Father Jack Kingsbury
- former pastor of St. Mary's Annapolis, Maryland
put together this video on Redemptorists in North America.
5 SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS
IN MY LIFE.
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this feast of St. Alphonsus is
5 Significant Moments in My Life.
If I handed you a pen and paper and asked you to jot down
5 significant moments in your life, what moments, what experiences, would you
come up with?
Would it be - becoming a parent, the changes that happen
in the womb of the mind when there is a pregnancy, birth, seeing your baby for the
first time, raising him or her, putting her or him through school, seeing a kid
go off to college, then marriage, then the experience of a grandchild?
Would it be falling in love, marriage, changing, the
struggles of marriage, even a divorce, and remarriage, what have you? Only you know your experiences and how they
made you, broke you, helped you recover or what have you?
Would it be a death or a parent, a child or a
spouse? Death can be a powerful teacher.
So too sickness, being cared for or caring for another. Then there is aging….
Would it a job, becoming what you did/do in life? Or a
job change, or a loss of a job, or retiring?
Would it be moving, a dramatic out of state move, going
off to college, the military, moving to Tennessee, or Utah, or Arizona, or
where have you.
So that’s my homily thought and question for you today?
SAINT ALPHONSUS
It’s August 1st, the feast of St.
Alphonsus. As I sat there last night
working on these thoughts, I asked my mind
and my memory, “What were the 5 most important moments in the life of Alphonsus
Liguori?
First would be his father. His father was strict. Boy do
I have plans for you. He had started arrangements for Alphonsus to get married
when he was a kid. It was to be a moving upwards. His father was often on his
case. Nothing was good enough. His father would be the type to challenge his
kid to do better, to have more, etc. etc. etc. His father was angry when his
son quit being a lawyer to became a priest. Then one day his father was walking
by a church. He heard a familiar voice coming out the window. He walked in, sat
down, listened to his son and said, “Not bad!” Then “Good!”
A key moment was the loss of a law case. We heard that he missed a minor detail and
that was why he lost. Then we heard it
might have been a bribe from the other side in a land case - and he was on the
wrong side. He hit bottom with that. Depression and locked doors resulted -
till he came out of his room and became a priest.
He became well known as a preacher in the Naples area -
but he broke down - health wise. His friends told him he need to take a
vacation. They sent him own to the Amalfi Coast to rest. Great choice. Then
someone -hearing there was a priest there - asked him to go up into the hills -
and reach out to the goat herders - whom nobody cared about. Then he found lots
of neglected people - up there in those small towns - far from the big city,
Naples. Then he founded a Religious Community to serve the
neglected. We came to the United States
for that reason. We came to Annapolis
for that reason. I became a Redemptorist to go to Brazil. Didn’t luck out.
Then there was his move from being strict and severe - to becoming compassionate and
kind. Growing up he was scrupulous - and
strict on himself, till he discovered that his perception and understanding of
who and what God was like changed. His met Jesus Christ - the Good Shepard. He later said, “In 61 years of hearing
confessions, I never refused anyone absolution.” Of course not….
He began to write - writing around 111 published books -
and the Jesus one meets there is Jesus the Jesus of the gospels. I believe Pope Francis discovered all this as
well. Alphonsus discovered that Jesus was warm, a lover, a friend, a Redeemer.
His key book, I was always told, was The Practice
of the Love of Jesus Christ. Get
into a warm relationship with Christ.
Meet him in the stable, a baby, then grow in your relationship with him,
meet him in the bread, the Blessed Sacrament, and sit under the cross and let
his blood drip on your head. Crib,
Cross, Sacrament as we always heard.
CONCLUSION
Enough already….
Those are 5 significant moments in the life of St.
Alphonsus. I hope you met him here in
the Redemptorists at St. Mary’s. What
are your 5?
The title of my homily for this July 31, Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, is, “Remembering What We Read.”
It could also be “What We Heard.”
Answer, “Very little.”
Answer, “But we don’t know what we’re going to remember - till long afterwards. And that's the catch....”
QUESTION
Have you ever read something that you find yourself
thinking about 3 days later, but you don’t know where you read it, so you can’t
go back to find it - and reread it?
I read parts of
two newspapers - most days - The New York Times and the Washington Post.
I don’t read every section. I never read the cartoons in
the Washington Post or any paper. I never read the obituaries - except for an
upcoming funeral. I never read the business or real estate stuff. But I do read
the sports section and the op ed pages.
How about you? Do your read papers or
magazines or books and then find yourself thinking about something a week later.
FOR EXAMPLE
Like last week, I read an interesting article in The New
York Times. It was in the Sports
Section. It began, I think, about how
pro football coaches work hard on their opening practice day speech. Then it
mentioned that the New York Giants football coach, Ben McAdoo read a poem and a story for
his speech - on this the beginning of his second year as a head coach.
He recited a poem by Rudyard Kipling, “If”. I remember hearing it quoted but not lately -
about being honest with yourself and being able to look oneself in the mirror. Things to ask
oneself, “If I’m doing this, this,
this,” then I’m doing well. Next, he read the story about an old lion who
was in a Mexican Zoo. He was basically finished - but the zoo sold him to a
zoo in California. The lion got there
and basically was retired - finished - but the zoo staff fed him a lot of vitamins
and shots. Surprise, the Lady Lions didn’t like the other male lions - but
loved this lion and had some 33 cubs by him in 16 months. The story went something
like that.
The players loved it: the poem was for the young guys and
the old lion was a story for the old guys. Hopefully they have a lot more game in them.
I’ve been thinking about that method of public speaking.
Maybe instead of homilies, tell a poem and tell a story.
FOR EXAMPLE
Last night I was reading an excerpt from Give Us This Day
missalette. It’s an alternative to the Magnificat. And in one page commentary on St. Ignatius of
Loyola, I read the following sentence and I’ve been thinking about it ever
since, “Within fifteen years the order increased from ten members to a
thousand.”
Woo.
Wow that would solve the need for priests in the Catholic
Church big time and big fast - if that could happen around the world. I guess we need more priests who are saints.
LIKE
I once took a mini-course in Jesuit Spiritually, One of
the presenters said, “This course can be summed up this way. If you want to
understand Jesuit Spirituality and Discernment, here it is in one short
principle: “If it’s good, more; if it’s bad, less.”
I’ve been thinking about that for 25 years now.
Think about that. Exercise, prayer, forgiveness, eating
right, reading good stuff, listening, well, have more of those practices; the bad stuff, gossip, talking
behind people’s back, getting back, not forgiving, eating too much sugar, couch
potatoing, eating small bags of potato chips in one gulp - with all that salt,
junk TV, etc. etc. etc. make sure one does less.
CONCLUSION
The title of this homily is, "Remembering What We Read" or heard - as well forgetting
where we read it.
It’s the same with preaching. I had a job of novice
master for 9 years and at the end of every year, I’d ask the novices, “Did you
remember any homily from this year.”
I preached to them over 300 homilies each year and it was rare when anyone remembered even one. Bummer.
But I keep reading and I keep preaching hoping something
sinks in. Hey you never know. I sense it's like going to a concert. You have to hear all the songs, because you don't know which song is going to stick with you, long after the show. I heard our last governor - O'Malley's Marching Band do his concert at Rams Head three times and I didn't know his song, "Yes, Sister, No Sister," would stick with me from then on. Maybe because it's catchy, maybe because my sister Peggy was a nun - as well as my dad's three sisters. I don't know ....
