PRIESTS’ PRAYER

Lord,
we stand so often
at your altar praying
for others:
for the sick and the suffering,
for those about to begin a marriage,
for those about to buried in the grave.

Yet, Lord,
when do we really stop
to pray for each other,
for all our brother priests
all around the world?

So Lord,
in this moment of prayer,
in this moment of quiet peace,
we pray for all your priests:
the young, the old
and all those in between.

We pray for those
who feel the burden
of expectations that are too high
or morale that is too low.
We pray that all priests will be
what our titles call us to be:
preacher, prophet, man of prayer,
bridge, father, a servant
who dares to care.
Amen. Come Lord Jesus!

© Andy Costello,

Reflections, 2008

VOCATION PRAYER

Christ,
carpenter, fisherman, farmer,
carve me, catch me, plant me,
so I can also be:
carpenter, fisherman, planter.
Amen!

© Andy Costello,
Reflections, 2008,

Painting by Rembrandt

(1606-1669)

PRIESTS

Priests: Bringers of the New Bread,
waiters announcing, "This is your table!"

Knowing that water can become wine,
and wine can become blood,
blood poured out in giving one’s life for the sheep.
Tired too many times,
trying to find lost sleep....
Hearing knocking,

reluctantly going down to open up a door
for those asking, seeking,
knocking in their dark night,
wanting bread - wanting money - wanting more.
A sinner eating with sinners.
Priests: Bringers of the full basket of forgiveness.
Washers of other's feet -- often not willing
to allow Jesus to wash our feet.
“If he only knew ....”
Countless hours
sitting in a rectory office trying to listen,
trying to break Emmaus type words,
like bread for those
wanting to walk away from it all.
Aging Fathers wanting Prodigal Sons,

and Older Brothers, to sit together

at the family table and enjoy the banquet of life.

Women coming to the tomb,

expecting emptiness, only to experience

the Morning Risen Christ.
Priests: Warners about the hungry,
about Lazarus at our gate.
Priests: Giving up at times,
wanting to go back to fish for fish -
for something we can really see,
till the Risen Jesus appears
and calls us once again
to feed his sheep, to feed his lambs,
and to answer his question three times,
seventy times seven times, all our lives,
“Do you love me more?”

© Andy Costello,

Reflections, 2008

Picture on top:
Father Alec  Reid
1931-2013
Ordained September 22, 1957
Picture of Father Alec ministering
to a solder shot in the shootings
in Northern Ireland

RETREAT

A
time
to just sit
under the tree of self,
just to have some time
to be quiet by the water,
to think, to reflect, to pray,
to realize I’m sitting upon roots,
to be grateful for all those
who grew me to this moment,
to feel the trunk of one’s life
against one’s back,
to feel the strength of that life,
to see the good times and the bad,
the sickness and the health,
to look up and see one’s branches,
all those people we reached out to in our life,
and then to see all the other trees,
all those other people we moved with
in the wind and in the rain,
in the cold and in the heat of life,
all those in whose shade we sat,
and then to remember with tears of joy and sorrow,
those who have died, fallen like leaves,
but we, knowing with faith,
have risen to new life with Christ,
the resurrection
and the life. Amen.

© Andy Costello,

Reflections, 2008

SITTING ALL ALONE

Dried, dead flowers
on a mahogany end table,
she couldn’t throw them out - yet.
Silent, quiet rugs everywhere,
she, sitting there all alone
in what was once their living room.
She was gazing without really
seeing the gray drizzle outside
on the other side of
their large picture window.
She has been spending
much of her time sitting there
with herself on their couch,
sitting there in their big house,
half empty since he died too soon,
twenty four days ago today,
gray loneliness inside,
along with the shrill scream
she let out that afternoon
as she heard him fall
in their bathroom - a sudden
heart attack - dead before
he hit the floor as she
was sitting there all alone
waiting on their couch,
waiting for his return.

© Andy Costello,

Reflections, 2008

ONE DAY AT A TIME

She, blurting out
unconnected comments
from a brain rearranged
from too much booze,
too many years of sitting
on too many bar stools,
in too many different beds,
laughing, crying,
then too many mornings
not knowing that her face
had become pumpkin skin color,
then,
then, through the amazing grace of God,
lost becoming found,
waking up face down,
waking up with herself –

experiencing her own personal Easter -
the resurrection of a new person,

now trying one day at a time
with coffee and cigarettes,

and a few good friends ,

and not enough AA meetings,
trying to find some furniture,

working better at her old job,
slowly moving into and enjoying

being in her own

getting better mind and skin.

She's doing it, by God. She's doing it.

© Andy Costello,

Reflections, 2008

HOT  AND  COLD  CLING

Sometimes I don’t sort my socks
and the rest of my laundry 
till a few hours after
I take them out of the dryer.
Surprise! The heat is still in them.
Sometimes the cold stays in a pair of gloves
for a long time after I had to find them
in the trunk of my car on a cold morning.
Heat, cold, cling to stone or a pair of pliers.
Does my warmth stay with those I like?
Does my coldness cling to those I avoid –
to those I try to freeze and squeeze out of my life?

© Andy Costello

Reflections, 2008