ANXIETY

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Anxiety.”

The word “anxiety” or “anxious” appears 5 times in today’s second reading, so I began thinking about anxiety – and did some research on it for this homily.

Anxiety.

Since it seems to me to be a psychiatric term in English, I looked up the Greek text from which we get our New Testament to see what word they are translating with the words “anxiety” and “anxious”. All 5 times the Greek word is “MERIMNA” or “AMERIMNA” It’s Greek root verb is, “MERIZO” – which means to be pulled or drawn in different directions and as a result of these pulls, these cares, these distractions, a person can feel anxious, tense, nervous, confused, apprehensive, sweaty – or even have heart palpitations.

Ever feel that way? We’ve seen movies where someone is tied arms and legs to two or four horses and the horses are driven in different directions – and we’re sitting there, going, “Uoooooh that hurts.”

FEARS AND ANXIETIES

Do you ever feel anxious? About what? Do you have any fears? What are they?

I’ve always heard that the difference between fears and anxieties are the known and the unknown. If we know what we’re scared of, that’s a fear. If we don’t know what we are scared of or antsy about, that’s an anxiety. I assume that not everyone agrees with this distinction, but it works for some people.

We can know our fears – but when it comes to anxieties – it helps to try to go back in our life to find possible sources of our antysiness. It could be an aunt – who baby sat us when we were a little kid and kept on telling us we were going to go to hell if we didn’t eat our broccoli or spinach – if we didn’t go potty right or we didn’t shut up in the afternoon when she wanted to watch the soaps – or we were going to go to hell if we didn’t fold our hands just right when she forced us to say the rosary with her. But that could seem unfair – picking on an aunt – or anyone – and fairness and unfairness can often be a source of anxiety.

We’ve also heard people use big words for fears or phobias: claustrophobia – fear of enclosed places; acrophobia or altophobia – fear of high places; arachnophobia – fear of spiders; but do we know that doraphobia is fear of fur and eisoptrophobia is fear of mirrors? And we might remember the cartoon when Charlie Brown hearing about all these phobias says, “I have pantophobia.” And when asked what that means, he says, “Fear of everything.”

MOVIE: HIGH ANXIETY

Remember the Mel Brooks movie, “High Anxiety.” It’s a spoof on all this to make us laugh. Mel Brooks, Cloris Leachman, Harvey Korman and Madeline Kahn go through a whole series of scenes – some of them take off’s on Alfred Hitchcock movies – that also deal with anxieties. Alfred Hitchcock said he liked to have his movies take place where people think they are in a very safe place – and then birds – thieves – killers appear.

Anxiety is not a laughing matter. People out of work – not knowing what to do next – or wondering and worrying about the economy can be the stuff of real anxiety. Sometimes anxiety gets us moving. Sometimes it gets people into not only economic depression – but also emotional depression. Uh oh’s can be the real deal. Uh oh!

Yet, sometimes laughter is just what we need. While reading about the movie “High Anxiety” which goes back to 1977, I laughed when someone said that for the scene that mimicked Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, The Birds, the plan was to use fake bird droppings made from mayonnaise and chopped spinach. They were dropped from a helicopter – but real birds got scared because of the real helicopter – and people down below didn’t know what they were being hit with. Was it really mayo and spinach?

Is there a word, “birddropophobia”?

And surprise last night while watching soccer on TV with Father George, at a break, we noticed on the menu that the movie, “High Anxiety” was on at 10:30. Surprise. I put it on. It was quite corny – and goofy spoof's – but it had a few laughs. George went to bed.

PUSH AND PULL

We’ve all seen on doors the words, “Push” or “Pull”.

We all have our pulls – as well as our pushes.

What’s pulling us in different directions? What’s pushing us?

Sometimes we feel like a door with two signs on it: push and pull. We have many doors we go through in life – some with signs we don’t like: boss, principal, undertaker, angry brother or sister – or nursing home where dad or mom is.

Push. Pull. Uh oh! Oh no! Anxiety is knocking on our door. Different doors can be the source of different anxieties.

TODAY’S SECOND READING

St. Paul says the single person has different anxieties than the married person. Some of you might remember the movie, My Cousin Vinnie. There’s Mona Lisa Vito - single – still wondering if Vinnie will marry her. Many say the most memorable scene in the movie, My Cousin Vinnie, takes place on a porch out in the woods. There’s Mona Lisa, Marisa Tomei, wearing perhaps the greatest one piece outfit of any movie of all time kicking her foot on the wooden deck outside the house and whining, “My biological clock is ticking … ticking… ticking.”

Anxiety – not being married – not having kids – being married – having kids – worried about mortgages – and bills and keeping one’s job – and where our kids are and it’s after 10 PM or this and that – can pull a person apart.

TODAY’S GOSPEL

In today’s gospel Jesus enters the synagogue in Capernaum and meets a crazy man – a man with an unclean spirit. The man yells out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are – the Holy One of God.”

What a great scene! The crazy guy knows who Jesus is – the rest of the crowd don’t.

I wonder if it’s Mark’s sense of humor appearing here.

What a great scene! Jesus yells back and says to the unclean spirit, “Quiet! Come out of him!” The unclean spirit convulses him and with a loud cry came out of the man.”

Amazing. Isn’t it a strange scene? Isn’t this scene much more powerful than the pea soup scene in the movie, The Exorcist. Isn’t it much more immediate?

Mark in today’s gospel says the crowd was amazed. It would be better if they had anxiety. It would be better, if they too knew who Jesus was – the Holy One of God.

JESUS IS IN THIS PLACE – RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, FOR US

Hopefully, we hearing this story, seeing this movie here in Mark, we can feel Jesus standing here – in this place, right here, right now, for us. Hopefully, we feel some anxiety. Better, hopefully we have some Jesusphobia – that he might come over to us and say, “Quiet! Bad spirits come out of this person.”

Don’t we all have evil spirits within us – that rattle our cage at times: meanness, jealousy, envy, snarkiness, nastiness, laziness, anger, impatience, inability to control life – especially people?

Wouldn’t it be great that we too – like this crazy man – knew that Jesus is the Holy One of God – that he can come up to us and heal us of our evil spirits.

Any of you who have taken Bible Courses or Workshops on Prayer – or know the Jesuit exercises from retreats or this or that, know that the secret of prayer and reading the Bible is to place oneself in the scene. See it. Hear it. Be the different characters in the story. Use their lines. Make them our prayers.

I’m assuming that today’s first reading from Deuteronomy was chosen to say that Jesus is the new Moses – a prophet – here in our assembly – here in this synagogue – here on this Sabbath – and hopefully we know who Jesus is – “the Holy One of God” – that we let him heal us – and we walk out of church today better than when we walked into this church today.

CONCLUSION

There is a German proverb, “Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.”

Anais Nin, wrote in her diary, “Anxiety is love’s greatest killer.” [The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. V, 1974]

Hopefully, by coming here to church, we can become free from sin and feel and find the peace, love and healing power of Jesus Christ.

Hopefully, by coming here to church, we can stand here this moment – crazy, anxious, nervous, with our fears and anxieties – and we hear Jesus say to our evil spirits, instincts, moods, “Quiet. Come out of her. Quiet. Come out of him.”

In every Mass, right after the Our Father, there is a short prayer that the priest says. Right in the middle of it, there is the word “anxiety”. I often wondered who pushed to put it there. Maybe it was someone who liked today’s second reading. Maybe it was someone who had a lot of anxieties to deal with. Listen to it carefully this morning:

“Deliver us, Lord, from every evil,
and grant us peace in our day.
In your mercy keep us free from sin
and protect us from all anxiety
as we wait in joyful hope
for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”

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*Picture ? -Not sure where I found this. Sorry. I like to give sources.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

P.S. Received the following in an e-mail. It gives a different slant or glance on how to deal with anxiety - so I plugged it in. Don't know the author or source. Sorry.

A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, “How heavy is this glass of water?” Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g. The lecturer replied: “The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it.”

“If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance. In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.”

He continued, “And that's the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on. As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden.”

“So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can. Relax; pick them up later after you've rested. Life is short. Enjoy it!

And then he shared some ways of dealing with the burdens of life:

* Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.

* Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

* Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

* Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.

* If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

* If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others -- (that one killed me!!!)

* Never buy a car you can't push.

* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand on.

* Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

* Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.

* The second mouse gets the cheese.

* When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

* Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.

* You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

* Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.

* We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are dull; some are plain, some are pretty. Some have weird names. They all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.

* A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

HOW GOD CALLS US?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “How God Calls Us?”

How does God call us?

Yesterday morning I was sitting here at St. John Neumann in the front bench for the service in preparation for the Kids’ First Confession or Sacrament of Reconciliation. I found myself wondering, “What am I going to preach on tomorrow morning?” It was my distraction while trying to listen to something else. Smile.

I thought about the Sunday readings – especially the Gospel story of the call of Peter and Andrew, James and John, - as well as tomorrow being the feast of the call and conversion of Saul – who becomes Paul – and the question, “How God Calls Us?” hit me.

If you ever wonder where or how or when we priests get our ideas for sermons, that’s a glimpse.
I jotted down on a scrap of paper, “How God Calls Us?”

When I got back home to my desk at 11:30 AM and started working on a homily for today, two things had already hit me about this question on how God calls us.

First: you’re assuming that God calls people.

Secondly: you’re assuming that there is a God.

Assuming those two things, how does God call people?

TODAY’S GOSPEL

In today’s gospel, we have the stereotypical God call. Jesus walks up to two brothers, Peter and Andrew, and calls them. Then he walks along the beach and sees two more brothers, James and John, and calls them. They drop everything and follow Jesus.

OUR CALL TO BE A CHRISTIAN

Why are you here today? How and when were you called to be a Christian?

I am a Christian and a Catholic because my mom and dad were Catholic and their parents, and their parents, and their parents were Catholic. When I was doing a bit of genealogy, I got back as far as a guy named, "Edward the Carpenter" – and I assume that he was a Catholic there in Galway Bay, Ireland.

I assume people way, way back somewhere started going to church and people kept on going to church or dropping out and then coming back and I’m the beneficiary of their decisions.

As to the call to be a priest, I’ll find out after I die, whether this was the thing to do or not to do in my life – if that’s the way it works. I know a priest came into our classroom in grammar school and talked about the need for Redemptorist priests in Brazil and asked us to think about a vocation to choose such a life and I thought about it and that’s what I did. So far, so good – except for not getting to Brazil as I hoped.

I love Father Andrew Greeley’s “Call Story”. It's in his autobiography. It went something like this: someone came into his second or third grade classroom and asked, “Does anyone here want to be a priest?” He said, “I raised my hand and I’ve never taken it down.” *

CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL

Today, January 25th, is the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul – and Pope Benedict asks us to reflect upon his life and letters this year. Deacon Tony Norcio is offering a series of talks on St. Paul on Thursday evenings here at St. John Neumann’s. Check it out in the bulletin for details.

Christianity was off and running. Jews were joining this reform movement in Judaism – that Jesus started. A man named Saul, a Pharisee, didn’t like this dangerous trend and started persecuting Christians. On the road to Damascus in Syria this man, Saul, was hit by a bolt of something – fell to the ground – heard a voice, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” He answered, “Who are you?” And Saul, blinded for the moment, gets the insight that he is persecuting Christ. He discovers the followers of Christ are the Body of Christ – the Risen Christ – walking our world. Wow!

How did Saul or Paul get called? It was a very direct conversion – being knocked off one’s feet. Artists and preachers often add that he was knocked off his high horse – but the scriptures don’t have him on a horse. He might have been - but the message is that he had a major conversion, call, change, on his way to arrest Christians in Damascus.

In A.A. – Alcoholics Anonymous – and the many 12 Step programs that use its methodology, there is the saying, "You have to hit bottom – before you can stop hitting the bottle." Does it come from this story of Paul? I don’t know. But many people only change, only hear God’s call, when they hit bottom big time.

HOW DO PEOPLE HEAR GOD’S CALL?

Some people hear God’s call dramatically. Some people hear God’s call slowly? Some people hear God’s call without even knowing it’s happening – and their life changes and grows quite gradually.

How do you hear God’s call?

The big message I’m hearing in spirituality for today is adult religion – having an adult relationship with God – and for the Christian – an adult relationship with Jesus.

People reading the Gospels see Jesus walking into their lives – knocking at their door – sitting down to table with them – and they have heart to heart talks with him. I am the Pharisee. I am the blind, the lame, or the deaf - or all three. I am the rock thrower. I am the woman at the well. I am the one caught in adultery. I am the one who is paralyzed. I am the one who has to forgive and be forgiven 70 times 7 times.

Looking at your life, when have you experienced God’s presence? God’s call? When do you have time to sit down with Jesus?

The Religious Education folks in every parish hope that parents who bring their kids for First Confession and First Communion – also get wind of God’s word.

Yesterday I’m sitting here hoping and saying to myself, “Okay parents you are here this Saturday morning. I hope you’ll be here tomorrow – Sunday morning.”

WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS

I was not a parish priest from 1969 till I came here to Annapolis in August of 2002.

St. Mary's has been a wonderful experience – great people – great parish. Of course we have to listen to the Gospel a lot more – and grow a lot more – and conversion is a lifetime experience.

As to God’s calls – in the last six years I have heard at least 50 times the following. Someone is here for a wedding or a funeral from Chicago or Boston, Virginia or Nevada, and they say after the funeral or wedding, “Thank you for the nice service. I guess I got to get back to church.” Jewish folks have also said that to me. I even got two offers to be a rabbi. That moment makes all the hard work of preparing a wedding or funeral homily and service worth while.

We work. God gives the increase. [Cf. 1 Corinthians 3: 5-9]

HOSPITALS AND DOOR BELLS

Father Joseph McManus, whom I was stationed with in New Jersey in a retreat house around 1970, liked being a parish priest much more than working in a retreat house. Joe is buried in our cemetery in the back lawn of St. Mary’s on Duke of Gloucester Street. I’ve stood over his grave many times. I find that's one way God talks to me – as well as the person whose grave I'm standing on. I read those numbers on tombstones. I wonder about those who have died. I find standing on cemetery ground to be standing on holy ground.

Joe McManus often talked about the importance of hospital ministry as a priest – that the key folks were not the person in the hospital bed – but the spouse and the family of the sick person. He said a hospital is a great place where God speaks to lots of people. How about you? Have you heard God’s call when loved ones got sick and / or died? Today's second reading has those very intriguing words: "... the time is running out." The world hasn't come to an end - like various people in the Early Church expected - but we run out of time. That is to be expected.

Joe also said that Jesus often rang door bells in the skin of the poor looking for help. This parish is one of the best parishes I’ve seen for the generosity of people putting money in the poor box. We also have a great group of parishioners who serve the poor as part of the St. Vincent de Paul team - interviewing, listening, helping the poor in our name with great love, respect and care.

READING AND WRITING

I started writing in the 8th grade – stream of consciousness writing – a la James Joyce writing – long before I heard of James Joyce. I did it for laughs as well as for the joy of writing.

Without knowing it, I was to slowly discover that I wanted to not only be a priest, but also a writer. And both were very possible as priest. I’m finding less and less time for writing the longer I am here – but people are more important than words. That’s obvious. However, I jot down thoughts from this and that while experiencing people and situations here in Annapolis – so that when my legs go – but I hope before dementia sets in, I’ll have lots of notes to do some more writing.

I want to do that because I have found God speaks to me through writing – and I’ve had folks write and tell me that something I wrote helped them. That’s enough for me.

I also have discovered that God speaks to me through reading good stuff. I also would like more time for reading.

How does God speak to you?

Read any good books lately – novels – non-fiction – what have you?

SCRIPTURE AND PRAYER

And obviously, reading scripture and praying with scripture is a classic way God speaks to so many of us. I’m blessed as priest with the opportunity over and over again to preach. That means I have to sit down with the readings for each Mass and let them speak to me.

For instance, today’s first reading from the Prophet Jonah triggers so many powerful thoughts. Jonah was called “The Reluctant Prophet”. When God called him to preach in Nineveh he got on a boat and headed the other way – but finally God forced him to preach in Nineveh. Surprise! People heard the word of God and changed dramatically.

I pinch myself for all the places I have been in the United States – never Brazil – where I had to a chance to preach – the 8 and ½ years I was on the road before I came here to Annapolis – plus 14 years in two different retreat houses – where people came to pray and hear the call of God. Thank You, God. Thank You, God.

CONCLUSION

How does God speak to you?

P.S. I’m trying to reach you through this homily. Are you listening? Are you praying? God is speaking. God is calling you. God is challenging you. "Shush!" [Put finger to lip] Listen. Amen.

* Andrew Greeley, Confessions of a Parish Priest: An Autobiography

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “What Are You Looking For?”

I’m sure I preached on this question somewhere along the line because it’s so obvious a life theme, but if I did, I’m not sure just what I said.

It has to be the theme of many songs. I think of Mariah Carey’s song, “Do You Know Where You’re Going To?” with the line, “Do you like the things life is showing you?” and the haunting refrain, “Do you know?” “Do you know?”

How many times have Best Buy sales folks, parents, teachers, guidance counselors and best friends, asked us, “What are you looking for?”

TODAY’S GOSPEL

In today’s gospel Jesus says to these two disciples of John the Baptist, “What are you looking for?”

It’s one of those questions that we’ve heard a thousand times in our life – and if we’re over 65, we’ve said it to ourselves a half dozen times a day – scratching our head, having walked into another room and wondering, “Now what was I looking for?”

“What are you looking for?”

ANSWERS

Our first answers might be:

· Peace in the world.
· That the economy gets better.
· That people out of work would find jobs.
· That the new president and congress and staffs and state and local governments would help turn things around.
· Good Health and Good Health Care for everyone.
· Peace in our families
· Laughter. Joy. Peace. Hope. A good day every day.

Our second answers might become more specific:

· Health and healing for so and so who has cancer.
· An end to drinking and drugs for so and so.
· That a kid’s marriage will turn around – especially because there are kids involved.
· That there be no plane crashes today, but if there are, let them be as lucky as the one the other day in the Hudson River.

Our third answers might be wider or deeper or different, because we might turn to God more or go down deeper into our soul:

· I would want my life to be more pleasing to God.
· I would want my life – what I’m doing each day – my work - my time at home - my outside interests - to make sense to others and be helpful to others.
· I would want to have loved and been loved.
· I want to see my children’s children!
· I would want the world – well at least the places where I’ve been – to be better because I was there. If you cry every Christmas as you watch the black and white movie, “It’s A Wonderful Life” you’re there. You get it.

POEM

I gave two talks to the Anne Arundel County Catholic Catechists yesterday in St. Jane Frances de Chantal Parish in Pasadena and I used a poem by the Sufi poet Hafiz. It’s entitled, "With That Moon Language."

WITH THAT MOON LANGUAGE*

Admit something:

Everyone you see, you say to them, “Love me.”
Of course you do not do this out loud; otherwise someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye that is always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in the world is dying to hear?

He’s saying if we want to be loved, look deep into the full moon in every eye that is saying the same thing. “Love me.”

What are we looking for? To be loved – so love one another. Sounds familiar? Read the gospel of John – especially his account of the last supper. It’s all about love.

What are you looking for?

TODAY’S GOSPEL

When Jesus asks the disciples that question, they answer with another question, “Rabbi – Teacher – where are you staying?”

Jesus says, “Come, and you will see.”

This scene takes place in the first chapter of the Gospel of John.

The Gospel of John has been reworked and reworked in the early Joannine Community – and it has a rich, well developed theology.

I was recently reading my notes from a book on preaching, Imagining a Sermon. It's by Thomas Trogher. He urges the preacher to use imaginative theology. The preacher has to evoke. He writes, “I will not cheat the congregation by handing them a souvenir from my trip on the river when I can take them along on the voyage and let them feel the current and the water for themselves.”

How do you do that? The Gospel of John can do that. It can take you on the journey to meet, feel, taste, experience Jesus.

The Gospel of John wants us to come and see Jesus – come and be with Jesus – come and stay with Jesus – come and experience Jesus.

And if you have the overpowering experience that one of the disciples, Andrew, has, then you will go about bringing others to Jesus – so they too can have the same experience.

This is the year of the Gospel of Mark for Ordinary Time – but I smiled when today’s gospel for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time is from John. This is the year of Paul. The Pope also said it’s the year for us to be thinking about Africa.

So if you want to be contrary, make this the year of John or the Letter to James for you.

When I say the rosary I only say the Joyful Mysteries. One of these years I might find myself moving into other mysteries, but I haven’t found myself so moved yet – and this has been going on for about twenty years now. And surprise – I’ve met people who said, “Thank you for saying that. I thought I was the only one.” One lady told me she makes only one station of the cross – the fourth station. Isn’t religion interesting?

The gospel of John provides many, many great questions. But notice this one in Chapter One: “What are you looking for?”

And notice the question in Chapter Twenty: “Whom are you looking for?”

Or the question in Chapter Twenty One, the Last Chapter of John, "Have you caught anything yet?"

Notice the other line in the last chapter of John’s gospel, “None of the disciples was bold enough to ask, ‘Who are you?’; they knew quite well it was the Lord.”

Then they had a meal and Jesus asked Simon Peter three times, “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” and three times Peter says “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” And three times Jesus says to Peter, “Look after my sheep – feed my sheep.”

CONCLUSIONS

What am I looking for?

Love – and hopefully in all the right places. Isn’t that what Paul is telling the Corinthians in today’s second reading - to realize our bodies are temples that can hold the Holy Spirit – that we are the body of Christ – and life is to give glory to God – not to immorality?

Today’s first reading has a great text from the first book of Samuel. Three times the Lord calls the young man Samuel – and he is too young to get it. He has to sleep some more. The prophet Eli is there to help him process his calling. [Oh would that the Giants won last Sunday and in that story it was Eli who was sleeping and he didn't wake up.] It seems that for most people we spend a good period of our life sleep walking. Maybe today or this year is the day or year to wake up – if we haven’t yet – and we say and pray to the Lord, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

And today’s Gospel challenges us to discover what and who Andrew discovered in the first chapter of John, “We have found the Messiah. It’s Jesus.” Please God we’ll find Jesus, that we’ll realize that he like everyone else has a sign in his eyes that says, “Love me!” and if we haven’t found him yet, we’ll find him now, love him as the one we are looking for in whatever chapter of our lives we are in now. Amen.**

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*I found the poem by Hafiz in Chapter 8 of “Ten Poems to Change Your Life Again and Again”, by Roger Housden. It is translated by Daniel Ladinski. It is worth reading to get a far better explanation of this poem than the quick comments I made.

** And then there is the book, The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, by St. Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorists. He discovered that the meaning of life was to practice loving Jesus Christ. How? By putting into practice all those wonderful descriptions of love that Paul gives in First Corinthians 13:1-13 that so many couples pick for a reading at their wedding. Alphonsus had a great love for Jesus being born for us, giving his life for us, especially in the Eucharist and dying on the cross for us. Alphonsus, like Andrew in today’s Gospel, went around telling everyone, especially the poorest and most abandoned, that they are loved by Jesus. Yes – even the poorest and forgotten have that message in their eyes, “Love me!”

*

THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “The Theory of Relativity.”

You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to understand his, “Theory of Relativity.”

When some of his students at Princeton asked him to explain it, he said something like this, “When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours–that’s relativity.”**

One of my favorite ways of saying the same thing is, “How long a minute takes, depends on which side of the bathroom door you’re on.”

How long a minute takes depends whether you’re the doctor or whether you’re the patient in the waiting room; whether you’re the teacher or whether you’re the student; whether you’re the cab driver or whether you’re the passenger looking at the meter.

How long a sermon takes depends upon who’s preaching – or whether you’re wondering about a football game – or where your car is parked – or you're antsy about a crying baby or what have you – or where you are in your life. It’s all relative. It all depends.

TODAY’S FEAST: THE BAPTISM OF JESUS

Today’s feast is the Baptism of Jesus. Today’s gospel from Mark has this sentence in an English translation from the Greek, “It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John.” [Cf. Mark 1:9]

“It happened.”

I like those two words.

Picture a kid throwing a basketball in the living room to another kid and the basketball hits and breaks a Waterford crystal vase. That kid would add the word, “just” and say, “It just happened.”

It just happened that there was a Waterford crystal vase there on an end table – and one kid seeing another kid with a ball went, “Throw” and just then Ed Reed made an interception and the kid with the ball was also watching the Ravens game on television in the background and the basketball when tossed didn’t go where the thrower intended to throw it – and “It just happened” to break the Waterford crystal.

Jesus at that moment in the river – far from home – just happens to hear a voice from the heavens say, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” And Jesus sees the sky open – and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him. [Cf. Mark 1:11]

And Jesus changes the pattern of his life.

He’s no longer the carpenter with wood. He’s now the carpenter with words.

He’s no longer the quiet man of Nazareth. He’s now the Word proclaimed to the world.

And then he began walking and preaching – reaching out and healing – and if people just happened to be at the right place at the right time, their life could change – interception – a change could happen in the direction of their game.

Old patterns can break.

It’s all relative. It all depends.

Grace can be amazing – and save a wretch like me.

TAKE SOME TIME

Take some time to look at your life – your moments – the moments you were intercepted – the moments you broke – or were broke – the moments in your life that you changed or were changed.

Other people were in the same place and the same time – and what happened to you didn’t happen to them. Experience is relative.

If I heard the following from priests once, I heard the following a dozen times. Someone comes up to a priest and says, “What you said changed my life.” And the priest says, “What did I say?” Obviously we would want to know the answer to that question. And the person says something the priest knows he didn’t say.

Surprise.

Life is the surprise – the serendipity – the juggling of so many different things – that make what happens, happen.

My mother in Boston said “Yes” to the last of ten years of love letters from my father in New York, and they got married and four kids later I was on this planet.

How about you? Where did you come from? Why are you here? What’s your story? What’s your great, great, great grandmother’s story? It’s all relative.

I also love the saying, “If you want to change somebody, you have to change their grandmother.”

MOMENTS OF CONVERSION

As priest I’m always amazed at conversion moments. In today’s first reading from Isaiah, I love the text, “… so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; my word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”

To me that has always been an amazing insight from Isaiah 55 - verse 11

Every drop of rain has a purpose.

Every snow flake has a purpose.

Every word we say has a purpose.

I have never forgotten a sermon where someone said that Jesus rained the word of God on the rich young man to let go of everything and come follow him – and he walked away sad, but around the year 285 a man named Anthony – of Egypt - walked into church late – heard those words – dropped everything and followed Jesus. [Cf. Matthew 19:22]

So parents, every time you say good stuff to your kids – every time you pick up a cranky kid and you say, “I love you!” it’s like rain, it’s like seed, it’s like a love letter from New York to Boston. It’s going to produce results.

Amazing.

It’s also scary.

I still remember walking along Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, New York as a little kid and going by a gas station. A guy inside one of the bays starts screaming words at this other guy – words I never heard from my mother or father or at home. Then the guy doing all the screaming throws a tire iron at the other guy. Till this day I can still hear the metallic clanging sound of that tire iron bouncing along macadam.

No wonder e.e. cummings said, “be of love a little more careful than anything.” He could have said the same of hate.

BAPTISM

So Jesus heard those words of love that day at his baptism, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

So we baptize our babies. So we have birthday parties for our spouse and our kids. So we go on vacation with each other. So we visit each other. So we eat with each other. So we send words to each other.

Every moment is sacred – and every person will experience their every moments differently – based on how lightning strikes them in the big moments of their life – and how a lightning bug strikes them in the little tiny moments of their life.

During this meal, during this Mass, just become quiet, and listen. Listen and hear God saying over you, “You are my beloved daughter. You are my beloved son – with you I am well pleased.”

Just as the priest at Mass says Jesus' words over bread and wine – and they become the body and blood of Christ – so too God’s words over us can have a profound change.

Listen God is speaking.

Listen and God is saying many other things to us as well.

God is sending down messages – like rain – like snow – like lightning – like seed – on everyone of us here – all the time.

Listen – the atmosphere is filled with God – with the Spirit – silent like a dove – as amazing as light traveling at 186,282 miles per second – but a split second different if we were at the equator than if we were at the poles.

CONCLUSION

Of course this is all relative. We couldn’t take all these realities at once. That would be like having Christmas or our birthday 365 days a year. But sometimes – sometimes – some days we have a moment like Jesus experienced that day at the Jordan River. We experience God’s presence and God’s love for us – all around us – surrounding us – embracing us – and we lose consciousness of time. It might happen in a split second and it feels like an hour. It might be an hour and it feels like a split second.

The Spirit of God comes down on us like a dove – and we feel loved – beloved by God – and our life is changed – rebaptized – washed – refreshed in the downpour – the showers – the waters – the rivers – the ocean – the atmosphere of God that surrounds us every moment of our life.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
* Picture on top by Lotte Jacobi

**There are some excellent short film clips on the Internet that explain Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Just type into Google, “Einstein: Theory of Relativity.” Go into the Wikipedia article and go to External Notes at the bottom. Then click on films and animations. There is one short film that shows twin jugglers – one on land – one on a boat – both juggling at the same time – and because the boat is moving – there is a difference. There is another film that shows a man with a right angle box mirror as he watches lightning hitting two poles. If he is on land it hits both polls at the same time, but it hits the poles at different times for a man with a right angle box mirror on a moving train. Huh? You have to see the film. But I guarantee if you looked at these short films and experiments, you’d get something different out of what you were seeing from what I was seeing. It’s all relative. Amazing. Moreover I'm more a poet than a physicist.

LOST

UMBRELLA

It rained all day.

It kept us inside
till we got restless,
till we wanted to
go outside.
Sometimes
searching for
lost umbrellas
gets us talking.
Sometimes
searching for
lost umbrellas
we find things
we forgot we
were looking for
and we decide
to stay inside
and talk some more.

© Andy Costello,

Reflections, 2009

GAMES

Games. Games. Games.
Who wants to play games?
I’m even sick
of the word, “Games”.
Give me names, names
names of people
who don’t want
to play games?

© Andy Costello,

Reflections, 2009

ROLE PLAYING

Somehow she seemed
like a mother superior,
who would play the part
of a mother superior
in a play or a movie.
We thought she thought
she was superior.
Did she feel she was inferior?
Time will tell the truth to her
as she watches her part
long after the play is over,
long after we the audience
have gone home.

© Andy Costello,

Reflections, 2009

SECOND CHANCE

Family members watched them,
these two, both married before,
both chasing each other,
like kids in a school yard,
like leaves caught in an autumn wind.

Family members talked about them
behind their backs, these two, both broken,
spinning in this new chance to dance,
hoping people learn from mistakes,
hoping people don’t hurt each other.

They talked about fear of Winter.
They talked about hope for Spring.
They talked about past and future.
They talked about thaw and resurrection.
Isn’t life filled with second chances?

Family members, like birds in trees,
sitting there watching
above the frozen fields of leaves,
some chirping songs of hope,
some chirping sour notes.

They got through the Winter to Spring.
Birds singing, building nests, starting again,
family members getting used to the two of them.
Then together they celebrated a new marriage
that April – a second chance.

© Andy Costello,
Reflections, 2009

CHOICE OF CHAIRS

When hurt,
I choose to sit in soft chairs.

I smile outwardly.

I sulk inwardly.

I am a stuffed chair
in a stuffed room.

I sit here with the hope
you’ll come and say,
“It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”

Will you?

I’m still waiting.

It hasn’t happened yet.

I guess stuffed chairs hide their feelings
better than hard wooden chairs.

Or am I being stupid?
Am I simply being stubborn?

Why don’t I just get up and walk over
to you in your chair and say,
“I’m sorry this happened. Let’s next.”

© Andrew Costello,

Reflections, 2009

STEPS:
THE BLESSING AND THE CURSE

Steps: the story of a life.
Steps: the blessing and the curse.
Steps: the little kid seeing all those tall legged creatures climbing all those stairs – so, so easily – and we have barely learned to walk.
Steps: the little kid looking at the more of life – the wondering “What’s up there?” or “What’s down there?”
Steps: the old folk seeing all those tall legged creatures climbing up and down those stairs – so, so easily – and we barely finished, said, or did the things we wanted to finish, say and do.
Steps: the old folk feeling the less of life – the wondering, “What’s up there?” or “What’s down there?”
Steps: the blessing and the curse.
Steps: the story of a life.

© Andrew Costello
Reflections, 2009

Steps at the

Foyle River Bridge,

Derry, Northern Irleland

BLESSINGS 

ON A LOST CHILD

Jesus often saw them on the edge of the crowd,
these young folks who couldn’t commit –
these young folks who had to run to far countries –
to party, and then to pigsty it – and then sometimes,
but only sometimes, head home sheepishly.
Then, surprise, to see – and then to feel –
the welcoming embrace of a loving father or mother –
and then the anger of older brothers or sisters.
Jesus knew life – family life. Jesus knew that
his Father feels what so many parents feel:
stray, lost, prodigal sons or daughters.
Jesus saw his far off Father waiting, waiting.
Jesus knew returns can be long in coming.
So Jesus, the Son, tried to put into words
what his Father felt, what so many parents feel.
Jesus with serious face and serious words
told crowds about lost sheep, coins,
sons and daughters – and then….
Then with a great smile Jesus would tell
about the joy his Father felt
in the banquet halls of heaven –
when He announced to the great crowds of heaven,
“Good News! One more lost child has come home!”
And Jesus could hear the outbreak, the clapping,
the pandemonium of joy in the banquet halls of Heaven.

© Andrew Costello

Reflections, 2009

CLEAN CALENDAR

Lord, I’m beginning this new year
with a clean calendar.
By the end of the year
it will be marked up, messed up,
ending up looking like
a kid’s magazine in a dentist office.

There will be scheduled
and rescheduled meetings and games,
appointments and disappointments,
birthdays and anniversaries.

And then there will be the unscheduled:
hospital visits, wakes, funerals.

Hopefully there will also be surprise,
those joyful interruptions
to our scheduled and structured life:
a friend from long ago
will be in the area and will call.
Surprise! We have an opening
for them in our messy calendar.

And hopefully, too, I'll have time
for You, Lord, on my calendar this year.

© Andrew Costello

Reflections, 2009

GO FIGURE!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Go Figure!”

Today is a wonderful feast to have at the beginning of a new year: the feast of the Epiphany.

What am I going to do with my life in this new year, 2009?

Go figure!

This year, will I have an epiphany – a great insight – a light that will go on – a star shining over and pointing out the thing I really need to do with my life?

Go figure?

More and better: what am I going to do not just this year – but with the rest of my life? And hopefully, that means years to come?

Go figure!

Where am I headed? What’s next? What’s down the line? What is the journey of life all about? It’s the old catechism question: Why did God make me?

Go figure.

Isn’t life a search for meaning – for epiphanies – for insights – for lightning bolt assurances – for amazing graces – for things that make sense? *
Isn’t life all about, “Going and figuring.”

Go figure.

Don’t we come to church to come figure out life?

We have all these stars up here on our ceiling. Is one of them pointing out something to us?

I was visiting my sister and brother-in-law for New Year’s. We were out shopping. When we came back my brother-in-law Jerry was parking their car in their garage. I noticed they have this neat red beam that tells the driver just where to stop the car. Wonderful. Wouldn’t it be neat to have red beams telling us what to do each day?

Or would it?

DISTRACTIONS

To me, life is all about distractions. I don’t get it when people confess having distractions as sins. Okay deliberate distractions and not listening.

Distractions are the constant inner chattering of the human brain – the amazing human brain – constantly searching – figuring – questioning – deciding – re-questioning – moving.

Don’t we spend most of our lives searching – looking – moving – wondering – wandering – risking – trying - hoping to find answers to questions we sometimes don’t even know we’re on a quest with?

Aren’t we all searchers? Isn’t the question mark our symbol? I picture everyone having as their flag, a big white sheet with a big black question mark on it.

We even do this in our sleep. Dreams are all about searching – getting lost – trapped – being with strange rangers in strange situations. At least that’s the experience we tell each other at the breakfast table – if it was a dramatic dream we remembered.

How many times have we found ourselves in the morning sitting there on the edge of our bed like Rodin’s statue, “The Thinker!” and we’re saying, “Now what was that all about?”

Go figure!

THE THREE KINGS

The three kings…. We’re not sure whether they were kings or that they were three – but three is a good number to picture the story.

The three kings …. They represent us. We’re all searchers – for God – for a Savior – for a Leader – for a King – for One who will tell us what it’s all about.

The three kings…. They are not just the stuff of statues in church – or lawn or Christmas card or under our Christmas tree. They are the stuff of story. They are under our story.

The three kings…. They are also called Wise Men and Magi. They are wise because they kept on searching till they found what they were looking for.

THE STAR

The star is essential to the story.

We’re looking for signs – stars that point the way – to what we’re looking for – the ultimates of life – the deepest meanings of life.

We see lights – insights from time to time: these are our personal epiphanies.

Have we arrived yet at our crib and our Bethlehem or are we still on the journey – still searching?

Have we seen the star yet – our star – the right star?

We can’t see stars in the day. We can only see the stars when we are in the dark. And sometimes we don’t look up. Sometimes we forget we’re searching. Sometimes we’re stopped or stuck somewhere. And sometimes it’s cloudy in our night – the dark night of our soul.

Then sometimes we wake up because we’re rattled or frustrated or lost and in the dark. Then we look up and see the right star and a possible new direction and we get back on our camel and start moving again.

Then like the Magi – we ask questions. Notice they are men and they ask for directions. Amazing. And they are making the journey together. It’s always wise to do life together – with others.

THE JOURNEY

The journey story is everyone’s story.

Think of the movies we like. They will tell us a lot about ourselves.

And movies are all about moves!

It could be The Wizard of Oz. That movie is all about the journey – the search – or as Dorothy puts it, “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look further than my own backyard, because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.” We want to feel at home. Home means we’re no longer running the bases. We’ve arrived. We can relax. We’re in our place – in the dugout. Home. Back with the people we know and love. Phew.

But look at how much Dorothy learned on the journey: how we need each other – that there are Wizards and Witches, – that we need courage when we feel like a cowardly lion, brains when we feel like a scarecrow or straw person, a heart and a soul, an inside, a spirit, when we feel like we’re a Tin Person, a Robot.

It could be the Jason Bourne movies. We’re running, running, running, trying to find out who we really are.

It could be Doctor Zhivago, my favorite movie, Yuri trying to find security, home, family, future, career, – in the midst of war and strife and everything including weather seems to be conspiring against him. **
The journey story is everyone’s story – not just the three kings or wise men – not just Jason Bourne and Dorothy – or George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, not just Dante and Don Quixote, not just in the ancient stories, the Iliad and the Odyssey.

We’re always searching. Meaning is our distraction. We might be in traffic or a meeting or in church or talking with someone – but we’re elsewhere – on the journey – trying to go figure what life’s all about.

That’s why we have these texts in the gospels about people on journeys coming up to Jesus and asking him, “What’s it all about?” What’s the first and greatest commandment? And Jesus sums it all up. It’s all about loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

We read. We hear the scriptures stories. We go figure.

THE GIRL IN THE DOLL HOUSE

In this homily, I'm saying we're all like the Magi - going through life searching. Don’t we all have things we’re looking for or trying to figure out or years - while we’re looking for ways to pay our bills, raise our kids, do our job, keep our job, find a job, love our spouse, enjoy a football game or a book or a trip to the mall or a play or a movie or a walk at Quiet Waters Park or the Naval Academy or Navy Stadium?

While driving along some road, some 30 years ago, I was listening to some audio tapes by the Jesuit priest, Bernard Bassett. He told a story about a little girl. About 20 years later I realized he said something very important – that I had been thinking about semi-consciously many times on many roads afterwards.

What I remembered went something like this. He was visiting an institute for little kids who had psychological problems for various reasons. The staff worked with these kids – maybe from broken homes – or they were abused or this or that – in hopes that they would get healthy. One day he was looking through one of those one way windows you see in movies. He was sitting with a child psychologist who pointed out a little girl in this big doll house. "Hopefully," the psychologist said, "the little girl will look up and look out a window of this big doll house she was playing in and see other kids playing together here and there." He said that the little girl controlled life in her doll house - giving directions to this doll and that doll – but they were not live persons. Then he said, "If the little girl opens the door and walks out and over to other kids and starts to interact with them, some of whom will not notice her, she’s on her way to being healed."

Isn't that the great epiphany of life - to come out of our own little world - and journey out into the bigger world and interact with other people?

Isn’t that what all of you who are parents are very concerned about – that your kids will look up and come out of themselves – and go out and interact with our world – making this world a better world?

In the meanwhile I kept looking for the tape of that story to see how close I was to what Bernard Basset really said. There I was at Faulkner, Maryland with some of our high school seniors on a retreat at the Jesuit Retreat House. I spotted a cabinet with some audio tapes. Surprise – all the tapes by Bassett were there, except the one I wanted. It was missing.

Surprise! A year later I’m in our Redemptorist Retreat House, San Alfonso, in Long Branch, New Jersey with our high school juniors. I spotted a box of books to be discarded. There was a book by Bernard Basset. I open it and see the story I was looking for in print. I was right about the big doll house – but there was also a glass phone booth. The girl was in the phone booth on that particular day. If she opened the telephone booth door and walked towards the kids – she was on her way towards healing – even if some kids would ignore her. ***

CONCLUSION

Today’s feast of the Epiphany is about such moments. What did the 3 kings or Magi or Wise Men discover that day?

Go figure.

What I figure is this: life is all about discovering life is not about me but it’s about the other – especially the child. The call is to keep life going for those around us.

How many people wrapped up in themselves – get married – and come out of themselves if blessed with a child – with children. The mother and father stand there over their child’s crib. They look down at new life. They realize this is what it's all about. They have an epiphany. Their life is about to change - big time.

A baby needs time and gifts – not gold, frankincense and myrrh, but gold, food and attention.

For those of us without children, we have to discover the same message – that life is for the next generation – not ourselves.

What personally hits me is that a priest is called “Father”.

What hits you personally about this feast of the Epiphany?

After Mass come up to the creche, the nativity scene. See the 3 kings. See the child in the crib.

See yourself as a child in that crib - that you were honored at your birth. Then you had to grow up and see that life is stepping up and out of childhood and learning to do for the next generation. - starting with children and on and on and on.

Now that’s an epiphany.

Go figure.

* Check out the writings of Joan Didion, for example, The Year of Magical Thinking, (2005) and We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, (2006)

** Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, (1957) and movie, Doctor Zhivago, (1965).

*** Bernard Basset, S.J. The Noonday Devil, Spiritual Support in Middle Age, "The Girl In The Telephone Booth," pp. 69-86, Image Books, 1968