July 24, 2018 

Thought for today: 

“The greatest wisdom often consists in ignorance.”  

Baltasar Gracian

THE  LORD 

IS  NOT  A  MOUNTAIN! 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 16^th Monday in Ordinary Time is, “The Lord Is Not A Mountain.”

Today’s first reading from the Book of the Prophet Micah begins with a very visual image. The Lord says, “Present your plea - your voice - to the Lord before the mountains.” [Cf. Micah 6: 1-8]

“Stand before the mountains - yell - and hear your voice. Hear the echo of your sounds.  Pay attention to what you are saying, pleading, asking, praying for?”

In other words, listen to your own prayers and pleas.

EASY TO PICTURE

It’s easy to picture a mountain. We’ve been there - or we saw them in movies or on television.

When kids draw - they often draw mountains - so easy - along with trees and cats and dogs.

So imagine yourself standing there facing a gigantic mountain.

What is your biggest prayer in your life right now? For family? Self? Friends? Our world?

Yell it out. Hear your echo. Listen to what your saying - attentively. Carefully.

Then Micah says to us: Listen to what the Lord speaks  back to you.

WE ARE NOT MOUNTAINS

We are not made of stone - but sometimes we are stone deaf. Sometimes we feel like a rock or a stone. Isn’t that  the sense of Simon and Garfunkle’s song, “I am a rock. I am an island….”  

Prayer, a conversation, is two sided. 

Unfortunately, sometimes we talk to each other and we’re really not being with, listening to, looking into the other’s eye and being - and hearing what the other is saying.

God is not a mountain. Yet God is pictured as a mountain - in the scriptures.  Mountains don’t have eyes, ears, a heart, an understanding.

Yet mountains can be very powerful.  Imposing. Overshadowing. Overwhelming.

I was on Gibraltar. I was inside Gibraltar - inside the big caves  and tunnels  within. It was a moving moment.

I’ve hiked up some of the Rocky Mountains and the Presidential Range of Mountains in New Hampshire.

Momentous moments

I’ve prayed on Mountains.

However, God is not a mountain.

God is 3 Persons - a community of 3 persons who are so together, they are 1.

TODAY’S MESSAGE

Today’s message is to be in communion with God - however you imagine him: mountain, ocean, father, mother, shepherd, spouse, bread, wine, fortress, wall, woman in labor, farmer.

Whichever, whatever, image you use when you’re with God, make sure it’s personal and particular - one to one with God.

Make sure you’re not alone - as a person standing before a mountain - but as a spouse or child in your parents arms.

CONCLUSION

Let me end by making a few conclusions.

So God is not a stone mountain.

God’s voice is not an echo.

As Elijah discovered while he was hiding on a mountain, “God was not in the earthquake, the wind or the fire. God was the sheer silence.”

[Cf. 1 Kings 19: 11-18]

Listen.

July 23, 2018

ON BEING RIGHT

Be careful,

very careful when you know,

you’re right.

Jesus was right

when he warned us about

being the righteous.

They killed him,

because they knew,

he was wrong.

So once more,

stay clear of those, who

think they are right.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2018

July 23, 2018

Thought for today: 

“Find  the  good  and  praise  it.” 

On a gravestone - 

perhaps a saying 

from Alex Haley 

of Roots fame.

3   THINGS   JESUS  TAUGHT  ME

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time [B] is, “3 Things  Jesus Taught  Me.”

The last line in today’s gospel is, “… and he began to teach them many things.”

When I read that,   a question hit me: “What did Jesus teach me?”

I began jotting down different things Jesus taught me and then picked three.

I ask you to do the same thing.

Tell yourself 3 things Jesus taught you.

That’s my homily. Simple.

Do that with each other. Share and compare notes.

TO GET THERE, LET ME GO THIS WAY

Looking at life, what have you learned and who taught you?

I once made a workshop on stress and the heart and health.

A guy named Jim Gill, a Jesuit priest - a former Navy guy - who became a Jesuit, then a doctor, then a psychiatrist, gave us a few talks about stress.

He told about a doctor in the San Francisco area who taught people to go into a bank - where you have to do some business - and there are several lines.  Pick the longest line - and when you get to the 2^nd in line - get off that line - go to the back - and pick the longest line again.

While on that line do the following. Think of your high school senior classmates and in your mind name as many of them as you can.

That’s it. You could pick neighbors on your street growing up - weddings you’ve been to - books you read - different things Jesus taught you.

I heard that and have done just that ever since - not every time - but I’ve done it at Graul’s - toll booths - I don’t have E-ZPass - getting a table at a restaurant -  what have you.

This works. Lines have never bothered me ever since. No stress.

Or for example, a priest named Jack Shea - from Chicago - gave a talk at a workshop I was taking.  He said he was once giving a talk in Dallas at a Hotel convention. His talk was at 11 AM. He said he went down for breakfast around 8 AM.  No lines.

He got his breakfast - had it on a tray - and headed for a table to eat. The place was not too crowded.  He sees a guy sitting by himself. So he asks, “Mind if I join you?”

He didn’t know who the guy was - whether he was there for the convention on Spirituality or something else - but why not. It’s not good to eat alone.

He didn’t tell the guy he was one of the speakers - just, “Hi. I’m Jack.”

He found out the guy was there for the convention.  Jack still didn’t tell this other guy who he was. He just wanted to share breakfast with another human being.

The guy in the midst of their conversation told Jack that when he picks up a book on spirituality or religion he likes to look at the chapters or the index and see if they list anything about work and relationships.  He said, “It seems that many books don’t list those two issues or say anything about those two areas of life. He added, “As far as I’m concerned, except for sleep, that’s where people spend most of their time - work and relationships.”

Jack said, “I said to myself, ‘Uh oh, as soon as this breakfast is over I’m going up and look at my talk and make sure I have stuff on those two areas of life.”

I learned something at that moment and have tried to keep those two issues out front in my sermons and my writings.

Interesting …. I was driving the other day listening to BBC on the radio. A Jewish man - who helps folks deal with death - was being interviewed. He was asked if he noticed any differences between men and women who were dying.  He said, “Yes. I noticed men have trouble when they see themselves losing it - when it comes to being able to produce.  Women feel it when they see themselves losing it when it comes to relationships.  there they were again: work and relationships.

NOW THREE THINGS JESUS TAUGHT ME

Now let me give three things that Jesus taught me - 3 things that grabbed me - three things that I have tried to put into practice.

I’ll give my three - I’ll practice what I’m preaching this weekend - in hopes you do the same.

FIRST TEACHING: FATHER FORGIVE THEM BECAUSE THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING.

On the cross Jesus was dying after being beaten, nailed to that cross, spit at, yelled at - and he says, “Father forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing.”

When hurt …. when talked about …. when criticized …. when crucified …. think about the person hurting you. They don’t know why they are doing it.

Motive - the why - why - why - is very tricky.

It could be envy - it could be pay back - it could be they were hurt - it could be,  we remind them of all the bullies they have run into in life. Why did this guy kill the 5 folks at the Capital?

Horrible - but whether this guy knows why he did what he did - maybe we’ll never know.  There will be stated reasons, yet, down deep - will we ever know.

Obviously, the killer has to be isolated - but  after that - we can’t let someone continue to kill our spirit and spirituality.

Father forgive him because he doesn’t know why he did what he did.

SECOND TEACHING: LET HIM OR HER WITHOUT SIN CAST THE FIRST STONE

In many of our relationships, we throw stones at other people.

We might be doing it because we want to knock people down a level.

We might do just that because we really want to hurt ourselves.

We might be doing just that because we don’t want to face our own sins and we know down deep what we saw this other person doing was wrong.

I have never forgotten an example in a story by Hawthorne about Puritan Life way back in this 17^th Century New England town. There was a woman who walked around making the sound, “Tch. Tch. Tch.” and this other lady said to her, “You need to commit a really good sin, then maybe you’ll understand the rest of us around here.”

THIRD TEACHING FROM JESUS:  TAKE AND EAT, THIS IS MY BODY - TAKE AND DRINK, FOR THIS IS MY BLOOD

Be in communion with one another.  Be in Holy Communion with one another. Eat with one another.  We are not a bunch of I’s here at church together.  We are a mass of people called a “WE”.

Jesus was always eating with other people.

When we eat with one another, we become one another.

Their lives, their experiences, their day, their work, their relationships, become us  that is if we chew on and digest each other and our stuff.

If I’m hearing people, if I’m seeing people, if I’m knowing people, people are not eating each other up.

People are not being in and with the Mass - called family - enough.

People are not stomaching each other - enough.

People are not in the I of the other - their eye is on the TV or their ear is on the cell phone or iPhone.

Want a Eucharistic Spirituality?  Eat together. Come to Mass. Eat together. Come to meals to be with each other. We’re here - not just to be with Christ, but to be with each other and become the Body of Christ.

See your family table as an altar. Play cards on it. Talk at it - long after the meal is over. Eat each other up.

See the sacrifice that makes up a good meal together. The cost of food - with money from our work salary. The time it takes to shop and pick out and prepare the food the others like and to clean up afterwards.

Learn the meaning of sacrifice.

Let that sink in.

At Mass we hear the stories - of what happened in Jesus’ day.

At meals, we can hear the stories - of what happened in each other’s life.

Let those words become flesh and dwell among us.

CONCLUSION

The title of this homily is, “3 Things Jesus Taught You.”

These things can be tough to do. It’s called the Sacrifice of the Mass of all that a good life consists of. When we fail, let’s forgive and realize the other has forgotten what they are to do in life.  When we fail, let’s not throw rocks at each other.  When we forget, let’s remember our calling to be good shepherds and set a good table before each other.

I gave you my 3. What are your 3? Amen.

July 22, 2018

PRIEST WALKING

I’m walking down the white vinyl

hospital corridor - walking by

person after person after person.

I give each person a “Hi” or “Morning!”

or a wave and a smile. Some smile

back. Some “Hi” back. Some scowl.

At that moment I realize - because of the

collar - I represent every priest they ever 

met. Is that why I get a smile or a scowl?

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2018

July 22, 2018 

Thought for today: 

“Search yourself  and you  shall find God.”  

Kurdish proverb