Sister Renee Yann, RSM, D.Min, is a writer and speaker on topics of spirituality, mission, and ethical business practice. After twenty years in teaching and social justice ministry, she served for over thirty years in various mission-related roles in Mercy Health System of Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Today, in Mercy, what an interesting prayer we find in Proverbs! The speaker beseeches God to grant him two things before death:
to be surrounded by truth and
to be neither rich nor poor
A fascinating and radical request, don’t you think? And we get eavesdrop on it.
The supplicant fears riches because they may cause him to forget his need for God.
He fears poverty because it might cause him to steal and thus betray God’s law.
All he wants is a nice, even life with not too much drama. I get it, don’t you!
In our Gospel, Jesus sends his disciples out, telling them to let go of drama too. If people don’t engage you, move on he says. He instructs them not to be caught up in material possessions, but to leave all behind that for the sake of the truth they will be preaching.
Both these readings are really about truth and freedom, two gifts that allow us to live in grace, hope and joy. They are about not being bound by our possessions, our pretenses, our success, or what people think of us. They are about being at peace with who we really are before God and others.
The Proverbs passage makes me wonder—if someone were eavesdropping on our most radical prayer, what things they might they hear us asking for? What is it that would free us to be our truest selves before God?
Today, in Mercy, our readings instruct us on what it means to really belong to God – heart and soul.
Proverbs tosses out a series of minstrel-like two-liners that could easily be overlooked for their beauty and depth. For example, the first couplet says:
Like a stream is the king’s heart
in the hand of the LORD; wherever it pleases him, he directs it.
Would we all not desire that kind of heart, where our thoughts and choices are so directed by God’s power and grace – held and guided into freedom by God’s loving hand? How confident, peaceful and joyful our lives would be!
Today’s Psalm 119 is a passionate prayer to be guided through an entangling world by our deep loyalty to God’s own truth, learned by meditating day and night on God’s goodness.
Our Gospel, in an often misinterpreted incident, shows us how Jesus considers his true disciples as close to him as his own mother and family.
So today, to deepen our own closeness to God, let us practice making our ordinary life into a constant prayer – allowing it to flow, like water, through God’s tender, guiding hand.
We can do this by gratefully noticing God’s Presence in nature, in our companions, in the opportunities for kindness, honesty and servicethat come to us today.
Or, sadly, our experiences today might cause us to notice God’s absence in these places. This offers us an incentive to invite, beg and pester God to transform the desert places in our lives and world.
Whichever approach we take, it will open up a constant conversation with God about our life as we experience it at each moment. We begin to listen better to the Word of God revealing itself in our daily life. We begin to live more consciously in God’s Presence… in God’s dear family.
God’s Law is already written deep in the fabric of our lives. We pray for discernment to discover that guiding grace by opening our hearts to God’s Presence in our every experience.
Today, as the Mercy Family throughout the world celebrates Mercy Day, we praise and thank God for the call given to Venerable Catherine McAuley to respond to God’s grace by founding the Sisters of Mercy.
On September 24, 1827, Catherine used an unexpected inheritance to open a house for poor and homeless women in Dublin. It began with two, Catherine and Mary Ann Doyle – and that small, vibrant fire has lit the hearts of millions ever since.
Many of you, dear readers, carry that fire and will know Catherine’s story well. But some still unfamiliar with her life might want to explore this website:
For those of us who treasure a share in Catherine’s call, today’s readings from Proverbs and Psalms offer a picture of what mercy in action looks like. Luke’s Gospel exhorts us that our Mercy light should be raised up to shine for all those seeking refuge from a darkness- whether it be poverty, sickness, ignorance or any kind of isolation or oppression.
To gain courage and energy for that shining, let us reach through time for Catherine’s hand, telling her how we share her dream for God’s Mercy for all Creation. Let us ask her to enliven us each morning with the same passion for justice, the same compassionate tenderness, the same welcoming heart by which she showed others the love of God.
Are there not moments when we are overwhelmed by the Mercy of God welling up within us and around us, flowing from good hearts over the world’s needs? We see and bless this grace in each other, dear Family, as we thank God this day to be called “Mercy”.
May each of your lives be richly blessed and marked by Mercy!
Today, I thought you might enjoy this powerful poem by Denise Levertov.
The music link is beneath it. ❤️ Happy and blessed Mercy Day to all.
To Live in the Mercy of God
To lie back under the tallest
oldest trees. How far the stems
rise, rise
before ribs of shelter
open!
To live in the mercy of God. The complete
sentence too adequate, has no give.
Awe, not comfort. Stone, elbows of
stony wood beneath lenient
moss bed.
And awe suddenly
passing beyond itself. Becomes
a form of comfort.
Becomes the steady
air you glide on, arms
stretched like the wings of flying foxes.
To hear the multiple silence
of trees, the rainy
forest depths of their listening.
To float, upheld,
as salt water
would hold you,
once you dared.
To live in the mercy of God.
To feel vibrate the enraptured
waterfall flinging itself
unabating down and down
to clenched fists of rock.
Swiftness of plunge,
hour after year after century,
O or Ah
uninterrupted, voice
many-stranded.
To breathe
spray. The smoke of it.
Arcs
of steelwhite foam, glissades
of fugitive jade barely perceptible. Such passion—
rage or joy?
Thus, not mild, not temperate,
God’s love for the world. Vast
flood of mercy
flung on resistance.
———-
Today, in Mercy, our Sunday readings each address, in some way, the motivations and judgments of the heart.
Most of us are good people, or at least we want to be. But life can still get us mixed up in situations and decisions which test our character and challenge our moral fortitude. A few characters from today’s readings seem beset with such dilemmas.
The voice within the Wisdom passage belongs to a hard-hearted and jealous person who finds the just person obnoxious. The speaker can’t stand being shown up by the good man’s character. It challenges his comfortable, self-absorbed existence.
In our epistle, James gives us the powerful admonitions, “Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every foul practice.” He tells us that our hearts should be filled instead with the wisdom from above, yielding peace, gentleness and Mercy.
When I watch the news, or observe the day’s political dramas, I long for the honest, sincere and decent world James describes. I long for a world where we respect and honor each other beyond politics, gender, color, nation, religion, and sexual orientation – for a world where we make choices FOR one another, not against.
How can we help realize a world like that by the choices we make in our personal lives? How can we minimize the jealousy that is born of self-interest and prejudice?
In the Gospel, Jesus tells us the way. His disciples are busy trying to figure out which of them is the greatest, missing -as they so often do- the whole point of discipleship. Jesus is gentle with them. He tells them to look at a little child. There they will find what is most important – in simplicity, vulnerability, openness, innocence. They will see that this is the way Jesus is with them.
If we can approach and receive one another with just an ounce of such selflessness, we might begin to change the world.
Today, in Mercy,both Paul and Jesus teach their followers by using images they would be familiar with – seed, wheat, planting, and waiting for harvest.
Even those of us far removed from such images may have planted a few things at some time. Picture a kindergartner pushing a seed into a paper cup filled with dirt.She watches everyday for the green shoot, impatient for its appearance.
Paul’s community seems infected with the same kind of impatience regarding the end of time and their being raised to new life.
Paul makes me laugh with his own impatience at their constant questions. He responds to their nagging like this:
You fool! What you sow is not brought to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare kernel of wheat, perhaps, or of some other kind.
Jesus is a lot gentler when he teaches about the Sower and the Seed. At the end of the parable, Jesus gives his followers the key to achieving the full harvest of grace. Perseverance!
It is the same tool any farmer must employ in the fields. It is the same strategy we must use as we sow good works through our lives. The harvest is slow coming, but Jesus promises it is worth the investment and the waiting.
Music: When You Believe~ sung by Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey
Today, in Mercy, on this feast of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist, we are blessed with an inspiring reading from Ephesians. We are reminded that each of us is called in God according to our particular gifts. Paul encourages us to live “in a manner worthy of the call we have received” in our Baptism.
For most of us, it has been quite a while since we were washed in the waters of our Baptism. A lot of other waters have passed under the bridge since then. We may, or may not, have recognized and responded to our call, continually carried to us on those life waters.
Each moment, each choice, each act and decision asks us once again to choose Christ – over sin, over self, over meaninglessness. Each life opportunity calls us closer to Jesus, to the pattern of his Cross, to the witness of his Resurrection.
Matthew heard such a call as he sat, perhaps dulled by the unconscious disengagement of his life, by the failure to live with intention and openness to grace. As He passed by Matthew, Jesus reached into that ennui, calling Matthew to evangelize all the future generations by his Gospel.
Jesus calls us to be evangelists too – every moment, every day. Our “Yes” to our particular call writes its own Gospel, telling the Good News through our faith, hope and love.
Pope Francis says this:
The spread of the Gospel is not guaranteed either by the number of persons, or by the prestige of the institution, or by the quantity of available resources. What counts is to be permeated by the love of Christ, to let oneself be led by the Holy Spirit and to graft one’s own life onto the tree of life, which is the Lord’s Cross.
Music: When You Call My Name ~ Brian Doerksen & Steve Mitchinson
She is known throughout the town for the woman she is – no ordinary, unknown panderer of her body’s wares. She is a true “madam”, and a few of her customers already sit, silent and furtive, at the Pharisee’s table.
She wears an elegant robe, for her fees are steep. Gem-encrusted bracelets encircle her wrists and ankles. But it is her hair that crowns her beauty. Flowing like a sable river, it is wound in deep waves around her lovely face and shoulders. It is scented with a small bit of the precious ointment she now carries in her alabaster jar.
Among her many assets, it is her hair that sets her apart. Some women see it through green eyes; some men through black hearts. But she, even in the confusion of her choices, has always known it to be a gift.
How to use the gift has been her life long challenge. Ultimately, would it prove to be her salvation or her damnation?Is it not so with every special gift, with every leverage that makes us singular among our peers?
These gifts may take the form of possessions, power, position, favor or myriad other shapes. They may reside in a clever wit, and incisive mind, and agile body, a profound spirit. They may rest in a dogged perseverance, an adhesive memory or a dynamic imagination. Whatever our unique power, it is the key to our self-definition. It speaks our particular presence in the world.
At some point in her soul’s journey, this gorgeous gospel woman decided that her superior beauty would serve Jesus. What might have caused that dramatic conversion in her life?
Some versions of the story say that seven devils were once cast from her by Jesus’s merciful hand. Whatever the moment might have been, we can see from today’s Gospel scene that it was profound, intimate, and complete.
Her luxuriant hair has become a sacrament of healing, offered on this night to a friend about to suffer death for the sake of Love. Because her own love is so great, she understands this suffering in Jesus long before his other followers.
This reading leaves us with so much to consider about our own gifts and how we use them; about the depth of our relationship with Jesus and how we show him our love; about what is in our alabaster jar and where we choose to pour its treasure.
Music: Pour My Love on You – Philips, Craig, and Dean
Today, in Mercy, we encounter the often-read, less-practiced Corinthians passage on love. Could there be any word more massacred in our human language? Watch a few minutes of “Bachelorette”, or read a few Valentine’s cards, or listen to a commercial that tells you how much you’ll love some car! You’ll see what I mean.
Our souls so desperately need to learn and re-learn Paul’s definition of love.
To open, Paul tells us that nothing we do matters if it is done without love. Does this mean we have to enjoy executing all the duties required of us? I think not. Sometimes a duty feels like a drudgery.
But Paul is speaking here to our motivation. All that we do must be done because we care for and honor ourselves and others. This lightens any sense of burden and gives us a resilience and joy even in difficulty. This is what real love looks like.
Paul goes on to name the specific characteristics of love.If you’re like me, this section is like a checklist against which I measure myself:
Patient? – sometimes.
Jealous, pompous, boastful, rude? – uh oh!
Does not seek its own interests? – (alarms now going off)
Yes, the deeper we go into this passage, the more we realize how far we are from the kind of love Paul describes.
The whole point of the spiritual journey is to continually refine our understanding and practice of love until it fits more perfectly to the pattern of Jesus Who is Love.
Let’s all pray today to “clang” a little less, and love a lot more.
Today, in Mercy, Jesus tells us that we are his Body. How do we keep faith with this when the Body strains against its own parts? How do we look beyond human frailty to the vision of Christ?
No one can deny that the Church struggles with its peace and unity. The current reality of the Catholic Church is fraught with abuse, division and threatened schism. And these things are nothing new. Church history reads like a novel laced with intrigue, power plays, and gratuitous violence.
How are we to reconcile these realities with Jesus’ pronouncement in today’s Gospel?
I think we do so by acknowledging
that the Living Church has not yet sifted out the chaff from the wheat
that the Body of Christ is still being crucified
that our discipleship consists in sharing the continuing act of redemption with Jesus
We strengthen ourselves for this sacred participation by our faithfulness to the Gospel, by our quest for meaningful Eucharist, and by our reverence for Christ’s presence in all Creation.
Pierre de Chardin saw the Body of Christ in cosmic terms which open our understanding and challenge us to an evolution of grace. He says:
“ No, the Body of Christ must be understood boldly, as it was seen and loved by St. John, St. Paul, and the Fathers. It forms in nature a world which is new, an organism moving and alive in which we are all united physically, biologically….
It is first by the Incarnation and next by the Eucharist that Christ organizes us for Himself and imposes Himself upon us.Although He has come above all for souls, uniquely for souls, He could not join them together and bring them life without assuming and animating along with them all the rest of the world. By His Incarnation, He inserted Himself not just into humanity but into the universe which supports humanity, and He did so not simply as another connected element, but with the dignity and function of a directing principle, of a Center toward which everything converges in harmony and Love.”
(de Chardin: La Vie Cosmique)
Today, in Mercy, Jesus, in amazement, praises the faith of the centurion. What was it about this man’s faith that could astound even God?How would my faith make Jesus feel?
We are taught that faith is a gift. We can’t earn it or acquire it on our own. We can though – once we have been given it – exercise it, polish it, cherish it and share it in order to make it stronger.
What is faith exactly?
Well, first off, we get faith mixed up with a lot of things that it is not.
Faith is not the same as religion or religious denomination. Faith transcends Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism or Islam. These are the only frameworks in which we sometimes practice our faith.
Faith isn’t devotions, or prayers, or the formulas we pull out when we are in trouble. It is not the Prayer to St. Anthony when we can’t find our car keys. It is not the novena we say to receive a special favor. These are only practices which allow us to express our faith in human terms.
And most importantly, faith is not an ideology by which we exceptionalize and elevate ourselves, suggesting that others are less because of their choice of religious practice.
If we take a clue from today’s Gospel, we could describe faith like this:
It is the unshakable understanding that all Creation belongs to God, including every aspect of my life.
It is the trust that God wills our good in all things.
It is the sure confidence that God abides with us in all circumstances.
It is the giving of my heart to this abiding God in a relationship of mutual love.
It is a life that bespeaks these confidences.
The centurion must have had this kind of faith and it delighted Jesus. Let’s pray for a faith that can do that for God!
Lavish Mercy 