September  9, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“Regrets are as personal as fingerprints.”  

Margaret Culkin Banning, 

“Living With Regrets,”  

Readers Digest, October 1958

September 8, 2019

OUTSIDE - THE SPIRIT

I love it when the wind

or the weather catches me

the moment I walk out the door.

Cold, branches of trees shaking,

or soft rain or silent snow falling

everywhere - surround sound.

I love it when the Spirit pounds

my house and I need to get out

and get going - “Move it! Move it!”

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

September  8, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“Hindsight is an exact science.”  

Guy Bellamy, 

The Sinner’s Congregation, 

Secker and Warburg, 1984

PICKY,  PICKY,  PICKY

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 22 Saturday in Ordinary Time is, “Picky, Picky, Picky.”

There are two types of people: Picky, Picky, Picky People and Unpicky, Unpicky or whatever is the opposite of picky, picky, picky people.

I don’t see myself as a picky, picky, picky person, so I can pick on picky, picky, picky people in a homily.

But we all know down deep that picking on people is not the best approach for challenge, for healing, for change, for conversion, for growth, for niceness.

TODAY’S GOSPEL

Today’s gospel has this theme of picky - picky.

It’s called Phariseeism.

The Pharisees are constantly picking on Jesus - for his non-fussy, non-meticulous, non-persnickety way of doing life.

The Pharisees sat back or stood back watching Jesus and his disciples - for mistakes.

There is a gospel text, “The Pharisees stood far off watching ….” [Check Luke 6:7.]

Here is Jesus and his disciples in today’s gospel walking through a field filled with growing grain on a Sabbath. They are hungry - so they start picking  heads of grain, rubbing it in their hands to separate the chaff - and get to the good stuff for nourishment.

I was trying to picture what that would be like - and I picture people at a baseball game with a bag of peanuts in those light brown shells - twisting and breaking the shell - to get the peanuts inside - and dropping the shells to the cement floor of the baseball stands.

If you’re a daily Mass goer, you have heard enough gospels readings where the Pharisees are trying to pick a fight with Jesus over some trivial pursuit of theirs.

Sometimes Jesus walks away. Sometimes Jesus challenges back at the challenger. Sometimes Jesus says, “Let me tell you a story.”

If there is one message we hear loud and clear from Jesus it’s this: the Sabbath is for us - not the other way around.

If people buy clothes, cars, houses with one eye to impress others - various people pick religion as a way to impress others - but the tricky, tricky, tricky thing about religion is that it’s dealing with spiritual stuff which is invisible. Bummer - if you want to be seen and to impress others.

What to do. Well, Picky, Picky Pharisees   make much of religious practices that can be seen and measured.

So Jewish law, Pharisaical law, religious laws were made up in the form of visible physical stuff:  rules for fasting, lifting, walking, working,  what you can and can’t do on the Sabbath.

Trouble is:   this made the Sabbath a day of rules and regulations rather than a day of rest. So people were not getting a break. They had 6 days of hard work then a strict day called “Sabbath” which was not an easy Lazy Boy Chair day - or a day to take the kids to the park or the Lake or to go hill climbing or get something sweet to eat.

In today’s gospel Jesus counters with a story about David. Maybe invoking him, the Pharisees would see a hero who didn’t have a picky, picky, brain. David and his men were starving. They entered the house of God and grabbed the bread offerings which only the priests could eat.  Hey if a hero like David could do that, what’s so bad about taking a grape off a vine or some grain off a grain stalk?

CONCLUSION

Being the world’s or the neighborhood  police - being the family spy looking for people who are breaking all the rules, takes energy - and can be draining - and we might forget we get to pick what we’re looking at - and sometimes what we’re inwardly complaining about - or enjoying or praising.

Uh oh! Better end this homily now.  Picky, picky people - when it comes to preaching - can be picky about length of time of preachers pontificating from the pulpit.

September 7, 2019

HOW  DOES  IT  FEEL?

Touching a cold front door knob - in early January ….

Being handed a college degree in May ….

Putting my hand on my grandma’s shoulder ….

Holding the roller coaster bar ….

Rye bread toast Saturday morning  breakfast….

Touching her hand and rosary in the casket ….

Being handed the Bread of life ….

Catching a foul ball at a Major League game ….

A slice of really red cold  watermelon - Fourth of July ….

Signing the divorce papers after a long wrong marriage ….

Waving back as the boat leaves the pier ….

Putting a caught garter from a wedding on my car mirror ….

Putting my first kid's baby shoes on my car mirror ….

Computer typing this list ….

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

September  7, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“A gossip is one who talks to you about others; a bore is one who talks to you about himself; and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to you about yourself.”  

Lisa Kirk, 

New York Journal American, 

March 9, 1954

SEPTEMBER  RAIN

The wash of rain - cleaning the dust

off my blue car - clearing the sidewalk -

soaking the grass and the brown fields -

great sound on the porch and the patter

on leaves - seeing the defiance of grey

gravestones - hearing the musical swish -

the back and forth of windshield wipers -

appreciating living in the northeast -

knowing those in the southwest who

once lived in the northeast - miss their

roots and the fall of rain - on so many

a September day till the dislike of cold rain -

but like many things in life, that’s not yet.

  

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019