IRISH,  ITALIAN  AND  SPANISH 

LAYING  CLAIM  TO  COSTELLO 

Gregory  Kane 

Baltimore  Sun 

Pages  1b,  3 

ASK AND ye shall receive.

Some 113 callers responded to Wednesday's column with the questions about the name Costello and comedian Lou Costello. To refresh memories, I will go through the questions one by one.

n Is the name Costello-Irish or Italian?

Readers were divided on this one.

“My good friend Bernie Costello is 100 percent Irish,” said Pat Murphy. Mary Ellen Johnson called in her opinion that the Costello name is Irish.

“[Rock singer) Elvis Costello is Irish,” she said. “I think.” Ed Stetka said his wife is Irish, and her branch of the family is named Costello. Michael Daugherty and Susan Costello also said the Susan Costello also said the name was Irish, with Costello adding that the name was prominent in Ireland's County Mayo.

Even a member of the judiciary got in on the debate. Circuit Judge Kathleen O'Ferrall Friedman said Costello is an Irish name.

“I've got tons often,” she said in reference to her family members who are named Costello, “And I've just come from Ireland, where the name was everywhere.”

But others said they know American Costellos with both Irish and Italian ancestry.

“Yes and yes,” said Alan Walden of WBAL. “Costello is both Irish and Italian. The Irish pronounce it CAH-stel-oh, with the accent on the first syllable. The Italians pronounce it cah-STEL-oh, with the accent on the second syllable.”

Eleven callers claimed the name Costello is neither Irish nor Italian, but Spanish Sailors in the Spanish Armada who survived when the fleet was destroyed in a storm off the Irish coast intermarried with native Irish women and left Spanish surnames.

But Lorenzo Gaztannga left the intriguing message that Spanish Costellos may have been descendants of Italian immigrants to Spain.

“Immigration started long before America,” Gaztannga said. “The Costello name immigrated to Spain and Ireland in the early days of European immigration.”

Were Lou Costello's ancestors Irish or Italian?

Most callers left messages that Costello was not tile comedian's real last name. He adopted that name out of admiration for Delores Costello, an actress of the 1930s who helped him with  his career. Costello was born Louis Francis Cristillo in March 1906, most callers said. But there is some dispute on the spelling of the last name.

Al DiCenso recalled: “My grandparents came from Italy to Paterson, N.J., where Lou was born. My father and his brothers were born there, as was I. I'm told by my father that Lou was a contemporary of his, that they hey went to the same high school but were not classmates.... Lou's mother and my grandmother were 4-iPnd., that time was Cristelli.”

Other callers said Lou Costello was both Italian and Irish. Sources as varied as almanacs, encyclopedias and the Internet were cited, but all agreed that Lou's father was an Italian named Sebastian and his mother an Irish woman named Helen.

Preston Pardue said Costello was his second cousin. His grandmother, Eva Zissimos, and Costello's mom were sisters. Costello would often visit his Aunt Eva, who lived on 36th Street in Hampden.

Perdue said he was 7 weeks old when his cousin Lou Costello held him at his christening, following a tradition that said if you hold a male child at his christening, you would have a boy of your own.

“Six months later, he did have a son,” Perdue remembered, “but he died tragically in a pool accident. Lou actually went on stage and performed for an hour knowing his son had just died.”

Lou Costello: half-Irish, half-Italian and an all-American original. This discussion leaves you pining away for him and his partner, Bud Abbott, doesn't it? I loved Abbott and Costello when I was a boy. Especially Costello. He provided continuous joy in a world that was sometimes joyless and sometimes not very child-friendly. When in March 1959 other kids in the neighborhood told me Costello was dead, my tortured 7-year-old self immediately concluded I would see no more of his movies.

That misconception was soon cleared up. The comedy of Bud and Lou lives on through the magic of celluloid. Most of us know their “Who's on first?” routine by heart. Isn't it still funnier than what passes for comedy today, when comedians think humor is defined by the number of four-letter words used in a routine?

My thanks to all the folks who called in. You've confirmed my belief that if you want to know anything, just consult Sun readers.

_________________________________________________________________

Gregory  Kane  died  at  the   age of 62 on February 18, 2014

August 21, 2019

SOME  SERMONS

Some sermons wake us up.

Some sermons put us to sleep.

Some sermons pull us up.

Some sermons put us down.

Some sermons grab us by the shoulders,

shake us, and ask, “What about this?”

Some sermons take us into our past.
Some sermons take us into our future.

Some sermons put us in the sacrament

      of the present moment.

Some sermons get us to say,

“I wish so and so was here to hear this.”

Some sermons get us to say, “I disagree!”

Some sermons get us to laugh.
Some sermons - a few of them - get us to cry.

Some sermons get us to ask,

“What does this have to do with Jesus?”

Some sermons are full of grace and we say,

“Lord, it is good for us to be here.”

Some sermons get us to say,

“I’m out of here.”

Some sermons get you thinking,

“He didn’t prepare this?”

Some sermons get you thinking,

“Why don’t we give women

the next 2000 years to do this?”

Some sermons are homilies; 

      some are somebody's else's stuff?

Some sermons are from God.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

August  21, 2019

Thought for today: 

“A cask of wine works more miracles than a church full  of  saints.”  

Italian Proverb

EVERYONE

Everyone has a voice.

Everyone has something to say.

Everyone has something to sing.

Everyone has to hear their own voice first,

their own voice from deep within.

Everyone has a scream for justice,

for love, for fairness, for respect.

Everyone needs an audience.

Everyone needs applause when

they sing their song, when

they sing their best.

Everyone needs to listen to the other

to call out their message,

to say, “Well, you’ve heard

me sing. Now let me hear

your song! Amen."

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

August  20, 2019 - 

Thought for today: 

“Life is one damned thing after another.” 

Attributed  to  Frank
Ward O’Malley.  

But Edna St. Vincent Millay in Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay, says, “It is not true that life is one damn thing after another - it’s one damn thing over and over.”

THE  BAD  SAMARITAN

Spotted a small crawly thing 

on our gray tile kitchen floor …. 

It was upside down - on its back - 

with its legs all a motion …. 

Do I step on it, get a paper napkin  
and then  bury it in our garbage can? 

Do I rescue it - open up the kitchen 

window - and dump it outside? 

I did neither. I just walked by. 

Sometimes priests do that. 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019
Cf. Luke 10: 31

August  19, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“We’re drowning in information and starving  for  knowledge.”  

Rutherford D. Rodgers, Librarian, Yale, 

“On the enormous number of books,

 periodicals and other documents 

published each year,” quoted in 

the New York Times, February 25, 1985

August 18, 2019

COMPARISONS

Comparisons, as they say, can crush

and crumble and humble a person -

that is, if we  let them happen to us.

But how can we not, when parents

and siblings, teachers and advertisers -

start to shout out comparisons at us?

Oh,  it’s easy to say, “Be yourself” -

but down deep the others really

don’t want us to be ourselves.

They want us to be remade in the

image and likeness they have

of us. They like to play God.

But ….

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

August  18, 2019 

Thought for today:

 “Gossip is just news running ahead of  itself in a red satin dress.”  

Liz Smith,  Dallas 

Times-Herald, August 3, 1978

SAN  ALFONSO  

RETREAT  HOUSE 

WEST END, NEW JERSEY 

August  17, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“Melody is a form of remembrance …. It must have a quality  of  inevitability in our ears.”  

Gian Carlo Menotti, Time, May 1, 1950

PUT  YOUR  TWO  CENTS  IN

Take out your wallet. Put your
two cents in. Buy the lemonade.

Say, “Keep the change, Kid!” 

Watch the kid’s eyes - as well as

the beggar in the doorway. 

Hear the music. Notice what 
happens when people are nice 
to each other in the plaza, 

in traffic and in the parking lot.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

August 16, 2019

SATURDAY  WEDDINGS

It’s Friday evening and thousands 

of couples meet to practice for their 

wedding and their marriage on the 

morrow. They meet in church or

chapel - temple or beach - mountain 

or river - and they go through the 

motions practicing  for tomorrow. 

And each time as priest, I pray for 

them - and I think of Grace and
Joseph Mary Plunkett -  who had 

15 minutes of marriage - 15 minutes - 

and I pray that their love - their 

vows - their promises - their dreams 

for  a lifetime last - last - last - last …. 

And then the next day, at their 

wedding ceremony,  I pray 

for them and all the couples 

present that they will realize 

and remember they only have 

so many minutes left, filled 

with all the graces God gives us. 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

August 16, 2019

Thought for the Day:

 MY  DAUGHTER 

My daughter died on a warm day in July. I'm not sure exactly which day, or even that "she" was a "she" at all, if you want to be really specific. At nine and a half weeks, the organs that determined these things weren't fully formed, much less detectable by sonogram. And even though I had seen pictures on the Internet of nine-and-a-­half-week-old fetuses, the doctor refused to speak in any concrete terms. We did not say the word baby. Instead, she referred to the painful night of bleeding, cramps, and tears as the "passing of cells and tissues.”

I suppose these words, cells and tissues, were what made it easier for people to say things like "You can have more" and "Things happen for a reason.”  They did not know that in my imagina­tion she had dark hair and porcelain skin dotted with freckles like her dad. We made up silly songs together, and she danced around the house in pink tutus and patent leather shoes. She drew pictures of bright yellow suns and green grass that I had already hung up on my fridge. She would fall asleep on the giant paws of my Saint Bernard, her guardian who lovingly endured all manner of bows and barrettes fastened to his reddish brown fur. She was an athlete; she was an artist; she was my first child. She had yet to draw her first breath in this world, but she was very much alive. She even had a name.

There was no funeral, no memorial marking, a gravesite, because there was no burial. Barely anyone acknowledged that she was even gone. It felt strange mourning for someone whom no one else seemed to know existed, much less felt their absence when they were gone. Some­one who changed the direction of my life so profoundly without ever uttering a single word had left this world as unremarkably as she had entered it.

I often wonder the purpose of a life that lived for only nine weeks, just long enough to make me sick at the smell of chicken and want to lie on the couch all day. I grapple daily with the notion that all things have a purpose in a divine plan, when things feel anything but carefully designed. But I do know that this baby made me a mom for the first time, if only briefly.  And no amount of time will change that.

—   Sarah Schaffner is a freelance writer and editor living in Baltimore.

August 15, 2015

GOING  BY  GRAVEYARDS

Driving through Annapolis,

heading away from downtown,

when I’m on West Street,

when I’m going by the 3 cemeteries there -

I feel the difference between them

and  McDonalds and car dealerships.

I feel the heaviness  of  life gone by -

family loss - the last page of a book.

Those gravestones weigh me down

like the dead being tossed overboard

at sea with stones tied around the corpse.

But life goes on for me - till I’m buried

where I’m buried …. In the meanwhile

I have many more pages to be written,

many more stories to be part of …. I hope.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

August  15, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“Be a first-rate version of yourself, not a  second-rate  version of someone else.” 

Judy Garland told that 

to her daughter Liza Minelli. 

Annapolis Capital, B. 5,

 January 1, 2019

August 14, 2019

Thought for today: 

“Yosemite Valley, to  me,  is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.”  

Ansel Adams, 

The Portfolios 

of Ansel Adams, 

NY Graphic Society/ 

Little Brown, 1981

August 14, 2019

A  MOMENT  OF  TIME

Think about it ….

To think about the times 

of one’s life means I can 

stop and look at the times 

I’ve had - sort of like taking 

a photo - and then pointing 

at a picture to ourselves 

and if it’s amazing, to say, 

“Hey look at this picture.” 

Life comes, a moment at a time…. 

Think about it …. 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019
Picture: With Gloria Goldberger
a short time before she died of cancer.
She and her husband, Marty,
were great friends of my brother Billy
and his wife, Joanne.

August 13, 2019

LAW  OF  GRAVITY

Was there a moment -

when God in the middle of

of a really creative mood - said,

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,

I better add some gravity

to all of this - otherwise too many

things would be crashing into

each other - and it would really

make life too, too complicated”?

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

August 13, 2019 -

Thought for today:

“When something needs to be painted it lets me know.”  

Luis Frangella,  

Esquire April 1986

August  12,  2019

WALLS

They have their value …. Of course ….

But like a knife or a hammer - they

can also be used to hurt another.

So we have to sit near rocks and

at the edge of differences - and talk

to one another about our questions.

Then - gates might open and fears might
come out from under our rocks - and rants 
from out of the cold caves in our minds.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

Thought for today: 

“If the whole human  race  lay in one grave,  the epitaph on its headstone might  well be; ‘It seemed a good idea at  the time.’”   

Rebecca West, 

New York Times, 

October 2, 2977

IS  THIS PARABLE 

MEANT  FOR  ME? 

INTRODUCTION 

The title of my homily for this 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time  [C] is, “Is This Parable Meant for Me?”

It’s the question Peter asks Jesus in today’s  Gospel.  There it is in the beginning of the 3^rd paragraph in today’s gospel in our missalette on page 199:  “Then Peter said, ‘Lord, is this parable meant for us or for everyone?”

That’s Luke 12: 41.  Luke is our Gospel for this year - and if any gospel is the gospel with the parables - it’s Luke.

So listen up when you come to church - especially this year.

So when we come to church and we stand for the gospel - or if we’re present for the readings we ought to  be asking Peter’s question: “Lord, are any of the readings for today meant for me?”

So once more that’s the title of my homily for today: “Is This Parable Meant for Me?”

That’s one of the things the preacher is trying to do: prepare this meat well for these hungry customers.

The preacher’s job is to be a good cook - a good meat preparer.

In the seminary, during the summer, I used to be on the hamburger crew. Every Wednesday evening we prepared, grilled and served over 100 hamburgers.

Years later, in our retreat house in New Jersey - where I’m about to be stationed again - I was in on the steak cooking.  We had these big baking pans each with about 25 rectangular sirloin steaks - the size of two fists.  

On the lawn, near the picnic area, we had a 55 gallon metal drum cut in half - loaded with charcoal - with a grating on top. 

Someone came up with a  secret for serving over 100 people in quick motion. Put those pans - each with about 25 steaks - in the oven to slightly  warm them up beforehand. Then bring them out just in time to these large folding tables outside.  Then when the boys were ready to eat - they would line up with plates in hand - and head for the steaks. We the cooks would toss them on the blazing charcoal fire and the customer would yell, “Raw red”, “Medium” or “Well done.”

The raw babies would be on that stove for seconds - with the blazing flame getting better and better because of the fat from the steaks. Medium and well-done would take a little longer.

Guys would yell, pointing, “I want that one. That one is meant for me.”

There it is my sermon:  “Is This Steak, Is this Parable, Meant for Me?”

QUESTIONS

In the gospels there are about 33 parables - but often counted in various other ways.

Here’s my first question for this homily: “Pause and ponder: which parable in the gospels is meant for me?” 

Is there one parable you have wrestled with all your life?  For example: The Parable of the Prodigal Son, or at times have you felt like the Lost Sheep? Am I the man in last Sunday’s parable with the barns who is about to rebuild bigger barns and the poor sucker, Jesus tells us, is about to die that night? How about the Good Samaritan?  How about the 4 types of people who hear the word of God: the hard cement heads, the shallow, the busy with lots of projects or pots on their stove, and those with great soil?

So which parable is meant for me?

There’s a whole adult-ed course there.

Get your Bible - get a spiral note pad - do your homework?  Or you can use a computer, etc.,  etc., etc.

List them. Pick your steak. Chew it. Digest it.

Let Jesus feed you as we heard he would do in today’s gospel. He said if you are a good servant, if you wait on him, he’ll come and knock on your door, sit you down and wait on you. Yep, that’s what it says in today’s gospel, in this tricky parable for today. It’s not as clear as last weeks, but it’s here for our meal this Sunday.

NEXT  QUESTION

Looking at your life, what have been the parables that grabbed you? What have been the novels, the stories, the movies that moved you? What have been the conversations that have helped convert you, change you?

Who have been the most significant people in your life - whose questions, challenges, messages, comments - or silent example have made you who you are today?

What were the scenes you were meant to see?

Once more, the title of my homily is, “Is This Parable Meant for Me?

My dad took us four kids  to the park every Sunday when we were kids to give my mother every Sunday a break. I see my brother did the same thing taking his 7 daughters to museums in Washington every Sunday to give his wife a break. I saw my nice Jeanie’s husband David doing the same thing with their 3 kids to give her a break.

That was a parable from my dad and my brother and my niece's husband.

I saw a play on Broadway once, The Price. It was an Arthur Miller, of Death of Salesman fame, play.  One brother did college. One brother dropped out and became a cop - to take care of their father. The cop on stage says to the older brother who comes back for the will and the appraisal and the question about who gets the father’s furniture. 

The cop brother says to his brother, “You want the God Almighty handshake from me after all these years and you’re not going to get it.”  

It went something like that and I’ve seen that parable, that scene,  play out in front of me many times - in various ways - through the years - especially as priest - dealing with moments around hospital beds and wakes and funerals.

That was a parable meant for me.

They are the scenes - the moments - the stories that get stuck in our memory.

Years ago I went to a Broadway matinee  with a group of staff at a retreat house where I worked - the one I’m going back to. This parable also happened years ago.

The musical, the matinee was  No, No Nanette. The plan was to get the tickets at the door. Someone had called and they were told that there were plenty of seats - because the play had been running for quite some time.

Well, we got balcony seats along the wall and all we could see was the first third of the stage - the up-front  part.  But what we could see was the orchestra pit right down below us - in front of the stage.

I noticed a violinist playing away in the beginning and all through the musical  reading The New York Daily News and then The New York Daily Mirror.  The papers fit perfectly on the music stand.

It was a parable.

Someone was doing their job mechanically. What I got out of it was this. A priest can do mass - homilies - weddings, funerals, baptisms mechanically like that guy reading the paper while he played - or a priest can be into the music - into the prayers and the words and the ceremony completely every time - at least like the other musicians.

I was judging - but it was a parable and I heard it - so I have never, ever, ever, in the middle of a homily looked at my watch.

I try to do personal.

CONCLUSION

So that’s my homily.

The title was: “Is This Parable Meant for Me?”

And then after that main question I asked two specific  questions:

First Question: “Pause and ponder: which parable in the gospels is meant for me?” 

Second Question: “What have been the moments, the movies, the plays, the  incidents, the people doing or saying something that changed my life?”

Amen.

___________________________________________________________

P.S. I'm assuming this is my last homily at St. Mary's.

I'm also assuming that I am going to keep this blog going. I started it on June 17th, 2007 - with the help of Norm Constantine from our St. Mary's High School. He encouraged me and  set it up.

This piece is Number # 6755.

I'll be on the Atlantic Ocean in Long Branch. New Jersey at our retreat house: San Alfonso Retreat House. I'm tempted to rename it: Reflections by the Waters, but I'll stick, Reflections by the Bay.

Here's a picture of some of us Redemptorists at San Alfonso Retreat House at a recent meeting.  Like St. Mary's Annapolis, not a  bad place to be stationed.