DIVINE MERCY
22 GLIMPSES

Christmas - for starters - every year,
or every day if one is awake….
The Wise seeing a star ….
The shepherds hearing a song ….
A baby is born in a stable -
surrounded by Joseph and Mary -
animals, shepherds and kings -
while out front - inside the Inn
there are people who just missed out
on the biggest thing that ever happened
in that town - better: in our world.


Standing in the Jordan River,
there’s John the Baptist baptizing.
Oh that’s where he got his name.
He’s urging, he’s challenging -
he’s calling people to change -
to stop overtaxing each other -
to end brutality to one another -
to put the axe to the roots of one’s personality -
so that good fruit can be found on one’s table
and in one’s heart and soul and hands.


The scene is a beach. It’s early morning.
Fishermen are chatting - cleaning - mending nets -
connecting to each other as family and friends.
Their nets are empty after a night of nothing -
that is, till Jesus walks into their lives
at daybreak - calling them to leave all
and begin filling their nets with people -
who will be as surprised to meet Jesus -
as they were. Jesus who often just shows up
after a night of nothing but empty nets.


To see differently, to be transfigured,
to come out of the desert and to come
down from the mountain, now seeing
the hurt and the hungry on the road,
snakes and scorpions losing their
power, crushed, as well as seeing
the poor at one’s door step.


Children running across a field -
receiving a big embrace from
Jesus who says, “Let the little children
come running into your life -
because when you do, you’re inviting
the possibility of discovering the
Kingdom of God in your life as well.”


Meeting Jesus in the marketplace,
being challenged to start measuring
out one’s life in new generous ways
till we find it’s overflowing from our
hands, our garments, our deepest soul.
Then we too are able to say with the Best
of us: This is my body. This is my blood.
I’m giving myself to you. Take and eat!
Take and drink. Then do the same
to each other in memory of me.


Climb high mountains, trek into dry deserts,
spend time in temples and inner rooms and
you’ll see Jesus there transfigured, struggling,
and you’ll hear him say, “I am with you every day.”
And you’ll  also say, “It is good for us to be here.”


Jesus announcing that celebrating life is
all about being lost and becoming found -
just like a woman who lost a coin,
found it again and because she had
told so many friends how lost she felt
without it and how found she found when
she found it - and she sewed it back onto
her wedding crown and then invited
everyone into her home for one big celebration.


Or déjà vu - according to Jesus - life
is being like a lost sheep - whom
a shepherd realized was lost after counting
his flock 5 times and kept on getting 99
each time. So he left those 99 secure
in a pen and went searching everywhere
till he found that lost sheep stuck in the
brambles - run out of “Baaah’s!” and
he brought him home on his shoulders
and everyone could see that
Shepherd’s smile for at least a mile?


Or déjà vu - doubled and then some
more again, did you hear the story
about the lost son - the younger of
two brothers - a story Jesus
never got tired of telling? Well, this
younger son left inflated and came home
deflated, stinking of pig stuff - expecting
only food and reprimand and “I told you so!”
but no, he finds himself in his Father’s Arms,
a father who is hugging him - and he is
clinging to his Father’s arms - eyes closed -
tears flowing - while the family servants
went looking for a ring, sandals, an older brother,
and a kid goat for a giant cook out - and Jesus
never told them - that the story was really
about the lost older brother - and sometimes
some older brothers - the safe and secure - get it.


Scattered rocks - dropped to the ground
instead of crushing my skin because
of my sin. Finally I met a man
who truly loved me. This last Man became
the first man who ever treated me like this.


5000 folks feasting on bread,
laughing and talking to each other
because Jesus didn’t want them
to feel the growls of an empty tummy.
Then the Practical Jesus saying,
“Gather up the fragments. There are
also others who are hungry!”


A rich young man keeps wondering
if he should try to fit through the eye
of a needle - sitting a stone’s throw away
from a man who wonders if he could
really be reborn at his age. Jesus,
certainly could get people thinking
and some of them changed!
Divine Mercy is very intriguing
as well as very inviting.


A disciple who steps back,
to let another disciple come first;
while another disciples gives
the shirt off his back to a man
without a shirt; while another
disciple turns his other cheek.
Looks like the Kingdom is coming.


A short man - a taxing character,
climbs a tree to avoid the crowd
who can’t stand him - but Jesus
sees him and invites him down from
the tree and invites himself into
that man’s house for dinner tonight.


A blind man sees, a deaf man hears,
a person with rejected skin discovers
Jesus gives him brand new baby skin.


Jesus said at the table, “Take and eat,
take and drink. This is my body and
this is my blood - and don’t forget,
I’ll never hesitate to wash your feet.


A voice from a cross that says,
“Father forgive them for they don’t
know what they are doing.”


A voice from a cross says to a thief,
“Today you’ll be with me in paradise.”


People come to a tomb only to discover
it’s empty - on a Sunday morning


Walls start shaking - walls open,
Christ comes bursting into a room
filled with fear and simply says,
“Peace! Whose sins you forgive,
those sins are forgiven - those sins
you hold onto - they’ll hold onto you.”


Once more after a night of empty nets
Jesus appears on the edge of our lives
and tells us where to lower our nets
and then invites us to share our
results with him - with love, with recognition,
with the call to go and do likewise
with each other. It’s called, “I love you!”
“I love you!” “I love you!”

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2011

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Picture on top: Sea of Tiberias from
earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=40147

SCAR TISSUE AND CALLUS

Quote for Today - July 12,  2011

"Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus."

Wallace Stegner [1909-1993], The Spectator Bird, Doubleday, 1976

SILENCE! 

THE SIGN IN LIBRARIES 

AND MUSUEMS 

Quote for Today - July 11, 2011

"One of the best things about paintings is their silence - which prompts reflection and random reverie."

Mark Stevens - New York art critit - decrying guided tours by headphones.

Painting on top by Louis Sosa [1905-1981]. I saw this painting in the the James Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. It's entitled  "Procession"  [1952]  It's a reflection on death - especially after the death of his mother in Italy in 1951.

WHAT DO YOU SEE 

WHEN YOU’RE SITTING 

DOWN AT THE SEASHORE?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is a question: “What Do You See When You’re Sitting Down At The Seashore?”

It sounds like the tongue twister, “Sally sells sea shells by the sea shore.”

So the title of my homily is a question: “What Do You See When You’re Sitting Down At The Seashore?”

APPROPRIATE

Today’s gospel begins, “On that day Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea.”

As I read that I thought that it was interesting and intriguing that this is exactly what millions and millions of people do every summer. They leave their homes and head for the seashore or the water.

QUESTIONS

What do you think about when you go on vacation - that is, if you go on vacation?

What do all those people sitting on the sand at Ocean City or the Outer banks and Rehoboth and Deep Creek Lake, think about as they sit down by the edge of the water this summer?

What are your sea shore moments and memories?

Do you love to go back there?

JESUS

Jesus tells us what he’s thinking about.

Interestingly, Jesus gets into a boat and he’s looking at the land - while everyone is look at him on the sea - in a boat.

We’re in Chapter 13 of Matthew. Jesus has been somewhat banned from the synagogues. He’s now preaching using a lot more parables. In fact, there are 6 more parables here just in Matthew 13. And then there will be more parables to come as we continue with Matthew this year in the church readings.

Reflecting upon the Parable of the Sower and the Seed, some scholars think, they conjecture, that Jesus saw a farmer up in a field above the crowd and he’s sowing seed in the field there - and Jesus was watching all this as he sat there in the boat and begins preaching.

Jesus tells the people there are 4 types of people. Some people are hard headed - nothing can reach them. They have rocks in their head. They are like the path. The seed lands on it - but nothing happens. Some people look good, but they are shallow. They have no roots. The seed lands on them - but with nothing underneath - but hard rock as well, the seed dies for lack of anywhere to go and grow. Some people have possibilities. They have good soil, but they have too many things going on in their lives. They are too busy for new life - so the thorns crush new life. But then there are those who are good soil and they receive the seed and they grow and grow, 30, 60, 100fold.

The message is obvious. I have to go to the edge of my mind and look inside.

That’s what Jesus saw when he sat on the seashore.

QUESTION

What do you see, think about, if you were sitting at the seashore?

YESTERDAY’S BALTIMORE SUN

Yesterday’s Baltimore Sun had a very interesting article about what’s in the water. I was wondering about how many people yesterday morning bought a copy of The Baltimore Sun while at Ocean City or Rehoboth Beach and then took it with them to the sand - to read.

It had an article entitled, “Leaking Shipwrecks Could Threaten Coast.” It was by Frank Roylance of the Baltimore Sun.

The article stated that there are 30,000 coastal shipwrecks. 233 of these are worst case scenarios. The W. L. Steed is out there off Ocean City, Maryland. It was torpedoed in 1942 - February 2nd. It had a crew of 38 and only a handful survived. There are 66,000 barrels of crude oil in its belly.

I was wondering if there are people who sit at the water and look out and wonder about what’s under that beautiful glistening surface. do some people worry about Jaws or think about dolphins? Do people think about all that’s at the bottom of the sea?

Well, now having read that article, will some types of people worry about leaking boats. at the bottom of our waters?

Will some people think further and think about themselves - about the ship wrecks in their life - wondering if toxic stuff from those wrecks in their memories, whether they can seep into their lives and destroy them - maybe stuff from a time in their life they were torpedoed or they had a ship wreck relationship.

Or do people think about all those people who founded America - coming here from other shores - other places. Some made it; some didn’t.

My mom and dad came here in the early part of the last century as immigrants.

I know when I see the oceans I think about Lindberg crossing the Atlantic. It’s so wide. I think about Columbus, the Vikings, the slave ships, the coffin ships, the stuff of story and life.

I think of Herman Melville’s book, Moby Dick, and how that is the parable of so many lives - how some people can’t let go of their past - especially if they were wounded and hurt by another - and they keep on returning to going after what what killed them. I read the beginning of Moby Dick a dozen times - but finally said a few years ago - I have to read that to the end. Some chapters are like being on a raft or small boat in the Atlantic for weeks on end - lost - and waiting for action - drifting, drifting, drifting. But having read it and then seeing the movie again, it is a major parable about life. And having lived by the water much of my life I love his quote in the first chapter: “Yes, as everyone knows, mediation and water are wedded forever.”

I laugh, but mostly cry at that, because there are people whose favorite watering place is a bar - and they seem wedded together forever.

QUESTION

What do people think and reflect upon when they sit at the edge of the water?

I think about living right on the Atlantic Ocean in Long Branch New Jersey in a retreat house for 7 years - 1969-1976 - from ages 29 to 36 - and how those years were very significant and life forming years of life for me. I think about how every morning for the first 6 months I would go out and walk along the water’s edge - but after 6 months I got used to the water - too used to it - and I no longer noticed the Atlantic Ocean right there lapping at the edge of my life.

I think about living on the banks of the Hudson River for 14 years of my life - 2 different times. 6 years in the Major Seminary and then 8 years later on as an assignment. The second time I began seeing the Hudson River and its presence. And somewhere there I began an interesting practice: every morning I would wake up - get dressed - and walk down to the water - dip my fingers into the water - as if it were a holy water font - and make the sign of the cross - as if I was in God’s big, big cathedral - and I would say a morning prayer thanking God for the gift of life and this great big beautify world that he has graced us with.

QUESTION

What do you think of when you sit down at the edge of the water?

I think of a wonderful old man I once met. His name was Clement Jedrejewski. He told me how at 19 he left Warsaw Poland and went to the Sorbonne in Paris for college. He was all by himself and he wondered if he had made the right move. He noticed that fall a notice on a bulletin board at the Sorbonne the invitation, “Young Men’s Retreat”. Being a Catholic he went. The retreat was given by a famous French priest, Sertillanges [1863-1946]. He said that Father Sertillanges began the opening talk of the retreat for these young college men with a gospel reading of Jesus down at the waters of the Sea of Galilee. He read the gospel story - one different from today’s gospel - and then he paused. Then after a long quiet moment - a moment Clement said - Sertillanges looked at all of us and into all of us. Then he said, “In this Gospel Jesus was with young men your age and he pointed to the waters and said to them, “Go out into the waters - launch out into the deep - and lower your nets for a catch.” Then Clement told me: “Sertilannge then said, ‘Jesus is looking at each of you here this evening and he’s looking at the rest of your lives and he’s saying, “Launch out into the deep and lower your nets for a catch.” And Clement with a great smile said, “Wow did I do that. It’s been a great life.”

QUESTION

What do you think of when you sit down at the edge of the water?

I think of a man who told me that one summer on vacation at the ocean he woke up early in the morning and went by himself to the water and walked along and he looked out into the Atlantic and saw God and how far he walked away from God and he had a God experience and came back to God - and all changed.

QUESTION

What do you think about when you sit down at the edge of the water?

I think of kids building sand castles and forts by the water’s edge. Then when all is built - when they look at their magnificent structures - behind their back the tide comes in. Waves come rushing in - and everything they built comes crumbling down. I wonder if they see in all this one of life’s big discoveries. Real life, the important structures, true riches are the deeper realities. Life is not to be built on sand. When you build on sand, expect crumble. When this happens every kid screams or feels those inner groans we heard about in today’s second reading - screams that can lead us to God. Will we ever learn that the one constant is the ocean - the waters. It’s more than 75 % of the world that is surrounding us. And the waters are the big metaphor of God - and God is right around us, surrounding us - all the time even if we don’t notice what’s right in front of us.

QUESTION

What do you think about when you sit on the edge of the water - here in Annapolis, or the Maryland beaches, or in a boat out there in the Bay. What do you see? What do you think of?

Do you see the ship wrecks of your life, or the crumbled castles at your beaches, the projects - seeds planted - plans planned - that never grew - but do you also see good times - wonderful family moments as a kid running into the waves - looking back to see if your mom and dad are seeing you body surf or diving into the waters? Do you see a honeymoon when you got married, being with your own kids on vacation at the beach, the beauty of the scene in front of you? Do you hear Jesus telling you to launch out into the deep - lower your nets for a catch and as you pull your nets into shore now and then - you celebrate the good stuff you have netted - and can you toss aside the not so good stuff you’ve netted in your life so far?

Or do you tend to look at the land and hear Jesus saying there are 4 types of people when it comes to this earth?

Some of us are hard headed - rock, well walked on path, we’ve heard all this stuff too many times that we don’t really hear anything? If we’re like #1, may we move to becoming “#2 - shallow - without roots, but at least we hear the word, #3 good soil, but we’ve got too much going on. we’re too busy, but it’s better than 1 and 2 - but that we become #4 good soil and we’re producing 100, 60 or 30 fold. Amen.

THE  SCREAM

Quote for the Day - July 10, 2011

"I don't like to hurt people, I really don't like it at all. But in order to get a red light at the intersection, you sometimes have to have an accident."

Jack Anderson [1922-2005], Newsweek March 3, 1972 - Now his life would be a biography to read!

THE BOOK 

AS A MIRROR

Quote for Today - July 9, 2011

"A real book is not one that's read, but one that reads us."

W.H. Auden  [1907-1973] Recalled at his death on September 28, 1973.

Photograph of W. H. Auden

MIGRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 14th Friday in Ordinary Time is, “Migrations.”

Today’s first reading from the end of the Book of Genesis describes the final step of how Jacob - now called “Israel” - and his family migrate to Egypt. Hunger and famine in the land of Canaan dictated Jacob to send his sons to Egypt to buy grain to survive.

The Book of Genesis is preparing us for the second book of the Bible, Exodus - which begins with how the Jews began to become persecuted and forced into slave labor - and so they escaped - exited - migrated from Egypt - and headed for the Promised Land of Palestine in order to set up their nation.

Today’s first reading from Genesis describes carts and livestock, husbands and wives, children and grandchildren - all migrating to Egypt.

THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD

The history of the world is a history of migrations.

It’s the stuff of story. It’s the story of families.

It’s good to know history. I would assume by the year 3011 the world will be very different - with different boundary markers - with more cocoa colored sking - and those living will know by DNA and whatever else they will have come up with by then - their origins - much better than we do today.

I celebrate that in 1996 I got to see for the first time where my mom and dad migrated from: the west coast of Ireland. However, right now, I don’t know how and why their relatives settled there a long, long time ago. And I’m sure that’s a long, long story.

I have a picture on my wall right above my desk - that shows what my mother would see if she walked out her back door. It’s a picture of rocks and water. She liked to say she could sit on their back step and put her big toe into Galway Bay. The house is gone. But the flagstone for that back step was still there. My mom’s sister, Nora, was there in 1996 to point all this out to us. My dad’s house - less than a stone throw away - as the Irish put it - is still standing.

My mother said she would kiss the land of America - every time she came back here - because she knew where she came from: poverty. She made it in America. One of her last jobs was working on Broadway - 32 Broadway - where she cleaned offices at night.

OUR SCRIPTURES

I like to point out that what people did for us with our Sacred Scriptures - telling us our faith roots - where we come from - we need to do for our families. In other words, we have to put together our scriptures.

The good news is that people have been doing this a lot in recent years. Alex Haley’s book Roots - with some of its roots in Annapolis - the genealogy movement - The Story Project program - and various other movements have certainly helped with the push.

Everyone’s story is a story of being rooted and being uprooted - moving and settling - and then moving on - settling down and on and on and on.

Aware of this and having an interest in all this gives me a greater love for all peoples.

So I’m saying that the Book of Genesis - Beginnings - is telling us that people come together in all kinds of different circumstances. I’m saying that all people are migrants. I think that’s why one of the first questions we all ask people, “Where are you from?” and “How did you get here?”

We are a world of migrants.

America more than most places….

The timing is the different. Native Americans are migrants from Asia - between 40,000 and 17,000 BC. Vikings sailed to Greenland, Newfoundland, Vinland in 962 AD. Whether Vikings got to Minnesota seems speculative - but it gave a football team a good name. And we have to laugh about comments that people make about other people. I love to say that Hispanics were here before the English - but don’t tell some people that - because they aren’t ready to migrate in their mind to some new thinking and on and on and on.

So I think it’s important to read good histories of our national origins - or watch good documentaries on TV.

It’s good to know where we come from - as well as where others come from. I am grateful for some good books I’ve read about Ireland. I am very grateful that I took the time to jot down my father’s story - at least 47 hand written pages before he died - and I taped my mother telling me her story before she died so suddenly.

CONCLUSIONS

In our study and in our research and in our story telling we’ll find what we find in the scriptures: good times and bad, sickness and health - as well as great gratitude for our deep roots - as well as the surprises when we get out of our carts and begin again in some new spot.

And the New Testament will bring us to the great story: that we are migrants into the next world.

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Scene on top of a painting I saw in a funeral parlor somewhere - showing a priest blessing a family heading to America and leaving land and friends behind.