EMPTY CHAIR

You left before you
actually left.
I didn’t realize
all the time
I was talking,
I was talking
to your smile.
I was talking
to an empty chair.
What scares me
as I talk about you
to myself is that
I’m might become
an empty chair myself.

© Andy Costello - 2007

A POEM

A poem,
a sudden song of increased intensity,
sometimes thundering out of a hurt,
sometimes a quiet muttering in the heart,
sometimes a shout about creation.
A poem,
a quiet statement or a noisy stillness
which simply says,

"This is what I'm thinking about.
“This is what I'm shouting out.”

© Andy Costello - 2007

POEM: 

UPS AND DOWNS

I just met two people.
One looked up to me.
The other looked down on me.
I pray for both of them
because neither of them
know me, nor know
my ups and downs.

© Andy Costello

TELL ME ABOUT GOD

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Tell Me About God.”

If I’m hearing people correctly, they are silently screaming, “Tell me about God.” “Tell me about God.” – especially when they come here to church.

That’s quite a demand – a scary demand. What happens if my image and likeness of God is wrong? What will happen when I die and meet God? Will I say, “Oh my God, You’re not the God, I thought You were.” Will that be hell? And I was Your priest – standing there in the pulpit – week after week after week after week – now going on 42 years of weeks.

Now that’s a scary thought?

Did any priest, any deacon, any minister, rabbi, imam, have this thought and close the Book and walk away out of fear?

It scares me. Oh, my God, it scares me.

The title of my homily is, “Tell Me About God.”

Is every person a walking book – a talking book – telling others what God is like? After all the Bible says we’re made in the image and likeness of God. (Cf. Genesis 1:27)

YOU

If I handed out pieces of paper and asked each of you to write an answer to the following question: “Tell me about God? Describe God in 100 words or less?” What would you write? What would be your description of God?

And if I then said, “Pass your paper to the person on your right and keep doing that till we have all read each other’s descriptions.” What would that experience be like?

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Once upon a time I was praying, just sitting there quietly in a big chapel, all by myself. It was at Mount St. Alphonsus, Esopus, New York – on the Hudson River between Kingston and Poughkeepsie, N.Y. The place is celebrating its 100th Anniversary next month – and I’m hoping to get there for the celebration. It’s a favorite place of prayer for me – having studied in the seminary there for 6 years – being ordained a priest there in the sanctuary in 1965 by Cardinal Spellman. Then it closed – because of lack of students for the priesthood. Then it re-opened as a retreat house and our novitiate where I was novice master there for 8 years. So I spent 14 years of my life there.

I’m sitting there praying that evening and for some reason the following happened. I began thinking about what God is like – the theme for this homily – and I had a so called “God moment”.

I have found out that if a person takes time out to pray on a regular basis – say 15 minutes in a chair one designates as one’s “prayer chair” – in some quiet spot in one’s house or cellar, there will be “moments” at times – not too often – but there will be “moments” – “God moments”. Guaranteed.

Now one does not pray for these moments. One prays simply to be in the presence of God – and then to do God’s will – which is to love God with one’s whole mind, heart, soul and strength – and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. It’s not complicated.

That’s what prayer is about. I get people mad at times when I push quiet prayer - not saying lots of words - just listening and speaking to God. Now, the rosary is great. Prayers are great – especially when one is struggling with prayer – or when one sick. My brother hung onto his rosary for the last year of his life – when he had big time cancer – especially when it went to his brain. The rosary is good. Prayer books are good. And just sitting with God in prayer is good.

Just as long as one’s prayer is not babbling – unless we’re losing it and becoming little children again. Not babbling is one of Jesus’ messages. (Cf. Matthew 6:5-13; Luke 11:1-13)

Continuing this line of thought. Most moments in prayers will be boring in the second year of prayer – and from then on for the rest of one’s life. Those of you who pray quiet prayer – were not surprised when the newspapers and magazines recently came out with surprise comments that one would not expect Mother Teresa to have said her prayer life was mostly dark nights of doubt and blank emptiness – and that God seemed absent – most of her life. Everyone who prays on a regular basis knows this.

Now I’ll babbling. So let me try to explain why I’m remembering my special prayer moment or experience today. I’m sitting there praying and I say to God, “When I die, I expect to be forgiven everything. I expect no questions – just a great embrace – a great welcome.” Then I felt a big, “Uh oh!” I had hit a wall of a question from God. “What if I’m not like what You think I’m like?”

Silence. Then I said to that God, “Well, if You’re not like the God Your Son Jesus describes in the 15th Chapter of Luke, the hell with you. I’ll go and find that God – because that’s the God I want to spend eternity with.”

Then my hand went to my mouth – honestly, it went right to my mouth – and I said, “Woops” as if I was hearing, “That’s not the way you speak to God. You don’t say to God, “The hell with You!”

Then I paused a very serious pause and then said, “I repeat what I just said, ‘If you’re not the God your Son mentions in the 15th Chapter of Luke, I’ll go find that God. Amen.’”

That was a good 20 years ago or so – and I feel and think the same way today and even more.

Of course, what happens after we die, is totally out of our hands. Like life itself, it’s all gift. It’s all grace. It’s all mystery. It’s all in someone else’s power and control. It was not our doing that we landed here on earth on our birthday. It’s out of our control, if there is anything after our death day.

That’s my description of God. What’s yours? Now of course, we would be here all day if we had to read each person’s description of how they see and experience God. And I’m sure, some descriptions would make us cry; and some would make us go, “Wow!”

TODAY’S FIRST READING

In today’s first reading Moses came down from the mountain and was shocked to see the people he led out of Egypt worshipping a molten golden calf. He heard God screaming that God wanted to burn them – consume them with fire.

And Moses pleads with God not to destroy the people. He pulls out all the stops. Re-reading today’s first reading, “Why, O Lord, should your wrath blaze up against your own people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and so strong a hand? Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and how you swore to them by your own self, saying, ‘I will make your descendents as numerous as the stars in the sky; and all this land that I promised, I will give your descendents as their perpetual heritage.’” [Exodus 32: 7-11-13-14]

It worked.

People pray to God like this. I have prayed to God like this.

15th CHAPTER OF LUKE

But today we are graced and blessed with the 15th Chapter of the Gospel of Luke – the gospel I appealed to in my prayer moment in a chapel in upstate New York.

That’s the piece of paper that was passed around to each of us today. If any of you are at my funeral, rip the 15th chapter of Luke out of your Bible or a missalette and put it my casket. I want it in hand as I meet God.

You know this chapter by heart. It begins with Pharisees wanting to ban and exclude sinners. They complain that Jesus hangs around with tax collectors and sinners.

Jesus eats with sinners. Hint. Hint. Hint. The Mass is a meal. If we say we are not a sinner, maybe we’re in the wrong place. Just kidding. Nobody leave. We need everyone for the collection.

Jesus tells 3 stories – 3 parables in today’s gospel reading of the 15th chapter of Luke.

These stories tell us how God is and how God works.

Sometimes God goes after people – like a Good Shepherd looking for a lost sheep till the dumb sheep is found. Scream, "Baa! Baa! Baa!" till God finds you. Or God goes looking for people like a woman who lost a special coin. Some think it’s one of her wedding coins – which women would sew on a special head covering to be worn on special occasions – the coins she received at her wedding – the more coins, the more bragging rights – like medals on a general’s chest.

So sometimes God searches for people. Sit in prayer and talk to God about the times in your life God has found you.

And sometimes God waits. God waits for us to return like the prodigal son. So those of you who have kids or family members who have disappeared to far countries from God, be patient. Learn to wait. Or scream to God in prayer, “Stop being like the father of the prodigal son and become the searching woman or the Good shepherd. Go find my son or daughter and bring her or him home.”

Sit in prayer with God and talk about the times he waited for your return.

And all three stories have a celebration when a sinner comes home.

CONCLUSION

The third story has a great ending – because there is always someone in the audience who says, “Wait a minute. That’s not fair. I’ve been good all my life and these dumb sheep, these lost coins, these prodigal son types, are welcomed just like that. [Snap fingers]

And God laughs, and says, “Just like that. [Snap fingers] And by the way, you too come to the party – come to the banquet. I’d love to eat with you as well.”

COIN, SHEEP AND SON 

Luke 15 

Lost and found,
a “baaing” sheep caught
in thick brambles,
a shiny coin lost
in the dark underneath
of a carpenter’s table,
a pigsty scented son
in a far country,
all three waiting in
disconnection,
sheep and coin,
waiting and wondering,
a son hitting bottom,
caught in entanglements,
stuck in himself, also alone
in a dark mess,
a father back home waiting,
looking out each day
for his son's return, an older
brother who could care less,
the sheep, the coin, found,
the younger son deciding
to come home,
all three swept clean by grace
and kindness and love.
When found, celebrate.

Okay, sometimes

older brothers don't,

but God does.

© Andrew Costello, 2007

THE LOST SON

Two brothers:
one stayed home,
so the other moved on.
But paths cross,
parents die,
and we all must meet each other
from time to time.

As the younger brother
was standing there
to the right of the casket,
his older brother
came in -- came in
and refused to shake hands
with either his hands
or his eyes.

Then the younger brother
turned to the casket,
turned to his father,
needing another embrace,
crying at the loss
of what might have been,
remembering the time
their father
tried to get them
to eat the fatted calf together.



© Andrew Costello, Cries .... But Silent, 1981


PRODIGAL

Starving,
I can’t stand my within,
this pigpen prison called “me”.
I keep hearing the snorting sound, “Failure!”
It’s eating up my insides,
behind these bars, my ribs,
which are becoming more and more visible
above my empty stomach.
Ugly sounds erupt up as grunts
from deep within me,
so many, “I told you so’s.”
I hate my mistakes.
I keep on wanting to escape
from these inner voices,
to run away from myself,
to run out onto the highway,
to the broad way.
But each time, I end up homeless,
starving, empty, penned in,
out of money,
out of so called “friends”,
out of everything,
everything but this ever present feelings of,
“I am a failure.”

So I’m still the prodigal,
always have been, always will be,
always with drifting eye on distant cities,
wanting different harbors,
hoping to spot new lights on distant shores.

I keep rehearsing these speeches
about coming home to you, Father.
I keep hearing dark speeches and questions:
“What happens if there is no you, only a me,
waiting there at the end of this dark feeling?
What then, Father, what then?”
“What happens if I discover down deep
that you have forgotten me
because I have forgotten you?”
“What happens
if the only other person within me
is my older brother
and I come home to hear, ‘It’s too late.
Your Father has died.
You're too late for forgiveness.
Dad died of a broken heart
a long time ago waiting for you.’”

© Andrew Costello, Reflections 2007

SINGLE BIRD

A single bird, a sandpiper,
pranced alone along the beach,
a dancer, feet moving fast, faster,
each step just above the top edge
of so many already crashed waves,
semi-circles of water, transparent
bed covers, trying to cover
the bed of grayish soft sand.

A he sat there, a lonely watcher,
watching this smooth graceful
runner moving back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth,
along the edge of the ocean.

The bird was miming him.
This bird was miming him.
This bird moving and then stopping
from time to time,
tapping the sandy beach
and salty water with beak,
till he found what he was looking for.

The single bird, a sandpiper,
then disappeared into the morning;
and he picked up his towel, paperback
and binoculors,
and headed back to his car
having seen, having found,
what he too was looking for,
and he too disappeared into the morning.

© Andrew Costello, Reflections 2007