March     26, 2019

Thought for today: 

“The worst thing in the world is not sin; it is the denial  of  sin by a false conscience - for that attitude makes forgiveness impossible.”  

Fulton Sheen

7   LEARNINGS ON  FORGIVENESS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 3rd Tuesday in Lent is, “7 Learnings on Forgiveness.”

Lenten homework:  Get a clean  piece of paper or a blank computer screen and come up with 7 learnings on forgiveness.

I picked the number 7, because 7 is the number in today’s gospel.

I did my 7 last night - to practice what I’m preaching. If you do this, it’s not like writing on sidewalk cement. Nope.  It’s an ongoing process, but come with 7 and then revisit your 7 every Lent or whenever you have time or you have trouble with forgiving someone.  

# 1: Everyone has to deal with the issue of forgiveness. Everyone has been hurt by someone out there: neighbor, family member co-worker. Someone gipped us, stole from us, talked about us behind our back. So number one: everyone has to learn to deal with forgiveness.  It can me major. It can be minor. It can be abuse.  It could be forgiving another. It could be forgiving oneself. Name your poison. Name your hurt. Name your daily, “bummer”. Everyone has to deal with the issue of forgiveness.

# 2: Forgiveness takes time - sometimes a long, long time. That’s number two.   Walk. Talk. Vent. Give yourself time to get over a mistake or a hurt or a cut - so that you can heal.

# 3: Everyone has hurts in their way back when - hurts that still affect us all these years. Like our dad wasn’t a hugger and his dad wasn’t a hugger and his dad wasn’t a hugger, so we got no hugs. I hear that one at times. Or we allow envy to eat us up - envy that se use comparisons to hurt ourselves - envy because  we weren’t the favorite. For some, we feel we’re still treated that way today.  Or some family member or classmate did much better than we did - and that reality and issue shows up in ways that still bother us.

#4: Sometimes we’re not fair - like the guy in today’s gospel. Some boss forgave us - even though we were as guilty as sin. Then we don’t catch forgiveness, and we don’t forgive others.  We might even say the words of the Our Father,  10,000 times, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass or hurt us” - but we don’t  trespass into that way of doing life.

# 5:  Sometimes we won’t forgive another as a way of  paying them back. Somehow we think we’re hurting them by ongoing anger or resentment and we hope they sense it or see it. Many times they have no clue this is going on.

# 6:  Learn to say what Jesus said from the cross, ‘Father forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing.’ People are dumb. We’re dumb. In one split second we can ruin something that took 20 years to build. In one short second we can mess ourselves up.

# 7:  Be creative in your pay backs.  Silence sometimes is a great weapon.  Or there is the Chinese Proverb: “If your enemy wrongs you, buy each of his children a drum.”  Or  sometimes our motive is: “This person is not going to learn, so my being screamful  isn’t going to work. Forgiveness might and that might hit them into feeling small, since you are being big with the way you’re forgiving that person.

CONCLUSION

That’s my homily. That’s my homework for you. Come up with 7 learnings about forgiveness.

The bottom line is that we all catch this main message of Jesus.

Let me close with a wonderful little story.

In a far corner of a New York Cemetery there is a small gravestone polished smooth by the wind and the weather.  The stone has no name on it - no date - but  it has one word on it -  “forgiven”

May that be all of us.

March 25, 2019

Homily

March 25, 2019

Thought for today: 

“A painting about which we were unable to separate fact  from  fiction was the ‘Virgin and child’ in the Paulin monastery at Czestochowa, in Southern Poland.  A Polish reader living in Leicestershire asked us to confirm the following story about the painting, knows as the ‘Protector of Poland’, and said to have been painted by one of Christ’s apostles.

“When Sweden invaded Poland in 1655, the Swedes tried to remove the painting in a horse-drawn wagon, but could not budge it an inch. Exasperated, two Swedish soldiers drew their swords and slashed the virgins cheek.  As soon as their swords touched the canvas, the soldiers fell dead. And nobody has since been able to cover up the scars.

“Although unable to confirm it to the letter, we were happy to find out that such a good story certainly was based on some fact.  Admittedly Our Lady of Czestochowa, first said  to have been painted by St. Luke, is now believed to be the work of an unknown Italian artist in 1383.  But the painting certainly took on a special significance after the heroic defense of the monastery in 1655, when the invading  Swedes were defeated after a 70-day siege.

“Following this miraculous victory, King Casimir of Poland proclaimed: ‘To touch Our Lady of Czestochowa is to touch the very soul of Poland.’ Whether by Swedish swords or not, the Virgin’s cheek remains scarred, and every year thousands of pilgrims go to see it.”   

Old Codgers’

MOST  VALUABLE  PLAYER

M V P:  now that’s  a  very tricky award! 

M V P:  now that could be very subjective. 

M V P:  now is that just for teachers or 

athletes, or necessary people? 

M V P: how about down syndrome folks? 

M V P: how about the handicapped? 

M V P: the blind, the deaf, and the lame? 

M V P: everyone has value. 
M V P: everyone is unique. 
M V P: everyone deserves notice. 

© Andy Costello, 

Reflections 2019

March 24,  2019

SECOND  CHANCE  

FIG TREES

[Instead of a homily for this 3^rd Sunday in Lent [C] I wrote this story yesterday. I used it for the Kids’ Mass this morning and the 11 AM Mass.]

The title of my story for today is, “Second Chance Fig  Trees.”

Once upon a time there was a farmer whose only fruit trees were fig trees.

And he had lots and lots and lots of fig trees in his orchard - thousands and thousands and thousands of them.

Now when he first started to grow fruit trees, he had orange trees,  apple trees, pear trees, but he  had his best luck with fig trees. So that’s what he settled on: fig trees.

He sold  his figs to Nabisco - for their fig newton bars - to Keebler and to Kellogg’s - for their fig newton bars - and his figs were the best in California - where he had his many, many fig trees.

His trucks brought his figs to bakeries all around the country and then ships brought them to countries all around the world.

He sold his figs to Costco, Walmart, Sam’s Club, and Amazon.

Vegans loved his fig bars. They were perfect for snacks and power bars. In time creative bakers put in chocolate chips, blueberries and raspberries.  Then they came up with new products. The latest is organic dark chocolate fig truffle bites - brand new March 2019.

“Uuuum delicious.”

Now to the story about the day that changed everything for him and his fig trees.If a fig tree wasn’t producing figs, he had his workers chop that tree down - almost immediately.

 “No use ….”  he would say,  “No use  wasting time and space, land and fertilizer on lazy fig trees.”

“Cut em down!”

Then  one day, believe it or not, he gave the order to cut down this one little fig tree  - but something stopped him. He couldn’t believe his eyes, but this one little fig tree - seemed to be crying. He couldn’t believe his ears, but he seemed to hear this little fig tree saying, “Give me a second chance.”

He told his workers, “Give this tree here extra water. Give it extra fertilizer - and if by this time next year, it doesn’t start producing, more and better figs, then cut it down. Why should we let it do nothing?”

Sure enough,  it started producing great figs - the best he ever tasted.

Sure enough, something else happened, not just to his fig trees, but to his personality.

He was known to be a really tough boss - always grouchy - always yelling at his workers.

He was also -  always yelling at  his kids - never, ever, ever, giving them or their teachers of their coaches or anyone a second chance.

Well after giving that fig tree a second chance, he didn’t notice this about himself, but he  started to be nicer to drivers on the highway - to people on line - in the supermarket - to neighbor and family members who just wanted to talk about nothings.

Surprise his kids saw this change in their dad and they gave him a second chance.

And this is not the end of the story. A twist turned things around a bit more.

His dad died - his dad who had started their fruit tree business - way, way back, and a long time ago.

Now  he was always tough on his dad - for not being busy enough - for not doing enough - for not figuring out - fig trees were the way to go.

Now the priest who was doing his father’s funeral didn’t know any of this. He was just trying to come up with a homily for the funeral. He did know that the family was famous for their figs.  So he looked up in the bible the two stories about Jesus and fig trees,

In one story, the figs were not given a second chance.  In the story we heard this morning, the fig tree got a second chance.

Well,  the priest who preached at the funeral of the father of the man who gave that fig tree a second chance - used that second story of Jesus for his homily and he said our God is a God of second chances.

He really didn’t know anything about that farmer - and his father -  but when that farmer heard that story that Jesus gave,  he was hearing about himself.

He started coming back to church - giving church and Jesus a second chance. He gave himself a second chance. He really didn’t like himself.

But most importantly  - his whole life changed -   giving lots of people - lots of chances - second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seven times seven chances.  Amen.

March 24, 2019

CORNERS

Some people seem

to have been sent

to sit in the corner ….

My hope is that  they

meet someone there

who feels the same way.

And then the rest of us hear

them laughing and we wish we

too were sent to sit  in the corner.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019