JUST  ONE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 31 Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “Just One.”

We know what that means.  Someone has a box of chocolates. They open up the box and show us a neat collection of  delicious looking babies. They offer us some candy, but they say, “Just one.”

POINTING TO TODAY’S READINGS

I’ve been preaching and/or looking at these readings for some fifty years now - and you probably have been doing the same somewhat - depending on your going to daily and Sunday Mass history.

I usually do what all of us preachers do - especially for week-day Masses: read the readings and then pick one - just one - one word, one theme, one, message, one thought or prayer or challenge for the day. Just one!

So the last bunch of years I have found myself looking for just one thing to chew on - when dealing with these scripture readings. I assume Father Gene, Father Denny and Father Jack have been doing something along the same lines, more or less - as their regular method of reading the readings and coming up with a short homily for the day.

I keep in mind two rules - try to say something that is helpful to the listeners as well as to try to be interesting - catchy.

A QUESTION

For today it hit me to ask a question.  The gospel talks about a man inviting  a bunch of people to come to his house for a dinner and basically they all refuse. They have their excuses.

The word “Invitation” hit me.

Thinking about that:   here’s an invitation. If you invited people into your house - and into your stuff and you said, “Okay, you can have one thing from my house. It’s yours. But just one!”

Wouldn’t that be an interesting invitation.  If you have time today, walk through your house.  Look at your stuff.  What would be that one thing people would take?  What would be the one thing you wouldn’t want people to take?  The obvious comment would be: “Well it all depends!”

Just one thing.  What would they take?”

I found that an interesting question - because it interests me - on what I have of value.

I just had to clean out my stuff after 17 years in Annapolis, Maryland. I have a lot of junk and a lot of stuff. I didn’t take it all.

The question got me thinking about what do I have in my room that is of valuable. As I thought about this last night, working on this homily, I realized it’s the same question - in a way - we did on 37 Kairos retreats with our high school kids.  Your house is on fire and other than pets and people, you can only rescue 3 things. What would you carry out of your house?

Every time, I found  that an interesting exercise.

CONCLUSION: SOME HOMILY HOMEWORK

When you get home today, try my invitation. Play my game. Accept my “Just One” exercise.

Walk around your house. Look at what you have. See what you have accumulated. It will tell you what is valuable and what your values are.

Pick out just one - just one - thing that is very valuable - and then spend time meditating and thinking about what that says about you and the person who gave you that gift.

It would make this even more interesting if you told each other your pick.

I have a small head of Christ that is made of red clay from the streets of Lititz,  Pennsylvania. It was made by Richard Fleckenstein.  It’s one of a kind. He is was a potter - and an artist.

I have a green stained glass shamrock from my good friend Jan Giumette. It’s a suncatcher that has fallen from my window a few times  - but it must be the luck of the Italian - because this Irish sign of luck - that I received from an Italian - has not broken - yet.

I have a  Leather Bible - that is my portable cemetery. It’s where I put my significant death cards - like my sister Peggy’s. She was a nun who died this day, Nov. 5^th, 2013 - next to the death card of my aunt, my dad’s sister - also a nun  who died this day Nov. 5, 1966.

I did my homework - and came up with three things I might take.  Now I invite you to do your homework.

What’s in your house: pick just one thing?

November 5, 2019

DRIVING  ME 

Long drives alone,

long drives home,

four, five, six  hours,

sometimes on the road….

It seem to me

to be too much at times

and at other times, a

good time for the soul.

Time to think,

time to listen to the radio,

then to turn it off,

and  finally listen to myself.

“Where am I?”

“Why do I drive

the way I drive?”

The why’s  of me….

A yellow sports car

speeds by me,

only to see her speed by me

once again an hour later.

Why did she stop?

Where did she go?

Who is she? Who are

all these people on the road?

A dark bird picks away

at a splattered badger

dead right there - left lane -

never made the middle of the road.

A white wooden cross

Calvary on a highway ….

Who was that? Were

they going or coming home?

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

November 5, 2019

Thought for today: 

“We carry within us wonders we seek without us.”  

Sir Thomas Browne

November 4th,  2019

DREAMS,  IT  SEEMS

It  seems  some  dreams  are  so real - 

when they are happening - some 

so vivid - so crowded with emotions -

that they wake us up and we got

to get out of bed and get moving

or we sit on the edge of our bed

and say, “What was that all about?”

It seems some dreams - are foggy -

mainly the ones on the edge of

consciousness - like waking from

an afternoon nap and we don’t

know where we are or what time

it is - and we just lay there, and

also say, “What was that all about?”

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

November 4, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“It was a lovely sight, praise on high to God who made heaven and earth, and I fell thinking of all the happy days I had spent in view of those hills and recalled the words of my grandfather: Twenty years a-growing, twenty years in bloom, twenty years  a-stooping and twenty years declining. I looked down over the cliff where a seal was moaning softly.  I wonder, said I to myself, are the same thoughts troubling you?  Maybe you are mourning for your fair child which, the sea swell snatched from you out of your cave, or some such moan.” 

pp 201-202, in 

Twenty Years A-Growing 

by Maurice O’Sullivan

November 3, 2019

AUTUMN AFTERNOON

Sometimes blessed are our trespasses ….

We step off the trail and walk willy-nilly -

I always wanted to use that phrase - we

walk some new - different steps into the

autumn woods - brisk air – enjoying the

sounds at my feet: the snap of small

branches, the shuffle and crunch of

hundreds and hundreds of tan brown

leaves. I spot bald head of a rock. I  stop.

I sit. I hear  the clawing, the scratching of

squirrels’ hands on tree bark. I hear the

chirp of  birds who might have forgotten

to head south for the winter. Are some

birds like me: procrastinators?  I stopped.

Everything stopped. I was in the right place.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

November 3, 2019

Thought for today: 

“Bitter the  tears  that fall but more bitter the tears  that fall not.” 

Old Irish Saying, page 236 

in Twenty Years A-Growing 

by Maurice O’Sullivan

ALL  SOUL’S  DAY:

GRAY  GRANITE  GRAVESTONES

INTRODUCTION

Today is All Souls Day.

The title of my homily is, “All Soul’s Day: Gray Granite Gravestones.”

“Gray Granit Gravestones”  I like the sound of those words - obviously.

We see gravestones and graveyards  all the time as we go up and down the roads of life.  What thoughts and feelings do they trigger? And sometimes we unearth our thoughts - when going by  gray  graves.

I would assume by having this feast every year - here on November 2^nd - the Church wants us to look under some stones and see what this feast means to us.

I was wondering how many people will drop into graveyards today: All Soul’s Day. How many people will travel to a gray granite grave stone with family names carved into it - and pause to pray - pause to remember.

I would assume the church wants us to do this.

I would assume for starters grave yards should trigger gratitude.  I love Groucho Marx’s old line, “If your parents didn’t have any kids, chances are you  won’t either.”

Well, we’re here and our parents had us and we are grateful - thankful for the gift of life.  And if we’re at a family plot or old town cemetery - there will be other family members buried there - to thank and think about.

A FEW OBSERVATIONS ABOUT GRAVEYARDS

Stone is better than wood.  How many Western movies have wooden cross markers for where someone is buried?  Stone is better than wood.  Those wooden markers - crosses - etc. are not going to last like stone lasts. So too wooden crosses along highways.

More and more people are being cremated and their remains are kept at home or are simply dropped into the ocean or a  bay - without  a marker. No comment - except the comment - that a graveyard with a granite stone is different than the ocean - and does different to our psyche and memory.

Next, we live at great distances from where some of our ancestors are buried.

If possible get to their graves - or close your eyes - and go there in spirit.

Some people have portable grave yards.  Some use a prayer book and have in that prayer book the significant death cards of a lifetime. And that prayer book gets fatter with time and aging.

I like the modern practice of flyers with pictures - handed out in funeral parlors.  Some give a brief photo-biographical look-see of a deceased person.  I have a lot of them in zip lock  bag. They are  from funerals I did in the parish I just left in Annapolis Maryland.

I would suggest getting a neat box to keep death cards and flyers in and go through saved pictures from that cardboard box casket or zip lock bag or those cloth shopping bags. Do that from time to time - like today - alone or at good moments - like granny baby sitting and show them to kids and grandkids. Who’s who?  Who has been who in our life?

I believe the theology of Easter and the Resurrection has certainly been developed since F.X. Durwell’s book on The Resurrection came out in 1960.  I grew up with morning Mass in our church  in Brooklyn with every Mass in black vestments  - and they had the same readings and prayers every time. I was an altar boy all through those years and saw the dramatic changes in the liturgy and morning Mass from those days till today.

We express our faith - our hope - and our beliefs in Christ in a much more glorious and a colorful  way today.  Lent used to move us from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday.  Now Lent moves us Holy Week - to Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter - and keeps on moving us to Ascension,  then the Descent of the Holy Spirit and on and on and onwards.

CONCLUSION   

A tiny significant change was calling today, “All Souls Day” - not “Poor Souls Day”  - because all those who die  in Christ we hope and believe are rich and cleansed - and given a fatted goat to eat and celebrate in heaven with family and friends and all those who have gone before us.

November 2, 2019 -

DON’T   FORGET 

THERE  ARE  WINDOWS 

Windows began I’m sure for air,

for seeing who’s coming towards

the house - for light - for sound -

for knowing the weather in an

instance - so don’t forget the

windows. They are not just for

moms to peek out - to look out

as they wait for their kids and

grandparents for their kids to

show up once and a while for

a chat - to see the grandkids

and to see how all are doing.

Wait, there are more comments

to make - more things to say

about windows.  Do people

renting or buying a place to live

think about what windows can

see: other people, other homes,

other sights - like water …. parks ….

mountains …. harbors .... as well

as the sound of trains in the

distance - as well as dogs and

birds? Then too there is night and

the stars - the fog and the mystery.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

 November 2, 2019

 Thought for today: 

“In sickness  the  soul  begins  to  dress  herself  for  immortality.”  

Jeremy Taylor, Holy Dying, 1651

November 1, 2019

GOOD

Genesis begins by telling us about 

so many things that are so, so good. 

Stars, water, earth, cattle, fruit-trees, 

seed-bearing plants, light, darkness, 

birds, fish, lots of different fish, snakes …. 

I like to look around and play God and 

say “good” to peanut butter, red doors, 

erasers, the texture of cinder blocks, a free 

ball point pen, t-shirts, fluorescent tubes, 

and a lot more: Good …. Good …. Good. 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

November 1, 2019 

Thought for today - All Saints Day

“Can one be a saint  if  God does not exist?  That is the only concrete problem I know of today.”  

Albert Camus, The Plague, 1947

THE  LORD  BE  WITH  YOU

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 30^th Thursday in Ordinary Time is, “The Lord Be With You.”

I couldn’t come up with a title for this homily. 

Possibles were:

·       “God” - just “God” - one word,

·       or  “Together With God”, 

·       or  “When I die, I want  a Copy of Paul’s Letter to the Romans in My Casket.”  

For now, I settled on “The Lord Be With You” as in, “The Lord be with you.”

AS YOU KNOW

As you know we’ve been listening to segments of Paul’s Letter to the Romans as our first reading since October 14^th. We’ll continue with it  till November 8^th.  We have it as our first reading every other year at this time.

As you also know it’s the most important of Paul’s Letters - as well as the longest - as well as  the most significant. 

It’s also the most complicated.

That’s what Ray Brown - the Sulpician scripture scholar - said in a commentary on Romans. He stressed,  “Don’t start with Romans.”  He adds, “It’s too complicated - so in spite of it being the most significant letter of Paul,  go with  1^st Corinthians. [1]

N.T. Wright, says the same thing in his commentary about Romans as well, stressing “that anyone who claims to understand Romans fully is, almost by definition, mistaken.”  [2]  He makes that comment saying there has been so much written and said about Romans that nobody could know it all.

Ray Brown also adds that it has been a part of the cause for the split in Christian Churches.  It’s key in the Faith and Works controversy.  Protestants protested that Catholics think they have a bigger  part in their salvation - because they can get indulgences and do good  works. 

In other words Protestants put more stress  on God’s side in being saved and Catholics put more weight on our part of being saved.

I would assume it’s both!

What I’m saying is that Paul’s Letter to the Romans is significant especially on the issue of what happens to us when we die.  Is what happens after death in our hands - and how key to determining a next life is our behavior and in our control in this life - and possibly in life after death.

And Luther, Abelard, Calvin, Barth,  and so many other key scripture writers tackled the question of being saved from Romans, being made right for all eternity - being justified by Christ.  

And we all know that Augustine picked up Paul’s Letter to the Romans  in the garden  at the moment of his conversion.

WHO DOES WHAT?

The title of my homily is, “The Lord Be With You.”

I chose that because Paul in today’s reading from Romans begins, “Brothers and sisters: If God is for us, who can be against us?”

When it comes to eternal life, being saved, Romans - Paul in Romans - as we heard in today’s first reading, tells us Christ  is our savior.  If we stick with Christ, who can separate us from the Love of God?

Christ will raise us up when we die. God will be with us when we die.

Now this doesn’t mean we can be mean and God will still save us. We want to be happy here and hereafter - so being nice - makes life nice.

Sometimes we wear masks.

Sometimes we pull our tricks and we not being a treat.

Sometime we’re hollow and not hallowed.

I add those comments because today is Halloween.

SAN ALFONSO

St. Alphonsus - the founder of the Redemptorists - says three key things in this area.

First, he was off on, centered in, on salvation.  We were to be the Salvation Congregation - but the name was taken, so we became the Redemptorists.

Second, he said that the whole secret of salvation, holiness, spirituality is the practice of the love of Jesus Christ.  He has a whole book on this entitled, “The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ.”

St. Alphonsus was a practical person.  Remember the old saying, “Want to get into Carnegie Hall? Practice. Practice. Practice.”

Want to experience the love of Jesus Christ?   Practice. Practice. Practice.

The third thing San Alfonso said, “The 3 secrets of salvation are: pray, pray, and pray.”

In other words to have the Lord to be with us, be with the Lord.

CLOSING IMAGE

As I read today’s gospel I heard  Jesus use the image of a hen gathering her brood under her wings.

I thought of death like falling through the sky - and we’ll be wondering when and where we will land?

I think of various movies when someone falls out of a plane and they have no parachute and someone with a parachute sky dives towards that person and grabs them - and then they open their parachute and that’s God holding onto us - and landing us onto the other side of death.

Isn’t that what Paul is saying in today’s first reading?

FOOTNOTES

[1] Raymond Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, “Letter to the Romans”, Chapter 24, pp. 559 ff.

[2] N.T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans, Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,” in Volume X of The New Interpreter’s Bible,  p. 395.

WATER  FREEZING

Does water know when it’s about

to freeze? To become ice? To drop
down to 32 degrees and the whole

lake or ice cube becomes solid?

Does it know this? Does it want

this? Would it rather be boiling

water and become a cup of tea?

Or be the wonderful  warm water

in my shower - pelting my back?

Do we know the slow degrees in

change or do we only know afterwards?

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

October  31, 2019

Thought for today: 

“The world is filled, and filled, with the absolute.  To see this is to be made free.”  

Teilhard de Chardin

FEAR  OR  LOVE

 INTRODUCTION

Today’s readings - for this 30^th Wednesday in Ordinary Time -  triggered for me thoughts about the 2 great life  motives: Fear and Love.

Which is more me?  Fear or Love?

I  read somewhere that fear and love are the basic 2 emotions. All the other emotions - are lesser emotions and fall under either love or fear.

I don’t know if I agree or disagree with that - but I’ll continue to wonder about that comment.

Moreover when it comes to emotions, we can have an, “It all depends.”

Take anger. It can be a powerful emotion. We can get angry out of fear - but also out of love.  Don’t forget Jesus getting really angry as he threw the money changers out of the temple.

TODAY’S GOSPEL

In today’s  gospel notice that Jesus uses  fear - I sense to scare the hell out of people.  Notice Jesus’ words about  people not being saved. Notice he says people choose evil. Notice Jesus saying the words, “Depart from me, all you evil doers.” 

As you know there are two kinds of people: those who take the narrow gate and those who go by way of  Broadway.

Notice Jesus announcing that people who don’t chose the narrow gate - are going to find the door to  God’s house locked. And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth - because they have cast themselves into the wrong group.

Jesus is scary here. He’s using the motive of fear. And there are people who are scared of not being saved. 

And fear works for getting people to be good.

Question: which motive is better?

Question: does today’s gospel from  Luke 13: 22-30 have more power than Luke 15 when we meet a God of love and mercy.

Which works better: fear or love?

There are some people whose whole religious outlook is fear and God is a God of fear to them.

St. Alphonsus reflected on this question in his writings and he ends up saying the motive of love is better - because it lasts.

Yet Alphonsus used fear to motivate - in some of his most powerful sermons and writings.

TODAY’S FIRST READING ROMANS 8: 26-30

In today’s first reading from Romans, we have an example of Paul stressing love over fear.  He says, “Yes, we are weak, but God comes to our aid in our weakness.”   Paul says, “all things work for good for those who  love God.”

LOVE OR FEAR

So last night working on this homily, this reflection, I asked myself whether I was a person of fear or a person of love?

My first conclusion was this: I’d assume we’re both people of fear as well as a person of love.

Life is neither black nor white. It’s has shades - degrees -  but I think we can still ask which one am I more of: love or fear?

My second conclusion was this: how do I see God?  If I am scared of God - is that something God would want?

In other words, is God the God I picture or feel God is?  

We can get scripture texts for both understandings of God.

What is God like?  Is God a wonderful forgiving,  understanding and loving God or is God a God who is going to zap us like a cook in the kitchen zaps a fly with a fly swatter.

We heard God not answering his door in today’s gospel - or we can read the  1^st Letter of John which says over and over again that God is Love.

Listen to 1 John 4:18, “In love there can be no fear, but fear is driven out by perfect love: because to fear is to expect punishment, and anyone who is afraid is still imperfect in love.”

A third point would be how we picture and understand others - as well as ourselves.

How many times have we heard some one talk about how they picture their father?  They say: “I was scared of him.”

I have heard people say of priests: “I was scared of him”

I was once stationed with a priest who told me he walked around with a book in his hand so nobody will bother him. He wanted them to say, “I’m scared of bothering him.”  And he said, “Wow can I be selfish.”

CONCLUSION

Enough ….

That’s a few thoughts about love and fear .

the first reading tells us to groan about all this to the Spirit who searches hearts and knows what’s going on inside our hearts.

So groan, groan, groan ….

October 30, 2019

SEERS  AND  HEARERS 

Thank God for seers

who help us to see

what might be right

in front of us - or what

our parents saw and

we didn’t know it.

Their photos, their

pictures, their movies

help us all to see.

Thank God for hearers

who help us to hear

the sounds and the

songs that have been

all around us or the

music and the melodies

our parents and grand-

parents heard when

they were growing up.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

See and hear two songs and the

sights Joe Heaney from Galway,

Ireland gives us. He speaks

stories and sings songs in Gaelic

the language of my parents. 

Seosamh O hEanai - Joe Heaney

died in May of 1984 - and thank

God hundreds of his songs have

been saved.

October  30, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“Purity does not lie in separation from, but in deeper penetration into the universe.”  

Teilhard de Chardin

WALK  AWAY

Walking away when angry -

Smart move.  We see much

more from a distance. When

we walk we talk to ourselves.

We don’t get blurt stains on

our white shirts or sweaters.

We get wise sayings on our

soul’s T-shirts as well as neat
bumper stickers sayings within.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

October  29, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“Maybe the desire to make something beautiful / is the piece of God that is inside each of us.”  

Mary Oliver in her poem, 

Franz Marc’s Blue Horses.  

Page 21 in Mary Oliver, 

Devotions, The Selected 

Poems of Mary Oliver.

October 28, 2019

EMPTY  APOLOGIES

I hate fake apologies,

throw-a-ways, excuse me’s.

I want to see apologies,

changes that are obvious,

different.  I want to see

changes that last till the end

of this month and year - at least.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019