OUR MOTHER

OF PERPETUAL HELP

Mary, Mother of Perpetual Help,
help me to say, “Be it done to me
according to your word.”

But, Mary, like you,
remind me to first ask questions,
so I can discover and ponder
what God is really asking.

Mary, Mother of Perpetual Help,
help me to notice those in need, so I
can move quickly to visit and help them.

Mother, Mother of Perpetual Help,
help me to see when others have
run out of the wine of life and help them
to do whatever Jesus tells them to do.

Mary, Mother of Perpetual Help,
help me to help others who are
carrying their cross or about to die.

Mary, Mother of Perpetual Help,
help me to be one of those people
who are life’s foundation stones,
holding family and community together.

© Andrew Costello, 2007

SILENCE

Sometimes silence is louder than words.

Sometimes words solve the silence.

Sometimes silence heals the situation.

Sometimes words build the bridge.

Sometimes silence is just what we need.

Sometimes words are the only solution.

Sometimes silence says a thousand words.

Sometimes a thousand words say nothing.

Sometimes silence breaks the tension.

Sometimes a word breaks the silence of a year.

Sometimes silence is too loud.

Sometimes silence is the right move.

Sometimes silence is wrong.

Sometimes silence is simply loneliness.

Sometimes silence makes it worse.

Sometimes silence is passive aggression.

Sometimes words reactivate aggression.

Sometimes silence is the best response.

Sometimes silence is the way to go.

Sometimes silence is lonely.

Sometimes silence is silence.

© Andrew Costello, 2007

AUDIENCE

Everyone needs someone
to tell their story to.
Who is your someone?

© Andrew Costello 2007

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

I wasn’t there, so off the record,
could you tell me what really happened in there ...
why you made the decision you made ...
why you ended up doing what you did?

Isn’t that the question?
Isn't that the most important question?
Isn't that the question we’re all asking
presidents, politicians, local leaders,
popes, bishops, pastors, priests,
leaders, parents, heads of corporations,
and all those other people
who make decisions behind closed doors,
who make decisions that effect our lives,
who make decisions about us without us?


© Andrew Costello, 2007

PEACE BE STILL

(Psalm 130)

It seems like
a long, long time
since I simply
wanted to sit
down quietly
in a comfortable chair,
all alone in Your Presence, Lord.

So here I am,
sitting with You,
like a child resting
in her mother’s body,
or like an old man
relaxed in his favorite
stuffed chair.

Right now
all is going smoothly
in my life, O Lord.
I can hear Your whispers,
Your sounds of Peace
surrounding me.
The sky is clear.
The roads are empty.
The wind is still.
The dogs are asleep.
The phone is quiet.

And my heart is joyful,
knowing You are always
sitting with me,
knowing you never sleep.

©Andrew Costello, Prayers 

In The Night, page 62, 2008

GOD BELOW THE ROOTS

God,
below the roots,
below everything, below everyone,
always pushing life up from below,
from within,
up out of the soil,
up out of the soul,
everywhere and always,
life,
always springing people
into new life, new beginnings, new growth,
roots, tree, branches,
reaching out for the stars,
reaching beyond its possibilities,
new leaves, new life,
God always new,
yet always old.
God, never let me forgot
I’m rooted in you.

© Andrew Costello, 

Prayers In The Night,

 Prayer,

 page 30, 2008

QUIET

Some people talk too much.

Some people don’t talk enough.

Some people don’t know how to speak up.

Some people don’t know how to shut up.

Some people don’t know how to be still.

Some people don’t listen.

Some people talk so they don’t have to listen.

Some people don’t talk – but they don’t listen. They are talking to themselves about what they did yesterday or what they are going to do tomorrow.

Become still!


Breathe!

Be! Just be! Just be there!

Relax! Most times you don’t have to say anything.

Andre Kostelanetz, the great conductor of New York Philharmonic fame, once said, “One of the greatest sounds of them all – and to me it is sound – is utter, complete silence.”

Our Masses need more stillness – more silence.

Way back in 1955, Romano Guardini in his book, Meditations Before Mass, stressed the need for “stillness …. attentiveness …. composure …. tranquility ….”

Do I know how to quiet down and become still?

We need to come to Mass to collect our scattered and shattered selves. This is what “recollection” means.

Coughing and other noise in church must have bothered Guardini, because he writes:

“What does stillness really imply? It implies above all that speech end and silence prevail, that no other sounds – of movements, of turning pages, of coughing and throat-clearing – be audible. There is no need to exaggerate. Men live, and living things move; a forced outward conformity is no better than restlessness. Nevertheless, stillness is still, and it comes only if seriously desired. If we value it, it brings us joy; if not, discomfort. People are often heard to say: ‘But I can’t help coughing’ or ‘I can’t kneel quietly’; yet once stirred by a concert or lecture they forget all about coughing and fidgeting. That stillness proper to the most beautiful things in existence dominates, a quiet area of attentiveness in which the beautiful and truly important reign.”

Worship takes place not only in great cathedrals and churches, but also in one’s “inner room.”

Romano Guardini continues a few pages later, “This requires the spaciousness, freedom, and pure receptiveness of that inner ‘clean-swept room’ which silence alone can create. The constant talker knows no such room within himself; hence he cannot know truth.”

Teachers of prayer and meditation like to start off by telling folks, “Breathe! Catch your breath. Calm down. Feel your body in the seat you’re sitting in. Make yourself comfortable. Become centered.”

Often there is too much inner noise and clutter and shuffling around and coughing in our soul.

Often there is too much outer noise, too much business, and at times too many “out-loud” prayers being said before, during and after Mass.

Some people love to say the Rosary out loud before or after Mass. Some folks love quiet before and after Mass.

We need to become still.

As Psalm 46:10 is often translated, “Be still and know that I am God.”

Many liturgies have too much “business” going on.

Sometimes I wish Jesus would come to the temple, throw out the money changers and say, “This is my Father’s house. Why are you making it a den of thieves?”

V.V. Rozanov, wrote, “All religions will pass, but this will remain: simply sitting in a chair and looking in the distance.”

Shelley Winters, the actress, once said, “Every now and then, when you’re on stage, you hear the best sound a player can hear. It’s a sound you can’t get in movies or television. It is the sound of a wonderful deep silence that means you’ve hit them where they live.”

© Andrew Costello, 

The Book To Leave In 

The Bathroom When Your Kids 

Don't Go To Church, 2008, Chapter 19