BROOKLYN

I lucked out - being born 

in Brooklyn. When asked, 

“Where you from?” - who 

would not love to say, 

“I was born in Brooklyn.” 

Good thing my mom and 

dad never decided to move 

to Flushing or Peoria. 

Nope, “I was born in 

Victory Memorial Hospital 

Brooklyn, New York.” 
I won!

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

September  13, 2019

Thought for today: 

"A comprehended god  is  no  god."  

John Chrysostom

(Icon above)

FIGURING  OUT  WHERE  PAUL 

OR  JESUS  GOT  THEIR  MATERIAL 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is this: “Figuring Out Where  Paul  or  Jesus Got Their Material.”

When I read the readings of the day, I like to read them out loud and try to figure out the experience that triggered such a thought.

That’s the thought that hit me from the readings for today’s readings for this 23 Thursday in Ordinary Time.

FOR EXAMPLE

For example, today’s first reading is from Colossians 3: 12-17. Did Paul have  a complaint or a whine or a gripe about someone and then realize he had to forgive them? Did that have to happen  before he could write, "bearing with one another and forgiving another, if one has a grievance against another"?

For example, today’s gospel is from Luke 6: 27-38. Did Jesus see a stall keeper in the marketplace who always seemed to give extra to all his customers - and as a result, he got all kinds of return customers?

I said Mass in Asbury Park yesterday for some of Mother Teresa’s nuns. Father John McGowan had taken me to their convent last week so that I would know where they were. On the way back from our dry run, Father Jack  pointed out Frank's on our way back from the Sister's place. He said, “Frank's is the place where the guys get donuts.” So I went in yesterday and ordered 6 donuts and the lady gave me 7 saying the jelly donuts were still hot. The message Jesus took out of a market experience was: the measure with which we measure will be measured out to us.  I was seeing a lady with a big heart and gave me extra jelly donuts. Neat.

In today's gospel, Jesus talked about people who lent stuff and then got angry with people who didn’t make returns. Did Jesus notice some person who gladly lent their neighbor a wheel barrel or a ladder or a plow - but go crazy when the person wouldn't return it?

IN OTHER WORDS

In other words did Paul and Jesus sit back and think out lessons from their experiences. I figure that I've preached well over 5000 times - and I'm sure for the first 10 years I preached on what I read in books, but at some point I had to switch over to preaching from experiences.

Father Jack McGowan in driving me to your place here at Lincroft, last week when he was showing me how to get here said, "There are homilies everywhere, everyday, in every place. You just have to see them."

Last night in preparing this homily, I’m thinking about conversations we have at the dinner table.  A says Blue Oldsmobile. That triggers in B the words Blue Nun wine. That triggers in C, an  ­Immaculate Heart of Mary Nun who wears a blue habit. That triggers in D  a  friend who was in an Oldsmobile car accident.

Isn’t that how conversations and life happens?

So when I read the readings the night before I have a Mass in the morning I just read the readings out loud for myself a few times and all kinds of memories are touched.

So today's gospel talks about not judging, forgiving, loving enemies - now that's the tough one - compared to loving those who are good to us.

What triggered that thought for Jesus?

Today's first reading talks about gentleness and patience.

Would living with a brother who was rough on everyone - and had no patience trigger mentioning that in a letter.

THE NEXT STEP

So there are homilies everywhere.

When Jack McGowan took me on a tour on how to get to this place as well as Holy Cross in Rumson, I jotted down directions in this pad.

I took out this pad at breakfast with the jelly donuts yesterday and a visiting young priest says, "That's Andy's GPS. And it's made of paper."

I was thinking: did Jesus have something like a pad in his pocket when he worked in the carpenter shop or when he walked through the town’s market or when he made trips to the mountains near Capernaum? Did he do that in his 20's and think about what he recently saw: brothers not talking to each other and father's trying to bring about reconciliation.

CONCLUSION:

So my  homily thought for today has been: the readings for the day give us possible hints not only for us  homily thoughts but possible experiences the author had.

So the homilist as well as the readers as well as the hearers of the daily readings ought to  listening and try to  figure out what triggered what?

SUIT OF STONE

I visited the graveyard

filled with stones of every

size and shape.

I felt I was in a clothing store,

wondering what suit of stone

would suit me well.

It was then, and only then, that

I realized it’s the numbers

that had the grab and the look.

How many days, how many years

do I get to play on planet earth,

before they bury me deep down below?

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

September  12, 2019 

Thought  for  today: 

“Father:  the  quietist member of the family unit.” 

Anonymous

COUNTRY  MUSIC  

AND  POETRY

Make sure you schedule into your schedule Ken Burns’ next documentary. It’s on Country Music.

It begins on September 15, 2019.

It will be 8 sessions - taking 16 and ½ hours.

I don’t know about you, but I like songs that I can hear the words.

I’ve been on many high school retreats - during which they played high school kids music.  Not my world. Not my words.

I can’t sing - but I do love poetry - so songs that allow me to hear the words - hear a story - get a message - are my world.

So check out Ken Burns’ documentary on Country Music and hear him get into memories and stories - the stuff of life - like his documentaries on the Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, The National Parks, etc.

Country Music tells us so much - especially through music.  If you don’t believe me check out the documentary on this particular blog piece on the musical trio: Dolly, Linda and Emmylou.

It's poetry and sound in motion!

FOUR   POETS 
FOUR  POEMS 

Since I mention 4 poets in my next piece, "Poet and Priest" - I thought I'd present 4 poems - poems from Mary Oliver, Denise Levertov, Dereck Walcott and Seamus Heaney.

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

by  Mary Oliver

THE SECRET

 Two girls discover

 the secret of life

 in a sudden line of

 poetry.

 I who don’t know the

 secret wrote

 the line.  They

 told me

 (through a third person)

 they had found it

 but not what it was

 not even

 what line it was.  No doubt

 by now, more than a week

 later, they have forgotten

 the secret,

 the line, the name of

 the poem.  I love them

 for finding what

 I can’t find,

 and for loving me

 for the line I wrote,

 and for forgetting it

 so that

 a thousand times, till death

 finds them, they may

 discover it again, in other

 lines

 in other

 happenings.  And for

 wanting to know it,

 for

 assuming there is

 such a secret, yes,

 for that

 most of all.

from “O Taste and See” (1967)
by Denise Levertov

THE FIST

The fist clenched round my heart

loosens a little, and I gasp

brightness; but it tightens

again. When have I ever not loved

the pain of love? But this has moved

past love to mania. This has the strong

clench of the madman, this is

gripping the ledge of unreason, before

plunging howling into the abyss.

Hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live.

by Dereck Walcott 

DIGGING

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

By Seamus Heaney