READING DREAMS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, "Reading Dreams."

One of the great ways of interpreting scripture is to imagine what you are reading or hearing is a dream you had.

Some people like to write out their dreams. When they wake up from a dream, they turn the light on and jot down what they experienced. It makes the dream more memorable, more reflectible, more message laden – that is - if you can read your own writing from 2:45 in the morning.

TODAY’S TWO READINGS AS DREAMS

This dream approach doesn’t always work too well with a lot of scripture readings, but today’s two readings are good ones for this dream process.

Image you had a dream where you were in a big boat and the whole world was flooded and you had no place to land and you wanted to land somewhere, anywhere. You’re sick and tired of water, water, everywhere. Rain. Rain. Then more rain. If that was a dream you had and you woke up and wrote it down and then read it in the morning, what would a dream like that tell you about yourself and the world you live in?

Or imagine you had a dream about yourself as blind and Jesus comes into your life and heals you. And now you see! How would you feel about yourself after waking up from such a dream?

How would you feel about yourself if they were two of your dreams in your dream journal?

HOPE AND HOPELESSNESS

For the want of a better way to categorize dreams, there are two kinds of dreams, good ones and bad ones, nightmares and good dreams.

The good ones give us hope; the bad ones give us feelings of hopelessness.

It’s as simple as that.

Today’s two readings can be seen as stories and dreams of hope.

And we human beings need to have dreams about hope. We need signs of hope, stories of hope. We need images and symbols of hope – especially when we are down or when we are feeling hopeless.

When things are going well, we don’t worry about hope. We don’t notice signs of hope as well. We don’t need stories of hope as much.

It’s like the old cliché. We don’t notice and appreciate our health till we are sick. Then we hope for health and recovery.

So we hope for hope a lot more when we are feeling hopeless.

We hope for light a lot more, when we feel like we’re in the dark.

This message of the need for hope, to have dreams of hope, when we are feeling hopeless, hit me when I read today’s readings.

Take the story in the first reading – the story of Noah’s ark – lost at sea. They are caught in a sea of destruction and they are filled with fear. They are sailing in a sea of terror and they are hoping to see the shore. When the dove returns with the olive branch, Noah and his family have a great symbol of hope.

Take the gospel story. It tells the story of a man who is blind. He can’t see and he receives his sight. Like everyone, he has to make the journey from darkness to light. It can be a story of hope.

HOMILY MESSAGE

So my hope for this homily is to present a message of hope – to get that message across – in the midst of hopelessness.

And I hope you can see today’s readings as stories of hope

Now sometimes we have heard something too many times and as a result we don’t hear it. 

Today’s story about Noah’s Ark is something we have heard 50 to 100 times. It’s like an old commercial. We heard the story before, but we still enjoy it.  However, we don’t get the old impact. It’s like an old movie or an old joke or song. We know the ending.

But imagine if we never heard the story before? Imagine  it wasn’t in the bible?

Imagine it is a dream you had one night. Imagine you have a dream where you are on one of those big cruise ships and it’s filled with couples – two by two – like in Noah’s Ark – and you’re having a great time, but it starts to rain, and rain, and rain, and rain, and rain, and all the earth is flooded and you begin to notice when you look over the side of the ship’s railing floating bodies and dogs and cats and debris, dead people, children, ugh. Animals. All died. The captain announces over and over again, “Thank God we are on this ship, because there is no longer any land. The whole world is flooded out.”

And you wake up and you feel yucky. Yug. Oooooh. You feel rotten and you feel that way for a week and you wonder if it’s you or if it’s the world that’s headed for destruction and you wonder about your dream.

And a few weeks later you have another dream and this time you are on that same boat and this time you send some birds out to see if they don’t come back – because if they do come back they haven’t found any place to land and one comes back – with an olive branch in her mouth.

What a sign of hope!

And you wake up, feeling right, feeling hopeful, feeling better.

One dream was a nightmare and the other was a dream of hope.

FLOOD DREAMS!

Have you ever had a flood dream?

Carl Jung in his book, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, tells about some dreams he had in 1913 and 1914. They remind me of the Noah story.

Let me let him tell what happened in his own words.

Toward the autumn of 1913 the pressure which I had felt was in me seemed to be moving outward: as though there were something in the air. The atmosphere actually seemed to me darker than it had been. It was as though the sense of oppression no longer sprang exclusively from a psychic situation, but from concrete reality. This feeling grew more and more intense.

In October, while I was alone on a journey, I was suddenly seized by an overpowering vision: I saw a monstrous flood covering all the northern and low-lying lands between the North Sea and the Alps. When it came up to Switzerland I saw that the mountains grew higher and higher to protect our country. I realized that a frightful catastrophe was in progress. I saw the mighty yellow waves, the floating rubble of civilization, and the drowned bodies of uncounted thousands. Then the whole sea turned to blood. This vision lasted about one hour. I was perplexed and nauseated, and ashamed of my weakness.

Two weeks passed; then the vision recurred, under the same conditions, even more vividly than before, and the blood was more emphasized. An inner voice spoke. "Look at it well; it is wholly real and it will be so. You cannot doubt it." That winter someone asked me what I thought were the political prospects of the world in the near future. I replied that I had no thoughts on the matter, but that I saw rivers of blood.

I asked myself whether these visions pointed to a revolution, but could not really imagine anything of the sort. And so I drew the conclusion that they had to do with me myself, and decided that I was menaced by a psychosis. The idea of war did not occur to me at all.

Soon afterward, in the spring and early summer of 1914, I had a thrice-repeated dream that in the middle of summer an Arctic cold wave descended and froze the land to ice. I saw, for example, the whole of Lorraine and its canals frozen and the entire region totally deserted by human beings. All living green things were killed by frost. This dream came in April and May, and for the last time in June, 1914.

In the third dream frightful cold had again descended from out of  the cosmos. This dream, however, had an unexpected end. There stood a leaf-bearing tree, but without fruit (my tree of life, I thought) , whose leaves had been transformed by the effects of the frost into sweet grapes full of healing juices. I plucked the grapes and gave them to a large, waiting crowd.

At the end of July 1914 I was invited by the British Medical Association to deliver a lecture, "On the Importance of the Unconscious in Psychopathology," at a congress in Aberdeen. I was prepared for something to happen, for such visions and dreams are fateful. In my state of mind just then, with the fears that were pursuing me, it seemed fateful to me that I should have to talk on the importance of the unconscious at such a time!

On August 1 the world war broke out. Now my task was clear: I had to try to understand what had happened and to what extent my own experience coincided with that of mankind in general. Therefore my first obligation was to probe the depths of my own psyche; I made a beginning by writing down the fantasies which had come to me during my building game. This work took precedence over everything else.

OURSELVES

Haven’t we all had dreams where we felt trapped, caught, lost, being attacked. Aren’t they connected to the world we are experiencing every day?

Haven’t we all watched TV and then gone to bed and somehow what we watched got into our dreams?

Well, doesn’t the same thing happen when we watch the world and our everyday experiences? Don’t they get into our dreams?

A FORTIORI

So if we feel hopeless in our dreams, trapped, caught, the world we experienced must feel that way. Maybe we have to make some moves. Maybe we need to move away from hopeless situations. Maybe we better plug into good stuff. Maybe we better reflect and meditate on stories of hope so that we will dream hope stories.

When we feel sorrows deeply in our dreams, maybe it should move us to pray for the world. Not just ourselves. Maybe we need to be a  sign of hope for our world, not just for ourselves, but for all those around us, who hopefully dream of a better world and then we will have the dreams of hope as well.

TODAY’S GOSPEL

Take today’s gospel. Imagine if you never heard this story before and you have a dream of yourself as a blind man bumping into people, and the stuff around you. And you meet Christ and he sees you and your blindness. He stops everything. He has time for you. He then takes you outside of where you are and puts spit in your eyes and heals you and then Jesus says to you, “Go home now a new person.”

CONCLUSION

Interpreting dreams can be a very powerful way of raising our consciousness, so too the scriptures. Not everyone writes down their dreams for later reflection and meditation. However, various people have taken the time to write down the scriptures for our growth and development. Amen.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Painting on top: Noah's Ark by Edward Hicks, 1846

February 15, 2017

MUSIC

Is music me?

As they say, “If you don’t toot your

own horn, you own horn goes untooted.”

Is the primitive me drums - like my heart

beats - pulsating in my inner jungle - me?

Am I the songs lodged deep in my memory,
“I gotta be me….” “To dream the impossible

dream….” “Somewhere over the rainbow….”

“People who need people are the luckiest ….”

“It’s a wonderful world….” and so many more?

Am I the musical pieces I hear from time to time - while driving, at restaurants, while

walking the long corridors of life? 

Am I a piano player who stopped lessons or

a guitar player who put the guitar in the closet?

Am I an instrument that is not too late to learn?

Is music me?

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017

LOVER’S  PRAYER

Lord,

is February only for lovers:

Valentine’s Day

and young couples

longing for the spring?

Lord,

isn’t every day

a lover’s day:

if I stop along the road to listen to a friend,

or challenge an unkind slur,

or help carry another’s burden

when I see them struggling up the hill?

Lord,

isn’t every day

a lover’s day:

if I tell another

I am grateful for their presence

in my life and how they change

my winter into spring?

© Andy Costello

Markings Prayers

February 14, 2017

MATHEMATICS

Is Mathematics me?

There is only one of me - but it took two to make

me. Thank you mom and dad. Thanks God.

It’s not good to be alone - as God said, and as

the song went, “One is the loneliest number.”

It takes two to tangle and tango.

It takes one to write the book,

but it takes two to make War and Peace.

It takes millions to keep this going,

so we better get our math straight.

Long division can cause long silences.

So too when we subtract people who are
different from us from our lives. We need
the addition and multiplication of others

as we head for the common table - 
the common altar of sacrifice - where
we all need to sit and eat - listen to
each other and wash each other's feet.

It’s not the size of the crowd,

unless those things bother us.

Jesus said the secret is,

“Make numbero uno last.”

Is Mathematics me?

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017

February 13, 2017

HISTORY

Is history me?

Would I be any different if I was born

anywhere or any time else? Obviously.

I am my stories and my parents -

and the main actors on my stage.

And a lot more and a lot more

and a lot more to come, please God.

Shakespeare helps me hear my story.

To be or not to be Hamlet or the fool.

At times I am “A Midsummer Night’s
Dream,” and “I am slow of study.” [1]

“The web of our life is of a mingled

yarn, good and ill together.” [2]

I don’t want, please God, to end up, “A

poor infirm, weak, and despised old man.” [3]

Is history me?

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017

[1] Shakespeare, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Act I, Scene ii, line 70.

[2] Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, IV, Scene iii, line 83

[3] Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 3, Scene ii, line 20.

THE MARK OF CAIN

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 6^th Monday in Ordinary Time is, “The Mark of Cain.”

These powerful stories in the Book of Genesis give us plenty of life issues to think about.

In today’s story from Genesis 4:1-15, 25, we hear about Cain - a tiller of the soil - a farmer - who killed his brother Abel - a shepherd.

Motive: thinking God liked Abel better than God liked him. Cain thought God thought Abel brought the better gift as an offering. Motive: jealousy, envy, and anger - and probably stuff that goes way back into their history.

Here it is Chapter 4 and the authors of Genesis have already brought up and put on the stage the question of Good and Evil - and that God creates good, so who brings about evil? Answer: us.

We eat forbidden fruit. We hide from God. We blame the other. We want to be equal to God. And here we have brother killing brother.

Cain then wanders the earth: restless and filled with remorse. And on his being is the mark of his mistake: the mark of Cain.

YETZER HARA

Jewish rabbis like to point out that we all have the mark of our sins on the blackboard of our soul.  We have the chalk dust - still there - even though we try to erase it. We have scars. We have memories. We know our big mistakes.

Jewish rabbis also  like to point out - using this story of Cain killing his brother Abel - that there is lurking at our doorstep - at the flap of the tent of our mind - something called, ‘The Yetzer Hara”. That’s Hebrew for the Inclination to Sin.

Yetzer - inclination. Hara - sin or evil.

They also like to point out that there is also the opposite - right there at the edge of out being: the Yetzer Ha tov: the inclination to good.

They teach when a boy hits 13 and a girl 12 - it’s bar or bas mitzvah time - to point out that we have choices. Choose good; avoid evil.

We Catholics have confirmation. Other religions and tribes - more or less have these puberty rites. The Amish have the Rumspringa - literally “Run Springing  - running around - when young people are put out there for roughly a year - not to get into evil drug parties - that some documentaries like to televise. They want to give their young ones the freedom to choose Amish.

The rabbis like to teach that every person has to move from the physical to the spiritual. We have desires to eat and drink, but there is the inclination to be a glutton and overdrink. They like to teach that we have sexual powers, but we need to fight the yetzer hara to over indulge. So too speech…. So too to have fun, but we can overdo it - and get marked down for life.

FOR LIFE

Cain carried the sin - the mark - of his evil deed for life.

As priest I know that people carry the sins of their youth, young adulthood, old adulthood for life.

So the message is obviously to choose good and have that marked on our being for life.

IN TOUCH WITH

I would think it is important that we know about evil and good - how they lurk at the edge of our life.

I would think it’s important to help kids choose good - and to encourage.

I would think it’s important for us to give good example.

I would think it’s important to help kids realize there is evil. 

It's Black History Month and I would think one good movie to watch is, "42" - the story of Jackie Robinson breaking into the major leagues as the first African-American baseball player. Relevant to this sermon is a scene in Cincinnatti - where Robinson is taunted and made fun and called the "N" word.  The camera puts a close up and the focus of a little white kid watching Jackie Robinson - his new found hero - till he hears his father and his father's friends calling Jackie the "N" word and then after a long pause - the kid does as well.

The evil inclination. The Yetzer Hara is always around.

I would think kids learn that for beach week at the end of high school and during spring break in college, there are opportunities to work on houses - like habitat for humanity.

I would think it’s smart to know kids need supervision - when the superego - chaperone’s are talking  - kids are plotting. I always remember boat rides up the Hudson as a kid - altar boys - there would always be Catholic high school seniors throwing chairs overboard - and making mischief.

CONCLUSION

Regrets and remembering dumb and dirty tricks, hurting and killing one another, sins and selfishness and a lot more are the marks of Cain.

Forgiveness from our brother Jesus  - who has become our keeper - is a way to recover and we can be redeemed and walk with the mark of forgiveness on our hands and soul.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Painting on top: Cain and Abel,  by Keith Vaughan Tate, 1946.

GET  IT  RIGHT! 

  

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 6^th Sunday in Ordinary Time  [C] is, “Get It Right.”

The gospel readings for these early Sundays in Ordinary Time - this year we’re listening to Matthew - are from the Sermon on the Mount.  That’s found in  Chapters 5, 6, and 7 of Matthew.

In preparing this homily, I noticed that one commentator said: the main theme of the Sermon on the Mount is righteousness.

Can I translate that to: “Get It Right.”

I don’t know if I can, but I decided to do just that for this homily.

It gets me thinking about that comment we hear from time to time: “Get It Right.”

How many times have we heard parents, teachers, coaches - even our inner monitor say: “Get it right.”

MOTIVE

It that a key life motive: to get it right?

Ever since I was in my late teens, one of my life questions has been motive.

Another does something. Another says something.  I notice their behavior.  I hear their comment. I think about what was said or what happened and my mind says, “Motive!”

That’s been a lifetime question for me.

How about you?

What are your lifetime questions?

Motive.

So I’m asking, Is getting it right a lifetime motive?

That’s my beginning  question in this homily - but I hope at the end to get beyond that.

Does every one of us want to get it right?

Does every one of us want to look like we know what we are doing? Does every one of us not want to look or to appear stupid or dumb?

Is that right?

I don’t know. I want to think about this. And I know I learn the most by working on a sermon or a homily - with a question that hits me.

I want to get it right.

I don’t want to look dumb - or unprepared.

So maybe that is a lifetime motive.  Maybe that’s one of life’s top 5 motives.

I don’t know, but I want to think about this.

TODAY’S READINGS

Today’s first reading from the wisdom in the Book of Sirach says we have the power of choice. Choose the commandments - and you’ll be choosing wisely. Choose life not death. Choose good not evil. Choose water not fire.

Choose water not fire. I don’t get that one, but I’m assuming he’s saying, “Keep cool! Don’t get burnt.  I think that’s what that Sirach means - but I’m not sure. Is covering one’s a or b a subdivision of getting it right?

Today’s second reading from Paul’s First letter to the Corinthians tells us to choose God’s Wisdom not the surface wisdom of our age. Paul is telling us to go deeper. Go underneath.  Find the hidden, mysterious, revelations from God - the stuff eye has not seen, ear has not heard, heart is not aware of, the stuff God has prepared for those who love him.

Is that Paul’s way of saying, “Get it right?

Today’s gospel reading tells us some really inner wisdom - that gets below the law, underneath even the smallest part of the law. The law says not to kill or get angry, not to yell nasty names at our brothers or sisters, not to commit adultery or to lust - but to face motives - inner motives.  On the surface, a marriage or a relationship or a family, can look great, but shake the deepest stuff out on the table with each other and we’ll begin to see there is a lot more work to be done - to have not just a right marriage or family - but it a great family.

So it takes work to get things not just right - but better.

So when someone is setting the table, we wonder on what side to put the second fork - or the smaller fork - or glass or napkin. We might actually say, “Is this right?”

Is Jesus saying, “Good.  But isn’t the purpose of eating - having a meal - having a supper -  having a family Mass together -  celebration, relationships, love, serving, laughing, listening, talking to each other?

Is that right?

I go crazy as priest when people say you said a word wrong or different - or you added something or forgot something - in the Mass - this meal of Jesus - this last supper - this eternal banquet. The rubrics are there to guide us - but am I right to accidently change something on the spur of the spirit or the moment - like eating the meal with the small fork and the pie with the big fork - or the potatoes with the soup spoon?

Am I right to think that way? Is the other wrong to think I’m wrong?

Of course they are right.

I LOVE THE RABBI STORY

Once upon a time there was a rabbi who was known to be the best marriage counselor for 200 miles around.

His wife couldn’t understand this. She lived with him.

But whenever she went to market, dozens of women would say to her, “You are the luckiest woman in the world - married to such a wise rabbi. He really helped our marriage.”

One day, while in the meat market, a lady said to her. “My husband and I are having marriage problems so we’re going to see your husband, the rabbi, tomorrow afternoon at 1, so say a prayer for us.”

The next morning, the rabbi’s wife said, “I’m going shopping tomorrow afternoon after lunch.”

He nonchalantly said - without thinking, “Yeah, good, okay.”

She spots a couple coming up the front walkway and she says to her husband, “I’m going out the back door.”

When he goes to the front door - she, instead of going out the back door, slips into his study and hides behind the drapes.

The couple come in. The rabbi greets them. The rabbi says, “Who wants to go first.”

The wife says, “Honey you go first.”

He goes into the rabbi’s study. He tells the rabbi everything. The rabbi listens and says, “You’re right. But do me a favor. Don’t tell her.”

The man says, “I knew it. Thank you.”

The rabbi then invites the wife into the study.

He listens to her carefully. At the end he says, “You’re right. But do me a favor. Don’t tell him.”

She says, “I knew it.”

They both leave by the front door - walking down the path holding hands - with a great smile on both their faces.

He closes the front door and there she is, his wife.

She says, “You hypocrite. I was hiding in your study and you told the husband he was right and then you told his wife, she was right. How could both of them be right.”

The rabbi paused and said with a great smile on his face, “You’re right, but don’t tell anybody my secret.”

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily is, “Get It Right?”

Is that the secret of life?

Or is it deeper?

Is it, “Do it better?”

Is it, “Are you missing anyone?”

Is it, “Are you loving enough?”

Is it, “The ability to say, ‘I don’t know. I might be wrong. But don’t tell anyone?”

General Omar Bradley once said, “We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the sermon on the mount.”

Is that right?

He also said, “I am convinced that the best service a retired general can perform is to turn in his tongue along with his suit and to mothball his opinions.”

Is that right?

Smile: should old priests follow that last bit of advice - mothballing opinions that might not be in the gospel?