Category: Charity

Faithfulness

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Mercy, Service, spirituality, sufferingLeave a comment

Wednesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
November 27, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112724.cfm

Remain faithful until death,
and I will give you the crown of life.

Revelation 2:10

.In Luke 21, Jesus exhorts his disciples to remain faithful. Then he describes how fraught with difficulties that faithfulness will be: denouncement, imprisonment, false judgment, disavowal by family and friends, hatred, and even death. What is so terrifying about the Gospel that it evokes these responses in its enemies? What is so powerful about the Gospel that it will sustain its believers even through such trials?

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
I ask myself, “Have I ever really suffered anything for the sake of the Gospel”? What would that suffering look like? Would it not be setting aside my selfishness for the sake of the neighbor – even the unloved neighbor? If we dare to do that, we will surely suffer.

Prose: from Walter Bruggemann in “God’s Neighborly Economy”

“Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29)

The Bible is unflinching and unambiguous in its identification of the neighbor: widow, orphan, immigrant, the poor, lepers, the blind, deaf, lame … all those without viable resources or reliable advocacy.

Music: Take All the Lost Home – Joe Wise

Sweet

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Creation, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Love, Psalms, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr
November 22, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112224.cfm

How sweet to my taste is your promise!
In the way of your decrees I rejoice,
as much as in all riches.
Yes, your decrees are my delight;
 they are my counselors.
The law of your mouth is to me more precious
than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
How sweet to my palate are your promises,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Your decrees are my inheritance forever;
the joy of my heart they are.
I gasp with open mouth
in my yearning for your commands.
from Psalm 119

Today, I choose to pray with our Responsorial Psalm 119, a beautiful love song to God. The psalm lists everything for which we might love God.

Picture a beloved asking you, “What do you love about me? Can you make a list?” Picture God doing the same thing. Psalm 119 is one person’s list of how they love the sweetness of God. What would your list look like?

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We take time in prayer to share “love talk” with God. How does the Divine Sweetness touch us, change us? How do we return that sweetness to God by our touch upon God’s Creation?

Poetry: Song Silence By Madeleva Wolff, CSC

Yes, I shall take this quiet house and keep it
With kindled hearth and candle-lighted board,
In singing silence garnish it and sweep it
                For Christ, my Lord.
 
My heart is filled with little songs to sing Him—
I dream them into words with careful art—
But this I think a better gift to bring Him,
                Nearer his heart.
 
The foxes have their holes, the wise, the clever;
The birds have each a safe and secret nest;
But He, my lover, walks the world with never
A place to rest.
 
I found Him once upon a straw bed lying;
(Once on His mother’s heart He laid His head)
He had a bramble pillow for His dying,
                A stone when dead.
 
I think to leave off singing for this reason,
Taking instead my Lord God’s house to keep,
Where He may find a home in every season
                To wake, to sleep.
 
Do you not think that in this holy sweetness
Of silence shared with God a whole life long
Both he and I shall find divine completeness
                Of perfect song?

Music: Cor Dulce – Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), sung by Benedictines of Mary

Sweet heart, most loving heart;
our love wounded,
our love languishing;
be merciful to me. 

Heart of Jesus, sweeter than honey;
heart purer than the sun;
Holy word of God,
fullness of God’s wealth.

Thy haven for a shipwrecked world;
secure portion for the faithful,
defender and refuge of our minds;
rest for our faithful hearts.

Cor dulce, Cor amabile,
Amore nostri saucium,
Amore nostri languidum,
Fac sis mihi placabile. 

Cor Jesu melle dulcius,
Cor sole puro purius,
Verbi Dei sacrarium,
Opum Dei compendium. 

Tu portus orbi naufrago,
Secura pars fidelibus,
Reis asylum mentibus,
Piis recessus cordibus.

Short

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Hope, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

Tuesday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
November 19, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111924.cfm

Now a man there named Zacchaeus,
who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, 
was seeking to see who Jesus was;
but he could not see him because of the crowd,
for he was short in stature. 
So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus,
who was about to pass that way.
When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said, 
“Zacchaeus, come down quickly,
for today I must stay at your house.” 
And he came down quickly and received him with joy. 
Luke 19:2-6

Every scripture passage has a lesson for us. And even though I’m tall, not short, there is a lesson here for me. For you too!

We want to grow in our ability to find God in every circumstance of our lives. But, at times, we may be short on the faith, hope, or charity to do so. We may be short on living the works of mercy. Not to sound hip-hop, but we may be short on “Gratitude for the Beatitude”!

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ask Jesus to discover us in whatever metaphorical tree we might be hiding, to come under our roof, and to live at the center of our lives.

Poetry: The Stature of Zacchaeus – Amos Russel Wells (1862-1933)

Zacchaeus struggled with the crowd;
A little man was he.
"Vermin!" he muttered half aloud,
"I'll make them honor me.
Ah, when the taxes next are due,
I'll tower as is meet;
This beggarly, ill-mannered crew
Shall cower at my feet."
Zacchaeus climbed the sycomore
(He was a little man),
And as he looked the rabble o'er
He chuckled at the plan.
"I get the thing I want," he said,
"And that is to be tall.
They think me short but by a head
I rise above them all."
"Zacchaeus, come! I dine with you,"
The famous Rabbi cried.
Zacchaeus tumbled into view
A giant in his pride.
He strutted mightily before
That silly, gaping throng;
You'd think him six feet high or more,
To see him stride along.
Zacchaeus listened to the Lord,
And as he listened, feared;
How was his life a thing abhorred
When that pure Life appeared!
Down to a dwarf he shrank away
In sorrow and in shame.
He owned his sins that very day,
And bore the heavy blame.
But as he rose before the crowd,
(A little man, alack!)
Confessed his guilt and cried aloud
And gave his plunder back,
I think he stood a giant then
As angels truly scan,
And no one ever thought again
He was a little man.

Music: Zacchaeus – Miriam Therese Winter, Medical Mission Sisters

Stranger

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, friendship, inclusivity, justice, spirituality1 Comment

Saturday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
November 16, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111624.cfm

Beloved, you are faithful in all you do for the brothers and sisters,
especially for strangers;
they have testified to your love before the Church.
Please help them in a way worthy of God to continue their journey.
For they have set out for the sake of the Name
and are accepting nothing from the pagans.
Therefore, we ought to support such persons,
so that we may be co-workers in the truth.
3 John 5:8

Most of us have felt like strangers at some point in our lives. It’s not a nice feeling. You might have attended an event without a date or companion. You might have been the only woman in a group of men, or vice versa. You might have been the only Black person at a White funeral or the other way around. Didn’t we hope to find someone to connect to, someone who would offer us an open door?

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
As we think about Paul’s teaching, and our own experiences, let’s prayerfully consider our attitudes and actions regarding immigrants and refugees. Persons displaced by climate, politics, poverty, lawlessness, and a host of other causes deserve our help, as Paul describes. Let’s ask ourselves how we’re doing with that.

Poem: The Kindness of Strangers – Sally Van Dorn

Here I am with all my flaws
seeking form and shelter.

I blanche at the notion
of violence, but it’s coming

after us, closing in like a
superstition I can’t shake.

If I acquiesce to your harsh
future you must promise me

one thing. Where we go we will
find our youth again. Can you

see it there under the yellow linen
tablecloth? I’m depending on it.

Music: Wayfaring Stranger – published in 1858, author unknown

I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger
Traveling through this world below
There is no sickness, no toil, no danger
In that bright land to which I go
I'm going there to see my father
And all my loved ones who've gone on
I'm just going over Jordan
I'm just going over home
I know dark clouds will gather 'round me
I know my way is hard and steep
But beauteous fields arise before me
Where God's redeemed, their vigils keep
I'm going there to see my mother
She said she'd meet me when I come
So I'm just going over Jordan
I'm just going over home
I'm just going over Jordan
I'm just going over home

Love

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Conversion, Courage, Cross, Faith, Love, spirituality1 Comment

Friday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
November 15, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111524.cfm

But now, Lady, I ask you,
not as though I were writing a new commandment
but the one we have had from the beginning:
let us love one another.
For this is love, that we walk according to his commandments;
this is the commandment, as you heard from the beginning,
in which you should walk.
2 John 4:5-6

The Motherhouse chapel is impressive, more like a cathedral than a chapel. I remember being led into it for the first time when, at 18 years old, I came for my initial interview. It took my breath away. You can imagine the intensity of my prayer as I knelt for the first time at the altar rail, realizing that my young, inscrutable choices were about to change my life irrevocably.

I looked up to the Gospel command emblazoned above the apse thinking, “That’s what this is all about. Let me begin.”

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Perhaps, remembering a long-ago choice in your life, you will see how it has unfolded in love over the years. This is a good day to pray those memories and blessings with God.

Poetry: Slowly – Macrina Wiederkehr

Life unfolds
a petal at a time
slowly

The beauty of the process is crippled
when I try to hurry growth.
Life has its inner rhythm
which must be respected.
It cannot be rushed or hurried.

Like daylight stepping out of darkness,
like morning creeping out of night,
life unfolds slowly a petal at a time
like a flower opening to the sun,
slowly.

God’s call unfolds
a Word at a time
slowly.

A disciple is not made in a hurry.
Slowly I become like the One
to whom I am listening.

Life unfolds
a petal at a time
like you and I
becoming followers of Jesus,
discipled into a new way of living
deeply and slowly.

Be patient with life’s unfolding petals.
If you hurry the bud it withers.
If you hurry life it limps.
Each unfolding is a teaching
a movement of grace filled with silent pauses
breathtaking beauty
tears and heartaches.

Life unfolds
a petal at a time
deeply and slowly.

May it come to pass!

Music: The Faith – Leonard Cohen

Forgiveness

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Conversion, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness, spirituality1 Comment

Thursday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
November 14, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111424.cfm

Beloved:
I have experienced much joy and encouragement from your love,
because the hearts of the holy ones
have been refreshed by you, brother.
Therefore, although I have the full right in Christ
to order you to do what is proper,
I rather urge you out of love,
being as I am, Paul, an old man,
and now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus.
I urge you on behalf of my child Onesimus,
whose father I have become in my imprisonment,
who was once useless to you but is now useful to both you and me.
Philemon 1:7-11

Did you ever have to intercede for a friend? Or if you were the friend, did anyone ever have to intercede for you? That’s what is happening in this passage.

Onesimus, the escaped slave of Philemon, had also been accused of petty theft. During his escape, he comes into Paul’s company, is converted, and befriends and assists Paul.

Paul pleads with Philemon to forgive and reconcile with Onesimus as a brother in Christ.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We give thanks for those who have stood by us in times of testing, who knew our hearts better than others did, and who represented us in Christ.

Poetry: “Onesimus” by Tania Runyan

Since I stole your money, Philemon, and even more, myself, the body
that broke earth and stacked stones at daybreak while you slept,

you have every right to lash me till the whites of my intestines show,
brand FUG on my forehead, or throw me to the lions, who love especially

the taste of escaped slaves, our blood sweet with freedom’s fleeting breath.
But Paul, wild-eyed with Christ, has washed down his prison walls

with prayer. He knows you will take me back, not a slave, but a brother
delivering koinonia to your congregation in this present evil age, teaching

how to pray paralytics into motion and how to sleep in peace
when soldiers sharpen swords outside your windows. Paul calls me his son, no—

his very heart. I am no longer your body but will reside in yours,
pump forgiveness and prayer through your veins. I will make you

see Christ in every jangling harlot and rotting, leprous face.
I will make you a slave to God’s bidding.

Music: Return to the Heart – David Lanz

Seed

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Hope, spirituality2 Comments

Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time
October 29, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102924.cfm

Jesus said, “What is the Kingdom of God like?
To what can I compare it?
It is like a mustard seed that someone planted in the garden.
When it was fully grown, it became a large bush
and the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches.”
Luke 13:18-19

These poetic words of Jesus paint a picture of heaven filled with humility, hope, vitality, possibility, and Divine hospitality. Our hearts are the gardens where God plants this mystical seed! Amazing!

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray to have a holy longing for the heavenly seed God’s offers us. We pray to be loving gardeners of God’s indescribable gifts of faith, hope, and charity.

Poetry: God’s Garden by Dorothy Frances Gurney

The Lord God planted a garden
In the first white days of the world,
And He set there an angel warden
In a garment of light enfurled.

So near to the peace of Heaven,
That the hawk might nest with the wren,
For there in the cool of the even
God walked with the first of men.

And I dream that these garden-closes
With their shade and their sun-flecked sod
And their lilies and bowers of roses,
Were laid by the hand of God.

The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,–
One is nearer God’s heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.

For He broke it for us in a garden
Under the olive-trees
Where the angel of strength was the warden
And the soul of the world found ease.

Music: Gardens in the Sun – Georgia Kelly

Greed

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, justice, Mercy, spirituality4 Comments

Monday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
October 21, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102124.cfm

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus,
“Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”
He replied to him,
“Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”
Then he said to the crowd,
“Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one’s life does not consist of possessions.”
Luke 12:13-15

We’ve all heard the all too true adage, “You can’t take it with you.” That’s the lesson in Jesus’s parable today. But the story conveys an even broader meaning. It is not only greed for possessions that waylays us, it is the distraction they cause from the true essence of life in God.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ask for the courage and grace to focus our lives on God and God’s Creation. Within that focus, we will have a clearer understanding of what we truly need in life and what is simply a diversion.

Poetry: I Dream a World … – Langston Hughes

I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind-
Of such I dream, my world!

Music: Mercedes Benz – Janis Joplin

Joplin’s rock song might move us to realize that, even in unrecognized greediness, we sometimes ask God for the wrong things.

Woe

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Faith, Gospel, inclusivity, Jesus, justice, Love, spirituality1 Comment

Wednesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
October 16, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101624.cfm

The Lord said:
“Woe to you Pharisees!
You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb,
but you pay no attention to judgment and to love for God.
Luke 11:42

Jesus got fed up with those who lived a loveless law. The Pharisees were meticulous in their outward observation of the Law of Moses, but they failed its core test to love their neighbor as themselves as written in Leviticus.

Thought:

The only love of God that has any substance
is the love of God enacted as love of neighbor.

Walter Brueggemann

Music: Love God, Love Your Neighbor – Dale Sechrest

Faith

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Church, Community, Faith, inclusivity, spirituality1 Comment

Saturday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
October 12, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101224.cfm

For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus.
For all of you who were baptized into Christ
have clothed yourselves with Christ.
There is neither Jew nor Greek,
there is neither slave nor free person,
there is not male and female;
for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:26-28

The faith we share with other Christians makes us one in Christ. If someone has become “the other” for us, the integrity our faith is damaged in some way.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray to truly be clothed in Christ – to so espouse his Gospel that we live in charity and reverence for all Creation.

Thought: from St. Augustine

O Sacrament of Love!
O sign of Unity!
O bond of Charity!
They who would have Life
find here indeed
a Life to live in
and a Life to live by.

Music: We Are One in the Spirit – Peter Scholtes