NEW YEAR’S PRAYER

Lord, it’s
a new year,
a new start.
Give us the power,
give us the energy,
give us the desire
to be more holy,
to be more creative,
to be more focused this new year.
Give us insights
to come up with
balanced programs and projects,
to make good resolutions and
to have the resolve
to finish what we have started.
Yet, help us to be more aware of people
than paper,
to be more personal
than professional,
to be more prayerful
than just saying prayers,
knowing that you are with us all days,
even to the end of the year,
even to the end of the world. Amen.

© Andrew Costello
Markings

A PRAYER FOR JANUARY:
THE CHRISTIAN CALLING

To see the real light
which gives light to everyone,
to accept Jesus,
to be reborn as a child of God,
to believe in the Lord’s name,
to follow Jesus,
to escape into the desert
in order to overcome the temptations of life,
to give up all so as to fit through the eye of the needle
and enter the kingdom,
to walk the narrow way,
to stop to help the injured along the way,
to visit the sick and those in prison,
to feed the hungry and clothe the naked,
to become yeast, salt and light,
to be a mustard seed,
to be healed and stand up straight,
to stop throwing stones, to turn the other cheek,
to go the extra mile, to love my enemies,
to do good without expecting any return,
to produce good fruit,
to read the signs of the times and move on,
to be transfigured on mountains,
to go to Jerusalem,
to enter one’s inner temple and clean it out,
to become a house of prayer,
to enter one’s upper room,
to eat the new bread and drink the new wine,
to accept the covenant of love,
to go to the garden of agony,
to pray while friends sleep,
to be betrayed, denied, cursed at,
to be forced to carry a cross,
to suffer and to die,
to rise beyond the status quo.
Isn’t that the true Christian calling?

© Andy Costello

Markings

HAPPY NEW YEAR
FACE TO FACE

INTRODUCTION

Today’s first reading triggers the memory of one of the most ancient and most popular games of all cultures. It’s the game that parents and grandparents play with children called, “Peekaboo!” And if the kid is very small we say, “Peekaboo! I love you.”

Little children long to see the face of their mother and their father. “Peekaboo! I love you.”

In the movie, “The Godfather”, we even see Don Corleone, Marlo Brando, as a grandfather, kidding and playing this came of “Peekaboo” in the backyard with his grandson.

When we were children we climbed up on our father’s lap to pull away his strong fingers to see his face.

We long to see the face of our father.

And when we did wrong, didn’t we hide our face in shame? But didn’t we also have at the same time, a deep longing that our father would come into our darkness and that we would see his shining face? Didn’t we long for his smile, so that we would know that he had come to “forgive us our trespasses?”

HOMILETIC REFLECTIONS

In today’s first reading, then, we have these basic human feelings in an ancient and famous blessing called, “The Aaronite or Priestly Blessing.”

“May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord let his face shine on you
and be gracious to you.
May the Lord uncover his face to you
and bring you peace.”

This special blessing goes way back into Old Testament history. In fact, for example, in August of 1979 an amulet or charm was found in an archeological dig in Jerusalem’s old city with the blessing on it. However, it took years for anyone to figure it out.

Judith Hadley, a graduate student in archeology from Toledo, Ohio, spotted the amulet and said it looked like a cigarette butt. It was a tiny roll of silver from around 2,600 years ago. The leader of the dig, a Gabriel Barkay of Tel Aviv University, recognized it as an amulet that someone would have worn with a string through it.

For two and a half years the amulet was studied and worked on carefully. Gabriel Barkay knew there must be writing on it. Finally, after figuring out how to unroll the silver without destroying it, writing was discovered. With the help of a microscope, a researcher saw the name Yahweh two times. However, it wasn’t till 1986, when the Israel Museum was putting together an exhibit of the treasures from the dig where the amulet was found, that the name Yahweh was seen for the third time. It was the clue that solved the mystery: the amulet contained the Priestly or Aaronite Blessing.

So just as people today wear charms or amulets around their necks with special words on them, what more beautiful words than the Priestly or Aaronite blessing.

The blessing is simple and basic. It asks that essential needs be taken care of:

• that God keep protective watch over us,

• that God be gracious to us,

• that God not hide his face from us,

• that God bring us his peace—Shalom.

What more could we want?

This blessing became so special that laws (rules and regulations), were made, so that it could be given only by the priests: the Sons of Aaron.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

As we begin a New Year, as we wish blessings on each other, as we pray for peace for ourselves, our family and our world, perhaps we can look at this Aaronite or Priestly Blessing for the secret or the answer on just how to have peace and a Happy New Year.

The key hope and blessing is that we see the face of God. When that happens, then we will have peace. The key then is living in a face to face relationship with God. Transparency. Honesty. Openness. These are the virtues needed for a happy life.

All of us can relate to that. Once more we can go back to the childhood game of longing to see the face of our mother and our father. When they were out of sight, we often cried. We thought they were hiding from us. We thought we did something wrong. But when we saw their smile, then we knew all was right. Peace was being loved. Peace was being held. Peace was being reflected in the center of our parent’s eyes. “Peekaboo! I love you!”

But we don’t have to go back to our childhood only. We know as adults that when we are at odds with God or our family or our neighbor, we hide our faces from each other. We can’t look each other in the eye. We wear masks. Didn’t St. Paul say all that: that we sin in the dark, behind closed doors, our of sight, in secret?

Isn’t that the message behind the eye of God on the dollar bill? God sees all. Put the dollar back. It’s not yours. Don’t steal. And if you do steal, you’ll discover, even if you are never caught, that you stole some peace and happiness from yourself. Is unhappiness worth a dollar? A hundred dollars? Does it have a price?

But happiness isn’t a relationship with God where we think he is always watching us. That would be a relationship built on fear and not on trust and love. To have a Happy New Year and to have the blessing of peace, we need to have a positive relationship with a loving God.

And to start this kind of a relationship, God usually makes the first move. When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, what did they do? They hid in shame. They could not face God. Yet, God did not give up and hide his face from them. He went searching for them in the Garden. And when He found them he talked to them face to face.

And isn’t that also the message of Christmas which we just celebrated? That God once more came into the Garden of the world to look at us face to face. Jesus is the face of God shining on us. The word became flesh, became an infant, looking out at us and our world. When we look at the Christmas crib, what do we see? What does the Christmas story say to us?

Did Mary play, “Peekaboo! I love you,” with Jesus?

Obviously, we don’t know the answer to that one. But why not? And why not imagine seeing the faces of Mary and Joseph and the shepherds in today’s Gospel looking at the face of Jesus? Painters through the centuries have imagined the scene. Luke is telling us that the shepherds represent us, that we should long to see the face of Jesus.

And Luke is also telling us to be like Mary: to treasure and ponder all these things in our heart. Isn’t that treasuring and pondering the beginning of a deep prayer life with God that will bring happiness and peace to our heart this New Year and every year of our life?

And isn’t that what Paul is calling us to in today’s second reading? “God sent his Son, born of a woman,” so that we can have a relationships with him that is face to face—intimate. We can have a relationship with God that is as close as a child climbing up on his lap and looking him face to face, eye to eye. We can have a relationship with God that is as intimate and face to face as is his relationship with Mary.

Commenting on today’s second reading from Galatians, John Bligh, S.J., the British scripture scholar, reflects on St. Paul, that “it can hardly have escaped his notice that the `woman’ whom he mentions was taken into an astonishing intimacy with God. When she cried `Abba, Father’, she was addressing the Father of her own Son. To this day, it is impossible to contemplate the relationship of Mary the Mother of Jesus to God the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ without wonder and amazement.”

The secret of a Happy New Year then is t have a face to face relationship with God. How? The answer is found in today’s Gospel: to be like Mary, to be like Joseph, to be like the shepherds, to approach Jesus and look into his face.

But it must be stated that Jesus is no longer a baby. Today, this New Year, approach Jesus adult to adult, face to face. Let his face shine on you. Let him be gracious to you. Isn’t that what Jesus was about? He is the Aaronite or the Priestly Blessing in the flesh. He is the face of God walking around blessing people. He walked around looking into people’s faces. Most turned away and walked the other way. The gospels, Sunday after Sunday, however, tell us story after story about people whom Jesus met face to face: Nicodemus, the Woman at the Well, the Rich Young Man, Zaccheus, and hundreds more. But to as many who received him, he gave them power to become the children of God. Like a little kid, climbing up on his father’s lap, Jesus went up to people and pried their hands away from their faces and looked into their eyes, with the eyes of love.

The Lord’s face shone on them. He was gracious to them. He gave them the possibility of peace. And whenever he looked into someone’s eyes and saw death, he cried out, “Lazarus, come forth!” He, the Lord of the Resurrection, wanted to see life in people, not death. He wanted to see light, not darkness,. He wanted to be gracious, not grouchy or greedy. He wanted to see peace, not unrest. He wanted to see love, not hate.

It might sound corny, but doesn’t Jesus say to us, “Peekaboo! I love you.” Isn’t that what he calls his followers to have: a love that breaks down walls and allows people to live face to face with God and each other in love? Isn’t that what will put peace into our hearts and our faces? Isn’t that what will bring all of us to a Happy New Year?

MORE THAN 15 MINUTES

INTRODUCTION

In 1968, there appeared in an exhibition catalogue in Stockholm, Sweden, an interesting statement by Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987), the famous painter: “In the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.”

Today, as we begin 2009, it still hasn't happened. Most of us haven't been given our chance to be famous for 15 minutes or even for 15 seconds. In the meanwhile Andy Warhol's statement is what has become famous and for more than 15 minutes. We often hear it quoted in magazine articles, sermons and in jokes. And people quote it in several versions, “In the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.” “Everybody is entitled to be famous for fifteen minutes.” “Your fifteen minutes of fame are up.”

With almost 7 billion people on the planet, to be famous for 15 minutes is still quite a feat. Most of us will never make the evening news or the front page of the daily paper. Most of us will have our name in the paper only once or twice in our lifetime: when we get married and when we die. And in both those cases somebody in the family had to pay for it.

Andy Warhol, in his sort of autobiography, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A To B & Back Again), gives us some interesting glimpses on what it's like to be famous. He writes that he lived next to a Gristedes grocery store in New York City for twelve years. “Every day I would go in and drift around the aisles, picking up what I wanted - that's a ritual I really enjoy. For twelve years I did this just about every day. Then one afternoon the New York Post ran a color picture of Monique Van Vooren and Rudolf Nureyev and me on the front page, and when I went into the store all the stock boys started yelling `Here he is!' and `I told you it was him!' I didn't want to go back there ever again. Then after my picture was in Time, I couldn't take my dog to the park for a week because people were pointing at me.”

People point at famous people. People try to grab famous people. People ask famous people to sign autographs while they are eating in restaurants. Still people want to be famous. Warhol also wrote in his autobiography? “But being famous isn't all that important. If I weren't famous, I wouldn't have been shot for being Andy Warhol. Maybe I would have been shot for being in the Army.”

HOMILETIC REFLECTIONS

Today's readings help us prepare for the new year. They won't make us famous, but they will help us feel famous in the eyes of God and hopefully with each other. They will challenge us to see each person in our life as a blessing - as a new gift of God each time we meet them. Today's readings are a call to see why Christ was born, what Christ was all about. Each new baby, each person on the planet, has a right to be seen with the status of a child of God, as a person whom God the Father loves. Like Mary we are called to ponder, to treasure, and to reflect on all these words and turn them over in our heart.

As the Aaronite blessing, which we find in today's first reading, puts it,
“May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May his face shine upon you,
and be gracious to you.
May he look upon you with kindness.”

This famous Aaronite blessing is a blessing that every person has a right to each day of their life - not just for 15 minutes - but for every minute of their life. When God sees us, when God sees our face, whether we're in a grocery store, whether we're walking the dog in a park, whether we're in church, or wherever we are, when God sees our face, God's face shines in return. We are famous in God's eyes. Is this just poetry or rhetoric or do we believe this? Do we really believe that God knows us, cares about us, and personally loves us face to face?

It seems that some people have never received nor felt that blessing. It seems that some people have never heard that message. Parents, family, teachers, priests, religious, doctors, friends, somehow didn't get that message across to them. They didn't get that blessing passed down to them on a feeling level. Somehow, some people feel that they are not worthy. Somehow, some people feel that they might as well not have been born for all the notice or recognition or blessings they have received in their life. They certainly don't feel famous. They probably don't feel infamous. They just feel like they are nothing: unnoticed and unblessed and unwanted.

Yet that blessing still remains. The Lord told Moses, “Speak to Aaron and his children and tell them this is how you are to bless one another:
“May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May his face shine upon you,
and be gracious to you.
May he look upon you with kindness
and give you his peace.”

Today's second reading tells us that “God sent forth his Son born of a woman ... to tell us that we have status.” We have status: we are the children of God. “God has sent forth into our hearts the spirit of his Son which cries out `Abba!' (`Father').” We are no longer slaves but children of God. And this fact makes us heirs. We have an inheritance. Our name is in the will of God. This is God's design. This is God's plan. How's that for being famous - for being famous for more than 15 minutes? We are part of God's design for all eternity! We are rich! We are heirs. We are in the inheritance. We are in the will. What more could we want?

In today's gospel, Mary and Joseph begin to experience fame - what it means to have a famous child. When they saw the shepherd's astonishment and adoration, they had a glimpse of their future. It was to be different. It was to eventually lead Mary to experience many swords of sorrow. It was to lead her to Calvary, but also to Resurrection and into the beyond.
Luke tells us that Mary treasured and reflected on all these things in her heart. Shepherds and then kings, later on the blind and the lame, the centurion and a woman who suffered from hemorrhages for twelve years, all would reach out to touch Jesus, to receive his blessing, to be healed - to have his face, his kindness and his peace shine upon them.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Today we begin a new year. What are your resolutions? What are your plans, your designs, your will to bring about a Happy New Year for all the people in your life?

This year, a great New Year's Resolution would be: to treat each person in your life as famous - to give every person status and recognition. Is there any person in your life, in your house, in your place of work, that you ignore? Is there any person that you tend to rarely notice? Is there any person who feels out of place, a nobody because of you?

Paul told us in today's second reading that Christ came to give proof that all persons have status. Nobody is a nobody. We are all God's children.

Now all this might sound good on paper. All this might sound good when we hear it spoken out in church. But what really is good, what really feels good, is when we are treated that way by others. “Go thou and do likewise.” What people really need is to feel connected with each other - that we are all part of the same family - that God is our `Abba', our `Father'.

However, it seems that before people can experience the reality that God is our `Abba', our `Father', we must first experience that we are all brothers and sisters to each other as well. We are all the Children of God. The same spirit of Jesus within each of us that can cry out `Abba', `Father' is also the spirit of Jesus within each of us that can cry out, “Brother!” “Sister!”. You are my brother! You are my sister. This is the will of God. “Who is my mother? Who is my brother. Who is my sister? It is the person who does the will of my Father.” (Cf. Mark 3:31 - 35.)

So if we want to have a Happy New Year, we ought to be like Mary: ponder these words. We ought to treasure these words and turn them over and over again in our heart.

The words: `Abba' `Father’, Brother', `Sister', “heirs” with one another, “heirs” with Christ, “status”. Realizing all this, we will feel famous - not just for 15 minutes - but for all our life. Realizing all this, we will treat each other as famous - not just for 15 minutes - but for all of our life. Doing all this will bring about a Happy New Year!

WHAT’S ON YOUR PLATE

Regrets and resentments,
like salt and pepper,
sit there on life’s table.
But don’t forget what’s on the plates:
the meat and potatoes,
as well as the wine, the bread,
the dessert of life.
Make sure you see the need
to pick up the sharp knife
of thought – to cut the fat,
to take a fork – to probe a baked potato,
to let the smoke out,
to discover the inside of everything.
Bite into, chew, slowly digest life.
Of course, it takes time
for things to finally make sense –
what to do, what to chew,
and oh yeah, what to sneak back
onto the corner of your plate. Life
has gristle. Then hide it with a napkin.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2008

GLUE

Clean silver clamps
held the wood together
while the glue was doing
whatever glue does.
Don’t we all wish
we knew words
that could glue back
together a relationship
we split with wrong words?
And if words are the glue,
what are the clean silver clamps?

Now that’s the question?

Now what’s the answer?

I guess we need to sit down
at a wooden table
with each other,
to talk to each other,
to go searching for the glue
inside the cabinets
inside us with the hope
of finding answers
to our questions –
and please God, we won’t
break each other again.

© Andy Costello, Poems, 2008

RED BERRIES

Clusters of tiny red berries,
ripe, ready for birds
who decide to stay
for the winter …. Red berries
quite visible against
still green leaves
or white bright snow.
Friends? Not too many.
No flocks, no clusters,
just the ones who
stay quite visible,
quite close,
quite delicious,
like red berries,
especially appreciated
when others have gone south –
or disappear when winter is here.

© Andy Costello, Poems, 2008