June 14, 2017

ANNIVERSARY

Come to think about it,

everyday is an anniversary -

for someone: marriage, death,

special moments. For example:

today is Michael’s anniversary.

He died 40 years ago today.

Cancer at 15 years of age.

What are your special days?

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017

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YES  AND  NO  

COMMENTS

YES!  AND  NO! 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 10^th Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “Yes! and No!”

St. Paul in today’s first reading from the 2^nd Letter to the Corinthians tells us that Jesus is a “Yes!”

St. Paul in today’s first reading also says that “Amen” is another word for Jesus. Amen is another word for “Yes.”

But let’s stick with “Yes” and “No” as a message for today.

Jesus stands in front of every person - looks us in the eye - and says, “Yes!”

We stand in front of Jesus - we can look him in the eye - and say “Yes” or look down at the ground from which we come and say, “No!”

TWO BASIC WORDS

As we know “Yes” and “No” are two basic words.

They are a great way to pray: saying “Yes” to God every day - saying “No” to anything opposed to God - every day.

If we listened - along with at least 20 million people in the United States - a week ago - we know that James Comey answered some questions with a simple “Yes” or “No” or “Nope”.

It’s good to be clear when speaking with each other. We all need to learn how to be brief - clear - concise where we stand with each other and with God - and especially  in what we mean.

So it’s good to hear someone say that one simple word, “Yes” when asked, “Is this what you mean?”

Next  Saturday - in the first reading - Jesus says, “Let your “Yes” mean “yes” and your” No” mean “No”.

If we heard  Paul speaking - as we heard him in today’s first reading - we heard the powerful words of Paul - as well as Silvanus and Timothy - proclaim Jesus Christ as  our Lord - as a “Yes” to us.

TODAY

So the gist - the message of my homily for today is to say back  to Jesus: “Yes”.

When we receive communion today, say, “Yes” - “Amen” - loud and clear to Jesus Christ - as the Lord of Life as the Lord of our life.

Today be careful - and very reflective when - being in communion with others in person or in our mind - answer their questions with a loud and a clear,  “Yes.” or “No.”

A FEW QUOTES

Let me conclude with a few quotes to add some salt and light to my homily.

Someone said the secret of life is to be able to say 3 words: “Yes, no and wow.”  Then they added, the words of a loser are: “If only” and “maybe”.

Erma Bombeck said, "When your mother asks, 'Do you want a piece of advice?' it is a mere formality.  It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.'

"Next time you pray any kind of prayer, whether it be for the resolution of healing, or for a house, or for a car, or for a husband, or for a family conflict, or for a solution to a problem, tell Him he can say yes or no. Because in the end, you're a winner. Every time." Bo Sanchez

Patricia Reilly Giff said, "Sometimes when I visit schools, kids will interview me for the school newspaper. They ask questions and my answers tend to go on and on, and they try to write down everything I'm saying as quickly as they can. And one day, a kid holds up her hand and said, 'Do you think you could just answer 'yes' or 'no?'  Aren't kids wonderful."

Here’s a quote by Christina Stead - which I don’t get - but need to think about: "Women are outside the law; they make nothing, they say yes or no to some collections of whereases." 

David Brooks gives us this comment to ponder: “You lose the ability to say a hundred noes for the sake of one overwhelming and fulfilling yes.”

CONCLUSION

In the meanwhile I suspect most of us are like my mom. We’re at a restaurant and my mom says she’ll have a salad.  The waitress then asks, “Dressing? Do you want Russian, French or Italian?” And she says, “Yes.”

June 13, 2017

LET’S  ENJOY  A GOOD  MEAL AND CONVERSATION

TOGETHER

A triggers B - like falling dominoes -

words pushing against words - the cues

in every conversation. My story suggests

your story. My memory remembers

your memory - like the thin tin clinking of

cocktail glasses - in a crowded banquet.

People pausing - then toasting one another -

celebrating one another.  Words tipping

words - which then trip and fall - down

to the ground - filling the room. Woo, wow,

we’re getting loud in here. But isn’t this

what a good conversation is? We’re like

spaghetti and meat balls in a rich red sauce.

Oooh. Interesting image. But isn’t this

is the kind of togetherness  we desire?

Words becoming flesh - like breaking bread -

Eucharist, Thanksgiving - Holy Communion -  

hopefully - Good News cuing Good News -

memories moving around the room or

across the table  - scenes like a slide show

on a screen or on the wall. Faces … Memories …

Let’s enjoy a good  conversation together.

  

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017

2^ND CORINTHIANS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 10^th Monday in Ordinary Time is, “2^nd Corinthians.”

At this time of the Church Year, the 10^th and 11^th weeks in Ordinary Time,  the Church gives us 2 weeks - 12 readings - from 2^nd Corinthians - every other year.

TODAY’S COMMENTS

Let me give some a broad view of the Letter today.  I like to do that for myself - when we start a new book of the Bible on weekdays. Hope it’s helpful for you. We’re also  beginning the Gospel of Matthew today - starting with the Sermon on the Mount - but I’ll save that for another day - especially since I’ve done that several times.

The first observation would be that  2^nd Corinthians is a combination of letters from Paul. Not everyone holds that. I use the Jerome Biblical Commentary for my starting research. In that Commentary Jerome Murphy O’Connor wrote the piece on Second Corinthians. He says that the best theory as of now is that 2^nd Corinthians is a combination of 5 Letters of Paul. The letter has too many different tones for it to be one letter.  Things just don’t fit, for it to be one letter.  In most ways, this is should not be a big impact reality.

Next  it’s dated from around 55. I always like to know the dates of documents. Remember the gospels are from 60 to 100 - more or less.

The next issue would be to figure out what’s going on in the church at Corinth.  If you’re here for weekday masses, then listen to the 1^st reading with that question in mind.

There seems to be some infighting going on in that community.

One fight seems to be a fight between two groups - those who stress the Law and those who stress the Spirit.  We see that going on at various times in the New Testament. It seems there are those who are the Jewish Christians. That’s their background. And there are the Greek Christians who have a different stress. Paul, from Romans and other Letters tell us he is more on the Spirit   side of fight.

Next - it would be a nice exercise to compare the Paul we hear in 1^st Corinthians and the Paul we hear in 2^nd Corinthians. At times he is  hot, angry, and more emotional, in 2^nd Corinthians. In 1^st Corinthians he is more cool, calm and logical. The message I would take from that is that some people we live with, work with, interact with can be more moody than others.  I have lived with priests whom the rest of us have to step back to see where they are at the moment.

6 TEXTS IN 2^ND CORINTHIANS THAT STAND OUT

I ran through 2^nd Corinthians to see what texts might stand out.  Here are a few for now.

We’re clay pots - but we hold a treasure within. Hopefully we have worked with clay at times.  So we know the difference between a bowl and what goes in a bowl. We know the difference between a bottle of expensive perfume and a bottle of cheap after shave lotion. The contents is what counts - unless we are saving very valuable vases and pots.

We’re tents - that will get folded up - while a house is being built for us in heaven.  Hopefully, we have all camped - and saw the difference between living in a tent compared to living in a house.   We were watching a TV program last night about these vast tent cities in Turkey for refugees out of Syria.

Next, Paul has no love - which in First Corinthians - he says is patient. Well in 2^nd Corinthians he tells us that there are phonies in our midst - counterfeits - who are trying to impress people, but they are fake apostles. Spot them and avoid them.

Churches have money collections. So what else is new.

Paul had a great vision and revelation - right up to the 3^rd heavens in his life. Hopefully, we’ve all had God-like experiences.

And lastly Paul tells us that he had a thorn in the flesh. Don’t we all?

June 12, 2017

ANESTHETIC

His words had become an anesthetic.

She had heard them too many times.

She stopped listening once she got

the point he was heading for and she got

there ahead of him every time. He was

enough for her - so she would say her,

“Oh yeah …. Oh yeah!” - but she was

into her next - and he was not part of it.

Divorces happen long before the divorce.

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017
Painting:  L'Absinthe, 
The Absinthe Drinker
[1875-76] by
Edward Degas It's 
in Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

A  TRINITY:   

MOM,  DAD,  ME - 

ALL THREE 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “A Trinity: Mom, Dad, Me - All Three.”

BERNARD PIAULT

Bernard Piault, begins his book, What Is The Trinity?,  this way.  “In his booklet on examination of conscience Fr. Lebret suggests that we include in our self-examination the fault of ‘never meditating on the Trinity.’  Nothing is easier for the Christian to answer him, the theologians and parish priests, ‘Examine your consciences yourselves; do you ever talk to the faithful about the Trinity?’”

Guilty as stated. I rarely speak about the Trinity. Well, I do at least once a year - today, the feast of the Holy Trinity.

And every year I feel inadequate, because speaking about the Trinity is speaking about God - mystery - and God as a Trinity - is so much more mysterious.

Yet  every year every other priest or deacon in the world tells folks about the images of the shamrock - [3 leaves - one shamrock];  or the triangle - [3 angles, 3 sides, one triangle].  Then they tell the story of St. Augustine - who wrote a big fat book on the Trinity.  While meditating on the Trinity - while walking along the beach - he spots a kid - going back and forth with water with his pail to fill a hole he dug in the sand.

Augustine asks the kid what he’s doing and the kid says, “I’m trying to put the ocean in that hole.”  And Augustine says with a smile, “Impossible” and the kid says, “I can fill my hole with the ocean sooner than you can put the Trinity in a book.”

Our God is a big God - a Trinity - and all of us have a hole inside our being that longs to be filled with God.

OBVIOUSLY THE TRINITY IS CENTRAL TO CHRISTIANITY

Obviously, the Trinity is central to Christianity.

The Christian communities hold that the One God is Three Divine Persons.

The Jews, the Moslems, and so many other religious communities don’t.

In fact, if a Christian Community does not state in their creeds and belief statements that they believe in God as a Trinity - 3 divine persons - they are not Christian.

So the Unitarians are not Christians - but one would hear of Jesus Christ at Unitarian Services.

Mormons theology is more complicated. “The first article of faith for the Latter-day Saints reads: ‘We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.’” After that -  if we delve into Mormonism we find out that they don’t have the same teachings and understandings about God as Trinity that the mainline Christian Churches have.

We Catholics believe that God is a Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We come into Church and make the sign of the cross using water, “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” And during Sunday Mass we say one of the two great creeds: the Nicean Creed or the Apostles Creed.  Those creeds were hammered out in the early Christian centuries after many fights, heresies and councils.

IMAGE OF THE TRINITY FOR THIS HOMILY

The image for the Trinity that I would like to use this morning is ourselves for starters - the person inside our skin suit - me - the human  triad -  see me - you see my mom and dad and me.

The title of my homily is, “A Trinity: Mom, Dad, Me - All Three.”

There are over 7 and a half billion people on the planet.

Each of us has our mom and dad’s DNA.

Each of us has our mom and dad’s influences - whether or not we were adopted or what have you.

When understanding Christianity, I like to go the way of looking at people more than things - or plants or images, like shamrocks or triangles.

We are called to be family. We are called to be community. We are called to be one body.

Two of the great images of God are the ocean and marriage.

In both hopefully we discover God.

I think of two people who came back to God because of the ocean.  One was on vacation at Ocean City, Maryland and was hit by the vastness and the power and the eternity of God while standing on the beach one early morning - at sunrise. He was overwhelmed by God.  The second was a submariner who told me he came back to God while doing deep, deep thoughts about life, while deep, deep under water in the ocean. Both had gone to church earlier on in life. Both had given up on their Christian upbringing in their college years and beyond.

Oceanic feelings can give us oceanic reflections about God.

The other image is marriage.

How many spouses have brought their spouse to religion and God and faith?

How?  By example, by love, by love making, by sacrifice, by dying to self so the other can rise. 

How? By children, by grandchildren, by the mystery that I can’t control anything - or very little.

Take the names of the Trinity - the names of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I am me - but I am like my father.  I am me - but I’m like my mother.

I am born and at some point I cry and someone comes running.

My mom or dad gets sick or my child gets sick and I get running to God.

I learn speech and custom in family.

I read the book of Genesis and I see God has created paradise for his first two children: Adam and Eve.

I see parents trying to create paradise for their kids.

If I am blessed with brothers and sisters and fellow workers and classmates and team mates and neighbors I can learn about Christ my brother - and neighbor and friend.

If I am blessed with a family that eats together I can learn about the Mass as a meal - and I see parents sacrificing to put food on the table and preparing it.

If I am blessed with a family that forgives each other I can learn about the sacrament of forgiveness.

So too washings and anointings and leadership.

So too - hopefully - in my relationship with my Mom and Dad and if I have grandparents and siblings - I pick up spirit - hopefully a Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is pictured as fire, the dove, wind.  Hopefully I pick up from my parents and family, the fire of enthusiasm, the dove of peace, the breath of fresh air that is another - especially a family member.

CONCLUSION

My homily has been entitled, “A Trinity: Mom, Dad, Me - All Three.”

Hopefully we all do our part to bring God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, all three, to all the people of our family and our   world each day. Amen.