WE UNDERSTAND

PALM SUNDAY

The title of my homily or reflection is, “We Understand Palm Sunday.”

Should I end my sermon or homily having said just that?

I could. Then a few of you will stand in the back after Mass and say, “I didn’t understand what you meant by your statement: “We understand Palm Sunday.”

So I’ll say something: something about something we all know.

Sometimes all goes right. We’re the talk of the town and sometimes we’re a disaster: everything in our life has come tumbling down.

Life is the highs and the lows – the Mountains and the Pits, Palm Sunday and Good Friday. Life is not a flat plain. If we’re alive, the monitor shows us alive as a jagged line, highs and lows, till we flat line.

Understand that, and you understand Palm Sunday.

Understand that, and you understand life.

Sometimes we’re the lead horse and we win the race; sometimes we feel like the donkey. Nobody notices us – but they notice the person or persons we’re carrying on our back.

Understand that and you understand Palm Sunday.

Life! The baby arrives – finally – and we all celebrate. Praise God. There are the phone calls – cell phone and e-mail pictures – and then a party – and Christians celebrate birth with baptism.

And then life goes on. Life’s calendars are marked with birthday parties – and graduation parties – and wedding parties – and anniversary parties. Life goes on and on and on.

We understand Palm Sunday.

We understand celebration – parties – parades – Palm Sunday type moments.

And this same baby in time becomes a graduate, becomes a bride or bridegroom, has babies of their own, gets older, has a hospital stay or two, retires, gets cancer or is in an accident, gets even older, needs a cane, a walker, Depends and a bed pan – and at some point dies.

Understand that and you understand Palm Sunday – and Holy Week.

Spring, summer, autumn, the trees are beautiful – buds, glistening green leaves, then green turning to orange, red, beautiful brown and gold leaves, then the fading, the fall, the crumble, then the long cold winter – trees standing out in the cold - empty naked branches shivering and scratching the night sky wondering is there anything after the golden glory of autumn? Trees know the meaning of the cross. Trees long for the sap of Spring – resurrection – new life.

Understand that and you understand Palm Sunday – and Holy Week.

Christ knew he had to go to Jerusalem. He had to face evil and the opposite of what he was about. He had to go there to celebrate the Passover. He couldn’t pass over it.

Christ also knew he had to have a last supper with his disciples. They still didn’t understand him – who he was and what he was about - after dozens and dozens of parables and dozens and dozens of healings. He had to wash their feet and tell them life is all about service. He had to sit with them one last time and try to sum up his whole message. He chose two simple everyday, every table, gifts: bread and wine. Both have to go through the life cycle to get to that table, wheat, grapes, cut, crush, baked, then bread, then wine.

Jesus knew life. He knew the way and the truth of life. He said he was the way, truth and the life. Isn’t that the truth?

Life: male, female, mom, dad, egg, seed, baby, the mother cut, body and blood, the mother along with the father holding their baby saying, “This is my body. This is my blood. We’re giving our life to you.”

Life: raising kids, working hard, building a home, shopping, making sacrifice after sacrifice – laughter, card games, ups and downs.

Life: long nights, worry about who the kids are hanging with, the nagging whine and angst and acne of their teen age years, okay there are A’s at times and goals in field hockey, lacrosse, football or soccer, or a great performance in a school play, but there are fights over dating the wrong person, after all we’ve done for you, driving you here and driving you there, and you’re driving us crazy at times.

Money - worries about money - taking a second job or a second mortgage. Hoping the family gets the message at every meal: “Hey we are giving our body and blood for you?” Family, food, prayer, sacrifice, togetherness. Hoping the family understands the meaning of the kitchen table – that it’s connected to the altar table.

This week – Holy Week: Palm Sunday to Easter – two highs and then the lows of betrayal and fear and tears in a garden – the high of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday – the low of spit, nails, curses and crucifixion on Good Friday.

Holy Week: Palms up. Hosanna to the Son of David. Holy Week: Thumbs down – a governor betraying himself – trying to manipulate a crowd by giving them a choice between Jesus and a thief named Barabbas – a governor whose wife sent him the message: “Have nothing to do with that righteous man. I suffered much in a dream today because of him.”

Holy Week: Christ’s hands sharing bread and wine as well as washing feet, hands nailed to a cross.

Holy Week: the steps Jesus had to take to get to Easter – the steps we follow because we want to have everything to do with this righteous man named Jesus.

Understand this and you understand Palm Sunday – and Holy Week. It’s a matter of life and death and resurrection.

LIFTED UP

If I be lifted up
like a child
on my Father’s shoulders,
all will see me,
some will wave and
some will wink,
but most will soon forget
such a cute scene
and none will believe
who I AM.

But, if I be lifted up
like a criminal
on my Father’s shoulders,
this time shoulders
made of wood, a cross,
then all will see me,
especially those who are caught
in pain and shame and then
maybe some will believe
who I AM? Amen.

© Andy Costello

Reflection for 5 Tuesday Lent

ARE YOU NUTS?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Are You Nuts?”

Different people use that phrase, “Are you nuts?” or “Are you crazy?” or, “I don’t believe you.” or “No way!” or “Muy loco!”

Today’s readings have the great theme of resurrection or life after death. The theme is put here this Sunday because next Sunday is Palm Sunday which begins Holy Week and then Easter – when we celebrate Christ rising from the dead.

FIRST READING

Today’s first reading is an excerpt from the great scene from the 37th chapter of book of the Prophet Ezekiel. He finds himself in the middle of a big valley filled with dead bones – skeletons – and God tells him to walk up and down among the dead bones. He sees that they are quite dried up. God tells him to prophecy over the bones that they come back to life – and they do. If you have time today or this week, read the 37th chapter of Ezekiel – or go to a cemetery and walk around the grounds. Think of the bones beneath the stones.

And then God tells Ezekiel, “This is Israel. The people are dead. Call them back to life. Tell the people to come out of their graves – and I will put a new spirit in them.” And Ezekiel does that and they come back to life.

The message is twofold: here and hereafter people are dead. God calls people here and hereafter to rise from the dead – to have a new spirit – to come back to life.

Ezekiel’s stress is on the here and now. The Gospel of John is a stress on both here and the hereafter. I tend to stress the here more than the hereafter. What about you? Is it a question of age?

To me the message is obvious: people are dead. People are sleep walking. People need to hear “Alarm clock words!” People need to hear, “Wake up everybody!”

POST OFFICE

I always remember a moment when my niece and I were to meet my brother, Billy, in New York City. He worked for the post office out of Washington DC and he was working on changing a procedure in the main New York office – over near the Old Penn Station. We went in and met him. Then he took us into this big room with about 40 desks – with someone at every desk. There was a big clock on the wall and it was at 3:55 and he sort of whispered to us, “Wait till you see what happens at 4 o’clock. It’s finishing time. The bell will ring and if anybody doesn’t believe in resurrection from the dead, they should be standing here ever afternoon at 4 PM.”

TODAY’S GOSPEL

In today’s gospel we have the great story about Lazarus – who has been dead 4 days. He and his two sisters were good friends of Jesus – so when Jesus gets there – they are crying. They are wishing he had come sooner, because then Lazarus would not have died. When Jesus sees how sad Martha and Mary are, he too cries. Then after Jesus speaks they remove the stone that locks the tomb and Jesus cries out in a loud voice into the tomb , “Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus comes out – tied hand and foot – with burial bindings. His face is wrapped in cloth. And Jesus says, “Untie him and let him go.”

It’s a great scene to picture. It’s one of the key stories in the gospel of John – right in the center – and it can evoke all kinds of theological themes.

Each main character in the gospel of John is us: Nicodemus, the man born blind, the woman caught in adultery and people want to stone her to death, the man at the pool of Siloam who is sick and stuck for 38 years, and this Sunday, Lazarus.

We hear these stories and we pray that Jesus calls us, heals us, hears us, saves us, enlightens us, challenges us, changes us.

We hear the story of Lazarus and we pray that Jesus will raise us from the dead – both here and hereafter.

POEM

I’d would like to read a poem that I love. It’s by the Swedish poet, Ingemar Gustafson. It’s where I got the title of my homily for today, “Are You Nuts?”

LOCKED IN

All my life I lived in a coconut.
It was cramped and dark.
Especially in the morning when I had to shave.

But what pained me most was that I had no way
to get in touch with the outside world.
If no one out there happened to find the coconut,
if no one cracked it, then I was doomed
to live all my life in the nut,
and maybe even die there.

I died in the coconut.
A couple of years later they found the coconut,
cracked it, and found me shrunk and crumbled inside.

“What an accident!”
“If only we had found it earlier.”
“Then maybe we could have saved him.”
“Maybe there are more of them locked in like that …”
“Whom we might be able to save,”
they said, and started knocking to pieces
every coconut within reach.

No use! Meaningless! A waste of time!
A person who chooses to live in a coconut!
Such a nut is one in a million!
But I have a brother-in-law
who lives in an
acorn.

To me the poem has the same message as today’s first reading from Ezekiel and today’s gospel from John.

TODAY’S SECOND READING

In today’s second reading from Romans Paul says we have the choice to live by the flesh or by the Spirit.

The obvious call is to live by the Spirit.

The Spirit of God is in me – in these bones called “me”.

Am I living in the Spirit? Or am I living like the man in the poem cramped and crumbling inside a coconut? Am I all wrapped up in myself – small and tiny – when I could be so much more alive and spirited?

HERE AND NOW

Here and now – don’t we all hear the call to new life – from time to time – the call to a deeper spirituality – especially during Lent – to be a better Christian, a better worker, a better mom, dad, wife, husband, kid, servant?

Friday I was driving to Pennsylvania to go to my grandnephew Benjamin’s confirmation. He asked me to be sponsor. How about that? But I had to get a letter indicating that I was a practicing Catholic. While driving I was listening to a talk by John Shea on a CD. I had heard the talk in person – and didn’t really hear till yesterday something that I found very interesting.

Looking at his own life, John Shea, the speaker, said something like this: “When it comes to adult education, I find that I go through different periods. Sometimes the window is closed and I’m not learning anything. Sometimes I need to read and eat all I can. Then I need other periods to digest things. Then I become silent for a while. Then looking back I realize I put some of those new learnings into practice.”
I said to myself: “That’s so true.” Then I said, “Where am I right now in my growth process? – in my adult ed process?”
Where are you?

We’re nuts or crazy if we’re not growing.

MICHAEL HIMES

I was watching a video tape this week by Michael Himes, a theologian, who was giving a talk on today’s readings. Plagiarizing an image that he uses in his talk, he says that today’s gospel reminds him of a baby in the womb – comfortable, living a leisurely life, being fed as is, being told, there’s another world you’re going to have to enter one of these days and it’s going to be exciting. You’re going to experience all kinds of new adventures and the baby says, “I’m perfectly satisfied with the way things are right now.”

Then we’re born. The doctor yells out, “Come forth!” and surprise we meet faces and tears, smiles and celebration. “Welcome to a new world.”

He says that’s a glimpse of what eternity will be like.

Looking back I’m sure the baby would say, “Are you nuts? I’m satisfied being just where I am right now.”

We never hear what Lazarus’s thoughts are after he comes back.

We do know that Israel fought Ezekiel’s call to new life.

CONCLUSION

I see Jesus going around calling out our name. He sees right through our hard shell, our mask, the walls of our tomb, our barriers and he keeps knocking – hoping that the person we are called to be will come out to play – come out to pray – come out to live life to the full.

And we say, “Are you nuts? I satisfied to be who I am and where I am right now.”

And Jesus laughs and cries and keeps knocking on our skull, on our coconut shell. “Is there any body in there?”

What would it be like to die – as an acorn – only to find out we could have been an oak tree? Now wouldn’t that be nuts?

LAZARUS*

Down, on the ground,

unnoticed,

buried in a crowd,

surrounded

by so much similarity –
thought dead at times –
yet we’re all so different - so different.
The few who see us
know us by our edges,

but, who but God,

really notices us?

Yet it’s March,

and wind and rain,
resurrection and Spring,
mean hope - new life.
We’re Lazarus
begging at doorsteps
and graveyards
and Jesus keeps calling us
from death to life.
Celebrate!
God will green us again.

God will Easter us again.

*Cf. John 11:1-54;

Luke 16:19-31
© Andy Costello

JUST STANDING THERE

At times it’s good to just stand there,
to stop,
to be rooted deep

in the soil of one’s life,
watching the sun set,

feeling the cold,

seeing a reservoir in the distance,

realizing the entanglements

and the cling that are part of my life,

to know dead leaves don’t mean death.

There is tomorrow. There is Spring.

There is green Resurrection and hope.

To stop….

To laugh at limber youth

and how there was no hesitation

in the risks I took back then,

those timesI swayed in the wind,

a young tree –but an old tree

has many circles –

and the others will really only know them

when I’m cut down – a fallen tree,

a wooden casket planted in the ground –
me somewhere else. O Lord ….
Somewhere else, O Lord.

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2008

38

Thirty-eight years:
now that’s a long time
to be stuck in one place.

Thirty-eight years seeing people
coming and going –
but not me – not changing –
not being able to overcome
this problem of mine.
Never mind!

I just can’t change.
I just can’t do it.

Never.

No how.

Impossible.

Thirty-eight years.
It took me thirty-eight years
to hear him say,
“Do you want to be well?”
“Of course,” I answered,
but then came my excuses –
the circumstances,
the what if’s and back then’s,
and the names of the people
I blame for me being who I am
and the way I am – and this and that.

He laughed.
He healed me.
It took him less than 38 seconds.
He didn’t even plunge me
into the deep waters,
into the pool,
into some long program,
so I could be healed.
He just said, “Stand up!
Get off the mat. Walk!”

And that was that – just like that.

Poetic Homily for 4 Tuesday Lent

BLIND

[For our Children's Liturgy / Family Mass, I like to write a story triggered by something in the readings for the day. This is a story for the 4 Sunday of Lent A.]

Blind? What’s it like to be blind? Ask Billy Beekeeper. He’ll tell you.

Billy was born blind, but when it comes to hearing, he’s the best.

Billy, now age 42, has this amazing ability to hear. Like Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, he learned to play the piano at an early age – and wow can he play. While other kids were playing football, soccer, baseball or lacrosse, Billy Beekeeper played music – by practicing, practicing, practicing. But he did exercise. He loved to walk – and walk fast. He’d bump into things at times – but in time he developed this uncanny way of knowing something was in front of him – a shopping cart or a tree. His two sisters’ shoes – now that’s a different story. If they left them lying around on the floor near the TV couch, that was a no no – because Billy would often trip on them while growing up in the Beekeeper House.

No, Billy’s dad was not a beekeeper, but they figured 5 generations back – that would be his great, great, great grandfather in southern Germany – probably was a beekeeper – and obviously, they think that’s where their last name came from. And they loved their last name. It always got comments. It always got, “Now how do you spell that.”

“B E E K E E P E R – Beekeeper.”

And the other person would suddenly say every time, “Oh, Bee Keeper.”

When his parents found out Billy was born blind – they were shaken up. Now what? They didn’t expect this. After a long nine month pregnancy, hoping for a boy after two girls, only to find out, their new born baby was blind, “Oooh!” That was an “Oooh,” if there every was an “Oooh!”. “Woo,” they thought. “A whole lifetime ahead and this their third child – their only boy – was going to have to go through life – not being able to see.”

They took Billy to every specialist – every doctor – every eye center they heard about. No luck. This was before Google – and before so many advances in medicine.

So Billy grew up blind.

It wasn’t all that bad. He was very smart – very clever – and as I already said, “When it comes to hearing, Billy was the best.”

If anyone was to go through life blind, Billy would be a great choice – because he had a great disposition.

He could hear in another person’s voice worry, sadness, doubt, faith, jubilation or celebration. He was able to really console his dad when he came home one evening and told the family after supper, “I lost my job today. The company is downsizing, but don’t worry, everything will be okay. They gave me some leads.”

His mom and his two sisters didn’t hear what Billy heard – a 42 year old man worried – worried big time – that he might be too old to get the kind of job he thought he needed – a job that could pay the mortgage payments, food bills, schooling, and teeth straigtheners that both his sisters had. The Beekeeper girls were pretty, but their teeth took a long time to be in place. They needed help with wires and rubber bands – and those kinds of wires and rubber bands were expensive. So Billy went to his dad in the garage after the announcement, after supper, to console him – and tell him, “Not to worry.”

When it came to school Billy had no problems. Of course, being blind he couldn’t read or see blackboards and all that. But he listened. Billy listened and his teachers were amazed. He always got straight A’s.

If he overheard it a hundred times, he overheard it a thousand times, teachers being amazed at how smart he was – would say, “I guess if we lose one gift, another gift gets better.”

When Billy was a kid he had to resist listening in to gossip – on the school bus – amongst his sisters’ friends when they were over to the house for a slumber party on a weekend – or when sitting in a restaurant with his family. He could hear people on other tables. He knew what waitresses were pushing – when they didn’t even know they were pushing the special of the day – because the restaurant owner told them to push the lentil soup or the Neapolitan Salmon.

Now, what to do and what to be when he grew up?

His first thought was music. He was in a band – playing the piano. He also played at the Youth Mass in his parish of St. Didymus.

Billy wasn’t sure. One advisor in his high school senior year suggested going to Georgetown – and get a degree in foreign service. Billy was great with languages – being able to speak Spanish and German. He also dabbled in Russian.

Since Billy could hear tones in voices, a high school teacher, who had worked for the CIA before he retired, knew about a blind woman who had worked for them. She was a better lie detector machine than lie detecting machines.

But Billy decided to go to college for psychology – family psychology. Since he couldn’t see, maybe he could help families see things they weren’t seeing.

And that’s what Billy Beekeeper got his degrees in. It took a lot of time, but he became a Family Psychologist – and wow was he good. Teenagers and kids were not scared of him. Husbands and wives could say things to each other – after sessions with Dr. Beekeeper – that they never said or saw before. Dr. Beekeeper could ask the best questions – questions that could get to the heart of the matter – why kids were acting out – trying drugs – not wanting to study or do homework – why families were fighting. He could hear things parents were saying that they didn’t know they were saying.

If he heard it a hundred times, he heard it a thousand times, he heard people during time with him say, “Wow am I blind?”

Then there would come the “Oops,” every time. And both Billy and the person who said it would laugh.

Billy never married. Oh he dated a few gals – and one time they were very serious, but Billy sensed down deep, there was something else he had to do with his life.

There was.

It happened one Sunday morning, on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, and the gospel story was about the man born blind.

He had heard that story before – and he liked that story and several other stories about blind people in the gospel stories about Jesus. But that Sunday the story overwhelmed him.

Billy heard the call to be a priest. Yes a priest. “But,” someone said, “They won’t ordain a blind priest.”

“Why not?” said Billy.

And the priest he talked to also said, “Why not?”

And it took time – but that’s what Billy became, a priest.

Everybody loved going to confession to him. He couldn’t see who they were – but wow were they surprised when he would ask quick, simple questions, darts of thought that often changed people’s lives and they too would say, “Wow was I blind.”

But his sermons were the best. People would come from miles around, just to hear his sermons. People would say, “I never listened to sermons all my life. I have no idea what priests are talking about, but Father Billy Beekeeper helps me to see things I never saw before. He’s the best. He’s a keeper.”