VISIBLE HUMAN, 

INVISIBLE GOD

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Wednesday after Epiphany is: “Visible Human, Invisible God.”

QUESTION?

Did you ever wonder where you got your takes on life from?

This would include your religion, your attitude toward sushi, always being very much on time or always cutting it close - and as a result often being a tiny bit late - and 1000 more attitudes, outlooks and behaviors.

Today’s first reading gave me the theme and title of this homily: “Visible Human, Invisible God.”

But I want to begin with my opening question, “Do you ever wonder where you got your takes on life from? Do you ever wonder why you are the way you are?”

ANECDOTES

I’m talking to my sister Mary on the phone and she says, “I was talking to Peggy [she was my other sister] and  Peggy says, “I got sick. Thank God  I was on vacation.”

Mary tells me, “I laughed and then said to Peggy, ‘Where did we get that from?’  And both said together in unison: ‘Mother!’”  And I added, “That’s funny. That’s me too.”

Obviously we learned our language, our smiles, our opinions from our parents and others.

My parents both spoke Gaelic.  Wow do I wish they taught us that as well as English.

At a workshop on preaching, the speaker asked us, “Whom did you learn the most about preaching from?” It got us thinking and it was a revelation.” Our answers could be correct - or maybe we don’t know and the answers are staring us in the face.

I was driving somewhere. The trip would take 8 hours. I  decided to grab some old cassette audio tapes of people giving talks. I’m listening to this one tape and the preacher gives this great example. I went, “Wow! I used that same example years after and I thought I was original. I wasn’t. I stole that example. I figured I had heard that tape 25 years ago and I used the example from it - 10 years later without knowing that it.

I shut off the cassette and thought about that for a while. How much else did I steal? How much more of other people’s stuff have I appropriated?

I thought. That’s the benefit of listening to tapes and CD’s and talks.

I smiled and said, “I have preached in thousands of churches and preached thousands of homilies and sermons, how many of those have I  planted good news. How many ideas of others have I planted - that I got from other folks somewhere and some time ago.

I am not only what I eat. I am what I listen to and watch.

The most obvious example: we become the TV channels we watch.

One of my top 10 quotes is from Tennyson in his poem, Ulysses, “I am part of all that I have met.”

TODAY

There’s an example from today’s first reading that I have stolen - or appropriated  - or made my own.

It’s a key idea from the first Letter of John.  Where did he get that idea from?  Was he original or a borrower?

It’s a simple idea.

If we can’t love and be nice to those we can see, how can we say we love God who is invisible.

I have met people who are great God people and they are horrible people people.

That jars me!

I have noticed people praying and praying and praying - including priests I have lived with - who can’t communicate with other people.

I know I’m judgmental in thinking this way - but this First Letter of John got me asking this question in this way.

When I’m hearing confessions if someone confesses they gossiped or talked about someone behind another’s person’s back - as a penance sometimes I tell folks to say something nice to someone next chance you get. If someone cannot  give a compliment to someone whom they can see, how can they give a compliment to God whom they cannot see.

If someone visits Christ in the Blessed Sacrament chapel - and they never visit others - never make a holy hour with an old person - who is shut in - or in Spa Creek Nursing Home facility - or make phone calls to their sister of brother in Atlanta -  how does that holy hour with Christ go? Are they the only one in the room, in the conversation?

From way back I’ve heard people say the rosary - Our Father and Hail Mary - and race through it - as if there is no space in between any word: “HailMaryfullofgracetheLordiswithyou…. blah, blah, blah….” I wonder how they can do that. Is that the way they are with other people who are visible to them - or are other people invisible as well.

January 9, 2019 

Thought for today: 

"When I first heard Wind Beneath My Wings, I thought: 'I'm not singing that." 

Bette Midler  [Then longtime friend 

and producer Marc Shaiman insisted 

and it was the biggest hit of my career.]

January 8, 2019

CONCERT

Sometimes, at some concerts,

the music squeezes itself into

every inch of the crowd - people

leaning  into each other - eyes

closed, laughing, smiling, toes

tapping, fingers drumming, lips

mouthing the words of the songs.

Now that’s a concert. Now that’s

what I want everyone to feel in

church - when it’s time for me

to have my final Mass - but I’m

Catholic, so I can only dream -

but  relax because I’ll be dead.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

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.