SORRY, I'M NOT

A POLISHED ARROW

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily and my thoughts for this Tuesday in Holy Week is, “Sorry I’m Not a Polished Arrow.”

TODAY’S FIRST READING - ISAIAH 49:1-6

Isaiah here in today’s first reading is reflecting on his life  - how the Lord called him from birth - “from his mother’s womb he gave me my name.”

Isaiah continues, “He made of me a sharp-edged sword …. He made me a polished arrow.”

Those two images  got me thinking.  I have been preaching on these readings for over 50 years of daily Masses - so I find myself thinking, “Think about what you’ve missed and not preached on.”

A weekday homily is only 2 pages at the most for me - so that gives me the freedom to think out loud and not worry if I’m confusing and not too clear - or  if I give a head scratcher or a dud. Been there…. Done that….

SORRY, LORD, I’M NOT A POLISHED ARROW

Yeah, it would neat to be a straight arrow. It would be neat to be a polished arrow - the type one might see behind glass in a museum - in perfect shape.

Yes, it would be nice to be a sharp edged sword - to be as definite as a sword - speaking with sharp edged - well cut out clear thoughts, sentences and paragraphs.

But looking at my life - like Isaiah looked at his life - I see myself not as a polished arrow - but rather as an old screw driver with a chipped tooth - like an Appalachian guy on a porch in the woods - a screw driver with three or four of five spots of paint on the its pockmarked wooden handle - because it was used to open paint cans - and the top is pitted and dented because it was also used to chip out crud and rust from a pipes - a hammer hitting this old screwdriver right on its head.

Polished arrow - not me. Sharp edged sword - not me either.  No I’m more like a rusty nail - that failed to do its job - or a black plastic garbage bag that broke.

Sorry Lord….

TODAY’S GOSPEL - JOHN 13: 21-33, 36-38

Am I being too harsh on myself?

Nope - but I’m not Judas in today’s gospel - stealing from the collection - and betraying Jesus.

But I sit there at many a meal with others and my mind is elsewhere. Not the devil entering into me - like Judas - but maybe at times. Hope not.  But distractions  - yes - big time. So too at this meal called the Mass.

I’m like the disciples at that Last Supper. I’ve been going to daily Mass almost 67 years or more and I still don’t get what I’m doing at times. Father forgive me because many times I don’t know what I’m doing.

Sorry, I’m no polished arrow.  Sorry I’m not silver sharp sword.

CONCLUSION

So Lord, this is me and I make this act of faith more in your forgiveness and understanding and your laughter with and at me than in the Trinity or Resurrection.

Sorry that’s how I’m taking your word - more and more. Maybe these are the kind of thoughts one has after they in their 70’s - the kind of ponderings Pope Francis has - not super intellectual - but simply, simple thoughts of compassion - mercy - and forgiveness - and understanding. Amen.

DIFFERENT  TIME  ZONES 

Time differs…. You know that, right?

Like when traffic is stuck - really backed

up - and you have no deadline and you’re

listening to a great game on your car radio.

Like when you’re starving and the Fast

Food Hamburger crew have their backs

to you and are laughing and you’re the

only one on line in this fast food restaurant.

Like when you decide to pray and you’re

sitting there in church for three minutes and

and it feels like a big long 60 minute hour.

Like the opposite - like a moment at a wedding
or a funeral - or at the beach or a game - or
time with God and with the kids - and we
peak through the blinds and the sun is rising
and forever - forever is but a moment.

Like when you’re lonely or like when

you are with the one and ones you love.

Everyone knows all this…. Right.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2016

A SMOLDERING WICK

 INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Monday in Holy Week  is, “A Smoldering Wick.”

I noticed that image in today’s first reading from Isaiah 42:1-7. 

In the past I’ve enjoyed preaching about Mary in today’s gospel anointing Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume oil and then drying his feet with her hair. [Cf. John 12: 1-11]

That’s a powerful scene, powerful image, and can be a powerful metaphor. We’ve all walked into an elevator - and wow someone with powerful perfume must have been on this elevator!

I haven’t thought about the smoldering wick image and possible metaphor from today’s first reading, so let me take a look at that today.

CHURCH CANDLES

Those of you who have a fire place in your home - and you use it - know about smoldering wood or coals if you use a charcoal fire place for cooking steaks, hotdogs or hamburgers in warmer weather.

We didn’t have a fireplace or a charcoal stove, so let me use the image of a candle.

Hang around Churches one would get the image of the smoldering wick.

I used to be a candle boy in our church as a kid. We got paid $2.50 a week. I jokingly say, “Don’t work for the Church. They don’t pay well.” But for a kid in the early 1950’s, $2.50 was great.

We’d have to keep our eyes on the candles. As soon as the fire went out, as soon as the candle burnt out, then we’d replace the little red cup with a brand new candle.

Being an altar boy, then a seminarian, then a priest, I would know about altar candles. Sometimes it looks like the candle is dead, cold, out - but surprise there is  a tiny glow - a tiny spark, sometimes in the candle. There would be plenty wax in the candle, but it was going out or just sleeping or smoldering.

If one wants that candle to continue, one blows on it. We use wax and oil candles here at St. John Neumann and St. Mary’s.

So sometimes we need to get a new wick. Sometimes we need to get more oil. Sometimes we need to replace the candle. Sometimes we need to replace the candle.  It all depends.

MESSAGE FROM ISAIAH

The metaphor is clear - but what is the message.

Isaiah is saying that we are God’s chosen servants.

Isaiah is saying that God’s Spirit, Breath, Wind, Air, is surrounding us - let God go, “Phew. Phew - Breathe, Breathe on us.”

We’re called to be light to others.

We’re called to bring justice, fairness,  into our daily situations.

We’re called to open the eyes of those who are blind. When we are in the dark, people don’t know what they are doing. We are to be night lights for others.

CONCLUSION: A BRIEF EXERCISE

Here’s a possible spiritual exercise for today. 

Find yourself sitting in a quiet place. 

Close your eyes. 

Picture yourself as a candle. 

The wick is barely lit. It’s smoldering. 

Next say and pray to God, “Come Holy Spirit” or “God breathe into me, onto me, puff, push air at me, and let me come back to life again - come back to fire again - light again - so that I might burn brightly for your greater glory. Amen." 

March 20, 2016

HANDS! 

PALMS UP

Hands - great when some one waves to us -

palms up! Great too - when someone claps

or waves palms for us.

Hands - not good when someone tightens 

their fist - because they are angry or scared - 

at us - or they give us a nasty gesture or a

thumbs down or signal, “Stay away!”

Hands - up close - cold - dead -

in a casket - in a funeral parlor -

with a rosary in hand  - and we kneel there

and say a prayer for the person who has died

and forgive or ask forgiveness for
all the times we didn't give each other
a hand or shake hands or wave 
or clap hands for each other.

Hands - with palms in hand - waved

to Jesus on that first Palm Sunday -

but by Friday some of those same hands

are gesturing - "Thumbs down!" and

screaming, “Crucify him!” “Crucify him!”

Hands - and Jesus’ hands are nailed

to the cross that Friday afternoon -

and the world becomes dark and

the veil in the temple is ripped in two

and Judas on another tree kills himself

by his own hand.

Hands - those hands - those palms

of Jesus - will open again - and again - and
again in resurrection and be shown at Easter 
to Thomas and to us - to challenge us to look

at Jesus wounds and cuts and have faith

that Christ the Lord has risen from the dead.

Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

    

© Andy Costello  Reflections  2016

LETTING GO

INTRODUCTION

Today we celebrate Palm Sunday.

Today we cross over the threshold of the most important week of the Christian year: Holy Week.

And if there is any time of the whole year that we feel the need to get closer to God, it’s this week. The Christmas Season gets us in touch with family and gift giving. Lent, Holy Week and Easter get us in touch with our need for the gift of God.

All year we are filled up with so much clutter and business that we tend to neglect and forget God, so this week is a chance to LET GO and make the journey with Christ through Holy Week to Easter!

HOMILETIC REFLECTIONS

In today’s gospel, we hear the great passion story of how Jesus crossed the threshold of the gates of Jerusalem and let go of his life.

Letting go.

Passion!

Today I’d like to preach with passion on two words that bring us into the mystery of Christ and Holy Week: LETTING GO! Aren’t they the basic words in every love story -- especially love stories whose whole theme is passion?

When we love another, don’t we let go of everything because of the passion we feel for the other?

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3: 16). He let go of his Son out of his passionate love for us.

And as Paul tells us in today’s second reading: Christ emptied himself. He let go of being equal to god to be human like us. More than that, he humbled himself by becoming our servant — a suffering servant—and then this week, he went even further, he let go and accepted death, death on a cross. (Phil. 2: 5-8)

Letting go! Passion! Becoming a servant and slave of all! Dying! Isn’t all this the crux and heart of every love story?

Every Sunday we hear the Word of God and how Jesus is the servant of others: teaching, healing, forgiving, touching, feeding, caring for others. But this Sunday, and this special holy week, we experience even more. We experience Palm Sunday, now called Passion Sunday, because of its dramatic reading of the Passion Story of Christ. On this Thursday, Holy Thursday, we experience the Last Supper. On Friday, Good Friday, we journey the Way of the Cross and experience Jesus’ final letting go, his death on the Cross. On Saturday, Holy Saturday, we feel the silence and loneliness of the tomb. And finally on Sunday, the 8^th day, we experience Easter and Resurrection.

This week then, is a week for slowing down, becoming quieter, and entering into deeper prayer and meditation. This week is a week for getting to church for the Holy Week services.

As we hear the readings this week we are called like Moses and the Chosen People, the Israelites, to let go, to leave Egypt, to make an exit, an Exodus, and move from where we are now, “away from the fleshpots”, out into the desert, heading towards the Promised Land, the Kingdom of God. We are called to climb the mountain of the Lord and renew our covenants with the Lord and each other, to sit down to table with the Lord, to let him wash our feet, to let him feed us with his body, the Bread of Life, to pray with him in the garden, to walk with him to Calvary, to go down into the waters of the Jordan, to die to ourselves, and to come up on the other side of the river, changed, converted, more alive, resurrected, more filled with charity after renewing our baptismal vows.

Letting go!

This whole week then can be summed up with those two simple words: LETTING GO! Somehow those two words touch the mystery and the passion of God as seen in Jesus Christ.

Letting go!

The words are simple, but the letting go is the whole difficult mystery of life.

Down deep when we become quiet and serious and closer to God we all know that we have to let go of so much in order for the Kingdom of God to break forth in our lives. And we know that the letting go is a lifetime difficulty and a lifetime of dying. 

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

For the sake of clarity and understanding of all that is involved in this letting go, let me divide the “letting go” into three degrees of difficulty.

First of all, there is the letting go of things outside of us: the stuff of life that holds us back from loving God, neighbor and self. Obviously, everything created is good, but when the goods of life and the pursuit of money and the things money can buy begin to swallow us up, then we have to learn to let go and change our life style and life attitudes.

We have to let go of all those riches that prevent us from fitting through the eye of the needle and entering the Kingdom of God. If we stuff ourselves with food or T.V. or junk and neglect our family and friends, then aren’t we blocking the Kingdom of God? We need to change. We need to let go and let God heal our situation. It might mean letting go of a second job or even a first one or overtime because we aren’t spending enough time with our family. It might mean dropping out of three organizations we belong to, because we are out 4 or 5 nights a week and our marriage is suffering.

Next there is the letting go of inner “stuff”: feelings, hurts, resentments, bad memories. Compared to the letting go of things, this second degree of letting go is much more difficult. All of us sit parked here like a tractor trailer truck with a trailer full of bad memories and hurts which we drag around behind us. We find it difficult to forgive parents for past hurts. We still remember being dropped by friends or people we loved or who we thought loved us. We all remember teachers or bosses or Little League coaches who had favorites and we weren’t one of them and as a result we were passed over.

Letting go of all those past hurts, especially from the early years of our life is so hard to do. If we were a tractor trailer truck, wouldn’t it be nice if we could simply unhitch the trailer full of bad feelings and drive off without them light as a feather without all those hurts? But no, we’re more like a garbage truck filled with the hurts and bangs and stains and garbage of our life still sticking to our insides and always stinking up our life.

Letting go!

But letting go of feelings is easy compared to the third degree of letting go: the letting go of our very self—the dying to self that Jesus often talked about.

“Unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat. But if it dies, it produces much fruit. The person who loves his life loses it, while the person who hates his life in this world preserves it to life eternal” (John 12: 24 - 25).

Holy Week is all about Jesus’ letting go of his very life. Up to that moment on Palm Sunday when Jesus passed over — crossed over the threshold of the gates of Jerusalem, he had some control over his life. But on Palm Sunday he made a dramatic step. He freely let go of his life and entered Jerusalem. The Good Shepherd became a sheep. He let go and became a sheep led to the slaughter.

Letting go!

Isn’t that the hardest thing in life, to let go not only of things, not only of feelings, but of our very self?

Letting go!

Isn’t that what keeps some people from getting married? Isn’t that what keeps some married people from being happily married? Isn’t that what keeps some married people from having children? Isn’t that what kills marriages—keeping people from really giving their bodies and their whole selves to the other and to the family?

Isn’t that the world’s problem: selfishness, individualism, cliques, groups, peoples, races, nations, unable to let go not only of their possessions, lands, surplus, but also of their feelings of superiority or past hurts, but also of their very selves, unable to share life together?

Letting go!

CONCLUSIONS

So this week, we hear the passion story of Jesus — how he gave himself openly to the people of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. We hear him say on Holy Thursday night, “This is my body to be given for you.” “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you.” We hear on Good Friday, the final words of Jesus on the cross as found in today’s Passion Story by Luke, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Letting go!

Good Friday!

But guess what? We will never let go if we stop at Good Friday. No, we have to see beyond Good Friday to Easter Sunday. We have to see beyond the cross, beyond death, beyond the letting go, to the results of letting go: resurrection, the Kingdom.

Only when we have that vision—the vision of a new life—a new way of doing things — an improved family — an improved world — only then will we let go.

Only when we see ourselves as Easter People, the Risen Christ’s People, Christians, can we let go of:

• things that clutter our life and should be in the hands of the poor and the have not’s;
• feelings that wear us down and wear us out;
• selfishness that prevents us from giving of our very selves to God and others.

This week then is obviously a serious week and a Holy Week. It is a letting go and an emptying week so that we will have room for deep prayer and deeper union with Christ.

With Christ let go. Follow him. Die with him. Rise with him to new life for you and your family and your world.

Or are you still afraid to let go? Will you put all this off to another week and another time in another year? 

FROM  THE  INSIDE

Sometimes we’re talking, just talking

to someone - and to be honest -

without much thought, it’s chitchat.

It’s not even a trivial pursuit.

We’re at a coffee break or outside church

or at a wedding - just two people at a

round table. The others are on the dance

floor - or the bathroom - or wherever folks

disappear to at a wedding and we’re alone -

but this time with a person we never really

talked to ever, ever, ever  before.

Then - for some rare reason - the

conversation becomes different - 

very, very different. This other person

is actually talking to us - and we find

ourselves looking them right in the eye. [1]

We haven’t done that in years - maybe

never, never, ever, ever….

They are talking serious - mentioning

stuff from their inside - and we let out

a little bit of ourselves - from the me

inside the me of me. [2]

Driving along - alone - a month or two

later - we find ourselves thinking about

that moment. We realize we can actually

talk to another from our inside.

We get what Jesus meant about

the inner room - and talking from

the heart - from the deep within -

where our deepest intentions are. [3]

We now know the difference between

everyday chatter and real talk - something

we have started to do a bit more now.

We hear singers different. We sense  

that some can sing a song 100 times

and each time it’s from within - and not

just lip and word memory while looking

at the clock in the back of the hall. “Yeah!” [4]

In church we begin to know the difference

between sermons that are authentic -

heart to heart - not just tape recordings

from the pulpit - from another’s past.

“Yeah!”

We know there is a world of difference

between words - and  words made flesh -

words coming out of a life lived - out of

love: passion, death and resurrection.

                                                                   © Andy Costello, Reflections 2016

Notes:

[1] Matthew 6:22;7:22-23

[2] Matthew 6: 5-6

[3] Matthew 15:18-20

[4] Thanks for Harry Chapin for the thoughts for this reflection - found in his song, “You Are the Only Song”  - as well as a quote from Charles Péguy, “A word is not the same with one writer as it is with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.”

DID  YOU  EVER  WANT 

TO  KILL  SOMEONE?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is,  “Did You Ever Want to Kill Someone?”

Well,  I don’t mean “kill” or “murder” - but I do mean having mean feelings that I want so and so to disappear - because I’m filled with  anger - and oops - sometimes ferocious anger - anger that makes me tighten my fists and shake a bit.

It could be a parent or a sibling - a coach or a teacher - or someone who breaks our trust or our jaw - dumps or cheats on us - hurts us big time.

I feel hesitation bringing up this topic - bringing this feeling up - especially in a high school gathering for a Mass. And we’ve seen in the news in our life time school shootings.   Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

And yes - schools sometimes have lock downs - about all this.

So don’t do this - because this sermon could be blamed - for such a horrific act to happen.

It scares me - preaching on this - on a nice almost Spring day in March.

Yet I’m aware that it’s not the day - it’s the occasion - when this question of killing others - shows up.

We see killings on the evening news - in our video games - our movies - that sometimes have massive violence scenes. We’ve read in English classes some of the tragedies of Shakespeare - especially Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear.

TODAY’S READINGS

In my defense for bringing up this topic - this question comes up loud and clear in today’s readings.

The first reading from Jeremiah 20: 10-13 begins with Jeremiah saying, “I hear the whispers of all many - yelling out, “Terror!” I hear people complaining about me - denouncing me - wanting to take vengeance on me.”

Jeremiah spoke out announcing to the people of Jerusalem that God is not happy with their behavior - and we know what happens to those who correct us - and challenge us - we want to shut them up - even kill them.

Yet they keep singing and screaming that the times they are a - changing - so read the signs of the times and change - but who listens.

No wonder prophets begin, "Hear!"

They know people don't want to hear prophecies - messages they don't want to hear. 

Jeremiah is throw down a cistern - into mud. He doesn’t drown - and is eventually rescued - but sometimes people want to kill other people to shut them up.

And in today’s gospel from John10: 31-42 the crowds want to kill Jesus. They pick up rocks to thrown at him.

He challenges them - saying, “You  have seem me do many good works. I have shown you my Father.”

They scream at him the reason they want to stone him to death. It’s for blasphemy - saying he was God.

HOLY WEEK

We’re about to enter into Holy Week - the last week of Lent.

We’re going to go through once more - year after year - the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross.

He was killed.

If you come to church next week - you too will scream - when we read the Passion and Death Account of Jesus - what the crowds screamed at Jesus, “Crucify him. Crucify him.”

“Kill him!”

And they did.

So that’s a reason why I entitled this homily, “Did you ever want to kill someone?”

Two weeks ago in a homily I mentioned a poem entitled, “Indifference” from a British writer - G. A. Studdart Kennedy.

It pictures Jesus coming back again - this time to the city of Birmingham in England - and Jesus is standing there in the streets of that big city - but this time everyone is ignoring him as he stands there in the rain.

And he longs for Jerusalem - where there are people screaming - but this time people are killing him by their silence - by ignoring him.

What hit me about that poem is that today we kill God - the God within us - the God in our streets - and in our life - in our school - and in our homes and our family not by wooden crosses - but often by silence.

We get this.

We’ve all been killed by silence - by neglect - by people dissing us in 1,001 subtle and different ways.

I’ve been up here in the pulpit many times and someone aborts me by the watch look. They hold up their wrist in the middle of my sermon and look at the time - and then follow with a stretch and a yawn.

I’m against abortion - but abortion of others - crucifixion of others in 1,001 different ways. There’s a guy who stands in the back - against the wall there - just inside the back entrance - and he reads the bulletin - all through my sermon. I pause - a few times more - to see if he’ll look up - to see what happened. No luck.

I say this - because I notice this. I feel this. I do this

It kills us all ever so slightly.

We do this to parents, brothers and sisters, teachers, bathroom cleaners, bus drivers, waiters and waitresses - all the time. We abort them. We kill them. We ignore them. We don’t notice them.

LET ME START WITH GOD

Many of us kill God - crucify God - abort God - ignore God - and leave God standing there in the rain - all alone.

We don’t scream in the night, “God you’re dead. Goodbye!”

We don’t rip all those pages in the Bible that mention God. We just put the book sideways on the bottom shelf of our bookshelf or use the Bible as a door stop - of the door that shuts out God.

NEXT OTHERS

And we do the same with others.

Every high school retreat I’ve ever been on, kids see kids they never saw before.

Small groups can be small surprises - or sometimes big surprises.

In the past 5 years - or is it longer - some people spend the meal  with people who are not at table with them - but people they are texting or talking with on a iPhone or what have you.

Then there are small wars. People don’t pick up stones to kill others - but they do pick up words to throw at each other.

Then there are the big wars. The history of the world - the history of this century so far and the last century - where I grew up in - and some of you have both feet in for starters - is wars and rumors of war - local and evening news world.

I heard Spike Lee say last night on the radio that 99 people die every day in the United States because of gun violence.

SELF KILLING

Spike Lee said that of those 99 people who are killed by guns,  33 of them are by suicide.

The title of my homily is, “Did You Ever Want to Kill Someone.”

Sometimes that someone is ourselves. We want to disappear - abort ourselves - blot out ourselves.

We’re sick and tired of being bullied or hurt.

How many young people have killed themselves to get even with someone who hurt them or dumped them or dropped them. This will get them.

CONCLUSION

In this homily I want to address this issue that will preoccupy us next week - holy week.

The stations of the Cross in every Catholic Church give us pictures way before TV or misjudgments, condemnations, violence, till we finally reach the 12^th station over there - when Jesus dies on the cross.

People hated him - spit at him - screamed at him - along the way of the cross.

He did standing up for those who were scapegoated - because people refused to talk to themselves and others and our God about the ferocious anger that can dominate us at times.

We get crossed - double crossed - cut - hurt - crucified silently and violently every day.

Christ on the cross can help us deal with all this pain - today - next week and for the rest of our lives.

Lent - coming to church - is a time to face all these inner voices and screams.

And please notice that Holy Week doesn’t end on Good Friday - if it did - it would be called, “Bad Friday.”

Nope it ends and a new beginning happens on Easter Sunday - when Christ rose from the dead - and calls all those who have died to resurrection and new life.

That means now for all - including those amongst us who have died and been in the tomb for years now.