IF  I  WERE  ___________,

[FILL IN THE BLANK],

WHAT KIND OF __________,

[FILL IN THE BLANK]

WOULD I BE?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Sunday's feast of Christ the King  is, “If I Were __ [Fill in the blank]  What Kind of ____ [Fill in the blank] Would I Be?

Today is the feast of Christ the King, so that’s the question that hit me for this feast.

If I were king, what kind of king would I be?

If I were pope, what kind of pope would I be?

If I were a parent, what kind of a parent would I be?

If I were the boss, what kind of a boss would I be?

If I were the owner, what kind of an owner would I be?

If I were rich, what kind of rich person would I be?

If I was the pastor, what kind of a pastor would I be?

If I was a priest, what kind of a priest would I be?

If I was the coach or the manager, what kind of coach or manager would I be?

If I was a teacher, what kind of a teacher would I be?

If I was the principal of a school, what kind of a principal would I be?

If I were a director, what kind of a director would I be?

If I were a doctor, what kind of a doctor would I be?

If I was the president, what kind of a president would I be?

If I was the chairman or chairwoman of an organization, what kind of a chairperson would I be?

If I was a news anchor, what kind of a news anchor would I be?

COMPLAINT DEPARTMENT

If I listen to people, there are often complaints - many complaints - about bosses, leaders, kings, queens, bosses, managers, teachers, principals, those in charge?

If I listen to people, I hear at times about people who become boss: wow did they change. They have become bossy - difficult - self-serving, not listening, a disaster.

If I listen to people, I hear them complaining, complaining, complaining about people above them or about people in charge.

Coaches are unfair. They don’t put my daughter into the game.

Teachers, principals, are unfair. They don’t give my son credit - or give them good marks - or let them get into the National Honor society.

TEMPLATE, MODEL, IMAGE

Do we all have a template, model, image, description of an ideal parent, president, coach, leader, boss?

If we scream, “She’s a dictator!” does that mean our image of a good leader is one who is fair, open to suggestions, doesn’t have only their own agenda, but is out for the common good?

Write down the name of the best teacher, boss, coach, captain, or lieutenant, you ever had.  Now list under that name personal traits, tricks, qualities, characteristics, style or what have you about that person and you now have a template of your ideal leader, king or queen.

JESUS’ DESCRIPTION OF A KING / QUEEN / LEADER

We’ve all heard, I hope, Pope Francis’ description of a good priest and bishop: one who smells like the sheep.

We’ve all heard Pope Francis’ comments in public to bishops: enough with the garb that glitters.

Where does Francis get his job descriptions and important characteristics of Church leaders?

We know Pope Francis road down the streets of Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and New York in a Fiat - and Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.

So for starters, Jesus called us to simplicity.

We know the characterists Pope Francis used come from Jesus - who said he was a Good Shepherd.

We know Jesus said we’re all called to serve rather than be served.

We’ve heard that Jesus was off on listening. He heard people. He let people touch him? He washed feet. He felt people’s hunger and thirsts.

We all know that the heart of Christianity is found right here at Mass. The call is that life is all about saying to family, school, team, church, “This is my body. This is my blood. I’m giving me to you. Take and eat me up - eat up my time and energies - and my me.

Every parent discovers with each baby they have  - the meaning of life is service - giving - dying to self - so that others can survive, thrive, and enjoy the great surprises of being served - loved - hugged and lifted up.

Mother’s Day, Father’s Day is only 1 day every year. That’s all folks.  Enjoy that breakfast in bed.

Babies don’t say to parents. I know you want your sleep, so I won’t scream till tomorrow morning - till after you wake up.

Dogs - like babies - don’t know this kind of stuff either. When they bark, they are sending out a message: feed me or I need to get outside - and now. To be a neighbor in a neighborhood is to see all those folks out in the morning in their bathrobes and their dogs and doggie bag in hand.

AVOID THE NEGATIVES

So a good king, queen, leader is called to have the positive qualities of Jesus’ dream for how to live life to the full.  Notice in today’s gospel  - John 18:33b-37 - that Jesus says his kingdom does not belong to this world.  But is it only in the hereafter? I read  the gospels as saying the kingdom starts now. It has positives like the calls of Pope Francis gleaned from the gospels and it also has negatives to avoid.

One key one is not to belittle people. As I thought about that word, “belittle”  the following hit me. If we belittle people is it because we want to bebig ourselves?  If that is true, I would assume that the leader who belittles others is unconsciously telling us that he or she feels inferior, small, and they want to slay others to stand on them and  say to the world, “Look how tall I am?” 

Bottom line: Besmall yourself and bebig others.

John the Baptist said it best when he said of his relationship to Jesus, “I must decrease; he must increase.”

I would the best leaders should make it their policy and their politics, “I must decrease; they must increase.”

CONCLUSION

On the feast of Christ the King, the call is to renew our service contract with our constituents.

November 21, 2015

MUSIC AND

THE INTERCONNECTIONS

Black and white keys, next to each other

like folks in a choir loft - choirs singing -

blending, balancing, sounding, resounding

voices in key with the organ - the piano -

strings, brass, drums, stops, starts, all

working together - music in church,

in halls, in auditoriums, in minds and hearts -

all interconnecting - the dream of God for

all us making a joyful noise unto the

Lord - the dream of each of us for all

of us on the planet - Glory to God in

the highest and the lowest - as well

as peace to all of us to have good will.

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2015

November 20, 2015

RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY

Religion and Spirituality?

It used to be that Religion came first and

then one found forms of Spirituality in the

structure of that particular religion. That’s

not true anymore for many younger people….

Religions - Judaism, Catholicism, Lutheranism,

have been dropped. Then folks drift for a while -till they realize their need spiritual practices:

walks on the quite side - by the water - meditation, book clubs - running - breathing - Yoga - music - volunteering - therapy - massage - body work....

Religions  - then some try new religions - and

some in doing so discover God - prayer - worship - community - and some come home 

to their handed on religion - which they see 

in a new light - graces and warts and all. 

They have begun to discover  they can’t do 

life alone - without God in the Center 

because as Thomas Merton put it years ago,

“The spiritual life is oriented toward God ….

[which] puts us in the fullest possible contact

with reality - not as we imagine it, but as it

really is. It does so by making us aware of

our own real selves, and place them in

the presence of God.” [Author’s Note: this can be found in No Man is an Island. p. ix - x.]

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2015

November 19, 2015

HUM  SLOWLY 

Hummmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Peace, Fairness, Kindness,

turn these up, up, up ….

Growling, Gripes, Grouchiness,

turn these down, down, down ….

Listening, Listening, Listening,

turn this up, up, up ….

Anger, Screaming, Fighting,

turn these down, down, down ….

Faith, Hope, and Charity,

turn these up, up, up ….

Being Rigid, Stuck, Giving up,

turn these down, down, down ….

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2015

November 18, 2015

SACRED CHANTS

I’m sure you heard a dozen times the value

of sacred chants - like “Om” - and to let that

sound resound down through the back of

your mouth - humming it  down deeper into

your body - feeling the om going - ‘Om!”

“Ommmmmmmmm.” “Ommmmmmmmm.”

Each day, pause, sit, be quiet, be calm

after rising or before going to sleep. Relax,

measure your breath and then chant, “Home!”

“Hommmmmmmmmm. Hommmmmmmmm!”

Be at home with yourself - where you are -

and then make your home a sacred place.

And at times - while sitting outdoors look at

the blue dome of sky during the day and the

star studded sky of dark, black night and chant

“Dome! Dommmmmmmm. Dommmmmmmm!”

“Om!” “Home.” Be at home under the dome

above us all, filling us all, resounding us all, God.

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2015

PIG,  PORK  AND  PEPPERONI

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this  33rd  Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “Pig, Pork and Pepperoni.”

PIGS IN THE SCRIPTURES

In today’s first reading from the Second Book of Maccabees, we have this story about a man named Eleazar being forced to eat pork. If he didn’t take some, it would mean death. And he had the courage to not eat pork, so he’s killed.  

The story and the text gets us in touch with the religious practice of Jews not eating pork. The Moslems pick up the same practice as well as the Seven Day Adventists.

If we read the scriptures with this one practice in mind, we can learn a lot about religious practices of people.

I assumed that pork didn’t store well - so people got quite sick from pig and pork productions - so to save people - religious leaders yelled that God doesn’t want you to each pig and pork. I don’t know when pepperoni hit the world scene.

THE HAM IN THE PAN

Last night as I was putting this homily together I was trying to remember the story about the ham in the pan.

A teenage girl is watching her mom working on a ham for Christmas dinner.

At one point her mom cuts off the thin end of the ham.  Her teenage daughter asked her mom why she cut off that small end of the ham.

“Well,” her mom said, “this is the way you cook a ham.”  Then she added, “That’s the way my mother did it.”

Well she sees her grandmother cooking a ham at another time and sure enough that end piece had been cut off. Her granddaughter asked her, “Why she did it that way?”

Her grandmother said, “Well, that’s the way you cook ham. And that’s the way my mom taught me.”

Her great-grandmother was still alive, so the teenage girl asked her - while visiting her in a nursing home. “I noticed,” she said to her great-grandmother, “that your granddaughter my mom, your daughter her mom, cut off the end piece of a ham before cooking it. They told me that you did that. Why?"

“Oh,” said the great grandmother, "I guess the reason was because the pan was too small.”

Question: how many things do we do in life because that’s the way they are always done?

Question: how many things in religion do we do because that’s the way we always did them?

AN ARTICLE

I’d like to read a good article on all this.

The article would have to get into how altar girls took a while to get established as altar girls.

I would assume that women switching to pant suits from dresses would be an interesting point to ponder in that article.

So too the English Mass? 

Look how the world is changing in its attitudes towards gays.

Will there be a switch to women priests one of these years?

Is that the history of the world when it comes to changes?

Someone makes a move. Upset happens. It continues. More upset happens. It’s condemned. Then it continues - continues - continues.

I would hope the article would also get into seeing the mass as a Meal - get into eating at Mass - the bread - and the comments that Jesus is the Lamb of God - and how in the Acts of the Apostles this comes up - with arguments about Christianity moving out of Jewish background into world background.

Then there are Hindu’s refusing to eat beef.

THE WASHING OF HANDS AT MASS

At the Mass the priest washes his hands at the offertory.

I’ve always heard that it was because of all the food folks brought and handed to the priest - and then it was distributed to the poor - and hands got food dirty.

With the outbreaks of the flu virus - in came those pump bottles of hand cleaner - we see in so many churches. I like to joke that it might become part of the Mass in 200 years.

When a deacon serves as deacon  at Mass I noticed that he pours the wine etc. into the chalices - but then washes the priests hands.  I like the water because sometimes the wine is sticky on the cruets and it’s nice to have an opportunity to wash away the stickiness. So it should be the deacon who washes his hands or maybe the priest should wash the deacon’s hands.

CONCLUSION

So human beings do a lot of stuff out of custom and from earlier generations. I suspect the best approach is the ability to laugh. For starters, we could look at bishops hats and blessings and all that - as well as family customs.

In the meanwhile, this is good stuff to talk about while eating pig, pork or pepperoni - maybe pizza. I’m not a great lover of pork, but I do love a ham and cheese sandwich - and a pizza with  ham, pepperoni and pineapple.

November 17, 2015

GREEN STREET

Walking on Green Street

I went by a door mat that

announced, “Welcome!”

Three doors away I saw

a very similar door mat

that announced, “Stay!”

Walking on Green Street

I wondered what door mat

would they want for me.

    

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2015