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.
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!’
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.
… 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
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
Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age; and he had made him a beautiful long cloak. When his brothers saw that their father loved him best of all his sons, they hated him so much that they would not even greet him.
Genesis 37: 3-4
Joseph, beloved of his father Jacob, wore a multi-colored expression of his father’s love. Because others were jealous of this love, Joseph, the innocent one, was persecuted. Nevertheless, he endured and eventually forgave his brothers, giving them the means for a new life.
Joseph is a prototype of Jesus, the Beloved Son who displayed his Father’s love by his life of mercy. Jesus, Supreme Innocence, was persecuted too, endured death, forgave his persecutors, and gave us new life.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
In my prayer, I ask myself what patterns of Joseph and Jesus do I see in my world? Where do I see Innocence suffering? Where do I see mercy offered rather than persecution? Where do I see the need for acknowledgement and forgiveness?
Where do I see these things in my wider world and in myself? My awareness and response is the way I walk with Christ this Lent.
Poetry: Joseph’s Coat – George Herbert (1593-1633), English poet, orator, priest, and venerated Saint of the Church of England.
Herbert’s poem suggests that through the “joyes” and “griefs” of life, one finds sanctification only through God’s love and mercy. His imagery references Joseph’s downfall at the hands of his brothers and restoration through God’s design
Wounded I sing, tormented I indite, Thrown down I fall into a bed, and rest: Sorrow hath chang’d its note: such is his will, Who changeth all things, as him pleaseth best. For well he knows, if but one grief and smart Among my many had his full career, Sure it would carrie with it ev’n my heart, And both would runne untill they found a biere To fetch the bodie; both being due to grief. But he hath spoil’d the race; and giv’n to anguish One of Joyes coats, ticing it with relief To linger in me, and together languish. I live to shew his power, who once did bring My joyes to weep, and now my griefs to sing.
Mitch Albom, the author of “Tuesdays with Morrie”, also wrote the book “Just One More Day”. It is an appropriate title to think about on this last day of February in Leap Year 2024 when we actually have “just one more day”.
How often have we wished that phrase, perhaps near the end of a great vacation, or before an important project is due? Or maybe as Mitch Albom uses it: to have just one more day with someone who has passed from our lives.
With God, we always have one more day. God is Infinite Possibility and Eternal Generosity. February 29 is a good day to stretch our faith and ask what God would have us do with “just one more day” to witness Divine Abundance in our lives.
Will it be one more day to love, work, and be thankful? Will it be a day to be competitive or cooperative? Will it be a day to take advantage or to give it? How we use that “one more day” will say a lot about how we use all our days.
We might consider a question posed by one of our long-ago Sisters:
“Wouldn’t it be sad to come to the last day of our lives and realize that we had missed the whole point?”
Using this “one more day” well might just help us not to miss that point!
Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the LORD. Such a person is like a barren bush in the desert that enjoys no change of season, But stands in a lava waste, a salt and empty earth.
Jeremiah 17: 5-6
Have you encountered a person who is spiritually languishing, or even dead? The light of their spirit has gone out. There is no joy, hope, delight, or generosity in them. Sometimes their barrenness is buried under false hilarity or bravado, but after leaving them we find ourselves confused, saddened, empty, tired, or even a little angry.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Let’s pray for any barren spirit we have encountered. They badly need our prayers. And let’s ask God for the merciful freshening of our own spirit, seeking it by prayer, loving silence, and honest reflection on our choices and actions.
Poetry: What the Fig Tree Said – Denise Levertov
Literal minds! Embarrassed humans! His friends were blurting for Him in secret: wouldn’t admit they were shocked. They thought Him petulant to curse me!—yet how could the Lord be unfair?—so they looked away, then and now. But I, I knew that helplessly barren though I was, my day had come. I served Christ the Poet, who spoke in images: I was at hand, a metaphor for their failure to bring forth what is within them (as figs were not within me). They who had walked in His sunlight presence, they could have ripened, could have perceived His thirst and hunger, His innocent appetite; they could have offered human fruits—compassion, comprehension— without being asked, without being told of need. My absent fruit stood for their barren hearts. He cursed not me, not them, but (ears that hear not, eyes that see not) their dullness, that withholds gifts unimagined.
Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee approached Jesus with her sons and asked … “Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom.” Jesus said in reply, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?” They said to him, “We can.” He replied, “My chalice you will indeed drink, but to sit at my right and at my left, this is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”
Mark 10:20-23
In our Gospel, Jesus makes it clear that the path to heavenly glory is bound by a spiritual discipline that, in this contrary world, will cause us suffering. The cup is that chasm in life where we must choose peace over violence, generosity over selfishness, mercy over judgment, truth over deception, love over indifference. There will be resistance, both within us and around us, when we make such choices.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Let’s be honest with ourselves as we answer Jesus’s question: “Can you drink the cup that I will drink?” Let’s pray for the grace to drink that cup as it comes to us in the particularities of our own lives. Let’s ask for the spiritual confidence and understanding that the cup – our cup – leads to eternal life.
Poetry: Can You Drink the Cup? – by Scott Surrency, O.F.M. Cap. (2015)
Can you drink the cup? Drink, not survey or analyze, ponder or scrutinize – from a distance. But drink – imbibe, ingest, take into you so that it becomes a piece of your inmost self. And not with cautious sips that barely moisten your lips, but with audacious drafts that spill down your chin and onto your chest. (Forget decorum – reserve would give offense.) Can you drink the cup? The cup of rejection and opposition, betrayal and regret. Like vinegar and gall, pungent and tart, making you wince and recoil. But not only that – for the cup is deceptively deep – there are hopes and joys in there, too, like thrilling champagne with bubbles that tickle your nose on New Year’s Eve, and fleeting moments of almost – almost – sheer ecstasy that last as long as an eye-blink, or a champagne bubble, but mysteriously satisfy and sustain. Can you drink the cup? Yes, you — with your insecurities, visible and invisible. You with the doubts that nibble around the edges and the ones that devour in one great big gulp. You with your impetuous starts and youth-like bursts of love and devotion. You with your giving up too soon – or too late – and being tyrannically hard on yourself. You with your Yes, but’s and I’m sorry’s – again. Yes, you – but with my grace. Can you drink the cup? Can I drink the cup? Yes.
Music: We Will Drink the Cup
We will drink the cup. We will win the fight. We will stand against the darkness of the night. We will run the race And see God’s face, And build the Kingdom of love.
Do not fear for I am with you. Be still and know that I am God.
You will run and not grow weary, For I your God will be your strength. Refrain
We are the Church, we are the Body. We are God’s great work of art.
Come now, let us set things right, says the LORD: Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool.
Isaiah 1:18
The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
Matthew 22:12
Today’s readings are studies in contrasts – white/scarlet; exaltation/humility.
Isaiah promises a transformative grace changing scarlet sins to snow-white goodness. In our Gospel, Jesus teaches the crowds that the way to holiness is in exact contrast to the practices of the Pharisees. The Gospel turns the patterns of the world upside down. Lent is the time to enter that turning.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Let’s pray for the humility that will allow us to open ourselves to God’s transforming grace – that wash of insight over our spirits, cleansing us of spiritual confusion.
Humility can be a tricky virtue. Its essence is not a sense of worthlessness or “less-ness”. Humility is instead a profound awareness that all belongs to God, and that we are privileged to share in that Abundant Life. Humility does not concentrate on the Self. It looks at the Other in grateful and expectant obedience.
Poetry: A Woman in Winter – from In Wisdom’s Path: Discovering the Sacred in Every Season by Jan L. Richardson.
A woman in winter is winter: turning inward, deepening, elemental force, time’s reckoning; sudden frost and fire’s warming, depth of loss and edge of storming.
She is avalanche, quiet hungering, utter stillness, snowfall brewing; hollowed, hallowed, shadows casting, field in fallow, wisdom gathering.
Waiting, watching, darkness craving, shedding, touching, reaching, laboring; burning, carrying fire within her, a woman turning, becoming winter.
Lavish Mercy 