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
