April 10, 2018 

Thought for today: 

“In the dry places … towns, like weeds, spring up when it rains, dry up when it stops. But in a dry climate the husk of the plant remains.  The stranger might find, as if preserved in amber, something of the green life that was once lived there, and the ghosts of men who have gone on to a better place.  The withered towns are empty, but not uninhabited.”  

Wright Morris [1910 - 1998 ] The Works of Love [1952], chapter 1

WHAT’S  WITH  MARY?

 [Today we’re celebrating the Feast of the Annunciation. March 25^th was Palm Sunday. Instead of a homily on today’s readings - I decided to fiddle around with some thoughts about Mary. Mind you: this is a first draft of a sort of a story.]

Two women - one Protestant - the other Catholic - were simply talking by chance at a conference. The Protestant woman asked the Catholic woman, “What’s with Mary?”

The Catholic woman replied, “What do you mean?”

“Well you Catholics  - seem to make a lot out of Mary?”

“Yes, we do, but what are you wondering about?”

“Well,” the Protestant woman, whose name was Martha said, “My husband and I are now retired and we took about 5 bus trips and 5 cruises in the last 2 years and we visited various Catholic churches. Most Protestant churches seemed to be closed during the week. Catholic churches are often part of tourist places. Many of them are named after Mary and they all have statues and stained glass windows and pictures of Mary in them. So we were wonder, what’s with Mary?”

The Catholic woman said, “Well, you’re right. We do make a lot about Mary. You can see on my name tag that my name is Mary. In the past, we often named one of our daughters Mary. My parents did and I gave my first daughter the name Mary as well.”

“Interesting,” Martha said.

“Yes, it’s simply a Catholic thing,” said Mary.

“Oh, okay,” said Martha. “Just wondering….”

Then Mary said, “Now,  we don’t think Mary is God. Some people accuse us of that - more in the past - but we never thought that.”

“Oh, okay,” said Martha.

“But,” said Mary, “We pray to Mary. We ask Mary for help - just as we ask people to pray for us - as well as saints.”

“Oh,” said Martha. “But I go directly to God.”

“Great,” said Mary.

Silence….

Martha was still a bit unclear about Mary’s answers about Mary, the mother of Jesus. In a tiny way, it was like the Martha Mary story in the Bible - but that Mary was a different Mary.

Then Mary said, “I would suggest that you have some problems and some questions about Mary in other places.”

“What?  Explain,” said Martha.

“We Catholics know other questions because we have been asked them a lot - and preachers  from time to time address them.”

“Here’s a few: The Immaculate Conception …. the Perpetual Virginity of Mary…. No brothers and sisters of Jesus …. Mary is called the ‘Mother of God’ - not just the “mother of Jesus” …. Mary was assumed into heaven …. now those are some of the questions to ask Catholics.”

Martha’s face showed puzzlement at that comment.

Mary said, “One priest in a sermon once said, ‘We put Mary, the Mother of Jesus,  on pedestals. We’re not scared to  honor her big time. Why not? Wouldn’t you make your mom the best, if you could.’”

Then Mary continued, “Let me look up something on Google. This priest who was preaching said that some preacher from the 1100’s preached a 4 word homily on Mary’s Immaculate Conception.

As she was looking this up on Google, she said the preacher said one of the words was “potuit” So Mary typed into Google, “potuit” and then added, “I think another word was “ergo”.

Sure enough, Google said it was a Saint Eadmer of Cantebury + 1124  who said,  “Potuit, decuit, ergo fecuit.”

“God could do it.”  “It was only right that he should do it.” “Therefore he did it.”

“The famous, John Duns Scotus and others repeated that message.”

Mary said, “Aren’t these tiny phones fabulous?

Mary continued, “If Jesus was God and Mary had other children, what would they be?”

Then Mary said, “That problem never came up. However, when the Bible uses brothers and sisters, people in Bible times called close relatives and neighbors brothers and sisters - just as we do - when people say, ‘Hi bro!’ or ‘We’re close. We’re sisters.’”

Silence….

Then Mary said, “But if you really want to know what I think about this,  it’s this.  People want an edge. People want signs from God. People want help from God any way they can get it. People want a more human God. God is neither male nor female, even though we call God our ‘Father’ - so Mary equalizes some of all this a bit.”

Pause …. Then Martha said, “That’s a handful!”

Mary continued, “And many people make God a crusher and a destroyer - God isn’t - but in the scriptures - that’s how God is described and prayed to at times - to crush enemies - well, thank God Jesus is often presented as a forgiver - and his mother is often presented as a caring presence - and a perpetual helper - so balance helps us in our understandings on how to be like the image and likeness God we were created to be.”

“Oh,” said Martha, “That’s a lot of stuff to process. I need wine.”

Mary said, “I need water - which God often changes to wine - in rain and water irrigating vineyards - as in the story of the Wedding feast of Cana - when Mary helped a couple at their wedding - when they ran out of wine. She told her son Jesus to help this couple and he changed 6 large stone water jars into 6 large stone jars of wine.”

ANNUNCIATION

"I need you -

because words need flesh.

Without you, I can’t do this.

So once more I ask you:

Will you do this?"

She said, "That’s impossible."

God said, "With me it is possible."

"But …."

Well, then, she said, "Do it."

And God did it.

Look, what happened next.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2018

April 9, 2018

Thought for today: 

“If there were a  drunken orgy somewhere, I would bet ten to one a church member was not in it.  But if there were a lynching, I would bet ten to one a church member was in it.” 

Reinhold Niebuhr [1892-1971]

THE CHAIR AND THE CARPENTER

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “The Chair and the Carpenter.”

It would sound better if I entitled it, “The Chair and The Chairmaker” - but I wanted to use the word, “carpenter” because that’s what Jesus was.

Jesus was a carpenter of wood and then a carpenter of words ….

This is a sermon I have often  wanted to put together and present - as a way of talking about God. 

Better: if a person denies the existence of a God - I would ask - if you saw a chair - would you deny that a chairmaker existed who made that chair?

I would hope that person would realize that’s a trap - but I also hope they would decide either a yes or no answer.  If they said they don’t believe in a chairmaker, then I would not argue with them. If they said they would believe in a chairmaker, then obviously I would ask if they believed there was a planet maker.

My sermon has two parts,  Part One: The Existence of a Chair and Part Two: The Person Called the Chairman or Chairmaker or Carpenter.

PART ONE: THE EXISTENCE OF A PROP CALLED A CHAIR

Notice in the center of our sanctuary a chair. I think Father Tizio is the best preacher I’ve seen - in using a prop.

Check out the chair. It’s there.

Whether or not that’s a chair is not a matter of belief. So I wouldn’t say, “I believe there is a chair just sitting there.” I would say there is a chair there. We humans call that a chair and we trust our eyes.  If we were blind, another way we could know of it’s existence would be touch.

We know things exist by our senses for starters: chairs, floors, neighbors, trees, mountains, milk in the refrigerator, hamburgers in McDonalds.

We know by our senses that there are stars, the moon, deep outer space.

We just know that.

PART TWO: THE CARPENTER OR CHAIRMAKER

Next we know there was a chairmaker, a carpenter, a designer, a factory worker - who came up with the chair.

Next I would say, we know there was a starmaker, a moon maker, a planet creator - by common sense.

We call the chair maker a carpenter.

We call the star and the whole of the universe maker,  our creator. We call our creator, God.

PART THREE: WHAT IS THE CHAIRMAKER LIKE

Now I come to Part Three of this Sermon. What is the chairmaker like?

I don’t intend in life to argue with someone about  whether or not there is a star maker any more than I would argue with anyone whether or not there was a chairmaker or a carpenter.

But I would want to discuss what the chairmaker or carpenter is like.

That’s where this talk, this sermon gets interesting. At least that’s my hope. I’m moving from the objective to the subjective.

I grew up on a street that had some 94 homes.

I could simply count the front doors.

What those people were like - one learns by meeting, interacting with, talking to, investigating,  observing, asking, checking, talking with.

Looking at that chair there, I have no clue to the personality of the maker.

A guy up the street on my right was a grouch. If a ball went into his front yard, if he was on the stoop, he would not let us get the pink spaldeen ball - sometimes called a “pinkie”.

Mr. Maher, on the other side of the street, whose dog was named Pal, would watch us play and point to where the ball went - if it went into his front yard or the one next to him.

Do you get that distinction between the neighbor and what the neighbor is like?

So too with God.

People have different takes on God - just as I had different takes on the people on my block when growing up.

From telescopes and microscopes we go deeper and deeper into outer or inner space.

The scientist and the astronomer can tell us how far outer space goes and that might get out of people a “Wow” and a “Why” - a how and a how far?

From that we might say: “God is vast.” “God is good at math.”

The Bible gives us thousands and thousands of answers to the question: what is God like?

Isaiah the prophet has a different take on God compared to other prophets.

Preachers have different takes on God?

Who’s right?

Moreover Biblical scientists tell us that there are at least 3 Isaiahs - because computers can tell us that the same person could not have written the early part of Isaiah compare to later parts.  Teachers looking at homework can tell that this kid could not have written this.  In fact they can look up something that sounds familiar and see where the kid plagiarized it.

A classmate of mine got a 0 on a paper.  Weiser was the book my classmate used to write a paper on one of the Psalms. The professor wrote: Weiser 100, Krug 0

So different people have different takes on God and some of them wrote books and sections of books on the Bible.

Next people read the Bible and quote a take on God that they agree with or they like - and avoid one’s they don’t like.

A relative recently asked me about this. She said, “How come I don’t like descriptions of God in the Bible where God is wiping out people and groups of people.”

I answered: “Because some people want opposition wiped out or have God throw people into hell.”

So just as we have different takes on neighbors - people have different takes on God.

Who’s right?  Who’s wrong?

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have different takes on the Carpenter named Jesus.

Judas, Thomas, and Peter had different takes on the Carpenter named Jesus.

In today’s gospel, Thomas has doubts. Last Sunday John had no doubts that Jesus had risen from the dead.

Today has been called, “Doubting Thomas Sunday since the beginning of the church. Then in the last century today has been called Divine Mercy Sunday.

Some people think God is going to zap them for their sins.

Some people think God is going to love them more than their neighbors because God loves sinners more than the righteous.

Some people want read family members read to them Luke 15 when they are dying. Some people are scared to die, so they don’t want to hear Matthew 25 read when they are dying - because they feel they didn’t do enough for the hungry, the poor and the sick.

But both readings say something about the listener.

CONCLUSION

All this should lead to personal conclusions.

All this should lead us to get to know the carpenter.

Pull up a chair next to his chair and say each day, “We need to talk!”

April 8, 2018

EXPECT SURPRISES 

WHEN  YOU  ASK 

She was in a wheelchair.

So I took a chance and asked,

“Bummer! How did you get

yourself into a wheelchair?”

Surprise! She didn’t go there.

She simply said, “I had a wonderful

childhood. We ran and roller skated

every day and everywhere! It was great.”

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2018

April 8, 2018 

Thought for today: 


“… the person who breaks one of the Ten Commandments may well end up less sinful than the person who self-righteously denounces people who break a commandment.”  

Reinhold Niebuhr [1892-1971]