Month: January 2020

God loves …. always!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, Jesus, Love, ordinary time, repentance7 Comments

Saturday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

February 1, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, David gets his comeuppance after his sinful forays.

david weeps
David Weeps – wikipedia.org – not for commercial use

The passage is hard to deal with. It suggests that God is vengeful, and gets us back for going against him. That’s not the God Who loves me.

Like much of the Old Testament, the writer is interpreting the circumstances of life in order to teach a lesson. The lesson here is not that God is a payback God. The core lesson is that our choices have repercussions, and should always be made in the light of God’s hope for us.

Sometimes in our own lives, we think of God as reacting in a human way to us – getting angry, forgetting us, paying us back, testing us, punishing us. Like the disciples in today’s storm-tossed boat, our faith is weak and maybe misdirected.

God is Love, and Love only. God is NEVER “I’ll getcha’ “. Deep faith directs us to find God’s love – God’s continuing call to intimacy – in every circumstance of our lives. 

God didn’t kill David’s illegitimate son. It just happened, the way so much of life happens. We can blame God if we want to, but we’re missing the point. 

The point is that God is with us in the inevitable joys and sorrows of our lives saying, as he did to his distraught shipmates:

“Why are you terrified?
Do you not yet have faith?”

Ps51

Our Gospel assures us that God is with us, “sleeping” even in our rocky boat. By faith and prayer, we “wake God”, as we actually wake ourselves to the truth of God’s immutable, loving Presence in our lives.

Music:  You Raise Me Up – Selah

Choices

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Gospel, holiness, Jesus, justice, Truth2 Comments

Friday of the Third Week of Ordinary Time

January 31, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, if this first reading doesn’t smack you right between the eyes, check your political pulse, dear Friends!

David has become King, called to lead his people with a largeness of heart for their good…. but…

power

 

Power tends to corrupt, and the corruption is hard to resist even for the likes of David. With no checks and balances on him, David commandeers anything he desires – nations, goods, women, human lives! He is convinced that he can do anything he wants to do. His choices lurch him into a spinning culture of death, evil, and selfishness.

This passage from 2 Samuel is threaded with the very same lines woven into this morning’s newspapers: plotting, manipulation, lying, obstruction, projection, irresponsibility, crudeness, disrespect….

Aren’t we just so sick and tired of it all!?

Over the coming days, we will see how David’s corruption affects him – and it’s quite a drama! But for our prayer today, what can we learn?

Perhaps the Gospel offers us a key.

Mk4_30

Jesus talks about “the Kingdom of Heaven”. He uses the symbols of a healthy harvest and a tiny mustard seed. He teaches his listeners that when the things of God are planted deep in us, we too yield a life-giving harvest. We become large-hearted, God-hearted.

Through the gift of free will, God gives us power. We can choose between good and evil, self and others, life and death. In today’s passage, David makes some huge, selfish mistakes in his choices.

Throughout history and even today, people make the same good and bad choices. When leaders make such choices, the whole world feels the impact.

Today, I might want to check how I’m doing, not only in my personal choices, but in my advocacy for a moral and just world for all people.

Music:  A Pure Heart – Rusty Nelson

Who’s Boss?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Prayer, repentance, TruthLeave a comment

Thursday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

January 30, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, David has received a wake up call from God, delivered by the prophet Nathan:

Go and tell David my servant, Thus says the LORD:
Is it you who would build me a house to dwell in? 
2 Samuel 7:5

As a follow up to David’s big idea of building a house for God, God says,”Wait a minute! I don’t think so!” Gently, but ever so clearly, God reminds David of a phrase very popular on social media today:

boss

It seems David has gotten a little full of himself. He likes being King. He decides to use his power and position to do something nice for God. But God uses the occasion to remind David that all that David has comes from God. David is not God’s King, he is God’s servant. David can’t do anything for God except to offer thanks, praise and worship.

Ps119 lamp

This huge spiritual insight turns David’s heart to see himself truly as God sees him. His subsequent prayer is full of humility and gratitude as David asks God for continued blessing on David’s House.

The lesson for me today is this: God is God. I am nothing without God. Everything I have and am comes from the Divine Goodness.

Meister Eckhart echoes here:

If the only prayer we say
in our entire lives is
“Thank You”,
it is enough.

Music: Thank You, God – mantra video composed by Michelle Sherliza

Home

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, friendship, Gospel, Jesus, Love, ordinary time1 Comment

Wednesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

January 29, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, our readings are about being at home with God.

home

In our passage from 2 Samuel, a highly anthropomorphized God informs David that He is sick of living in a tent while being carried to and fro. God goes on to recount for David all that God has done for him, demonstrating that David can fully trust God. 

God wants a home. In other words, it’s time to make a permanent commitment and “move in together” into each other’s hearts.

 

sowerIn today’s Gospel, we find the familiar story of the Sower and the Seed. While the story doesn’t specifically mention “home”, Jesus indicates that only those “at home” with God’s Word will understand the true meaning of the parables.

You may have had the joy of visiting friends who greet you with the invitation, “Make yourself at home”. These friends will have done everything they can to make that possible – clean house, fresh bed linens, your brand of coffee, your favorite meals. They want you to be completely comfortable for your stay.

Well, God wants to stay forever within us. And God wants us to stay forever in God. That mutuality of homecoming is the whole purpose of our lives.

We know how to create this sacred hospitality for our friends. Let today’s reading remind us to do this for God as well by:

  • “learning” God within the Sacred Word of scripture
  • joy and awe at God’s desire to be with us
  • attention to those tendernesses that invite and welcome God
  • continual gratitude for God’s Presence
  • delighting God by our acts of love and hospitality

Music: Welcome to My Heart – Dean Martin
(Even though the song was not directed toward God, it works for me. I hope it does for you too.)

And David Danced…

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, holiness, joy, Love, Poetry, PrayerLeave a comment

Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas, priest and doctor of the Church

January 28, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, vigorous, grace-filled David dances with abandon before the Lord.

David danced

It is an image so rich that the rest of the passage must await another day for prayer.
Just to pause with that dancing image, to consider all the ways God longs to dance with us throughout our lives, and we with God — dances of both:

joy and sorrow,
faith and questioning,
hope and shadow.

…dances in which we must abandon ourselves to the sacred music of the moment, and respond to God’s mysterious, leading step.

Whatever the emotion we bring to prayer, what matters is only that we carry it close to God’s heart, listening to our circumstances for the Divine Heartbeat.

Each of our prayer-dances is so personal, so sacred. I thought a few poems might be good today as you treasure your own dances with God. Perhaps one of the poems will resonate with you where you are at this moment in your Lifesong.

IMG_2324I Long for You

Powerless
to reach any further,
longing shakes
my soul.
You are so near,
but, paralyzed,
I cannot touch you.

 I feel you,
Electric,
in the veins of my life.
but, paralyzed,
I cannot touch you.

 I cannot stand that
You be a symphony
I, lonely, rest in.

 I want to dance with You.
~ Renee Yann, RSM

IMG_2325After a Chilling Death

You look so beautiful, God
so young,
sky swaddled, like a young brave
awaiting the future
on a smoky horizon.
I can’t stop
looking at You.

I can’t stop waiting,
as if crowds held their breath in me,
for clouds to fall open and for
your Celestial Body to be revealed,
diamond moon at the navel.

My breath stretches
like transparent skin,
toward the hope of You,
the memory of You,
magnified by faith and need.

I can’t stop
waiting for You
to dance toward me in the darkness,
to take these frozen fingers
to your jubilant, holy lips
and kiss them back to life.

No grave can make me stop
looking at You,
even though gravesmen
throw dirt in my eyes and say
that I see things where things are not.
I know You are there
in the tantalizing darkness.
~ Renee Yann, RSM


IMG_2326
At the still point of the turning world.
Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards;
at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement.
And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered.
Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline.
Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance,
~ T.S. Eliot


IMG_2327Easter Exultet

Shake out your qualms.
Shake up your dreams.
Deepen your roots.
Extend your branches.

Trust deep water
and head for the open,
even if your vision
shipwrecks you.

Quit your addiction
to sneer and complain.
Open a lookout.
Dance on a brink.

Run with your wildfire.
You are closer to glory
leaping an abyss
than upholstering a rut.

Not dawdling.
Not doubting.
Intrepid all the way
Walk toward clarity.

At every crossroad
Be prepared
to bump into wonder.
Only love prevails.

Enroute to disaster
insist on canticles.
Lift your ineffable
out of the mundane.

Nothing perishes;
nothing survives;
everything transforms!
Honeymoon with Big Joy!
~ James Broughton

Music: No Reason Not to Dance – Kathryn Kaye

Facing the Demons

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, Holy Spirit, Jesus, ordinary time, spirituality2 Comments

Monday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

January 27, 2020

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(Sorry for the late post.  I had a brief episode of social life this afternoon. 🙂 )

Today, in Mercy, our readings talk about the polar opposites of unity and division.

Our first reading gives us David, embraced by his kinsmen, and anointed King. Strong in his unified reign, David leads his people to victory over all their enemies. His is the idyllic kingdom – the “Camelot” of the Old Testament.

Then Mark gives us Jesus, of whom David was but a pale foreshadowing. Today’s passage follows the incident in which Jesus’s kinsmen, rather than embrace him, try to “seize”him because they think he’s “out of his mind”.

Clearly, the Kingdom of Mercy for sinners and outcasts is not as acceptable as David’s kingdom of prosperity and military might. Jesus had a hard sell on his hands as his listeners have their old definitions and expectations shattered. His family can’t accept his challenge – they think he’s crazy. And now his neighbors say he is possessed by the devil!

Pretty dispiriting for Jesus, right? 

No way! Here, very early in Mark, Jesus – despite challenge – emerges as “the stronger one”:

But no one can enter a strong man’s house to plunder his property
unless he first ties up the strong man.

Jesus’s strength lies in his Oneness with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the Divine Community that embraces and inspires his mission. Human rejection, even in the ultimate form of Calvary, will not change or diminish his Truth.

Mk3_29 demons

When Jesus talks about blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, it is that kind of rejection he is describing – that place where a human heart is hardened against an abandonment to grace.

Here the sin is unforgivable because those who charge Jesus
with demonic possession see goodness as evil, and therefore
are closed to the action of God’s Spirit. This makes sense for
Mark’s readers only in terms of the preceding narrative
where Jesus, endowed with the Spirit, preaches the good news of God.  The unforgivable sin in biblical thought is similar to “hardness of heart”.

The Gospel of Mark ~ John R. Donahue, SJ, Daniel J. Harrington, SJ

Today’s Gospel reminds us to continually purify that inner heart where God wants to dwell in us. The demons that would petrify us are often more subtle than the ones in our Gospel story. They masquerade under the guise of a false “gospel” that fails to require our inner conversion to mercy, justice and love.

May we pray with today’s Responsorial Psalm that God’s faithfulness and mercy guide us as we seek to deepen in the Mystery of Christ.

Music: Deeper – Hillsong

Redeemed!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Hope, Jesus, joy, ordinary time, spiritualityLeave a comment

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

January 26, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, our readings are all about redemption… and what a free and glorious gift it is.

How thrilling are these verses?

Anguish has taken wing, dispelled is darkness:
for there is no gloom where but now there was distress.
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom
a light has shone.

When I read them, I so much want to meet Isaiah, to get him to sign my Bible, to come to my house for soup and bread! Because he is filled with hope and exultation at the Mercy of God, just like I want my life to be!

IMG_2297

Paul, sensing some jealous competition in his Corinthian buddies, tells them  — Get a grip! You are obsessing over incidentals when we have been redeemed and made one in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ!

Then, when I read these beautiful, lilting lines in the Gospel …

He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea,
in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali,
that what had been said through Isaiah the prophet
might be fulfilled:

Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles,
the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light,
on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death
light has arisen.

…I so want to go live with Jesus too, right there on Capernaum’s shores, because he was the very House of Mercy inviting us all to dwell anew in him. 

Jesus is the Living Redemption prophesied by Isaiah. He is the reason Paul turned his life upside down. Jesus is the Great Light in our darkness.

Praise and thank our Generous God!

Music: Streets of Capernaum – Clay Crosse

God Gets Tough

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, ordinary time, Poetry, repentance, spirituality, Truth2 Comments

Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, Apostle

January 25, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, we ride with Paul on the road to Damascus, there to be struck with him by a Godly Light.

800px-La_conversión_de_san_Pablo_(Murillo)
The Conversion of St. Paul — Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Have you ever been knocked off your “high horse” by the sudden realization of something to which you had been totally blind? It’s shocking, isn’t it? 

We might react by castigating ourselves with remarks like:

  • How could I have missed that?
  • Wow, I was really stupid, or foolish, or naïve, or prejudiced, or misled, or … or what?

God, in a kind of ironic twist, strikes Paul blind in order to cure him of his real blindness: the right he claimed to persecute others for a faith he didn’t understand.

Sometimes God has to be pretty tough with us to wake us up to the truth of our souls. John Donne, the pre-eminent English metaphysical poet, prayed for that kind of Divine Toughness in his poem Batter my heart, three-personed God.

png-divider-lines--1400

Since I have blogged twice previously about this feast,

Links available here:

Click here for 1/24/2019 Reflection

Click here for 4/19/2018 Reflection

I thought my readers might like to pray with Donne’s poem, read by Tom O’Bedlam

Holy Sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person’d God
Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Here also is a musical interpretation of the poem.
The University of South Florida Chamber Singers perform Richard Nance’s “Batter my heart” under the direction of Dr. James Bass 

Fill the World with Love

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Conversion, Courage, Faith, Gospel, Love, ordinary time, Prayer, TruthLeave a comment

Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales, bishop and doctor of the Church

January 24, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, David spares Saul’s life even though Saul is in murderous pursuit of him. (Here is a video for kids featuring the moment. But I thought it was pretty cool. Maybe you will too.)

Is David noble or naïve? Is he magnanimous or stupid? As I pray this morning, I ask myself what it is that God might be saying to me through this passage.

Two things rise up:

  1. Above all else, David is motivated by a deep respect for God’s Will and Presence in his life.

David said to his men,
“The LORD forbid that I should do such a thing to my master,
the LORD’s anointed, as to lay a hand on him,
for he is the LORD’s anointed.”

    2.  David engages Saul directly and respectfully in the hope of reaching a resolution of    their issues.

When David finished saying these things to Saul, Saul answered,
“Is that your voice, my son David?”
And Saul wept aloud.

Reverence and honesty rooted in sincere love and respect for one another! What a world we would live in if each of us practiced these things unfailingly!

In our Gospel, Jesus calls his disciples to live in the world in just such a way – to bring healing and wholeness in the Name of Christ, for the sake of Love.

Our Alleluia Verse today captures the essence of Christ’s call to them —- and to us:

God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ,
and entrusting to us the message of that reconciliation.

Music: To Fill the World with Love sung by Richard Harris
(Lyrics below, but you will no doubt recall them from the fabulous film “Goodbye Mr. Chips”.)

In the morning of my life I shall look to the sunrise.
At a moment in my life when the world is new.
And the blessing I shall ask is that God will grant me,
To be brave and strong and true,
And to fill the world with love my whole life through.

And to fill the world with love
And to fill the world with love
And to fill the world with love my whole life through

In the noontime of my life I shall look to the sunshine,
At a moment in my life when the sky is blue.
And the blessing I shall ask shall remain unchanging.
To be brave and strong and true,
And to fill the world with love my whole life through

In the evening of my life I shall look to the sunset,
At a moment in my life when the night is due.
And the question I shall ask only You can answer.
Was I brave and strong and true?
Did I fill the world with love my whole life through?

The Green-Eyed Monster

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Conversion, Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness1 Comment

Thursday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

January 23, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, both David and Jesus deal with the effects of immense popularity.

jealous

In David’s case, Saul is so jealous and threatened by David’s military success that he plots to murder him. Saul’s son Jonathan, David’s dear friend intervenes to turn his father’s evil intention. Ultimately though, Saul remains a man destroyed by jealousy.

 

green eye

Jealousy is aptly characterized as the “Green-Eyed Monster”:

The phrase ‘green-eyed jealousy’ was used by, and possibly coined by, Shakespeare to denote jealousy, in The Merchant of Venice, 1596.

In Othello, 1604, Shakespeare refers explicitly to the ‘green-eyed monster’ as jealousy when treacherous Iago counsels Othello:

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on; that cuckold lives in bliss
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o’er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!

These powerful words capture what it is like to feel, or to be the object of, jealousy – a feeling which grows out of one’s own insecurity. But since it is a feeling, it is not a sin. It is when we act on our jealousy, as Saul planned to do, that we sin.

I think, at sometime in our lives, most of us have experienced jealousy- either as donor or recipient. How we responded either fortified or eroded our character. Sincere reflection on those responses can continue to help us grow in charity.

Thinking about that, I benefitted from reading this passage from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Jealousy is here taken to be synonymous with envy. It is defined to be a sorrow which one entertains at another’s well-being because of a view that one’s own excellence is in consequence lessened. Its distinctive malice comes from the opposition it implies to the supreme virtue of charity. The law of love constrains us to rejoice rather than to be distressed at the good fortune of our neighbor.

Our daily prayer and ever-deepening relationship with God can free us to face any “green-eyed monsters” we encounter, turning them into occasions of grace. Let’s pray for that!

Music:  Envy and Jealousy – Sweet Comfort Band (Lyrics below)