COUNSELING
March 16, 2012
Quote for Today
"When people seek counseling, they don't really want advice as much as for you to listen."
Anonymous
Friday, March 16, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
PREACHING
March 15, 2012
Quote for Today - Feast of St. Clement Hofbauer
"Today I'll preach a sermon so simple that even the most stupid of you and even little children can understand."
St. Clement Hofbauer - according to a policeman who sat in the benches whose job it was to report what Clement said in his sermons. A police report also said, "It is absolutely frightening the way people are running after Hofbauer."
You Tube on top: Archbishop Joseph Tobin - former Redemptorist Superior General - and now Archbishop and Secretary of the Congregation of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life - Rome.
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Wednesday, March 14, 2012
AND I’LL TELL YOU
WHO YOU ARE?
TITLEThe title of my homily for this 3rd Wednesday in Lent is, “Show Me Your Rules And I’ll Tell You Who You Are?”
TODAY’S READINGS
Today’s two readings both talk about rules and regulations, statutes and decrees laws and parts of laws. The speaker in Deuteronomy is saying, “Look at our rules and you’ll see how great we are.”
ONCE UPON A TIME - I MADE THE RULES
Once upon a time I was in on making the rules. I had a job called “Novice Master.” Myself and another priest, Gil Enderle, had to come up with a rule book. We had General Statutes from Rome and Provincial Statutes from our province to guide us. We had to come up with particular laws - for our particular situation.
The first thing we did was to come up with other people’s rules books. We read them out loud to get the feel of them.
That was the first time I came up with the title of this homily, without really knowing it at first. “Show Me Your Rules And I’ll Tell You Who You Are.”
You could get a flavor of the author or authors every time. One Rule book from one of our European provinces was quite picky and particular. It was extremely specific - naming names on whom you could talk to or what have you. It had lots and lots of iddy biddy die picky, picky rules. So we came up with our own rule book and it was revised every year. “Show Me Your Rules And I’ll Tell You Who You Are?”
By looking at rules and regulations, laws and decrees, you can know an awful lot about a group or a people or the lawmaker.
SECOND REALIZATION: EVERYWHERE THERE ARE RULES
The next realization I discovered is that there are rules and regulations everywhere.
If you check into a hotel, check the fine print rules behind the door in your room.
To get on an airplane, you can’t have this or that in your carry-on bag. Once inside the plane, right at the beginning of the flight we always hear, “No smoking!” and “No tampering with the smoke detector in the bathrooms under pain of a fine.”
Rules… rules … rules…. There are rules about drinking and driving and there are the rules of the highway. Every school, college, bar, has rules.
Then there are house rules - the rules of the house. They are unwritten but listen carefully when you stay overnight in someone’s home.
I was at a retirement of a Navy Captain a few weeks back over at the Naval Academy. The guy in his talk - with his mom present - the mother of 10 or 11 kids - described his mom this way: There are two kinds of mothers - helicopter mothers and B-52 bomb mothers. Helicopter mothers hover over their kids and B-52 bomb mothers drop their kids off from a distance and let them land and learn on their own. Our mom was a B-52 bomber mother.
There it was 2 different personality types. I would assume the helicopter mom or dad would have a lot more rules and regulations for their kids than the B-52 bomber mom or dad.
As I thought about all this, sure enough everyone has rules and regulations for life. They are called assumptions and expectations and what have you. Two people date. There are expectations and rules and regulations - whether articulated or not.
THIRD OBSERVATION
We all have a whole list of commandments in our skulls. Everyone does. It’s our expectations on what makes a good Mass, sermon, meal, conversation, etc. etc. etc.
If somehow we could jot them down, like Moses did before coming down from the mountain with the 10 Commandments - could we say what the Book of Deuteronomy says today - that our rules are the best.
In fact, wouldn't we be embarrassed? Wouldn't some of our personal rules be rather selfish or what have you?
Listen carefully to little kids. If someone gets a hug or the ice cream or the toy first, they let everyone in their surrounding sound area or arena know that they are angry and resent being #2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7. Isn't the # 1 rule for many people, "Me, Me, Me First!"
Listen carefully to people - and not just parents to their kids. Their first commandment seems to be, “I want what I want when I want it.”
Listen carefully to parents give counter commandments. “Share you toys with Jonathan.” Dig deep into that command. Isn't that parents trying to get kids to learn the Golden Rule - in just one more version, “How would you like it, if someone did to you, what you just did to your sister.”
CONCLUSION
And on and on.
So the title of my homily is, “Show Me Your Rules And I’ll Tell You Who You Are?”
I’m saying that if we discover the rule book that is written on our heart, we’ll could learn a lot about ourselves.
So be honest. Be humble. Write. Look at. Share. Compare. Then rewrite and keep revising your own personal rules for life. Amen.
CONSEQUENCES
March 14, 2012
Quote for Today
"It seems to me
probably
that any one
who has a series of intolerable positions
to put up with
must have been responsible for them
to some extent ...
they have contributed to it
by impatience or intolerance,
or brusqueness -
or some provocation."
Robert Hugh Benson [1871-1914]
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
FROM FORGIVENESS TO TRUST
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “It’s A Long Road from Forgiveness to Trust.”
TV PROGRAM
Last night Father Harrison and I were watching some TV show. I missed the beginning of it - so I’m not sure what it was. Two guys who worked together had a fight. One guy was trying to get back into the other guy’s good graces. The guy who was being asked to forgive said to the other guy, “It’s a long road from forgiveness to trust.”
Hearing that I said to Father Harrison, “That’s a great line for a sermon: “It’s a long road from forgiveness to trust.”
TODAY’S GOSPEL
Then last night I read today’s gospel to come up with a homily. Surprise! It’s all about forgiveness. It talks about forgiving over and over and over again.
I’ve always said to folks that forgiveness is a choice. It does not mean that we put a hurt out of our mind. In fact, we might feel the hurt for the rest of our life.
I’ve also said, “Forgetting is dementia.”
Moreover, it's my experience - for us old folks - long term memory is better than short term memory.
I’ve also said, “Sometimes by forgiving, the memory of a hurt, can fade a bit - perhaps because we chosen to forgive another and we have made an effort to stop rehashing and rehearsing the hurt over and over and over again.” Or as Marlene Dietrich said, “Once a woman has forgiven a man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.”
So for starters there are two steps here: forgiving and forgetting.
Forgiveness has to do with the will.
Forgetting has to do with our memory - and when it comes to memory, there is nothing wrong with remembering. I believe that people need to hear that.
In fact, people like Thomas Szasz, who can be controversial as well as wise, says, “The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive, but do not forget.”
TRUST
I think this last quote has the issue of “trust” underneath it.
If someone hurts us big time, it’s wise to forgive them, because hurts need to scar - but if the other is into repeat performances - then why get hurt again?
Has this ever happened to you? We’re driving along and someone out of nowhere makes a left turn or a move and we brake - but if we didn’t brake, we might have hit them - right where there is in the other car - a big dent. And we say to ourselves: “This person will never learn.”
If any of you studied the 8 Stages of Life according to Erik Erikson in college, you know that the first stage is, “Basic Trust vs. Basic Non-Trust”. The key developmental skill the little child needs to learn is to trust his mommy and daddy. Just watch little kids. When nervous their hand goes to their mouth - food is comfort and security - or they look for their mom or dad to run and cling to. If kids cry out for love and help and presence in the night or the day and nobody appears, uh oh, they can end up being in trouble for life. I was taught in pastoral counseling the following axiom: the bigger the problem, the earlier the problem. And the way I understand Erikson's last stage of life: “Ego Integrity vs. Despair” is this: at the end of my life, I look at my life and if it makes sense, great. Even though their were bumps and big potholes and crashes at times - along the road of life, I trust myself enough to say, “It was good!” If I look at my life and it was a disaster, then I could despair - or turn to God. That's why so many love the story of the Good Thief who stole heaven at the last hour. Good move!
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily is, “It’s A Long Road from Forgiveness to Trust.”
To get started, we need to begin to forgive others as well as ourselves. How many times: “not seven times, but seventy-seven times” - or as many times as it takes.
We make mistakes. Others make mistakes towards us. These mistakes don’t have to erase us - or reduce us to nothing or put us to shame as today’s first reading puts it.
So I assume the secret is get on the road and move along it from forgiveness to trust - step by step by step. Amen.
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