LOST UMBRELLA

Outside, up above,
it was a rainy day.
Inside, down below,
it was dry.
Here I am
on my way
in a subway.
Someone left an umbrella.
It was left on a seat.
3 or 4 people with umbrellas saw it.
A Chinese lady watching my eyes,
said to me, “Take it.”
I didn’t.
I didn’t need one.
I said, “You take it.”
With a smile

she pointed to the one she had.
It was an old umbrella –
a bit beaten up.
Then I realized
she was free.
The train came to a stop.
The door opened.
A man sitting there with 2 umbrellas
stood up and grabbed this 1 umbrella.
We all watched him

as he left our train.

We all wondered,

"What does one do

with 3 umbrellas

in the rain?"

The Chinese lady smiled

all the way to the next stop.

© Andy Costello, Poems 2007

JOHN 21

God appeared to me
first in black velvet,
then in green moss,
God walking around
the ground outside my house,
leaving soft silent impressions,
footprints, footsteps,
indentations in my life,
then God got louder,
coming through my walls,
morning music from a backyard bird,
an ambulance screaming, howling,
waking me up in the middle of the night,
then JESUS, THE MORNING LIGHT,
dawned on me – coming through
my eastern window
inviting me to stop fishing,
to drop everything,
to come ashore and eat with him,
and I woke up and said,
“It is the Lord.”
And after the feast
he said, “Feed the others.”

© Andy Costello

Reflections, 2007

REMEMBRANCE 
AND RESURRECTION

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Remembrance and Resurrection.”

Today’s readings are complicated. A friend of mine named Sylvia was telling me. “After hearing the readings, I said to myself, I wonder what the priest is going to say about all this today. Best of luck. Wooo!”

Today’s readings are end of the Church Year readings. We have this theme of the end of the world or what have you issues every year at this time. Then we come to Advent and its theme of new beginnings and the coming of Christ the first time at Christmas – which trigger thoughts of Christ’s Second Coming as well. The Early Church didn’t know whether Christ was going to come back soon – if the world was about to end – or what have you?– so the writings can be confusing. As we read these readings, we see some people starting to have doubts about when the end will come. We hear folks trying to give other folks hope – the hope that comes in, through, and with Christ. (If you have time, check Luke 21; Matthew 24-25; Mark 13; 1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11; 2 Corinthians 5:1-10; 2 Peter 3.)

Today’s readings can also be tied into November thoughts and feelings – here in the Northern Hemisphere – leaves changing, dying and falling to the ground with winter coming – thoughts of praying for our dead buried in our ground or what have you? Then today – Veteran’s Day – we’re remembering the many who died in service for our country and our world.

Today’s readings are tough readings for a homily – what to say, where to go – how to help with some food for thought for this Sabbath and for this week.

So let me go with “Remembrance and Resurrection” and see where this takes us.

AS WE AGE AND GET OLDER: TWO QUESTIONS

As we age and get older, as we face life having term limits – those two sets of numbers on our tomb stone – as we wonder about death at times, we get two thoughts – two questions: “Will I be remembered?” and “Is there resurrection and life after death?”

Remembrance and Resurrection.

We remember our dead. The roads of life have those many white crosses where people have been killed in car accidents. Every newspaper has its obituary column. We have our cemeteries. And every year we go to 3, 4, 5, funerals – and more as we age.

Remembrance and resurrection questions pop up at times: Will I be remembered? Did I make a difference? What did my life mean to those I was with? What is my legacy? Does anyone know I was here? What happens when we die? Is there resurrection and new life after this or is this all there is?

TODAY’S FIRST READING

Today’s first reading tells the story of one of the many genocide stories this planet has recorded. The history of the world is written in red ink, red blood – when it records massacres of Kurds in Iraq, Iran and Turkey, Armenians in Turkey, Jews in Germany, Poland, Austria and Russia, Moslems in the Balkans, Africans in various Africa countries, and as slaves in places where they were brought to and sold, Native People in Mexico, Darfur, North and South America and all around the world.

Today’s first reading from 2 Maccabees tells the story of seven brothers and their mother who were arrested, tortured, abused, and killed because of their beliefs, because of who they are.

Today’s first reading is a written remembrance somewhere around 140 BC and in this written statement we hear people talking resurrection after death.

We have no proof that there is life after death – if there is resurrection – but there has always been the argument – that if God is a God of love, then God will give new life to those who have been gunned down, gassed to death, raped and murdered because of who they are, what they believed in or what have you?

It’s an argument based on basic fairness.

There is no proof that there is life after death – but human beings down through the centuries have made an act of faith in a God of fairness – that God better be aware of little children who have been crushed and burnt or shot – that God better be aware of the millions and millions of people – whom the world never knew their names – because they were killed and slaughtered without ever being able to have a full life - the dead – especially those who have suffered – or were aborted or suicide bombed or what have you?

TODAY’S GOSPEL

Today’s gospel remembers an incident in the life of Jesus when some Sadducees tried to ridicule Jesus with this tricky – I’m going to get you with this question – question.

Luke records the conversation and gives a very rabbinic type story. This woman marries seven brothers all of whom die – none of whom gave her a child – which the Jewish law demanded the next brother better marry – so she can bring forth a child in that brother’s memory.

Then the question: “If there is a resurrection of the dead, whose wife will she be? Remember all seven were married to her.”

The Sadducees didn’t believe in life after death, so they were trying to mock resurrection and life after death by their cute question.

And Jesus bypasses all they are saying, by saying, “In the new age, in the next life, there is no marriage and remarriage, but all those who are deemed worthy to inherit eternal life, will inherit it. It will be life – risen life in God – life with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob – and all those with the Lord who have gone before us.

As Christians we believe that Jesus is the one we know by faith who came back from the dead.

We look at Jesus, the crucified one, on the cross, the one who died a horrible death without children at 33 or so. We believe this one is the Lord of the Hereafter.

St. Paul will say in so many words, “If this is not true, leave this church right now, because we’re stupid to believe in all we believe.” [Cf. 1 Corinthians 15]

If Jesus was just a historical figure, like Moses or Michelangelo or Montezuma, then it’s nice we’re here today celebrating his memory – eating a piece of bread in memory of a great man – who taught us and challenged us with some powerful stories, teachings and sayings.

But nice is not enough….

We are here because we believe in more.

We believe the Risen Lord is here. We believe Jesus is present in the bread and in each other.

We believe Jesus is the one who will take us over the waters of death to the shore of eternity.

So resurrection is crucial – and I believe it’s much more crucial than remembrance.

REMEMBRANCE

Yet we remember Jesus.

And we want to be remembered.

The most basic way of being remembered is being a parent.

Children are a thousand times better than a tombstone with our name on it - as a way of saying, “I was here.”

What about us who never had a child?

I chose to become a priest and a Redemptorist long before I consciously – very consciously, chose celibacy. I took vows to go this way in 1960 and got ordained in 1965 at the age of 25. But like many priests ten years later – especially in the 1970’s, as well as being like most human beings in their mid 30’s, who aren’t married and don’t have children, it hit me, “I am not bringing children into the world with this life choice.”

I was ordained with 16 others and half left the priesthood.

Bringing children into the world is a down deep way of being remembered.

AUDIO TAPE

While driving along alone once, I remember listening to an audio tape of a talk by Sidney Simon – of Values Clarification Fame. He was asking a group of young adults on a stage before a large group of people at an education conference in Kentucky, the following question: “If you died, what would the world be missing?”

It’s the same question that evokes tears every Christmas in the movie, “It’s A Wonderful Life.” George Bailiey discovers that by not existing the town where he lived would be very different. His wife, Mary Hatch Bailey, would have been single all her life, and a dozen other key things would never have happened.” The premise is obvious. Yet we still cry.

Well, at that education conference, Sidney Simon asks this young man, “If you died, what would the world miss?”

Silence. Then the young man gives a vague. hesitating, “Yes the world would miss things.”

Sidney Simon pushes, “Would miss what?”

And this young man said, “My friends would miss someone who loves to go to the race track. They would miss someone who likes to bust them with funny jokes and go, ‘Ha Ha!’.” And on and on and on this young man spoke of little personal things the world would miss if he was gone.

That question hit me.

I turned the tape off and thought about the question.

I’m trying to evoke in you the times that question has hit you.

I’m trying to evoke in you a looking at your history – that you listen to the stories of your life.

I spent 14 years of my life in two different retreat houses – 7 years in each – and each year a couple of thousand people who make weekend retreats and some high school kids would make mid-week retreats.

I spent 8 ½ years of my life on the road preaching and giving retreats all over the country – especially in Ohio.

I did lots of other things.

Is it all worth it?

Will I be remembered?

In my early years, to be remembered was more important than it is now. I couldn’t admit that when I was younger.

A priest is called a Father. Now, like every human being, I hope what I am doing as a human being helps other human beings. That’s parenting.

When I preach I don’t want to be the message. I just hope my way of reshaping the gospel and the readings makes it Good News to al of you who are sitting here.

Yesterday I preached at two weddings. My first hope is that the experience is not a disaster, not one more boring experience or blah experience or negative experience for many folks who enter churches a few times a year – if that.

I hope married folks will think of their marriage.

I hope people say, “That was the best wedding I was ever at.”

I hope people say, “Maybe I ought to get to church more?”

I hope people talk to themselves – and maybe even with God – about God in their lives.

I don’t want to be the message – any more than a father or a mother wants to be thought of. They just want to see their children joyful and doing well and life goes on and on and on.

At weddings I watch the front rows on both sides of the aisle – where parents and grandparents are sitting – and I’m trying to read their minds. The main thought I often here is this: “Seeing my child or grandkid today getting married makes my life make sense. Thank You, God. Thank You.”

That’s how I see remembrance.

As to resurrection – now I’m back to me. I laugh because I’ve discovered that celibacy is more about proclaiming resurrection than remembrance.

CONCLUSION

Next, and last, because I don’t know how to end this sermon, I’m back to Jesus. Now I say: “Death is the big letting go. I have to do that – but not yet, not yet, please God. Resurrection is the big act of faith and hope and trust, because what happens after death, is all up to God.”

NEW BOOK

BY

FATHER JOHN LAVIN

Father Jack Lavin’s new book, Noticing Lazarus at Our Door – Reflections of a Priest with Forty Years in Hispanic Ministry, is just coming out.

You can buy the book on line. Just type in Google: "Xlibris.Com - Bookstore"

Under search results - not sponsor links - Go to Xlibris Books and click that once.

Then hit "Search" on the left side menu.

Under search - author's name, type in "John Lavin."

His book, Noticing Lazarus at Our Door, will come up.

You can order it on line from Xlibris - the company that is publishing his book.

You can contact Xlibris Corporation,

Orders Customer Service Department

2 International Plaza, Suite 340

Philadelphia, PA 19113

Phone: 888-795-4274

Fax: 610-915-0294

You can e-mail Orders@xlibris.com

You can also order it from Barnes and Noble or Borders or other book stores. If they can't find it, ask them to type on their computer what I asked you to do above and go from there.

The list price is $15.99 in paperback and $22.99 in hardback.

As everyone here at St. Mary’s, Annapolis, Maryland, knows, Father Jack Lavin has been serving the Hispanic Community in this area for many years now – as well as in Baltimore, New York, Boston and Puerto Rico, etc. Along with Father Jack Hamrogue and now Father Carlos Valderramma (part time) the Hispanic Catholic Community have these 3 priests serving them.

Want to know what Jack thinks, read his book?

Want to reflect on the Immigration Issue, read his book?

Want to be challenged by the great gospel text in Luke 16: 19-31, read his book?

Want to write your own autobiography and reflections on your life, see how Jack Lavin organized his life experiences?

Want to meet some people up close and personal who have Hispanic roots and culture, read his book?

Want to make Jack Lavin smile big time, make his book a best seller by buying it – as well as telling others to buy it?

Thanks.

Father Andy Costello

ISBN13: 978-1-4257-9076-9 (Trade Paperback)

ISBN: 1-4257-9076-3 (Trade Paperback)

ISBN13: 978-1-4257-9088-2 (Hardback)

ISBN: 1-4257-9088-7 (Hardback)

Pages: 213 Subject:

RELIGION / Theology

NOTICING THE LITTLE GUY,

THE LITTLE GAL: THE ANAWIM

INTRODUCTION

Today’s first and third readings - for this 31 Sunday in Ordinary Time [C] - trigger the thought of noticing the little guy. So the title of my homily is, “Noticing the Little Guy, The Little Gal, the Anawim.”

This is a key theme in the Hebrew scriptures: Don’t forget the Anawim. A N A W I M: Aniwim. It’s the Hebrew word, for “The Little People.” The little people are God’s People.

This would be a good homily, if this week, everyone here noticed people we never noticed before - especially the little people - especially people we don’t think important – people we walk by every day.

This would be a great homily – if everyone here began to notice people we never noticed before – especially the unnoticed – for the rest of our lives.

This would make my day. It would also might make the day of the person we noticed.

FIRST READING

God notices all people. God is concerned with all people.

Today’s first reading presents a paradox. It’s from the book of Wisdom. The author begins: “Before the Lord the whole universe is as a grain from a balance – a weighing scale in the market place - or a drop of morning dew come down upon the earth.” [Look again at the picture at the top of this homily, then put your cursor on it and mouse click it once. See what you saw up closer.]

What an amazing notice! This universe is vast. We have no clue how far and how many universes there are out there – and how far it goes. Our universe doesn’t stop at our ceiling.

Spot a piece of dandruff on the shoulder of someone in front of you. The author is saying: “To God this vast endless looking universe is like that tiny, tiny speck of dandruff, skin, that softly dropped off someone’s scalp to someone’s shoulder.”

Then the author switches his thought and says: “Even though everything is so small to God, God sees all. God has fashioned all. God loves everything and everyone He has made. God is a lover of all souls” God notices all!

A FOOTBALL GAME

We’re at a football game. The place is packed. People are everywhere. Whom do we notice? Whom do we see?

Parents notice their kid or kids on the field or in the stands. The rest of us might be spotting a running back or quarterback or cheerleader – or wondering where the beer man is.

God is spotting everyone. We are all God’s children.

We see those we know – sometimes. We see crowds. God sees every individual person – those on the field, those in the stands, the person in an ambulance off to the side - or in the parking lot - reading a newspaper or listening to music because he or she doesn’t like football, but is there in case of an injury.

God notices the little guy, the little gal, the Anawim.

THE SCULLY FAMILY

I grew up on 62nd Street in Brooklyn, N.Y. We moved to that street because a man named Mr. Tim Scully told my dad about a house there. He had gotten my dad a job at Nabisco. I’ve heard several times that Mrs. Scully brought my mom to Victory Memorial Hospital for my birth. I don’t remember that. I also have heard a story that Mrs. Scully once checked my head after she heard I had fallen on my head in the basement - right onto a hard cement basement floor. My head was soft. She got me to the hospital.

So Mr. and Mrs. Scully were very much part of our growing up years.

We went to their house to watch TV - especially the ball games before we had TV. At Christmas time I remember they had a set of electric trains that went around their Christmas tree. We didn’t. We never did.

Well, one of their grandsons, Jack Scully, was All American football player at Notre Dame. He was a big guy. Notre Dame could have used him yesterday. He then started for the Atlanta Falcons for about 11 years. Well, whenever the Falcons played on television, I saw crowds in the stands, players on the field, lots of people with numbers – but I found myself always looking for Number 64. I noticed Jack Scully. I didn’t notice the guy who held the wires for the coach.

When God watches us everyday, God notices the little guy, the little gal, the Anawim. God sees everyone of us – especially the unnoticed by everyone else.

ART FINAN

A priest named Art Finan once gave a sermon at St. Michael’s Church in West End, N.J. His sermon was on today’s readings and every time I read these readings I remember what happened after that Mass – a Mass I wasn’t even at. I was having lunch with some people who went to that Mass and they were talking about the sermon that Father Art Finan had preached. He told them about the Anawim. I stole his sermon thought secondhand and you’re hearing it today. He said that the Anawim were like crumbs - the tiny crumbs that fall off our toast onto a kitchen counter or onto the floor. The Anawim are the crumbs – especially those on the floor. We step on them.

God doesn’t. God is concerned with them. He sent the prophets to tell people to be aware of the unnoticed – the rejected - the stepped on.

He sent his son to reach out to them. He sends us to be for them.

JOE ADAMEC

Two months ago a Redemptorist priest named Joe Adamec died in Boston. I followed him after he got off the job as novice master for our students. Many years before that I once found myself dropping into our parish of St. Mary’s in Buffalo, N.Y. on my way somewhere.

Then, I found out at supper, it was Joe’s last night at St. Mary’s Parish there – before he left for Wisconsin to be Novice Master.

After supper, Joe asked me, “Do you want to see the parish?” I said, “Good.” It was raining. It was night. But Joe still gave me a great tour of the parish.

The parish was in one of the toughest sections of Buffalo. Well, we walked down many streets and everyone seemed to know Joe. We went into a few bars and everyone said, “Hi Father Joe.” We went into this three story abandoned house. The roof had a big hole in it and I could see the night and the rain coming through. But I didn’t notice this guy living in a corner in some cardboard boxes. Joe knew he was there., “Hi Father Joe.”

9 years later I took Joe’s place as novice master and he went to our parish in Boston – that’s a small town in New England – that has people making lots of noise lately.

Years later, another priest, also named Father Joe, told me that he was covering two hospitals: one for Father Joe Adamec and the other for this other priest for two weeks – so they could go on vacation. This second Joe, Joe Krastel, told me that he goes to the first hospital, the one which Father Joe visited and it was the Haitian floor cleaners who kept asking, “Where’s Father Joe?”

Joe Krastel laughed, because when he covered the other hospital for this other priest, it was only the pretty nurses who kept asking where this other priest was.

Whom do we see? Whom do we notice?

MY DAD

I think of my dad. He had a fourth grade education. One of his wonderful traits was his profound respect for all people – especially the little guy. I remember vividly him talking about the different men he worked with at Nabisco – those running the high lo’s, those running the elevators, etc. He would always be talking about these fellow workers with a rich smile on his face - people at work who fascinated him. Looking back, I loved that quality in my dad. He noticed the little people.

TODAY’S GOSPEL

In today’s gospel, Jesus notices the Little Guy – Zacchaeus – up a tree and invites himself into Zacchaeus’ home. The town knew who Zacchaeus was – and they didn’t like him. As we read the Gospel of Luke – as well as the other gospels, we’re often surprised at the people Jesus noticed. It’s often people nobody else noticed.

As people read our gospel: the gospel according to Jane or Sarah or Evelyn or Larry or Bernie or Walter, or whatever our name is, who are the people they read that we notice?

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily is, “Noticing the Little Guy, the Little Gal: the Anawim.”

This week, let’s notice one another – especially the Little Ones.

Noticing is the step before loving one another. We have to notice each other first.

This week stop a few times before you take your next step. Notice who is around – who is surrounding you. Is there anyone you’re not noticing? Is there anyone you’re treating as a crumb – those whom you think are crummy – and invite them down off the tree or up from the floor and invite yourself into their life. Amen.

NOVEMBER 1st:

ALL SAINTS DAY.
WHAT A GREAT WAY
TO START A GREAT MONTH?

Today we celebrate All Saints. It’s a good feast. It’s like saying at a banquet, “We want to thank Joe and Charlie, Mary and Patricia, Jane and Tom. Better, we want to thank all of you here today and for all that you do for all of us around here - how you have been like so many wonderful people who have gone before us!”

All Saints Day is not a complicated concept.

Sometimes non-Catholics don’t get it with Catholics and Saints – especially with the Blessed Mother Mary. No, we don’t say Mary or the Saints are Gods. No, we don’t worship them. Yes, we pray to them for help when we want to sell our house, or to find lost ear rings, or when we feel like hopeless cases. Yes, there is probably some superstition and tongue in cheek aspects with regards the Catholic practice of honoring and recognizing saints. And we can laugh at ourselves about all this.

And for those who don’t accept that, on November 1st, we let it all hang out and celebrate all saints and all kinds of saints.

We celebrate the Saints we know: Claire and Francis, Augustine and Teresa, St. Vincent de Paul and St. Paul. But we also celebrate our patron saint: if we have been named after one. And we also celebrate the many saints who surround us – living saints – as well as those people who have gone before us who were good people – models, examples, people who cared, people who made sacrifices for us, people who tried to live the Beatitudes.

We pray: "Thank You God for all the wonderful people who have graced our lives – known and unknown – parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, neighbors."

So we don’t think it’s complicated.

All Saints Day is a day of gratitude to start off the month of November, a month of Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow, All Souls' Day, we’ll pray for our dead.

November is a good month for enriching our spiritual life – especially by reflecting on all kinds of people who are saints – saints with a small “s” - as well as Saints with a capital “S”.

Last night I looked up the Saints of November. It's the month of St. Martin de Porres and St. Martin of Tours, St. Charles Borremeo and St. Columban, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini and St. Margaret of Scotland, St. Andrew the Apostle and St. Andrew Avellino, St. Leo the Great and St. Albert the Great, St. Cecilia and St. Gertrude. It also has a Marian feast: The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary on November 21st.

I like Halloween – because kids can dress up in all kinds of outfits and get sugar overloads. I also love it when Catholic churches and schools have kids dress up in Saints’ outfits - and parade through classrooms or down the main aisle of church.

Saints make sanctity real. Saints make the gospel visible. Saints help kids see holiness in a personal visual aide.

I got a call the other day from a lady about St. John Neumann. Her kid was writing a story about him as well as dress up as St. John Neumann for All Saints Day. Great. The tradition continues.

Here at St. John Neumann Church we celebrate a Saint who visited Annapolis at least two times. And he was supposed to be there for the dedication of St. Mary’s Church on January 15, 1860 – but died on January 5th. He had blessed the cornerstone in 1858.

So we’re blessed here at Annapolis that a Saint was in our presence – remembered by this church and symbolized by his statue in the courtyard outside the front doors here – as well as Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos' statue at St. Mary’s in the Marian Gardens.

So All Saints Day has lots of messages.

Conclusion: whatever message hits us – hits us – and I’m sure we all want to be part of that huge crowd we heard about in today's first reading from Revelation (7: 2-4, 9-14). As the old spiritual song goes – made famous by Louis Armstrong, “When the Saints come marching in, I want to be in their number.”

CONTRAST IS
A GREAT TEACHER

OPENING IMAGE

Everything always went right for Bob; everything always came easy. That is, till he had a stroke. And the stroke hit him and hit him hard. It was the first time he was ever in a hospital, that is, since his birth. His health was another one of those things he always bragged about, something he always prided himself in.

Well now, here he was in a hospital. Here he was in a room with someone else—someone “lower” than himself. Obviously, Joan, Bob’s wife, wanted him in a private room. They had the money. They had the insurance for the best health care in the world. However, the doctors stressed the value of sharing a room with someone else, “He’ll learn so much more by recovering with someone else.”

For the first few days Bob was hardly able to speak and hardly able to cope. His brain, his whole body, all was numb—dumb. All was moving in slow motion. He had lost control: he leaked; he drooled; he cried. His systems had let go. And as he lay there, he slowly began to realize that he too was going to have to learn to let go. That’s difficult when everything always worked the way they’re supposed to work.

Growing up, school came easy to him. Without cracking the books, without his parents or teachers having to crack the whip, he was always at the top of his class in grammar school, high school, and college.

Life came easy to him: a good job, a good family, a good neighborhood. Bob had the American Dream. Everything he did was a piece of cake and he got to eat it as well.

Contrast is a great teacher.

In the bed next to him was Jose. What a contrast! Jose: short, squat, bus driver, as well as a taxi cab driver on the side. Bob: tall, thin, business executive and Mercedes driver, golf and bridge player on the side.

Contrast is a great teacher.

Then there were their wives: Lourdes and Joan. Every afternoon around 2:00 o’clock in came Jose’s wife, Lourdes. She always wore her blue bloated down jacket and a beautiful smile. She waddled in with her shopping bags of stuff: everything from soup to rice and beans. Next came Joan, usually around 3:00. It’s a longer trip from suburbia. Sometimes, depending on where she was coming from, she would be wearing her soft white coat or her green suede jacket or her long tan overcoat.

Contrast is a great teacher.

Classes began. School started.

Two weeks later things had changed. Bob and Jose got to know each other—first by looks, then by waves, then by words. Both had major strokes, but luckily for both, the stroke was on their left side, so both were able to speak. In time all four—husbands and wives—talked—moving from small talk to healing talk. A stoke is a handicap and as in golf a handicap can be a great equalizer.

Physical therapy was aggressive. This was the doctors' and therapists' big stress: “We’re going to push and push hard. We have discovered that aggressive physical therapy as soon as possible after a stroke is the most important thing we can do for a stroke patient. The sooner the better. And we think our PT, Physical Therapy Department, and our OT, Occupational Therapy Department, are the best in the state.”

However, it was their kids who were the greatest teachers. Bob and Joan had 2 kids: both married, neither of whom had kids. Jose and Lourdes had their 8 kids and those 8 kids each seemed to have 6, 7 or 8 kids each. Sunday afternoons, when all showed up, chairs were out of the question. Bob and Jose’s room was as crowded as a tenement apartment. They had to move to the lounge—which both families soon took over. It was Bob and Joan’s first introduction to real Spanish food and Spanish culture and Spanish family life. “Mi casa, su casa” was the menu of the day. Soon all were laughing as they were eating Spanish food on paper plates with plastic knives and plastic forks that had come out of stained brown paper bags.

Contrast is a great teacher.

Then came the homework. As the weeks rolled on, it was at night that Bob began to do his homework. He gave himself poor grades as he compared his life to Jose’s.

Both men talked. Bob told Jose how lucky he was to have such beautiful children and grandchildren. He said how much he liked Miguel, Jose’s little 2 year old grandson. Jose added, “Isn’t he such a funny character?” Bob added, “Watching your family, I see how wrong I’ve been about people who live in the city and in apartment houses. I now see how important the things in life you can’t buy are: kisses, hugs, humor, laughter, children and grandchildren. Wow! When I walk out of this hospital, I’m going to be walking out a new person, Jose. Thanks. Oops. Muchas gracias.”

HOMILETIC REFLECTIONS

In today’s gospel we listened to one of Jesus’ great parables: the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. “Two men went up to the temple to pray: one was a Pharisee, the other a tax collector.”

In today’s gospel Jesus uses contrast. Contrast is a great teacher. And Jesus, the great teacher, is constantly trying to reach us and teach us by the use of contrasts, by the use of comparisons.

If contrasts and comparisons can get us to buy athletic shoes or diet food, why not use it to get us to change our attitudes?

Jesus aimed his parable at the Pharisee within each of us. Jesus throws this parable to us today to get us to think about how we view each other.

The Pharisee came into the temple not to praise God but to praise himself. The Pharisee came into the temple not only to put himself on a pedestal, but to put others in the basement. “I give you thanks, O God, that I am not like the rest of the people around here—grasping, crooked, adulterous—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I pay tithes on all I possess.”

The Tax Collector, the “sinner”, went to the temple to pray. When he walked into the presence of God, he realized by contrast his sinfulness. Contrast is a great teacher. He felt the vast difference between himself and God. He kept his distance and prayed, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

Then Jesus hits us with the message. Then Jesus gives us his teaching, once more by using contrast. The Tax Collector, the sinner, the other man, Jesus says, went home from the temple justified, but the other man did not. “For all those who exalt themselves shall be humbled, while they who humble themselves shall be exalted.”

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

When are we going to learn this great lesson from life?

For most people, it’s probably one of those things we learn in the second half of life.

As St. Paul puts it in today’s second reading to Timothy, “It’s going to be after the fight is over and after the race is run.”

Isn’t that when most people really learn about life: after the race; after the fight; event; after the mistake; after the fall; in the winter of life?

Isn’t it when we are young and strong, rich and self-righteous, that we don’t listen and don’t learn? Aren’t those our Pharisee years?

And isn’t it when we are older and weaker, when we start to experience our body falling apart, that we begin to see what life is all about?

For Bob in today’s opening story, wasn’t it the time in his life when he was humbled by a stroke that his mind began to get exalted thoughts? Wasn’t the hospital his greatest classroom? Wasn’t Jose and his family his greatest teachers?

Doesn’t everyone say, “I never appreciated my health till I lost it.” Don’t we all hear people say, “I never appreciated my wife or husband till I lost her or him” Sickness gets us to sort out who and what’s really important in life.

Conclusion: As we heard in today’s first reading, isn’t it when we are weak and feel like an orphan or a widow that we finally begin to realize that God is listening to us and we ought to be listening to God? Isn’t the purpose of coming into this church, this temple, this hospital, to learn, to pray, to listen, to be emptied of ourselves and to walk out filled with a greater awareness of God and exalted thoughts about our neighbor?

“For all those who exalt themselves shall be humbled, while they who humble themselves shall be exalted.”

© Markings

Homiletic Reflections

30 Sunday OT C

Oct. 29, 1995

Andy Costello, CSSR