WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “What Are You Looking For?”

I’m sure I preached on this question somewhere along the line because it’s so obvious a life theme, but if I did, I’m not sure just what I said.

It has to be the theme of many songs. I think of Mariah Carey’s song, “Do You Know Where You’re Going To?” with the line, “Do you like the things life is showing you?” and the haunting refrain, “Do you know?” “Do you know?”

How many times have Best Buy sales folks, parents, teachers, guidance counselors and best friends, asked us, “What are you looking for?”

TODAY’S GOSPEL

In today’s gospel Jesus says to these two disciples of John the Baptist, “What are you looking for?”

It’s one of those questions that we’ve heard a thousand times in our life – and if we’re over 65, we’ve said it to ourselves a half dozen times a day – scratching our head, having walked into another room and wondering, “Now what was I looking for?”

“What are you looking for?”

ANSWERS

Our first answers might be:

· Peace in the world.
· That the economy gets better.
· That people out of work would find jobs.
· That the new president and congress and staffs and state and local governments would help turn things around.
· Good Health and Good Health Care for everyone.
· Peace in our families
· Laughter. Joy. Peace. Hope. A good day every day.

Our second answers might become more specific:

· Health and healing for so and so who has cancer.
· An end to drinking and drugs for so and so.
· That a kid’s marriage will turn around – especially because there are kids involved.
· That there be no plane crashes today, but if there are, let them be as lucky as the one the other day in the Hudson River.

Our third answers might be wider or deeper or different, because we might turn to God more or go down deeper into our soul:

· I would want my life to be more pleasing to God.
· I would want my life – what I’m doing each day – my work - my time at home - my outside interests - to make sense to others and be helpful to others.
· I would want to have loved and been loved.
· I want to see my children’s children!
· I would want the world – well at least the places where I’ve been – to be better because I was there. If you cry every Christmas as you watch the black and white movie, “It’s A Wonderful Life” you’re there. You get it.

POEM

I gave two talks to the Anne Arundel County Catholic Catechists yesterday in St. Jane Frances de Chantal Parish in Pasadena and I used a poem by the Sufi poet Hafiz. It’s entitled, "With That Moon Language."

WITH THAT MOON LANGUAGE*

Admit something:

Everyone you see, you say to them, “Love me.”
Of course you do not do this out loud; otherwise someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye that is always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in the world is dying to hear?

He’s saying if we want to be loved, look deep into the full moon in every eye that is saying the same thing. “Love me.”

What are we looking for? To be loved – so love one another. Sounds familiar? Read the gospel of John – especially his account of the last supper. It’s all about love.

What are you looking for?

TODAY’S GOSPEL

When Jesus asks the disciples that question, they answer with another question, “Rabbi – Teacher – where are you staying?”

Jesus says, “Come, and you will see.”

This scene takes place in the first chapter of the Gospel of John.

The Gospel of John has been reworked and reworked in the early Joannine Community – and it has a rich, well developed theology.

I was recently reading my notes from a book on preaching, Imagining a Sermon. It's by Thomas Trogher. He urges the preacher to use imaginative theology. The preacher has to evoke. He writes, “I will not cheat the congregation by handing them a souvenir from my trip on the river when I can take them along on the voyage and let them feel the current and the water for themselves.”

How do you do that? The Gospel of John can do that. It can take you on the journey to meet, feel, taste, experience Jesus.

The Gospel of John wants us to come and see Jesus – come and be with Jesus – come and stay with Jesus – come and experience Jesus.

And if you have the overpowering experience that one of the disciples, Andrew, has, then you will go about bringing others to Jesus – so they too can have the same experience.

This is the year of the Gospel of Mark for Ordinary Time – but I smiled when today’s gospel for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time is from John. This is the year of Paul. The Pope also said it’s the year for us to be thinking about Africa.

So if you want to be contrary, make this the year of John or the Letter to James for you.

When I say the rosary I only say the Joyful Mysteries. One of these years I might find myself moving into other mysteries, but I haven’t found myself so moved yet – and this has been going on for about twenty years now. And surprise – I’ve met people who said, “Thank you for saying that. I thought I was the only one.” One lady told me she makes only one station of the cross – the fourth station. Isn’t religion interesting?

The gospel of John provides many, many great questions. But notice this one in Chapter One: “What are you looking for?”

And notice the question in Chapter Twenty: “Whom are you looking for?”

Or the question in Chapter Twenty One, the Last Chapter of John, "Have you caught anything yet?"

Notice the other line in the last chapter of John’s gospel, “None of the disciples was bold enough to ask, ‘Who are you?’; they knew quite well it was the Lord.”

Then they had a meal and Jesus asked Simon Peter three times, “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” and three times Peter says “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” And three times Jesus says to Peter, “Look after my sheep – feed my sheep.”

CONCLUSIONS

What am I looking for?

Love – and hopefully in all the right places. Isn’t that what Paul is telling the Corinthians in today’s second reading - to realize our bodies are temples that can hold the Holy Spirit – that we are the body of Christ – and life is to give glory to God – not to immorality?

Today’s first reading has a great text from the first book of Samuel. Three times the Lord calls the young man Samuel – and he is too young to get it. He has to sleep some more. The prophet Eli is there to help him process his calling. [Oh would that the Giants won last Sunday and in that story it was Eli who was sleeping and he didn't wake up.] It seems that for most people we spend a good period of our life sleep walking. Maybe today or this year is the day or year to wake up – if we haven’t yet – and we say and pray to the Lord, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

And today’s Gospel challenges us to discover what and who Andrew discovered in the first chapter of John, “We have found the Messiah. It’s Jesus.” Please God we’ll find Jesus, that we’ll realize that he like everyone else has a sign in his eyes that says, “Love me!” and if we haven’t found him yet, we’ll find him now, love him as the one we are looking for in whatever chapter of our lives we are in now. Amen.**

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*I found the poem by Hafiz in Chapter 8 of “Ten Poems to Change Your Life Again and Again”, by Roger Housden. It is translated by Daniel Ladinski. It is worth reading to get a far better explanation of this poem than the quick comments I made.

** And then there is the book, The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, by St. Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorists. He discovered that the meaning of life was to practice loving Jesus Christ. How? By putting into practice all those wonderful descriptions of love that Paul gives in First Corinthians 13:1-13 that so many couples pick for a reading at their wedding. Alphonsus had a great love for Jesus being born for us, giving his life for us, especially in the Eucharist and dying on the cross for us. Alphonsus, like Andrew in today’s Gospel, went around telling everyone, especially the poorest and most abandoned, that they are loved by Jesus. Yes – even the poorest and forgotten have that message in their eyes, “Love me!”

*

THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “The Theory of Relativity.”

You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to understand his, “Theory of Relativity.”

When some of his students at Princeton asked him to explain it, he said something like this, “When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours–that’s relativity.”**

One of my favorite ways of saying the same thing is, “How long a minute takes, depends on which side of the bathroom door you’re on.”

How long a minute takes depends whether you’re the doctor or whether you’re the patient in the waiting room; whether you’re the teacher or whether you’re the student; whether you’re the cab driver or whether you’re the passenger looking at the meter.

How long a sermon takes depends upon who’s preaching – or whether you’re wondering about a football game – or where your car is parked – or you're antsy about a crying baby or what have you – or where you are in your life. It’s all relative. It all depends.

TODAY’S FEAST: THE BAPTISM OF JESUS

Today’s feast is the Baptism of Jesus. Today’s gospel from Mark has this sentence in an English translation from the Greek, “It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John.” [Cf. Mark 1:9]

“It happened.”

I like those two words.

Picture a kid throwing a basketball in the living room to another kid and the basketball hits and breaks a Waterford crystal vase. That kid would add the word, “just” and say, “It just happened.”

It just happened that there was a Waterford crystal vase there on an end table – and one kid seeing another kid with a ball went, “Throw” and just then Ed Reed made an interception and the kid with the ball was also watching the Ravens game on television in the background and the basketball when tossed didn’t go where the thrower intended to throw it – and “It just happened” to break the Waterford crystal.

Jesus at that moment in the river – far from home – just happens to hear a voice from the heavens say, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” And Jesus sees the sky open – and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him. [Cf. Mark 1:11]

And Jesus changes the pattern of his life.

He’s no longer the carpenter with wood. He’s now the carpenter with words.

He’s no longer the quiet man of Nazareth. He’s now the Word proclaimed to the world.

And then he began walking and preaching – reaching out and healing – and if people just happened to be at the right place at the right time, their life could change – interception – a change could happen in the direction of their game.

Old patterns can break.

It’s all relative. It all depends.

Grace can be amazing – and save a wretch like me.

TAKE SOME TIME

Take some time to look at your life – your moments – the moments you were intercepted – the moments you broke – or were broke – the moments in your life that you changed or were changed.

Other people were in the same place and the same time – and what happened to you didn’t happen to them. Experience is relative.

If I heard the following from priests once, I heard the following a dozen times. Someone comes up to a priest and says, “What you said changed my life.” And the priest says, “What did I say?” Obviously we would want to know the answer to that question. And the person says something the priest knows he didn’t say.

Surprise.

Life is the surprise – the serendipity – the juggling of so many different things – that make what happens, happen.

My mother in Boston said “Yes” to the last of ten years of love letters from my father in New York, and they got married and four kids later I was on this planet.

How about you? Where did you come from? Why are you here? What’s your story? What’s your great, great, great grandmother’s story? It’s all relative.

I also love the saying, “If you want to change somebody, you have to change their grandmother.”

MOMENTS OF CONVERSION

As priest I’m always amazed at conversion moments. In today’s first reading from Isaiah, I love the text, “… so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; my word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”

To me that has always been an amazing insight from Isaiah 55 - verse 11

Every drop of rain has a purpose.

Every snow flake has a purpose.

Every word we say has a purpose.

I have never forgotten a sermon where someone said that Jesus rained the word of God on the rich young man to let go of everything and come follow him – and he walked away sad, but around the year 285 a man named Anthony – of Egypt - walked into church late – heard those words – dropped everything and followed Jesus. [Cf. Matthew 19:22]

So parents, every time you say good stuff to your kids – every time you pick up a cranky kid and you say, “I love you!” it’s like rain, it’s like seed, it’s like a love letter from New York to Boston. It’s going to produce results.

Amazing.

It’s also scary.

I still remember walking along Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, New York as a little kid and going by a gas station. A guy inside one of the bays starts screaming words at this other guy – words I never heard from my mother or father or at home. Then the guy doing all the screaming throws a tire iron at the other guy. Till this day I can still hear the metallic clanging sound of that tire iron bouncing along macadam.

No wonder e.e. cummings said, “be of love a little more careful than anything.” He could have said the same of hate.

BAPTISM

So Jesus heard those words of love that day at his baptism, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

So we baptize our babies. So we have birthday parties for our spouse and our kids. So we go on vacation with each other. So we visit each other. So we eat with each other. So we send words to each other.

Every moment is sacred – and every person will experience their every moments differently – based on how lightning strikes them in the big moments of their life – and how a lightning bug strikes them in the little tiny moments of their life.

During this meal, during this Mass, just become quiet, and listen. Listen and hear God saying over you, “You are my beloved daughter. You are my beloved son – with you I am well pleased.”

Just as the priest at Mass says Jesus' words over bread and wine – and they become the body and blood of Christ – so too God’s words over us can have a profound change.

Listen God is speaking.

Listen and God is saying many other things to us as well.

God is sending down messages – like rain – like snow – like lightning – like seed – on everyone of us here – all the time.

Listen – the atmosphere is filled with God – with the Spirit – silent like a dove – as amazing as light traveling at 186,282 miles per second – but a split second different if we were at the equator than if we were at the poles.

CONCLUSION

Of course this is all relative. We couldn’t take all these realities at once. That would be like having Christmas or our birthday 365 days a year. But sometimes – sometimes – some days we have a moment like Jesus experienced that day at the Jordan River. We experience God’s presence and God’s love for us – all around us – surrounding us – embracing us – and we lose consciousness of time. It might happen in a split second and it feels like an hour. It might be an hour and it feels like a split second.

The Spirit of God comes down on us like a dove – and we feel loved – beloved by God – and our life is changed – rebaptized – washed – refreshed in the downpour – the showers – the waters – the rivers – the ocean – the atmosphere of God that surrounds us every moment of our life.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
* Picture on top by Lotte Jacobi

**There are some excellent short film clips on the Internet that explain Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Just type into Google, “Einstein: Theory of Relativity.” Go into the Wikipedia article and go to External Notes at the bottom. Then click on films and animations. There is one short film that shows twin jugglers – one on land – one on a boat – both juggling at the same time – and because the boat is moving – there is a difference. There is another film that shows a man with a right angle box mirror as he watches lightning hitting two poles. If he is on land it hits both polls at the same time, but it hits the poles at different times for a man with a right angle box mirror on a moving train. Huh? You have to see the film. But I guarantee if you looked at these short films and experiments, you’d get something different out of what you were seeing from what I was seeing. It’s all relative. Amazing. Moreover I'm more a poet than a physicist.

LOST

UMBRELLA

It rained all day.

It kept us inside
till we got restless,
till we wanted to
go outside.
Sometimes
searching for
lost umbrellas
gets us talking.
Sometimes
searching for
lost umbrellas
we find things
we forgot we
were looking for
and we decide
to stay inside
and talk some more.

© Andy Costello,

Reflections, 2009

GAMES

Games. Games. Games.
Who wants to play games?
I’m even sick
of the word, “Games”.
Give me names, names
names of people
who don’t want
to play games?

© Andy Costello,

Reflections, 2009

ROLE PLAYING

Somehow she seemed
like a mother superior,
who would play the part
of a mother superior
in a play or a movie.
We thought she thought
she was superior.
Did she feel she was inferior?
Time will tell the truth to her
as she watches her part
long after the play is over,
long after we the audience
have gone home.

© Andy Costello,

Reflections, 2009

SECOND CHANCE

Family members watched them,
these two, both married before,
both chasing each other,
like kids in a school yard,
like leaves caught in an autumn wind.

Family members talked about them
behind their backs, these two, both broken,
spinning in this new chance to dance,
hoping people learn from mistakes,
hoping people don’t hurt each other.

They talked about fear of Winter.
They talked about hope for Spring.
They talked about past and future.
They talked about thaw and resurrection.
Isn’t life filled with second chances?

Family members, like birds in trees,
sitting there watching
above the frozen fields of leaves,
some chirping songs of hope,
some chirping sour notes.

They got through the Winter to Spring.
Birds singing, building nests, starting again,
family members getting used to the two of them.
Then together they celebrated a new marriage
that April – a second chance.

© Andy Costello,
Reflections, 2009

CHOICE OF CHAIRS

When hurt,
I choose to sit in soft chairs.

I smile outwardly.

I sulk inwardly.

I am a stuffed chair
in a stuffed room.

I sit here with the hope
you’ll come and say,
“It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”

Will you?

I’m still waiting.

It hasn’t happened yet.

I guess stuffed chairs hide their feelings
better than hard wooden chairs.

Or am I being stupid?
Am I simply being stubborn?

Why don’t I just get up and walk over
to you in your chair and say,
“I’m sorry this happened. Let’s next.”

© Andrew Costello,

Reflections, 2009

STEPS:
THE BLESSING AND THE CURSE

Steps: the story of a life.
Steps: the blessing and the curse.
Steps: the little kid seeing all those tall legged creatures climbing all those stairs – so, so easily – and we have barely learned to walk.
Steps: the little kid looking at the more of life – the wondering “What’s up there?” or “What’s down there?”
Steps: the old folk seeing all those tall legged creatures climbing up and down those stairs – so, so easily – and we barely finished, said, or did the things we wanted to finish, say and do.
Steps: the old folk feeling the less of life – the wondering, “What’s up there?” or “What’s down there?”
Steps: the blessing and the curse.
Steps: the story of a life.

© Andrew Costello
Reflections, 2009

Steps at the

Foyle River Bridge,

Derry, Northern Irleland

BLESSINGS 

ON A LOST CHILD

Jesus often saw them on the edge of the crowd,
these young folks who couldn’t commit –
these young folks who had to run to far countries –
to party, and then to pigsty it – and then sometimes,
but only sometimes, head home sheepishly.
Then, surprise, to see – and then to feel –
the welcoming embrace of a loving father or mother –
and then the anger of older brothers or sisters.
Jesus knew life – family life. Jesus knew that
his Father feels what so many parents feel:
stray, lost, prodigal sons or daughters.
Jesus saw his far off Father waiting, waiting.
Jesus knew returns can be long in coming.
So Jesus, the Son, tried to put into words
what his Father felt, what so many parents feel.
Jesus with serious face and serious words
told crowds about lost sheep, coins,
sons and daughters – and then….
Then with a great smile Jesus would tell
about the joy his Father felt
in the banquet halls of heaven –
when He announced to the great crowds of heaven,
“Good News! One more lost child has come home!”
And Jesus could hear the outbreak, the clapping,
the pandemonium of joy in the banquet halls of Heaven.

© Andrew Costello

Reflections, 2009

CLEAN CALENDAR

Lord, I’m beginning this new year
with a clean calendar.
By the end of the year
it will be marked up, messed up,
ending up looking like
a kid’s magazine in a dentist office.

There will be scheduled
and rescheduled meetings and games,
appointments and disappointments,
birthdays and anniversaries.

And then there will be the unscheduled:
hospital visits, wakes, funerals.

Hopefully there will also be surprise,
those joyful interruptions
to our scheduled and structured life:
a friend from long ago
will be in the area and will call.
Surprise! We have an opening
for them in our messy calendar.

And hopefully, too, I'll have time
for You, Lord, on my calendar this year.

© Andrew Costello

Reflections, 2009

GO FIGURE!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Go Figure!”

Today is a wonderful feast to have at the beginning of a new year: the feast of the Epiphany.

What am I going to do with my life in this new year, 2009?

Go figure!

This year, will I have an epiphany – a great insight – a light that will go on – a star shining over and pointing out the thing I really need to do with my life?

Go figure?

More and better: what am I going to do not just this year – but with the rest of my life? And hopefully, that means years to come?

Go figure!

Where am I headed? What’s next? What’s down the line? What is the journey of life all about? It’s the old catechism question: Why did God make me?

Go figure.

Isn’t life a search for meaning – for epiphanies – for insights – for lightning bolt assurances – for amazing graces – for things that make sense? *
Isn’t life all about, “Going and figuring.”

Go figure.

Don’t we come to church to come figure out life?

We have all these stars up here on our ceiling. Is one of them pointing out something to us?

I was visiting my sister and brother-in-law for New Year’s. We were out shopping. When we came back my brother-in-law Jerry was parking their car in their garage. I noticed they have this neat red beam that tells the driver just where to stop the car. Wonderful. Wouldn’t it be neat to have red beams telling us what to do each day?

Or would it?

DISTRACTIONS

To me, life is all about distractions. I don’t get it when people confess having distractions as sins. Okay deliberate distractions and not listening.

Distractions are the constant inner chattering of the human brain – the amazing human brain – constantly searching – figuring – questioning – deciding – re-questioning – moving.

Don’t we spend most of our lives searching – looking – moving – wondering – wandering – risking – trying - hoping to find answers to questions we sometimes don’t even know we’re on a quest with?

Aren’t we all searchers? Isn’t the question mark our symbol? I picture everyone having as their flag, a big white sheet with a big black question mark on it.

We even do this in our sleep. Dreams are all about searching – getting lost – trapped – being with strange rangers in strange situations. At least that’s the experience we tell each other at the breakfast table – if it was a dramatic dream we remembered.

How many times have we found ourselves in the morning sitting there on the edge of our bed like Rodin’s statue, “The Thinker!” and we’re saying, “Now what was that all about?”

Go figure!

THE THREE KINGS

The three kings…. We’re not sure whether they were kings or that they were three – but three is a good number to picture the story.

The three kings …. They represent us. We’re all searchers – for God – for a Savior – for a Leader – for a King – for One who will tell us what it’s all about.

The three kings…. They are not just the stuff of statues in church – or lawn or Christmas card or under our Christmas tree. They are the stuff of story. They are under our story.

The three kings…. They are also called Wise Men and Magi. They are wise because they kept on searching till they found what they were looking for.

THE STAR

The star is essential to the story.

We’re looking for signs – stars that point the way – to what we’re looking for – the ultimates of life – the deepest meanings of life.

We see lights – insights from time to time: these are our personal epiphanies.

Have we arrived yet at our crib and our Bethlehem or are we still on the journey – still searching?

Have we seen the star yet – our star – the right star?

We can’t see stars in the day. We can only see the stars when we are in the dark. And sometimes we don’t look up. Sometimes we forget we’re searching. Sometimes we’re stopped or stuck somewhere. And sometimes it’s cloudy in our night – the dark night of our soul.

Then sometimes we wake up because we’re rattled or frustrated or lost and in the dark. Then we look up and see the right star and a possible new direction and we get back on our camel and start moving again.

Then like the Magi – we ask questions. Notice they are men and they ask for directions. Amazing. And they are making the journey together. It’s always wise to do life together – with others.

THE JOURNEY

The journey story is everyone’s story.

Think of the movies we like. They will tell us a lot about ourselves.

And movies are all about moves!

It could be The Wizard of Oz. That movie is all about the journey – the search – or as Dorothy puts it, “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look further than my own backyard, because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.” We want to feel at home. Home means we’re no longer running the bases. We’ve arrived. We can relax. We’re in our place – in the dugout. Home. Back with the people we know and love. Phew.

But look at how much Dorothy learned on the journey: how we need each other – that there are Wizards and Witches, – that we need courage when we feel like a cowardly lion, brains when we feel like a scarecrow or straw person, a heart and a soul, an inside, a spirit, when we feel like we’re a Tin Person, a Robot.

It could be the Jason Bourne movies. We’re running, running, running, trying to find out who we really are.

It could be Doctor Zhivago, my favorite movie, Yuri trying to find security, home, family, future, career, – in the midst of war and strife and everything including weather seems to be conspiring against him. **
The journey story is everyone’s story – not just the three kings or wise men – not just Jason Bourne and Dorothy – or George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, not just Dante and Don Quixote, not just in the ancient stories, the Iliad and the Odyssey.

We’re always searching. Meaning is our distraction. We might be in traffic or a meeting or in church or talking with someone – but we’re elsewhere – on the journey – trying to go figure what life’s all about.

That’s why we have these texts in the gospels about people on journeys coming up to Jesus and asking him, “What’s it all about?” What’s the first and greatest commandment? And Jesus sums it all up. It’s all about loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

We read. We hear the scriptures stories. We go figure.

THE GIRL IN THE DOLL HOUSE

In this homily, I'm saying we're all like the Magi - going through life searching. Don’t we all have things we’re looking for or trying to figure out or years - while we’re looking for ways to pay our bills, raise our kids, do our job, keep our job, find a job, love our spouse, enjoy a football game or a book or a trip to the mall or a play or a movie or a walk at Quiet Waters Park or the Naval Academy or Navy Stadium?

While driving along some road, some 30 years ago, I was listening to some audio tapes by the Jesuit priest, Bernard Bassett. He told a story about a little girl. About 20 years later I realized he said something very important – that I had been thinking about semi-consciously many times on many roads afterwards.

What I remembered went something like this. He was visiting an institute for little kids who had psychological problems for various reasons. The staff worked with these kids – maybe from broken homes – or they were abused or this or that – in hopes that they would get healthy. One day he was looking through one of those one way windows you see in movies. He was sitting with a child psychologist who pointed out a little girl in this big doll house. "Hopefully," the psychologist said, "the little girl will look up and look out a window of this big doll house she was playing in and see other kids playing together here and there." He said that the little girl controlled life in her doll house - giving directions to this doll and that doll – but they were not live persons. Then he said, "If the little girl opens the door and walks out and over to other kids and starts to interact with them, some of whom will not notice her, she’s on her way to being healed."

Isn't that the great epiphany of life - to come out of our own little world - and journey out into the bigger world and interact with other people?

Isn’t that what all of you who are parents are very concerned about – that your kids will look up and come out of themselves – and go out and interact with our world – making this world a better world?

In the meanwhile I kept looking for the tape of that story to see how close I was to what Bernard Basset really said. There I was at Faulkner, Maryland with some of our high school seniors on a retreat at the Jesuit Retreat House. I spotted a cabinet with some audio tapes. Surprise – all the tapes by Bassett were there, except the one I wanted. It was missing.

Surprise! A year later I’m in our Redemptorist Retreat House, San Alfonso, in Long Branch, New Jersey with our high school juniors. I spotted a box of books to be discarded. There was a book by Bernard Basset. I open it and see the story I was looking for in print. I was right about the big doll house – but there was also a glass phone booth. The girl was in the phone booth on that particular day. If she opened the telephone booth door and walked towards the kids – she was on her way towards healing – even if some kids would ignore her. ***

CONCLUSION

Today’s feast of the Epiphany is about such moments. What did the 3 kings or Magi or Wise Men discover that day?

Go figure.

What I figure is this: life is all about discovering life is not about me but it’s about the other – especially the child. The call is to keep life going for those around us.

How many people wrapped up in themselves – get married – and come out of themselves if blessed with a child – with children. The mother and father stand there over their child’s crib. They look down at new life. They realize this is what it's all about. They have an epiphany. Their life is about to change - big time.

A baby needs time and gifts – not gold, frankincense and myrrh, but gold, food and attention.

For those of us without children, we have to discover the same message – that life is for the next generation – not ourselves.

What personally hits me is that a priest is called “Father”.

What hits you personally about this feast of the Epiphany?

After Mass come up to the creche, the nativity scene. See the 3 kings. See the child in the crib.

See yourself as a child in that crib - that you were honored at your birth. Then you had to grow up and see that life is stepping up and out of childhood and learning to do for the next generation. - starting with children and on and on and on.

Now that’s an epiphany.

Go figure.

* Check out the writings of Joan Didion, for example, The Year of Magical Thinking, (2005) and We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, (2006)

** Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, (1957) and movie, Doctor Zhivago, (1965).

*** Bernard Basset, S.J. The Noonday Devil, Spiritual Support in Middle Age, "The Girl In The Telephone Booth," pp. 69-86, Image Books, 1968

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!