"YOU JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP! 2025 #6

Last year, every Saturday I featured  a post called "Wisdom for 2024" 

This year, every Saturday, I will post a series of unusual personal experiences 

from the past under the title "You Can't Make This Stuff Up."

Sometimes, names or locations will be changed or disguised to protect the guilty! 

Besides, I am retired! What can they do, fire me?

 A COUPLE OF CASES OF BLAMING THE VICTIM

I have had my home burglarized three times - once in Monticello and twice on Eastern Parkway in Louisville - once in two separate houses. 

In Monticello, the first house I owned was outside the town of Monticello. I did not live there, but used it to house volunteers who came down to donate their services to help the local poor during the summer. I suspected that it was "some Baptists" who did it because they took my stereo and 2 cans of beer. Stereos were common, but beer was hard to find in that "dry" County! Ha!

The second time I was robbed was in my first house on Eastern Parkway while I was at a program for priests at St. Meinrad. This robbery was probably my fault! In a rush to get started on the trip to St. Meinrad, I mistakenly left the living room lights on and the drapes open in front of a huge picture window facing Eastern Parkway. At night, anyone walking down the sidewalk or driving down the street could see my beautiful new stereo system waiting to be taken from a well-lit stage! They came through the back door and left the front door open, when they left with the stereo loaded into a couple of pillow cases. Neighbors called me to come home immediately when they saw my front door standing open. I came home immediately before they came back and started loading the furniture. Luckily, the generous people who gave me the stereo replaced it immediately, but I could not find pillow cases to match my faded sheets! 

The third time I was robbed was in my third house on Eastern Parkway that backed up to Manuel Stadium. This time, with no one to keep an eye on the back side of my house, and it being obvious to the neighbors when I was not at home, they broke one of the back windows, came in and took the good amount of change that I had in a lamp table by the bed. Nothing else seemed to have been touched. The police summarized that they were simply looking for money to buy drugs or maybe to find a gun. 

At the time, I was living downtown at the Cathedral, with Archbishop Kelly, and staying in my house mostly on my days off and various other occasions. When I told Archbishop Kelly about the break-in, and expecting a little sympathy in the process, all he said was" "Well, how pitiful! They broke into your house and didn't see anything they wanted but a handful of change!" 

I was reluctant to sell my third house on Eastern Parkway and move into my present condo, but I have lived here for 19 years without a break-in - mainly because there are two doors one has to go through to get in and because the neighbors are so close they notice all the comings and goings! The big problem now is water leaks from the condo above me - each one a little worse than the last. So far, there have been four in all. The last one was a major leak that ruined the carpets on two floors and some of the ceilings on both floors. The big issue is that "according to condo rules," the one leaked on is the "leakee's" insurance company's fault unless it is intentional by the "leaker!"  I call it "robbery" by another means! 

THAT FEELING YOU GET WHEN YOU RUN OUT OF GAS

Jesus and his disciples came to land at Gennesaret

and tied up there. People immediately recognized him.

They scurried about the surrounding country and began

to bring in the sick on mats to wherever they heard

he was. Many were healed.

Mark 6:53-56

Jesus had a helper’s reputation so no sooner than his boat landed and tied up in Gennesaret, word got out and people swarmed around him from everywhere wanting something from him. To put it bluntly, they came to get something! Only people in helping professions, especially those who are good at it, understand what it’s like. They know what it’s like to be swarmed by needy people always wanting something.

There are those who simply make use of the church. I often joke about it by saying something like this, “People never call the rectory and ask the priest how he is doing or what can they do for him.” No, they usually want him to do something for them or their families – a hospital visit, a baptism or a funeral – or they want to register a complaint or report a disaster to which he needs to look into!

There are some children who simply use their parents. A growing number of them expect their parents to provide a free home with services for their comfort and convenience without ever having to contribute any help, assistance and appreciation or offering to give them a night out or show their gratitude. Some even move back in when they get in a crisis that they have often contributed to creating, against the advice of their parents!

There are those who simply make use of God. I am actually shocked at how many people never attend church, never say a prayer or never read a spiritual book unless they face a serious personal crisis. Their only prayers are not prayers of praise or gratitude, but requests and demands. They treat God like a bell-hop at a hotel. At a hotel, all a guest has to do is ring the bell and the bell-hop will appear to fetch anything the guest wants. Worse than that are those who actually get angry at God because he will not respond to what they want at a time they want it.

If we think about it, we are all to some extent, guilty of these things. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could sometimes come to God more with our love, service and devotion, rather than just when we need something?

PIGS OVER THE CLIFF

 GIVEN AT LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR 2-3-2025

“When Jesus got out of the boat, at once a man from the tombs who had an unclean spirit met him. The man had been dwelling among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain.”

Mark 5:1-10

This is one of those stories that always aggravated me growing up! It comes up every year about this time. It might be a minor point in the story, but for me the part about pigs rushing over a cliff to their deaths always reminded me of growing up as a boy down in Meade County.  Every time I heard this story, I identified with certain characters in particular. No, it wasn’t the main character, the possessed man in the cemetery, but the men who were tending the pigs that plunged over a cliff to their deaths.

I used to take care of pigs on one of my father’s farms and I can only imagine what hell would break lose if I came home one day and told my Dad that the pigs I was caring for had all just stampeded over a cliff and died because a crazy man had come out of the cemetery next to our pig pen and was screaming at the top of his lungs!  I am pretty sure my Dad would have never believed my attempt for an excuse!

However, let’s not let my issue cloud the main character and the point of the story. First, Mark paints a very scary story here. We know from the chapters before that Jesus and his disciples had set sail “late in the evening” so it was dark on the lake. On the way across the lake, they experienced a storm and had just landed in an area with many caves in the limestone rocks along the shore. Many of these caves were used to bury the dead. At the best of times, this place would have been an eerie place especially in the dark. They landed at a perilous place, at a perilous hour and then they were met by a dangerous man, a “possessed” man who could not be restrained even with a chain. Growing up, the man would have believed what all Jews at that time believed – that no man would survive if he realized the number of demons with which he was surrounded. Probably mentally ill, he had convinced his wandering mind that a mass of those demons had taken up residence inside him. He was so convinced that Jesus had to make more than one attempt to heal him.  (1) First, Jesus used his usual method – an authoritative order to the demon to come out.  (2) When that didn’t work, Jesus demanded to know what the demon’s name was. It was believed that if a demon could be named, that would give the healer a certain power over the demon. (3) When that didn’t work, Jesus understood that the only way to cure this man was to give him a dramatic demonstration that his demons had indeed gone from him.

It doesn’t matter whether we believe in demon possession, the poor man believed in it. This is where the pigs come in! The poor man had been screaming and shrieking so much that he caused a herd of local pigs to stampede over a sea-side cliff and drown in the sea. It was the proof that the poor man needed that they had gone out of him and into the pigs. Later, those tending the pigs came to Jesus and saw the poor mad man, that they feared so much, fully clothed and in his senses. They were so freaked about the whole event that they asked Jesus to leave their area!

There is a part of all of us that is haunted by our own “demons” - our negative assumptions, our irrational fears and our bad memories. Many of us need external signs to be able to let go of them. There is also a part of us, like the swine herders, that even when good things happen to others, we cannot celebrate because we do not want our status quo upset. We would rather things will be left the way they were!  

We all need deliverance, whether it be from literal demon possession or an all-powerful delusion. Whatever it is, Jesus is willing to help us let go of whatever is holding us back from a life to the fullest!  This must be true because he certainly delivered me from the life of pig farmer down in Meade County when he called me to the priesthood!

 

THE POWER OF PREDICTIONS

 

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

Luke 2:22-40

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 made predictions about Jesus. 

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 what is 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.

I was barraged, growing up, with powerful negative messages and predictions – things like: “You can’t do anything right! and “You will never amount to a hill of beans!” Even when I left for the seminary, most of the adults around me predicted that I would never make it! Even Father Johnson refused to fill out the papers for me to go to the seminary until I cried right in front of him. He finally agreed to do it, but told me before I left the old rectory, “You’ll be home before Christmas!

Father White, the head priest at St. Thomas Seminary, called me into his office in my second year of high school because I was struggling. His words still hurt. He told me I was a “hopeless case” and he was sending me home in the morning. I cried for another chance. In Greek class, in my final year at St. Thomas, he told the whole class that I had been “a ball and chain around his leg for six years!”

It wasn’t till I got to St. Meinrad Seminary that I could finally see some light at the end of the tunnel. They told us, the very first night, that they we going to help us find our gifts and talents and then help us develop them!

It wasn't till those years that I understood that I had joined my critics in criticizing myself. With the help of the monks at St. Meinrad, 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 happened on a fire-escape at St. Meinrad when the dam broke and I blurted out to a good friend, “Pat, I am so tired of being backwards, bashful and scared of life that I am going to do something about it even if it kills me!”

The next few years were 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. For years, I woke up to an affirmation tape that went through nearly a hundred of self-encouraging affirmations.  

I have made great progress. I have come a long way.  I have had many great experiences. However, the naysayers have always been there trying to trip me up and entice me into giving up! When I went to the Cathedral, the former pastor told me not to get my hopes up because “nothing can be done downtown because no Catholics lived there anymore. 

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 that "I can," 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. My job, from the pulpit, was to get them to change what they thought about themselves and magic happened in every situation. I have spent years practicing and teaching the power of positive self-talk!

For fifteen years, I wrote a column in The Record called “An Encouraging Word.”  Instead of looking around for sin to condemn and highlight, I decided to look for goodness to affirm and spotlight! John Lubbock was so right when he said, “What we see depends mainly on what we look for!  Others wrote about what’s wrong with the world and the people in it! I looked for goodness, found what I was looking for and wrote about it every week for fifteen years! I still run into people who were moved by what I wrote and have told me how positively it has affected them.  I ran into a man a few weeks ago who still carries one of my columns in his billfold that I wrote fifteen years ago!

My friends! 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!”

Be a Simeon and be an Anna from the gospel today who predicted “amazing things” about Jesus. Shower your kids, your grandkids, your neighbors, your fellow parishioners  and your friends with affirming, helpful and encouraging messages. Believe me, they get enough judgment and criticism already!