Category: Community

Light

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Creation, Discipleship, Faith, inclusivity, Jesus, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Pius of Pietrelcina, Priest
September 23, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092324.cfm

Jesus said to the crowd:
“No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel
or sets it under a bed;
rather, he places it on a lampstand
so that those who enter may see the light.
For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible,
and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light.
Take care, then, how you hear.
To anyone who has, more will be given,
and from the one who has not,
even what he seems to have will be taken away.”
Luke 8:16-18

Jesus indicates that the only way to spread light in the world is to do it together. Some have been given more, some less. But pooling all we have creates a Divine Fire illuminating a shadowy world.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ask for the courage to recognize, claim, and offer our light in a world that longs for it. We ask for the humility and insight to encourage holy fire in others.

Poetry: I Understand This Light to Be My Home – Mai Der Vang, the author of Afterland (Graywolf Press, 2017), which recounts the Hmong exodus from Laos and the fate of thousands of refugees seeking asylum. The book received the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets.

In the awareness, I am brought closer
to my being from long before.
In my
awareness, there is only what I can take
from the small spaces of

knowing, an earnest ascendance imparted
by way of transmissions from the grid,
a voice calls
out unbroken below and above as the aura
of faraway light.

There is a light that

shimmers so deep it never goes anywhere
but to shimmer.

Light assumes its job is to shimmer,
and so it is,
but more than that, light is ancestral.
Light is witness. Light is prehistory,

blueprint of vibrations shifting through
all directions of time.

Light as hidden winter that leads to
shadow as the growth.
Light as first
language of source. Light as both terrestrial
and celestial. Light of long nights far up

in the sky, I stare to the heavens and
weep for
the stars whose light I have always known
and understood to be my rooting.

I once shared a life with the name of
this light as I know it in the stars who
gave me

my body. As I know it in the frequencies
of my footsteps,

as I hear it in the code of a landscape
imprinted on my fingers,
as I spirit
my eyes open from the inside,
as I know and understand this light
to be kin.

Consider then the pain of leaving
this light, of losing the stars to spaces

no longer lit by its truth.
I am shaped
in the spaces where the light does
not reach, a need for what does not
shimmer

but opening to the shadow to receive
just as much light.
I miss this
light always.

Then more light.

Ever more light. Deficit of light to bring
more light.

Template of light to bring more love.

That is my one true wish, as I know
and
understand

this light to be my home, as a knowing
up there in the galaxy is me,

and I am up there
in my bones built from stars.

Music: Dark Sky Island – Enya – a beautiful song in which she names some of the stars.

Pity

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Mercy, spirituality1 Comment

Tuesday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
September 17, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091724.cfm

Jesus journeyed to a city called Nain,
and his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him.
As he drew near to the gate of the city,
a man who had died was being carried out,
the only son of his widowed mother.
A large crowd from the city was with her.
When the Lord saw her,
he was moved with pity for her and said to her,
“Do not weep.”
He stepped forward and touched the coffin;
at this the bearers halted,
and he said, “Young man, I tell you, arise!”
The dead man sat up and began to speak,
and Jesus gave him to his mother.
Luke 7:11-15

In today’s Gospel, we read the deeply moving phrase, “… the only son of his widowed mother“. Reading it, we can feel that same pity Jesus felt as the small group of mourners passed him in the road.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We assess our own hearts to measure our Christ-like tenderness for those who are suffering – often, right before our distracted eyes. As Irene Zimmermann suggests in the poem below, in attending to these suffering people we also attend Christ.

Poetry: First Born Sons and the Widow of Nain – Irene Zimmerman, OSF

Jesus halted on the road outside Nain
where a woman’s wailing drenched the air.
Out of the gates poured a somber procession
of dark-shawled women, hushed children,
young men bearing a litter that held
a body swathed in burial clothes,
and the woman, walking alone.

A widow then—another bundle
of begging rags at the city gates.
A bruised reed!

Her loud grief labored and churned in him till
“Halt!” he shouted.

The crowd, the woman, the dead man stopped.
Dust, raised by sandaled feet,
settled down again on the sandy road.
Insects waited in shocked silence.

He walked to the litter, grasped a dead hand.
“Young man,” he called
in a voice that shook the walls of Sheol,
“I command you, rise!”

The linens stirred.
Two firstborn sons from Nazareth and Nain
met, eye to eye.

He placed the pulsing hand into hers.
“Woman, behold your son,” he smiled.

Music: Tender-Hearted – Jeanne Cotter

Be tender-hearted as you love one another
as I have loved you
And forgive one another with endless compassion
as I forgave you.

Clothe yourself with kindness,
patience, and humility.
Let the peace of Christ live in your hearts
and above all else, put on love.
And be tender hearted.

Be tender hearted as you live a life
worthy of your calling.
You are God’s work of art, holy temple.
The Spirit is at home in you.

Walk always as children of Light
Keep the flame of faith alive.
God’s love has been poured into your heart.
You are reborn by that love.

So be tender hearted
for you’ve put on a new self
hidden with Christ in God.
You are no longer stranger.
You’re one of the chosen
holy and beloved

Even

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Courage, Faith, Gospel, inclusivity, Jesus, Love, Mercy, Service, spirituality2 Comments

Thursday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
September 12, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091224.cfm

Do to others as you would have them do to you.
For if you love those who love you,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners do the same.
If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners lend to sinners,
and get back the same amount.
But rather, love your enemies and do good to them,
and lend expecting nothing back;
then your reward will be great
and you will be children of the Most High,
for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
Be merciful, just as also your Father is merciful.
Luke 6:31-36

“Even” can be a parsimonious word – as in “get even”, “even-steven”. In such phrases, “even” means we settle things without forgiveness or generosity. It means we get our due without considering the other’s need.

But Jesus says the Gospel heart is not about “evenness”. Rather it is weighted on the side of extravagant mercy, generosity, and forgiveness.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray for the courage to model our relationships with others on God’s incredible kindness to us.

Quote: Wendell Berry from his reflection, “Loving my enemies and living simply”.
The entire reflection is available here:
https://www.openhorizons.org/loving-my-enemies-and-living-simply-wendell-berry-on-jesus-and-the-gospels.html

But to take the Gospels seriously, to assume that they say what they mean and mean what they say, is the beginning of troubles. Those would-be literalists who yet argue that the Bible is unerring and unquestionable have not dealt with its contradictions, which of course it does contain, and the Gospels are not exempt. Some of Jesus’ instructions are burdensome not because they involve contradiction, but merely because they are so demanding.

The proposition that love, forgiveness and peaceableness are the only neighborly relationships that are acceptable to God is difficult for us weak and violent humans, but it is plain enough for any literalist. We must either accept it as an absolute or absolutely reject it. The same for the proposition that we are not permitted to choose our neighbors ahead of time or to limit neighborhood, as is plain from the parable of the Samaritan.

The same for the requirement that we must be perfect, like God, which seems as outrageous as the Buddhist vow to “save all sentient beings,” and perhaps is meant to measure and instruct us in the same way. It is, to say the least, unambiguous.

Music: Love Your Enemies – Kyle Sigmon

Foolish

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Cross, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, inclusivity, justice, Mercy, peace, spirituality2 Comments

Friday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time
August 30, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/083024.cfm

Brothers and sisters:
Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the Gospel,
and not with the wisdom of human eloquence,
so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning.

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1 Corinthians 1:17-18

Paul writes that the meaning of the Cross depends on who you are. If you believe, it manifests God’s Power. If you do not believe, it signifies foolishness.

The Gospel and the Cross turn the realities of the world upside down. For those who have falsely believed that power exists in egotism, legalism, division, aggression, vengeance, and greed, Paul says, “No!”. These are only signs that you are perishing.

The power of the Cross is manifested in mercy, justice, community, peace, forgiveness and generosity. This is the path to salvation.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ask for the courage to trust the contradictory wisdom of the Gospel, and to live a life that reveals the “foolish” power of the Cross.

Poetry: Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross – Malcolm Guite

See, as they strip the robe from off his back
And spread his arms and nail them to the cross,
The dark nails pierce him and the sky turns black,
And love is firmly fastened on to loss.
But here, a pure change happens.
On this tree, loss becomes gain, death opens into birth.
Here wounding heals and fastening makes free, 

Earth breathes in heaven, heaven roots in earth. 
And here we see the length, the breadth, the height, 
Where love and hatred meet and love stays true, 
Where sin meets grace and darkness turns to light, 
We see what love can bear and be and do.
And here our Saviour calls us to his side, 
His love is free, his arms are open wide.

Music: The Power of the Cross – Stuart Townend

Thanks

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, holiness, spirituality, Thanksgiving5 Comments

Monday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time
August 26, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082624.cfm

We ought to thank God always for you, brothers and sisters,
as is fitting, because your faith flourishes ever more,
and the love of every one of you for one another grows ever greater…

… We always pray for you,
that our God may make you worthy of his calling
and powerfully bring to fulfillment every good purpose
and every effort of faith,
that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you,
and you in him,
in accord with the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Thessalonians 1: 3-4; 11-12

How grateful we should be for the communities of faith that nurture us! In today’s beautiful words, Paul prays in gratitude for the faithful and generous Thessalonians community.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
If we have been blessed by the faith of family, friends, parish, school, religious community, or place of ministry, we can echo the words of Paul in his gratitude for the Thessalonians community.
Let’s take the time to recall and give thanks for those who bless us with their faith. Doing so will make us more grateful, humble, generous, and courageous.

Poetry: Common Prayer – Renee Yann, RSM

When she comes to morning prayer,
from night’s isolating shadows,
she comes from someplace
I have never been
with invitations to a place
that I could never be,
save her full divestiture
to God, done humbly before me.

Music: Contemplation – Tim Wheater

Just

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

Memorial of Saint Pius X, Pope
August 21, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082124.cfm

Jesus told his disciples this parable:
“The Kingdom of heaven is like a landowner
who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard.
After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage,
he sent them into his vineyard.
Going out about nine o’clock,
he saw others standing idle in the marketplace,
and he said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard,
and I will give you what is just.’
Matthew 20:1-4

Jesus tells the parable of the generous landowner who measures out recompense by love not law. Jesus teaches that this new law of love is the Godly means to calculate justice.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray to live by the kind of loving justice Jesus calls us to, not by the measurements that keep others in subservience or oppression.
We might ask ourselves these questions:

  • What really belongs to me?
  • If I have achieved or received much in life is it not by the grace of God and good fortune?
  • How can I help others have what they justly deserve?

Poetry: from Rumi

When I am with you, everything is prayer.
I prayed for change,
so, I changed my mind.

I prayed for guidance
and learned to trust myself.

I prayed for happiness
and realized I am not my ego.

I prayed for peace
and learned to accept others unconditionally.

I prayed for abundance
and realized my doubt kept it out.

I prayed for wealth
and realized it is my health.

I prayed for a miracle
and realized I am the miracle.

I prayed for a soul mate
and realized I am with the One.

I prayed for love
and realized it is always knocking,
but I have to allow it in.

Music: Already All I Need – Christy Nockels

Wisdom

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

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 18, 2024

Today’s Reading:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081824.cfm

Wisdom has built her house,
she has set up her seven columns;
she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine,
yes, she has spread her table.
She has sent out her maidens; she calls
from the heights out over the city:
“Let whoever is simple turn in here;
To the one who lacks understanding, she says,
Come, eat of my food,
and drink of the wine I have mixed!
Forsake foolishness that you may live;
advance in the way of understanding.”
Proverbs 9:1-6

Proverbs offers us the beautiful image of Divine Wisdom setting a table of grace for our nourishment.

In our Gospel, Jesus tells us that he is the divine nourishment foretold in Proverbs. Some resist Jesus’s invitation. Their faith languishes even while there is sacred food before them.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We give thanks for the Bread of Life given to us in Eucharist, Gospel, Creation, community, and merciful action. We ask for the grace to see God’s nourishing Presence right before us in our daily lives.

Poetry: I Am the Bread of Life – Malcolm Guite

Where to get bread? An ever-pressing question
That trembles on the lips of anxious mothers,
Bread for their families, bread for all these others;
A whole world on the margin of exhaustion.
And where that hunger has been satisfied
Where to get bread? The question still returns
In our abundance something starves and yearns
We crave fulfillment, crave and are denied.

And then comes One who speaks into our needs
Who opens out the secret hopes we cherish
Whose presence calls our hidden hearts to flourish
Whose words unfold in us like living seeds
Come to me, broken, hungry, incomplete,
I Am the Bread of Life, break Me and eat.

Music: Bread of Life – Bernadette Farrell

Gathered

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Church, Community, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality4 Comments

Memorial of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr
August 14, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081424.cfm

For where two or three
are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them.

Matthew 18:20

Today’s Gospel speaks to the power of community and the responsibility of being a member. Being gathered in the Name of Christ means being gathered in love where each one seeks the good of all others.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We realize that community is itself a ministry and sacrament exercised by a group of people who choose to love God by loving and supporting one another for mission. Whether that be in a family, a religious community, a workplace, a local or universal Church, we owe one another honesty, respect, encouragement, hospitality, and compassion. These gifts release each one of us to minister in love to a broken world.

Poetry: The Things that Count – Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)

Now, dear, it isn’t the bold things,
Great deeds of valour and might,
That count the most in the summing up 
of life at the end of the day.
But it is the doing of old things,
Small acts that are just and right;
And doing them over and over again, 
no matter what others say;
In smiling at fate, when you want to cry, 
and in keeping at work when you want to play—
Dear, those are the things that count.

And, dear, it isn’t the new ways
Where the wonder-seekers crowd
That lead us into the land of content, 
or help us to find our own.
But it is keeping to true ways,
Though the music is not so loud,
And there may be many a shadowed spot 
where we journey along alone;
In flinging a prayer at the face of fear, 
and in changing into a song a groan—
Dear, these are the things that count.

My dear, it isn’t the loud part
Of creeds that are pleasing to God,
Not the chant of a prayer, or the hum of a hymn, 
or a jubilant shout or song.
But it is the beautiful proud part
Of walking with feet faith-shod;
And in loving, loving, loving through all, 
no matter how things go wrong;
In trusting ever, though dark the day, 
and in keeping your hope 
when the way seems long—
Dear, these are the things that count.

Music: Sesame Street Community Song

Aroma

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

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 11, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081124.cfm

So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love,
as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us
as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.
Ephesians 5:1-2

You are hungry. It is a cold, grey, and rainy day. You walk into your gently lit home needing rest and nourishment. Then, imagine the aroma of freshly baked bread, just lifted from the oven.

Jesus tells us that he is that Bread, given to feed the deep hungers of our soul, and the deep hungers of all Creation.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray for the graces we need to allow us a rich appreciation of Eucharist:

  • in our Church and its liturgies
  • in the world as we share life and ministry
  • in the reverence for all Creation which becomes complete by our completeness in Christ

Prose: from The Mass on the World – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Since once again, Lord — though this time not in the forests of the Aisne but in the steppes of Asia — I have neither bread, nor wine, nor altar, I will raise myself beyond these symbols, up to the pure majesty of the real itself; I, your priest, will make the whole earth my altar and on it will offer you all the labours and sufferings of the world.

Over there, on the horizon, the sun has just touched with light the outermost fringe of the eastern sky. Once again, beneath this moving sheet of fire, the living surface of the earth wakes and trembles, and once again begins its fearful travail. I will place on my paten, O God, the harvest to be won by this renewal of labour. Into my chalice I shall pour all the sap which is to be pressed out this day from the earth’s fruits.

My paten and my chalice are the depths of a soul laid widely open to all the forces which in a moment will rise up from every corner of the earth and converge upon the Spirit. Grant me the remembrance and the mystic presence of all those whom the light is now awakening to the new day.

Music: Fresh Bread – Chuck Girard

Fresh bread, cool water, come and receive it
Fresh bread, cool water, come and receive it
Cease from your labors, come now and dine
Fresh bread, cool water, come get the oil and wine

In every life there comes a time to dance
In every life there comes a time to be still
Sometimes you’re given’ out until there’s nothin’ left
Then there’s a time that comes to be refreshed and filled

Repeat chorus

Come get the oil of gladness, and the bread of life
Come get the living water, be refreshed tonight
Come get the fruit of joy, come on and dance in the dirt
We’ll get the mud off your shoes and  
Have you back to the table in time for dessert

Repeat chorus

There’s a season of labor, then a day of rest
There’s a time of trial, then you pass the test
There’s a time when the wind blows, then a time of peace
There’s a time when you have to fast, then a time, a time when you feast

CHORUS

Come get the living water
Come get the bread of life
Come get the oil of gladness
Be refreshed tonight 
Cease from your labor, come now and dine
Fresh bread, cool water, come get the oil and wine

Friends

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, friendship, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus
July 29, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072924.cfm

Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary
to comfort them about their brother [Lazarus, who had died].
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,
she went to meet him;
but Mary sat at home.
Martha said to Jesus,
“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,
God will give you.”
John 11:19-22

Jesus needed and had friends, just like we do. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were that kind of close friends. Jesus could hang out at their house, be comfortable at their table. They loved when he visited, bustling about to tidy the house and make him a special meal. They could sit with him for the afternoon in the comfortable silence between close friends. And could expect him to share their joys and sorrows.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Jesus wants to be that kind of friend with us – sharing presence, refreshment, a quiet comfort, a lively conversation. He wants to share our ups and downs and in-betweens.He wants us to love him as he loves us.

Poetry: Malcolm Guite – The Anointing at Bethany

Come close with Mary, Martha, Lazarus
so close the candles stir with their soft breath
and kindle heart and soul to flame within us,
lit by these mysteries of life and death.
For beauty now begins the final movement
in quietness and intimate encounter.
The alabaster jar of precious ointment
is broken open for the world’s true Lover.
The whole room richly fills to feast the senses
with all the yearning such a fragrance brings.
The heart is mourning but the spirit dances,
here at the very center of all things,
here at the meeting place of love and loss,
we all foresee, and see beyond the cross.

Music: Pour My Love on You by Craig and Dean Phillips