"I am part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untraveled world."
Alfred Lord Tennyson [1809-1892] in Ulysses, 1842, part of line 13
Picture on top: a scene from Sagrada Familia church that I took at the end of September this year.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
BOYS
WAR IS HELL!
Quote for Today - December 3. 2011
"There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but boys, it is all hell."
General William Tecumseh Sherman [1820-1891]
Photo on top by Matthew Brady c. 1864
Friday, December 2, 2011
AN EYE OPENER
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for the First Friday in Advent is, “An Eye Opener!”
MY GRANDNEPHEW PATRICK
I have a grandnephew, Patrick, who is doing a job I always thought I’d love to have: making TV commercials.
After graduating from Maryland that was his dream - and he landed a job in New York City in an advertising firm - but he didn’t get into the creative side of making TV commercials. It was the business side. And so he switched to a second firm. Once more: business - when he thought he’d get into the actual being a part of a team that puts together a great ad that people would be talking about the next morning at a coffee break. He’s now in his third firm in three years. He’s getting closer and closer to his dream.
I have to ask him: “Patrick! What opened your eye to the dream of wanting to do TV commercials?”
I assume that it was great TV commercials and he said, “I would like to do that.” Then he said, “I could do that.” Then the inner comment, “I will do that!”
TOM BARRETT
I say that because I once heard a Tom Barrett, a priest friend of mine, say - how he got the dream of becoming a priest.
As a little kid he was sitting in church with his mom - attending the Our Lady of Perpetual Help novena every Wednesday at their local church.
He watched and listened to the priest giving the novena, preaching, saying the prayers, blessing everyone with the picture of Mary.
One day he said, “I would like to do that.” Then he said, “I could do that!” Then he said, “I will do that.” And then he did that.
THE BIBLE AS AN EYE OPENER
The stories and the sayings and the moments in the Bible can be eye opening experiences for people.
A TV commercial often gives you a before and an after. It gives an opening scene or sight to catch your eye. Two people are playing Scrabble. One is a caveman. A gecko is crossing the road. A plane is sky writing. Someone is being hit with a water balloon.
You’re caught. Then comes the pitch about the product: insurance, beer, a new car.
The hope is that you’ll remember that product, that insurance company, that car, that beer when you’re shopping for beer or car or insurance.
Today’s first reading from Isaiah Is 29:17-24 gives scenes of good and bad, positive and negative, prosperity and desolation, good times and bad times.
Then it gives hope: the deaf hear, the blind see, forests bloom and become orchards, tyrants and the arrogant are blown away, the empty is filled.
Buy God and your desert will bloom, your eyes will see, your ears will hear, your children will laugh, the lowly will rise, the dark gloom will fade and you'll experience morning. You'll see the light.
Today’s gospel - Matthew 9:27-31- talks about two blind men - the gospel often talks about blind people - and they cry out to Jesus and they see.
It would make a great TV commercial.
You could see a blind person suddenly seeing a field full of flowers and then a rush of the birds making circling sweeps in the air.
Then it could jump to someone who was "blind" for years finally seeing what their parents were trying to tell them. You could see kids finally seeing what their parents were trying to tell them. You could see husbands and wives finally beginning to see what the other has been saying and seeing for years.
YOU TUBE FILMS THAT PRESENT EYE-OPENING MOMENTS
How many of us received that e-Mail film that was about 2 minutes or so. A blind beggar is sitting at the bottom of some steps in a plaza. He has a piece of cardboard and a can to collect coins from people walking by. A lady walks by - she stops - comes back - looks at his sign - picks it up. It says, “I’m blind. Please help!” He touches her shoes while she takes out a pen and changes or adds to the sign or writes on the back of the tan cardboard. After that people reading the newly revised sign start putting lots of money on the cardboard in front of him. Then that woman walks by later on. She stops and he touches her shoes and asks, “What did you do?” And she tells him she just said what his sign said in other words. She walks on and you now see the revised cardboard sign. It simply says, “It’s a beautiful day and I can’t see.”
And just the other day I received a similar short film. A father and a son are sitting on a bench. The son is reading a newspaper. The camera focuses on a bird. “Chirp. Chirp.” The father says, “What’s that?” The son says, “A sparrow.”
Then there is another sparrow. The father asks again, “What’s that?” The son says, “A sparrow.”
The father asks again at another “Chirp. Chirp!” “What’s that?” And now the son is annoyed. And once more says, “A sparrow.”
And this goes on and on - and the son gets furious - and yells at his father.
Then the father gets up and goes into the house and comes out with a book. I’m think it’s a Bible. The father sits down. The book is open to a certain page. Pointing to a page the father hands the book to the son.
I figure it’s the quote from the gospels about seeing the birds of the air or better, the piece by Jesus about all sparrows being noticed by God. Nope it’s a diary or journal from the father. He tells the son to read what’s written. “My son - aged 3 - asked me 21 times in a row “What is that?” and 21 times in a row, I answered, “A sparrow.” and each time I gave him a hug.
And the son hugs the father and kisses him on the side of his head.
CONCLUSION
We need pauses - commercial breaks - in the movie or show of our life - to hear and to see advertisements for patience, love, service - to care for and about each other.
Then I get the eye opener as I'm putting together this short weekday homily. As priest, I'm into making TV commercials dummy. You’ve been doing your dream job all these years by being a priest. Each sermon, each Mass, is advertisement of Jesus telling us his values. Each Mass is an invitation to a Supper with Jesus to let him wash our feet and to let him give us his body and blood. Then to hear: Do the same in memory of me! Go out and give your body and blood for everyone you meet today.
GREED
Quote for Today December 2. 2012
"Men have been swindled by other men on many occasions. The autumn of 1929 was, perhaps the first occasion when men succeded on a large scale in swindling themselves."
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash, 1929, 1955
Picture on Top: "(Picture from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.) Depression: Breadlines: long line of people waiting to be fed: New York City: in the absence of substantial government relief programs during 1932, free food was distributed with private funds in some urban centers to large numbers of the unemployed. (Circa February 1932)"
Thursday, December 1, 2011
MAYBE ...
IN TIME ...
DOWN THE LINE ......
December 1, 2011
Quote for Today
"Perhaps someday it will be pleasant to remember even this."
Virgil [70-19 B.C.]
Photo on Top: Man in the Dark by Federico Marsicano
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
A GOOD MISTAKE OR SIN
CAN MAKE US MUCH
MORE UNDERSTANDING!
November 30, 2011
Quote for Today
"Everyone in daily life carries such a heavy, mixed burden on his own conscience that he is reluctant to penalize those who have been caught."
Brooks Atkinson, "February 28," Once Around the Sun, 1951
Painting on top by William Holman Hunt [1827-1910], "The Awakening Conscience," 1853
Or read John 8: 1-11
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
NOT EVERYONE SEES
THE SAME WAY
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this First Tuesday of Advent is, “Not Everyone Sees The Same Way.”
This is something that is obvious. We know it. Today’s readings are one more reminder of that obvious truth.
“Not Everyone Sees the Same Way.”
When we forget this obvious truth - we end up with stale mates and road blocks on the road to each other. It blocks our abilities to work with each other. When I forget this and then realize what happened, I bring up the old saying that I like to quote, “The greatest sin is our inability to accept the otherness of the other person.”
Someone else said that and at times I see why they said that and what they meant by it.
When we see - or at least get glimpses - of what the other is saying, we can say today’s Psalm response: “Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.”
When we see what Isaiah is saying to us in today’s first reading, the Spirit of the Lord can rest on us - a spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel and strength - and the wolf in each of us can be with the lamb in each of us - so too the bear and the cow, the lion, the snake and the child.
When we see this we see why Jesus said in today’s gospel: "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it."
JOHN AMBROSE
The title of my homily is, “Not Everyone Sees the Same Way.”
How many times and in how many ways do we learn that message?
It triggered the memory of going to a Baltimore Ravens football game a good 8 years ago with Father Denis Sweeney, Father John Tizio - as guests of John Ambrose - before he died of cancer.
We went in his Hummer. That was the only time I was ever in a Hummer. Woo. Big car. Big mobile. To John I’m sure it was just a car. I felt a wow in it. As we got very close to the stadium to the parking lot John went to, I noticed various people walking along dressed in Ravens’ Purple stopping to look and point at the Hummer.
I got a weird thought. This is how it must feel like to be a beautiful woman - everyone stops to look at you. The beautiful women here know exactly what I’m talking about. The Hummer had tinted windows from which I noticed people going “Wow! That’s some Hummer.”
To John I’m sure he saw it as just another vehicle.
We had great seats. We’re sitting there and I say to John on an upcoming play that it’s going to be a pass. He says to me, “Nope. Look at number 86 over there.” And sure enough it was a run. It hit me that former professional football players must see a football game differently than I see a football game. He played for Arizona State as well as the Colts for part of one season.
“Not Everyone Sees the Same Way.”
MICHELANGELO
We’ve all heard the example of Michelangelo. He would look at a block of marble and see Moses or David or the Blessed Mother in it. We would see just a block of marble.
How does God see us? What does God see in us?
“Not Everyone Sees the Same Way.”
CONCLUSION: WHERE DO WE GO WITH THIS SIMPLE BASIC MESSAGE?
What now? What do we do with this simple basic message that we all don’t see alike. I’m not sure, but here are 5 leads:
1) It could lead us to communicate better with each other - checking out how the other sees.
2) It could lead to less assumptions - or clarification of assumptions.
3) It could lead to less judging others - or throwing rocks.
4) It could lead us to learning more - because we could discover other takes that differ from the take we take on something.
5) It could lead us to prayer - asking God why in the world and how in the world did you ever come up with the idea of mosquitoes and hippopotamuses - or what have you - or how in the world did you come up with these neighbors or family members of ours - who are so, so different from us. Amen.
