Category: Church

Lead by Love

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of St. Martin of Tours
November 11, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111122.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our first reading is from John’s very brief second epistle.

This is a fascinating passage. It is addressed to “Kyria”, Greek for “Lady”. The contents encourage this revered lady to keep herself and her household true to Christ.

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;

2 John 5-6

Reading the passage, one wonders who “Kyria” is. At least three theories exist among scholars:

  • an actual religious leader 
  • a metaphor for the Church 
  • Mary, Mother of Jesus

The letter is beautifully personal in tone, so I like to think that Kyria was, indeed, an influential church leader and John’s beloved friend. So often, the names of early Christian women leaders are lost to history. Whether they were omitted in the original texts, or erased by subsequent misogynistic translators, we can only surmise. But the absence has served to support the misperception that women are of lesser consequence in the Church.

As we read 2 John, we can be aware of the major themes he entrusted to dear “Kyria”, whoever she might have been, to be transmitted to her household:

  • Truth is expressed through love, modeled to us in Jesus.
  • Obedience to God is expressed through service in God’s name.
  • Guard against any who distract you from these teachings.

Poetry: Seek Truth – Rumi

If you never searched for truth 
come with us 
and you will become a seeker. 

If you were never a musician 
come with us 
and you will find your voice… 

In our gathering one candle lights hundreds, 
we will light your path and give you courage 
so you will open like a flower 
and join in joyous laughter. 

Plant the seed of truth and watch it grow 
when it spreads its branches 
come with us and sit under the blossoms. 

Your eyes will open to the secret of the truth.

Music: Kyria (Lady) is the feminine form of Kyrie , as in “Kyrie eleison” (Lord, have mercy).

So the music I thought of for today is the magnificent Kyrie Eleison from Charles Gounod’s Mass for St. Cecilia.

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A Parish Church

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Faith, spirituality6 Comments

Feast of the Dedication of the St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome
November 9, 2022

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy,  we celebrate a rare type of feast day – one that marks the dedication of a church building.  For many, that seems a little odd. We are accustomed to celebrating Mary, Joseph and other saints and feasts of Our Lord.

Here’s the thing: we are not actually celebrating a building.  We are celebrating what the building represents – the Body of Christ, the Church, made of living stones – us.

But sometimes it helps to have visible symbols of the things we venerate and celebrate. That’s why we have medals, rosary beads and candles – so that we can SEE something as we try to conceptualize a spiritual reality.

As we pray today, we might take time to remember the parish church of our youth. You might never love another parish like you loved that one – where you and your little friends snuck a whisper in the pews. Or – even now and again – maybe you fell off the kneeler in a stifled giggle as some neighbor lady leaped into soprano at the Miraculous Medal Novena.

Still, it might have been the place where we first prayed and first began to approach the beauty and wonder of God.

My memories are filled with unrepeatable treasures like:

  • our wonderful Sisters of St. Joseph, who at early morning Masses pre-Vatican II,
    mystically lowered their veils over their eyes on the way to Communion.
    I so wondered what their prayer was like!
  • the lingering smell of incense, beeswax, and holiness lingering in every corner,
    speaking a prayer for me that had no words
  • our very faithful and good priests
  • the beautiful Latin chants and prayers during which you had no idea what you were saying,
    but you knew exactly what you meant: God is Wonderful!
  • our old Irish pastor whose brogue was so thick we could not decipher a word except
    “Feast of the Great St. Patrick, boys and girrrrls! No school today!”

St. John Lateran is the Pope’s parish church. Since he is the Bishop of the whole People of God, his physical church has come to symbolize the universal Body of Christ, the world Church.

john lateran

Pope Benedict XVI in his Angelus Address, on November 9, 2008 said this:

Dear friends, today’s feast celebrates a mystery that is always relevant: God’s desire to build a spiritual temple in the world, a community that worships him in spirit and truth (cf. John 4:23-24).
But this observance also reminds us of the importance of the material buildings in which the community gathers to celebrate the praises of God.
Every community therefore has the duty to take special care of its own sacred buildings, which are a precious religious and historical patrimony. For this we call upon the intercession of Mary Most Holy, that she help us to become, like her, the “house of God,” living temple of his love.

st j lateran

As we pray today, we might want to consider the gift of faith on which our own lives are built – a faith whose cornerstone is Jesus Christ. In our second reading, Paul says this:

Brothers and sisters:
You are God’s building…..
Do you not know that you are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

And in our Gospel, Jesus speaks of his own body as a temple which, though apparently destroyed by his enemies, will be raised up in three days.

By our Baptism, that same spiritual temple lives in us and in all the community of faith. That same power of Resurrection is alive in us! So in a very real sense, what we celebrate today is ourselves – the Living Church – raised up and visible as a sign of God’s Life in the world.

Happy Feast Day, Church!

Poetry: Sunday Morning – Ruby Archer (1873-1961) was an American port

How sweet to wait within a holy place
The hour of song and prayer,
To yield the heart unto a spell of grace,
Serenely brooding like a presence there. 

The hymns that live within the organ’s heart,
Flow silent o’er the soul;
Unsounded echoes from the memory start,
Like mystic writing from an angel’s scroll. 

Music: Cornerstone – Hillsong

Remembering ..

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, spiritualityLeave a comment

All Souls Day
November 2, 2022

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we remember the beloved Holy Souls who have gone before us. They are never far from us. Some of us may visit cemeteries today. Some will place a list of names upon the altar. But all of us will whisper their names: grandparents, parents, spouses, children, brothers, sisters and beloved friends — meeting each name in a sacred memory.

Romans6_8 All Souls

May those memories, whatever they contain, be transformed by our loving prayers. May whatever grief remains in us be blessed by the grace of faith and thanksgiving. And may the Holy Ones we honor today brighten us with some of their overwhelming Eternal Light in God.

Poetry: All Souls Day – Frances Bellerby, (1899–1975) was an English poet, novelist and short story writer. “Her poetry is imbued with a spiritual awareness encoded through the natural environment while her political socialism is more evident in her prose”. (from The Encyclopedia of British Women’s Writing – Jane Dowson)

Let’s go our old way
by the stream, and kick the leaves
as we always did, to make
the rhythm of breaking waves.

This day draws no breath –
shows no colour anywhere
except for the leaves – in their death
brilliant as never before.

Yellow of Brimstone Butterfly,
brown of Oak Eggar Moth –
you’d say. And I’d be wondering why
a summer never seems lost

if two have been together
witnessing the variousness of light,
and the same two in lustreless November
enter the year’s night…

The slow-worm stream – how still!
Above that spider’s unguarded door,
look – dull pearls…Time’s full,
brimming, can hold no more.

Next moment (we well know,
my darling, you and I)
what the small day cannot hold
must spill into eternity.

So perhaps we should move cat-soft
meanwhile, and leave everything unsaid,
until no shadow of risk can be left
of disturbing the scatheless dead.

Ah, but you were always leaf-light.
And you so seldom talk
as we go. But there at my side
through the bright leaves you walk.

And yet – touch my hand
that I may be quite without fear,
for it seems as if a mist descends,
and the leaves where you walk do not stir.

Music: Lux Aeterna- Eternal Light – Michael Hoppé

Lux aeterna
Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine,
cum sanctis tuis in aeternum,
quia pius es.

Requiem aeternam
dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.

May light eternal shine upon them, O Lord,
with Your saints forever,
for You are Mercy.

Eternal rest
give to them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.

All Saints Day -2022

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Books, Church, Community, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality2 Comments

November 1, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/110122.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate all those canonized and uncanonized sisters and brothers who lived their lives in Christ with gusto and fidelity.

saints

The feast of All Saints, on its current date, is traced to the foundation by Pope Gregory III by (731–741) of an oratory in St. Peter’s for the relics “of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors, of all the just made perfect who are at rest throughout the world”. (Wikipedia)

I’ve personally known many of these saints, whether I fully recognized their sanctity or not. They have lived in my family, school, neighborhood, parish, ministries, and workplaces. Some were clothed as nuns and some as beggars. Some taught me by words and some by silence. I knew some by name, others by grace. Now they have all joined the eternal family watching over us and cheering for us.

There they have formed communion with my more recognized and favorite holy friends like Mary, Joseph, Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena, Kateri Tekawitha, Anna the Prophet, John XXIII, and of course Catherine McAuley.

What a wonderful day to know that these beloveds of God are our sisters and brothers, who pray with and for us that we may one day rejoice with them in eternal light.

Who are the saints that speak especially to your heart? Take time to have a nice conversation with them on this glorious feastday!

If you are interested in learning more about the saints, this is a wonderful book by Father James Martin, SJ.

Poetry: All Saints Day – Ada Cambridge, (1844 – 1926), later known as Ada Cross, was an English-born Australian writer. She wrote more than 25 works of fiction, three volumes of poetry and two autobiographical works. Many of her novels were serialized in Australian newspapers but never published in book form.

“But they are at peace.”

Never to weary more, nor suffer sorrow,— 
   Their strife all over, and their work all done: 
At peace—and only waiting for the morrow; 
   Heaven’s rest and rapture even now begun. 

So tired once! long fetter’d, sorely burden’d, 
   Ye struggled hard and well for your release; 
Ye fought in faith and love—and ye are guerdon’d, 
   O happy souls! for now ye are at peace. 

No more of pain, no more of bitter weeping! 
   For us a darkness and an empty place, 
Somewhere a little dust—in angels’ keeping— 
   A blessèd memory of a vanish’d face. 

For us the lonely path, the daily toiling, 
   The din and strife of battle, never still’d; 
For us the wounds, the hunger, and the soiling,— 
   The utter, speechless longing, unfulfill’d. 

For us the army camp’d upon the mountains, 
   Unseen, yet fighting with our Syrian foes,— 
The heaven-sent manna and the wayside fountains, 
   The hope and promise, sweetening our woes. 

For them the joyous spirit, freely ranging 
   Green hills and fields where never mortal trod; 
For them the light unfading and unchanging, 
   The perfect quietness—the peace of God. 

For both, a dim, mysterious, distant greeting; 
   For both, at Jesus’ cross, a drawing near; 
At Eucharistic gate a blessed meeting, 
   When angels and archangels worship here. 

For both, God grant, an everlasting union, 
   When sin shall pass away and tears shall cease; 
For both the deep and full and true communion, 
   For both the happy life that is “at peace.”

Music:  All Saints Day – featuring “Lifesong” by Casting Crowns (lyrics below)

Empty hands held high
Such small sacrifice
Now joined with my life
I sing in vain tonight

May the words I say
And the things I do
Make my lifesong sing
Bring a smile to you

Let my lifesong sing to you
Let my lifesong sing to you
I want to sign your name
To the end of this day

Lord led my heart was true
Let my lifesong sing to you
Lord I give my life
A living sacrifice
To reach a world in need
To be your hands and feet

So may the words I say
And the things I do
Make my lifesong sing
Bring a smile to you

Let my lifesong sing to you
Let my lifesong sing to you
I want to sign your name
To the end of this day

Knowing that my heart was true
Let my lifesong sing to you
Hallelujah, Hallelujah let my lifesong sing to you
Hallelujah, Hallelujah let my lifesong sing to you

Hallelujah,…
Let my lifesong sing to you
Let my lifesong sing to you
I want to sign your name
To the end of this day

Knowing that my heart was true
Let my lifesong sing to you
Let my lifesong sing to you
Let my lifesong sing to you
I want to sign your name
To the end of this day
Lord led my heart was true
Let my lifesong sing to you

The Divine Song of Light and Dark

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Creation, Faith, spirituality8 Comments

Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
October 10, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101022.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 113, a prayer of praise and thanksgiving, focusing our praise on the Name of the Lord.

Praise, you servants of the LORD,
praise the name of the LORD.
Blessed be the name of the LORD
both now and forever.Psalm 113:1-2

A particularly beautiful dynamic emerges in the following verse:

From the rising to the setting of the sun
is the Name of the LORD to be praised.
High above all nations is the LORD;
above the heavens is his glory.Psalm 113:3-4

Praying this verse, we might picture the sun slowly lighting and darkening the contrapuntal curves of the earth.

Within that inverse yet complementary rhythm, the morning and evening prayers of believers encircle the globe. The whole Church, the Communion of Saints, each takes up its part in the prayerful caress of our world.

As I go to sleep at night, I know someone is waking on the other side of the world with the Holy Name on her lips. When I rise in the morning, I lift that song from the semi-darkness to offer my part to the Great Embrace.

Each morning and evening, I pray for my blog followers, thinking of their moment in this universal prayer. I imagine that prayer dawning near St. Barbara Catholic School in Guam, then drifting westward to Australia, Uzbekistan, Rome, and the little village of Hampstead Norreys, England.

I see it reach the shores of the Americas, deepening as it resounds in various languages through Rio de Janeiro, Haiti, Guyana, and Chulucanas, Peru.

I feel the warm healing of God’s Name prayed over my own country from Silver Spring, MD to McAllen, TX; from Dubuque, IA to Sacramento, then on again over the Pacific.

As each of us joins this global song of praise, let us be aware of the Infinite Power Who holds us all within the Divine Song – beyond time, beyond borders, beyond space, beyond any comprehension but Love.

Praise the Lord,
the Unnamable, the All-Perfect, the Inconceivable, 
who, higher than the highest heavens, 
stoops to the lowest of the low, 
who raises the poor from the dunghill 
and lifts the wretched from the dust, 
who grants them an infinite abundance 
and showers them with all good things.

from A Book of Psalm Selections Adapted from the Hebrew by Stephen Mitchell

Music:  Praise the Lord, Psalm 113 – Blanca Vega and Roby Duke

Wisdom, please ….

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, inclusivity, spiritualityLeave a comment

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 4, 2022

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we continue to move into the final segments of Luke’s Gospel which we have been reading on Sundays throughout this liturgical year.

Today, the Church links three readings which, at first glance, might seem unrelated.

  • Our first reading from Wisdom reminds us of God’s infinite wisdom, incomprehensible to our human minds.
  • Paul, in his letter to Philemon, begs for the loving inclusion of Onesimus, an enslaved person, into the Colossian community.
  • In our Gospel, Jesus makes this harsh pronouncement:

If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters,
and even his own life,
he cannot be my disciple.

How might we interpret these disparate passages to find a message of wholeness for our prayer?

Wis9_13 gods mind

Let’s start with Jesus. In no uncertain terms, he challenges his disciples to move out of their small worlds into God’s big world. That Godly world is not defined by family, nor by any condition other than our common Creaturehood in God … not by:

word gram

Jesus says the sacred community is defined only by shared and irrevocable commitment to the Gospel of love and mercy.

Paul knows and loves Onesimus, the slave, as a brother in this community. In his letter, Paul encourages Philemon to do the same.

Sometimes as human beings, filled with all kinds of insecurities, we tend to build enclaves that make us feel safe. We like to be with “our kind”. We invent borders to filter out those whose differences we don’t understand. We allow fear to grow with that lack of understanding. Within the enclosure of our self-protectionism, we eventually forget that we are all one, equal, precious, beautiful and beloved by God.

Such toxic attitudes are the soil for slavery, war, ethnic cleansing, racial supremacy, human trafficking, destructive nationalism, and all the other sacrileges committed by humans against the human family.

Wisdom reminds us that only God can open
the tight circle of our fears, judgments and isolations
– only God whose infinite love encompasses all.
Jesus tells us that we find that love
only by lifting up the cross and following him.

Wisdom tells us to put it in God’s hands, and to respond to God’s challenge in the preaching of Jesus Christ.

Who can know your way of thinking, O God
… except you give us wisdom
 and send your Holy Spirit from on high
 thus stretching the hearts of those on earth

Today I pray, may God do this for me,
and for all our tight, convoluted
and troubled world.

Poetic Prayer of Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen (c. 1098 – 17 September 1179), was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, as well as the most recorded in modern history. She has been considered by scholars to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.

I am Wisdom. 
Mine is the blast of the resounding Word 
through which all creation came to be, 
and I quickened all things with my breath 
so that not one of them is mortal in its kind; 
for I am Life.

Indeed I am Life, whole and undivided 
-- not hewn from any stone, 
or budded from branches, 
or rooted in virile strength; 
but all that lives has its root in Me.
 
For Wisdom is the root 
whose blossom is the resounding Word....
I flame above the beauty of the fields 
to signify the earth 
-- the matter from which humanity was made.

I shine in the waters to indicate the soul, 
for, as water suffuses the whole earth, 
the soul pervades the whole body. 

I burn in the sun and the moon to denote Wisdom, 
and the stars are the innumerable words of Wisdom.

Music: Who Has Known (an Advent hymn, but perfect I think for today’s readings)

Alleluia: Magnificat

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Courage, Faith, Mary, spirituality2 Comments

Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
August 15, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081522.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
Mary is taken up to heaven;
a chorus of angels exults.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we honor Mary on the Feast which celebrates her assumption, “that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”

The Catholic Church’s teaching on the Assumption of Mary was promulgated in 1950 by Pope Pius XII in an Apostolic Constitution entitled “MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS (the Most Bountiful God). Having experienced the horrors of a world war, and aware of the ensuing evils of the Cold War, Pope Pius XII looked to Mary for healing for himself and the whole world:

We, who have placed our pontificate under the special patronage of the most holy Virgin, to whom we have had recourse so often in times of grave trouble, we who have consecrated the entire human race to her Immaculate Heart in public ceremonies, and who have time and time again experienced her powerful protection, are confident that this solemn proclamation and definition of the Assumption will contribute in no small way to the advantage of human society, since it redounds to the glory of the Most Blessed Trinity, to which the Blessed Mother of God is bound by such singular bonds. It is to be hoped that all the faithful will be stirred up to a stronger piety toward their heavenly Mother, and that the souls of all those who glory in the Christian name may be moved by the desire of sharing in the unity of Jesus Christ’s Mystical Body and of increasing their love for her who shows her motherly heart to all the members of this august body. And so we may hope that those who meditate upon the glorious example Mary offers us may be more and more convinced of the value of a human life entirely devoted to carrying out the heavenly Father’s will and to bringing good to others. Thus, while the illusory teachings of materialism and the corruption of morals that follows from these teachings threaten to extinguish the light of virtue and to ruin the lives of men by exciting discord among them, in this magnificent way all may see clearly to what a lofty goal our bodies and souls are destined. Finally it is our hope that belief in Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven will make our belief in our own resurrection stronger and render it more effective.

MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS (42)

Maybe, like me, the fact of the Assumption doesn’t matter a whole lot to you. I love Mary whether she was “assumed” or not. But in its time, the declaration of this dogma was important in order to turn the world’s focus toward Mary, a figure of goodness, courage, love, mercy and justice – virtues desperately necessary for healing in the aftermath of war.

Our own world could surely benefit from a prayerful, loving contemplation of Mary.

Mary was a woman so open to God that she enfleshed God’s Spirit in the person of Jesus. She was a vessel of love – for God and for all Creation. By living her ordinary life with extraordinary love and holy courage, she became blessed.

Mary, the Blessed Mother of all of us, can teach us to love, reverence, strengthen and support one another when we pray with her as we meet her in the Gospel.

Elizabeth said:

“Blessed are you who believed
that what was spoken to you by the Lord
would be fulfilled.”

And Mary said:
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for God has looked on my simplicity with favor .
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me
and holy is God’s Name.
In every generation, God has mercy
on those with holy reverence and awe.

Poetry: The Blessed Virgin compared to the air we breathe…
by Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ

( I know this is a really long poem, and Hopkins can seem a little convoluted. But the images in this poem are spectacular … even if you just read a bit at a time. It’s so worth it.)

Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that’s fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing’s life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life’s law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through,
God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.

I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms’ self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air.
If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man’s beating heart,
Laying, like air’s fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God’s and Mary’s Son.
Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd;
O how! nay do but stand
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepèd sky will not
Stain light.   Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.
Blue be it: this blue heaven
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft,
On things aloof, aloft,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal,
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.
So God was god of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man’s mind.
Through her we may see him
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.
Be thou then, thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my froward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God’s love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.

Music: Magnificat – Mina

Magnificat anima mea Magnificat
Dominum et exsultavit spiritus meus
In Deo salutari meo
Magnificat, Magnificat
Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae
Ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes
Magnificat anima mea Magnificat
Dominum et exsultavit spiritus meus
In Deo salutari meo
Magnificat, Magnificat
Quia fecit mihi magna qui potens est
Et sanctum nomen ejus
Magnificat, Magnificat
Dominum et exsultavit spiritus meus
In Deo
Magnificat, Magnificat

Lyrics translation

My soul magnifies the
The lord and my spirit rejoices
In God my saviour
Magnificat, Magnificat
For he has looked on his servant in her lowliness
Behold this blessed shall call me blessed all generations
The Magnificat my soul Magnifies the
The lord and my spirit rejoices
In God my saviour
Magnificat, Magnificat
Because I made a big who is able
And holy is his name
Magnificat, Magnificat
The lord and my spirit rejoices
In God
Magnificat, Magnificat

Alleluia: Blessed

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Clare
August 11, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/0811-memorial-saintclare.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are the poor in spirit;
the Kingdom of heaven is theirs!

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we’ll pray with the readings for St. Clare of Assisi. Clare, like Francis, was a luminous prophet of the Christian era.

Clare of Assisi (born Chiara Offreduccio, 16 July 1194 – 11 August 1253) was an Italian saint and one of the first followers of Francis of Assisi. She founded the Order of Poor Ladies, a monastic religious order for women in the Franciscan tradition, and wrote their Rule of Life, the first set of monastic guidelines known to have been written by a woman.

Wikipedia

By the life Clare lived, she gave testimony to a sacred reality which continues to enrich the life of the Church.

As I learned about Clare, I discovered a woman who was original and innovative in her own right. She was profoundly mystical and charismatic, unyielding and radical in her commitment to poverty; a model of servant leadership; determined despite years of ailing health; courageous in the face of danger. In short, she was a saint…with or without Francis.

Bret Thoman, O.F.S., – an American Catholic lay writer, secular third order Franciscan. His latest book is St. Clare of Assisi: Light from the Cloister. 

Today before I wrote this reflection, our own Mercy Sister Clare was buried. As our sisters are carried to the cemetery, the death knell slowly tolls out over the whole surrounding neighborhood. Some may hear it as a solemn reminder as did the poet John Donne:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Instead, I choose to hear the hallowed sound as a salute to one who understood and chose what is most important in life:

Happy the soul to whom it is given to attain this life with Christ, 
to cleave with all one’s heart to him 
whose beauty all the heavenly hosts behold forever, 
whose love inflames our love, 
the contemplation of whom is our refreshment, 
whose graciousness is our delight, 
whose gentleness fills us to overflowing, 
whose remembrance makes us glow with happiness, 
whose fragrance revives the dead, 
the glorious vision of whom will be the happiness 
of all the citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. 
For he is the brightness of eternal glory, 
the splendor of eternal light, 
the mirror without spot.
Clare of Assisi

Our Gospel today reinforces the lesson that a life given fully to Christ and the Gospel, as was both these precious Clare’s, is returned to the giver a hundredfold:

Peter said to Jesus,
“We have given up everything and followed you.
What will there be for us?”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you
that you who have followed me, in the new age,
when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory,
will yourselves sit on twelve thrones,
judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters
or father or mother or children or lands
for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more,
and will inherit eternal life.”

Music: Let the Love That Dwells in Your Hearts

Let the love that dwells in your hearts shine forth in your deeds. (St. Clare)

Alleluia: Pray with Peter

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Discipleship, Faith, spiritualityLeave a comment

Memorial of Saint John Vianney, Priest
August 4, 2022

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080422.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, I am going to invite you to pray with the star of our Gospel, Peter.

Jesus said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter said in reply,
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
And so I say to you, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my Church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

And I will be honest with about why I offer that invitation. I got mixed up on the date (which I often do) and wrote a reflection for Friday instead of Thursday. It was well into the day when I discovered the error and didn’t want to be too late for my Australian and Pacific Rim friends. So I have gone back to an earlier reflection on dear St. Peter.

I hope it is helpful to your prayer. And you will just have to wait to see what I really wrote as I prayed today with Friday’s “advance readings” !

Rembrandt_Harmensz._van_Rijn_012
Peter Denies Christ – Rembrandt

Simon Peter – John Poch


There are three things which are too wonderful for me,
Yes, four which I do not understand.
The way of an eagle in the air,
The way of a serpent on a rock,
The way of a ship in the heart of the sea,
And the way of a man with a maid
–Prov. 30:18, 19

                              I
Contagious as a yawn, denial poured
over me like a soft fall fog, a girl
on a carnation strewn parade float, waving
at everyone and no one, boring and bored
There actually was a robed commotion parading.
I turned and turned away and turned. A swirl

of wind pulled back my hood, a fire of coal
brightened my face, and those around me whispered:
You’re one of them, aren’t you? You smell like fish.
And wine, someone else joked. That’s brutal. That’s cold,
I said, and then they knew me by my speech.
They let me stay and we told jokes like fisher-
men and houseboys. We gossiped till the cock crowed,
his head a small volcano raised to mock stone.

                              II
Who could believe a woman’s word, perfumed
in death? I did. I ran and was outrun
before I reached the empty tomb. I stepped
inside an empty shining shell of a room,
sans pearl. I walked back home alone and wept
again. At dinner. His face shone like the sun.

I went out into the night. I was a sailor
and my father’s nets were calling. It was high tide,
I brought the others. Nothing, the emptiness
of business, the hypnotic waves of failure.
But a voice from shore, a familiar fire, and the nets
were full. I wouldn’t be outswum, denied
this time. The coal-fire before me, the netted fish
behind. I’m carried where I will not wish.

Music:  Peter’s Song – Jacob Moon

Alleluia: Blessed Mary

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Books, Church, Faith, Gospel, Mary, spirituality5 Comments

Saturday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 16, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/0716-memorial-our-lady-mount-carmel.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we have the option of celebrating the Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in place of the 15th Saturday in Ordinary Time. And since it is Saturday, traditionally Mary’s day, I have chosen to pray with those readings.

Our Alleluia Verse captures in a short sentence exactly why Mary is the perfect model for a Christian life: she heard and acted on God’s word.

Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are those
who hear the word of God
and observe it.

Many of you will have been introduced to Our Lady of Mt Carmel as young children. Perhaps you, as I did, received a brown scapular when you made your First Communion. My second grade teacher convinced me that, by wearing that scapular, I had become a very dedicated Christian and friend of Jesus and the Blessed Mother.

According to the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship, the Brown Scapular is “an external sign of the filial relationship established between the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother and Queen of Mount Carmel, and the faithful who entrust themselves totally to her protection, who have recourse to her maternal intercession, who are mindful of the primacy of the spiritual life and the need for prayer.

Wikipedia

My little brown scapular is long gone, set aside perhaps when my maturing fashions were inhibited by it in seventh of eighth grade. But the devotion to Mary which it initiated has never left me. It has grown, changed and deepened over these seventy years, but its roots are still entwined with that sepia necklace Sister Grace Loretta once placed in my little hand.

When I entered the Sisters of Mercy in the early 60s, I was so delighted that Our Lady of Mt. Carmel was honored as one of our patron saints. We did it up big back then by wearing our church cloaks and special habit sleeves to Mass on her feastday.

As I pray the Magnificat in today’s Responsorial Psalm, I reflect that Mary has become not only a trusted friend and model for my spiritual life. Her profound faith and poverty of spirit challenge and inspire my deeper understanding of the Gospel in today’s world.

The Mary I love today is a very different woman from the one I idealized in my youth. This change in perception has come about through reflection on the works of modern theologians such as those referred to below. Some of these books are out of print and/or expensive but reviews and excerpts are available online and can be helpful to one’s prayerful study.

For today’s prayer, let us open our hearts to the deep inspiration of Mary of Nazareth. I have referred readers to this excellent article by Elizabeth Johnson — and I do so again — as a great place to start:

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2000/06/17/mary-nazareth-friend-god-and-prophet

Elizabeth Johnson: Truly Our Sister

Rosemary Radford Reuther: Mary, The Feminine Face of the Church

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/mary-the-feminine-face-of-the-church_rosemary-radford-ruether/518678/#edition=3756081&idiq=2966758

Ivone Gebara and Maria Clara Bingemer: Mary, Mother of God, Mother of the Poor

Leonard Boff: The Maternal Face of God

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-maternal-face-of-god-the-feminine-and-its-religious-expressions_leonardo-boff/659742/?resultid=049700e1-d931-4a46-9355-80798be6fa08#edition=4542616&idiq=8472570

Music: Tota Pulchra Es, Maria –