IRISH WIT
AND WISDOM
Quote for Today - March 17, 2013
To someone who committed
some small fault -
"Tis only a stepmother
would blame you."
Irish Saying
Sorry to all step-mothers. I thought this was cute and Irish-a-ee
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Saturday, March 16, 2013
RESULTS
Quote for Today March 16, 2013
"Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant, It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest."
Georgia O'Keeffe [1976]
Painting The Precisionist Moment [1920] by Georgia O'Keeffe [1887-1996]
Questions:
Still where were you born; Where have you lived? What did you do where you have been? Make an account of your stewardship!
Friday, March 15, 2013
REJECTIONS
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this Friday in the Fourth Week of
Lent is, “Rejections!”
Question: How well do we deal with rejections?
They happen.
TODAY’S READINGS
We find this theme in today’s two readings.
In the first reading from the Book of Wisdom 2:1, 12-22 - we hear that those who try to be just and fair and lead a good life - are rejected by those who don’t want to go that way. Those who don’t cheat - those who try to be good - often make the bad feel guilty - and they want to retaliate.
In today's gospel from John 7: 1-2, 10, 25-20 - we hear more and more about Jesus
experiencing rejections. Folks want to kill him - the ultimate rejection.
SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
If you’ve seen the movie, Shawshank Redemption, you know the ongoing theme of "Red" - Ellis
Boyd Redding - played by Morgan Freeman. He keeps on coming up for parole in the Shawshank Prison and every time he is rejected. You see the stamp come down on
paper - with the word “REJECTED” stamped on the paper. “Rejected!” and the word
seems to fill the entire screen.
When we are rejected we want to scream - to fill the entire
scene with our scream.
Yesterday I was walking by that little park at the bottom of
the street down from St. Mary’s Church.
There are no kids or parents in the swing and climbing
section - but there was a mother and two tiny little kids in the basketball
area. The mother throws a soccer ball to the little girl - instead of to the
little boy - who then throws a tantrum. Did he feel rejected by his mother?
Will he be that way for the rest of his life - screaming when someone else gets
chosen ahead of him? I don’t know. Time will tell.
Rejection.
PART OF LIFE
Rejections are part of life.
A basketball team has 5 players on the floor at a time. A baseball team has 9 players on the field at a time. Lacrosse has 10. Some players seem to spend their entire time
as second stringers and never get into a game. Some kids don’t make the team.
People date and then break up - one is often hurt - feeling
rejection.
People get divorced and sometimes their kids feel deep rejection.
“What am I, chopped liver?”
Some 115 cardinals were up for pope - only 1 got elected. It
seems he was a surprise pick. How did
the front runners take it? Were they angry?
Not everyone gets into the school play. You can’t have two
Dorothy’s or 2 Scare Crows or 2 Tin Men in The
Wizard of Oz. A kid thinks she does
a great job in a play, but nobody is
there after the show to give her a dozen roses. What does that feel like?
For the past 25 years or more I've seen kids get trophies - even though their team didn't win. Is that smart. Is it healthier if only the winning team gets the trophy and
there are no trophies for second place? Which helps people prepare better for the future?
How well do I do with rejections - or experiences which we
interpret as rejections?
TODAY IS THE FEAST OF ST.
CLEMENT HOFBAUER
Today - we Redemptorists celebrate the feast of St. Clement
Hofbauer. If he didn’t become a Redemptorist - we wouldn’t be here in Annapolis . It was our place in Vienna , Austria
Clement Hofbauer and a buddy, Thaddeus Hubl, came down to Rome with the idea of
joining a religious order and becoming priests. On one of their visits, one morning they
decided to go to the church whose bells rang first. It was
the Redemptorist Church of San Giuliano’s.
They became Redemptorists in Italy
and were told to go back and start the Redemptorists on their side of the Alps . They couldn’t get into Austria. They were rejected, so they went to Warsaw ,
Poland
It’s life.
Redemptorists all know the story - we've heard it 100 times - about the time he went into a bar to beg for money for his orphanage. Some guy laughed at him and spit beer into his face. Clement says, “That’s for me. How about something for my orphans?" He got about 100 silver coins from the people in the bar.
Redemptorists all know the story - we've heard it 100 times - about the time he went into a bar to beg for money for his orphanage. Some guy laughed at him and spit beer into his face. Clement says, “That’s for me. How about something for my orphans?" He got about 100 silver coins from the people in the bar.
How did those orphans feel having St. Clement and other
Redemptorists caring for them.
CONCLUSION: JESUS CHRIST
Suggestion: when you have experienced a rejection find a cross. They
are at the end of rosaries - or picture this gigantic cross here at St. John
Neumann’s Church - and ask Jesus for help.
Picture stamped over this image of Jesus - in big red
letters: REJECTED.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
3 IMAGES
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this Wednesday in the 4th
Week of Lent is, “Three Images!”
Today’s readings give 3 powerful images for our consideration about our connection and our relationship to God.
Today’s readings give 3 powerful images for our consideration about our connection and our relationship to God.
1) TRAPPED
The first image is that of being trapped. We’ve all been
deeply moved when there is a story of miners trapped deep in the ground – and
they are saved.
Or we have been moved deeply when hostages are freed.
Or we’ve been moved with horror on seeing TV
documentaries on Auschwitz, Dachau, Buckenald or any of those concentration
camps where Jews were gassed and burnt to death. Then we rejoice when we see our soldiers or Russian
soldiers getting there and freeing the men and women who survived.
Well, in today’s first reading from Isaiah, he gives the
great image of prisoners being freed. Those in darkness, hear, “Come out. Show
yourselves.”
In the gospel the same image is found and it’s even deeper.
It’s the scream of God over all the graves of the world – the scream of God at
every funeral – calling people to new life and resurrection.
Being liberated – being freed – becoming untrapped – rescued is a very powerful image.
I think of Beethoven’s “Fidelio”
– his unique opera on this powerful theme of the freeing of prisoners. Beethoven was asked to write an opera on this
theme. He was given a book that told the story about political prisoners in Spain . The main
story line of the opera is “Fidelio” - the fidelity of a woman with her love for
her husband.
A man named Florestan is arrested in Spain because
of his opposition to those in power. He is put in prison – and then in chains – he is brought to the deepest part of the prison. His wife, Lenore, poses as a young man and
takes job after job, step after step, to work her way into the prison to save
her husband.
Florestan’s arch enemy decides to kill Florestan with a
knife – and Lenore jumps in front of her husband and holds off Pizzaro with a
pistol. She stops the murder of her husband. She exposes Pizzaro for what he is. She helps the political prisoners to be
freed. She takes off her husband’s chains. There is a great trumpet call when
the prisoners are set free.
Beethoven was an optimist that stayed an optimist – when
Romanticism in Europe went sour and heads rolled.
So the first of the 3 images that I'm mentioning today is that of being freed. We know that many
people come back to God when they are stuck – in prison – caught in a problem –
when they experience the death or sickness of a loved one.
2) MOTHER
The first reading from Isaiah has the second powerful image. It's that of a
mother. Isaiah says what every mother feels: even if all forget you, I won’t. We know this. Stand in any place where there are small children and we'll see them children clinging to their moms. When scared we see little kids always running back to
their moms at church, in the playground, in the supermarket.
And all our lives our moms remain central.
Well, Isaiah uses that image and says that God loves us with
motherly love. In fact, he says, "If a mother forgets her child, I’ll never forget you."
Question: how am I like my mother?
3) FATHER
And the third image is that of a father. If you want to understand
Jesus and his relationship to his Father, the gospel of John is a good place to
start.
Jesus is always talking about his Father. Jesus sees life
through the lens of his Father. As today’s
gospel [John 5:17-30] puts it, his fellow Jews want to kill him because of
this. They make the leap that he is equalizing himself with his Father.
Today’s gospel - and much of the Gospel of John has Jesus doing just that. We see and hear that everything Jesus does is in light of his Father.
Today’s gospel is very Trinitarian. You can hear in its
words the proclamation of John’s church that Jesus is the Son of Man and God is
Our Father.
Question: how am I like my father?
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily is, “Three Images”.
I believe the 3 images that I pulled out of today’s
readings: father, mother and being trapped are very powerful.
Question: is every person like a child - feeing trapped and we cry out
to God as our Savior, our Mother and our Father.
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