Month: June 2024

Secret

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Gospel, holiness, Jesus, Love, Prayer, spirituality2 Comments

Wednesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
June 19, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061924.cfm

But when you give alms,
do not let your left hand know what your right is doing,
so that your almsgiving may be secret.

But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door,
and pray to your Father in secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,
so that you may not appear to others to be fasting,
except to your Father who is hidden.
And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.
Matthew 6:3-4;6;17-18

In these verses, Jesus tells us that our relationship with God – through almsgiving, prayer, and fasting – is private, personal, and intimate. When we commune with God through these actions, it is secret – a love shared between you and the Divine Beloved.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s think about our acts of generosity, prayer, and spiritual discipline as gifts given to God, even though they are offered through our service to others. Living a grateful life, we are delighted by God’s gifts to us given from an Infinite Love. May we respond by our humble efforts to delight God in return.

Poetry: from St. Teresa of Avila

Christ has no body on earth but yours. 
Yours are the eyes with which 
he looks compassionately on this world. 
Yours are the feet with which 
he walks to do good. 
Yours are the hands with which 
he blesses all the world. 
Christ has no body now on earth
but yours!

Music: God Has No Body Now But Yours – David Ogden based on Teresa of Avila

Rain

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Faith, Forgiveness, healing, inclusivity, justice, Mercy, spirituality4 Comments

Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
June 18, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061824.cfm

Love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of our Creator God,
Who makes the sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
Matthew 5:44-45

It must have been so hard to hear and accept Jesus’s words in his Sermon on the Mount. These listening disciples had been raised on the Deuteronomic principle “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. What could ever make them turn that principle inside out to do just the opposite of what they had always thought? What would make us turn from this kind of “justice”? After all, it’s even-steven, isn’t it?

In Jesus Christ, there is no even-steven. The Mercy of God is given to all of us without limits. It rains from the heart of God over all Creation. Jesus showed us that there is no place in Mercy for quid pro quo justice. If a disciple wants to love like Jesus, this precept is foundational.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Perhaps we are someplace where we can watch the rain today. If not we can remember how rain falls without distinction over everything within its embrace. So too does God’s Mercy fall on us moving us to be its agents in our world.

Enjoy the Peaceful Rain

Poetry: from The Merchant of Venice – William Shakespeare

The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.

Music: Norwegian Rain – David Lanz

Reverence

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Discipleship, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, holiness, Jesus, Mercy, spirituality1 Comment

Monday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
June 17, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061724.cfm

Jesus said to them:
“Offer no resistance to one who is evil.
When someone strikes you on your right cheek,
turn the other one to them as well.
If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic,
hand them your cloak as well.
Should anyone press you into service for one mile,
go with theme for two miles.
Give to the one who asks of you,
and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.”

Although the word “reverence” is not specifically mentioned in our readings, it summarizes their core message.

Jezebel has no reverence for human life. She is a conspirator, thief, and murderer. Jezebel has no moral code and only one interest in life – herself.

Jesus calls his followers to be the antithesis of Jezebel. We are to so reverence life and truth that we become like Jesus. We are to be peaceful, non-violent, forgiving, and generous – even toward the “jezebels” of this world.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Wow! No easy challenge, but nonetheless essential for discipleship! We ask Jesus to give us insight into any selfishness in our hearts, and the courage to live according to his mandate.

Prose: from Dorothy Day

“The greatest challenge of the day is:
how to bring about a revolution of the heart,
a revolution which has to start with each one of us?

When we begin to take the lowest place,
to wash the feet of others,
to love our brothers and sisters with that burning love,
that passion, which led to the Cross,
then we can truly say, ‘Now I have begun.'”

Music: Reverence by David Tolk

Flourish

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Hope, Jesus, Love, Psalms, spirituality1 Comment

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 16, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061624.cfm

The just one shall flourish like the palm tree,
like a cedar of Lebanon shall they grow.
They that are planted in the house of the LORD
shall flourish in the courts of our God.
Psalm 92:13-14

This verse from Psalm 92 ties together all our readings for today.

In the passage from Exodus, God takes a tiny twig, protects and nourishes it, and it flourishes. The analogy describes God’s relationship with Israel and with us. We are called to flourish in the Kingdom of God.

In Corinthians, Paul expresses the conviction that we will receive our recompense according to how we flourish in response to God’s grace.

And in our Gospel, Jesus teaches that our faith – God’s gift to us – is the small seed that flourishes into eternal life, the fullness of life in God.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We realize that each of these flourishings begins with a tiny hope – a twig, a courageous aspiration, a mustard seed.

Such is life. It is the small but consistent acts of faith, hope, and love that eventually yield abundant harvest. – embracing us with all Creation in God’s complete Love.

Poetry: Mustard Seed – Meister Eckhart

I.

In the Beginning
High above understanding
Is ever the Word.
O rich treasure,
There the Beginning always bore the Beginning.
O Father’s Breast,
From thy delight
The Word ever flows!
Yet the bosom
Retains the Word, truly.

II.

From the two as one source,
The fire of love.
The bond of both,
Known to both,
Flows the All-Sweet Spirit
Co-equal,
Undivided
The Three are One.
Do you understand why? No.
It best understands itself.

III.

The bond of three
Causes deep fear.
Of this circle
There is no understanding.
Here is a depth without ground.
Check and mate
To time, forms, place!
The wondrous circle
Is the Principle,
Its point never moves.

IV.

The mountain of this point
Ascend without activity.
O intellect!
The road leads you
Into a marvelous desert,
So broad, so wide,
It stretches out immeasurably.
The desert has,
Neither time nor place,
Its mode of being is singular.

V.

The good desert
No foot disturbs it,
Created being
Never enters there:
It is, and no one knows why.

It is here, it is there,
It is far, it is near,
It is deep, it is high,
It is in such a way
That it is neither this nor that.

VI.

It is light, it is clear,
It is totally dark,
It is unnamed,
It is unknown,
Free of beginning or end.
It stands still,
Pure, unclothed.
Who knows its dwelling?
Let him come forth
And tells us what sort it is.

VII.

Become like a child,
Become deaf, become blind.
Your own something
Must become nothing;
Drive away all something, all nothing!
Leave place, leave time,
Avoid even image!
Go without a way
On the narrow path,
Then you will find the desert’s track.

VIII.

O my soul,
Go out, let God in!
Sink all my something
In God’s nothing.
Sink in the bottomless flood!
If I flee from You,
You come to me.
If I lose myself,
Then I find You,
O Goodness above being!

Music: The Ride of the Valkyries – Richard Wagner

I love to listen to this masterpiece when I imagine God opening heaven to all Creation at the end of time.

Mantle

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, spirituality, Conversion, Courage, Discipleship3 Comments

Saturday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 15, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061524.cfm

Elijah set out, and came upon Elisha, son of Shaphat,
as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen;
he was following the twelfth.
Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak over him.
Elisha left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said,
“Please, let me kiss my father and mother goodbye,
and I will follow you.”
1 Kings 19:19-20

Elijah delivers God’s call by placing his mantle across Elisha’s shoulders. The mantle is a symbol of prophetic power, authority, and duty. Elisha welcomes God’s call and the gifts and responsibilities it holds. This story offers us themes of vocation, mentorship, and spiritual eagerness to profess and practice God’s love in the world.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Each of us continually receives God’s call to grow in holiness. This is our vocation, the mantle of invitation to live our lives for and with God. We may choose our call in marriage, religious profession, ordination, or the single life.

Like Elisha, we could be minding our own business in a “field” somewhere when the awareness of God’s call falls over us in a mantle of grace. This call will repeat itself in new ways throughout the course of our lives. Again like Elisha, we pray to be spiritually open and eager to respond.

Poetry: Vocation – William E. Stafford

This dream the world is having about itself
includes a trace on the plains of the Oregon trail,
a groove in the grass my father showed us all
one day while meadowlarks were trying to tell
something better about to happen.
I dreamed the trace to the mountains, over the hills,
and there a girl who belonged wherever she was.
But then my mother called us back to the car:
she was afraid; she always blamed the place,
the time, anything my father planned.
Now both of my parents, the long line through the plain,
the meadowlarks, the sky, the world's whole dream
remain, and I hear him say while I stand between the two,
helpless, both of them part of me:
"Your job is to find what the world is trying to be."

Music: The Call – Vaughn Williams

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such a Way, as gives us breath:
Such a Truth, as ends all strife:
Such a Life, as killeth death

Come, My Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such a Light, as shows a feast:
Such a Feast, as mends in length:
Such a Strength, as makes his guest

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
Such a Joy, as none can move:
Such a Love, as none can part:
Such a Heart, as joys in love

U.S. Flag Day

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Prayer, spirituality3 Comments

June 14, 2024

I originally wrote this prayer for Thanksgiving over 20 years ago. But I have adapted here because I think it fits our celebration today, and may offer us all some food for thought.

For many years, I worked with Dr. Peter Keim, a wonderful friend and colleague. His passion outside of work was the history of the United States flag. I learned so much from Pete who, as well as being a devotee of American history, is an embodiment of the nobility our flag represents.

If you’d like to learn more about Dr. Keim’s work, follow the link below.
Thanks and
Happy Flag Day!

(You can zoom in to the pages by clicking “View” at the very top of your page.
You can move about the page by holding one finger on the mousepad or left click/hold mouse.)

Whisper

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Hope, spirituality, Conversion, Courage, Discipleship6 Comments

Friday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 14, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061424.cfm

A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains
and crushing rocks before the LORD—
but the LORD was not in the wind.
After the wind there was an earthquake—
but the LORD was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake there was fire—
but the LORD was not in the fire.
After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound.
When he heard this,
Elijah hid his face in his cloak
and went and stood at the entrance of the cave.
A Voice said to him, “Why are you here, Elijah?”.
1 Kings 19:11-13

Elijah has been a fiery prophet, credibly demonstrating the call to believe in one God. But despite magnificent Divine demonstrations, the people have not been faithful. In today’s reading, the great Elijah goes to the mountain depressed and defeated. God tries to speak to Elijah in further stunning revelations, but Elijah can face only the whisper of God’s Will.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

This passage may lead us to consider the quiet, whispering influence of God in our lives. To do only that would neglect salient points in these verses. At this point in his life, Elijah feels that he has failed in his life’s mission. Israel has failed in fidelity to the Abrahamic covenant. The situation is a mess, God is fed up, and the time for judgment has come.

  • Do we ever feel that way about our world, our Church, even our own lives?
  • Do we ever wonder if what we have tried to be and do in life really matters?
  • Have we gotten so focused on our frustrations and fears that we miss the magnificent display of God’s love and hope for us?

If so, perhaps we can at least, like Elijah, open our hearts to the Divine Whisper ever-present to us. If we have drifted from wholehearted faith, how is God drawing us back with Gentle Presence?

Poetry: i thank you, God – e.e.cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Music: Courage of the Wind – David Lanz

Reconciled

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Creation, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, justice, spirituality4 Comments

Memorial of Saint Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church
June 13, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061324.cfm

Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar,
and there recall that your brother
has anything against you,
leave your gift there at the altar,
go first and be reconciled with your brother,
and then come and offer your gift.
Matthew 5: 23-24

Jesus teaches a profound lesson in today’s Gospel. We cannot be in balance with God if we are out of balance with our neighbor.

In the “court” of God’s justice, that balance resides not in judgment or vengeance. It resides in a love beyond “liking” — in reconciliation, forgiveness, mercy, patience, hospitality, reverence, and service toward one another.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We realize that we can’t like everybody. We can’t feel good toward everybody. We can’t approve of everybody. But we can choose to be Christlike to everybody.

May we grow in that grace, inspired by the awareness that we are One in God with all Creation.

Poetry: One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII – Pablo Neruda

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

Music: Amor Dei – Stephen Peppos

Consume

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Holy Spirit, Hope, Scripture, spirituality2 Comments

Wednesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 12, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061224.cfm

At the time for offering sacrifice,
the prophet Elijah came forward and said,
“LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel,
let it be known this day that you are God in Israel
and that I am your servant
and have done all these things by your command.
Answer me, LORD!
Answer me, that this people may know that you, LORD, are God
and that you have brought them back to their senses.”
The LORD’s fire came down
and consumed the burnt offering, wood, stones, and dust,
and it lapped up the water in the trench.
Seeing this, all the people fell prostrate and said,
“The LORD is God! The LORD is God!”
1 Kings 18:36-39

Elijah was certainly a colorful character, similar in pattern to John the Baptist. They were both so filled with love and commitment to God that their actions could seem outrageous to unbelievers. In today’s reading, Elijah creates an almost impossible situation then calls on God to show that all things are possible with faith.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We ask for the grace to live a passionate faith. May we grow in understanding that the love of God is a consuming love, not compartmentalized into a Sunday devotion or an isolated spiritual habit. May we fully give ourselves to this Love which has given Itself for us.

Poetry; Come, My Love – Thomas Merton

Come, my love,
Pass through my will
As through a window
Shine on my life
As on a meadow
I like the grass to be consumed
By the rays of the sun
On a late summer’s morning
Come, my love,
All through the night
I lay longing
Eagerly to wait
For love’s union
Like dawn’s flower awaits
For the wedding with the sun
Consummated in the light
Your light, my love,
Is stealing my heart
As a secret
I’m left
Like a vanishing form
That leaves no shadows
Exposed naked, alone
Between the heavens and the earth
Lifted high on the cross with the Savior
O life-giving tomb,
Prepared through the night
For dawn’s dying
Like a moon
Like the mansions of heaven
Await the rebirth of a child
New Jerusalem
So come to my life, Light of Heaven
Come, my love,
Pass through my will
As through a window
Shine on my life
As on a meadow
I like the grass to be washed
By the rays of the sun
On the late summer’s morning

Music: Veni, Creator Spiritus – Rabanus Maurus

English Version:
Come, Holy Spirit, Creator blest,
and in our souls take up Thy rest;
come with Thy grace and heavenly aid
to fill the hearts which Thou hast made.

O comforter, to Thee we cry,
O heavenly gift of God Most High,
O fount of life and fire of love,
and sweet anointing from above.

Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts are known;
Thou, finger of God’s hand we own;
Thou, promise of the Father,
Thou Who dost the tongue with power imbue.
Kindle our sense from above,
and make our hearts o’erflow with love;
with patience firm and virtue high
the weakness of our flesh supply.

Far from us drive the foe we dread,
and grant us Thy peace instead;
so shall we not, with Thee for guide,
turn from the path of life aside.

Oh, may Thy grace on us bestow
the Father and the Son to know;
and Thee, through endless times confessed, of both the eternal Spirit blest.

Now to the Father and the Son,
Who rose from death, be glory given,
with Thou, O Holy Comforter,
henceforth by all in earth and heaven. Amen.

Latin Version
Veni, Creator Spiritus,
mentes tuorum visita,
imple superna gratia
quae tu creasti pectora.

Qui diceris Paraclitus,
altissimi donum Dei,
fons vivus, ignis, caritas,
et spiritalis unctio.

Tu, septiformis munere,
digitus paternae
dexterae, Tu rite promissum
Patris, sermone ditans guttura.

Accende lumen sensibus:
infunde amorem cordibus:
infirma nostri corporis
virtute firmans perpeti.

Hostem repellas longius,
pacemque dones protinus:
ductore sic te praevio
vitemus omne noxium.

Per te sciamus da Patrem,
noscamus atque Filium;
Teque utriusque Spiritum
credamus omni tempore.

Deo Patri sit gloria,
et Filio, qui a mortuis surrexit,
ac Paraclito,
in saeculorum saecula. Amen.

Lampstand

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality3 Comments

Memorial of Saint Barnabas, Apostle
June 11, 2024

Today’s Readiings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061124.cfm

You are the light of the world.
A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;
it is set on a lampstand,
where it gives light to all in the house.
Just so, your light must shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds
and glorify your heavenly Father.
Matthew 5:14-16

Jesus tells us to let our light shine before others. Is this an invitation to show off or be prideful? Definitely not. It is a call to shine with “beatitudenal goodness” that gives glory to God.

We can take Jesus’s words as an invitation to spiritual transparency. We should, by our actions and choices, proclaim that we live in faith, hope, charity, and gratitude. The important part of the lampstand is the flame that it lifts up. So too with us – the important part of our faith is the witness it gives to the Gospel.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We pray for the simplicity and integrity of soul that allows God to shine through us.

Poetry: Let Your Light Shine – Marianne Williamson

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be 
brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. 
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking 
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest 
the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, 
we unconsciously give other people 
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, 
our presence automatically liberates others.

Music: We Are the Light of the World – Jean A. Greif