy who planted the weeds have another with him in the night? If yes, did that person say, “Why are you doing this?”

In the meanwhile I can say things about another that ruins them - planting weeds into the coffee break crowd….

CONCLUSION

Seeing words as seeds - wheat or weed - compliments or curse - truth or falsehood - secrets or gossip - can make this gospel story real today - even if we know nothing about farming. Amen.

July 23, 2017

FADE

Fading, fading ….

We avoid it

and we ignore  it.

We only have

so much time

and we know it.

Like the cover

of a paperback book

left on a window sill, we fade.

Life, I better do a lot more

between my covers to be novel

and to enjoy telling my story.

Fading, fading ….

Who me? Yes me.

I know it and I don’t like it .

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017

CLAIMING  MY  TERRITORY

We know how cats claim their spots.

We humans are much more subtle.

We shrug shoulders - raise our nose -

lower our eyes - give a look - tweak

our upper lip - to let another know:

“Move it. Get out of my territory.”

Jesus let others touch his tassels. He

put his finger in their ears - his spit on

their eyes and tongue. His bread and wine,
his body and blood, entered their bodies.

We know how fat cats claim their spots.       
We humans have to be much more humble.

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017

Cf. Mark 7:23; Mark 8:23;

Mark 6: 56; Mark 14: 22-25. 

July 22, 2017

Mary Magdalene's sin
cast such a long shadow -
that Jesus could not but
step onto her path.

Happy feast 
of St. Mary Magdalene.

July 21, 2017

COUNTERBALANCED 

She was 55 when she figured out

what she was about in life. It was

to counterbalance conversations

and friendships and classrooms

and family and both her marriages.

The first one didn’t work. Sorry.

"If" was the center of the seesaw.

If you said so and so was a loser,

she would counter with a comment

about her strengths. If you were

needing money, out came her wallet.

If you were lost, she would find you.

If you don’t know what to do with

your life - think about being a

counterbalance - offsetting - what is

wrong with what is right - being

present when love is absent - being

an ear when nobody is listening.

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017

WAR  OF  1812! 

DOES  SEEING

THE  BIG  PICTURE 

EVER  STOP 

  A  WAR? 

July 20, 2017

THANK YOU

“Thank you”:

two short words

that try to sum up -
but they really can't -

the wide width,

the high height,

the deep depth,

of the feelings of gratitude

and generosity

that grow and groan -

and sometimes emerge up

and out of the human heart,

but like Christ

in the garden,

Christ on the Cross,

Christ in the Bread,

if we’re open today,

he’ll bring us communion,

Holy Communion

with each other -
this day and any day we choose.

Amen. 

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017

SING 
TO  US 
YOUR  SONGS! 

RAVEL'S  BOLERO

Watch all three
of these short videos
and then
go out
and buy yourself
a drum....

July 19, 2017

“I’M  FINISHED.” 

Jesus sort of said that while nailed to a

cross. Dried blood on his head - dried

armpits. It was his last day on earth.

“I’m finished!”

Listening to myself and others in our

late 70’s, we too sometimes say we’re

tempted to scream those same sentiments:

“I’m finished!”

But resurrection and unfinished business

pushes us to want those nails removed, so we

can come down from that cross as we scream,

“I’m still not finished.”

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017

CELTIC 

WOMEN 

AUSTRALIAN 

CATHOLIC 

YOUTH 

FESTIVAL 

CLOG  DANCING

IN

NEWCASTLE

GENESIS AND EXODUS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 15^th Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, Genesis and Exodus.

For the 1^st Reading of these weekday Masses, we just finished three weeks of readings from Genesis and now we have two and a half weeks from  Exodus. 

As I have said a few times, in the last few years, for weekday homilies, I’m more interested in the first reading than the gospel. I’ve been doing the gospel at Mass for the first 40 or so years as priest - and the first reading screams out, “What am I chopped liver?”

And for folks who come to daily Mass,  I would assume that you would want to know more about the first reading - because you’ve been hearing the gospel for 40 or so years as well.

So the title of my thoughts for today is, “Genesis and Exodus.”

MORE INTERESTING

It seems to me that most of Genesis and the first 20 chapters of Exodus - have the grab - have the interesting stuff.

Once we get to chapter 20 of Exodus and the receiving of the Covenant, the Ten Commandments - then the Bible can get tough. It’s then we get into the Law. It’s then we hear long lists of rules and regulations, etc. etc. etc. Then when we move further into the Pentateuch - that is, the first 5 books of the Bible - most people get lost - scratch their head or yawn.

So Genesis and Exodus are the important books - and Exodus really only up to Chapter 20.

Hope that explains my rationale for today’s homily title and what I’m doing up here in the pulpit.

A MAJOR DECISION

I once went to 3 day workshop by Tom Berry - entitled “A New Creation Account.” He spent much of his life putting that new account together.

He took 3 days -  a whole weekend - for him to give us his rendition of the creation account.

It was much longer than the first two creation accounts - as found in Genesis. Obviously, we know a lot more today than people knew about creation in Biblical times.

During that workshop, that recital, of A New Creation Account, Father Tom Berry, a Passionist priest said Judaism and then Christianity had a decision to make.  Which do we stress more: creation or redemption, Genesis or the Exit, the Exodus?

There are Redemption and Sin situations in Genesis, but he was talking in broad strokes.  Genesis stresses creation; Exodus stresses Redemption.

And since I was a Redemptorist, Tom Berry said, “We have 2 Redemptorists here - and that choice to stress redemption has affected their whole lives as preachers.”

As far as I know there were no religious orders that stressed creation over redemption.  The only theologian that stressed creation first would be Matthew Fox and Teilhard de Chardin - in a way.

EXPLAINED IN ANOTHER WAY - IN BROAD STROKES

Let me explain what I’m trying to say as follows.

Genesis sets the stage - gives us the whole world and all the players on the stage. 

If we’re at a play, we see the curtain open and we see on stage where the play is going to take place.

Then as the play goes on, a problem happens. Someone is stuck.

Exodus deals with the problems.

In Exodus, the big problem as we heard in yesterday and today’s first reading from Exodus, is the Hebrews have fallen out of favor.

The Egyptians are the bad guys. They enslave the Israelites. They want all the sons thrown in the river.

We know the plot. We’ve seen it in a thousand movies and TV programs.

We know the solution: a hero is needed to save the people.

In the Jewish Bible,  that hero is going to be Moses.

In the Christian scriptures, that hero is Christ the New Moses.

We heard the first sound out of Moses mouth in today’s first reading, “the baby cries.”

We saw the first action from Moses hand in today’s first reading, Moses kills the Egyptian who is hitting the Hebrew.

There are the two jobs of a prophet: they scream and they save.

I suspect - but I’m biased - that’s where the action is - redemption.

Help! Save me! Redeem me.

It’s when we need to be saved, or to save another, that is key. Flowers are nice, but when we see someone who needs help and we help and save another, we’re not going to stop to smell the flowers.

Now that dynamic happens in Genesis - in smaller ways, but it’s here in Exodus when the need for redemption happens big time.

Jesus saw both - but salvation happens big time with Christ.

Jesus told us to spot the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, but we can relate more  to stories about 2 sisters - one of whom is complaining because her sister is sticking her with all the work. A father has 2 sons, one leaves home - hits bottom, messes up - but comes home for redemption. He’s forgiven, saved, redeemed. Then we hear about  the older brother who won’t forgive his brother who has returned. He is mad that his father forgave his brother. Who’s in need of redemption now?

in the gospels, we hear about bread and fish, mountains and the Lake of Galilee, but the real stories happen when we hear that Judas betrays Jesus. Peter denies Jesus. Sheep and coin people get lost. People want to throw rocks at a woman who got caught committing adultery.

There it is the same plot as in Exodus.

In Exodus is people are in trouble. Moses gets them to escape. Then they complain as they make their exodus down the road to safety. Then there is a whole series of complaints in the desert - and it takes them 40 years to get out of there to safety.

CONCLUSION

So it’s nice to have a nice house and a nice garden, to be creative like God - but where we spend lots of energy with God is with family problems - and world issues.

People come to St. Mary’s and say, “How beautiful this Gothic Church is - but they really come to St. Mary’s or any church when their spouse has cancer or their daughter is having a tough pregnancy - or when a grandson is on drugs and they need an exodus, an exit, out of their addiction.

July 18, 2017

COMPASSION

Want to pray for something?

Pray for compassion. See

all those crosses on walls

and around necks? Good!

Now, more importantly, see

all those people carrying

their cross on their way

to their Calvary. Be with

them and let them be with

you as we all move, fall,

move, fall, move, fall and

then die with each other -
then rise with each other,
please God,  Amen!

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017