WISDOM BE ATTENTIVE
INTRODUCTION
One of my favorite sayings is, “Wisdom! Be Attentive.”
So that’s the title of
my homily for this 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B.
“Wisdom Be Attentive.”
Since this is October, the Month of the Holy Rosary, last
week I preached on the Rosary and I repeated a message I like to repeat.
“Rosary Beads aren’t just for Hail Mary’s anymore.”
And every time I say that, different people say to me -
afterwards - “I never heard that and I’ve tried that, ‘Thanks.’”
And I say things like -
you can say, “Thanks” - 59 times on a rosary beads - the number of beads
on a rosary - and that will take only 2 minutes
- more or less. You can say that any time. Or you can use it as a night prayer for the day. Or you can
just take a decade of the rosary and
come up with 10 moments from the day - or
from your life - or what have you -
moments that you are grateful for.
Or you can pick 10 regrets or 59 “Sorry” moments from
your life or simply say, “Glory to you,
O God.” Or “Help!” or “Wonderful” or
“Peace” or “Praise!”
And if this method of prayer works for you - that is - in
any way you make it personal for you - give rosaries to your kids or others and
tell them your discovery of different ways you use your rosary beads.
This works - if
you make it work.
It works for me - you can make it 10 or 59 - fingerings
of a rosary beads in your pocket - and it’s ecumenical - or you can use Muslim
worry beads or a string of pearls or whatever.
WISDOM BE ATTENTIVE
I was at a lot of Eastern Rite Catholic Masses -
especially when I lived in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania - at a Retreat House there.
And before they read the scriptures at Mass - holding up the Scriptures, the
reader says or chants, “Wisdom! Be Attentive.”
And somewhere along the line I made that one of the
prayers I say on my rosary. It takes 3 to 5 minutes for the 59 beads - or less
than a minute for one decade of the rosary - to say: “Wisdom Be Attentive.”
Eastern Rite Catholics use a knotted string - or rope type
black rosary -called “chotkis” for prayer. It goes back to the 300 AD -
especially with the Desert Fathers. They would often say the Jesus Prayer:
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” with chotkis - as a
counting device.
Some credit St. Anthony of the Desert [251-356] and Saint Pachomius [292-348] for this practice.
Wisdom Be Attentive!
In the Western Church - France, Italy etc. there is
evidence of types of rosaries in the 9th as well as the 13th
centuries and afterwards.
In this homily, I’m simply suggesting using a rosary in
hand as a reminder and a statement: “I
am now going to pray.” Muslims use a
prayer rug as well as beads as a prayer reminder.
I’m saying it’s a neat prayer method reminder. Find your rosary - you have them in your
house - somewhere - or you already know exactly where it is - in your pocket -
in a prayer dish on your bureau - or next to your bed or on the mirror of your
car.
Take and use.
Or continue to use it as a rosary and say the regular
Hail Mary’s.
I’m also stressing using your rosary and a wisdom
reminder. Wisdom be Attentive - you’ll see a lot of wisdom all around you.
ANOTHER PRACTICE: STREET WISDOM - STREET SMARTS
Last night I typed into the Google Search Box the word,
“Wisdom” which is the theme for today’s readings.
I found some fascinating stuff on wisdom.
One was Street Wisdom or street smarts.
There are group of people who get together for 3 hours at
a time and they walk down a street and just see what they see. They tune in to
the street.
Then they tell each other what they saw or what questions
came up.
And people report things like families, couples holding
hands, marriage, food, what they are hungering for, God, thoughtfulness, the
rush hour, traffic, money, and on and on and on.
Doing this they reported to each other wisdom.
They came up with their questions.
Is this a better thing to do than to walk with a radio or
iPhone on with ear buds?
Whatever.
Wisdom be attentive.
MISTER MELVIN
Or before coming to Mass - or at Mass you can walk
through the readings - as they are being read or beforehand or during the homily
or whenever.
Just walk through them and ask yourself what questions
come up or what thoughts do they trigger - like walking down or up the street.
For example a lady after the 11 AM mass asked me, “In the
first reading why does the author prefer wisdom to prudence? Why?”
I answered, “They just do - like preferring chocolate
chip cookies to oatmeal raison cookies.”
When I listened to today’s first reading and today’s
second reading I thought of Mister Melvin.
It was summer and I was spending a week with my brother
and his wife and family at Chincoteague Beach in Virginia - and we went
clamming and then my brother bought this clam knife and he was showing it to Mister
Melvin who was in the house next door - a native Chincoteagian. He said to my
brother, “You’re crazy to have bought
this knife. You just take a clam and smash the sucker on the sidewalk and then
with a fork you pick out the meat.”
I thought of that wisdom when I read today’s readings.
The first reading is to pray for wisdom. The second
reading says you take out a knife and pry open the scriptures and pull out the
wisdom. There’s meat in there.
Or you pry open today’s gospel. The gospel has the wisdom
today to not get overloaded with money or not get stuck on money - but get
stuck on Christ.
That triggered a memory of a short movie I saw once of a
man going down a street with 2 suitcases, a back pack and a leather briefcase
and he came to the right address and it was a doorway and he couldn’t fit in -
with his 2 suitcases - so he gave up and kept walking down the street.
Right then a little kid with no stuff comes running that
street and goes right into that house with ease.
It’s the same as a camel being unable to get through the
eye of the needle.
Wisdom be attentive.
WHEN TURNING ON THE INTERNET
I next saw on Google a blog piece on wisdom be attentive
from a Deacon Harold from Portland Oregon….
“On a flight from Minneapolis to Portland earlier this year,
I sat next to an airline pilot who was making his way home to Alaska. We
struck-up a conversation and, after the usual pleasantries and small talk,
began talking about our families. We spent a lot of time discussing the
joys and tribulations of marriage and family life. Since my wife Colleen
and I are entering the teenage years with our oldest daughter, I was
particularly interested in hearing about any challenges he and his wife faced
with their daughter when she was in high school.
My new friend smiled and related the following story.
“Thankfully, we only had one incident during her freshman year in high
school. She called us after school one Friday and asked permission to
stay at a friend’s house for the night. We trusted our daughter and we
knew the girl she would be staying with and her parents, so my wife and I
consented to her request.
“Later that evening, we realized that we never made
arrangements to pick her up, so I called the parents of the friend she was
staying with. The dad on the other line sounded surprised and said that
my daughter wasn’t there and, in fact, that his daughter asked permission to
stay at our house for the night! I was very disappointed and knew exactly
what was going on: there was a party somewhere and both girls were at it.
“Taking advantage of social networking, it didn’t take me
long to find the party house. I drove there and waited on the sidewalk
near the walkway leading to the front door. I stopped someone going into
the party and asked them to tell my daughter to come outside. Less than a
minute later, she poked her head out the door and saw me standing there.
With a look of shock, surprise and fear on her face, she slowly came over to
me. I said to her, ‘You have two minutes to say goodbye to your friends,
get your coat, and come back outside. If you are not here in two minutes,
I’m coming in after you.’
“Two minutes later, my daughter was out of the house and in
the car. I didn’t say a word to her the entire drive home. When we
arrived at the house, I told her to go to her room and that I would be there in
a minute. After debriefing my wife, I went to speak with my
daughter. I spoke to her in a calm and measured tone, not in anger, but
with all seriousness. I told her how much I loved her and what upset me
more than anything was not my worrying about her doing drugs or having sex or
drinking alcohol (which I knew she wouldn’t do), but that she violated my trust
in her by lying to me and her mother. It felt like she stabbed me in the heart.
When I told her that, she cried and hugged me, said she was sorry and told
me that she would never do anything to destroy my trust in her again. And
you know what … she kept her promise!”
There’s wisdom talking to each other. There’s wisdom
comparing notes.
CONCLUSION
There is tons of wisdom all around us. Just be attentive.
So today I’m saying, a good morning prayer is to take a rosary and
wear it out with short prayers like, “Wisdom
be Attentive.”
