August 21, 2019

SOME  SERMONS

Some sermons wake us up.

Some sermons put us to sleep.

Some sermons pull us up.

Some sermons put us down.

Some sermons grab us by the shoulders,

shake us, and ask, “What about this?”

Some sermons take us into our past.
Some sermons take us into our future.

Some sermons put us in the sacrament

      of the present moment.

Some sermons get us to say,

“I wish so and so was here to hear this.”

Some sermons get us to say, “I disagree!”

Some sermons get us to laugh.
Some sermons - a few of them - get us to cry.

Some sermons get us to ask,

“What does this have to do with Jesus?”

Some sermons are full of grace and we say,

“Lord, it is good for us to be here.”

Some sermons get us to say,

“I’m out of here.”

Some sermons get you thinking,

“He didn’t prepare this?”

Some sermons get you thinking,

“Why don’t we give women

the next 2000 years to do this?”

Some sermons are homilies; 

      some are somebody's else's stuff?

Some sermons are from God.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

August  21, 2019

Thought for today: 

“A cask of wine works more miracles than a church full  of  saints.”  

Italian Proverb

EVERYONE

Everyone has a voice.

Everyone has something to say.

Everyone has something to sing.

Everyone has to hear their own voice first,

their own voice from deep within.

Everyone has a scream for justice,

for love, for fairness, for respect.

Everyone needs an audience.

Everyone needs applause when

they sing their song, when

they sing their best.

Everyone needs to listen to the other

to call out their message,

to say, “Well, you’ve heard

me sing. Now let me hear

your song! Amen."

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

August  20, 2019 - 

Thought for today: 

“Life is one damned thing after another.” 

Attributed  to  Frank
Ward O’Malley.  

But Edna St. Vincent Millay in Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay, says, “It is not true that life is one damn thing after another - it’s one damn thing over and over.”

THE  BAD  SAMARITAN

Spotted a small crawly thing 

on our gray tile kitchen floor …. 

It was upside down - on its back - 

with its legs all a motion …. 

Do I step on it, get a paper napkin  
and then  bury it in our garbage can? 

Do I rescue it - open up the kitchen 

window - and dump it outside? 

I did neither. I just walked by. 

Sometimes priests do that. 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019
Cf. Luke 10: 31

August  19, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“We’re drowning in information and starving  for  knowledge.”  

Rutherford D. Rodgers, Librarian, Yale, 

“On the enormous number of books,

 periodicals and other documents 

published each year,” quoted in 

the New York Times, February 25, 1985

August 18, 2019

COMPARISONS

Comparisons, as they say, can crush

and crumble and humble a person -

that is, if we  let them happen to us.

But how can we not, when parents

and siblings, teachers and advertisers -

start to shout out comparisons at us?

Oh,  it’s easy to say, “Be yourself” -

but down deep the others really

don’t want us to be ourselves.

They want us to be remade in the

image and likeness they have

of us. They like to play God.

But ….

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019