MURDERING, MAIMING, AND MINIMIZING THE INNOCENT

The title of my homily is, “Murdering, Maiming, and Minimizing the Innocent.”

Today - December 28, has the feast of the slaughter of the Holy Innocents. It has many possible messages. Bastin, Pinckers and Teheux in their God Day By Day Spiritual Reflections on the Readings of the Day,  Volume Four, write, about this text, Matthew 2:13-18, “Are they symbolic, those children who were massacred in Bethlehem? Or course they are, but we should not forget that symbols are always rooted in human realities, and the reality here is that of human suffering - people dying of hunger, the bitter complaints of exiles and the silence of frightened prisoners.” [Page 84]

With that in mind I put together this reflection for today.

In our lifetime we’ve seen the slaughter of the unborn - the Holy Innocents.

In our lifetime we have seen the slaughter of millions of children, women, men in the Holocaust.

In our lifetime we have seen the murder of all kinds of babies, children because of race and religion issues in Serbia, Macedonia, and the former Yugoslavian countries.

In our lifetime we have seen the same thing happen with the slaughter of so many in Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, in so many other African and Middle East countries.

In our lifetime we seen the Killing Fields in Cambodia and so many other places on the planet.

In our lifetime we have heard about various many priests and bishops who were not protective of young people in the sexual abuse stories in the Catholic Church.

In our lifetime we have heard how kids can get shortchanged in education - which can be a ladder out of poverty.

In our lifetime we have seen some rich get richer because of scams and skim offs and manipulation in the markets.

In our lifetime we have heard lies and “claimed innocence” when it comes to public people - in sports, the arts, politics - who try to explain ways out of living a life of lies, cheating, and misbehaving -  giving bad example to the young.

In our lifetime we’ve seen and heard people whose ethics and truth telling seems to have disappeared and they have walked in the dark and not in the light as we heard in today’s first reading from 1 John 1: 5-2:2.

In our lifetime we have heard people show little concern for the many migrants and their children who are “pitchforked” - as one preacher put it - from one place to the next.

In our lifetime we have heard politicians - and dictators - and elected officials -  concerned more about the polls and their numbers than the number of people who are suffering, starving and homeless.

In our lifetime we have heard people criticize prophets, priests, preachers, writers, world leaders, who have preached the Catholic Church’s Social Justice and Human Charity teachings - or have only been selective when it comes to these issues - with no concern for the hurting and the humbled - but only for their agenda.

In our lifetime we have seen and heard people who claim innocence when it comes to caring for our earth - not being aware of the health of all - for example poor children in West Virginia, Kentucky, China - whose lungs are damaged because of earth dumping and disregard of the reality of carbon emissions.

In our lifetime we have heard people screaming at children - hitting children - hurting children - with no concern for what they see with their eyes and hear with their ears.

December 27, 2015

FAMILY

The place where we know each other’s cough,

step, moods, laugh, idiosyncrasies, stories, hurts, favorite cream flavor, cereal, fears, friends, gripes, TV programs,  buttons, and yes, oh yes, what we hate, broccoli, cauliflower and talking about __________________________.

© Andy Costello Reflections, 2015

HOLY  FAMILY  SUNDAY 

 [This Sunday  the  Church  celebrates  the Family - calling each family to be a Holy Family. Here is a list of 10 blessings - amongst others - that a family ought be giving to each other. If I see at least one of you reaching [GESTURE] for a ballpoint pen to jot one of these down, that would make my day. I’ll  put this on my blog - which you can access from the parish web site. If you check out and reflect upon all 10, that too would make my day, but only if you  would take and make at least one of these 10 blessings a challenge and a call for you to put it into practice in the New Year - because you want to make your family even better - holier. Amen.]

Number One:  A family is a place where one learns one’s first words, first language. “Ma Ma” - “Da Da” - “Look!” -  “Want” -  “Need” - “Help” - “No” - “Yes” - "More" - “Love” - "Please! Please!" and “I’m sorry.”  May the words and language spoken here in our home - be words of love and kindness, gentleness and joy, giving and forgiving.  

Number One: The words we learned and the words we use.

Number Two: A family is a place of memories and stories - history, herstory, moments, incidents, time together, experiencing the twists and turns of life - where one is creating one’s unwritten autobiography - and reading the unwritten biography of those with us on the same shelf - the same house - that we are together in.  As someone once said, “When an old person dies, it’s as if a library burnt down.” 

Number Two: We are history books - in process - becoming who we are page by page. We are talking books - hopefully taking the time to read - to listen to - to talk to each other.

Number Three: A family is a place where not only mom and dad are honored, so too grandparents, visitors, the little ones - teenagers -  and ourselves as well.  

Number Three: A place of honor.

Number Four: A family is a place where people know the difference  between an argument, a disagreement, a spat - compared to an angry tirade that can leave acid spill at the table, the bedroom, the heart - where kids know the difference between a pillow fight and a real fight. 

Number Four: There are fights and there are fights.

Number Five: A family is the starting place where one learns the ability to compromise, readjust, reconsider,  renegotiate, recalculate - because one has seen these attitudes and qualities in the ones above us - instead of experiencing others who are unwilling to adjust or change or recalculate. 

Number Five: Learning to compromise.

Number Six: A family is a place where members learn to laugh and love - love being with one another -  wanting to be with each other - not just on Thanksgiving and Christmas - but 365 days a year for those in the same house - 52 times a year - for those who have moved into new families - new homes - using “techie” stuff well - for communication at a distance - and turned off when up close - like at the dinner table. It’s a place where people eat with other - and eat up each other - seeing the sacredness of the family table - receiving in communion the other - if Christian, seeing each other as the Body of Christ and saying "Amen" to Christ within the other.  

Number Six: Experiencing the Real Presence of each other.

Number Seven: A family is a place where one learns about faith and hope - in God and in one another - knowing the primary church is the home - where mom and dad are priests - and kids are parishioners - and members worship, pray, play with each other - and the classrooms and playgrounds in our homes are always open. 

Number Seven: A home is a church and a school.

Number Eight: A family is a place where the truth will set us free. It’s a place where we can be the real me - the real we.  It’s a place where we can be at home to each other - without masks or titles - walk around in t-shirt and sweat pants - but that doesn’t mean we can be PITA’s to each other. To make a family work, takes work. Go back and check  Number Six.  

Number Eight: A home is a place where we can become truly free - but that takes work.

Number Nine: A family is a place with a door - where people make significant - key - wonderful comments to each other - when another is leaving and when another is coming back home through that door - and those comments sculpt us into better and better persons. 

Number Nine: We’re aware of what is said coming and going in and out the door of our home.

  

Number Ten and Last: A family is a place where people learn to overlook, forgive, understand, accept differences and peculiarities, as well as sin - but the messy gets cleaned up, people try to speak better, be better, and learn to understand each other. A “Holy Family” does not mean a sculpture or statues of people with hands folded [GESTURE] as in prayer - but hands that clap for each other, hands with a deck of playing cards in hand, forks in hand, hand in hand, hands on shoulders, hands in prayer and support of each other. Amen. 

Number Ten: A family is a place where we are joined by hand and have to hand it to each other - generation after generation after generation.

December 26, 2015

THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS

’Twas the Day after Christmas,

when all through the house,

there were remnants of wrapping

and boxes and presents, glasses

and plates and every sort of just this 

and just that - just resting and sitting

there on tables and rugs, and under

the edges of chairs and the couch,

just here, just there, just everywhere.

So the Mrs. of the house, after just
this and just that - put on her coat

and got out of that house - quick

and quiet just like a mouse.

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2015

A 

TICKET 

TO LIFE 

December 25, 2015

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

It is. It’s a wonderful life.

This baby that was born

in Bethlehem said, “I have

come that you might have

life and that you might life

it to the full.” He told us to

see the flowers of the fields

and the birds of the air and

to make sure you forgive

your brother and sister and

give them the shirt off your

back and glasses of cold

water - and to love them

as you love yourself. Do

this and you will live a

wonderful life. Try it.

Try me. Eat me up -

and be in communion

with everyone. Try it:

it’s a wonderful life.

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2015

HAPPY ENDING

[Since 1993  I’ve been writing a story for Christmas in memory of an old priest - a friend,  Father John Duffy - who died Christmas Eve, December 24^th, 1993. He wrote a Christmas story every year for his niece - and I have continued that tradition. I had typed a few of them up for him. He was a horrible typist - and never got into computers. So here’s my Christmas story for this year - typed up - nice and neat - for you. It’s based on a few true stories. It has deep sadness in it, but I decided to go with it, because of some tough stuff I’ve heard from some people this year - people who need to hear Happy Endings.  So a story with just that title:  “Happy Ending.”]

When a baby is born, when a baby is baptized, when a little kid slides down the slide in the park -  mom, dad, sometimes slide into the future and wonder what will become of  this little one of ours.

Tom and Gladys didn’t expect what was to happen in their future when they slid into the stretch limo - that afternoon as they left church - after their picture perfect wedding ceremony and Mass.

Tom and Gladys - in time - had two kids - a boy and a girl. Tommy Jr. came first - then came Penny. Gladys didn’t like the name Gladys - never no how - and growing up said, “If I have a girl. She won’t be a Gladys. She went by her nickname “Glad” - even enduring - sometimes hearing - during her high school years, “Here comes Gladbag!” when she walked into class or onto the  soccer field.

Time slid on - as their kids grew up.  Tommy and Penny did well in school and sports - and bringing neat kids - friends - into their house - and into their lives.

Tommy Jr. went to college - but went by the way of R.O.T.C. and ended up in the army and ended up in Afghanistan. Penny went to college with a partial scholarship for soccer.

Tom Senior and Gladys adjusted to all of life’s changes up to then. Most were ups - and the downs were not that down.

Only Gladys or Glad was home when they came to the house to tell her that Thomas Jr. had been killed in Afghanistan. It was December 23^rd, just two days before Christmas. An I.E.D., an Improvised Explosive Device killed him and two others in the vehicle  - they were in driving - down some dirty dusty road.

The glad obviously switched to sad.  The funeral was a daze - in that same church where Tom and Gladys were married 27  years earlier.

And then things got worse - much worse….

The Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary are 5 and the Stations of the Cross are 14. Sometimes troubles double and then multiply.  Sometimes life  can be really tough - really rough. Sometimes life contains the stuff we don’t want to talk about - or think about - especially at Christmas time.

And everyone knows Christmas time can very, very merry - and for some - very, very lonely and sad.

Penny had gotten pregnant - but was on the other side of the country - and as a single mother struggled  - but she was stubborn and trying to make it on her own - a day at a time.

Her parents invited her back home over and over again - especially when her brother had been killed.

Penny - like her parents - didn’t take her brother’s death well - obviously. 

Tom and Gladys didn’t know it at the time - but Penny had slipped into heroin abuse. It started with pain killers after blowing out a second knee. The first knee went while playing soccer years and years ago. Being a single mother made things even tougher.

This time Tom - dad - husband - was the one who got the news that Penny was found dead - from an overdose of heroin. They didn’t see it coming.

How could she do it? Couldn’t she think, think, about her baby girl, Judy.

They flew out to where she was living and were able to start the preliminary paper work to acquire Penny’s little girl and bring her back home with them. They had a small, small funeral out there - because back home it would have been too much.

People who had experienced Tom Jr’s death and found it so difficult - when they heard about Penny’s death - were speechless. Yet close friends knew that silence, just standing there with either Tom or Gladys helps very deeply.

Thank God, Tom and Gladys now had a granddaughter, Judy, to raise.

Thank God, Tom and Gladys were still working - and Gladys was able to retire - early.

Thank God, Tom and Gladys had a good marriage. They worked on it.

They held onto each other. They put one foot in front of the other. They often went out for walks with each other. Now they could take their granddaughter with them on walks through the neighborhood and to the local park.  They made it through the night - and then through the days ahead.

In time they loved it when folks in the mall or the supermarket or outside church or at the park would say, “Wow you have such a beautiful daughter.”

They would smile and love to say, “Thank you.”

Judy grew more and more beautiful and kept her grandparents young.

When Judy was in the fifth grade,  Tom and Gladys had another surprise.

Judy became “BF” “best friend” with another fifth grader, Mary, from just up the street.

And these two became best friends for life.  In fact, when Judy got married years and years later, Mary was her maid-of-honor and Judy was her maid- of-honor when she got married - and Tom proudly walked both of them down the aisle as dad - when each got married.

What?  What happened? What happened here? Tom going down the aisle as dad for both Judy and Mary?

 Well, as Mary told me the story years later - here’s what happened.

It too was a very sad story - but it too has a happy ending.

You never know what’s going on inside that front door of the other houses on your street.

Mary’s parents were heavy alcoholics and when she would come down the stairs in the morning to go to school, there would be no breakfast - and often no parents. Sometimes she would spot them both passed out on the family room couch.

Mary would get dressed by herself - put on her back pack with her books and walk up the  street and up the front steps to Judy’s house. The door was always open in the morning for Mary. Gladys made sure of that.

Then - as Mary told me - with an amazing smile of joy on her face: “Mrs. Glad would get me breakfast, comb my hair, clean me up, give me a nice morning kiss on the top of my head - and get me ready for the day.”

Then looking back on all this, Mary told me, that what Mrs. Glad did for me saved my life. And Mr. Glad did too. My dad disappeared along the line. He left us. And so Mr. Glad gladly walked me down the aisle when I got married as well.

She also said the following. It was around Christmas time. She didn’t know she was giving me my Christmas story. Mary said, “One door was closed - like the Inn in the Christmas Story - but another door was open - the house of Mr. and Mrs. Glad - like in the Christmas stable or cave story. Amen.”