STEPS:
THE BLESSING AND THE CURSE

Steps: the story of a life.
Steps: the blessing and the curse.
Steps: the little kid seeing all those tall legged creatures climbing all those stairs – so, so easily – and we have barely learned to walk.
Steps: the little kid looking at the more of life – the wondering “What’s up there?” or “What’s down there?”
Steps: the old folk seeing all those tall legged creatures climbing up and down those stairs – so, so easily – and we barely finished, said, or did the things we wanted to finish, say and do.
Steps: the old folk feeling the less of life – the wondering, “What’s up there?” or “What’s down there?”
Steps: the blessing and the curse.
Steps: the story of a life.

© Andrew Costello
Reflections, 2009

Steps at the

Foyle River Bridge,

Derry, Northern Irleland

BLESSINGS 

ON A LOST CHILD

Jesus often saw them on the edge of the crowd,
these young folks who couldn’t commit –
these young folks who had to run to far countries –
to party, and then to pigsty it – and then sometimes,
but only sometimes, head home sheepishly.
Then, surprise, to see – and then to feel –
the welcoming embrace of a loving father or mother –
and then the anger of older brothers or sisters.
Jesus knew life – family life. Jesus knew that
his Father feels what so many parents feel:
stray, lost, prodigal sons or daughters.
Jesus saw his far off Father waiting, waiting.
Jesus knew returns can be long in coming.
So Jesus, the Son, tried to put into words
what his Father felt, what so many parents feel.
Jesus with serious face and serious words
told crowds about lost sheep, coins,
sons and daughters – and then….
Then with a great smile Jesus would tell
about the joy his Father felt
in the banquet halls of heaven –
when He announced to the great crowds of heaven,
“Good News! One more lost child has come home!”
And Jesus could hear the outbreak, the clapping,
the pandemonium of joy in the banquet halls of Heaven.

© Andrew Costello

Reflections, 2009

CLEAN CALENDAR

Lord, I’m beginning this new year
with a clean calendar.
By the end of the year
it will be marked up, messed up,
ending up looking like
a kid’s magazine in a dentist office.

There will be scheduled
and rescheduled meetings and games,
appointments and disappointments,
birthdays and anniversaries.

And then there will be the unscheduled:
hospital visits, wakes, funerals.

Hopefully there will also be surprise,
those joyful interruptions
to our scheduled and structured life:
a friend from long ago
will be in the area and will call.
Surprise! We have an opening
for them in our messy calendar.

And hopefully, too, I'll have time
for You, Lord, on my calendar this year.

© Andrew Costello

Reflections, 2009

GO FIGURE!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Go Figure!”

Today is a wonderful feast to have at the beginning of a new year: the feast of the Epiphany.

What am I going to do with my life in this new year, 2009?

Go figure!

This year, will I have an epiphany – a great insight – a light that will go on – a star shining over and pointing out the thing I really need to do with my life?

Go figure?

More and better: what am I going to do not just this year – but with the rest of my life? And hopefully, that means years to come?

Go figure!

Where am I headed? What’s next? What’s down the line? What is the journey of life all about? It’s the old catechism question: Why did God make me?

Go figure.

Isn’t life a search for meaning – for epiphanies – for insights – for lightning bolt assurances – for amazing graces – for things that make sense? *
Isn’t life all about, “Going and figuring.”

Go figure.

Don’t we come to church to come figure out life?

We have all these stars up here on our ceiling. Is one of them pointing out something to us?

I was visiting my sister and brother-in-law for New Year’s. We were out shopping. When we came back my brother-in-law Jerry was parking their car in their garage. I noticed they have this neat red beam that tells the driver just where to stop the car. Wonderful. Wouldn’t it be neat to have red beams telling us what to do each day?

Or would it?

DISTRACTIONS

To me, life is all about distractions. I don’t get it when people confess having distractions as sins. Okay deliberate distractions and not listening.

Distractions are the constant inner chattering of the human brain – the amazing human brain – constantly searching – figuring – questioning – deciding – re-questioning – moving.

Don’t we spend most of our lives searching – looking – moving – wondering – wandering – risking – trying - hoping to find answers to questions we sometimes don’t even know we’re on a quest with?

Aren’t we all searchers? Isn’t the question mark our symbol? I picture everyone having as their flag, a big white sheet with a big black question mark on it.

We even do this in our sleep. Dreams are all about searching – getting lost – trapped – being with strange rangers in strange situations. At least that’s the experience we tell each other at the breakfast table – if it was a dramatic dream we remembered.

How many times have we found ourselves in the morning sitting there on the edge of our bed like Rodin’s statue, “The Thinker!” and we’re saying, “Now what was that all about?”

Go figure!

THE THREE KINGS

The three kings…. We’re not sure whether they were kings or that they were three – but three is a good number to picture the story.

The three kings …. They represent us. We’re all searchers – for God – for a Savior – for a Leader – for a King – for One who will tell us what it’s all about.

The three kings…. They are not just the stuff of statues in church – or lawn or Christmas card or under our Christmas tree. They are the stuff of story. They are under our story.

The three kings…. They are also called Wise Men and Magi. They are wise because they kept on searching till they found what they were looking for.

THE STAR

The star is essential to the story.

We’re looking for signs – stars that point the way – to what we’re looking for – the ultimates of life – the deepest meanings of life.

We see lights – insights from time to time: these are our personal epiphanies.

Have we arrived yet at our crib and our Bethlehem or are we still on the journey – still searching?

Have we seen the star yet – our star – the right star?

We can’t see stars in the day. We can only see the stars when we are in the dark. And sometimes we don’t look up. Sometimes we forget we’re searching. Sometimes we’re stopped or stuck somewhere. And sometimes it’s cloudy in our night – the dark night of our soul.

Then sometimes we wake up because we’re rattled or frustrated or lost and in the dark. Then we look up and see the right star and a possible new direction and we get back on our camel and start moving again.

Then like the Magi – we ask questions. Notice they are men and they ask for directions. Amazing. And they are making the journey together. It’s always wise to do life together – with others.

THE JOURNEY

The journey story is everyone’s story.

Think of the movies we like. They will tell us a lot about ourselves.

And movies are all about moves!

It could be The Wizard of Oz. That movie is all about the journey – the search – or as Dorothy puts it, “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look further than my own backyard, because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.” We want to feel at home. Home means we’re no longer running the bases. We’ve arrived. We can relax. We’re in our place – in the dugout. Home. Back with the people we know and love. Phew.

But look at how much Dorothy learned on the journey: how we need each other – that there are Wizards and Witches, – that we need courage when we feel like a cowardly lion, brains when we feel like a scarecrow or straw person, a heart and a soul, an inside, a spirit, when we feel like we’re a Tin Person, a Robot.

It could be the Jason Bourne movies. We’re running, running, running, trying to find out who we really are.

It could be Doctor Zhivago, my favorite movie, Yuri trying to find security, home, family, future, career, – in the midst of war and strife and everything including weather seems to be conspiring against him. **
The journey story is everyone’s story – not just the three kings or wise men – not just Jason Bourne and Dorothy – or George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, not just Dante and Don Quixote, not just in the ancient stories, the Iliad and the Odyssey.

We’re always searching. Meaning is our distraction. We might be in traffic or a meeting or in church or talking with someone – but we’re elsewhere – on the journey – trying to go figure what life’s all about.

That’s why we have these texts in the gospels about people on journeys coming up to Jesus and asking him, “What’s it all about?” What’s the first and greatest commandment? And Jesus sums it all up. It’s all about loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

We read. We hear the scriptures stories. We go figure.

THE GIRL IN THE DOLL HOUSE

In this homily, I'm saying we're all like the Magi - going through life searching. Don’t we all have things we’re looking for or trying to figure out or years - while we’re looking for ways to pay our bills, raise our kids, do our job, keep our job, find a job, love our spouse, enjoy a football game or a book or a trip to the mall or a play or a movie or a walk at Quiet Waters Park or the Naval Academy or Navy Stadium?

While driving along some road, some 30 years ago, I was listening to some audio tapes by the Jesuit priest, Bernard Bassett. He told a story about a little girl. About 20 years later I realized he said something very important – that I had been thinking about semi-consciously many times on many roads afterwards.

What I remembered went something like this. He was visiting an institute for little kids who had psychological problems for various reasons. The staff worked with these kids – maybe from broken homes – or they were abused or this or that – in hopes that they would get healthy. One day he was looking through one of those one way windows you see in movies. He was sitting with a child psychologist who pointed out a little girl in this big doll house. "Hopefully," the psychologist said, "the little girl will look up and look out a window of this big doll house she was playing in and see other kids playing together here and there." He said that the little girl controlled life in her doll house - giving directions to this doll and that doll – but they were not live persons. Then he said, "If the little girl opens the door and walks out and over to other kids and starts to interact with them, some of whom will not notice her, she’s on her way to being healed."

Isn't that the great epiphany of life - to come out of our own little world - and journey out into the bigger world and interact with other people?

Isn’t that what all of you who are parents are very concerned about – that your kids will look up and come out of themselves – and go out and interact with our world – making this world a better world?

In the meanwhile I kept looking for the tape of that story to see how close I was to what Bernard Basset really said. There I was at Faulkner, Maryland with some of our high school seniors on a retreat at the Jesuit Retreat House. I spotted a cabinet with some audio tapes. Surprise – all the tapes by Bassett were there, except the one I wanted. It was missing.

Surprise! A year later I’m in our Redemptorist Retreat House, San Alfonso, in Long Branch, New Jersey with our high school juniors. I spotted a box of books to be discarded. There was a book by Bernard Basset. I open it and see the story I was looking for in print. I was right about the big doll house – but there was also a glass phone booth. The girl was in the phone booth on that particular day. If she opened the telephone booth door and walked towards the kids – she was on her way towards healing – even if some kids would ignore her. ***

CONCLUSION

Today’s feast of the Epiphany is about such moments. What did the 3 kings or Magi or Wise Men discover that day?

Go figure.

What I figure is this: life is all about discovering life is not about me but it’s about the other – especially the child. The call is to keep life going for those around us.

How many people wrapped up in themselves – get married – and come out of themselves if blessed with a child – with children. The mother and father stand there over their child’s crib. They look down at new life. They realize this is what it's all about. They have an epiphany. Their life is about to change - big time.

A baby needs time and gifts – not gold, frankincense and myrrh, but gold, food and attention.

For those of us without children, we have to discover the same message – that life is for the next generation – not ourselves.

What personally hits me is that a priest is called “Father”.

What hits you personally about this feast of the Epiphany?

After Mass come up to the creche, the nativity scene. See the 3 kings. See the child in the crib.

See yourself as a child in that crib - that you were honored at your birth. Then you had to grow up and see that life is stepping up and out of childhood and learning to do for the next generation. - starting with children and on and on and on.

Now that’s an epiphany.

Go figure.

* Check out the writings of Joan Didion, for example, The Year of Magical Thinking, (2005) and We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, (2006)

** Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, (1957) and movie, Doctor Zhivago, (1965).

*** Bernard Basset, S.J. The Noonday Devil, Spiritual Support in Middle Age, "The Girl In The Telephone Booth," pp. 69-86, Image Books, 1968

NEW YEAR’S PRAYER

Lord, it’s
a new year,
a new start.
Give us the power,
give us the energy,
give us the desire
to be more holy,
to be more creative,
to be more focused this new year.
Give us insights
to come up with
balanced programs and projects,
to make good resolutions and
to have the resolve
to finish what we have started.
Yet, help us to be more aware of people
than paper,
to be more personal
than professional,
to be more prayerful
than just saying prayers,
knowing that you are with us all days,
even to the end of the year,
even to the end of the world. Amen.

© Andrew Costello
Markings

A PRAYER FOR JANUARY:
THE CHRISTIAN CALLING

To see the real light
which gives light to everyone,
to accept Jesus,
to be reborn as a child of God,
to believe in the Lord’s name,
to follow Jesus,
to escape into the desert
in order to overcome the temptations of life,
to give up all so as to fit through the eye of the needle
and enter the kingdom,
to walk the narrow way,
to stop to help the injured along the way,
to visit the sick and those in prison,
to feed the hungry and clothe the naked,
to become yeast, salt and light,
to be a mustard seed,
to be healed and stand up straight,
to stop throwing stones, to turn the other cheek,
to go the extra mile, to love my enemies,
to do good without expecting any return,
to produce good fruit,
to read the signs of the times and move on,
to be transfigured on mountains,
to go to Jerusalem,
to enter one’s inner temple and clean it out,
to become a house of prayer,
to enter one’s upper room,
to eat the new bread and drink the new wine,
to accept the covenant of love,
to go to the garden of agony,
to pray while friends sleep,
to be betrayed, denied, cursed at,
to be forced to carry a cross,
to suffer and to die,
to rise beyond the status quo.
Isn’t that the true Christian calling?

© Andy Costello

Markings

HAPPY NEW YEAR
FACE TO FACE

INTRODUCTION

Today’s first reading triggers the memory of one of the most ancient and most popular games of all cultures. It’s the game that parents and grandparents play with children called, “Peekaboo!” And if the kid is very small we say, “Peekaboo! I love you.”

Little children long to see the face of their mother and their father. “Peekaboo! I love you.”

In the movie, “The Godfather”, we even see Don Corleone, Marlo Brando, as a grandfather, kidding and playing this came of “Peekaboo” in the backyard with his grandson.

When we were children we climbed up on our father’s lap to pull away his strong fingers to see his face.

We long to see the face of our father.

And when we did wrong, didn’t we hide our face in shame? But didn’t we also have at the same time, a deep longing that our father would come into our darkness and that we would see his shining face? Didn’t we long for his smile, so that we would know that he had come to “forgive us our trespasses?”

HOMILETIC REFLECTIONS

In today’s first reading, then, we have these basic human feelings in an ancient and famous blessing called, “The Aaronite or Priestly Blessing.”

“May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord let his face shine on you
and be gracious to you.
May the Lord uncover his face to you
and bring you peace.”

This special blessing goes way back into Old Testament history. In fact, for example, in August of 1979 an amulet or charm was found in an archeological dig in Jerusalem’s old city with the blessing on it. However, it took years for anyone to figure it out.

Judith Hadley, a graduate student in archeology from Toledo, Ohio, spotted the amulet and said it looked like a cigarette butt. It was a tiny roll of silver from around 2,600 years ago. The leader of the dig, a Gabriel Barkay of Tel Aviv University, recognized it as an amulet that someone would have worn with a string through it.

For two and a half years the amulet was studied and worked on carefully. Gabriel Barkay knew there must be writing on it. Finally, after figuring out how to unroll the silver without destroying it, writing was discovered. With the help of a microscope, a researcher saw the name Yahweh two times. However, it wasn’t till 1986, when the Israel Museum was putting together an exhibit of the treasures from the dig where the amulet was found, that the name Yahweh was seen for the third time. It was the clue that solved the mystery: the amulet contained the Priestly or Aaronite Blessing.

So just as people today wear charms or amulets around their necks with special words on them, what more beautiful words than the Priestly or Aaronite blessing.

The blessing is simple and basic. It asks that essential needs be taken care of:

• that God keep protective watch over us,

• that God be gracious to us,

• that God not hide his face from us,

• that God bring us his peace—Shalom.

What more could we want?

This blessing became so special that laws (rules and regulations), were made, so that it could be given only by the priests: the Sons of Aaron.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

As we begin a New Year, as we wish blessings on each other, as we pray for peace for ourselves, our family and our world, perhaps we can look at this Aaronite or Priestly Blessing for the secret or the answer on just how to have peace and a Happy New Year.

The key hope and blessing is that we see the face of God. When that happens, then we will have peace. The key then is living in a face to face relationship with God. Transparency. Honesty. Openness. These are the virtues needed for a happy life.

All of us can relate to that. Once more we can go back to the childhood game of longing to see the face of our mother and our father. When they were out of sight, we often cried. We thought they were hiding from us. We thought we did something wrong. But when we saw their smile, then we knew all was right. Peace was being loved. Peace was being held. Peace was being reflected in the center of our parent’s eyes. “Peekaboo! I love you!”

But we don’t have to go back to our childhood only. We know as adults that when we are at odds with God or our family or our neighbor, we hide our faces from each other. We can’t look each other in the eye. We wear masks. Didn’t St. Paul say all that: that we sin in the dark, behind closed doors, our of sight, in secret?

Isn’t that the message behind the eye of God on the dollar bill? God sees all. Put the dollar back. It’s not yours. Don’t steal. And if you do steal, you’ll discover, even if you are never caught, that you stole some peace and happiness from yourself. Is unhappiness worth a dollar? A hundred dollars? Does it have a price?

But happiness isn’t a relationship with God where we think he is always watching us. That would be a relationship built on fear and not on trust and love. To have a Happy New Year and to have the blessing of peace, we need to have a positive relationship with a loving God.

And to start this kind of a relationship, God usually makes the first move. When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, what did they do? They hid in shame. They could not face God. Yet, God did not give up and hide his face from them. He went searching for them in the Garden. And when He found them he talked to them face to face.

And isn’t that also the message of Christmas which we just celebrated? That God once more came into the Garden of the world to look at us face to face. Jesus is the face of God shining on us. The word became flesh, became an infant, looking out at us and our world. When we look at the Christmas crib, what do we see? What does the Christmas story say to us?

Did Mary play, “Peekaboo! I love you,” with Jesus?

Obviously, we don’t know the answer to that one. But why not? And why not imagine seeing the faces of Mary and Joseph and the shepherds in today’s Gospel looking at the face of Jesus? Painters through the centuries have imagined the scene. Luke is telling us that the shepherds represent us, that we should long to see the face of Jesus.

And Luke is also telling us to be like Mary: to treasure and ponder all these things in our heart. Isn’t that treasuring and pondering the beginning of a deep prayer life with God that will bring happiness and peace to our heart this New Year and every year of our life?

And isn’t that what Paul is calling us to in today’s second reading? “God sent his Son, born of a woman,” so that we can have a relationships with him that is face to face—intimate. We can have a relationship with God that is as close as a child climbing up on his lap and looking him face to face, eye to eye. We can have a relationship with God that is as intimate and face to face as is his relationship with Mary.

Commenting on today’s second reading from Galatians, John Bligh, S.J., the British scripture scholar, reflects on St. Paul, that “it can hardly have escaped his notice that the `woman’ whom he mentions was taken into an astonishing intimacy with God. When she cried `Abba, Father’, she was addressing the Father of her own Son. To this day, it is impossible to contemplate the relationship of Mary the Mother of Jesus to God the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ without wonder and amazement.”

The secret of a Happy New Year then is t have a face to face relationship with God. How? The answer is found in today’s Gospel: to be like Mary, to be like Joseph, to be like the shepherds, to approach Jesus and look into his face.

But it must be stated that Jesus is no longer a baby. Today, this New Year, approach Jesus adult to adult, face to face. Let his face shine on you. Let him be gracious to you. Isn’t that what Jesus was about? He is the Aaronite or the Priestly Blessing in the flesh. He is the face of God walking around blessing people. He walked around looking into people’s faces. Most turned away and walked the other way. The gospels, Sunday after Sunday, however, tell us story after story about people whom Jesus met face to face: Nicodemus, the Woman at the Well, the Rich Young Man, Zaccheus, and hundreds more. But to as many who received him, he gave them power to become the children of God. Like a little kid, climbing up on his father’s lap, Jesus went up to people and pried their hands away from their faces and looked into their eyes, with the eyes of love.

The Lord’s face shone on them. He was gracious to them. He gave them the possibility of peace. And whenever he looked into someone’s eyes and saw death, he cried out, “Lazarus, come forth!” He, the Lord of the Resurrection, wanted to see life in people, not death. He wanted to see light, not darkness,. He wanted to be gracious, not grouchy or greedy. He wanted to see peace, not unrest. He wanted to see love, not hate.

It might sound corny, but doesn’t Jesus say to us, “Peekaboo! I love you.” Isn’t that what he calls his followers to have: a love that breaks down walls and allows people to live face to face with God and each other in love? Isn’t that what will put peace into our hearts and our faces? Isn’t that what will bring all of us to a Happy New Year?