* "Watch and pray ...." Mathew 26:41; Matthew 6: 11-13
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
IS ANYTHING
SACRED
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this 21 Wednesday in Ordinary
time is, “Is Anything Sacred?”
We were watching NCIS last evening. It was a rerun.
Gibbs disappeared - and they looked everywhere - till
they discovered he had gone undercover for an old, old case. He had spotted
someone from way back while looking out the window of the diner he often goes
to.
Quinn and Bishop [?] are checking his house - to see if
he was there - but they had no luck.
However, Quinn broke a plate. Bishop said
he can always get another one.
She could only see the underside of the plate - so Quinn
said to her, “Not this plate.” It was a
plate that Gibbs’ little girl made when
she was in the 3rd grade and made it for her parents. It had a kids drawing and writing on it.
The plate was sacred. The plate was special. The plate
was unique.
HOUSTON
FLOODING
We were also watching the evening news - earlier - and
there were all kinds of scenes showing people with plastic bags getting into
boats - heading for higher ground.
Imagine all the sacred photos, knickknacks, afghans from
grandmothers, that people grabbed as the water was rising?
They were grabbing what they cherished as sacred.
ANY HOUSE
If you went into any house, any room of any person, and
you would find out that everyone has their sacred treasures - that connect us
to each other - often to people long gone.
What are your sacred items?
They are unique to every person. They are special to
every person.
The title of my homily is, “Is Anything Sacred?”
If I can get a person to state that some object that they
own is precious, sacred, unique, then I can point out an important teaching.
The message is this: we are the ones who consecrate the
object.
We are the ones who make an object sacred.
Then I can jump to places. We all have sacred places -
like where we proposed marriage to someone.
Then I can jump to people. We are the ones who name
another person as sacred. That’s why we cry at a loved one’s loss.
That naming is stamping another person, place or thing -
with sacredness and the naming is invisible.
YESTERDAY - A
WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
Yesterday - after the Mass here for the juniors - I was
standing in the back of this church - waiting to say goodbye to as many kids as
possible - to wish them a good day and a good new year here at St. Mary’s.
A man walked in before the kids started down the aisle.
He held up his cellphone to take a picture. I said, “If you can wait for 5
minutes, all the kids will be out and you can take a picture of the sanctuary
up close.
The man said to me, “Today is our wedding anniversary. My
wife and I were married here at St. Mary’s 19 years ago today.
Not all days are the same. Some days are more sacred than
others.
The man told me that his wife and their 2 teenagers are
over in Ireland for a 2 week vacation. He said he couldn’t go - but he would
stay home with Mollie their little kid. Their little girl would cut down on the
mobility of the 3 to so some neat traveling. He convinced his wife and Mollie
that he would take Mollie to see Great Adventure - and be in Switzerland,
Germany, France and Britain.
So I walked up front with the man and had his phone ready
for the picture when Ginny said, “Let me take the picture. It’s not your
talent.”
The guy stood there where couples stand every Saturday at
a wedding. He took off his wedding ring and pointed it to the camera - and he
said, “I’ll send this picture right to my wife in Ireland.”
It was a sacred moment.
It was in a sacred place. The guy wanted to share that moment - their
day - with each other - in a unique way.
CEMETERIES
What triggered this thought for today was the first part
of today’s gospel - Matthew 23: 27-28. Listen to it again.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew
Jesus said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you
hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the
outside, but inside are full of dead men's bones and every kind of filth. Even
so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with
hypocrisy and evildoing.
The Gospel of the Lord
Jesus must have been standing there and he spotted some
Pharisees strutting - to make themselves
look better than others. Then he looked over his shoulders and spotted a
cemetery - with it’s beautiful whitewashed tombs - but underneath there was the
smell of death.
SACRED OBJECTS
I looked around my room and with this box I gathered a
few sacred objects from my room.
Here is a porcelain cross that a little girl named Harper
game me 3 weeks ago. She and her family life in London, but she wanted to make
her first holy communion here in this parish. By this request - by this
behavior - she’s telling me that she senses the sacredness of this place.
Here is a lapel pen - that has the fleur-de-ly on it. It
looks just like the fleur-de-ly lapel pins from our parish. I put it on my suit
jacket. Some little tiny kid came up to me after Sunday Mass and handed it to
me. His parents said the family was in New Orleans and they saw this New Orleans Saint lapel pin
is the same as they have in St. Mary’s. Then he added, “And I want to buy this
for Father Andy.”
That was at least 3 years ago. That’s how things and
moments become sacred.
Next - about a month ago someone handed me a plastic bag
of photographs and stuff from my sister who had died two and a half years ago.
Inside I found this envelope and on the outside it said,
“Ring.” Well I opened up the envelope
and there it was, the Claddagh ring my sister Peggy, a nun, wore most of her
life.
There is a world of difference between a Claddagh ring in
a jewelry store than one that was on a person’s finger for most of her life as
a nun.
Next - here is a small plastic bottle of prescription pills.
It has an expiration date of September 1988. [SHAKE BOTTLE]. Now when I die
someone will toss this out along with my prescriptions.
But this little bottle of cancer pills was my brothers and when he died I took this
out of the medical cabinet in his bathroom. [SHAKE IT]. It is sacred to me when
he died of cancer at 51 years of age.
Notice this watch I’m wearing. It’s a Rolex. I met a man
with a gold Rolex watch the other night. It was worth 25,000. Mine is $37
dollars. It’s fake - but it has more meaning to me than the $25,000 Rolex - which
I had asked him to wear for 10 seconds.
Mine was lighter.
Which one is more valuable?
What would make a watch invaluable?
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily was, “Is Anything Sacred?”
My thought is: “Check everyone - and we will find out - ‘Everyone
has some things they find sacred.’”
Then build on that and realize: Besides sacred things we
all have our sacred places and persons.”
Building on that: pause before anyone thrashing or
hurting another - or someone’s sacred places
- but especially another.
P.S. For the Sake of Transparency, I'm a Dodger fan - and I caught that Kirk Gibson moment in 1988. I was all alone and hence I came up with a new definition for celibacy. "Celibacy is you're all alone. You're a Dodger fan. It's the World Series. Oakland is favored. And Kirk Gibson is following the game from the training room. He was banged up and couldn't play the game. He gets off the training table - heads for the dugout and announces that he wants to pinch hit. There are two outs. It's the bottom half of the ninth inning. The Dodgers are losing 4 to 3 - with one guy on base!!!!!!
POST SCRIPT:
Check out the deja vu of the moment above.
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
HARBORING A
GRUDGE
TRANSLATING MARK 6:19
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “Harboring a Grudge.”
Our New American Bible - the NAB - the one we use here
for everyday Mass - translates Mark 6:19 - from the Greek - this way: “Herodias
harbored a grudge against him and wanted
to kill him but was unable to do so.”
“Harboring a grudge.” Now that’s a picturesque English
translation of the Greek - Mark 6: 19.
The Jerusalem Bible translates it this way, “As for
Herodias, she was furious with him and wanted to kill him, but she was not able
to….”
Another translation: “And Herodias set herself against
him and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to do so.”
Another translation: “But Herodias held it against him, and wished to kill him,
and was not able.”
The New English Bible, NEB: ‘Thus Herodias nursed a
grudge against him and would willingly have killed him, but she could not.”
The King James Bible, “Therefore Herodias had a quarrel against him,
and would have killed him; but she could not.”
The Phillips translation: “Herodias herself was furious
with him for this and wanted to have him executed, but she could not do it.”
The Living Bible, which paraphrases the translation, put it this way, "Herodias wanted John killed in revenge, but without Herod’s
approval was powerless.”
The Good News Bible: “So Herodias held a grudge against
John and wanted to kill him, but she could not because of Herod.”
The New Revised
Standard Version - NRSV - “And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to
kill him. But she could not….”
So “harboring a grudge” seems to be a good translation.
The Greek word used - “eneichen” - from the Greek verb “enecho”
- is the only place in the Gospels - that this verb is used. Looking at all
these translations, I would think “harboring a grudge” or “having a grudge” or
“possessing a grudge” or “to have it in for someone” are good English
translations.
NEXT - A POETIC
WAY OF POSSESSING THIS TEXT
I don’t have a dog. I don’t want to have a dog. I
couldn’t stand having the responsibility of having to take a dog outside for
you know what - at different times of the day. Ugh. I have enough things I am not doing that I’m
supposed to be doing.
I see people with their dog - holding that leash -
walking along near trees, lawns and bushes.
I picture every person on this planet - having at least
one grudge - on a leash. In other words,
every person has a dog name “Grudge” on
a leash.
It’s a pit bull or a Doberman or a bulldog that barks….
We feed it, We pet it. We keep it in the dog house in our
mind.
It could be what a parent or a teacher said to us 35
years ago. It could be a moment when we were dropped, dumped, fired from a job
or a lover or a spouse or a child. It could be a resentment, a regret, a should
have, a could have….
We all know our pet peeves - our major mistake or hurt or
inner barker or growler.
And like Herodias - something is holding us back - our
Herod - a voice that gives a treat to that grudge - that we might be a bit
wrong about the fairness of our b [a five letter word we can’t use in the
pulpit. Isn’t that another name for a dog?]
But sometimes we let that leash go and our grudge chops
another person’s head off.
CONCLUSION
I hope now we know a bit more about Mark 6:19.
August 29, 2017
WALLS
Now why would anyone want walls? Yet, looking around, it seems there are a lot of them - and it also seems they are expensive.
The title of my homily is, “Saint Augustine: A Real
Saint.”
Many lives of saints edit out some of their struggles and
sins.
For example, in Ida Gorres’ biography of St. Therese of
Lisieux, The Hidden Face, she points out
that Therese’s sister Pauline edited into her autobiography some “extra” stuff
and edited out some of the characteristics they she wanted in and wanted out of
her autobiography.
They are also working on the beatification and then
possible canonization process for
Dorothy Day in New York.
Cardinal Spellman is supposedly to have said about
pushing the cause for the eventual canonization of Dorothy Day, “Over my dead body.”
He’s dead too.
I would like to see her canonized to help all people who
have had an abortion like she did - to have faith in recovering - as well as
give good example to all those who want to help the poor like she did.
ST AUGUSTINE
Saint Augustine in his writings tells us of his sins. His
Confessions and some of his other writings
give us the real deal.
In hisConfessions he said his worst sin was stealing pears and
throwing them to the pigs. He and a group of kids went on a damaging property
spree. They stole the pears. He said his
motive was to do evil. They did it out of spite and stupidity and non-thinking.
Everyone remembers Augustine’s prayer: “Lord make me
chaste, but not yet.”
He started living with a
gal when he was 17 - and was faithful to her for the next 15 years. They
had a son - Deodatus - Gift of God or Godsend.
He tells us about the power of humility being the
foundation of human growth. The word “humility”
is from the word for humus - or earth. We
are made of the clay of the earth - to which we will return.
He admitted when he was dirty.
He struggled with his dirt.
He admits to loving God, but so, so late. We all know his
comment, “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever
ancient and ever new! Late have I loved you! And, behold, you were within me,
and I out of myself, and there I searched for you.”
He said, “The world is
a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” So he traveled the Mediterranean
basin and learned so much.”
But he also traveled within - writing in his Confessions about the inside of his
life. He wrote later on, “People go abroad to wonder at the heights of
mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at
the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they
pass by themselves without wondering.”
He wondered about himself and
learned about God. He said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and
our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
HOW TO READ
AUGUSTINE
Read his Confessions.
Read Gary Wills book about Augustine. It's title is, Saint Augustine.
To become a saint takes time. It takes a lot of
conversions.
Read the lives of saints. Read the Confessions of Augustine for
starters.
To learn takes reflection. Read Augustine and try to
figure out what happened for him to say the things he said, to write the things
he wrote.
For example, what happened for him to write, “Hope has
two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way
things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.”
Or what was going on for him to write, “Resentment is
like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
Or “If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don't
accept, because you will lose one friend; on the other hand, if two strangers
come with the same request, accept because you will gain one friend.”
Or, “He who is filled with love is filled with God
himself.
Or The words printed here are concepts. You must go
through the experiences.
I love this comment by Augustine. It is so real. "I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: Come unto me all you who labor and are heavily burdened."
CONCLUSION The title of my thoughts was, “Saint Augustine: A Real Saint.” It seems that people can relate better to saints who are human and not angels. I think that's why folks like Pope Francis - and saints like Augustine.
Notes: the painting on top is entitled, "Augustine of Hippo - comissioned by the the NY Times to illustrated a book review by the Times
