CATHOLIC  SCHOOLS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Catholic Schools.”

This week is Catholic Schools Week. Here at St. Mary’s we do what many Catholic Parishes with Catholic Schools do: We have the kids speak at the beginning of each Sunday Mass.  They and we thank those who have supported Catholic Schools down through the years in various ways.

This week there will be programs on different aspects of Catholic Education in our school.   I know I have a High School Mass for St. Mary’s High School on Monday morning - and the whole grammar school has an Elementary School Mass on Thursday. That’s tricky - busing all the kids out to St. John Neumann.

TRICKY REALITY TO TALK ABOUT

Catholic Schools are a tricky topic to talk about.

Many of our people went to and have their kids go to public school or other private schools.

Some of you might be or have taught and worked in public or non-religious or other religion private schools.

Some of you are converts.

Then there are Catholic, Public and Private non-Catholic colleges.

Then there is the cost of Catholic schools.

Then there would be the wondering if this is the best forum for talking about Catholic Schools.

There are only so many Sundays - and the Sunday Homily - should be on Spirituality - Social Justice - Morality - Inspiration - Challenge - Insights - coming out of the readings for that Sunday.  So talking about Catholic Schools from the pulpit - might not be the best of moves.

HISTORY

A first question would be the history of Catholic Schools in the United States.

Dioceses wanted to make sure our kids got a good education in the faith -and counter anti-Catholicism in public schools.

You who like to google things - ought to google that.

Part of our United States history has been the enormous contribution of Catholic Sisters - who worked for very low pay - and it took a long time for these women to become better trained in education and teaching techniques. This is part of the background of numerous Catholic women’s colleges in Maryland and across the country.

New Orleans has some wonderful stories of Ursuline sisters teaching slave women and freed slaves.

After Vatican II, a lot of nuns left the convent - but brought their expertise to wherever they settled.

Many  all women colleges became outstanding centers of learning.  To survive and diversify, many became coed.  I have a niece who went to Marywood in Scranton, Pennsylvania - as well as my sister Peggy who became an IHM nun.

For the history of St. Mary’s schools here in Annapolis, check out Robert Worden’s book on the history of our parish.

QUESTIONS  & ANECDOTES

Religious education for our Catholic Kids in public schools always seems to need improvement.  Do we neglect these kids in parishes that have Catholic schools?

What about adult education and adult preparation for marriages, baptisms, confirmation, knowledge of our faith.

Does Catholic education stop for some after Catholic school?

I heard someone say somewhere along the line, that the age for confirmation will never be agreed upon, because sometimes this is the last time we’ll see some of these kids. Is that true?

I know of one parish that pushes for Adult Catholic and Christian and religious book clubs. Would we simply tell people to think that way and go for it. A book a month for about 10 months - works for fiction and non-fiction books - why not Catholic books?

I heard of one parish that had the following religious Ed program. Parents or a parent came to a church meeting space once a week - during the school year - and they took a catechism class and then they taught that same program in their family. Time wise - schedule wise - would that work. Could that be done through the TV - with discs or whatever will be next.

One pastor told me that he was pastor of a parish in New York City and it had an elementary school.  Then he was changed.  10 years   or so later he came back as pastor of that parish - but in the meanwhile the grammar school was closed.  He saw the difference in leadership in all kinds of groups in the parish. Many had disappeared. So what impact does a Catholic School have on a parish?

I have met people who attend a weeklong conference on the Bible or Theology - every year - usually during the summer - in Chicago or Washington D.C.  The National Catholic Reporter features a 4 to 8 page section two times a year with listings for all kinds of topics and themes and folks sign up. Why not make that part of one’s life or one’s retirement?

TODAY’S READINGS

The bottom line is not Catholic schools for the sake of Catholic Schools.

The bottom line would be Jesus Christ - for all the members of the body of Christ to be and to become the body of Christ as we heard in today’s second reading. In any given parish, some are better being handy. Some are better doing the leg work.  There are many paths. There are many skills. Some are better at being apostles - or prophets - or teachers - or healers - or assistants - or hearers - or listeners.

The message of today’s first reading - is that all of us need to meet on a regular basis to hear the word of God. Ezra in that first  reading gathers everyone at the Water Gate - and reads from daybreak to midday.

It reminds of me what they used to do in cigar factories in Cuba and Florida. Someone would be seated on a raised wooden platform and read out loud during the day  - so the folks would be getting an education.  Notice Ezra the scribe - one who could write - and read to the folks - from a  raised wooden platform.

Notice in today’s gospel,  how Jesus goes into the synagogue and - goes up front. He is handed the scroll of Isaiah and reads that “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed m. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed to go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”

Education, Catholic Education, How to education, Philosophical, Psychological, Sociological Education, Humanistic Education  - is good for all of us.

CONCLUSION

I have met about 10 people in my life who have said to me, “What book are you reading right now?”

What book are you reading right now?

I love the conversion moment message in Augustine’s Confessions: “Tolle et lege. Tolle et lege. Take and read, take and read.”

There are great books, CD’s, Documentaries, Programs, Conferences, Movies, that can  update and challenge you as a Catholic - as a human being.

Catholic Schools week is a good week for all of us to hear this - not just school kids. Amen.

January  27, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“Those who run with wolves learn to howl.”  

Spanish Proverb

January 27, 2019

JEALOUSY  AND  ENVY

We mix up those two words,

those  two feelings, all the time.

Jealousy: the fear of losing what I have.

Envy: wanting what you have and I don’t.

I feel jealously when you enter the room

and you want to win the trophy that is mine.

I feel envy when you win the prize or get

the trophy that I expected but you got.

 © Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

January 26, 2019

TRAPPED

Sometimes freedom is an option -
if only we pause to see a way out.

But we can be stupid. We can try to
kick and fight those who can save us.

Our Redeemer lives. He/She comes
with saw or crowbar - to set us free.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019 

January  26, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“Don’t stay away from church because there are so many hypocrites.  There’s always room for one more.” 

Arthur R. Adams

Or  John  8: 7

CONVERSION:

CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL

INTRODUCTION

Today the Church celebrates the feast of the conversion of St. Paul. This is quite interesting. Most of the time, when we celebrate a Saint’s Day, we celebrate his or her whole life, but today we just celebrate a moment: the conversion of St. Paul.

OUR CONVERSION MOMENTS

For a thought for today, I ask you to look at your life. When were the moments of change? When were the conversion moments? 

Hopefully, all of us can pick out some significant moments when we changed.

ONE OF MY CONVERSION MOMENTS

I remember talking with a friend of mine once -- talking one to one. He was a bit overweight and he said to me, “Did you ever notice how many people who are overweight are always giving tips to other people who are overweight, on how to lose weight?”

I said, “No!”

He continued, “Did you ever notice how many people who are not overweight are always needling overweight people about being overweight?”

I said, “No!”

He wasn’t trying to correct me. I was thinner at the time. He was just sounding off. 

Well, after that I became more conscious and more aware of what he was saying.

We were all living in a big community, and sure enough, he was right. I began to notice people who needled him, grabbed his love handles, and often gave him suggestions on how to lose weight.

I reflected even more. I realized how much the weight comments hurt him, that he was quite sensitive about his weight. Well, from that day to that day I never again kidded this guy about his weight. I was converted. I have also been working on not kidding  other people.

That conversation by him was a conversion moment for me.

What are your conversion moments?

THE NAGGING HUSBAND

I remember a father telling me once that it took a good 25 fights with his wife for him to finally see that he was constantly on the case of his oldest son, but his youngest son was getting away with murder. 

He was the oldest son in his family. While growing up he was constantly being nagged by his father and hated it. 

He didn’t see he was doing the same thing to his son.  He didn’t realize history was repeating itself. 

Finally, he saw the light. Finally, he saw what his wife was trying to tell him all the time.

He was able to laugh at himself, when he finally saw the light.

CONVERSION – MAJOR ISSUE

Today, then, we are celebrating a moment or an event in the life of Paul. It’s a major moment, a major event, a major experience, in the life of a great person.

Conversion is a major issue in life. 

Conversion is the major issue of the upcoming second session of Renew. 

Conversion time is significant changes in our lives time.

Conversion means we make major shifts, major changes within us. So today’s feast day is a significant feast day.

CONVERSION OF PAUL

T. F. Manson said that Paul was a missionary and preacher and prophet like Ezechiel, Isaiah or Jeremiah. He was less like a philosopher, like Aristotle or Plato. 

Paul was a preacher. Today is a preacher’s feast. Redemptorists preach conversion, so this is a significant feast for us to study.

In many paintings of this moment, Paul is pictured as falling off a horse. We don’t even know if he was on a horse. The scriptures just tell us he fell to the ground.

In conversion conversations, as in AA, we get the phrase, “to hit bottom”. Paul hit bottom – the bottom of himself. Paul hit the ground, the ground from which the God of Genesis scraped us together. Paul hit the dirt – towards which we’re all going to eventually crumble into.

MAJOR ELEMENT OF CONVERSION

The key ingredient in any conversion is the death of self. The major element is the emptying of self – the thing that God did when we became human – described so dramatically in the great hymn of God’s self emptying in Philippians 2:5b-11.

Conversion for starters means self-emptying – death to self.

Isn’t one of the best scenes where we see this meaning of conversion in the great message of St. John the Baptist? It describes Paul’s conversion perfectly. “I must decrease. He must increase.”

Basically that’s what conversion is all about: the emptying of oneself.

As John McCall put it, the air has to be let out of our tire. We are filled with hot air. We are inflated with self. John McCall says, “In psychological terms, it’s called ‘ego reduction’.”

Swami Sachannawanda said it almost the same way. He said that the “I” must go. As he liked to say it, “E Go. Let it go. Go.”

In Philippians 3: 4-10, Paul gives his credentials. He says: I am a Hebrew. I was circumcised. I grew up a Benjaminite. I was a Pharisee. I was righteous. Notice it was all I’s. I, I, I,

In his conversion, the I went. His eyes went. He became blind. He who thought what he saw was right, became blind.

He really hit bottom and down there in his deepest darkness, he saw the light. He saw that Christ was the light of the world. He began to know Christ.

As he continues in Philippians 3: 7, “But because of Christ, I have come to consider all these advantages that I had as disadvantages. Not only that, but I believe nothing can happen that will outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For him I have accepted the loss of everything, and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him. I am no longer trying for perfection by my own efforts, the perfection that comes from the Law, but I want only the perfection that comes  through faith in Christ, and is from God and is based on faith. All I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to share his sufferings by reproducing the pattern of his death. That is the way I can hope to take my place in the resurrection of the dead.”

That’s a conversion. A person who was dead, has come back to life.

That’s what happened to Paul. That’s what we celebrate today.

CONCLUSION

That is enough, there will be plenty more on another day.

January 25, 2019

COLD

Cold January day….

Dark, too dark on

both sides of the day….

Morning and evening ….

Grey cold controlling the

hedges on both sides

of our house ….

Winter sometimes can

be annoying - unwelcoming -

causing crankiness in my nose,

in my throat and in my soul.

Florida, Arizona, the Caribbean

would be so much easier

and comfortable and colorful….

Radiators, a fireplace, help,

so too tea, hot chocolate,

even chocolate chip cookies

in cold milk - so too

a big blanketed bed.

Better: this year, February

don’t show. Come March 15^th.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019