MISJUDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

The title and theme of my homily for this first Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “Misjudgments.”

Misjudgments are missed judgments.

It’s something people do on a regular basis. It’s something people confess on a regular basis. It’s something we hear about in scriptures on a regular basis.

Misjudgments.

LADY IN TODAY’S FIRST READING

It happens to Hannah in today’s first reading.

Eli the priest in this reading from 1 Samuel thinks she’s drunk.

She wants to have a baby. She wants to get pregnant. She wants a son - and her mouth is moving in prayer - but not out loud.  Eli is watching her and goes over to her and says, “How long will you make a drunken show of yourself. Sober up from your wine.”

Hannah answers, “It isn’t that my lord. I am an unhappy woman. I have had neither wine nor liquor. I was only pouring out my troubles to the LORD. Do not think your handmaid a ne’re do well; my prayer has been prompted by my deep sorrow and misery.”

Eli answers like a priest, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”

Too bad he didn’t say, “Ooops I’m sorry for misjudging you.”

Anyway, she goes home and she gets pregnant - and she and her husband Elkanah have a son, Samuel.

MS LADY

I know a gal who got stopped for weaving while driving.  The police asked her to walk a straight line. She couldn’t - so they gave her a ticket and told her to be in court  for the charge of drunken driving.

She hadn’t taken anything to drink and luckily she told someone who told her to check with her doctor.  They discovered she had MS and nobody knew it. Her dad had it. And her sister got tested after that and she too had it - and they found out pregnancies can exacerbate the MS.

I once got tested for an enlarged liver and the doctor asked if I was drinking too much. I said to the doctor, “Not me. I have never drunk ever in my life except for the small sip of mass wine.”

And he said, “You’re lying. All priests drink.” 

I responded, “Not me.”  Then I added, “If you want to think that way - you can think that way - but welcome to the world of misjudgments.

CONCLUSION: THREE SOLUTIONS

Three solutions.

First solution: One of my favorite sayings is from the Talmud, “Teach thy tongue to say, ‘I do not know.’” We don’t know. We have not walked in another’s shoes. We just don’t know - so instead of judging others, simply say, “I don’t know.”

Second solution: have a sense of humor.

Here’s one of my favorite stories. Every day a man in Ireland walks to and from work pushing a wheelbarrow. He works in a cemetery and he keeps his shovel and his gloves in his wheelbarrow.

And on his way home from work, he stops at his favorite pub. He leaves his wheelbarrow outside in front.

Well this one day it starts to pour rain while he’s inside chatting with the boys. A buddy says,  Paddy, it’s pouring rain. I’ll drive you home. Come on. My car is out back.” Well, Paddy says, “I guess I can leave my wheelbarrow out front and pick it up in the morning on my way to work.

So the next morning he picks up his wheelbarrow and goes to work.

Well Maude - the town gossip - who lives just across the street from the pub spreads the rumor that Paddy spent the night on the floor of the pub drunk. She said I looked out the window a few times and his wheelbarrow was outside the pub all night.

Well, Paddy heard the gossip.

That night he put his wheelbarrow outside Maude’s bedroom window  - for all the town to see.

Third solution: follow the golden rule. Would we want someone to do this to us?

January 9, 2018

Thought for today: 

“Nobuddy ever fergets where he buried a hatchet.” 

Frank McKenny “Kin” Hubbard [Abe Martin] 1868-1930] in Abe Martin’s Broadcast [1930]

January 9, 2018

WAVES

Wave after wave after wave

making their way to the shore ….

There is something mesmerizing,

hypnotizing about waves, waves.

I stand there watching them moving

towards the beach - and I’m aware

they have been moving this way for

at least billions of years now and more.

Is it because there is no me in waves -

only we in waves.  No wave is trying

to outdo the wave before or after….

Now surfers, they are another story.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2018

REENACTMENT

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this feast of the Baptism of Jesus is, “Reenactment.”

One of the things we do in religions as well as life is reenactments.

At Gettysburg and the Civil War battlefields of Virginia - there are reenactments of the battles fought there.

Here in Annapolis - the Annapolis, Historic Society - put on 4 Script Plays of stuff that happened in town and around here during the 150^th Anniversary of the Civil War.  Bob Warden of our parish - and on that committee - made sure that stuff happening in St. Mary’s got into the script. I got the chance to be 5 different Redemptorists - one of which was Father Seelos - and I starred - just kidding - on stage at St. John’s College.

We read letters and newspaper clippings etc. etc. etc. from that period. It was an education for me - not being from Annapolis. Every time I go by Parole I think of scenes from there in the play - as well as the small military cemetery on West Street - opposite and down a bit from St. Mary’s cemetery. I think of a Russian Sailor who is buried there - getting killed in a bar fight in town. A Russian boat docked at Annapolis - during the Civil War.

REENACTMENTS

So folks do reenactments all over the world - small ones - like the renewal of marriage vows - and big ones like anniversaries of the signing of the Magna Carta or the Declaration of Independence.

I saw in the paper the other day that the 200^th anniversary of Emily Bronte is happening this year or so.

Well, we Catholics have the Mass. We have Holy Week. We have Christmas. Do this in memory of me.

The teaching and theology of the Mass is that not only is it a reenactment - it also puts us into the Upper Room - and Christ is in the bread and the wine - as he was at the Last Supper.

This teaching is heavy duty stuff. It’s an amazing act of faith. I hope you have heard us priests and deacons say that an important way of reading and hearing the Scriptures - is that they are talking not only about what happened in the life of Jesus - but also what was happening in the Early Church.

Much of what is being stressed and argued about is put there from the life of Jesus to deal with stuff from the years 60 to 100.

So when we read John 6 and hear about people walking away from Jesus when he told folks this is his body - which he is giving to them for eternal life and they say, “This is hard to believe” and they walk away. Well it was also hard to believe in the Johannine Community and folks walked away then as well. And it’s tough for people like Bill Maher on Television when he publicly makes comments about the Mass and I assume the faith he was brought up on.

BAPTISM

Well, I was taught in the seminary about the baptism of John and how Christ entering into it - the feast we are celebrating today.

He didn’t get baptism for the removal of Original Sin in himself - but for all of us - just as God the Father helped the Israelites move from the sin and slavery of Egypt and head for the promised land.

As I stood there at the River Jordan in Israel in January of 2000 I thought of all this - especially watching a group of Protestants being baptized in the Jordan. I remember our guide, Father Doyle a Franciscan Scripture scholar, saying it probably didn’t happen here - at this spot of the Jordan, but down there - closer to the Jordanian Border - but we can’t get close to that spot, because of possible problems.

I remember him saying that John the Baptist was reenacting the first crossing of the Jordan way back and Baptism was being dipped into that history again - and he was calling Israel to renewal  - and for all of us to hear that we are the beloved children of god.

CONCLUSION

For most of us our parents did this for us, when we were baptized.

We do this every Easter.

We can do this every time we come into this church - going by the baptismal font and dipping - baptizo - in Greek - our finger into the water and making the sign of the cross in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

January 8, 2018 

Thought for today: 

“The past  is  never dead. It’s not even past.” 

— William Faulkner [1897-1962], in Requiem for a Nun.

January 8, 2018

GROUND

Genesis 2: 7 “… the Lord God formed Adam

out of the clay of the ground and blew  into

his nostrils the breath of life, and so Adam

became a living being.”

I stand there - all alone - looking around.

Then I pause to look down to the ground.

Sometimes it’s dirt. Sometimes it’s a hard

cement  sidewalk. Sometimes it’s red brick.

Sometimes it’s pebbles. Sometimes macadam.

Sometimes it’s the green, green grass of home.

Sometimes it’s clay or mud, the earth from

which our God has formed and sculpted us.

Your word became flesh - fleshy  us - and then

you breathed your life into us. Here we are, 

of the earth - and of our God - and you raised us

up to stand tall, on the face of the earth, O Lord.

So Lord, Creator, form me out of mud.

Sculpt me out of clay - but please God, 

don't let me become a person who is like 
hard cement, red brick, macadam or cobblestone.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2018

GIFTS  AT  THE  STABLE

[This is a story I wrote for our kids' Mass this morning here at St. Mary's. It is total fiction.]

The Angel Gabriel’s Church in Rio Flaco, New Mexico, came up with a neat way of celebrating the feast of the Epiphany.

As you know Latino kids get their Christmas gifts not just on Christmas Day, but many more gifts on the Feast of the Epiphany.

It goes way back to the time of the birth of Jesus - when the Magi - or wise men  - or the 3 Kings - showed up in Bethlehem - each with a gift for the newborn Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord.

Jesus received as gifts, some gold, some frankincense and some myrrh - from these three visitors.

And kids - as well as adults - we have been hearing from way back when - that Jesus received these 3 gifts - and we've also been told what these 3 gifts symbolized.

Gold symbolized that Jesus was to become a King - but not the kind of king people were used to. The Magi didn’t know however, what kind of king this Jesus was to be. They didn't know he was to be a poor king - a servant king - a king who washed feet and fed the poor.

Frankincense  was used to leave a sweet smell - a sweet scent - a sweet aroma in a cloud of smoke. A barn or stable, an inn or a tavern, could smell pretty bad. People would take incense -  put it into a fire - and it would send a sweet aroma into a room.

Myrrh …. Now myrrh was a strange gift. It was part of the embalming process - which  symbolized that people were going to try to kill Jesus at some point. Maybe the Magi giver of this gift - figured this out from the way King Herod talked about this baby they were searching for - and who would be king some day.

So down through the years some parents in some places would give their children special gifts on the feast of the Epiphany. In other places this happened more on Christmas.

Well in the Angel Gabriel church in Rio Flaco, New Mexico, kids would bring a gift for Jesus that he would like if he were their age.

They would bring it to Mass on the feast of Epiphany and place it up front - on the floor and some gifts in the stable as well.

Other churches - like our church of St. Mary's  here in Annapolis - families would take a gift suggestion from a Christmas tree in the vestibule and that gift would go to a poor kid.

In the Angel Gabriel church in Rio Flaco, New Mexico, all this was done a bit differently.

All the kids in Rio Flaco were poor.

Rio Flaco - in Spanish - it means Skinny River - so most of the year even the River that ran through their town was poor - thin - and skinny.

One kid brought his old bicycle and put it up at the stable as a gift for Jesus.

Another kid loves Reese’s Peanut Butter patties, so she bought and brought a whole box - 24 inside - of Reese’s Peanut Butter patties.

Another kid brought a blue and red kite - and kites do well in New Mexico - with the high winds on certain days - days when the poor of Rio Flaco could see expensive hot air balloons in the sky.

The gifts, the Epiphany presents, were all surprises. You never knew what kids would bring to church for this celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany.

Dolls, fishing poles, basketballs, baseball gloves, Rubric Cubes, chocolate chip cookies, 2 hula hoops, a 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle with one piece missing. It was a big picture of a famous mountain in New Mexico - that’s in all lots of western movies, t-shirts, baseball caps, a cap pistol, number’s paintings, a guitar, a pretty good looking saxophone, and on and on and on. They were all lined up - up front - at the stable - all before Mass.

Well, the kids didn’t hear the sermon that Epiphany Mass.

Their minds and their eyes were on the gifts up front at the stable. They checked everything out - especially when they went up for communion.

After Mass - that day - everyone stayed. The kids all had to put their names on a small index card. Then the collection basket was passed around the church.  Each kid put their card with their name on it -  in the basket.

Then Mamma Rosacitta, the oldest person in Rio Flaco, 102 years of age, was brought up front. They would sit her in the priest’s chair.

The church became all silent - with the excitement in the big room.

Then  one by one she pulled out a kid’s name. It was handed to an 7^th grader - who then read that kid’s name out loud  - so the whole church could hear it.

To the kids with the first, second and third call, it was if he or she won lottery.

The kid would come up and pick any gift he or she wanted - and everyone would clap.

The poor kids near the end didn’t have the best of choices obviously.

A very thin  girl got the box of the Reese’s Peanut Putter Pieces - 24 of them. Good thing she was generous, because her 3 siblings, 2 cousins, and then her friends got a patty, and that box was empty in 1 minutes after the drawing took place.

And oops - when it was a kid’s turn to pick - whatever gift he or she wanted - from what was still there - the kid would wink at Jesus.

Of course it was just a tiny statue of Jesus - but now and then a kid would say, “I think Jesus winked back at me.”

And kids and the people of the town of poor little  Rio Flaco would say, “As far as we know, this is the only town on earth - where such a thing happens every year on the Feast of the Epiphany.