DELAY
Some people don’t do delay.
They want immediate.
They want right now….
“Where’s the waiter?”
“I can’t wait.”
Some people can't do delay.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
March 24, 2020
Thought for Today
Gallup Survey, “The Woman’s Mind”, Ladies Home Journal, February, 1962. “Only one woman in ten recognizes her husband
as the same man he was before she married him. Nine out of ten say he’s
changed. One in three says he changed
for the worse.”
If they did this survey
today,
what would be the
numbers?
Monday, March 23, 2020
March 23, 2020
We should have at least one good insight
INSIGHTS
We should have at least one good insight
before we’re 45 – one - and then at least
two or three more after that before we die.
Now this is not written down anywhere but
it’s an insight. It’s something we realize
happens in life. It’s
the big eye opener.
Insights can come
after a hurt, being ignored,
being fired, being
used, cheated on - or taken
for granted, or we have made a major mistake.
The last insight is what we do after the crash,
after a bad Friday – or Tuesday or Thursday -
and we too have our Easter Monday or Saturday.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020
Sunday, March 22, 2020
March 22, 2020
“THE WHOLE OF LIFE
CAN BE FOUND IN THE
VERB
‘TO SEE!’”
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this 4th
Sunday in Lent [A] is a quote from
Teilhard de Chardin, “The Whole of Life Can Be Found in
the Verb ‘To See.’”
Sometimes quoters leave out the “of” –
and say, “The Whole Life Can Be Found in the Verb to See.”
What do you see – what do you hear –
what do you sense when you hear today’s readings, today’s gospel, today’s words
– especially: blindness, seeing, light, darkness, judgment, appearance?
What do you see – when you see what you
see?
How long into a marriage do husbands and
wives realize – “We don’t see the same.”
When do parents notice – find out – see
– that their kids don’t see the same way they see – or the same things they
see.
How old is the average age when we begin
to realize that all people see differently?
Perception is reality – but we all see
differently.
TEACHERS
However, for starters, we learn to see
as our parents see. They are seeing us – protecting us - tutoring us – bringing
us up.
When I spot an article on how the human
eye develops in a baby – how they recognize mom, dad, brothers and sisters,
dogs, cats, familiar territory – as opposed to the unfamiliar, I read it.
Who have been your teachers – besides
family members?
JIMMY
LOVER
As I was preparing this homily I
remembered something I heard in a homily from Jimmy Lover. This happened when
we were at Mt. St. Alphonsus Seminary, Esopus, New York. He was a Canon Law
professor.
He gave the example of a teenage girl
saying to her dad, “I lost one of my contact lenses.”
Her dad asked, “Did you look at every inch of your bedroom?”
She said, “Yes, and I still can’t find
it.”
He went into her bedroom and came back
in less than 5 minutes, “Here it is.”
She said, “How did you find it so fast?”
He said, ‘You were looking for your
contact lens. I was looking for $123
dollars.”
TEDDY
MEEHAN
We all remember Teddy Meehan – who
taught us history in the major seminary. Everyone imitated Teddy who was
forever saying, “Do you see?” He asked
that over and over again. We used to
mark every time he said, “Do you see?”
I remember the highest number was 267
times in one class. That was the record.
He wanted us to see what he was trying
to get us to see. He wanted to be understood. He was every one of us to grasp
what he was trying to say. He wanted to
be understood.
Do you see that?
CHARLIE KOERBER
I remember Charlie Koerber. To me he was
our best teacher. We had him for First Dogma. I remember that he wanted us to see what was
in the four volumes of Herve. He was the author of our dogmatic theology text books. Then Charlie said,
“There is a library down the corridor with lots of books and magazines and
there will be a lot more coming out on all the issues of Dogmatic Theology in
the years ahead. You have the rest of
your life to open up those articles and books and come up with new answers to
old questions.
THIRD EYE
So, how we see comes from our parents,
our schools, our teachers.
I also learned
a lot in life from workshops and lectures – in the years after we got out of
the major seminary.
One
workshop thought me about “the Third Eye”.
We see
not only with our physical eyes – as well as our minds – but in Eastern Thought
we can learn a lot about the Third Eye – our inner eye. In the Chakra, this is
the 6th one.
Hindi,
Buddhist, Taoism, and many Asia, spirituality methods center on the Third Eye. It refers to spirituality, consciousness
raising – learning to see better from inner levels.
TODAY’S
READINGS
Here is
where we can understand today’s 3 readings.
In the
first reading from the 16th Chapter of 1st Book of Samuel
for today we hear about how God sees: with the heart. Listen to the great comment from God: “Not as
man does God see, because man sees the appearance but the Lord looks into the
heart.”
In
today’s second reading from the 5th chapter of Paul’s Letter to the
Ephesians Paul says, “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the
Lord. Live as children of light….”
In
today’s gospel from the 9th chapter of John we hear about a man
blind from birth.
We can
see that as physical blindness - or we
can look at that as spiritual blindness.
We can see that eye as the third eye – and Christ gives us many eye
openers.
CONCLUSION
The title
of my homily has been, “The Whole of Life
Can Be Found in the Verb ‘To See.’”
The prayer for this 4th
Sunday in Lent is that we learn to see all that is of God – especially what we’re missing.
March 22, 2020
LORD, I WANT TO SEE
To see your strength
in solid rock and crashing waves.
To see your eye
in mothers watching crawling babies.
To see your mystery
in every birth and every death.
To see your surprise
in grand canyons and snaking rivers.
To see your reaching out
in tree roots and leaf veins.
To see your sense of humor
in broccoli and hippopotami
To see your vastness
in night sky and endless oceans
To see your love for life
in chirping birds and people’s “Hi’s”
To see your presence in my heart
As mine continues to heal from last May 22nd…..
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020
Saturday, March 21, 2020
March 21, 2020
WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON
Cold – so invisible, so too heat ….
Cold - so felt –
so too heat ….
Love – sometimes invisible, so too heat.
Love – sometimes felt – so too heat ….
Indifference, respect, desires, screams ….
Same scenarios – same scenarios ….
Awareness – sometimes, sometimes ….
We know what’s going on within – sometimes.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020
Friday, March 20, 2020
March 20, 2020
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020
AN ORANGE
The cut, the slice ….
the peeling of orange skin ….
Great packaging ….
The slight slippage of juice ….
The pulling apart ….
Then the taste ….
An orange ….
If God has a favorite,
is it the orange?
I don't know,
but I'm sure it wouldn't
be gold or the shark.
but I'm sure it wouldn't
be gold or the shark.
Thursday, March 19, 2020
March 19, 2020
SKATEBOARD
Rolling down Newman Street ….
It’s a great hill for skateboarding ….
Hopping the curve at the bottom ….
Another kid filming the show
all the way down the hill.
We clapped. He bowed.
I walked away wondering,
“Is this narcissism
or kids just having fun?”
Further thought: “Is this
this kid for the rest of his life?”
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
March 18, 2020
A MARRIAGE
Yes, there are the big scenes,
the “Where we first met?’
and “How we met?”
and the decision moments,
the “Yes”,
the wedding,
the honeymoon,
then births and babies –
and the raising of the kids.
Ooops better bring in
the mistakes,
better the recovery
from dumb moves
the hurts, the insensitivity,
the cries of pain and
the cries of passion,
in the recovery and then the knowing
there is more – the best that is yet to come.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
March 17, 2020
IRISH BLESSING
2020
May you have a wonderful
St. Patty’s Day today – filled
with blessings of all sorts - plus:
- a big Irish breakfast,
- a lunch with good
friends
- an afternoon tea and Irish soda bread
with cold yellow butter –
- and a corn beef dinner,
no fat, no gristle and boiled
mashed potatoes and a pint
of deep dark Guinness.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020
Monday, March 16, 2020
KNOWING ST. CLEMENT HOFBAUER -
KNOWING YOURSELF IS TOUGH ENOUGH
INTRODUCTION
Our Redemptorist General Government recommends that we
say something about Saint Clement Hofbauer today – since yesterday was the
actual anniversary of his death – but it was a Sunday.
Moreover, it’s the
200th Anniversary of his death in Vienna, Austria, March 15, 1820.
So, I began
reading up and thinking about St. Clement Hofbauer a bit yesterday. After St.
Alphonsus – San Alfonso in Italian – St. Clement is our second founder. Without
them we wouldn’t be here together this morning.
After a bit of thinking, I came up with a title for some
thoughts: “Knowing St. Clement Hofbauer – Knowing Yourself Is Tough Enough.”
KNOW YOURSELF
Most of us have heard the old Greek saying, “Know
Yourself.” In Greek it’s “GNOTHI SEAUTON.” It shows up in literature and
in advice columns and on the wall of the temple of Apollo in Delphi. It’s been
in Greek and then Western thought since at least the 10th Century
B.C.
‘GNOTHI SEAUTON”!
Say those Greek words a few times and you’ll be begin to hear the
English word, “know” in the Greek word, “GNOTHI” and “auto” in “SEAUTON”.
We spend much of our life trying to figure ourselves and
others out – and much of the time, we scratch our head in frustration.
In a divorce and in a hurt how many times have we said of
another, “I thought I knew him or her” as well as, “I didn’t realize I could be
so stupid.”
A SAINT WALKED INTO A BAR
I was reading in a book on St. Clement Hofbauer yesterday
that the number one story about St. Clement is the story about him going into a
pub. It’s in all the biographies of
Clement. He’s running an orphanage and
he needs money so he goes into a pub and asks for money. A guy - seeing he’s a priest spits in his
face and ridicules him and gets a laugh.
And Clement says, “Okay the spit is for me. Thank you. I deserve it. What
I want is money for my orphans.” And he gets a hat full of coins.
Well, Otto Weiss, the author of an article, “The Changing Image
of Clement Hofbauer,” says it’s a common story and is told
about different holy people.
Otto Weiss then says that he checked it out and the odds
are good that this actually happened to Clement – based on his track record of helping
kids, raising money, and his great concern for the poor. [Confer page 166 in “The
Changing Image of Clement Hofbauer,” in
the book, Saint Clement Hofbauer, His Writings and Spirituality, edited
by Raymond Corriveau, CSSR
A LOT MORE
Then I read an eyeful and a mindful of information about
Clement.
Otto Weiss, the author of article I mentioned, said that
authors used the life of Clement in various ways based on their theology and
their agenda – and how they saw the church in Europe from 1820 to our times.
My knowledge of who St. Clement was is based on how two
writers presented him: Jim Galvin who wrote Listen Vienna and John Hofer
who wrote St. Clement Maria Hofbauer: A Biography.
I realized last night – once more - that I can say of
Clement Hofbauer what the authors of a biography of John F. Kennedy said,
“Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye”. That’s a
1972 memoir of JFK written by David Powers, Kenneth O’Donnell with
collaboration help from Joe McCarthy.
Every time I have done a funeral I ask people about the
deceased. I get details about their life. And that’s only one part of
biography. Character – personality is another. I love eulogies – because I know
so little about the person who died.
I know there are jokes about eulogies at times: People say
things like, “Are we at the right funeral?”
CONCLUSION
If we read the live of St. Clement Hofbauer or St. Alphonsus
or how the Redemptorists came to the United States, we hear about their plans
for starting in a certain place, but that plan doesn’t work – and we start somewhere
else.
This March 15th – plus today Monday March 16th
– we celebrate a saint named Clement Hofbauer – who came down to Italy – gets
ordained with a guy named Thaddeus Hubl – and is sent immediately back over the
Alps to Austria – but ends up in Warsaw.
However, if all else fails they say we might go Sweden.
Life has many broken plans and many conflicts and different
chess moves. Isn’t that true in most lives?
We hear about saints, so we might become saints – and do the
good they did – hopefully.
Redemptorists never did get to Sweden – but I did. Surprise!
March 16, 2020
A POET, A PAINTER AND
A SCULPTOR
A poet, a painter and a sculptor -
all 3 - were commissioned to do
a work on God – and after a year
all 3 gave back their $50,000 check.
The poet said, “The WORD already
became flesh.” The painter said,
“The sidewalks already have their
fill of poor people in doorways.”
And the sculptors said, “It would
take too long to sculpt the
mountains into
oceans and only
God has that
kind of time.”
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Saturday, March 14, 2020
THREE MEN IN
A BOAT
Picture three men – one an old man – two in their mid
30’s.
There at a dock in the city of Tiberias. It’s around 4
pm.
They have rented out a small boat. They get in the boat
and head out to the middle of the sea of Galilee.
There is a decent wind and they raise their sails.
They settle for a place in the deepest part of the Lake
of Galilee – where it’s about 70 feet to the bottom.
Each of the three men have a rock with a piece of calf skin or vellum
tied around it.
Each has writing on the calf’s skin they are holding –
which is tied to the rock they are about to drop and let sink into the lake.
Each is going to give a small speech and then drop their
rock into the depths of the sea – rocks which have their sins connected to
them.
The youngest son goes first and says, “My brother, my
dad, I’m sorry I ruined our family name with
all my sins in that far country I went to a couple of years ago. My
motives for coming home were not the greatest.
I’m sorry I hurt both of you as well as myself, so thank you for
forgiving me.
He dropped his rock into the water and all three watched
it sink.
The oldest son went next. “I was the worst sinner –
unwilling to forgive you dad for being so forgiving of my brother and for being
so challenging to me. Plus, younger brother I’m sorry it took me so long to
forgive you.”
He dropped his rock into the lake. All three watched it
sink to the bottom.
Lastly, the father said, “Forgive me younger son for not
coming after you. And older son, forgive
me for not giving you space and time – to figure all this out. I waited for
your brother to wake up and come home, but I didn’t give you any time. Instead
I came right after you. Please forgive me.”
Then he dropped his rock with his words on vellum into
the lake.
And all 3 watched it sink to the bottom.
Carefully they all hugged each other and cried and
laughed.
The older brother on the way back to shore and to get
some breakfast asked his dad, “Why did you pick this lake to do this?”
“Oh,” said the
dad. “It was because of something Micah the Prophet said. ‘You, God, will cast
into the depths of the sea all our
sins….’ Well, since it’s taking us all these years to let go of all of this
hurt, I thought we needed God to give us some help in forgiving each other.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This is a reflection on the readings for this morning's Mass - the 2nd Saturday in Lent.
The gospel is the story of "The Prodigal Son" - Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32. I've preached and written lots of different sermons and poems and reflections on this gospel - over the past 55 years. That's probably why I've done so many different items.
The First Reading for today is Micah 7: 14-15, 18-20 - so that's where I got the idea in the last paragraph of this reflection.
Amen.
March 14, 2020
POTATOES
If we all looked like potatoes,
how would that make us feel?
Picture or imagine that? Potatoes.
how would that make us feel?
Picture or imagine that? Potatoes.
Strawberries, watermelons,
apples and oranges, some
of those don’t look too bad.
So when you’re sitting there
at the bus stop - look around.
Smile as you look at different faces.
at the bus stop - look around.
Smile as you look at different faces.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020
Friday, March 13, 2020
THE RED KITE
Life is like a red kite flying over us - reminding us - of moments from our childhood - moments with our dads - who could do everything - like trying to get a red kite to fly - like trying to believe there is a God - like trying to believe there is life after this life - like after the grave.
March 13, 2020
THE EAGLE
AND THE RED KITE
The eagle twists and turns,
glides and slides across the
afternoon background sky,
then soars straight into the sun
and the little girl with just a red kite –
just a red kite -
realizes she can’t compete with
an eagle or the Rockettes or all
the adults in her world – ever ….
But what she doesn’t know now is:
the eagle will never know jump rope
or complain about algebra or love
the taste of pistachio ice cream
or shoot the basket that wins the
game or ends up as the homecoming
queen – at halftime of the most important
high school football game of her senior year.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020
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