SKIN

INTRODUCTION

The title of my reflections for this 28 Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C -  is “Skin.”

When I read today’s readings, the obvious thought that jumped out of today’s first reading and today’s gospel is skin - leprosy - uh oh.

What are your thoughts about skin - your skin - other’s skin?

It’s what we see - first thing - when we see each other. Skin look…. Skin color …. The wrapping - the cover of the book called me …. the largest organ in the body - around 8 pounds more or less - some 20 to 22 square feet - or what have you.

Our skin, It protects us - covers us - waterproofs us. It’s us - warts and all - tattoos and scars - covering the me that’s me.

Skin - skinny me or bigger me.

TODAY’S READINGS

We’re moving along this year - year C - with the gospel of Luke.

Today we come to the story of the ten people Jesus cleansed of leprosy. We have the same story at Thanksgiving - and the theme is making sure we say, “Thanks!”

Notice when I read the gospel I didn’t use the L word. There have been statements from the United Nations for more than 50 years at least - not to use the word L word - but to say leprosy or skin disease.

Jesus says, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”

The Biblical commentaries like to point out that Hansen’s disease - having the kind of leprosy we have in modern times - is probably not what the people - labeled with leprosy in the Bible - had. In Biblical times any kind of skin disease was called leprosy.

So to match the Gospel - those who put together our readings for this Mass - matched it with a story from 2 Kings 5:14-17 - the story of Naaman of Syrian - who is healed of his skin diseases by the Hebrew God. The last line in today’s first reading states, “His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean of his leprosy.”

I noticed that the English translators of the Bible do not use the word “skin” but rather the word “flesh”.

So with these readings  in mind, I began thinking about skin as a theme for today’s homily. Skin….

FIRST EXERCISE: TAKE A LOOK

Take a moment and look at your hands - back and front.

Look at them, rub them.

Looking at the palms of your hands, see the lines. Be a palm reader - of your palms. See how your skin accordions - when you bend your fingers inwardly - but differently at the different phalanxes - 3 on each finger - 2 on the thumb. Turn to the back of your hands. See how your skin covers your hand so differently - especially when you bend your hand and make a half fist or a whole fist.

Amazing - wonderful packaging.

Are you amazed at the variety in creation: the skin on apples, bananas, elephants, humans?

Great packaging - evolving over millions and millions of years.

What’s your take on skin?

When you get home - when nobody’s watching - look in the mirror.

Look at your face. It’s you. It’s your skin! You’ve been wearing this face for so many years now.

It’s not a mask. It’s you - how people recognize you.

It’s on your driver’s license. It’s on your passport. It’s on your Facebook - if that’s the way you go.

What do you see in the mirror? What do people see when they see your face when you come in the door - face forwards?

Do they have to ask, “How was your day?”

Our skin tells so much - when we blush, when we’re flushed, when we’re sick, when we’re worried, when we’re smiling, when we’re laughing, when we’re eating ice cream, when we got an A or $1,000 dollars back from the IRS.

SECOND EXERCISE - HUMAN TOUCH - HUMAN SKIN

The second exercise would be to reflect upon human touch.

Watch people touch each other - especially with tenderness.

Watch people touching their babies - grandparents - parents - nose to nose - kissing them on top of their heads. Notice babies - they tell you immediately whom they know and have grown used to - and want to reach out to.

I do a bunch of funerals - and I’m always - almost late - and I often wonder as I’m running across the parking lot - running towards the church - seeing couples heading for the church, “Do married couples who don’t usually walk into church holding hands, hold hands when they are heading into church for the funeral of someone their age?” Just a question. Just a wondering. I don’t know the answer.

I don’t hear too many kids of today complaining that their parents didn’t hug them - like I heard in the past.  Have we recovered in the hug department?

At Mass we give the sign of peace. There are still some people who never liked that - and I’ve learned to not be a PITA about that. But it certainly was and is an attempt to build more bridges in this world. And it certainly has become for many people a wonderful part of the Mass. There was a move to move the Sign of Peace to near the beginning of the Mass - like at the Lord have mercy - but that idea died. They stuck with it - for after the Our Father - after we say, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

And we receive communion for the most part in the hand around here - and I think we have continued to be understanding of each other when it comes to receiving communion on the hand vs. on the tongue. If it’s worry about sins of the hand vs. sins of the tongue, I think the sins of the tongue wins hands down. Smile. And if it’s germs we’re worried about, I keep on hearing priests, deacons, Eucharistic ministers talk about the difficulty of putting communion onto someone’s tongue compared to the hand. So that’s my preference, but I’m for a preference accepting church and humanity. And I’m not here today to push that agenda - but to look at skin - and human touch.

In the gospels, we often see folks trying to reach out and touch Jesus and we see people being touched by Jesus.

There’s a prayer there - there’s a meditation there.

Our Catholic religion is touchy - it’s sensey - it’s visual.

We touch our skins with water coming into church.

We anoint a newly baptized baby with 2 oils - in the Roman Rite - on the Adam’s or Eve’s apple - here on the neck and on the forehead after the water is poured on the newly baptized.

Touch is important.

So too the other sacraments - confirmation, priesthood - Sacrament of the Sick.  So too the love of husband and wife - in the great sacrament of marriage - lots of touch, lots of holding, are called for - and needed.

So too the tattoo urge - on the skin - what are our thoughts about that?

So too the beautiful darkening of United States' skin…. By 2050, hopefully, we’ll be much more at home in our skin - much more assimilated - much more Torontoficated. I love being on the Toronto or New York Subway - such great colors and such great variety of skin tones.

CONCLUSION

Enough already.

I hope my homily goes more than skin deep.

I hope we all grow in acceptance, appreciation, and holy love of ourselves and each other - no matter who we are and how we look.

 If we have the skin of a baby - life’s been easy on us so far - praise God.

Or if we have the skin of wrinkled history and story and struggle - with marks and scars to prove it. Praise God. Amen.

October 9, 2016

REFLECTIONS

Slowly I began to see reflections….

The more I saw, the more I see ….

Off car doors and stainless steel

panels - puddles and silverware  ….

In the playground, tones tell me

which child belongs to which parent ….

My dad died in 1970 - but I keep

on seeing him in me - still living.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2016

October 8, 2016

DISTANCE

I think I’m better at distance -

than closeness. Sorry.

I think you’re better at closeness

than distance.  Sorry.

This same closeness and distance 
happens with God and me. Sorry.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2016

WHAT’S  YOUR  TAKE 

ON  THE  ROSARY?

QUESTION

The title of my homily for this Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary is, “What’s Your Take on the Rosary?”

October 7 is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary and October is the month of the Holy Rosary.

October is a good month to renew our use of the rosary - just in case, if they have disappeared into the back of our top drawer.

Here are two thoughts to ponder?

FIRST  - STANDARD USE

The Rosary is a great way to renew - meditate on - pray over - some of the key mysteries of our Christian Faith as well as our daily life.

Like Christ and Mary - we experience births - losing and finding - visitations and presentations - as well as the need for the Spirit and ascensions.

Like Christ and Mary - we experience agonies and sorrow, crosses and death.

So looking at our life, some moments are joyful and some moments are sorrowful when  the sword of pain stabs us in the heart. Sometimes we are in the dark and we need light in our darkness - in our marriages and in our everyday life. And like football and baseball players, sometimes it’s great to pause and “Give God the glory.”

Life has lots of ordinary mysteries - and sometimes we spot in them - moments and glimpses of resurrection and transfiguration.

In 2002 Pope John Paul II added 5 more mysteries to our rosary - bringing them to 20. He lined up 5 light giving moments of life. One was to take the time to reflect on how baptism, marriage, hearing Good News, transfiguring moments and the Eucharist, the Mass, has an impact on and in our lives.

So that’s part one: the rosary helps us to pray and to reflect on various mysteries and moments of our life.

SECONG - BEADS ARE OFTEN USED FOR SOMETHING TO HOLD ONTO.

Next there is the common human experience of using beads - and not just for decoration around our neck.

There is evidence of a statue of a Hindu using beads back in the 3^rd century B.C.

Type into Google, “Prayer Beads” and you’ll find various “hits” on the use of beads in prayer methods in Hindi, Muslim, Sikh,  Bahai, and various other faith traditions.

In the Christian world you’ll find “chotki” - ropes with knots (like beads) for prayer - when the person praying says over and over again,  the Jesus prayer: “Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

In Muslim circles you’ll find prayer beads that are also called, “Worry Beads”. Muslim worry beads usually have 33 beads and someone goes through the beads, 3 times - giving us 99 prayers.

People use beads as prayer beads. People use them as worry beads.

They are reminders to pray - and hope for help to be on the way.

I have been stressing for 35 years now: “Rosary beads aren’t just for Hail Mary’s anymore.”

They are for that - but please give your kids a rosary - and say they can be used for saying all kinds of prayers and thinking tricks.

There are 59 beads on the regular rosary. So for each bead, say, “Lord have mercy” or just “Mercy” or “Thanks!” or “Help” or “Sorry” or “Peace.”

People can pray just one decade - 10 prayers for “Help” or “Thanks” or what have you.

Beads can be used for just one decade - or 5 decades of Hail Mary’s or what have you.

I like to say: by taking out a rosary - or using a rosary - it’s like an announcement to oneself, “Now I’m going to pray!”  or “Now I’m going to meditate."

If we promote or get folks to use beads for daily prayer - they will serve as they have always served: as reminders of the spiritual, of God, of Mary as one of us, or others.

Start off slow.

For example, take your beads and see if you can come up with 59 names of God.  Peace, Joy, Artist, Creator ….

For example, using your beads, name 59 saints.

For example, you’re on a long line, use your rosary and see if you can come up with 59 people you went to school with.

I’ve seen Muslims use their prayer beads - sometimes in prayer - sometime just reflecting on the names of God - or what have you - asking God to bless each by name.

I’ve seen people on planes and trains - saying their prayers, using their beads, just sitting there very comfortable with themselves and their religion.

CONCLUSION

When we die, if we are known for saying the rosary, often family members will look for our beads - so as to put them in our hands in the casket - or next to an urn of our ashes if we have been cremated.

I’d suggest: ask the undertaker after the wake to take them out and give them to some family member as a memento or for prayer from someone in the next generation. Put it in the will, who gets our rosary. 

October 7, 2016

FEAR  AND  ANXIETY

You think you’re nervous, you’re  scared?

What about a fly - who flies away just

before someone is about to swat it?

What about the scavenger birds along

the highway? It’s not easy to eat your

supper with 18 wheelers whizzing by.

What about the high school kid with

great chocolate chip cookies and the

lunch room is filled with 150 starving kids?

What about the child in a bomb shelled

city - with snipers and shooters in every

other half-destroyed apartment building?

What about the husband and wife, mom 
and dad, who are both out of work and 
they have 4 kids - who are hungry and...?

What about the 89 year old - in a nursing
home - sitting there near the front door, and 
every visitor seems to be there for someone else?

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2016

October 6, 2016

ROPE

Neat - just sitting there - wrapped up
tight … ready to be grabbed and used

when needed  - from time to time.

But every time a piece of us is cut off

and goes here or there, it loses its value

of just sitting there waiting to be used.

So too you…. So too me …. Unused we

think we’re so neat, but once we're cut

we see our loss - our limits - our reality.

So we have a choice - to look good - new

clean, no tar on us - or to be here, there
and everywhere holding our lives together.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2016

FRANCIS SEELOS:  WELCOME!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my thoughts is, ‘Francis Seelos: Welcome!”

Let me say near the beginning of this new school year, “Welcome to our freshmen class - as well as any other new young people - and new teachers and staff.”

Welcome!

Today - October 5^th -  is the feast day of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos - a Redemptorist who was a priest here at St. Mary’s in the early 1860’s -around the time of  the Civil War.

He was inside this  very church. I don’t know if these are the benches that were here in the 1860's - but this is the shell of the church that goes back to 1859-60. 

So a saint, St. John Neumann blessed the cornerstone of this church and Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos - prayed and celebrated Mass and heard confessions in this church.

In 1866 he goes to New Orleans - also St. Mary’s Parish. He dies the following year, on October 4, 1867 - at the age of 48 - from a Yellow Fever epidemic that was hitting the city.

The title of my homily is, “Francis Seelos: Welcome!”

ONE THEME - ONE LIFE

When speaking - and preaching - about people - I like to come up with one main theme - that hopefully gives a portrait - better an impression of that person.

Like at a funeral…. I like to go to the funeral parlor - and if I didn’t know the person who died, I ask around to see if the person can be summed up with one word.

I hear words like: Generous…. Giving …. Caring ... Grateful…. Faithful …. Sense of humor…. Quiet …. Life of the Party …. Always there…. Understanding …. Forgiving…. Present …. A gift.

Of course, nobody can be summed up with one word.

But for the sake of focus - one word - like the center of a bulls eye - helps to target one’s thoughts.  

One of my favorite themes is, “Welcome!”

If I hear one thing from Pope Francis, it’s that we be a welcoming church.

A  WELCOME  sign is nice to see on a rug at the entrance of any home - so too every church.

“Welcome!”

I just preached on this theme the other day.

So as I thought about Francis Xavier Seelos - I see him as a very welcoming person.

He was known for being a great confessor. People felt welcome - when going to him for confession. In the literature about him, I read about the long confession lines of people here at St. Mary’s, Pittsburgh, and New Orleans.

Here in our garden at St. Mary’s we have a unique statue of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos. It’s under a nice tree  - off the brick path - and I’ve seen thousands of people just sitting there as if they are on the bench - sitting and talking with Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos. As I walk by that stature and there is a person resting there - leaning into Father Seelos, I like to say, “You can go to confession to him.”

Almost the same statue that we have here is in New Orleans at the Seelos Shrine, but the one there has arm rests that make the bench that much less opening for one more person.

So I’m saying here, when it comes to saints - speakers try to come up with one theme that describes that person.  We do it with homilies for the dead as well.

Like yesterday morning I had a funeral for a 98 year old lady Catherine Vacca. Her quality was awareness.  Her husband is still alive - at the age of 99 - heading soon for 100.

I was standing there looking at photos of Catherine being displayed on the big screen - one after the other.

I’m alone till an old guy stands next to me to watch the show as well.

I start to notice that this guy next to me looks like the guy in the pictures. Sure enough it’s Catherine’s husband. I say to him, “You’re her husband.” And he says, “Yes!”

I then asked, “What was your wife like?”

He says - pointing to his wife in a picture, “Nice!”

In the pictures you could see her nice face - welcoming eyes - and all around sweetness.

SELFIES

I remember seeing another slide show at another funeral.

I began spotting in the different pictures a face that was very sad and serious.

Now it could be that she had teeth problems - but all in all - she didn’t look like a happy camper in any picture.

Suggestion: go through your pictures -your selfies - and ask yourself, “Do I have a welcoming face?”

The title of my thoughts is, ‘Francis Seelos: Welcome!”

SOMETIMES THE WELCOME SIGN IS MISSING

As I'm sure you've heard, the National African American Museum has recently opened in Washington D.C.  When you have time make sure you visit the place. 

I'm waiting till the crowds have settled down to make my visit. I'm sure there will be lots of evidence of the years when African Americans were not made welcome in this country - and I hope there will be signs of welcome - change - and growth.

And 100 years from now - we'll all be dead - but there will be in Washington D.C. a Muslim American Museum  - where there will also be evidence of the time when they were not welcome and then the change. I say this not out of political posturing - most of you cannot vote yet - but because hopefully -welcome - is part of our religion - our love and our understanding of what it is to be a human being.

WELCOME FRANCIS SEELOS

The title of my thoughts is, ‘Francis Seelos: Welcome!”

Seelos was in imigrant. Seelos was a Redemptorist.  When he was stationed here, he wasn't always welcomed by his own confreres - because of personality differences. He had a great sense of humor. He had an easy way about him - and his confreres here at St. Mary's thought he was too easy going with our students and seminarians here. 

There it is: one of life's basic experiences. How do we respond to those who don't accept us as we are - with our personality - our specificness - etc. etc. etc.

Jesus' method was that of love, forgiveness, turning the extra cheek, going the extra mile with the other  - and in this way - we can change the world.

The theme for this year is to go make a difference. One specific "HOW" answer to that hope is to be a welcoming person.

CHURCH

I remember being out at St. John Neumann some 14 years ago.

A couple were there for Mass or something and I said, “Welcome.”

The husband said, “Thank you. That’s the first time in 9 years since we got to this parish, anyone said, ‘Welcome to us.”

I learned from that moment - from that experience - and  I like to say at every Mass, “Welcome to everyone and welcome to any visitors.”

At least I can do that at every Mass.

I hope all of you feel very welcome at Mass so far.

And I hope when I die and I get to heaven. I hope I hear folks there saying, “Welcome” I also hope that people at my funeral say, “Father Andy was very welcoming.”

CONCLUSION

The title of my thoughts is, ‘Francis Seelos: Welcome!”

I hope none of you - 25 years from now - will not say, “Looking back at my time at St. Mary’s, “I never felt welcome there.”