THERE  IS  UGLY

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Second Monday in Advent is, “There is ugly.”

FIRST THE UGLY DUCKING FAIRY TALE

Hans Christian Andersen [1805-1875] wrote fairy tales - over there in Denmark. The one tale many people remember is the story of the Ugly Duckling - which he dreamed up in 1842. Later on in life he said it was the story of his life.

I spotted this in Wikepedia, “In reviewing Hans Christian Andersen: A New Life by biographer Jens Andersen, British journalist Anne Chisholm writes ‘Andersen himself was a tall, ugly boy with a big nose and big feet, and when he grew up with a beautiful singing voice and a passion for the theater he was cruelly teased and mocked by other children’. The ugly duckling is the child of a swan whose egg accidentally rolled into a duck's nest.”

The little duckking is born and all the other animals in the barn yard called it “Ugly” - so it stayed alone - and tried to stay clear from the bullying in the barnyard.

It escaped and had to deal with winter and aloneness. One day she saw a flock of swans - but she was too small, too young, to fly away with them.

A farmer took the ugly duckling in - but the kids were too noisy and too  rough so the Ugly duckling wandered away again - till she saw a flock of swans.

By now the Ugly Duckling had grown and matured and she’s in a pond and she sees herself in her reflection. She is beautiful.  With that she joins the community of swans.

TODAYS READINGS

In today’s readings we have this story in another translation.

In the first reading it’s the earth - which was a desert - which is ugly. That is till it bloomed - till it flowered - till it blossomed. 

In the first reading it’s the desert that is ugly, till its dry river beds start to flow. Pools are filled with water. The dangerous jackals, and lions disappear. Joy and gladness are heard - sorrow and morning flee.  

In the first reading it’s Israel that is ugly - that is till the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame leap like a stag, the mute sing.

In the gospel we hear the story of the Ugly Duckling in the story of the paralyzed man. His friends carry him to Jesus. They run into a wall of people around the house Jesus is in. So they go up on a roof - remove the tiles - and lower him down by a stretcher right into the middle of the room. There he is on the floor looking up at Jesus.

Despite some bullies who are after Jesus, Jesus heals this paralyzed man and forgives him his sins - and the man goes home celebrating - his new found legs and freedom.

In the meanwhile bullies still exist.

APPLICATION

Today’s readings can become us.

The Ugly duckling story can become us.

Our world can change. Our surroundings can change.

The Bad and the Ugly can become the Good.

When I was on the Lower East Side as a young priest, I used to walk by an ugly lot. An apartment used to be there - but it fell in and was removed. Next came garbage, toilet bowls, shopping carts, mattresses and tons of junk. The only thing growing there were weeds.

Well, a group of people decided to clean it up. They got permits and permissions. Then they brought in trucks and they removed the junk. They planted grass and trees and flowers. They put in some benches. They put in a neat garden. It was no longer an ugly eye sore.

Well the obvious message is we can do this with our homes, our lives, our neighborhood, our world.

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily was, “There Is Ugly.”

I was going to add, “There Is Beautiful Too.”

Then when I was reading about Hans Christian Andersen, I found out that he was going to title his story, “The Young Swans” - but no, he called it, “The Ugly Duckling” - for surprise and for suspense.

December 7, 2015

COLD  FEET

Yes, they are cold - and the blankets

weren’t working - so I couldn’t sleep

till somehow I warmed these feet. So I

got out of bed, called you up, and said,
“I’m sorry!” Got back to bed. It worked.

What I was scared to do for 3 months

and 3 days, I did and warmed up my

feet in the walking to the phone and

hearing you say, “Thank you!” And  I

woke up this morning with the peace
I hadn’t felt in 3 months and 3 days.

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2015

THIS IS MY PRAYER

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Second Sunday in Advent - Year C - is, “This Is My Prayer.”

I saw that comment in today’s second reading. Paul says the following in a Letter to the Christian Community in Philippi - which is part of Greece,

“And this is my prayer:
that your love may increase ever more and more 
in knowledge and every kind of perception, 
to discern what is of value, 
so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 
filled with the fruit of righteousness 
that comes through Jesus Christ 
for the glory and praise of God.”

Those words, “And this is my prayer….” triggered for me a series of questions:

·       “Do I have a prayer? A deep inner ongoing prayer?”

·       “If I do, what is it?”

·       “Are their various inner deep prayers that I have?”

·       “If I have an inner prayer, have I changed it through the years?”

·       “What are other people’s prayers, if they have an inner ongoing prayer?”

SAINT PAUL’S PRAYER

Let’s take a closer look at St. Paul’s prayer.

I would rewrite it. Greek New Testament sentences tend to be long and have few periods.

Paul prays that those he is writing to have an increase of more and more love in their lives. Good. Don’t we all want more and more love in our lives. That’s a good prayer.

But Paul refines what kind of love he’s talking about:  in how they know life and how they perceive what’s going on around them in their lives.

Next he prays that those he is writing to discern - figure out - understand -  grasp - what is of value - that is, that they are pure and blameless and do what is right till they meet Jesus Christ. And lastly that they do everything for the glory and praise of God. Those of you who went to Jesuit schools know that’s the Jesuit motto: AMDG - “Ad maiorem Dei gloriam” - “For the greater Glory of God.”  Isn’t that what athletes are doing when they make a great catch or hit or basket. [Gesture: the point towards the heavens.]

So Paul is giving us a handful - a mindful - of basic prayers there….

Love - knowing and seeing what’s right and of value - and doing all for the glory and praise of God. Good prayer. Good prayers.

MY PRAYER

I’m going to end my homily this morning by asking all of us: do I have a basic prayer - and if I do, what is it?

I did my homework on this yesterday. I ask you to do your homework on all this today and this week.  Right now my prayer would be for peace in the world. Enough with the shootings. Enough with the wars.  Enough with the bloodshed. Enough with the craziness.

The other day when the San Bernadino killing stuff was coming in and as I was watching the news,  I was hoping [Hoping was the word I was using. Is hoping a prayer?] I was hoping that the killers were not Moslems. They mentioned there were three.  Then I  sensed that some TV commentators were hoping they were Moslems or Isis. I’m not sure of this - but I sensed they were saying that. I said this out loud to a couple of folks and they were hoping the same thing: that they were not Moslems.

Obviously, this is horrible stuff - and we wouldn’t want anyone to be doing this.

What would it be like to be living in Syria or Northern Iraq? I’m sure the majority of folks there - Christians and Moslems - are hoping and praying for peace - security - and an end to violence. What happened here in one day is happening every day in some places in our world.

So is that my answer to my first question which is: Do I have an ongoing deep inner prayer?

As I thought about all this - and these are just first draft thoughts and questions, I realized that I don’t think that’s my inner ongoing prayer. But the other day and recently that was my current inner prayer.

I sense that my ongoing prayer is different.

DROP OUTS AND THOSE WHO HAVE LOST THEIR FAITH

I’m hearing and reading and noticing that it looks like our Church numbers are down.

I have  also been hearing lately that we have to reach those who have dropped out as well as the unchurched - and we need to come up with programs to do just that.

I heard of one parish in Pennsylvania who were asking for volunteers to stuff letters - letters of invitation - to folks who are not going to church to come back home this Christmas - no questions asked.

I would like to know how many people who have dropped out - got that thought to come back home to Church when Pope Francis was on TV - 24/7 - visiting the United States September 22 to   27, 2015.

That hope triggers for me a sense of what my inner prayer is. It’s for people to have faith - faith in God - that the Lord be with them.

Pope Francis keeps using the word “mercy” - which means “kindness” and “understanding”, “forgiveness”. It means “welcome home” - as in the Prodigal Son story.

I have gone crazy inwardly when priests make digs - sandpaper quips -stupid comments to folks in church on Ash Wednesday - Easter - and Christmas - to once or twice a year Catholics. I want to scream out, “Welcome!”

I began to notice at weddings and funerals that folks would say afterwards: “Now that wasn’t too bad.” Better folks in the back of church after weddings and funerals would say, “I might be coming back to church Father.”

So I have found myself praying for folks at weddings and funerals that God makes sense to them - that faith and hope and trust in God - as part of their life - is triggered.

So this Christmas give your seat to those who look lost - who are looking for room in this Inn.

FRANCE PAGAN

I’ve been saying and reading and hearing how we have been moving into a period called “post-Christianity” - for many Catholics and Christians.

That means they are not seeing life with the Christian  and Catholic value system that they were given.

As I was working on this homily yesterday, I remember first hearing this about France - when I was in the major seminary in the 1960’s. I was hearing the phrase “France Pagan” - that less than 10 % of the people of France were going to church.

I heard mention of a book entitled, France Pagan - which I saw but never read. I looked it up in preparing this homily. It was entitled, France Pagan: The Mission of Abbe Henri Grodin. In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s he was in on Worker - Priest movement. Pope John 23 of all people suppressed this movement. Pope Paul VI started it again. Then it was stopped again.

Abbe Henri Grodin used the phrase “the deChristianization of Europe”.

The message he screamed was to reach out to the French working class. What better way than to get out of the rectory and get into the working places.

I remember my first day in my first assignment as a priest. I put down my suitcase to shake hands with my first pastor and he said within one minute pointing to the floor of the rectory: “Andy, this is not the parish. It’s out there in the streets and homes of this neighborhood.”  I became a priest to go to Brazil - but here I was on the Lower East Side of Manhattan - right in East Village - and along with Haight Asbury in San Francisco - it was the center of the whole thing called, “The Hippie Revolution.”

It was right after Vatican II and that meant nothing to all kinds of folks I bumped into all through those few streets called, “Most Holy Redeemer Parish.”

I noticed as I read about this stuff yesterday mention of another book, Not Cassocks  But Coveralls. It had the same message: be out there with the people.

Last month we had a province meeting - a convocation - and one of the speakers was Bishop Joe Tobin - who was our former Rector Major in Rome. He’s now Archbishop of Indianapolis. Talking about coveralls, he told the story about when he was pastor in our church - Most Holy Redeemer in Detroit - that he was in his coveralls working on a toilet of a poor lady in the parish. Joe can fix anything. Well, he gets it fixed - walks back to the rectory and they tell him, Mother Teresa is down the street in her nun’s place there and she wants to see you. He say, “I got poop all over these coveralls - and I gotta change and take a shower first.” “Nope,” they said, “right now. She wants to see you right now.”  So he meets Mother Teresa, he told us, in his poop and coveralls. I loved the story. I never liked pomp and circumstance. Now I’m going to restate that: I like poop and circumstance. And isn’t that what Pope Francis told bishops and priests?  Be out there with the people. Smell like the sheep.

So I have to think about all this. Do I end up doing what Father Eddie Byrne did when I was working on the Lower East Side. His parish was very poor so he drove a taxi cab at night. The last and probably only job I had in life was working one summer during college delivering Coca Cola. That’s the real thing. Isn’t the call of the gospel to make all this real? Yes, we come to church, but real gospel life is to be lived out there with the people - at work and with their families.

CONCLUSION

So thinking about all this, my deepest prayer would be: Faith - faith in God - faith in Jesus Christ for us Christians - and Catholics.

What’s your deepest prayer?

These are just first draft thoughts on paper about all this. I sense this is what Paul was about. I sense this is what I hear lots of parents saying about their kids who have dropped out of Church - especially when they say, “I don’t know what my kids will do when the tough stuff of life hits them big time.” Or to say the same thing with a better translation - part of which I can’t say in church: “when the s_ _ _ hits the fan.”

December 6, 2015

SANTA CLAUS

Not only is there a Santa Claus,

but Christmas is 365 days a year -

that is if we come down chimneys

or slide through sliding doors and

gift those in our world with our gifts.

And - oops - if we laugh and are

merry and bring Christ’s joy to our

world every day and in every way.

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2015

December 6 is the feast of

St. Nicholas

December 5, 2015

VIOLIN

His hands were gnarled.

His step was slow.

He finally got to the folding chair up front.
He slowly opened his scuffed violin case.
He took out his violin slowly.
He seemed off key as he tried a few sounds.

He twisted a few string pegs.

He began to play and the whole room of

talking people became silent and listened

as tears rolled down as he played on 

their violin shaped hearts.

© Andy Costello Reflections, 2015

THREE BLIND MICE

THREE BLIND MICE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 1^st Friday of Advent is, “Three Blind Mice.”

I want to preach on the theme of blindness.

Why?

Well, because that’s what hit me when I read today’s first reading and noticed the phrase from Isaiah 29:18:  “the eyes of the blind shall see.”  Then I read today’s gospel from Matthew 9: 27-31 about the two blind men who cried out to Jesus as he passed by, “Son of David, have pity on us.”

TWO BLIND MICE - THREE BLIND MICE

Because Matthew talks about two blind men, I began wondering about the nursery rhyme, “Two Blind Mice.”

I looked it on Google only to discover that the nursery rhyme is, “Three Blind Mice.”

Uh oh!

I did find mention of a play on Broadway from 1949 - entitled, “Two Blind Mice.”   It was about 2 women who ran a government office - the U.S. Government Office of Medicinal Herbs. It was cut by Congress - but not for these ladies - who kept it going for 4 more years - raising money from renting rooms and parking down below. They simply never answered the phone. It played from March 2, till July 16, 1949. It failed and folded - because as someone said, Samuel Spewack wrote and directed the whole thing. and was blind to any other suggestions.

Then I looked 3 Blind Mice and found that Wikipedia report very interesting.

Let me read - I can’t sing - the Nursery Rhyme, “Three Blind Mice.”

Three blind mice. Three blind mice.

See how they run. See how they run.

They all ran after the farmer's wife,

Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,

Did you ever see such a sight in your life,

As three blind mice?

Like many of these nursery rhymes, there are various theories about their meaning. Is this one a dig at some king or queen? Is this one all about life?

At times we are like mice - running around - dashing from here to there with great fear?  Are we like the farmer’s wife - who like many folks - are scared of mice - but at times we have to face our fears and cut their tails off.

Is this a parable about Queen Mary who had 3 Bishops who were protesting against the Catholic Church blinded? In reality they were burnt to death. Is this about Protestants being blind? Supposedly this Queen Mary got the name, Bloody Mary - because under her queenship 280 to 300 protesters were killed.

Such theories exist. Queen Elizabeth who followed her had some Catholics killed - but far fewer. Henry VIII had a lot more killed than Queen Mary. During his 37 year reign 57,000 to 72,000 were executed. Some think these numbers are an exaggeration.

BLINDNESS

I choose this topic because it gets at the issue of blindness.

I choose it because it gets me to the story of the 2 blind men in today’s gospel.

These 2 men have a great prayer; “Son of David, have pity on us.”

It’s important to recognize and to state that we all need to take pity on ourselves and each other - that we are blind.

Listen to people. We’re all off on how blind, how stupid, others can be. They don’t know how to park. Then don’t know how to drive. They don’t use their turn signals. They are selfish, deaf, dumb and blind.

There is help. We can change. We can grow. We can learn to see.  We can say this because we have more than our eyes. We also have our mouth and our ears here on our head. They call all be used to communicate with each other. To ask others, “What are you seeing? What’s your opinion? What’s your take on this?”  Then to listen to each other - to see other’s view points - viewing reasoning.

TWO BLIND MEN

I also noticed that Matthew when he talks about blind men, he has two scenes in his gospel about blind men calling out. Check out Matthew 9: 27 and Matthew 20:30. There is another scene when Matthew talks about 1 blind man: Matthew 12:22.

In Mark, Luke and John, it’s only 1 blind man.  And they use the pronoun I and me!

Check out Mark 8:22 and 10:46 and Luke 18:35 and John 9.

Matthew is later than Mark, so I wondered if Matthew has an agenda here about community versus individuals. We instead of me.

CONCLUSION

Let me come with a conclusion.

After admitting I, we are blind - like 3 blind mice - to pray the prayer of the 2 blind men in today’s gospel, “Son of David, have pity on us!”

To take a rosary and say that prayer on each of the 59 beads, “Son of David! Have pity on us.”

Or just the last part, “Have pity on us.”

Or the prayer of Bartimeus - “Lord, that I might see.”

Ooops change it to: “Lord, that we might see.”

December 4, 2015

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

Water: oceans, lakes, rivers….

Water: 71 % of the earth.

Water: there is a saltwater ecosystem 
and a freshwater ecosystem with varing amounts of salt and nutrients - fish 
and plants in these waters.

Water: glimmer, shake, waves,

but sometimes stillness - able

to hold boats afloat and fish

below. Water: we might be the
only "best bet" water planet,
so we better watch what we do 
with our waters - lest we kill

what is giving us life along with
the air, sun and soil. Human 
beings self destruct - they commit 
suicide - so we better be careful 
on how we use our water. 

© Andy Costello, Reflections on the Bay, 2015