“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found
wanting. It has been found difficult;
and left untried.”
G.K. Chesterton [1874-1936]
in What’s Wrong With the
World
(1910), pt 1, Chaper 5.
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
HAVE YOU EVER WORN
STEPHEN’S SHOES?
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this 3rd Tuesday
after Easter is, “Have You Ever Worn Stephen’s Shoes?”
Stephen being the deacon in today’s first reading ….
Stephen being a leader in the early Christian community …. Stephen who is stoned
to death …. Steven the one who
challenges others…. Steven the one who forgives those who kill him ….
So the question again: “Have You Ever Worn Stephen’s
Shoes?” Have you ever been in one of his
type situations?
Probably, it should be Stephen’s sandals - not shoes - but moccasins is what they use in the original
version of the old Native American saying? “Don’t criticize anyone till you walked a mile in their
moccasins.”
WE KNOW THIS MESSAGE
We know this message, I’m just repeating it, because it’s good to be challenged by it every day in
our interactions.
Jesus ran into the same situation with the woman who was
caught in adultery. Jesus saved her - by saying, “Let the one without sin, cast
the first stone.”
And since all her accusers knew they sinned and made
mistakes, they dropped their rocks and
walked away.
I made up a similar saying: “Don’t criticize anyone till
you have walked a mile in their sins.”
I like the way Harper Lee put it in her book, To Kill a Mockingbird, “You never know
man until you understand things from his point of view, until you climb
into his shoes and walk around in them.”
Or someone said, “Don’t judge of book by its cover. You
might miss out on a good story.”
A guy named Jack
Handey said, “Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes.
That way you are a mile away and you have their shoes.”
STEPHEN
What was it like to be Stephen? If you were in his shoes, if you were called like him, what did he go through?
Sometimes in life we have to challenge others. Parents
have to do that at times - even if their kids are going to yell and scream and
complain to and about them for screaming and complaining about them.
Stephen did that as we heard in today’s first reading.
Sometimes in life, people gang up on us - or name call us, etc. In those moments we can take the criticism and then forgive the
rock throwers and become the peace makers were are challenged to be.
Stephen did that in today’s first reading. He basically said what Jesus said from
the cross. “Father forgive them, because
they don’t know what they are doing. Stephen said, “Lord, do not hold this sin
against them….”
So if you want to walk in Jesus’s - as well as Stephen’s sandals, shoes, and skin, - forgive
each other each day. We dummies often don’t know what we are doing.
CONCLUSION
No selfies today.
Only otherlies today. Instead of
thinking of self, think others. What’s it like to be the other person?
And if enough of us do this each day, then each day will
be that much better than it would have been. Amen.
THE GOOD
LIFE
What’s a good life?
To love … to laugh ….
To live one’s life to the full ….
To bring life into the world …
to one’s kids, to one’s spouse,
to leave everyone in the room
with a smile when one leaves,
to not worry who’s on first,
to deal well with death and the
tragedies of life - there are always
some. To know I tried, I cried but
I also made you laugh!
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019
Monday, May 6, 2019
WHAT ARE YOU
LOOKING FOR?
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this 3rd Monday after Easter is, “What Are You Looking For?”
That’s a bottom line theme in today’s gospel - and
in much of the Gospel of John.
What are you looking for?
EXAMINATION TIME
How much time do we spend each day looking for this and
that?
We walk in into a room and say, “It’s in here somewhere?”
And it’s an ongoing joke - that is part of aging process - to ask, “Why did I come into this room in the first place?”
I remember a young woman telling me 3 or 4 of the
qualities she was looking for in a guy?
I asked her: “Well how many are on your list?” She answered, “About ten!”
She’s now married. I never met the guy? Would I dare to ask her, “How close is he to
fulfilling your requirements?”
Looking back, is she laughing or is she crying - or has
she forgotten she had a list - and is now dealing with the real person the guy
is?
TODAY’S READINGS
In today’s first reading from Acts 6: 8-15, Stephen is
featured. He and the early Christian
leaders - like Christ - were asking questions that people were not asking. They
were settled. The early Christians were unsettling and upsetting the old order.
Jesus the Nazorean spoke about Moses and God, the Law and
Customs - and sometimes when people are challenged - when lids are lifted -
when the Spirit starts stirring the pot - “Uh OH’s” are heard from the stove
which is the heart.
So sometimes we look at faces - or into eyes - and we
ask, “What’s cooking?” Translation:
what’s going on within your heart? What are you looking for?
In today’s gospel Jesus meets people who are looking for
him. They can’t figure out how Jesus moves about. They want more bread, but he
wants to feed folks with the food that endures for eternal life.
If you use the Eucharistic Chapel - if you come to
weekday Mass - besides Sunday Mass - you have to read John 6 - over and over
and over again.
It’s been around some 1900 plus years.
It’s a document that took years to finalize - somewhere
around 90.
It has development. It deals with lots of stuff they were
trying to figure out and lots of stuff we’re
trying to figure out - as we develop and evolve.
If you’re married - if you have kids - if you have
parents that are still around - if you have parents who have died - if you look at your relationships - the
others are the same as they were back when - but they are also quite different from back then. Our
nuclear self is the same - but our developing and changing self is different.
It’s called evolution - growth - development.
If we don’t change, we’re dead - we’re not doing our
inner work. We’re not evolving.
We see our parents different today - than we saw them 20
years. They have changed and we have changed.
So too Jesus. So
too Jesus in John. So we go through what early Christians in the Johannine
churches went through from 50 to the year 100 or so.
And Biblical scholars have certainly grown and changed in
their understanding of the Gospel of John down through the centuries.
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily for today is, “What Are You
Looking For?”
Make lists. Hang onto them. See how they change through
the years. Amen.
SOMEONE
Looking out the bus window -
I see all these folks on their
cellphones - walking with
someone - somewhere else -
down this street - talking
about something - but who
is their someone - when
they really need to talk to
someone: as in divorce,
or death, or being fired or
their kid is on opioids?
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)