Month: November 2019

Advent: Reach for the Stars

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Faith1 Comment

First Sunday of Advent

December 1, 2019

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Advent 1st Sun

Today, in Mercy, dear Friends, let’s begin Advent well! Let’s dedicate that bit of time we choose to spend with the promises of God for our lives. Let’s await Jesus Christ with profound hope and love!

Each Sunday in Advent, I will begin with a meditation I wrote for the Catholic Health Association.  These reflections set the context of each week for us as we immerse ourselves in the amazing revelation of God among us.

On that day, the Lord will bind up
the wounds of His People.
Isaiah 30:26

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Christine is a beautiful woman, inside and out.  She is as vital as fresh air or summer sun.  She is successful, strong, sincere and faith-filled.  But her heart is a fragile hidden glass, ready to break at any moment, because her beloved son is a heroine addict.  Johnny lives in a tidal darkness beyond the shore of her sustaining light.  Like spilled ink, that darkness regularly invades her joy and conspires to steal her hope.

Spiritual darkness holds a profound contradiction. It is the place where we may be deeply lost but even more deeply found.  It is an interior tunnel through which every person walks at least once in her life, the deep chasm from which Isaiah pointed to the distant mountaintop.

During the thrilling season of Advent, we step out into the land of promises and prophets.  The language of hope unfurls in a galaxy across the heavens, calling us out of darkness toward an Infinite and Incarnate Light.  In this first week’s glorious readings, the prophet Isaiah points to our salvation, star by prophetic star:

  • There is a Day coming, he tells us, and on the Day, the Lord will bind up the wounds of his people.
  • In a very little while, he tells us, Lebanon will be changed.  A shoot shall sprout from the tree we had thought to be withered.
  • On this very mountain, he tells us, we will behold our God.

For all of us who, like Christine, carry human sorrow in the shadowed valleys of our spirits, there is healing on the near horizon.  The Daystar of Jesus Christ is about to dawn through the darkness.  God is about to put on the very humanness that is our burden and transform it into glory.  Let us begin, with an eager faith, to enter the divine mystery being sung among the stars.

Music: Creator of the Stars of Night – High Street Hymns

 

Sweet Light in His Eyes

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Church, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus6 Comments

Feast of Saint Andrew, Apostle

Saturday, November 30, 2019

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Today, in Mercy, we stand at the edge of a new Liturgical Year. Yes, in “Church-think”, it is New Year’s Eve.

And it’s fitting to stand here beside Andrew, on his feast, remembering how one day Jesus invited him to launch out into a whole new world.

Mt4_10Andrew

Today teases us with something we cannot yet imagine. Tomorrow, it will be December – the last month of 2019. It will be Advent, the time to wait in silence for unfathomed miracles. What graces will these days hold for us as we prepare for Christmas?

Jesus teased Andrew and Peter too with the promise to be “fishers of men”. Wading knee-deep in the Galilean Sea, do you think they had any hint of what Jesus was talking about? I don’t. I think they simply caught the faith, hope and love in his eyes the way a match catches flame when it’s struck.

Let’s stand with Andrew today at the brink of Advent, on the edge of the long nights or days of December (depending on our hemisphere 😉)

Let’s trust the fire we find in Christ’s eyes as we pray through this Holy Season. Let’s be very intentional not to miss the point of these sacred days by losing them to the muddle of a commercialized, secularized “holiday season”.

St Andrew PRayer

 

An old devotion that I still love is the St. Andrew Novena. The prayer, prayed from November 30 until December 24th, is meant to remind us of the true meaning of these days leading to Christmas. Because my mother said it with me when I was a little girl, it carries both spiritual and emotional riches for me.

It is traditionally suggested that we say it fifteen times a day. I will confess that I only say it once a day, but I do that slowly, focusing on the sacred mystery held within the words.

 

I also have created my personal version without specific petitions. I think God knows what we need and provides for us. That Lavish Mercy is enough and everything.

My St. Andrew’s Prayer:

Hail, and blessed be the hour and moment
at which the Son of God was born
of our dear Mother Mary
in a stable
at midnight
in Bethlehem
in the piercing cold.
At that hour, I ask you dear God,
to hear my prayer and grant my hope
that you fill our world again
with your Loving Presence.
Through Jesus Christ and His most Blessed Mother.
Amen.

Music: We Shall Behold Him – Ron Kenoly (Lyrics below)

I love this hymn, especially the line “the sweet light in his eyes shall enhance those awaiting”. Maybe that’s the light Andrew saw. May we see it too!

The sky shall unfold
Preparing His entrance
The stars shall applaud Him
With thunders of praise
The sweet light in His eyes shall enhance those awaiting
And we shall behold Him, then face to face.

O we shall behold Him, we shall behold Him
Face to face in all of His glory
O we shall behold Him, yes we shall behold Him
Face to face, our Savior and Lord.

The angel will sound, the shout of His coming
And the sleeping shall rise, from there slumbering place
And those remaining, shall be changed in a moment
And we shall behold him, then face to face.

We shall behold Him, o yes we shall behold Him
Face to face in all of His glory
We shall behold Him, face to face
Our Savior and Lord
We shall behold Him, our Savior and Lord
Savior and Lord!

Thank You, God, For Loving Me

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Prayer, ThanksgivingLeave a comment

Friday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Friday, November 29,2019

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Today, in Mercy, let us continue to bask in the deep gratitude of our hearts for God’s tremendous love for us.

earring

I wrote this reflection for the Sisters of Mercy blog several years ago. They republished it yesterday for Thanksgiving Day. Some of you may not have had the chance to read it. I would be honored if you did.:

Click here to find my reflection of the Sisters of Mercy blog

Music: Amazing Love – some gorgeous instrumental music for your prayer time.

Thanksgiving Prayers

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Thanksgiving5 Comments

Thanksgiving Day

November 28, 2019

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Today, in Mercy, our Thanksgiving readings are so beautiful! Please take some time to read them. Let them bless you wherever you are in life’s journey.

1Cor1_4 Thanks

Throughout this Thanksgiving week, I have prayed by letting your names flow through my mind with deep gratitude. Every life that touches us leaves some kind of blessing or challenge. I am thankful for the gift each one of you has given me.

I know that many of you carry some heaviness through these days – the loss or illness of loved ones, challenges with your own health, or some of the other sorrows life weaves into our joy.

May God reach through any burden you bear to convince you of his Presence in your life,  to assure you with the blessing of our first reading (which I have adapted slightly).

And now, bless the God of all,
who has done wondrous things on earth;
Who fosters our good from our mother’s womb,
and fashions us according to his mysterious plan for us!
May God grant us joy of heart
and may peace abide among us;
May God’s goodness toward us endure
to deliver us to joy
even through clouds of any passing sorrow.

May you and your loved ones be abundantly blessed on this Thanksgiving!

Music: I Thank My God

 

Thanksgiving Prayer

Blessed God, Great Spirit
Your Breath fills all creation.
It fills this country, making sacred
the land, the water, the sky.
It fills each of us,
making us all Your children,
sisters and brothers of many roots and colors,
who blessedly call ourselves “Americans.”

We give thanks to You today
for Your many gifts to us,
Your beauty and depth are mirrored to us
in the many faiths and cultures
that enrich us as a people.
Help us to reverence our diversity
as an expression of Your Divine Creativity.

We are a people with many names.
We thank You especially
for the names that have shaped us as Americans:
Washington, Lincoln, King –
Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth –
Geronimo, Joseph of the Nez Percé, Sacajawea.

We thank You for those whose names
have blended into the silence of history;
for the Native American who held this land
as a sacred trust;
for pilgrim, pioneer and patriot,
for suffragette, soldier, public servant, and saint…
for those in our own families
who first came – full of hope – to these shores,
and for the searching immigrants who come here now
to find the dream of peace.

We have many hopes and fears, dear God,
as a nation, as individuals, and as world citizens.
On this Thanksgiving Day, move us to bless and
reverence one another as sisters and brothers
and to renew ourselves ,
as your children, in the grace
of awareness, respect, justice and mercy.

Amen.

(Thanks)Giving

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Thanksgiving7 Comments

Wednesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

November 27, 2019

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Today, in Mercy, in our reading from Daniel, King Belshazzar sees “the handwriting on the wall”. We all know how that feels! It’s a feeling that tells us to pay attention to our lives.

As Thanksgiving comes closer, I hope this reflection will help us all pay attention to what is most precious in our lives, and to give thanks.

TY families

Thanksgiving is a most heart-warming time. While culture seems to have eroded Christmas into a holiday of “presents”, Thanksgiving remains a time of “presence” – a day simply to gather family and friends in fellowship and love.  It is a day full of remembering, ritual, hope and encouragement.  It is a time when we are brought back to our true selves by the people who know us best and share our memories.

No matter how many years pass, on Thanksgiving morning we can remember our mother’s kitchen – the early morning bustle of chopping, peeling and mixing; the aroma of roasting turkey rising steadily through the day. For some, the memory is of the gathering of cousins for a football game, or the community of aunts for the pie-baking marathon. Always, it is a memory of togetherness and comfortable acceptance.

For me, a precious memory rests with the turkey heart. Both Dad and I loved this rare treat. But, alas, the turkey has only one heart! So we created a ritual of “alternative years” where I got the heart one year, Dad the next. Somehow, every year, Dad said he had had it last year – until I grew old enough to recognize his generous ploy. Then, as the years passed, I grew up. I realized it was my turn – and my joy – to always say that I “had the heart last year, Dad.”

Often, for this feast, we emphasize the aspect of “thanks”, because we are so blessed and have so much to be grateful for. But perhaps a more powerful part of the celebration is “giving”. This blessed day is a time to renew ourselves in giving – and forgiving.  Our giving may be expressed in many forms:

  • I love you
  • I thank you
  • I am proud of you
  • I will help you
  • I understand, or perhaps just something like this:

I had the heart last year.

Such words bless us, dear family and friends, beyond the years. May you and your loved ones hear them from one another on this Thanksgiving Day.

Music: Thanksgiving Song – Mary Chapin Carpenter

You’re Welcome

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, friendship, Seasons, Thanksgiving2 Comments

Tuesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

November 26, 2019

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Today, in Mercy, our readings echo the end-time themes we have been considering for several days. And we may continue to pray with these as we approach Advent.

But as we approach Thanksgiving, I want to shift gears and offer you some reflections I have written over the years in celebration of this holiday. For these next few days, I will focus on these. In the past, readers have used them for their prayer and at their own Thanksgiving tables. I hope you find them beneficial.

thnkgvg_mercy

You’re Welcome

Bill was a big Mid-western guy with the boots and belt buckles to prove it. His wife of thirty years was a patient in our east coast cancer wing. Hearing of a break-through experimental treatment, they had come seeking a cure despite every indication of its hopelessness.

Being away from home, Bill had a lot of empty time outside of visiting hours. He spent much of it observing things that would ordinarily go unnoticed in the bustle of his regular life: weather, nature and human idiosyncrasies.

During one cafeteria lunch, over a bowl of hot soup, he observed, “People around here don’t say ‘You’re welcome’. They hold a door. You say ‘Thank you’. They just say ‘Uh huh'”.  Bill didn’t like that. It made him feel invisible. He said it was like one hand clapping.

In this season of Thanksgiving, it’s something to consider. Thanks are not offered in a vacuum. They are given to benefactors, both human and Divine, on whom we depend for a reciprocity of love, companionship, care and courage. Bill, at such a vulnerable, lonely place in his life, was infinitely sensitive when his thanks received no answer.

During this special time, we may hear a “Thank You” offered to us. In this cold age of our digital distractions, can we receive it consciously? Can we return it with a mutuality of gratitude that says, “You’re welcome! You are welcome in the embrace of my life. I see you as a unique and precious life and I rejoice at any kindness I can give you.”? A simple, sincere smile can say all that. Such is the power of our conscious spirits!

Doing this, we might even hear the Creator’s whisper, saying the same thing to us as we offer our Thanksgiving prayers: “I have created you from an abundance of love. You are precious to me and I believe in you. I hear your “Thank You” and you are welcome in the embrace of my infinite love.”

Music:  Thanksgiving Classical Playlist (You may want to play this hour-long compilation during your Thanksgiving meal.)

Don’t Sleepwalk Your Life!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Conversion, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, ordinary time, spiritualityLeave a comment

Monday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

November 25, 2019

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Today, in Mercy, we begin a series of readings from the Book of Daniel. It is the only time throughout the Liturgical Year that we get a good dose of Daniel. And it is well placed, coming in this final week before Advent.

Daniel is apocalyptic literature, a genre which conveys the author’s perception of the end times through dreams, visions and prophecies. Like many of our readings of the past weeks, Daniel focuses us on God’s Final Coming into time by interpreting current circumstances in a spiritual light.

Today’s Gospel does the same thing, but in a little different way. 

Jesus tells the story of the poor widow who gave everything she had for the sake of the poor. This widow, in a sense, already lives in the “end times”, a time when our only “possessions” will be the good we have done in our lives.

Both these readings set us up to reflect on our lives and times as we approach Advent. This sacred season is the annual reenactment of Christ’s First Coming in order to prepare us for:

  • Christ’s daily revelation in our lives
  • Christ’s Final Coming at the end of time

Mt24_awake

All of Daniel’s complex visions and prophecies can feel a little confusing, but we can focus on this:

  • God is continually revealing Godself in the ordinary circumstances of time.
  • We can open ourselves to this revelation by our humble prayer and good works.
  • Staying awake like this in our hearts and souls will allow us to pass seamlessly into God’s Presence when the end times come.

Music: Be Thou My Vision

Christ, the Crucified King

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus1 Comment

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

November 24, 2019

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Today, in Mercy, we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King. This feast was established in 1925 by Pope Pius XI by his encyclical Quas Primas. The Pope was acutely aware of the secularization of society and culture. He wanted this feast and devotion to bring people a deep awareness that Christ is the center of all Creation.

The images, language and metaphors are ones that spoke to the people in the early 20th century. They may ring differently to us. Concepts of “king”, “empire”, “dominion”, “subjection” tend to engender negative connotations for many of us.
(Unless, of course, we’re referring to the “King of Rock and Roll” – Elvis, of course. Or  for some younger among us, the “King of Pop” – Michael Jackson. Then we seem OK with it!)

Our readings today can direct us to a deeper understanding of the characteristics Pius sought to highlight, ones that may speak more clearly to us in our time.

Our first reading from Samuel presents the anointing of David as King of Israel. Anointed by those who were “his own bone and flesh”, David prefigured the Incarnate Christ who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, took our flesh to redeem us.

Col1_15 image

The magnificent passage from Colossians offers exultant praise to the Creator for 

…delivering us from the power of darkness
and transferring us to the kingdom of the beloved Son,
in whom we have redemption …

And our Gospel gives us our precious Jesus on the Cross, teaching us the paradoxical truth of what his “Kingdom” really means – not oppressive dominion, but rather a sacrificial love that gives everything for the life of the beloved.

van eyck
Van Eyck’s painting of Christ King and his follower Petrus Christus’s Christ Suffering (15th C.)

Many cannot recognize such “kingship”. They cannot see the holy power within Christ’s sacrifice. They are, as Pius XI recognized for his time, blinded by a secularized culture and a dispirited life.

Let us pray today with the “justly condemned”, but spiritually enlightened, man in our Gospel who asked his Crucified King,

“Lord Jesus,
remember me
when you come into Kingdom!”

Music: Jesus Remember Me

We Were Made for Heaven

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus1 Comment

Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time

November 23, 2019

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Lk20_36 eternal life

Today, in Mercy, Maccabees gives us a colorful account of the defeat, dismay and ultimate death of Antiochus IV, persecutor of the Jews. The account, like most of the Books of Maccabees, is primarily historical, not spiritual or theological. But threaded through the books, of course, is the underlying biblical orientation that God-Yahweh is present and active in all life’s circumstances.

Today’s passage has even pagan Antiochus considering how God/Fate has brought him to judgement- to “payback” time:

But I now recall the evils I did in Jerusalem,
when I carried away all the vessels of gold and silver
that were in it, and for no cause
gave orders that the inhabitants of Judah be destroyed.
I know that this is why these evils have overtaken me;
and now I am dying, in bitter grief, in a foreign land.

Our Gospel repeats an incident we prayed with just the Sunday before last, in which some Sadducees question Jesus about marriage laws and the afterlife. Their questioning reminds me of modern songwriter Eric Clapton’s musings in his song:

Tears in Heaven – Eric Clapton

Jesus doesn’t sing to the Sadducees, as far as I know. Rather, he answers them this way:

Those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age
and to the resurrection of the dead
neither marry nor are given in marriage.
They can no longer die,
for they are like angels;
and they are the children of God
because they are the ones who will rise.

So for us today, the questions and concerns of both Antiochus and the Sadducees might lead us to consider how we feel about the “afterlife”.

Do you ever wonder what heaven will be like? Will we see our beloveds once again? Will we see our “unbeloveds” too and what will that be like!! Do you calculate whether or not you’ll even make the cut through the Pearly Gates?

When I think about heaven these two promises of Jesus sustain, comfort and animate me. Maybe you’ll consider their power too as you pray today.

I have come that you may have life,
and have it to the full.
John 10:10

Eternal life is this, that they know you,
the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
John 17:3

Music: That You May Have Life – André Crouch
(Lyrics below)

(I come that you might have life more abundantly)
(I come that you might have life through eternity)
I didn’t come to condemn the world
nor to shame you for your wrong no no
but I came to mend your broken heart and give your heart a song
(I come to give you life more abundantly – more abundantly)
Your life without Christ
is like a star that will never never shine
It’s like a winding road that goes nowhere
Woah but Jesus said (I come) I come (to give you life) to give you life (more)
(I come) I come (to give you joy) to give you joy
(I come to give you life more abundantly ee ee ee ee more abundantly)
but Jesus said (I come to give you life more) oh I left my home in glory
(I come) I come (to give you joy) just to bring you joy
(I come) I love you I love you (to give you life) and I want to give you life
(more abundantly) more abundantly
Mmmm (ee ee ee ee) more abundantly (more abundantly)
People all over the world (all I want to do is give you life)
listen to the LORD speaking right now
(more abundantly ooh ooh ooh ooh) people all over the world
(all I want to do is give you joy more abundantly ooh ooh ooh ooh)
(all I want to do is give you life . . 

A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day, 1687

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Poetry2 Comments
Saint_Cecilia
Poster of fresco after John Dryden’s poem “A Song for Saint Cecilia’s Day
Stanza 1
From harmony, from Heav’nly harmony
               This universal frame began.
       When Nature underneath a heap
               Of jarring atoms lay,
       And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
               Arise ye more than dead.
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
       In order to their stations leap,
               And music’s pow’r obey.
From harmony, from Heav’nly harmony
               This universal frame began:
               From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
       The diapason closing full in man.
Stanza 2
What passion cannot music raise and quell!
                When Jubal struck the corded shell,
         His list’ning brethren stood around
         And wond’ring, on their faces fell
         To worship that celestial sound:
Less than a god they thought there could not dwell
                Within the hollow of that shell
                That spoke so sweetly and so well.
What passion cannot music raise and quell!
Stanza 3
         The trumpet’s loud clangor
                Excites us to arms
         With shrill notes of anger
                        And mortal alarms.
         The double double double beat
                Of the thund’ring drum
         Cries, hark the foes come;
Charge, charge, ’tis too late to retreat.
Stanza 4
         The soft complaining flute
         In dying notes discovers
         The woes of hopeless lovers,
Whose dirge is whisper’d by the warbling lute.
Stanza 5
         Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs, and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depth of pains and height of passion,
         For the fair, disdainful dame.
Stanza 6
But oh! what art can teach
         What human voice can reach
The sacred organ’s praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their Heav’nly ways
         To mend the choirs above.
Stanza 7
Orpheus could lead the savage race;
And trees unrooted left their place;
                Sequacious of the lyre:
But bright Cecilia rais’d the wonder high’r;
         When to her organ, vocal breath was giv’n,
An angel heard, and straight appear’d
                Mistaking earth for Heav’n.
GRAND CHORUS
As from the pow’r of sacred lays
         The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator’s praise
         To all the bless’d above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
   This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
         The dead shall live, the living die,
         And music shall untune the sky.