THE LETTER

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Tuesday after the Epiphany  is, “The Letter.”

Have you ever received  a love letter - which knocked you over - because of the person who sent it?

You believed the words. The words moved you and you knew you were loved. Tears came to your eyes …. A warm glow filled your heart and mind.

After you put that letter down - you realize that this is what you needed - this was what you wanted - this is what you longed for.

Another person told you they love you.

IT ALL DEPENDS

Today, a lot more people say, “I love you” than 50 years ago.

Is that true?  I don’t know, but that’s my perception.

However, like hugs, they can be shallow  throw a way’s or they can be depth charges that blow us up.

In other words, it’s my opinion that today’s “I love you's” are often throw away comments that often lack  depth.

SAMMY DAVIS JR.

I remember from years and years ago a moment on Johnny Carson’s night time TV  show. Johnny Carson had as a guest Sammy Davis Jr.  He was interviewing Sammy and Johnny asked him, “How come you tell everyone, ‘I love you!’ more than a lot of people?”

And Sammy Davis paused and said, “I’ll tell you why.  I had a friend in high school, a buddy, whom I really liked and I often wanted to tell him. ‘I appreciate you. I love you.’ But I didn’t and then he died suddenly in a car accident - and I resolved at that time to say to anyone I love, ‘I love you.’”

THE MOVIE: THE LETTER

The other evening  Father Joe Krastel and I were watching a western movie on TV.  

It was time to go to bed.  Joe left.  I got the wondering: “What movie is on TCM - channel 36 - Turner Classic Movies?”

The movie was from November  1940. It was an old black and white movie that I never heard of before. It was entitled The Letter. It stared Bette Davis and Herbert Marshall and some old time big time actors.

Bette Davis - plays the part of Leslie Crosbie. I missed 2/3 of the movie. I looked it up afterwards for more of the plot. Leslie cheats on her husband.  She falls  in love with another man. He is also married and loves his wife. she is just a moment.  Discovering this enrages Betty Davis.  Out of rage and anger, she kills this guy - shooting him 5 times - feeling she was lied to by this guy.

Her husband doesn’t know about the affair. He gets a great lawyer who gets her off in a trial on the grounds of self-defense.

After the trial, her husband finds out about all this.  He also finds out about The Letter. Her lawyer and Bette have to go to the wife of the man she killed to buy that letter - for $10,000. The Letter could be used to convict Bette.

I only saw some of the movie the other night, but I’ll try to catch the whole movie some time.

Without ruining the movie,  near the end it had some powerful lines and scenes.

One is this: Bette Davis’ husband - after finding out what had happened      -  says, “It’s amazing. You can be  married to someone for 10 years and you find out you do not know hardly anything about them.”

Another is this: Bette Davis’ husband says, “I could forgive you, but I have to know if you really love me.”

She says it.  Then she takes it back.  She falls apart and says how much she loved the man she murdered - and still loves him - and doesn’t love her husband.

CONCLUSION

When I read today’s two readings, the thoughts of this homily hit me.

In the first reading from the First Letter to John, we hear how much God loves us. We hear that God is love.  [Cf. 1 John 4: 7-10]

In today’s gospel from Mark we find out how far God will go for us - to feed us - to love us - to heal us - to watch over us. [Cf. Mark 6; 34-44]

Recalling the line from the movie, I believe God could say what Bette Davis’ husband says,  “It’s strange how  people can be with God for years without knowing how much God loves them.”    

Has God’s love overwhelmed you yet?  Amen.

Recommendation: Want to read a love letter to you?  Read the letter, called the First Letter of John, over and over again.

January 8, 2019

Thought for today:

"I'm working my way toward divinity."

Bette Midler

January 7, 2019

TOES  ARE  US

Every once and a while 

I  wiggle my toes - 

at meetings, 

in church, on the bus, 

just to remind myself 

I’m alive, I got this, 

I’m in control. 

But sometimes 

I forget. Nothing moves. 

I’m numb - “Uh oh!” 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

THE   PRESENCE  OF   PEOPLE, 

IN  PEOPLE,  PLACES 
AND IN STUFF

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is,  “The Presence of People,  in People, Places and In Stuff.”

Rings and things …. Places and spaces….

COMMON EXPERIENCE

I was wondering if you have had the following experience. You’re in some place - any place - and you sense the presence of people - from the past - being in this spot - where you’re in right now - in this present moment.

When I see chairs, sometimes - I get the thought, “I wonder how many people have sat in this chair….”

Like, sometimes, we see a bunch of little kids pushing and trying to all together squeeze together  into one big Lazy Boy lounge chair.

Like sometimes I sit in a church bench or pew - [I prefer the word bench to pew] - and think about all the people who have sat in this spot and I unite myself to their prayers in this spot right now.  That’s a nice prayer - that’s a nice way to have or receive communion - with the body of Christ.

Like sometimes we’re in our house and there is the chair our mom or dad from long ago - and long dead - used to sit - and their presence crowds that chair - in this  present moment.

Like - there are roads - especially in Pennsylvania - when I’m driving  - and I see a long low lying mountain up ahead of me and I picture Civil War soldiers heading to Gettysburg or somewhere - and I wonder what it was like that day - heading towards battle and possibly death - and tough climbing up that hill  ahead to get there.

Like I see carvings in trees or initials in sidewalks where teenagers from long ago  are telling the world in a carved tree or in fresh cement - that J.L loves M.T.  We go to Malvern for the high school retreats and I open up a drawer in a small dresser in the room I’m assigned and there in pencil on the wood I read a message: “Jane, St. Elizabeth’s, February, 1997.”

Kilroy was here.

I can’t count how many people have come up to me at St. Mary’s - and pointing towards the front  of the church - they say: “We were married here 25 years ago this year.”

Where have you been? Where do you feel present again from way back?

In every restaurant, who has sat where we’re sitting? Who has used the silverware, the menu, the plates we’re using.

In 1984 - I went to a small restaurant in Rome with Father John Ruef.  The owner came over and said to me: “You’re sitting in the seat that Pope John Paul II used to love to sit in when he came here to eat when he was Cardinal Karol Wojtyla.”

During this Mass close your eyes and be in the presence of all who celebrated Mass and sat in the bench you’re in right now.

When I drive by Parole I think of all the Civil War Prisoners who were on Parole there.

History, ambiance, memories, are everywhere.

Someone on TV said the other evening that people live in 12 different houses in their lifetime?  Have you ever gone back to the street of your childhood and felt the presence of so many people from 12 or 25 or 50 or more years ago.

Look at your hand and pray for peace for all those whose hand you have shook. You can do this with lips and hugs, etc.

You hear a song - and it was your love song at 22!

TV commercials - songs - movies - move us - to remember, to tear, to get in touch with.

CONCLUSION:  TODAY’S GOSPEL

Today’s gospel gave me this theme for this homily.

I was in Israel once - in January of 2000.

That first night we got our hotel rooms in Capernaum on the Lake of Galilee. We didn’t unpack.  We walked out of the Palestinian Hotel we were in and walked about 2 blocks to the water. I stood there at the water’s edge and could feel the presence of Jesus in that spot. Looking out on the lake, I said to myself, “Jesus was here.”

And I felt his presence in so many places on that trip to Israel: in Nazareth, Jericho, Nazareth, on the mountain, at the place of the beatitudes, in Jerusalem on the way of the cross.

To be human is to do this.  Welcome to the Human Race. Welcome to the human place. We’re all here.

January 7, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“Family  faces  are  magic mirrors. 
Looking at people who belong to us, 
we see the past, present and future.”  

Gail Lumet Buckley, 

“The Hornes: 

An American Family, 

Knopf, 1986

SOMETIMES

Sometimes we want what we want.

Sometimes we don’t know what we want.

Sometimes what we want others don’t want us to want.

Sometimes we have to make our move.

Sometimes we have to wait our time.

Sometimes …. but only sometimes ….

 © Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

EPIPHANY

She went to Mass that Sunday morning.

It was for the feast of the Epiphany: January 6^th.

She had been a Catholic for some 83 years now.

Mass: she has been here - done this  - at least some 10,000 times or was it 20,000 times in her life, but this time Mass was to be different?

She sat there, stood there, knelt there, stood up again, sat down again, sang a tiny bit, prayed a tiny bit - but in her mind a two by four board of wood  shook a bit - because of a bit of stress.  “Uh oh!” she felt in her being.

She asked the question that edged around in her being - a semi-sounding sort of conscious questionable question:  “Is this real? Is this all real? What am I doing here in this church at this moment, called, 'The Mass'”?

Her faith was being questioned - which had happened to her - from time to time in different ways - then it would slip away.

She knew the name of a priest who had been outed - for sexual misconduct - in a parish she lived in 14 years ago.

She remembered hearing about a priest who had siphoned off a bit of money in a parish she grew up in - in a far city.

Sex -  money - mischief - sin - life has its “Uh oh!” and messy moments.

Most of the time motives for crime and mischief - mentioned on TV and in the papers - didn’t have the impact it had on her - till it happened in church this Sunday morning.

Why did this hit her at this moment in January - in church - at the beginning of a new year? Why now? Why here?

Is this all real?

She looked around the church.

Is anyone - here - where I am now?

Then she had an epiphany on the feast of the Epiphany.

She was looking off to the side to the church Christmas stable.

She saw herself in a hospital bed - being presented a new born baby - 5 times - her babies - 3 girls and 2 boys: Mike Jr. (who became Mack), Marsha (who became Marshmallow all her life and she learned to love that nickname. She was a Marshmallow if there ever was one), Maxine (who became Maxi), Martin (who became Marty) and Melody (who became Music - and she did - growing into that name - playing the guitar and piano - and she had a great singing voice as well).

She said to herself, “Okay - only 3 of them go to church on a regular basis -  but 4 out of 5 don’t live too far away - and Maxi who lives far away with their 3 kids is quite near a Southwest Airlines hub.

The epiphany continued. She closed her eyes and was with Mary in the stable with the kings or Magi bringing gifts. "These 5 kids have been the gift of my lifetime. They earned her the degree 'Mom' and then the master’s degree of 'Granny' - 15 times, 15 grandkids."  She loved cellphones: and she was still very good with her thumbs,  “Want to see their pictures?

Epiphany. Epiphany - she thought - no wonder God came to us as a baby.

She prayed. She cried. She smiled. She laughed there in her church bench - on the left side - side aisle - middle of the church - sitting where her husband and she loved to sit when he was alive and could slip out and head for the bathroom if necessary.

This epiphany was like a slide show - all these scenes from her life - like the monitor screen pictures she was seeing more and more at each wake at each funeral home she went to - with old friends going home to God, please God.

A big epiphany hit her - their 50^th anniversary - a blessing and some prayers in this church - with all their kids - and then after that at Macaroni Grill for lunch and only one of us was half-Italian.

Then the death of her Mike - who came up with the idea of all M names for their kids - because his parents were Mike and Mary as well.  His death was horrible - cancer, emphysema, but it was a blessing - and as he had said over and over again, “I hope I go first, because I wouldn’t be able to live life without you.”  His breathing those last 3 months of his life - it seemed  you could hear it a mile away at times.

Epiphany.  She sat there in church that feast of the Epiphany  - seeing all the beautiful vacations they took in their lifetime - with and without the kids.

Mountains - the ocean - Rome - The Grand Canyon - Barcelona -  all 5 kids graduating from college - grandkids, baptisms, Little League games, playing 45,000 pinochle card games, a granddaughter making it to the state finals in a spelling bee.

She laughed - remembering a priest in confession telling her once, “Distractions at Mass can be prayer moments. They are not sins. Just share them with the Lord.”

So at that Mass - at that personal epiphany - that’s what she did - especially when she got back to her bench - left side - near the aisle -  middle of the church. It was a moment when she half  knelt and half sat - in communion - her favorite time of Mass. Deep in the stable of her heart - she prayed to God a deep, "Thank You!"