Month: March 2024

Observe

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Lent, Poetry, Praise, spirituality6 Comments

Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent
March 6, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030624.cfm

Moses spoke to the people and said:
“Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decrees
which I am teaching you to observe,
that you may live, and may enter in and take possession of the land
which the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.”

Deuteronomy 4:1

The word “observe” carries several meanings. We may, for example,

  • observe by giving full attention
  • observe by stating our assessment of something
  • observe a holiday or birthday by sending a card
  • observe an order from a superior
  • observe the sacred by a ritual of practice, silence, or waiting

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s take the final sense of sacred observing, placing our lives before God in faith, hope, and love. Each day that we live is a ritual of praise to the One Who created us. By living God’s Law of Love, we offer the praise for which God made us.

Poetry: from First Love by Denise Levertov

In the excerpt, Levertov “observes” by giving, and receiving, full attention.

`Convolvulus,' said my mother. 
Pale shell-pink, a chalice 
no wider across than a silver sixpence.
It looked at me, I looked 
back, delight 
filled me as if 
I, not the flower, 
were a flower and were brimful of rain. 
And there was endlesness. 
Perhaps through a lifetime what I've desired 
has always been to return 
to that endless giving and receiving, the wholeness 
of that attention, 
that once-in-a-lifetime 
secret communion.

Music: Touch of the Spirit – Nadama

Forgive

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, Jesus, Lent, spiritualityLeave a comment

Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent
March 5, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030524.cfm

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive him?
As many as seven times?”
Jesus answered,
“I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.

Matthew 18: 21-22

Today’s parable reminds us that often our desire to be forgiven does not match our desire to forgive others. Of course, we understand our personal circumstances and see clearly how they deserve leniency. Can’t you hear yourself saying:

  • “I didn’t mean it!”
  • “I just forgot.”
  • “Give me another chance!”
  • “I won’t let it happen again.”

Many times people do hurtful things because of their own fears. Mercy calls us to receive and forgive those fears and limitations with the same generous grace as God receives us. And our merciful openness must extend endlessly .. “77 times”. That kind of sincere forgiveness takes a lot of grace. Let’s pray for it today.

Poetry: Forgiveness – George MacDonald

God gives his child upon his slate a sum –
To find eternity in hours and years;
With both sides covered, back the child doth come,
His dim eyes swollen with shed and unshed tears;
God smiles, wipes clean the upper side and nether,
And says, ‘Now, dear, we’ll do the sum together!’

Music: Where Forgiveness Is – Sidewalk Prophets

Accepted

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality5 Comments

Monday of the Third Week of Lent
March 4, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030424.cfm

Jesus said to the people in the synagogue at Nazareth:
“Amen, I say to you,
no prophet is accepted in his own native place.
Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel
in the days of Elijah
when the sky was closed for three and a half years
and a severe famine spread over the entire land.
It was to none of these that Elijah was sent,
but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.

Luke 4: 24-26

In our Gospel today, Jesus is not accepted among his neighbors. That lack of acceptance impels Jesus to move his mission out to the wider community.

“Acceptance” can be seen as a passive word suggesting that we just put up with something we cannot change.

On the other hand, it can be a positive condition in our spirituality by which we prepare ourselves to hospitably receive that which we had not expected. Such positive acceptance suggests a non-judgmental, wise, and discerning heart. The folks in today’s Gospel lacked such hearts.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

How open are we to grace when it comes to us in new and unexpected ways – new attitudes, new relationships, new awarenesses and responsibilities?

Do we let ourselves be surprised by God? Or are we pretty sure we have God down pat?

Do we seek new and deeper understandings of God’s Word in our lives by widening our circle of experience and understanding? Or is our “faith” a closed and limited system such as the one displayed by the synagogue listeners toward Jesus?

Poetry: Y’Did Nefesh

Yedid Nefesh (‘beloved of the soul’) is the title of a 16th-century Jewish liturgical poem. It is usually sung on Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest and celebration that begins on Friday before sunset and ends on the following evening after nightfall.

Beloved of the soul, Compassionate Father, 
draw Your servant to Your will. 
Then Your servant will hurry like a hart 
to bow before Your majesty. 
To me Your friendship will be sweeter 
than the dripping of the honeycomb.
Majestic, beautiful, radiance of the universe, 
my soul is heart-sick for your love. 
Please O God, heal her now 
by showing her the pleasantness of Your radiance. 
Then she will be strengthened and healed 
and eternal gladness will be hers.
All worthy One — may Your mercy be aroused 
and please take pity on Your beloved, 
because it is so very long that I have yearned intensely 
to see the splendor of Your strength, 
only these my heart desired, 
so please take pity and do not conceal Yourself.
Please be revealed and spread upon me, my Beloved, 
the shelter of Your peace 
that we may rejoice and be glad with You. 
Hasten, Beloved, for the time has come, 
and show us grace as in days of old.

Music: Y’Did Nefesh

Foolishness

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Discipleship, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Lent, spiritualityLeave a comment

Third Sunday of Lent
March 3, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030324-YearB.cfm

… We proclaim Christ crucified, …
… Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom,
and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

1 Corinthians 1: 22-25

This is a great mystery of our faith: that the all-powerful One chose to redeem us by assuming our human weakness, suffering torment, and dying an ignominious death.

When my three-year-old grand-niece visited our convent, she enjoyed walking through the huge motherhouse pointing out every statue of Our Lady of Mercy.

With each discovery she would pronounce the title: “Jeezie and his Mommy”. At the end of a very long corridor, we came to a life-size wooden carving of Jesus Crucified. Little Claire studied it, looked up at me and asked, “Who is that?”.

I simply said, “I don’t know” because her sweet little heart could not bear to learn, or to possibly understand, what happened to her “Jeezie”.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Lent is the time to deepen our understanding of what happened to Jesus because of the “foolishness of God”. That Omnipotent Love suffered, died, and rose for us so that we would understand and embrace the meaning of Love in our own lives.

Let’s pray today for a fuller awareness that our lives are a continuing participation in the Great Love. Let us use these Lenten days to find the pattern of the Cross in our world, and to look within it for the Light of the Resurrection.

Poetry: The Foolishness of God – Luci Shaw

Perform impossibilities
or perish. Thrust out now
the unseasonal ripe figs
among your leaves. Expect
the mountain to be moved.
Hate parents, friends, and all
materiality. Love every enemy.
Forgive more times than seventy-
seven. Camel-like, squeeze by
into the kingdom through
the needle’s eye. All fear quell.
Hack off your hand, or else,
unbloodied, go to hell.
Thus the divine unreason.
Despairing now, you cry
with earthy logic – How?
And I, your God, reply:
Leap from your weedy shallows.
Dive into the moving water.
Eyeless, learn to see
truly. Find in my folly your
true sanity. Then Spirit-driven,
run on my narrow way, sure
as a child. Probe, hold
my unhealed hand, and
bloody, enter heaven.

Music: The Cross is Foolishness – John Michael Talbot (lyrics below)

CHORUS:
The Cross is foolishness to those who perish
But for us it has become the wisdom of God
The Cross is foolishness to those who perish
But for us it is salvation and power from God

Some look for miracles, some look for wisdom
But we preach only Jesus crucified
It seems absurdity, it seems so foolish
But to us it is the wisdom of God

(CHORUS)

(CHORUS)

Eye has never seen, ear has never heard
Nor has it dawned on the limits of the mind
What God has surely prepared
For those who love Him
He reveals this wisdom through the Spirit of God

Prodigal

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

Saturday of the Second Week of Lent
March 2, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030224.cfm

Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt
and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance;
Who does not persist in anger forever,
but delights rather in clemency,
And will again have compassion on us,
treading underfoot our guilt?

Micah 7:18-19

We are all familiar with the powerful story of the Prodigal Son.

The word “prodigal”, like many words, can have both light and dark connotations. Its definition, according to Oxford Languages, is twofold:

  • spending resources recklessly
  • giving on a lavish scale

On the darker side, many of us interpret the parable from the viewpoint of the son, considering him “prodigal” because he is excessive in the abuse of his inheritance.
Others see the “Father” as an expression of God’s Lavish Mercy and Prodigal Love toward us even when we make life-changing mistakes.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We might choose to pursue both understandings of the word “prodigal” in our prayer today:

  • to ask God’s forgiveness and healing for any sinful prodigality in our lives
  • to imitate God’s Prodigal Generosity in our interactions and relationships

Poetry: The Prodigal – Nancy Cardozo

Prodigal of prayer am I,
Prodigal of tear,
But I have used God sparingly —
I think He does not hear.
Stars to wish on flicker flash
And I know stars will wear;
But I doubt and if I weep,
Stars will never care.
I have let my prayer sift down
Through a starry sieve;
Will God gather up the dust
If I believe?

Music: He Ran To Me’ (The Prodigal Son) – Phillips, Craig and Dean