Category: Community

Alleluia: Who’s Coming to the Party?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, spirituality1 Comment

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 21, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082122.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the way, the truth and the life, says the Lord;
no one comes to the Father, except through me.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we glimpse what the great gathering in heaven might be like.

The Kingdom of Heaven by Frank Bramley

Have you ever gotten an e-vite in your email? Perhaps an invitation to a gala event or a birthday party? All you need do to respond is to click a “Yes” or “ No” button. And then you can look to see who else has been invited and what response each has clicked. You can get a pretty clear picture of what the party will be like – chummy, snobby, noisy, elegant, boring, mind-blowing ….

Isaiah records a guest list for us of all who will be invited to God’s party. That “party” described in Isaiah 66 imagines a restored Jerusalem and a rebuilt Temple. It is an image of what Creation will look like when enveloped in God at the end times. It’s pretty cool!

They shall bring all your brothers and sisters from all the nations
as an offering to the LORD,
on horses and in chariots, in carts, upon mules and dromedaries,
to Jerusalem, my holy mountain, says the LORD…

Isaiah’s community really needed to hear that encouraging vision because the Temple-less Jerusalem they were living in had been devastated by the Babylonian invasions. For the Israelites, the Temple and the Holy City modeled the Kingdom to come. They had a long way to go before their environment was restored to Isaiah’s predicted dimensions. Isaiah helps them journey through present reality for the sake of future hope.

In our second reading, Paul gives a similar kind of encouragement to Hebrew converts who were finding difficulties in the pursuit of their new Christian faith. They too had to learn to suffer through in order to realize their hope.

At the time,
all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain,
yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness
to those who are trained by it.
So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. 
Make straight paths for your feet,
that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.

When questioned about heaven, Jesus says it’s not a piece of cake to get in. You have to “know somebody”, and that somebody is the God of your heart.

Jesus answered them,
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter
but will not be strong enough. 

Jesus echoes Isaiah in describing the glorious mix of guests at the heavenly party:

And people will come from the east and the west
and from the north and the south
and will recline at table in the kingdom of God. 
For behold, some are last who will be first,
and some are first who will be last.

Christ Surrounded by Singing and Music – Hans Hemling

I know I want to be at that party. And we all want to see one another there, right?!

So let’s help each other:

  • get on our “horses, chariots, carts, mules, dromedaries” or any other assistance for our journey
  • strengthen our drooping hands to reach for righteousness
  • find the narrow gate and pass through it
  • finally recline at the table

Poetry: God – Khalil Gibran

In the ancient days, when the first quiver of speech came to my lips, I ascended the holy mountain and spoke unto God, saying, “Master, I am thy slave. Thy hidden will is my law and I shall obey thee for ever more.”

But God made no answer, and like a mighty tempest passed away.

And after a thousand years I ascended the holy mountain and again spoke unto God, saying, “Creator, I am thy creation. Out of clay hast thou fashioned me and to thee I owe mine all.”

And God made no answer, but like a thousand swift wings passed away.

And after a thousand years I climbed the holy mountain and spoke unto God again, saying, “Father, I am thy son. In pity and love thou hast given me birth, and through love and worship I shall inherit thy kingdom.”

And God made no answer, and like the mist that veils the distant hills he passed away.

And after a thousand years I climbed the sacred mountain and again spoke unto God, saying, “My God, my aim and my fulfilment; I am thy yesterday and thou are my tomorrow. I am thy root in the earth and thou art my flower in the sky, and together we grow before the face of the sun.”

Then God leaned over me, and in my ears whispered words of sweetness, and even as the sea that enfoldeth a brook that runneth down to her, he enfolded me.

And when I descended to the valleys and the plains God was there also.

Music: Paradise by Mehdi – a beautiful composition to put a little kick in your step on the way up the Mountain! 🙂

Alleluia: At Home in God

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

Memorial of Saint Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church
Saturday, August 20, 2022


Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082022.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
You have but one Father in heaven;
you have but one master, the Christ.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we come to our final reading from Ezekiel for this liturgical year. I think he is a challenging prophet to read with visions, images, and language that sometimes shock and astound.

But when we consider his circumstances of exile and captivity, we see more clearly how his own angst and suffering – as well as his people’s – spawned his compelling prophecies.

Ezekiel takes the Israelites through a curriculum common to many of the biblical prophets.

  1. You people have been sinful so you’re in trouble.
  2. Your persecutors and conquerors are also rotten sinners.
  3. God is going to fix all of you one way or another.
  4. Repent and your hope for restoration will be realized.

These themes are common to our lives too especially when we’re in spiritual discomfort like Ezekiel was.

  1. We examine ourselves for what’s out of kilter.
  2. We fixate on all the people and circumstances around us that are troubling us.
  3. We finally acknowledge our responsibility for our situation and accept what we can and cannot change.
  4. We reimagine a possible future and reclaim our hope

As with Ezekiel and his community, all this self-renewal happens only when we perceive, acknowledge and engage God’s loving will for us. Without that, we continue to live in spiritual exile from our true home in God.

Our Alleluia Verse and Gospel invite us to be fully at home in the Trinity just as they are at home in One Another.

Alleluia, alleluia.
You have but one Father in heaven;
you have but one master, the Christ.

Prayer of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

Make my soul…
Your cherished dwelling place, 
Your home of rest.  
Let me never leave You there alone, 
but keep me there 
absorbed in You, 
in living faith, 
adoring You.

Music: Jesu Dulcis Memoria – written by St. Bernard of Clairvaux whose feast we celebrate today.

Jesu, dulcis memoria, dans vera cordis gaudia, sed super mel et omnia, eius dulcis praesentia.JESU, the very thought of Thee, with sweetness fills my breast, but sweeter far Thy face to see, and in Thy presence rest.
Nil canitur suavius, nil auditur iucundius, nil cogitatur dulcius, quam Iesus Dei Filius.Nor voice can sing, nor heart can frame, nor can the memory find a sweeter sound than Thy blest Name, o Savior of mankind!.
Iesu, spes paenitentibus, quam pius es petentibus! quam bonus te quaerentibus! sed quid invenientibus?O hope of every contrite heart o joy of all the meek, to those who fall, how kind Thou art! how good to those who seek!
Nec lingua valet dicere, nec littera exprimere: expertus potest credere, quid sit Iesum diligere.But what to those who find? Ah this nor tongue nor pen can show: the love of Jesus, what it is none but His loved ones know.
Sis, Iesu, nostrum gaudium, qui es futurus praemium: sit nostra in te gloria, per cuncta semper saecula. Amen.Jesu, our only joy be Thou, As Thou our prize wilt be: Jesu, be Thou our glory now, And through eternity. Amen.

Alleluia: Lost and Found

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, dying, Faith, friendship, spirituality2 Comments

Friday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time
August 19, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081922.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
Teach me your paths, my God,
guide me in your truth.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with our Alleluia Verse and Psalm 107, grateful chants to God’s Mercy from the lost who have been found.

There are all kinds of “lost”. 

There are small “losts” like when I misinterpret my GPS and keep hearing “Recalculating route…”. 

Then there are huge “losts” like when a beloved dies and our life’s anchor breaks.

This morning’s psalm and reading are speaking of a particular kind of “lost”, one that comes from wandering away from Love, for whatever reason that happens to us.

As I pray these readings, the face of a good high school friend comes to mind. Judy was a super basketball player. Everything about her was vigor, coordination, and that all-American beauty that needed no makeup to impress anybody.

After graduation, I went into the silence of the pre-Vatican II convent and Judy disappeared into her future. When our five-year class reunion rolled around, I looked forward to reconnecting with her.

When I saw her, my heart broke. She was a shadow of herself, emaciated, listless, and lightless. She silently shouted a refrain like today’s verse from Ezekiel:

Our bones are dried up,
our hope is lost, and we are cut off.

We were both twenty-three years old. I was just beginning to grow into my hopes. Judy was already divorced, alone, and the mother of a father-starved child.

That kind of “lost” feels almost irredeemable. 

But Psalm 107 assures us that, in faith, no loss, no alienation is irredeemable.

They cried to the LORD in their distress;
from their straits God rescued them.
And led them by a direct way
to the healing of community.

Judy and I stayed in touch for a few years. Despite her troubles, she kept faith. That was the key.

Alleluia, alleluia.
Teach me your paths, my God,
guide me in your truth.

She did the hard work to find herself again with the help of family, friends, counselors, and a supportive faith community. Eventually, she remarried and was happy the last time I saw her before she moved to the west coast.

This morning, I see such apparent parallels between Israel’s and Judy’s story. That helps me look back over my own life for the same, perhaps not so dramatic, parallels and to be grateful for the many times God found me.

Let them give thanks for God’s Mercy
and wondrous deeds to us,
Because God has satisfied the longing soul
and filled the hungry heart with good things.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com

Poetry: Lost – Carl Sandburg

Desolate and lone 
All night long on the lake 
Where fog trails and mist creeps, 
The whistle of a boat 
Calls and cries unendingly, 
Like some lost child 
In tears and trouble 
Hunting the harbor’s breast 
And the harbor’s eyes. 

Music: Amazing Grace – Sean Clive

Alleluia: Good Shepherd

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

Wednesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time
August 17, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081722.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
The word of God is
living and effective,
able to discern the reflections
and thoughts of the heart.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Ezekiel gets another tough assignment from God:

The word of the Lord came to me:
Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel,
in these words prophesy to them to the shepherds:
Thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the shepherds of Israel
who have been pasturing themselves!
Should not shepherds, rather, pasture sheep?

Ezekiel 34: 1-2

With prophetic insight, Ezekiel understands that Israel’s corrupt leaders will cause its downfall. He takes on the unhappy responsibility of summoning them – and the people – to repentance and conversion of heart.

By comparing Israel’s kings and princes to shepherds, Ezekiel points out how their leadership is a perversion of the ministry to which they have been called. He tells them that God won’t put up with their malfeasance because God has a tenderness for the “sheep” – particularly the struggling ones.

Thus says the Lord GOD:
I swear I am coming against these shepherds.
I will claim my sheep from them
and put a stop to their shepherding my sheep
so that they may no longer pasture themselves.
I will save my sheep, 
that they may no longer be food for their mouths.

For thus says the Lord GOD: 
I myself will look after and tend my sheep.

Ezekiel 34: 10-11

The parallels to our present world are so stark that it’s difficult not to launch into political opining here! But I choose not to because the call within these readings goes much deeper than even current global circumstances.

And it is the call embodied in our Alleluia Verse:

Alleluia, alleluia.
The word of God is living and effective,
able to discern the reflections and thoughts of the heart.

Each one of us is created to live in the sincere light of God’s Word; to discern our relationships within Creation through the ‘living and effective” lens offered to us through our Baptism.

Whether we are leader or follower, these relationships must be built on reverence, honesty, justice, peace and mercy. Only then can we forestall the corporate corruptions that fester in the absence of grace.

The promissory nature of Ezekiel’s oracles articulates what good leadership looks like…in government, in corporations, all through the private sector. That rule consists in:
– Seeking the lost
– Bringing back the strayed
– Binding up the injured
– Strengthening the weak
– Feeding the hungry
In a word, good leadership consists in the restoration of the common good so that all members of the community, strong and weak, rich and poor, may live together in a common shalom of shared resources.

Walter Brueggemann, On Ezekiel 34

In our Gospel, the landowner refuses to be bound by corporate definitions regarding how he treats his laborers. He chooses to be generous, no doubt realizing the laborers’ underlying need for a decent day’s pay. Doing so, the landowner mirrors God whose generosity has granted the landowner life and livelihood.

As we pray today, let’s consider where we serve a leaders, and who depends on our sincere and generous heart for their subsistence. Some of these relationships might be obvious to us – such as the children in our lives, and others whom we support by our presence, care and love.

But others may not be so obvious. There may be others who need us to recognize that they’re waiting to be noticed and invited just like the late laborers of today’s Gospel. Is our world, and our generosity, big enough to include them?

Poetry: Shepherd – Rumi

Be a lamp, 
or a lifeboat, 
or a ladder. 
Help someone’s soul heal. 

Walk out of your house 
like a shepherd.

Music: The Lonely Shepherd – Zamfir

Alleluia: How Beautiful!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, friendship, Love, Mercy, spirituality14 Comments

Friday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 5, 2022

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080522.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings offer me an invitation to write a more personal reflection than usual.

Recently, our community has experienced the deaths of two dearly loved sisters. Readers might remember that I mentioned Margery’s funeral a few days ago. And just yesterday, Clare Miriam died. Each of them was an amazing minister of the Gospel and lover of God’s poor.

See, upon the mountains there advances
the bearer of good news, 
announcing peace!
Celebrate your feasts, O beloved,
fulfill your vows!

Nahum 2:1

Because most of us live in communities – familial, social, and religious – we all move through ever-turning circles of hellos and good-byes. In those turnings, we touch one another’s lives in a thousand obvious and subtle ways, hopefully causing our own lives to spin ever closer to God.

Funerals – even though we don’t look forward to them – are times when the circling pauses. We see a beloved person’s complex and amazing existence like a still life masterpiece. We see the graceful details we may have overlooked or taken for granted. We appreciate the lights and shadows of their struggles and triumphs. We see God standing behind the easel of their story inviting us to deepen our own graces as we pray.

In a large and long-loved community like the Sisters of Mercy, we accompany one another through many funerals and many home-goings. It can feel a little heavy sometimes because of the love we bear another. But, oddly, it can also give an unexpected buoyancy to our hope and faith to honor these precious lives – one after another – so lovingly given, so faithfully lived, so beautifully completed.

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?
For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory,
and then he will repay each according to his conduct.

Matthew 16:25-27

After Margery’s funeral Mass, my friend turned to me and said, “What a tribute to a truly beautiful soul …. and we live in a community full of them!” Indeed, and now another, dear Clare has lifted her life up to God as the rest of us sing, “Brava! Alleluia! Amen!”

Whenever I attend one of our sister’s funerals, of course, I consider my own. Sometimes, while the soulful music plays, I design the Mass booklet in my mind and the cover says this: 

My dear Sisters of Mercy,
thank you 
for the privilege and gift 
of living among you!

Poetry: The Neophyte- Alice Meynell

Who knows what days I answer for to-day?
   Giving the bud I give the flower. I bow
   This yet unfaded and a faded brow;
Bending these knees and feeble knees, I pray.
 Thoughts yet unripe in me I bend one way,
   Give one repose to pain I know not now,
   One check to joy that comes, I guess not how.
I dedicate my fields when Spring is grey.
 O rash! (I smile) to pledge my hidden wheat.
   I fold to-day at altars far apart
Hands trembling with what toils? In their retreat
   I seal my love to-be, my folded art.
I light the tapers at my head and feet,
   And lay the crucifix on this silent heart.

Music: The Circle of Mercy – Jeanette Goglia, RSM

Alleluia: Rise from the Dead!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, Jesus, Poetry, spirituality4 Comments

Memorial of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus
Friday, July 29, 2022

Today’s Readings: (for this wonderful feast, I have used the alternate readings for Martha, Mary and Lazarus)

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/0729-memorial-martha.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we enter the stories of three closest friends of Jesus – Martha, Mary and Lazarus. There were the bosom buddies of Jesus – doing salvation things with him for sure, but also laughing, remembering, supporting, challenging and, like all good friends, loving.

When I think of the home of this Bethany family, many characteristics come to mind. Foremost for me is hospitality. We must be welcomed into a place in order to find friendship there. We must be comfortable, cared about, and appreciated. We must feel at home.

We’ve all been in homes that make us feel this way, and hopefully our own home offers such hospitality to us and others. I think this morning of three old friends now at home with God. They were the sisters of a beloved pastor with whom I worked. We got to know them well at the time of his death and continued our friendship until they too died.

We often visited their old but perfectly appointed little home. And their hospitality took very evident forms: a prepared pitcher of Manhattans in the fridge, little snacks that we might have mentioned we liked, lively conversation, and the sharing of life-making stories – with a few secrets sprinkled in between.

I think that’s the same kind of hospitable home Mary, Martha, and Lazarus offered Jesus – a tasty meal, some good wine, and the sharing of life, laughter, and tears.

We may not immediately think of these things as holy — but I think they are. The way we welcome one another – visit, feed, listen, appreciate, care for and enjoy one another – these things open the door to more fully absorb God’s love. Hospitality is very definitely a ministry and a sacrament.

When we open our hearts to be the presence of God’s own welcome, we too can share the bread of life, the wine of experience, and the certainty of love with our infinitely hospitable Creator.

What immeasurable gifts! Having received them from God, may we offer them to others especially those who find them nowhere else.

May all our loving hospitality create a dwelling place for God in our hearts!

Imagine what is was like for Jesus to decide to raise this dearest friend Lazarus FROM THE DEAD!!!!

Imagine what it was like for Lazarus for the rest of his life to be the guy – “Hey? Weren’t you DEAD once????)

There may be things in our own lives that echo these feelings. Have we ever given everything for a friend or beloved when others don’t understand?

Have we come back from a place of death which, once again, no one really understands?

Talk with Jesus and Lazarus about your experiences in your prayer toady.

Poetry: The Raising of Lazarus by Franz Wright
from a fragment by Rainer Maria Rilke

But Jesus knew his friends. Before they were,
he knew them; and they knew
that he would never leave them
desolate here. So he let his exhausted eyes close
at first glimpse of the village.
And immediately he seemed
to be standing in their midst.

 Here was Martha, the dead boy’s sister.
He knew he would always find her
at his right hand, and beside her
Mary. They were all here.
Yet opening his eyes it was not so.
He was standing apart,
even the two women
slowly backing away,
as if from concern for their good name.

 Then he began to hear voices
muttering under their breath
quite distinctly; or thinking,
Lord, if you had been here
our friend might not have died. 

(At that, he seemed to reach out
to touch someone’s face
with infinite gentleness,
and silently wept.) He asked them the way
to the grave. And he followed
behind them, preparing
to do what is not done
to that green silent place
where life and death are one. 

 Merely to walk down this road
had started to feel like a test,
or a poorly prepared-for performance
with actors unsure of their lines,
or which play they were supposed to be in;
a feverish outrage rising inside him
at the glib ease with which words like “living”
and “being dead” rolled off their tongues.
And awe flooded his body
when he hoarsely cried,
“Move the stone!”

 “By now he must stink,”
somebody helpfully shouted.
(And it was true, the body
had been lying in the tomb
four days.) But he was far away,
too far away inside himself
to hear it, beginning
to fill with that gesture
which rose through him:
no hand this heavy
had ever been raised, no human hand
had ever reached this height
shining an instant in air, then
all at once clenching into itself
at the thought all the dead might return
from that tomb where
the enormous cocoon
of the corpse was beginning to stir.

In the end, though, nobody stood
there at its entrance
but the young man
who had freed his right arm
and was pulling at his face,
at small strips of grave wrappings.
Peter looked across at Jesus
with an expression that seemed to say
You did it, or What have you done? And all
saw how their vague and inaccurate
life made room for him once more.

Music: Dwelling Place – John Foley, SJ (Click ” Watch on YouTube” )

Let’s be a place where God, and all God’s creatures, find a dwelling place of hospitality.

Alleluia: Foundations of Faith

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, spirituality4 Comments

Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne,
Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary
July 26, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072622.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, between two readings full of warnings and advised repentance, our Verse anchors us to the foundation of our faith:

Alleluia, alleluia.
The seed is the word of God,
Christ is the sower;
all who come to him will live for ever.

As we celebrate the feast of Saints Anne and Joachim, we might spend some prayer time in gratitude for those who have transmitted that faith to us – some of whom we have known personally, and some who reach all the way back through the ages to Christ.

Anne and Joachim are the grandparents of Jesus, transmitters of tradition and faith to him when he was a child. Nothing is known of them from the Bible, but there are references in an apocryphal piece called the Gospel of James. There are also many legends surrounding this holy couple. But the fact is that we know little or nothing, for certain about them.

Ps36_ Anne _Joachim

We shape our conception of Anne and Joachim from what we know about their daughter, a woman of such profound goodness that she was the means for God to become one of us. We give them honor and devotion because of what we know about their grandson, Jesus.

Anne and Joachim, together with Mary and Joseph, formed the first, loving nuclear community that fostered the life of Jesus. Like all newborns, Jesus was given over by God into these human hands. What an awesome responsibility and privilege!

Let us pray today for all young children that they may be blessed with caring parents and grandparents. Let us pray especially for grandparents (and grandaunts and uncles) who carry a special kind of love to their grands, one filled with a generational wisdom, generous fidelity, and tempered mercy so necessary for a joyful life.

And, children, listen to your grands.  They really have seen it all, ridden the big waves of time.. really did – ahem – “walk to school with the snow above their ears”! They can be a fount of wisdom and love. Trust them! Respect them! Enjoy them! For this we pray!

Poetry: Two poems today, one for Grandmothers, one for Grandfathers

I DREAM OF MY GRANDMOTHER AND GREAT-GRANDMOTHER by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, an Italian-American poet. She has published 18 books. Since 2012 she has been in the Honor Committee of Immagine & Poesia, the artistic literary movement founded in Turin, Italy, with the patronage of Aeronwy Thomas (Dylan Thomas’s daughter).

I imagine them walking down rocky paths
toward me, strong, Italian women returning
at dusk from fields where they worked all day
on farms built like steps up the sides
of steep mountains, graceful women carrying water
in terra cotta jugs on their heads.

What I know of these women, whom I never met,
I know from my mother, a few pictures
of my grandmother, standing at the doorway
of the fieldstone house in Santo Mauro,
the stories my mother told of them,

but I know them most of all from watching
my mother, her strong arms lifting sheets
out of the cold water in the wringer washer,
or from the way she stepped back,
wiping her hands on her homemade floursack apron,
and admired her jars of canned peaches
that glowed like amber in the dim cellar light.

I see those women in my mother
as she worked, grinning and happy,
in her garden that spilled its bounty into her arms.
She gave away baskets of peppers,
lettuce, eggplant, gave away bowls of pasts,
meatballs, zeppoli, loaves of homemade bread.
"It was a miracle," she said.
"The more I gave away, the more I had to give."

Now I see her in my daughter,
the same unending energy,
that quick mind,
that hand, open and extended to the world.

When I watch my daughter clean the kitchen counter,
watch her turn, laughing,
I remember my mother as she lay dying,
how she said of my daughter, "that Jennifer,
she's all the treasure you'll ever need."

I turn now, as my daughter turns,
and see my mother walking toward us
down crooked mountain paths,
behind her, all those women
dressed in black

A Garden – Author unknown

My grandfather kept a garden.
A garden of the heart;
He planted all the good things,
That gave our lives their start.

He turned us to the sunshine,
And encouraged us to dream;
Fostering and nurturing
the seeds of self-esteem.

And when the winds and rain came,
He protected me enough;
But not too much because he knew
I would stand up strong and tough.

His constant good example
Always taught me right from wrong;
Markers for our pathway
that will last a lifetime long.

I am my grandfather’s garden;
I am his legacy.

Music: Grandpa Told Me So – Kenny Chesney

Alleluia: Peace and Abundance

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Discipleship, Gospel, Jesus, peace, repentance, spirituality4 Comments

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 3, 2022

Today’s Readings 

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070322.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Alleluia Verse encapsulates the message of the readings: Christ is the Source of our peace and our abundance.

Alleluia, alleluia.
Let the peace of Christ control your hearts;
let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Colossians 3:15-16

Isaiah describes that peace and abundance like this:

For thus says the LORD:
Lo, I will spread prosperity over Jerusalem like a river,
and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent.
As nurslings, you shall be carried in her arms,
and fondled in her lap;
as a mother comforts her child,
so will I comfort you;
in Jerusalem you shall find your comfort.

Isaiah 66: 12-13

In Galatians, we meet a community that has been arguing over a few things, but especially whether circumcision should continue to be a mark of faith. Paul sounds a little frustrated with the argument.

He claims his “peace and abundance” from the marks of his long ministry and what he has suffered for Christ:

From now on, let no one make troubles for me;
for I bear the marks of Jesus on my body.

Galatians 6:17

In Luke, Jesus indicates that “peace and abundance” will be spread in the New Creation through the sometimes difficult ministry of his disciples:

Go on your way;
behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.
Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals;
and greet no one along the way.
Into whatever house you enter, first say,
‘Peace to this household.’
If a peaceful person lives there,
your peace will rest on him;
but if not, it will return to you.

Luke 10: 3-9

The Gospel message meant to bring peace will, no doubt, bring fear and judgement to those hostile to it:

The kingdom of God is at hand for you.

If we sincerely open our hearts to this message, how might it affect our daily lives? Peace and abundance? A frantic need for repentance? Or maybe just an angry, indifferent, or deaf ear?

Alleluia, alleluia.
Let the peace of Christ control your hearts;
let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Poem: one of my favorite poems, The Heart Cave by Geoffrey Brown

The Heart Cave

I must remember
To go down to the heart cave
& sweep it clean; make it warm
with a fire on the hearth,
& candles in their niches,
the pictures on the walls
       glowing with a quiet light.
       I must remember
To go down to the heart cave
       & make the bed
with the quilt from home,
strew
the rushes on the floor
hang
lavender and sage
         from the corners.
         I must go down
                                           To the heart cave & be there
                                           when You come.

Music: Dwelling Place – John Foley, SJ

Alleluia: Trust!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Conversion, Courage, Discipleship, Faith, spiritualityLeave a comment

Memorial of Saint Irenaeus, Bishop and Martyr
June 28, 2022

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062822.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Alleluia Verse, like so many of the Psalms, encourages us to TRUST.

“24” was an action-packed show popular a couple of decades ago. In that TV series, the protagonist was played by a tough Kiefer Sutherland. Iconic to each episode was his repeated assurance to his allies, “Trust me”. Doing so would supposedly get them out of every possible kind of fix!

Trusting him usually brought a few hairy escapes, gunfights and explosions. And I guess it can feel like that sometimes when we think we trust God.  But it shouldn’t.

Real and full trust in God yields deep peace
which then impels us to act for justice and mercy.

Alleluia, alleluia.
I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in God’s word.

Our readings this week from the prophet Amos portray a morally confused community who are tumbling toward God’s wrath. The prophet uses stunning imagery to declare his warning and to call the people to a repentance which acts for justice toward the poor and suffering.

The prophet speaks in imagery. The point is not a literal one. The point, rather, is to recognize that the cost of a disordered public life is inescapably very great. The cost cannot be denied or understated.

Walter Brueggemann

We too as a global community, and as individuals, are called to live lives ordered on God’s Law – lives patterned on justice, mercy, and love for all people.

How do you think we’re doing with that? I think Amos would have preaching tirade if he lived in our day!

But as our Alleluia Verse and our Gospel indicate, a first step toward redemption is TRUST. God is with us. Jesus is “in our boat”. These passages encourage us to get to know, understand, and trust God’s Presence through growing familiarity with the Word.

Once our spirits rest in this kind of assurance, we will have the freedom and courage not only to face ourselves, but to act for true justice, mercy, and love for every person.

Poetry: Poem 8 – Hadewijch of Antwerp, a 13th century mystic and poet.

Born is the new season as the old one that lasted so long is drawing to a close.
Those prepared to do love’s service will receive her rewards: new comfort and new strength.
If they love her with the vigor of love, they will soon be one with love in love.
To be one with love is an awesome calling and those who long for it should spare no effort.
Beyond all reason they will give their all and go through all.
For love dwells so deep in the womb of the Father that her power will unfold only to those who serve her with utter devotion.
First the lover must learn charity and keep God’s law.
Then he shall be blessed a hundredfold, and he shall do great things without great effort, and bear all pain without suffering.
And so his life will surpass human reason indeed.
Those who long to be one with love achieve great things, and shirk no effort.
They shall be strong and capable of any task that will win them the love of love, to help the sick or the healthy, the blind, the crippled or the wounded.
For this is what the lover owes to love.
He shall help the strangers and give to the poor and soothe the suffering whenever he can.
He shall pay loyal service to God’s friends, to saints and men, with a strength that is not human, by night and by day.
And when his strength seems to falter he will still place his trust in love.
Those who trust in love with all their being shall be given all they need.
For she brings comfort to the sad and guidance to those who cannot read.
Love will be pleased with the lover if he accepts no other comfort and trusts in her alone.
Those who desire to live in love alone with all their might and heart shall so dispose all things that they shall soon possess her all.

Music: Sleep in the Storm – by Unspoken Music

(Captures the essence of today’s Gospel where Jesus sleeps in a gusty storm – TRUST!)

Feast of the Visitation

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, Mary, Poetry, spirituality2 Comments

May 31, 2022

Today’s Readings

A “Women’s Feast”?

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate the Feast of the Visitation, when a newly-pregnant Mary travels to be with her shockingly pregnant older cousin, Elizabeth. Although a universal feast, it is certainly a feast for women to treasure.

The Carmignano Visitation, a unique masterpiece by one of sixteenth-century Italy’s greatest painters, Jacopo da Pontormo (1494-1557)

The Gospel is replete with the quiet but powerful understandings women share with one another:

  • the haste to support one another
  • the blessing and bolstering of each other’s faith
  • the shared joy to cause a baby’s leap in the womb
  • the desire for mercy and justice for the suffering
  • the “staying with” until need’s end

Of course, men too experience many of these holy sensibilities, but today most certainly invites women to celebrate the gifts of God within their bodies, minds and spirits.

Perhaps we might pray on these things while watching this movie clip of the imagined scene:

Poetry: Two poems to honor the two blessed women of this scene

The Visitation by Joyce Kilmer
(For Louise Imogen Guiney)

There is a wall of flesh before the eyes
Of John, who yet perceives and hails his King.
It is Our Lady’s painful bliss to bring
Before mankind the Glory of the skies.
Her cousin feels her womb’s sweet burden rise
And leap with joy, and she comes forth to sing,
With trembling mouth, her words of welcoming.
She knows her hidden God, and prophesies.
Saint John, pray for us, weary souls that tarry
Where life is withered by sin’s deadly breath.
Pray for us, whom the dogs of Satan harry,
Saint John, Saint Anne, and Saint Elizabeth.
And, Mother Mary, give us Christ to carry
Within our hearts, that we may conquer death.

Visitation Villanelle by Sarah O’Brien

She came to me, the mother of my Lord,
and grinned with amazement at the sight.
All creation with me seemed to roar.
Grey haired, belly swollen like a gourd,
I stood to kiss her in the morning light.
She came to me, the mother of my Lord.
Her voice, as she crossed the threshold of my door,
rang through my womb –  from a great height,
all creation with me seemed to roar.
The baby leapt – tethered only by the cord.
The joy coursing through us! I shouted outright.
She came to me, the mother of my Lord.
Already she faced her share of the sword
She who believed all God said would be, might –
All creation with me seemed to roar.
Blessed one! With your yes you moved us toward
the home we long for, and all things made right.
She came to me, the mother of my Lord.
All creation with me seemed to roar.

Music: Also two selections for this wonderful Feastday:

Ave Maria (Schubert) sung in German, as Schubert wrote it, by the incomparable Marian Anderson

Magnificat (Bach) 
Imagine composing this powerful first movement based on only a single word: “Magnificat”