Category: Community

All Are Welcome

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality5 Comments

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 20, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082023.cfm

Christ and the Canaanite Woman – Annibale Carracci

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we read the story of the Canaanite woman whom Jesus first meets with sarcastic banter. The banter however serves to expose some of the alienating prejudices of Jesus’s time which he then dissolves in a sweeping act of mercy and inclusion.

But the woman came and did Jesus homage, saying, “Lord, help me.”
He said in reply,
“It is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters.”
Then Jesus said to her in reply,
“O woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you wish.”

Matthew 15:25-28

The outcast Canaanite woman prevails on Jesus to broaden his kingdom. His response is to open his heart to another way of bringing mercy to all those longing for it. Jesus’s words and actions signify a new culture of divine justice offered to all people. They alert his reticent disciples to practice the same kind of generous, inclusive mercy in their ministries.

Our Gospel challenges us to confront our own prejudices and any limitations we place on who is welcome in the Kingdom of God. It clearly establishes a single element as the determiner of who belongs to God’s new Reign of Love. That element is FAITH.

Then Jesus said to her in reply,
“O woman, great is your faith! 
Let it be done for you as you wish.” 

Prose for Reflection: Pope Francis continually encourages the Church toward this faith-defined inclusivity.

“Being the church, being the people of God, … means being God’s leaven in this our humanity. It means proclaiming and bearing God’s salvation in this our world, which is often lost and needful of having encouraging answers, answers that give hope, that give new energy along the journey.

May the church be the place of God’s mercy and love where everyone can feel themselves welcomed, loved, forgiven and encouraged to live according to the good life of the Gospel. And in order to make others feel welcomed, loved, forgiven and encouraged, the church must have open doors so that all might enter. And we must go out of those doors and proclaim the Gospel.”

Music: All Are Welcome – Marty Haugen

Let us build a house
Where love can dwell
And all can safely live
A place where
Saints and children tell
How hearts learn to forgive
Built of hopes and dreams and visions
Rock of faith and vault of grace
Here the love of Christ shall end divisions
All are welcome, all are welcome
All are welcome in this place

Let us build a house where prophets speak
And words are strong and true
Where all God's children dare to seek
To dream God's reign anew
Here the cross shall stand as witness
And a symbol of God's grace
Here as one we claim the faith of Jesus
All are welcome, all are welcome
All are welcome in this place

Let us build a house where love is found
In water, wine and wheat
A banquet hall on holy ground
Where peace and justice meet
Here the love of God, through Jesus
Is revealed in time and space
As we share in Christ the feast that frees us
All are welcome, all are welcome
All are welcome in this place

Remember and Love Generously

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Courage, Discipleship, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Clare, Virgin
August 11, 2023
Friday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081123.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings continue to take us through Deuteronomy, and for the next two weeks, through Joshua, Judges, and Ruth.

The word “Deuteronomy” means “second law” because the book is a reiteration and refinement of the Law given in Exodus. The Book of Deuteronomy is basically three big speeches by Moses, the commissioning of Joshua as Israel’s next leader, and a recounting of the death of Moses.

Today’s speech is powerful and beautiful. Moses calls on the people to remember and give thanks for the immense blessings they have received at the hand of God.

Ask now of the days of old, before your time,
ever since God created man upon the earth;
ask from one end of the sky to the other:
Did anything so great ever happen before?
Was it ever heard of? 
Did a people ever hear the voice of God
speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?

Deuteronomy 4:32-33

At length, Moses recounts the sacred history of the people and tells them that, because of it, they are called to respond in covenanted fidelity.

This is why you must now know, and fix in your heart,
that the LORD is God in the heavens above and on earth below,
and that there is no other.
You must keep his statutes and commandments which I enjoin on you today,
that you and your children after you may prosper,
and that you may have long life on the land
which the LORD, your God, is giving you forever.”

Deuteronomy 4: 39-40

Moses offered these encouraging and directive speeches because he sensed he was near the end of his life and that Israel was moving into a new phase of its life.

In our Gospel, Jesus feels the same way. In the section immediately preceding today’s reading, Matthew says this:

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised

In today’s passage, Jesus calls his disciples to live in covenanted fidelity by imitating his life.

Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?
Or what can one give in exchange for his life?

Matthew 16: 25-26

I’ve read this Gospel passage a thousand times in the past sixty or seventy years. And I ask myself each time, “Do you really take this seriously? Do you really understand that your life is not for yourself but for God and all of God’s beloved creatures?”

It takes radical courage to live that kind of understanding. But continually remembering God’s Presence and Promises throughout our own lives strengthens us. That’s what Moses was trying to tell his people. That’s what Jesus is encouraging his disciples to recognize.

Jesus promises that, at the end of time, each will be repaid according to the level of their generosity. But the repayment doesn’t wait for the end times. Remembering our lives in grateful prayer will convince us of this: there is no true happiness, no deep joy, unless we learn to live beyond our own self-interests.

Poetry: Unless a Grain of Wheat Falls into the Ground and Dies – Malcolm Guite

Oh let me fall as grain to the good earth
And die away from all dry separation,
Die to my sole self, and find new birth
Within that very death, a dark fruition,
Deep in this crowded underground, to learn
The earthy otherness of every other,
To know that nothing is achieved alone
But only where these other fallen gather.

If I bear fruit and break through to bright air,
Then fall upon me with your freeing flail
To shuck this husk and leave me sheer and clear
As heaven-handled Hopkins, that my fall
May be more fruitful and my autumn still
A golden evening where your barns are full.

Music: Unless a Grain of Wheat – Bernadette Farrell


Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon the ground and die,
it remains but a single grain with no life.

If we have died with him then we shall live with him;
if we hold firm, we shall reign with him.
Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon the ground and die,
it remains but a single grain with no life.

If anyone serves me then they must follow me;
wherever I am my servants will be.
Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon the ground and die,
it remains but a single grain with no life.

Make your home in me as I make mine in you;
those who remain in me bear much fruit.
Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon the ground and die,
it remains but a single grain with no life.

If you remain in me and my word lives in you,
then you will be my disciples.
Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon the ground and die,
it remains but a single grain with no life.

Those who love me are loved by my Father;
we shall be with them and dwell in them.
Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon the ground and die,
it remains but a single grain with no life.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you;
peace which the world cannot give is my gift.
Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon the ground and die,
it remains but a single grain with no life.

Hidden Motives

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Conversion, Forgiveness, repentance, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Dominic, Priest
Tuesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 8, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080823.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 51 which expresses the ardent desire for forgiveness and reconciliation.

The psalm reflects back to our first reading – an episode of sibling rivalry, jealousy, and hidden motives.

Moses, favored of God and leader of the people, makes a questionable choice. He marries outside the tribe, after telling everyone else not to. Hmmm. His siblings, Aaron and Miriam, don’t like that. So they indignantly complain:

Is it through Moses alone that the LORD speaks?
Does God not speak through us also?

Numbers 12:2

God hears their complaint and sees through it. God sees that they are less concerned about the marriage and more concerned about themselves. They’re tired of Moses telling them what to do. They think God could have picked a better leader — one of them!

God sets them straight about how special Moses is, and their responsibility to support, not undermine, him.

Should there be a prophet among you,
in visions will I reveal myself to him,
in dreams will I speak to him;
not so with my servant Moses!
Throughout my house he bears my trust:
face to face I speak to him;
plainly and not in riddles.
The presence of the LORD he beholds.

Numbers 12:6-7

The whole story is really about motives. Everything we do must be done out of love – out of reverence for God, and out of respect and hope for ourselves and others. This is what it means to have a clean heart. And it is the plea of Psalm 51.

A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not off from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.

Psalm 51: 12-13

Prose: This is a great piece by Sister Joyce Rupp on a clean heart (published in America magazine)

https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/clean-heart

Music: Psalm 51 – Chant of the Heart

But Not Yet

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality5 Comments

Monday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 7, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080723.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, with passages from Numbers and Deuteronomy, we begin a week and a half of readings that complete our scriptural journey through the Pentateuch.

The Book of Numbers, so named because of the two censuses within it, draws the Exodus journey to a close. The people are nearly at the edge of the Promised Land – but not yet. They are tired and frustrated and they let Moses know it:

The children of Israel lamented,
“Would that we had meat for food!
We remember the fish we used to eat without cost in Egypt,
and the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks,
the onions, and the garlic.
But now we are famished;
we see nothing before us but this manna.”

“Not Yet” is one of the hardest times in a journey. Driving from Philly to Knoxville to visit my family, I marveled at how the last two hours seemed so much longer than the eight which had preceded them! If there are kids in the car, the point is painfully driven home:

Are we there yet? x 1000!= Frustration

In today’s reading, the Israelites frustrate Moses with their “Are we there yet” attitude. Moses begs God to give him a break because his leadership is crumbling in the hungry unrest of the people:

“Why do you treat your servant so badly?” Moses asked the LORD.
“Why are you so displeased with me
that you burden me with all this people?
Was it I who conceived all this people? 
Or was it I who gave them birth,
that you tell me to carry them at my bosom,
like a foster father carrying an infant,
to the land you have promised under oath to their fathers?

Numbers 11:11-12

A core message from today’s Numbers passage is that the people need to be “fed” or they will not continue on the journey. Jesus acknowledges this universal fact in today’s Gospel. The story recounts the miracle of a physical feeding of the crowds, but the real miracle is the resuscitation of their faith because they witness the power of God in Christ.

We, individually and as a Church, need to be fed in order to continue our journey of faith. It is important for each of us to build into our lives those practices which will nourish our faith and spirituality: reflective prayer, enlivening spiritual reading, and merciful service. It is also critical for us to assess the kind of communal nourishment we receive within our faith communities and, where that nourishment is lacking, to acknowledge distress and seek alternatives as the hungry Israelites did in the desert.

Recently I was with a group of deeply faithful Christians where this shocking phrase was spoken and acknowledged: “The Catholic Church is dead“. What the phrase connotes is that, in light of the clerical abuse and other institutional scandals, coupled with the absence of inspirational Church leadership, many Catholics are starving for nourishment on the journey. Clearly, the same may be said of other Christian Churches.

To varying degrees, we may be familiar with the Synod 2021-24 initiated by Pope Francis in October 2021.

The word synod comes from the Greek: σύνοδος [ˈsinoðos], meaning “assembly” or “meeting”; the term is analogous with the Latin word concilium meaning “council”.

The word synod comes from the Greek meaning “assembly” or “meeting”; the term is analogous with the Latin word concilium meaning “council”.

Traditionally, we are familiar with such gatherings being constituted primarily by the hierarchy of the Church. Synod 2021-24 is different.

The Synod on Synodality represents a new and exciting phase in the life of the Church. This phase deepens the ecclesiology of the People of God developed at the Second Vatican Council and invites us to generate processes of conversion and reform of relationships, communicative dynamics and structures in the Church. This will require a process of common discernment and formation in the short, medium and long term to stimulate the awareness of a Church lived and understood in a synodal key.

Boston College – School of Theology and Ministry

Many of us are old enough to remember the intense enthusiasm and hope which sprang from the Second Vatican Council a half-century ago. The inspired Vatican II documents fueled a dynamic revitalization for the People of God.

But over the course of 5o years, the Church’s landscape has changed:

  • plummeting numbers in religious and priestly vocations
  • scars from the sexual abuse scandal
  • misalignment between practice and teaching on sexuality, gender, and marriage
  • disaffection of women and young adults with the Church
  • widespread persecution of the missionary Church in totalitarian and extremist Islamic states

These are issues that must be addressed by the whole Church acting in a synodal manner similar to that of the inaugural Christian community:

At that time, as the number of disciples continued to grow, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

So the Twelve called together the community of the disciples and said, “It is not right for us to neglect the word of God to serve at table.* Select from among you seven reputable disciples, filled with the Spirit and wisdom, whom we shall appoint to this task.

… The proposal was acceptable to the whole community.

Acts 6:1-5

The aim of the current synodal process is not to provide a temporary or one-time experience of synodality, but rather to provide an opportunity for the entire People of God to discern together how to move forward on the path towards being a more synodal Church in the long-term.
A basic question prompts and guides us: How does this journeying together allow the Church to proclaim the Gospel in accordance with the mission entrusted to Her; and what steps does the Spirit invite us to take in order to grow as a synodal Church?

Vatican Commentary on the Synodal Process

The prayers, participation, and support of faithful people are critical to the success of this Synod because it is truly a synod of the people. It is important for us to pray for the Church, for the Pope, and assess the level of our own contribution to the life of the community. I know I need to take my awareness and attention up a notch, and I thought perhaps some of my readers might too. Many of us may look to this synod as the sign of hope we need in deeply challenging times.

Prose: from Pope Francis on World Youth Day

We recall that the purpose of the Synod 
is not to produce documents, 
but to plant dreams, 
draw forth prophecies and visions, 
allow hope to flourish, 
inspire trust, 
bind up wounds, 
weave together relationships, 
awaken a dawn of hope, 
learn from one another 
and create a bright resourcefulness 
that will enlighten minds, warm hearts, 
give strength to our hands.

Music: I Am the Bread of Life – Suzanne Toolan, RSM

Jubilee!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Creation, Faith, Forgiveness, justice, Mercy, spiritualityLeave a comment

Saturday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Saturday, August 5, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080523.cfm

One in a series of 60 paintings by Jacob Lawrence which captures
the journeys of millions of African-Americans
who left the Jim Crow South
in search of better lives elsewhere.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Leviticus offers us a reading critical to our moral clarity.

This fiftieth year you shall make sacred
by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants.
It shall be a jubilee for you,
when every one of you shall return to his own property,
every one to his own family estate.

Leviticus 25:10

Leviticus 25 is the account of Jubilee which, for the Mosaic community, was the quintessential practice of justice.

When the Israelites came to the Promised Land, they came as an emancipated people to share in the abundance to which God had delivered them. There was initial equity in the sharing. But over time, power, influence and wealth were hoarded – endangerments that threaten all communities.

In the proclamation of Jubilee, God directs the people to return to an original justice in which all persons are freed from indebtedness of any kind in order to live in communal harmony.

Consider the hypothetical example of an Israelite family that lost their land twelve years before the Jubilee Year. On the tenth day of the seventh month, the entire community participates in the Day of Atonement and its ritual purging of sin. On this very same day, the trumpet is blown and the Jubilee year is announced; in this year, both sins and debts are forgiven, and the family that had been forced to live and work in another’s household for more than a decade regain possession of their land.

Imagine the joy of this moment! Imagine the dreams and desires! After having served as hired hands for a generation, now to be restored to a position of social and economic strength!

Michael J. Rhodes – Jubilee Formation: Cultivating Desire and Dependence in Leviticus 25

The concept of this type of justice is alien to our capitalist and consumerist orientations. We may have heard the attitude expressed, or we may hold it ourselves, that some people have and some people don’t. And the ones who “have” earned it and deserve it.

“Jubilee” instructs us that this is a false context for fulfilling God’s Will for the wholeness of Creation. In such a false context, reward ensues from avarice, dominance, possessiveness, and aggression, yielding a continually deeper gap between those who have and those who do not, between those who influence and those who cannot, between those who thrive and those who do not.

“Jubilee” resets the game board and in so doing resets attitudes about who owns what and how they must use it to enact the Reign of God.

I recently heard a story which speaks of forgetting to whom things belong. A very proper lady went to a tea shop. She sat at a table for two, ordered a pot of tea, and prepared to eat some cookies which she had in her purse. Because the tea shop was crowded, a man took the other chair and also ordered tea. As it happened, he was a Jamaican black, though that is not essential to the story. The woman was prepared for a leisurely time, so she began to read her paper. As she did so, she took a cookie from the package. As she read, she noticed that the man across also took a cookie from the package. This upset her greatly, but she ignored it and kept reading. After a while she took another cookie. And so did he. This unnerved her and she glared at the man. While she glared, he reached for the fifth and last cookie, smiled and offered her half of it. She was indignant. She paid her money and left in a great hurry, enraged at such a presumptuous man. She hurried to her bus stop just ouside. She opened her purse to get a coin for her bus ticket. And then she saw, much to her distress, that in her purse was her package of cookies unopened. The lady is not different from all of us. Sometimes we possess things so long that do not really belong to us that we come to think they are ours. Sometimes, by the mercy of God, we have occasion to see to whom these things in fact belong.

Walter Brueggemann, “Voices of the Night—Against Justice,” in To Act Justly, Love Tenderly, Walk Humbly: An Agenda for Ministers

The applications are abundant, obvious, and profound for our own lives in the various communites in which we live. But they are not easy applications to confront or practice. They pose the ultimate question to us: where do we place our security? The answer determines how fully we understand “Jubilee”.

You have two meaningful prose passages to consider today so let’s just add a little music for your prayer time.

Gabriel’s Oboe – Ennio Morricone played by Henrik Chaim Goldschmidt

Shine!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Discipleship, Faith, holiness, spirituality3 Comments

Wednesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 2, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080223.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Moses descends the mountain and returns to the people, his face shining with the glory of God.

As Moses came down from Mount Sinai
with the two tablets of the commandments in his hands,
he did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant
while he conversed with the LORD.

Exodus 34:29

Moses’s appearance frightened the Israelites. They weren’t accustomed to being this close to “The God Effect”. Moses had to veil his face until the people became a little more comfortable with his transformed self.

People who are close to God do have a certain “shine”. I know, because I live with a houseful of them! Most of these wonderful women are well into their years, and will moan occasionally about their ever-increasing wrinkles. Like most of us, they don’t see their own beauty, nor the fact that an inimitable loveliness radiates from their fundamental goodness.

Once again in today’s Gospel, as in this past Sunday’s, Jesus encourages his followers to live in that irradiating Presence. Finding that Presence is like finding a treasure or a pearl of great price. The Gospel searcher is filled with abundant “joy” upon the discovery. That joy, no doubt, lit up that finder the way Moses was fired by God’s Glory.

We all want to have that kind of joy. It is the true fulfillment of life. Jesus wants us to have it too as recorded in today’s Alleluia Verse:

I call you my friends, says the Lord,
for I have made known to you all that the Father has told me.

John 15:15

By studying, praying with, and imitating the life of Christ, we too – like the moon emblazoned by the Sun – will come to reflect an Immense Love.

Poetry: As Kingfishers Catch Fire – Gerard Manley Hopkins

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

Music: Variations on a Theme From Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major – David Lanz

The Passover of the Lord

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Creation, Eastertide, Faith, Gospel, spiritualityLeave a comment

Friday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 21, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072123.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we hear the familiar tones of the central Exodus story.

Waiting for Easter Vigil

As we prayerfully read this passage, we may be carried back to the many Holy Saturday liturgies we have attended in our lives. In our memories, it is early spring, the evenings are still dark, and chapel is barely lit. We know the momentous story we are about to hear and re-enact. We believe it is brought to fruition in the sacramental liturgy we are about to offer. And, within all the memories, all the rituals, and all the words, one phrase stands out:

It is the Passover of the Lord.

“This is how you are to eat the lamb:
with your loins girt, sandals on your feet
and your staff in hand,
you shall eat like those who are in flight.
It is the Passover of the LORD.

Walter Brueggemann says that, in the act of “passover”, the community chooses to move on from its prohibitive existence to a new way of being. It chooses an alternative that requires “departure”:

That alternative is not easy or obvious or automatic. It requires a departure, an intentional departure from that system that the Bible terms “exodus.” In that ancient narrative the Israelites did not want to go, and once they had gone they wished to resubmit to Pharaoh. The departure is a piece of demanding, sustained work. The capacity to think and imagine and act and live beyond that system requires imagination that has dimensions of the psychological, the economic, and the liturgical. Indeed, the core liturgy of Israel (Passover) and the derivative liturgies of the church are practiced departures that now and then take on reality in the world.

Walter Brueggemann: Journey to the Common Good

In our reading from Matthew, and continually throughout the Gospel, Jesus invites his community to a profound “departure” – to a new understanding of the Law as love not requirement.

When the Pharisees criticize the hungry disciples for plucking and eating grain heads on the Sabbath, Jesus confronts them:

I say to you, something greater than the temple is here.
If you knew what this meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
you would not have condemned these innocent men.
For the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath.”

Matthew 12:7-8

Something greater than the Temple?????? The Pharisees stare at Jesus in stunned amazement! Could such a thing be possible?

Our Gospel tells us that not only is it possible, it is reality. The “Temple” and the old Law had lost their heart to the belief that personal power and affluence trumped human need. Their “systems” for becoming holy had become vacuous.

Jesus teaches that gaining sanctity requires that we live in mercy toward ourselves and others. Rituals, Temples, Churches and codes of conduct are meaningless unless they direct us always to act in mercy. When these same institutions and practices contradict God’s Mercy, we must have the courage for “departure” and “passover”.

“Departure” though does not mean abandonment. It means ceasing the merciless practices condoned by institutionalization, and having the courageous perseverance to build new paths to meaning.

It is clear in the Jewish practice of Passover that the exodus memory became a paradigmatic narrative through which all social reality is described and re-experienced. That is, the narrative pertains to a one-time remembered social upheaval caused by God’s holiness; but the narrative looks beyond that one-time memory to see that the same transactions of oppression and emancipation continue everywhere to evoke holy power.

Walter Brueggemann, Journey to the Common Good

Every day of our lives, we are called to “passover” into greater spiritual awareness, merciful practice, and just living. We may hear the call in small personal interactions, or in the larger context of our fragmented world.

We are faced constantly with alternatives between (just to name a few):

  • selfishness or generosity
  • forgiveness or vengefulness
  • honesty or pretense
  • peacemaking or rabble-rousing
  • addiction or freedom
  • informed decision-making or arrogant ignorance
  • gossip or respect
  • action for the poor or indifferent comfort
  • political and economic elitism or social justice
  • respect fro Creation or utilitarian ignorance

The sacred bridge in each of these passovers is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Choosing it wholeheartedly, we will arrive on the right side of God.

Poetry: Journey – by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Music: Took Me Out of Egypt – David Baroni (lyrics below)

Lord I’m feel so empty seems like we’re so far apart
Even tho’ some may applaud me
You alone can see my heart
You don’t look at my achievements or my ability
All You really wants is all of me
And though it frightens me to give my control
There is only room for one King
In the throne room of my soul

Lord You took me out of Egypt
Now take Egypt out of me
You delivered me from Pharaoh
now set me free from me
Let my heart become a promised land
Where the desert used to be
Lord You took me out of Egypt
Now take Egypt out of me

Blessed are the pure in heart
For they shall see the Lord
But eyes that only look to earth
Will lose the rich reward
Of the fellowship eternal the blissful unity
Of the ones who live in Jesus
And no longer serve King Me

Lord You took me out of Egypt…….

Lord I love the gifts You’ve given me
But I love the Giver more
And to worship You more perfectly
That’s what those gifts are for

Lord You took me out of Egypt…….

Legacies

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, Hope, spirituality, Thanksgiving7 Comments

Memorial of St. Bonaventure
Saturday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 15, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071523.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, both our readings express the character of farewells or life testaments.

In our first reading, we close out our few weeks’ journey through Genesis with Jacob’s instructions to his posterity. These directives attach his passing and their future to Israel’s ancestral roots:

Jacob gave his sons this charge:
“Since I am about to be taken to my people,
bury me with my fathers in the cave that lies
in the field of Ephron the Hittite,
the cave in the field of Machpelah,
facing on Mamre, in the land of Canaan,
the field that Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite
for a burial ground.

Genesis 49:29-30

Reading these verses, I remembered two sets of similar instructions that I had once received.

The first set was given to me and my brother.

Our beloved mother had just died after a few months’ illness. We were about the business of preparing for her burial. Our family storage systems were very simple but definite. Confident that no thief would want to do any tailoring while burglarizing the house, we kept important documents in an old tin sewing box. Jim and I knew the cemetery deed would be there, top shelf of the living room closet, under a couple of afghans.

What we didn’t know was that Mom, never much for sad or purple prose, had left us a letter in that box. The letter, penned in a strong hand, anticipated her death and counseled us for a future without her. Surprisingly, her letter had been written long before her terminal diagnosis, prompted no doubt by my Dad’s sudden death about a decade before.

Mom was brief but direct in her hopes and instructions, the core of which was this:

Know that I loved the two of you
more than anything in the world.
Love and care for each other when I am gone.

The second set of instructions was not the fruit of a bloodline inheritance, but of a spiritual one: my call to Mercy. My dear sponsor, realizing at my Silver Jubilee that the years were passing for us both, offered this wisdom so typical of her direct and good-natured style:

In our Gospel, Jesus anticipates a time when his disciples will be without his guiding presence. Like Jacob, and like my Mom and my sponsor, Jesus wants his beloved descendants to recognize, and find courage in, the amazing love which is their inheritance.

Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?
Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.
Even all the hairs of your head are counted.
So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Everyone who acknowledges me before others
I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.

Matthew 10:29-32

As we pray with today’s scriptures, we might give thanks for the blessings we have received from our ancestors, be they of blood or spirit.

Further, we might prayerfully consider those who need and deserve our blessing as they assume the future we will not see — our children, nieces, nephews, sisters and brothers in religious formation — any number of disciples and pupils who look to us for hopeful and grateful witness.

Poetry: My Legacy – Lucy Maude Montgomery
Lucy Maud Montgomery OBE (1874 – 1942), was a Canadian author best known for a collection of novels, essays, short stories, and poetry beginning in 1908 with Anne of Green Gables.

My friend has gone away from me
From shadow into perfect light,
But leaving a sweet legacy.
My heart shall hold it long in fee­
A grand ideal, calm and bright,
A song of hope for ministry,
A faith of unstained purity,
A thought of beauty for delight­
These did my friend bequeath to me;
And, more than even these can be,
The worthy pattern of a white,
Unmarred life lived most graciously.
Dear comrade, loyal thanks to thee
Who now hath fared beyond my sight,
My friend has gone away from me,
But leaving a sweet legacy.

Music: Standing on the Shoulders – Joyce Rouse

Coming to Forgiveness

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Cross, Faith, Forgiveness, spirituality5 Comments

Memorial of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, Virgin
Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 14, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Gospel describes the suffering to be encountered by disciples as they live and preach the Gospel.

Jesus said to his Apostles:
“Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves;
so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.
But beware of men,
for they will hand you over to courts
and scourge you in their synagogues,
and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake
as a witness before them and the pagans.

Matthew 10:16-18

The suffering is predicted to come from many quarters, but perhaps the most heart-breaking is persecutioin within families:

Brother will hand over brother to death,
and the father his child;
children will rise up against parents and have them put to death.
You will be hated by all because of my name,
but whoever endures to the end will be saved.

Matthew 10:21-22

Our reading from Genesis, on the other hand, describes the loving resolution of a long-standing family rupture as Jacob (now called “Israel”) reunites with his long-lost son:

Israel had sent Judah ahead to Joseph,
so that he might meet him in Goshen.
On his arrival in the region of Goshen,
Joseph hitched the horses to his chariot
and rode to meet his father Israel in Goshen.
As soon as Joseph saw him, he flung himself on his neck
and wept a long time in his arms.
And Israel said to Joseph, “At last I can die,
now that I have seen for myself that Joseph is still alive.”

Genesis 46:28-30

Many of us have borne the pain of similar fractures in our various “families”: family of origin, community, church or friends. Sometimes the cause of these breaks may be contradictions in faith and moral practice. At other times, loving bonds break because of willfulness, arrogance, ignorance, small-heartedness or the many other forms of human limitation.

The outrageous jealousy of Joseph’s brothers cleft their otherwise contented family. But into that chasm, God poured time’s grace and Joseph’s healing. From these gifts, Joseph was able to step into reconciliation, inviting his repentant brothers to join him.

In our own lives, such a step can be inordinately huge. The longer we hesitate to take it, the more it widens, sometimes to the point of apparent no return. But the grace of forgiveness is always available to us even if actual reconciliation is impossible because of the recalcitrance, inaccessibility, or perhaps even death of the other party.

When they hand you over,
do not worry about how you are to speak
or what you are to say.
You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
For it will not be you who speak
but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

Matthew 10:19-20

Psalm Poem: Psalm 37 – interpreted by Christine Robinson

The evil prosper, but don’t you wallow in anger.
Do what you can and let it go.
Remember the long arc of the universe
and how it bends towards justice.
Set your feet on that path; it is True.
Be still.
Wait for God’s word to speak to your heart.
Enjoy your life as it is, find your work, love those around you.
Hold your head up and teach your children.
Notice those who are honest.
Join the upright
Make peace where you can
Trust in God.

Music: excerpts from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat – Andrew Llyod Webber

These two videos capture the story of Jacob’s arrival in Egypt and Joseph’s self-reconciliation. The first ends rather abruptly, but thesecond picks up the action. All lyrics are below.

[NARRATOR]
Joseph knew by this his brothers now were honest men
The time had come at last to reunite them all again

[JOSEPH]
Can’t you recognize my face? Is it hard to see
That Joseph, who you thought was dead, your brother
It’s me?

[ENESMBLE]
Joseph, Joseph, is it really true?
Joseph, Joseph, is it really you?

[NARRATOR & ENESMBLE]
Joseph! Joseph!

——————-

So Jacob came to Egypt
No longer feeling old
And Joseph came to meet him
In his chariot of gold
Of gold
Of gold
Of gold!

————-

[JOSEPH]
I closed my eyes, drew back the curtain
To see for certain what I thought I knew
Far, far away, someone was weeping
But the world was sleeping
Any dream will do

[JOSEPH & CHILDREN]
I wore my coat with golden lining
Bright colors shining, wonderful and new
And in the east, the dawn was breaking
And the world was waking
Any dream will do
A crash of drums

[NARRATOR]
A flash of light

[JOSEPH]
My golden coat flew out of sight

[JOSEPH & NARRATOR]
The colors faded into darkness
I was left alone

[JOSEPH, NARRATOR & CHILDREN]
May I return to the beginning?
The light is dimming, and the dream is too
The world and I, we are still waiting
Still hesitating
Any dream will do

Blessed Retrospect!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, Forgiveness, spiritualityLeave a comment

Thursday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 13, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071323.cfm

Joseph Forgives His Brothers – Joseph Von Cornelius

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Joseph forgives his brothers and Jesus commissions his disciples.

The story of Joseph’s forgiveness makes a tender and indelible mark on the prayerful reader. How we wish we could be as magnanimous as Joseph in our forbearance!

Joseph’s experience is one of a long-held hurt that he sets aside to pursue another life. But even though he achieves tremendous success in his new environment, hurts like this are never forgotten. Joseph’s sobs at verse four indicate the painful memory’s depth.

Joseph could no longer control himself
in the presence of all his attendants,
so he cried out, “Have everyone withdraw from me!”
Thus no one else was about when he made himself known to his brothers.
But his sobs were so loud that the Egyptians heard him,
and so the news reached Pharaoh’s palace.
“I am Joseph,” he said to his brothers.
“Is my father still in good health?”
But his brothers could give him no answer,
so dumbfounded were they at him.

Genesis 45:1-3

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free
and discover that the prisoner was you.”

Lewis B. Smedes

So many lessons can be drawn from this passage, but clearly the power of forgiveness is most evident. Joseph has been able to live a fruitful life in Egypt because he has already forgiven his brothers’ treachery, long before they unexpectedly arrive at his palace doorstep. He has chosen not to live under the burden of their treacherous choice.

In the wider perspective of God’s timing, we see that the treachery actually yielded a blessing not only for Joseph, but for all of Israel. We ask for the grace to see how our own need to give and receive forgiveness holds a larger blessing for our lives.

Poetry: Let It Go – e.e.cummings

Let it go – the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise – let it go it
was sworn to
go
 
let them go – the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers – you must let them go they
were born
to go
 
let all go – the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things – let all go
dear
 
so comes love

Music: Remember Not the Things of the Past – Bob Hurd

Remember not the things of the past;
now I do something new,
do you not see it?
Now I do something new, says the Lord.
 
In our distress God has grasped us by the hand,
opened a path in the sea, and we shall pass over,
we shall pass over, free at last.
 
In our parched land of hypocrisy and hate,
God makes a river spring forth,
a river of mercy, truth and compassion;
come and drink.
 
And who among us is sinless in God’s sight?
Then who will cast the first stone,
when he who was sinless
carried our failings to the cross?
 
Pressing ahead, letting go what lies behind,
may we be found in the Lord, and sharing his dying,
share in his rising from the dead.