November 22, 2019

Thought for today: 

“Music  is  what  feelings sound like.”   

Feast of St. Cecilia

GOING TO  MASS - BUT

I dropped into church just for Mass -

not to sing, not to hear a sermon - but

actually to hide myself in God or quiet -

just to be for 45 minutes or so, but the

priest, the music, the sermon, got in

my face, into my mind, into my being -

and I couldn’t hide behind the back pole

in the Church - as I planned. God was

there, Oh no! God was everywhere in

that moment. Oh no! Oh yes, I AM.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019
Happy to note, this is the 7000
piece on this blog - that I
started with the help of
Norm Constantine back
on June 17, 2007.

November 21, 2019

UNSPOKEN  QUESTIONS

Oh, I know, you’re sitting there with

unspoken, unasked questions - and

quess what? You have questions

you don’t even know you have.

I’m seeing question marks on your

face. I’m hearing questions in your

voice.  You have, “What ifs?” But,

better, if you can quiet down your

inner anger and persistent scream,

then the questions you should be

asking and eventually answering

might be surfaced and then surprise!

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

November 21, 2019 - 

Thought for today: 

“An idealist is one who in noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make a better soup.”  

H.L. Mencken, page 149 

in Points to Ponder, Reader’s 

Digest, March 1990

PRESENT:

JUST SHOW UP!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Present: Just Show Up!”

Today is the Feast of Presentation of Mary in the Temple.

This feast shows up every year on November 21^st - unless it’s a Sunday.

I was wondering last night - when I read up about this feast - what it entails - I was wondering what preachers will do with it today around the world.

My first reaction - to be honest  - was, “I wish one of these other guys here had this mass.”

I imagine a lot of preachers will stick with the other readings - the ones for the 33 Thursday in Ordinary time - but those readings are not too grabby either.

In the readings I choose - those for today's feast - here's Mary in the first reading from Zechariah 2: 14-17  - coming to dwell among us - and Mary has been present to the Church from the beginning. And here's Mary in the gospel - Matthew 12: 46-50 - standing at the edge of a crowd of people trying to access the presence of Jesus.

IN THE LITERATURE

I noticed in the literature about the feast it has a really mixed history - mainly after the year 1000. Some popes pushed it - some popes dropped it.

When the legend - when the apocraphal  literature - says it’s the story of Mary being dropped off in the temple when she is 3 years old - and she is kept there till she is 12 - I found myself saying, “Wait a minute.”

Some of us as seminarians to the priesthood are kidded about going to the seminary when we were 13 year old  high school freshmen, here the story is when Mary was 3.

Check it out. Type into the Google search box: “Presentation of Mary” and go from there. Give it your own thinking - your own Googling.   I heard people telling people in these impeachment hearings, “to Google it” - great word, great verb..

I would suggest to myself to be sensitive - because there are congregation of nuns with the Presentation of Mary in the Temple in their name.  There are also parishes and churches with The Presentation of Mary in the temple in their title.

SO FOR A SERMON  WHERE I WOULD GO?  BEING PRESENT!

Once more, the title of my homily is: “Present: Just Show Up!”

I had Father Denis Sweeney - as my pastor and rector 2 times - in Lima Ohio and St. Mary’s Annapolis. One of his messages was: just show up.

I had heard the same message from Father Joe McManus - a former rector here at San Alfonso.

Just show up. Just be present.

So we visit the sick. So we show up at the funeral if possible. So we go to the party.

So parents and grandparents are there for the Spelling Bee or the dance recital, the play or the soccer game - of their kids and grandkids.

So we go to the wake and we don’t have to say anything.

Sometimes just presence is just enough.

CONCLUSION

I think a great morning prayer is simply the word we say at many a meeting - the word we said in classrooms as kids: “Present!”

Then we say to God, “Okay God, help me to fill in the blank with my best today?”

November 20, 2019

WINTER’S  COMING

The sound of shovel scrape

on the hard cold sidewalk ….

Finding both your gloves

in your jacket pocket ….

Snowflakes falling around 9 PM -

looking up into a street light….

The squeak and scrabble of

tires parking on a snowy street ….

Getting inside - hot chocolate -

warming up - butt against the radiator ….

Then - when winter is too much -

planning on a week in the Islands ….

  

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

November 20, 2019 - 

Thought for today: 

“I don’t much like the notion of passages, of predictable cycles in adult life.  I doubt that there’s anything predictable at all about the stages of life.  I know too  many people, now in their seventies, who haven’t changed since they were 12 years old, and others who change every two years in quite fundamental ways.  So many things come about through accident, chance or outright mistakes.  At least, that’s certainly been true for me.”  

Lewis Thomas, in a column 

called, "Turning Points” 

in Quest / 80, May 1980, 

Volume. 4. Number 4. 3