Saturday, February 8, 2020



UNDERSTANDING

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 4th Saturday  in  Ordinary Time is, “Understanding.”

It’s the obvious theme to think about and to pray for – as it appears in the story about Solomon in today’s first reading.

Understanding ….

THE STORY

Solomon, the young son of David, goes to a place called Gibeon – a high place – and high places were where people liked to climb to – in order to get closer to God.

On an altar there Solomon offered a thousand  burnt  offerings.

A question: who lugged all those offerings and the wood for the fires – up that mountain?

A question for you:  have you ever climbed a mountain and felt the presence of God in a high place?

Colorado?  New Hampshire? The Alps? Top of the Empire State Building? The World Trade Center towers – before they fell?

If you’ve done that – and a high place triggered some awe filled moments - you had a glimpse of  what the author of the first reading is triggering.

After all that smoke and offerings,  God appears to Solomon in a dream and says, “Whatever you want, you got it.”

Solomon realizing he’s young and inexperienced – and he’s now in charge of the kingdom – he  asks God for the gift of understanding.

Great story – about what a leader needs  - it’s understanding.

NEXT QUESTION

What’s your take on what understanding is?

It’s different than knowledge – like 2 plus 2 is four. That’s knowledge.   Like water is made  up of H2O.  That’s information.  Understanding is not information. How to be a good leader? There are formulas and recommendations and anecdotes, but it’s still has a lot of the subjective in it.

So, a person can have the gift of understanding – and have a 4th grade education or a person with a PH. D. from Cornell can be as dumb as cardboard.

People sometimes ask me to recommend a priest or a therapist and I say - ask around. I also found out what people really want when it comes to getting a car fixed – a good mechanic – but when it comes to relationship and family and marriage stuff, whom to talk to: people want a person who listens and hopefully  understands a bit of what to say and suggest.

HIGH SCHOOL  RETREATS

I’ve been at a lot of high school retreats and part of that is small group work and it’s always nice to hear a kid say, “My dad. He understands.”  “My mom. She understands.”  “My Spanish teacher. What a gift. She has two teenage daughters and she understands kids.”

HOW TO BECOME AN UNDERSTANDING PERSON?

Listen. Cry. Wear their  moccasins. Give others your  time.  Understanding people say,  “Let me think about this.”  They say,  “I’m not too sure about this, so I’d recommend you talk to Gloria who is a great counselor.”

MAGAZINE ARTICLE

To me, I should end this homily right here, but I just happened to pick up a copy of Commonweal two days ago: the May 3, 2019 issue.

If I haven’t read an issue of a magazine, the year and the date doesn’t make any difference. I picked up this issue because it had listed on the cover  an article “On Raymond Carver” – and I liked his short stories.

Anyway, after reading about Raymond Carver, I spotted an interview with Carolyn Forche about her and about her Memoir – and I love memoirs. It  described her experience living in Central America.  Surprise she experiences understanding.

She’s asked by the interviewer: “How did  your experience in El  Salvador affect your personal faith or your spirituality?”

Carolyn Forche answers: “You know, that’s a really interesting                        question because I went to Catholic school for twelve years as a child and I was taught by Dominicans, and after my formal schooling in a Catholic school ended, I went out into a secular university and out into life, and it was during the time of the Vietnam War and the civil-rights movement.  I drifted away from practicing Catholicism.  It wasn’t that I was no longer spiritual, but I didn’t practice Catholicism and  had that sort of questioning attitude that all high-school students develop.  And then I find myself in El Salvador and suddenly there’s the popular church, and people having Masses on boulders in the middle of the countryside, and I’m meeting these wonderful priests who are deeply committed to the poor and the wonderful nuns also deeply committed to the poor, and I’m introduced to the principles of the theology of liberation.

“And then there is of course Msgr. Romero at the heart of everything.  He is the one voice in  the country that has any institutional power that is speaking back to this barbarity and this butchery.  And you know, despite what it eventually might cost him, he was brave.  They were all brave, these nuns and priests.  I saw faith practiced in a living way.  In a way that  I think Christ would have approved of. I had never been in a community like that.  I had never met Catholics like that. And I’m not saying that the whole church was that way because of course there was still the old, established, hierarchical, conservative church in El Salvador, but the vibrancy of the popular church was not to be denied.

[Now here comes the paragraph that has the word understanding in it. It also has a sentence and an image that are great.]

“So, I tiptoed back into Catholicism through this.  I said, ‘I’ not a good Catholic,’ and Msgr. Romero gave me Communion anyway.  Nobody cared if I wasn’t a good Catholic.  Nobody asked me when the last time I went to confession was, because I’d have to be truthful; it had been years.  I found  myself surrounded by these wonderful souls who had all accepted the preferential option for the poor, which is of course the understanding that if you are going to put yourself at the service of the poor, you must also accept their fate.  You have to be fully with them, including in their manner of death.

CONCLUSION

A bit long – but I hope that triggers some thoughts about understanding.

Christopher Fry in his story The Boy With a Cart, 1925, wrote,

Between
Our birth and death we may touch understanding
As a moth brushes a window with its wing.

May you have touched understanding people and an understanding God – and you are an understanding person.

February 8,  2020


SMILE


She accidentally overheard
someone say, “She never smiles.”

She looked around. She was the
only one they could have meant.

She heard another say, “You’re right.
I’ve never seen her smile…. Never.”

She locked the bathroom door – and
looked in the mirror at her face.

She began to practice, practice, practice
smiles till her face almost hurt, hurt, hurt.

Then one day she overheard someone say,
“She’s got a great smile – doesn’t she?”

Looking in a mirror she said to her smile,
“Hey, they are talking about you. Yes you.”

Then another said, “I wonder whom she
got that smile from, her mom or her dad?”

Once more she looked in the bathroom mirror,
winked and said, “I got it from you, baby.”


© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020











February 8, 2020

Thought  for  Today

“If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”

Shirley Chisholm

Friday, February 7, 2020

February 7, 2020



CANONIZATION

In the early church – the local and
regional communities  - were small
enough for canonization the old fashioned
way: proclamation by the people.  “Oh
he’s a saint!”  “She’s a real  saint!”  “She
did so much for so many people. Neat!”

Surprise! That way is still around and it’s
so much cheaper and so much easier.
So,  keep a picture of your grandmother or
the nun who ran the playground in grade
school and keep a picture of her on your
bureau top and light a candle before her.


©  Andy Costello, Reflections 2020


February 7, 2020



Thought for Today

“Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.”

Coretta Scott King

Thursday, February 6, 2020

February 6, 2020



TWO  BY  TWO


INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 4th Thursday in Ordinary Time is, “Two  By  Two.”

I take that theme from the opening sentence in today’s gospel, where Mark has Jesus summoning the twelve and then began to send them out two by two …. [Cf.  Mark 6: 7—13.]

Looking at our lives as religious, was it your experience that trips with one other guy were much better than trips alone?

That’s the simple thought of this short homily – if it’s even a homily.  It’s more a few observations about going it with others being better than going it alone.

MY EXPERIENCE

Looking at my life I did a lot of driving alone – but I don’t remember those trips compared to great conversations I’ve had with one other guy.

I worked for 8 ½ years on the road preaching with a guy named Tom Barrett. We mainly preached in  small towns in the mid-west – working out of Lima, Ohio. We preached parish missions and it was much better with another guy.  We could compare notes – get the other guys take on pastors – and talk about the parish mission we just gave on the way home.

One February we did a parish mission in Paulding, Ohio, population around 3,500  people and we went in separate cars. It was a snowy Saturday afternoon. It was less than an hour away from Lima.  Tom didn’t arrive for the Saturday night Mass – getting hit by an 18-wheeler milk tanker on the way there – ending up almost dying. He was in a coma for 3 weeks – and in the hospital in Fort Wayne, Indiana for 75 days.

It showed me loud and clear that I didn’t want to be what we call a Lone Ranger.

I was novice Master for 9 years  - serving 9 different classes. The first year I did it, we had 22 novices and 2 novice masters. It was out in Oconomowoc,  Wisconsin. It made life much easier working with another guy. Then we got a new provincial –who  ended that bringing me back east.  He had a complaint about our St. Louis Province for pulling out of our major seminary.  

Some of you might be as old as I am – 80 – so maybe you had some crazy religious life stuff in your formation experiences. Being in charge, I  avoided the crazy stuff  we had before the Second Vatican Council.  If a guy’s parent got sick or what have you, guys couldn’t go home.  I had the chance to change all that, so I pushed a guy who was going home to see a sick parent, to take another guy with him if he was driving.

I have found car conversations a significant part of my life. How about you?

Last year in May and June when I was recovering from triple heart bypass, I was in a place like this. Many evenings after supper I would take my walker down to see my classmate Tony who doesn’t have much more time  to live. He has cancer in his throat. Looking back now, I’m realizing it was a blessing connecting with Tony on.  We had a chance to ask each other, “How was it?” as in, “How was your life?”

Tom the guy I worked for 8 ½ years in Lima, Ohio giving parish missions is also there – cancer as well. I’d see him one to one in the afternoons – but
Not enough.

CONCLUSION

My major learning – God said it first – it’s not good to go it alone.  Go two by two.


February 6, 2020




DISTANCE

Be careful of those cellphones and skype –
because they might not give us enough
distance from each other from time to time.

And how else will we get to know
each other - if we don’t have enough
time away from each other?  Got that?

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020