This worked:
public Properties getProperties(String propertiesFileName)
{
try {
Properties prop;
prop = new Properties();
InputStream in = new FileInputStream(propertiesFileName);
prop.load(in);
in.close();
return prop;
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
return null;
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
return null;
}
}