JUST  ONE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 31 Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “Just One.”

We know what that means.  Someone has a box of chocolates. They open up the box and show us a neat collection of  delicious looking babies. They offer us some candy, but they say, “Just one.”

POINTING TO TODAY’S READINGS

I’ve been preaching and/or looking at these readings for some fifty years now - and you probably have been doing the same somewhat - depending on your going to daily and Sunday Mass history.

I usually do what all of us preachers do - especially for week-day Masses: read the readings and then pick one - just one - one word, one theme, one, message, one thought or prayer or challenge for the day. Just one!

So the last bunch of years I have found myself looking for just one thing to chew on - when dealing with these scripture readings. I assume Father Gene, Father Denny and Father Jack have been doing something along the same lines, more or less - as their regular method of reading the readings and coming up with a short homily for the day.

I keep in mind two rules - try to say something that is helpful to the listeners as well as to try to be interesting - catchy.

A QUESTION

For today it hit me to ask a question.  The gospel talks about a man inviting  a bunch of people to come to his house for a dinner and basically they all refuse. They have their excuses.

The word “Invitation” hit me.

Thinking about that:   here’s an invitation. If you invited people into your house - and into your stuff and you said, “Okay, you can have one thing from my house. It’s yours. But just one!”

Wouldn’t that be an interesting invitation.  If you have time today, walk through your house.  Look at your stuff.  What would be that one thing people would take?  What would be the one thing you wouldn’t want people to take?  The obvious comment would be: “Well it all depends!”

Just one thing.  What would they take?”

I found that an interesting question - because it interests me - on what I have of value.

I just had to clean out my stuff after 17 years in Annapolis, Maryland. I have a lot of junk and a lot of stuff. I didn’t take it all.

The question got me thinking about what do I have in my room that is of valuable. As I thought about this last night, working on this homily, I realized it’s the same question - in a way - we did on 37 Kairos retreats with our high school kids.  Your house is on fire and other than pets and people, you can only rescue 3 things. What would you carry out of your house?

Every time, I found  that an interesting exercise.

CONCLUSION: SOME HOMILY HOMEWORK

When you get home today, try my invitation. Play my game. Accept my “Just One” exercise.

Walk around your house. Look at what you have. See what you have accumulated. It will tell you what is valuable and what your values are.

Pick out just one - just one - thing that is very valuable - and then spend time meditating and thinking about what that says about you and the person who gave you that gift.

It would make this even more interesting if you told each other your pick.

I have a small head of Christ that is made of red clay from the streets of Lititz,  Pennsylvania. It was made by Richard Fleckenstein.  It’s one of a kind. He is was a potter - and an artist.

I have a green stained glass shamrock from my good friend Jan Giumette. It’s a suncatcher that has fallen from my window a few times  - but it must be the luck of the Italian - because this Irish sign of luck - that I received from an Italian - has not broken - yet.

I have a  Leather Bible - that is my portable cemetery. It’s where I put my significant death cards - like my sister Peggy’s. She was a nun who died this day, Nov. 5^th, 2013 - next to the death card of my aunt, my dad’s sister - also a nun  who died this day Nov. 5, 1966.

I did my homework - and came up with three things I might take.  Now I invite you to do your homework.

What’s in your house: pick just one thing?

November 5, 2019

DRIVING  ME 

Long drives alone,

long drives home,

four, five, six  hours,

sometimes on the road….

It seem to me

to be too much at times

and at other times, a

good time for the soul.

Time to think,

time to listen to the radio,

then to turn it off,

and  finally listen to myself.

“Where am I?”

“Why do I drive

the way I drive?”

The why’s  of me….

A yellow sports car

speeds by me,

only to see her speed by me

once again an hour later.

Why did she stop?

Where did she go?

Who is she? Who are

all these people on the road?

A dark bird picks away

at a splattered badger

dead right there - left lane -

never made the middle of the road.

A white wooden cross

Calvary on a highway ….

Who was that? Were

they going or coming home?

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

November 5, 2019

Thought for today: 

“We carry within us wonders we seek without us.”  

Sir Thomas Browne

November 4th,  2019

DREAMS,  IT  SEEMS

It  seems  some  dreams  are  so real - 

when they are happening - some 

so vivid - so crowded with emotions -

that they wake us up and we got

to get out of bed and get moving

or we sit on the edge of our bed

and say, “What was that all about?”

It seems some dreams - are foggy -

mainly the ones on the edge of

consciousness - like waking from

an afternoon nap and we don’t

know where we are or what time

it is - and we just lay there, and

also say, “What was that all about?”

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

November 4, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“It was a lovely sight, praise on high to God who made heaven and earth, and I fell thinking of all the happy days I had spent in view of those hills and recalled the words of my grandfather: Twenty years a-growing, twenty years in bloom, twenty years  a-stooping and twenty years declining. I looked down over the cliff where a seal was moaning softly.  I wonder, said I to myself, are the same thoughts troubling you?  Maybe you are mourning for your fair child which, the sea swell snatched from you out of your cave, or some such moan.” 

pp 201-202, in 

Twenty Years A-Growing 

by Maurice O’Sullivan

November 3, 2019

AUTUMN AFTERNOON

Sometimes blessed are our trespasses ….

We step off the trail and walk willy-nilly -

I always wanted to use that phrase - we

walk some new - different steps into the

autumn woods - brisk air – enjoying the

sounds at my feet: the snap of small

branches, the shuffle and crunch of

hundreds and hundreds of tan brown

leaves. I spot bald head of a rock. I  stop.

I sit. I hear  the clawing, the scratching of

squirrels’ hands on tree bark. I hear the

chirp of  birds who might have forgotten

to head south for the winter. Are some

birds like me: procrastinators?  I stopped.

Everything stopped. I was in the right place.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

November 3, 2019

Thought for today: 

“Bitter the  tears  that fall but more bitter the tears  that fall not.” 

Old Irish Saying, page 236 

in Twenty Years A-Growing 

by Maurice O’Sullivan