THE POWER OF PREDICTIONS

The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him.

Luke 2:22-40

With more poor schizophrenics left to roam the streets and more and more self-absorbed people with those "cell phone earpieces" dangling from their lobes, it seems to me that I am hearing more and more people talking, louder and louder, to thin air! While I'm at it, would someone please tell me what drives people who feel a need to share their obnoxious car music with whole neighborhoods, their intimate phone conversations with everybody in the grocery store and every thought that crosses their minds in a text message? I am willing to pay good money to the first company that comes up with a "portable jamming device" that I can carry discretely on my belt to protect myself from their total lack of civility!  

I am not against one talking to oneself - in private! I must confess that I am always talking to myself, but hopefully I do it in my own mind or behind the closed doors of my home!  If not, please, somebody go get me some help!

In  the gospel today, Jesus is brought to the Temple, by Mary and Joseph, for his Jewish circumcision and to be consecrated to the Lord. While they were there, they ran into two old people, Simeon and Anna, who speak up and make predictions about the future of the baby Jesus for everyone to hear. 

Predictions, those made about us, and those we make about ourselves, are very powerful. In Egypt, a new ruler was given five names, each of which described a virtue expected of him. In the Isaiah reading at Christmas, we see that the future king of God’s people would bear four names: Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-forever, Prince of Peace. 

We tend to believe what is said about us, and said to us! We tend to rise to meet the high expectations or sink to meet the low expectations voiced about us! If people say we are smart, we tend to act as if we are smart! If people say we are losers, we tend to act like losers.

Growing up, I was not aware of what the therapeutic community knows today - how damaging or helpful comments from others can be to our self-worth. Children tend to believe negative and positive assessments of themselves from teachers and parents, developing a compromised self-concept when criticized on a regular basis or an enhanced self-concept when praised on a regular basis. As I mentioned last week at the noon Mass homily, I was barraged, growing up, with powerful negative messages and predictions – things like “You will never amount to a hill of beans!” Even when I left for the seminary, most of the adults around me told me I would never make it!

It wasn't till I got older that I understood that I had joined them in criticizing myself.  I can remember making the decision to stop my own self-defeating self-talk and start replacing it with positive and encouraging self-talk. It has been a long hard road because they say positive-to-negative comments need to be at least five to one for success in overcoming the damage.  

Following the advice of Henry Ford who said, "Those who think they can, and those who think they can't, are both right," I have been able to talk myself into doing things I never thought possible. When I was your pastor here between 1983 and 1997, I actually woke up every morning listening to a home-made tape I made in my own voice with positive affirmations. I actually had to daily talk myself into being the pastor I became! Another of the many things on that tape that have come true is this affirmation. "I am a published spiritual writer."  I listened to that affirmation for several years before an editor for Crossroads Press in New York showed up here and talked me into sending them my first manuscript. Listening to that prediction every day was indeed powerful. I now have thirty-two books in print. 

I still have a long way to go. I still say things to myself like "I am not good at figuring out electronics," but if I stop, take my time and tell myself, "You can do it," I usually can!  Negative self-talk increases my stress and it stops me from searching for solutions.        

I have fought negative talk throughout my priesthood - both in myself and others. In almost every assignment I have had, some priest has told me how impossible the situation was going to be! I found that the parishioners, in almost every one of those  assignments, believed it themselves. I was even told by the pastor before me, when I came here in 1983, "Don't get your hopes up! Nothing can be done with the Cathedral. There aren't any Catholics living downtown anymore!" My job. from the pulpit, was to get the members of all those parishes to change the way they thought about themselves and magic happened in every situation. I remember asking you, over and over again, "Who said the Cathedral only gets one "golden age" - that last one over a hundred years ago? I’m here to talk you into another “golden age!” I have spent years practicing and teaching the power of positive self-talk!

As I approached retirement, I was trying to say positive things to myself in an attempt to get myself to believe that indeed “the best is yet to come.” I believe that life, at all stages, is basically a self-fulfilling prophecy. I can, if I believe I can! I can’t if I believe I can’t! So far, retirement has been amazing, especially when I added the Caribbean missions to my list of ministries.  

Fellow Catholics! What others say to you and about you is powerful, but you need not be a victim if it is negative. You can choose what to believe about yourself and you can override negative messages by positive self-talk!    As W. C. Fields said, “It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to!” Buddha said, “We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think about.”

The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him.

Luke 2:22-40