A  PARISH  MISSION

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for today is, “A Parish Mission.”

Father Kevin MacDonald is preaching a parish mission this week here at St. Mary’s Parish, Annapolis, Maryland. The talks - the preaching - will take place at St. John Neumann Church - the bigger of our two church buildings.

You’re invited to make the whole mission: Monday evening to Thursday evening - at 7:00 PM - or any of the evenings.

He’s also going to be speaking at and taking the 12:10 Mass each day - so add Tuesday and Thursday to the 12:10 Masses this week.

A PARISH MISSION

The title of my sermon - this is more a sermon than a homily -  is, “A Parish Mission.”

The Redemptorists are the religious order who staff this parish - which started way back in 1853 - on Duke of Gloucester Street. [1]

We came to the United States from Vienna in 1832. We had been in contact with Frederick Rese - Vicar General of the diocese of Cincinnati since 1828. There was an obvious shortage of priests here in the United States. We ended up in all kinds of different places. [2]

We had started in Scala, Italy - a small, small village half way up a mountain above Amalfi - a beach town - 100 years before that - November 9, 1732. St. Alphonsus started in the Kingdom of Naples - before Italy was Italy - with 9 - soon it was down to 2 and then it restarted with more. 

A while later - 1784 - two outsiders - from way up in Vienna - Clement Hofbauer and Thadeus Huebl - came down to Italy and ended up joining us. After becoming Redemptorists, they were then sent back to Vienna - to start a branch up there. They couldn’t make a go of it in Vienna, so they went to Warsaw in Poland and then that branch took off.

They got bounced out of there - so they headed back to Vienna - from which they began to finally flourish a bit more - and were able to send 6 missionaries - 3 priests and 3 brothers to America - in 1832.

We ended up starting parishes for Germans in various big cities, Pittsburgh, New York, Baltimore, Rochester, Buffalo, etc.

We also preached some parish missions all along the way.

FOREIGN MISSIONS

Our province, the Baltimore Province, went to the Caribbean and Brazil as well.

I joined to go to Brazil - because a priest working in Brazil - came into our grammar school classroom in OLPH, Brooklyn, around 1950 - told his story - and asked if anyone was interested.  It sounded great to me - and so I raised my hand.

The idea was planted in my  brain.  The interest was in my dreams.

That’s the way it works.

That’s one of life’s questions: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

I used to say, “Every little girl in America wants to be a vetinarian.”

Every boy wants to be an athlete - a magician - a guitar player - or a bulldozer driver.

PARISH MISSIONS 1994-2002

I have had many jobs as a priest: parish priest, retreat house preacher, novice master for future Redemptorists, preacher of parish missions, and now again a parish priest.

From 1994 till 2002 - 8 ½ years -  I had the gift of preaching parish missions all over Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut,  South Carolina, etc. etc. etc.

It was a great job because I got to see the Catholic Church - especially in small towns with names like Holgate, Hamler, Leipsic, Napoleon, Galion, Paulding, Swanton, Miller City. And they were just towns in rural Ohio.

Looking back I ask the question every parent - every teacher - asks: “Did I do anyone any good?”

Did I help? Did I help folks to have a better life - a better family - a better spiritual life?  Did people get to know God better?

I haven’t sat down and counted the parish missions I have been part of, the retreats I have done, the sermons I have preached.

There is a poem by Walter de La Mere, The Listeners.  A guy travels through the woods - on a moonlit night - comes to a house and knocks - and nobody answers. And the speaker says, “Is there anyone there?”

Silence…. Then he says, “Tell them I came, and nobody answered, That I kept my word….”

I have given thousands and thousands and thousands of sermons and I often wonder: “Is there anyone there? Is anyone listening?”

How about you?

Is there anyone listening? Hello! [Wave hand.]

I don’t want this to be over personal nor am I fishing for “Oh yeah, we’re listening.”

I want to say, “This is a universal question that everyone of us is asking.”

Does anyone hear you?

ST. ALPHONSUS

St. Alphonsus de Liguori - an Italian lawyer - who became a priest - and  then founded our order - saw a need for preachers to go to places that lacked priests - and nobody wanted to go to listen to those poor people in the hills.

That’s how we got to Annapolis.

The Jesuits from Southern Maryland used to come up here and say Mass - but in general - Annapolis didn’t have a church here - so we ended up here.

Today I’m sure that would not be a problem. Somewhere along the line we stopped being a tiny town.

What did Alphonsus preach? What did he push? What was his message when he knocked on doors?

He has over 100 works published - and a lot of his sermons are in print - so we can read what he preached - especially in his parish missions. [3]

Let me line up 3 right now.

First message: practice loving Jesus Christ.  Our religion is personal. Our religion is a relationship.  Our God became a baby, human, with arms and eyes to reach out to people - like every baby does - like every adult does.

Second Message: pray. Alphonsus said, “Pray and you’ll be saved. Don’t pray and you’ll be lost.”  I have changed that message from not just the hereafter, but also for the here and now.

Third Message: God is not a condemner - a “Gotcha God”.  Our God is PAZZO - the Italian word for crazy.  Our God is crazy in love with us. Think Pope Francis when you hear that message.

CONCLUSION

That’s 3 messages we Redemptorists preach.

Come to the Parish Mission this week and hear Father Kevin MacDonald preach.

Come to the Parish Mission this week and hear God knock on your door and ask, “Is there anybody there?”

O - O - O

NOTES:

[1] Robert L. Worden, St. Mary’s Church in Annapolis, Maryland, 1853-2003.

[2] S. Boland, A Dictionary of the Redemptorists, Romae 1987, “United States”, pages396-397.

[3] Theodule Rey-Mermet, St. Alphonsus Liguori, Tireless Worker for the Most Abandoned, 1987

December 11, 2016

THE  AFGHAN

Two weeks after my mother died,

the 5 of us gathered  for the gifts.

We each had a number: 1 to 5.

And the numbers were put in a hat.

I had number 4 and I got to pick 1^st.

Lucky me! I picked mom’s afghan.

She told me that was the one thing she

wanted from her mom after she died.

That meant it was from our great grand-

mother, Sarah, from years and years ago.

That meant it warmed the shoulders of

three generations for many a winter’s night.

That meant it was sacred - a mantle -

a memory knitted with love and devotion.

And I wondered who will get this when

I die and will it be a wanted choice number 1?

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2016

December 10, 2016

IN  OR  OUT OF  SYNC

One with the rain - well sometimes.

One with the sun - most of the time.

One with the snow - yes when looking

out the window; no when on the road.

One with the ocean - definitely, that is,

unless there’s a storm.

One with the mountains - all the time.

One with the music - it all depends.

One with the dance - no way. I have

two left feet.

One with the conversation - okay,

unless he’s in the room.

One with God - yes, but that one took time.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2016

December 9, 2016

ALL EARS

God, You’re all ears,

100 billion ears, all

through the years,

no mouth to be seen,

no wonder you’re so,

so. so silent.

  

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2016

MACULATE  DECEPTION

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Maculate Deception.”

It’s a play on words for starters - today being the feast of the Immaculate Conception. I’m trying to catch your attention - and maybe get you to read this homily or sermon - so as to reflect on how we do life - or how life happens to us. It can be clean and neat - and it can be streaky and sneaky.

Hopefully, you’ll see that my title, “Maculate Deception” is more than a cute play on words.  This is a very serious topic.

The challenge will be: to imitate Mary’s life - filled with grace - or to die a life that is stained with too many deceptions.

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Translation: God - the Invisible God - wanted to walk and talk in our midst in a new way. God wanted to be better noticed, recognized, accepted, understood by us - so this God decides to become human in time.

So God comes as a baby - a tiny baby - born of a woman.

God!

We’re talking about God here - becoming a baby….

Definitely different….

But before we get there, we have to go backwards to God preparing the mother to be - when she was conceived by her parents.

God does something different here. God conceives of the mother of this baby to be immaculate - and so she was conceived in her mother’s womb - immaculate.  She would be original by being without original sin.

This is a mystery - along with the teaching that all of us have original sin - within us. We are good. We are beautiful.  We are blessed.

But we can also be flawed.

An  iddy biddy little beautiful baby called me - can be flawed - picking up bad example and bad habits - passed down to us.

Now original sin is not physical. It’s not like a smudge thumb pressed on a soul - like ashes on Ash Wednesday on our forehead.

It’s a possible crack in our attitude….

It’s a life that can be warped and deceptive at times.

In Hebrew there is a phrase called, “yetzer hara” [meaning: evil lurking at our door].  We can notice this in the Book of Genesis - Chapter 4 - verses 6 and 7.  God asks Cain, “Why are you angry and downcast? If you are well disposed, ought you not  to lift your head?  But if you are ill disposed, is not sin at the door  like a crouching beast hungering for you, which you must master?”

That’s a powerful image of sin. Sin, temptations, lurk at our door. They tug at our tent flaps. They want to come into our life.

So we pray, “lead us not into temptation”.

So we pray to Mary, full of grace, knowing we have fallen out of grace, far from grace over and over  again.

So Mary is special - being chosen by God - to be God’s Mother.

Now our church chewed upon - thought about - conceived in various ways - what his means and meant - with all its implications.

It wasn’t till 1854 that the Church stated that Mary was conceived immaculately. This became a dogmatic teaching. The Catholic Church said Mary was conceived without the original sin - of Adam and Eve.

Not everyone conceived of this happening this way. For example, St. Thomas Aquinas.  

So the title of my homily is, Maculate Deception in contrast to Mary’s Immaculate Conception.

MACULATE

And I’m using in the title of my homily a rare word, “maculate”.  We know the word “Immaculate” - because of the words “Immaculate Conception”.

Macula is the Latin word for “stain” - or “spot” or “blemish”.

The only regular way we might have heard the word is when someone has the eye problem called “macula degeneration”. It’s the leading cause  of eye vision loss for over 10 million Americans.

So Mary was conceived without stain, blemish, or spot.

KAIROS AND CHRONOS

God made this happen in the fullness of time.  The Greek word in the New Testament for the fullness of time - at the right time - is Kairos.

In Ephesians 1:10 we have a great text: “He has made known to us his hidden purpose - such was his will and pleasure determined beforehand in Christ - to be put into effect when the time [Kairos] was ripe: namely, that the universe, all in heaven and earth, might be brought into a unity in Christ.”

Mary, as William Wordsworth [1770-1850] would put it in his poem, The Virgin, became “our tainted nature’s solitary boast.”

THE REST OF US

The rest of us are maculate - stained - and for this homily I’m adding the word, “deception” - to play on the word “conception”.  

We are maculate - translation “messy” or “stained”.

We are deceivers - unfortunately - as well.

We hide from God.

Today’s gospel is Mary’s story.

Today’s first reading from Genesis is the story of the rest of us.

There is something about us  - that we don’t do what God wants us to do.

We have the gift of freedom  - and we don’t use that freedom well.

To be honest, to be transparent, to be naked, we eat forbidden fruit.

God gives us all - so much - and we tend to mess it up.

That sinful inner tendency is sin in the singular - original and unoriginal sin.

We can have so much - but we all cheat to get an edge on the rest of us - by going for the grab - the forbidden fruit - whatever it takes to make us more powerful than God and each other.

We lie.

Then we blame each other. Then we blame the snake. Then we hide.

We are into maculate deceptions.

Maculate means stained.

Deception: we spend our lives deceiving ourselves.

I remember a talk that a Sister Maureen McCann gave us years and years ago.

She talked about the 3 steps in how things really work:

1)   Life is illusion;

2)   Life is a disillusionment;

3)    and it’s then we have to make a decision.

Take health. Take death. Take aging.

We deceive ourselves - if we stay in the illusion that we won’t die.

Life is filled with illusions: we age. We sag. We will get our bloated or pot bellies.

Bread has a shelf life; so too each person.

Yet people complain that their Aunt Sally died.

Cars get dents, scratches, rust.

Dresses rip. Colors fade. Styles change.

Teeth hurt from time to time.

So too our bones.

Towers lean. Towers fall. Earth quakes.

Urinary tracks get infected.

Dollar bills get dirty.

Life is about scratches and scars, hemorrhoids and heart problems.

It’s an illusion if we think we are going to last forever.

To accept maculate deceptions - is a crafty creed.

Then when our deceptions bite us you know where, it’s time for us to make some serious decisions.

At some point, we have to admit that we lie to ourselves….We need to learn to admit we hide from ourselves….

Smart steps.

The second step after illusions is the acceptance of  the delusion.

Then comes the third step: decision.

I remember reading - years and years ago - a statement by some poet - perhaps Ted Hughes: “Oh the lies  I have told my energies.”

That resonated with me. Being a procrastinator, I got that. I have bottomed out a lot - getting lazy a lot of times.

As priest I’m listening to people all the time - some of whom confess - laziness - self-deception.  Me too.

In the recent elections Hilary was slammed for lying. In the recent elections Donald was challenged for his lies. A new word arose: post-truth.

Let’s be honest, we lie inwardly lots of times.

So it’s an important step to face our illusions and our disillusions and then to decide to move into truth.

And as Jesus put it, “The truth will set us free.”  

THE WIZZARD OF OZ

It’s important for everyone to hear the wisdom of the movie, The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy had to discover good and evil. Dorothy had to discover that much of life is walking in a dream. Dorothy had to discover the Wizard is nothing more than an old man behind a curtain - leading us on.

Life is moving ahead. The clock keeps ticking.

Life is following the yellow brick road - overcoming our obstacles - gaining heart, brains, wisdom, courage - and then getting back home so as to start all over.

Life is loaded with the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

We like the Good - but we don’t like the bad and the ugly.

CONCLUSION

So that’s a few of my thoughts on this feast of the Immaculate Conception.

It would be worth our while to step into any Catholic Church and go the a statue or picture of Mary and contrast her life with our life.

Moreover, isn’t that what people do instinctively when it comes to Mary?

We Catholics go to her shrine and admit, “Hail  Mary, full of grace. the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.

Breathe.

Then say Part 2 of that basic prayer: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

The title of my homily is, Maculate Deceptions.

We are stained deceivers and we need someone above us and better than us - to make it to the end of our yellow brick road.

That’s basically why Mary was needed to help us get to our eternal home.

Yes God, there is a God.

December 8, 2016

EVE  AND  MARY 

One said, “No!” to God.

The other said, “Yes.”

One started in paradise -

in a garden - filled with fruit.

One ended at Calvary - her
Son on the tree of death.

Eve’s Tree: forbidden fruit.

Mary’s Tree: the cross.

"Take and eat!  This is my Body.”

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2016

Painting on top: 

• Title: Tree of Life and Death Flanked by Eve and Mary-Ecclesia
• Creator: Furtmeyr, Berthold, painter
• Description: This image precedes the liturgy for the feast of Corpus Christi in a missal created for the Archbishop of Salzburg. The central roundel depicts a tree that bears both fruit and sacramental hosts. It thus combines the paradisaical Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge from Eden. On the right is Eve, who hands a forbidden fruit to a man kneeling at her feet. A death's head appears among the fruits on her side of the tree. The tempting serpent winds around the trunk, and offers Eve another piece of fruit from its mouth. On the left side is Mary-Ecclesia. Rather than a death's head, a crucifix hangs on this side. Instead of fruit, Mary-Ecclesia administers one of the hosts to a kneeling man who opens his mouth to accept it, and she is in the process of plucking yet another wafer. She is presented as a mirror image of Eve and thus the salvific antidote to the Fall. An angel accompanies Mary-Ecclesia on the left and Death accompanies Eve on the right. Both hold banderoles bearing text. Adam reclines in a gesture of sorrow at the base of the tree and also holds a banderole. In the upper two roundels are princely figures who hold banderoles bearing the text of Psalm 77:25 on the left and Psalm 36:16 on the right. Three shepherds depicted below illustrate Thomas Aquinas's Corpus Christi sequence "Lauda ducem et pastorum," but they also embody the virtues expected of a good ruler. The one on the left is the personification of "Prudentia," the one in the center is "Regalitas," and the one on the right is "Verus Pastor." All are accompanied by banderoles.
• Source: Wikimedia Commons
• Rights: Public Domain
• Subject (See Also): Adam (Biblical Figure) Corpus Christi Death Ecclesia Eucharist, Sacrament Eve (Biblical Figure) Fall of Humankind Mary, Virgin, Saint Missals, Liturgical Books Mirror for Princes, Literary Genre Tree of Life
• Geographic Area: Germany
• Century: 15
• Date: 1489
• Related Work: Additional images: http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/0004/bsb00045166/images/index.html?fip=193.174.98.30&id=00045166&seite=1
• Current Location: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 15710, 60v
• Original Location:
• Artistic Type (Category): Digital images; Manuscript illuminations
• Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Vellum (parchment); Paint; Gold leaf
• Donor: Male religious; Bernard von Rohr, Archbishop of Salzburg (1466-1481)
• Height/Width/Length(cm): 38.29 cm/28.7 cm/
• Inscription: Angel: ecce panis angelorum factus cibus viatorum [behold the bread of angels made food for pilgrims]; Death: mors est malus vita bonis inde [death is evil, life therefore is goodness]; Upper left prince: Panem angelorum manducavit homo
• Related Resources: Nils Büttner, "Landschaftsmalerei um 1500," in Christoph Wagner, Berthold Furtmeyr: Meisterwerke der Buchmalerei und die Regensburger Kunst in Spätgotik und Renaissance [Ausstellungskatalog] (Regensburg 2010), 144-53, especially 149-51.

December 7, 2016

PURGATORY

The first 500 hours of eternity.

Wow, what a surprise! -

what a purging....

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2016