Category: Conversion

Be Opened!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, healing, Jesus, spirituality1 Comment

Friday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
February 9, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020924.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, both our readings describe situations in which the fullness of the spiritual life is inhibited by choice or circumstance. In the readings from 1 Kings, we meet human beings crippled by moral incapacities. In Mark’s Gospel, we see a man handicapped by physical limitations.

What can we learn about God’s faithfulness from these passages? What can we learn about healing and spiritual renewal?

The Division of the Kingdom under Rehoboam
by William Brassey Hole

In Solomon’s case, his unfaithful choices have brought him to spiritual collapse. 1 Kings tells us that Solomon committed all the sins forbidden in the Book of Deuteronomy. For example, he had over 700 wives and concubines from many alien nations. He built altars to their gods and allowed their idolatry to seep into Israel’s culture. As a result, God pronounced that the united monarchy, composed of the twelve tribes, would be ripped apart – symbolized in the cloak in today’s readings.

Today’s and tomorrow’s passages foretell the revolt within Israel that created the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, is corrupt. The people revolt against his cruelty. Jeroboam, one of Solomon’s political ministers, assumes kingship over ten of the tribes, creating the Northern Kingdom (the Kingdom of Israel).

However, despite Solomon’s and Rehoboam’s infidelity, God remains faithful to the promise to David, allowing two of the tribes to continue under the leadership of David’s house through Rehoboam – the Southern Kingdom (the Kingdom of Judah)

So, are you bored with these snippets of biblical history? Don’t be. They are included in scripture to offer us lessons:

  • God’s voice comes to us in the unfolding of our lives
  • God expects our fidelity
  • Our infidelity leads to disruption
  • Still, God remains faithful and loving toward us
  • It is never too late to open our heart to God’s grace

Our Gospel can teach us similar lessons. For undisclosed reasons, our central character is hog-tied by the incapacity to speak and hear. Jesus’s healing of this man shows us that we too can be healed from any incapacity to hear God’s truth in our hearts and to speak it in our lives. All that we need do is what this man has done – to place ourselves in God’s Presence with faith and hope.

Notice that Jesus heals this man in a very human way – with fingers, spit, and guttural groans.

Jesus put his finger into the man’s ears
and, spitting, touched his tongue;
then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him,
“Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”)
And immediately the man’s ears were opened,
his speech impediment was removed,
and he spoke plainly.

Mark 7:33-35

For the most part, healing comes to us in very human ways as well. God works through our circumstances and relationships to offer us renewing grace. As we live out each day, our life challenges us with a silent command: “Ephphatha!” Be opened to God speaking to you in this moment, in this person, in this situation, in this silence!

Sometimes, we just cannot hear the challenge or speak the truth. We are mute and deaf to the grace of the moment. Today is a good time to pray for openness – Ephphatha!

Poetry: At the Kishinev School for Deaf and Mute Children – Katia Kapovich (1960), a bilingual Russian poet. Born in Chişinău, the capital of Moldova, she later lived in Moscow and St Petersburg. Unable to publish her work in the former USSR because she participated in a samizdat dissident group, she emigrated, moving in 1990 to Jerusalem, where she published her first collection, and then in 1992 to the USA. In 2001, US Poet Laureate Billy Collins selected her for a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, and she has also been Poet-in-Residence at Amherst College.

My first autumn after college I worked
at the Kishinev School for the Deaf and Mute,
whose voices were not speech,
yet sounded like a language.
A foreign language, muffled and unknown
to the teachers. Its strange vowels,
born in their windpipes,
burned away in their throats.
I wrote the alphabet on the blackboard,
watched them move their lips as they
tried to articulate the sounds of Russian,
but no one could help them.
Yet there was a children’s god in the classroom
who guided them across quicksand
to where the Tower of Babel stood crumbling
and filled their mouths with the ABCs.

Music: I Need Thee Every Hour – in American Sign Language

Turning Always Toward God

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, spirituality1 Comment

Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
February 8, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020824.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings leave me wondering about what makes God tick.

We really know nothing about God for sure, except what we have learned and believed in Jesus. The writers of the Hebrew scriptures stretched their imaginations to understand and portray God to the people. Sometimes their metaphors work for us, sometimes not. Today’s, I think, is tricky.

In this first reading, God exacts justice for Solomon’s unfaithfulness, but He does it sort of like a prosecutor in a plea bargain.

I will deprive you of the kingdom … but not during your lifetime
It is your son whom I will deprive … but I won’t take away the whole kingdom.

What’s going on with God in this reading? Well, it’s more like “What’s going on with the writer who tries, retrospectively, to interpret God’s role in Israel’s history?”

The passage is much more than a report on exchanges between God and Solomon.

It is a testament to Israel’s unwavering faith that God is intimately involved in their lives. In every circumstance, the believing community returns to the fact that experience leads to God and not away from Him.

So “Solomon … had TURNED his heart to strange gods” 
BUT God had not turned from Solomon. 
Nor would God EVER turn because 
God has CHOSEN Israel.

In our Gospel, the Syrophoenician woman tries to get the favor of Jesus to turn toward her. And actually, Jesus sounds pretty mean and stingy about it.

The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth,
and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter.
He said to her, “Let the children be fed first.
For it is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
She replied and said to him,
“Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.”
Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go.
The demon has gone out of your daughter.”

Mark 7:26-30

The writer Mark is portraying, retrospectively, a significant time in Christ’s ministry. Jesus has really gone into hiding in a remote place. Apparently, he wants space to figure some things out. The story indicates that one of those things might be whether or not his ministry should embrace the Gentiles.

The persistence of this woman’s faith is a turning point for Jesus Who evolved, as we all do, in his understanding of his sacred role and meaning in the world.

These passages encourage us to constantly turn toward God Who lives our life with us. Such “turning” helps us to grow spiritually. As we become bigger in heart and soul, so does our concept of God and what God’s hope is for us.

Poetry: All this “turning” brought to mind some favorites lines from T.S. Eliot:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

Music: Perfect Wisdom of Our God – The Gettys

Rejected at Nazareth

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

Memorial of Saint John Bosco, Priest
Wednesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
January 31, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/013124.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, David gets himself in trouble once again.

King David said to Joab and the leaders of the army who were with him,
“Tour all the tribes in Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba
and register the people, that I may know their number.”
Joab then reported to the king the number of people registered:
in Israel, eight hundred thousand men fit for military service; 
in Judah, five hundred thousand.

Afterward, however, David regretted having numbered the people,
and said to the LORD:
“I have sinned grievously in what I have done.
But now, LORD, forgive the guilt of your servant,
for I have been very foolish.”

2 Samuel 24: 2;10

In the later years of his kingship, David is pretty impressed with himself. The kingdom has grown exponentially. There is peace and prosperity. David wants a census taken so that he can assess his capacity for new expansion.

So why does God get so mad about this census? The Book of Exodus sets out that a person has the right to number only his own belongings. The People belong to God, not to David. David’s pride and self-satisfaction has taken him over.

Ps32_deep waters

However, as usual, David repents. This is probably the best lesson we can learn from him. Then, in a greatly allegorized treatment, God gives David a choice of three punishments.

Passages like this can confuse us if we interpret them literally. Does God really interact and punish like this? 

It helps to remember the purpose of these writings — not to relay a factual history, but rather to tell a story that helps us grow in relationship with God.

What I believe happened here is that a pestilence did fall upon the country. At the same time, David realized that his heart had grown selfish and graceless. He took the natural event as a sign to turn back to God. And then the writers told the story in a way that the ancient peoples could relate to – with a metaphorical image of a God that forgives but gets even.

In our Gospel, Jesus preaches a clearer and true vision of God – a vision of Complete Mercy, especially toward the vulnerable, weak, and sinful. That pretty much includes all of us.

Jesus releases the power of this Divine Mercy by his words and miracles. But his own family and neighbors reject him. They are more comfortable with a God who behaves like they do – meting out more judgement and punishment (preferably toward others!😉) than mercy and inclusive benediction.

In this Gospel, we begin to see Jesus as One who asks not only for repentance but for conversion – for a new way of being with God and neighbor, the way of Love.

How might we have responded had we been in that neighborhood synagogue? How are we responding today?

Film Excerpt from The Chosen: Jesus is rejected at Nazareth

Music: Today’s Responsorial Psalm 32 – Marty Goetz ( Lyrics below)

Psalm 32 – Marty Goetz

These are periled times we live in, trouble everywhere
Weary hearts will often give in to this world’s despair
But high and over all, our Father knows our every care
And in His Book, if you will look, you’ll find His promise there

(Chorus)
He who trusts in the Lord
Mercy shall surround him
He who trusts in the Lord
Mercy shall surround him
Be glad in the Lord and rejoice
You upright in heart, lift up your voice
For great is His mercy toward all who trust in the Lord

Soon will be the time when we will see the Holy One
Oh how sweet to know that He’ll complete what He’s begun
And blessed is the man who stands forgiven in God’s son
And blessed are they who in that day will hear Him say, “Well done”

(Chorus)

Gracious is He and slow to anger
His loving kindness has no end
With love to embrace both friend and stranger
Reaching out to one and all, who upon His name will call

(Chorus)

Mercy is His reward
For all who trust, for the pure and just
Who put their trust in the Lord
For all who trust for the pure and just who put their trust in the Lord

Crippling Regret

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Books, Conversion, Courage, dying, Faith, Forgiveness, spirituality2 Comments

Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
January 30, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/013024.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we read one of the saddest lines in Scripture.

2Sam18_32

You have followed the story in these daily passages. Absalom rebels, designing to usurp his father’s throne. A massive battle rises between them. David, as commander-in-chief, remains behind, but gives instructions to his generals to spare Absalom’s life. Joab ignores the command, killing Absalom in a moment of vulnerability.

David is devastated.

david mourns
David Mourning Absalom’s Death –
Jean Colombe

I think there is no more wrenching human emotion than regret. When I ministered for nearly a decade as hospice chaplain, and later in the hospital emergency room, I saw so much regret.

People who had waited too long to say “I’m sorry”, “I forgive you”, “Let’s start over”, ” It was my fault too..”, “Thank you for all you did for me”, “I love you”…..

Instead, these people stood at lifeless bedsides saying things like, “I should have”, “I wish…”, “If only…”

Life is complex and sometimes difficult. We get hurt, and we hurt others — sometimes so hurt that we walk away from relationship, or stay but wall ourselves off.

We might think that what is missing in such times is love. But I think it is more likely truth. In times of painful conflict, if we can hear and speak our truth to ourselves and one another, we open the path to healing.

If you want the truth, I’ll tell you the truth.
Listen to the secret sound,
the real sound, which is inside you.
~ Kabir

That healing may demand adjustments, agreements, even a willingness to step apart in mutual respect. But if the changes emerge from shared truth, restoration and wholeness are possible.

David and Absalom never found that path because they were so absorbed in their own self-interests. Theirs was the perfect formula for regret – that fruitless stump that perpetually sticks in the heart.

I remember a trauma surgeon leaving the hospital late one night after an unsuccessful effort to save a young boy who had been shot. The doctor carried the loss so heavily as he walked into the night saying to me, “I’m just going to go home and hug my kids.”

As we pray over David and Absalom today, let us examine our lives for the still healable fractures and act on them. Let us “hug” the life we have. Regret is a useless substitute.

Poetry: The Eyes of My Regret – Angelina Weld Grimké

Angelina Weld Grimké was born in Boston on February 27, 1880. She was the daughter of Archibald Grimké, who had been born a slave in Charleston, South Carolina, and Sarah Stanley Grimké, a white woman and the daughter of an abolitionist. Named after her great-aunt, the abolitionist and suffragist, Angelina Grimké Weld, Grimké grew up in liberal, aristocratic Boston society. She attended the best preparatory schools in Massachusetts, including Cushing Academy and the now defunct Carleton School.

My readers might be interested in Sue Monk Kidd’s excellent historical novel “The Invention of Wings” which tells the story of the poet’s abolitionist great-aunts, the Grimké sisters.

The Eyes of My Regret

Always at dusk, the same tearless experience,
The same dragging of feet up the same well-worn path
To the same well-worn rock;
The same crimson or gold dropping away of the sun
The same tints—rose, saffron, violet, lavender, grey
Meeting, mingling, mixing mistily;
Before me the same blue black cedar rising jaggedly to a point;
Over it, the same slow unlidding of twin stars,
Two eyes, unfathomable, soul-searing,
Watching, watching—watching me;
The same two eyes that draw me forth, against my will dusk after dusk;
The same two eyes that keep me sitting late into the night, chin on knees
Keep me there lonely, rigid, tearless, numbly miserable,
—The eyes of my Regret.

Music: When David Heard – Eric Whitaker (The piece builds. Be patient. Lyrics below)

When David heard that Absalom was slain,
he went up into his chamber over the gate and wept,
and thus he said;

My son, my son,
O Absalom my son,
would God I had died for thee!

When David heard that Absalom was slain,
he went up into his chamber over the gate and wept,
and thus he said;

My son, my son.

Mercy in the Darkness

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Faith, Jesus, spirituality1 Comment

Monday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
January 29, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012924.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings are peppered with angst, curses, demons, and rampaging pigs. Not the perfect way to start your day, right? So after quietly reading all the passages, I asked myself if they had anything to offer me this morning, or should I just play Spider Solitaire on my iPad?

As I considered that question, last night’s evening news flashed before my mind – gun violence, assaults, war, hit-and-run accidents! Suddenly I realized that my world is not that different from the mayhem around David or Jesus. My world just wears different clothes and can create chaos faster because of technological power.

The cause of David’s dire situation is clearly defined by Shimei, the curser:

Shimei Curses David – by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld

As David was approaching Bahurim,
a man named Shimei, the son of Gera
of the same clan as Saul’s family,
was coming out of the place, cursing as he came.
He threw stones at David and at all the king’s officers,
even though all the soldiers, including the royal guard,
were on David’s right and on his left.
Shimei was saying as he cursed:
“Away, away, you murderous and wicked man!
The LORD has requited you for all the bloodshed in the family of Saul,
in whose stead you became king,
and the LORD has given over the kingdom to your son Absalom.
And now you suffer ruin because you are a murderer.”

2 Samuel 16:5-7

In other words, David is completely out of alignment with the “self” God created him to be. God’s beautiful hope in David has been nearly swallowed up by most of the seven deadly sins. And good for Shimei, who slings every one of them back in David’s face! What a wake-up call!

In our Gospel, the Evil One has taken up residence in the skewed and troubled soul of a tomb-dweller:

… a man from the tombs who had an unclean spirit met Jesus.
The man had been dwelling among the tombs,
and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain.
In fact, he had frequently been bound with shackles and chains,
but the chains had been pulled apart by him and the shackles smashed,
and no one was strong enough to subdue him.

Mark 5:3-4

Swine Driven into the Sea by James Tissot

For reasons the Gospel does not reveal, demons rage inside this pathetic man. Jesus confronts them with an intensity even beyond Shimei’s, casting them into the subsequently nose-diving swine:

Catching sight of Jesus from a distance,
he ran up and prostrated himself before him,
crying out in a loud voice,
“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?
I adjure you by God, do not torment me!”
(Jesus had been saying to him, “Unclean spirit, come out of the man!”)
Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”
He replied, “Legion is my name. There are many of us.”
And he pleaded earnestly with Jesus
not to drive them away from that territory.

Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside.
And they pleaded with him,
“Send us into the swine. Let us enter them.”
And he let them, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine.
The herd of about two thousand rushed down a steep bank into the sea,
where they were drowned.

Mark 5:6-13

Wow! I mean, really, these two readings are Cecil B. DeMille stuff! Certainly there is a lesson for each of us somewhere in all this drama.

  • Might David’s plight remind us to keep our lives in alignment with God’s hope and will for us?
  • Might Shimei’s rage and brutal honesty help us to consider any retained hurts and vengeances we harbor?
  • Might the poor, chained tomb-dweller help us to place our own small demons squarely in the merciful light of God’s healing power before they get too powerful for us to face?
  • Might the devastated pigs caution us that innocent people can get hurt when our sinful inclinations derail us?

Even though many aspects of today’s readings are harsh, they hold a central message of God’s enduring mercy toward us even in times of desperation and apparent hopelessness. May we hold on to this truth if we ever come to a place of darkness in our lives. And may we offer that Light to those we encounter who are bearing such suffering.

Poetry: Excerpt from “Love Song to the Demon-Possessed Pigs of Gadara” – William Fargason

William Fargason is the author of Love Song to the Demon-Possessed Pigs of Gadara (University of Iowa Press, 2020), winner of the 2019 Iowa Poetry Prize and the 2020 Florida Book Award in Poetry (Gold Medal). In this collection, Fargason inspects the pain of memory alongside the pain of the physical body. Fargason takes language to its limits to demonstrate how grief is given a voice. His speaker confronts illness, grapples with grief, and heals after loss in its most crushing forms. (from Iowa University Press).

The silence just before and just after,
and the black eyes as you leapt— “
no protest, no acceptance either.

You ran almost in unison,
a dance without music,
a curtain call,
and the crowd standing knowing this is what happens
once we find beauty:

                                      we must watch it leave.

Music: Healing Time on Earth – John Denver

A Striking Light!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality2 Comments

Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, Apostle
January 25, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012524.cfm

The Conversion of St. Paul – Caravaggio

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we have the thrilling story of the conversion of St. Paul.

“On that journey as I drew near to Damascus,
about noon a great light from the sky suddenly shone around me.
I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me,
‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’
I replied, ‘Who are you, sir?’
And he said to me,
‘I am Jesus the Nazorean whom you are persecuting.’

Acts of the Apostles 22; 6-8

God was not subtle with Paul! And it’s a good thing because Paul wasn’t subtle. He was the kind of guy who lived on the edge of life, always pushing the limits of his existence. He reminds me of a spiritual “Evel Knievel”.

God had to make a real impression in order to get Paul’s attention and turn his life around. When a lightning bolt knocks you off your horse, you tend to notice!

Our Gospel summarizes Jesus’s choice of his twelve apostles. Again, there was some pretty dramatic divine intervention used to get these men to take heed:

  • Andrew heard a voice from the sky sanctify Jesus’s Baptism in the Jordan
  • Nathaniel was miraculously observed under the fig tree
  • Peter and his fishing buddies caught an incredible, net-breaking haul
  • Philip asked, “What’s for dinner?’ and got twelve baskets of leftovers
  • Thomas placed his fingers in the resurrected wounds
  • Matthew got the grace to make an astounding career change
  • and John, in the first Eucharistic moment, rested his ear against God’s heart

God’s daily call to us may come in softer garments. We all have a few dramatic moments in our lives, when we must grasp our faith to make it through. But for the most part, life may seem hypnotizingly ordinary. Our readings today encourage us to pay attention to grace — to open ourselves to God’s eternal promptings even in their ordinary costumes. Every sunrise offers such an invitation. How blessed we are when we recognize them!

Poetry: The Conversion of St. Paul – Christopher Smart (1722-1771)

Each line in he poem refers to a miracle in the scriptures. The son of Nun was Joshua who opens the poem.

Thro ' him, the chief, begot by Nun,
Controul'd the progress of the sun;
The shadow too, through him, retir'd
The ten degrees it had acquir'd.
The barren could her fruit afford,
The woman had her dead restor'd,
The statesman could himself demean
To seek the river, and be clean.
At his command, ev'n Christ I Am,
The cruse was fill'd, and iron swam;
The floods were dry'd to make a track,
And Jordan's wave was driven back.
All these in ancient days occurr'd,
The great atchievements of the Word,
By Joshua's hand, by Moses' rod,
By virtue of the men of God.
But greater is the mighty deed
To make a profligate recede,
And work a boist'rous madman mild,
To walk with Jesus like a child.
To give a heart of triple steel
The Lord's humanity to feel;
And there, where pity had no place,
To fill the measure of his grace;
To wash internal blackness white,
To call the worse than dead to light;
To make the fruitless soil to hold
Ten thousand times ten thousand fold.
To turn a servant of the times
From modish and ambitious crimes;
To pour down a resistless blaze,
‘Go, persecutor, preach and praise.’

Video: Instead of music today, I’ve included this video analysis of Caravaggio’s painting “The Conversion of St. Paul on the Road to Damascus”. It is one of at least two paintings by Caravaggio on the same subject. The other famous painting, “The Conversion of St. Paul” is seen at the top of this blog post.

I found that the video spoke to both art appreciation and spirituality. I hope you enjoy it.

Just Listen!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, dying, Faith, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Wednesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time
January 24, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012424.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Jesus tells us the parable of the sower and the seed.

And he taught them at length in parables, 
and in the course of his instruction he said to them, 
“Hear this! A sower went out to sow.
And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, 
and the birds came and ate it up.
Other seed fell on rocky ground where it had little soil.
It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep.
And when the sun rose, it was scorched and it withered for lack of roots. 
Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it 
and it produced no grain.
And some seed fell on rich soil and produced fruit.
It came up and grew and yielded thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”
He added, “Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear.”

Mark 4: 2-9

How many times have we heard or read this passage over the years? Maybe so many times that we’ve become a little impervious to it. Maybe we can hear something too much.

For example, as a group of us watched the 76ers basketball game last night, the commercials seemed endless. At one point Anne Marie asked me, “Would you ever buy that?”. Although I was staring at the commercial, I had no idea what it was saying. I had tuned it out and was looking right through it!

Here’s the thing: I could hear the commercial, but I wasn’t listening to it.

I think it’s like that with today’s parable and other scripture passages as well.

We’re probably not farmers. If you’re like me, the best you’ve done is to plant an orange seed in a ten-cent flower pot when you were kindergartners! So the parable might not catch our hearts when we hear it for the 100th time unless we have learned to listen as well as hear!

But when we listen to this parable we might realize that, maybe, for us:

  • the seed fell on the path and got devoured by birds that time when we let up on our dedicated prayer time and took up some useless distraction
  • the seed fell on rocky ground when we failed to study a politically charged issue in the light of the Gospel and instead got caught in a media-spun theory
  • the seed fell among thorns when we allowed our morality to be influenced by gossip, cheap judgments, self-serving agendas, or biased opinion
  • the seed fell on rich ground when we gave our spirits quiet time, prayer, good spiritual reading, the companionship of graced friends, and all the other holy kindnesses that can make us better persons

As I write this blog, it’s so cold where I live that, unless you had a jackhammer, you couldn’t even plant a seed. We don’t want our hearts to be like that. We want supple hearts, ready for the amazing graces God scatters over our lives daily. Let’s do the work to be ready.

Poetry: The Sower – William Cowper (1731 – 1800) was an English poet and Anglican hymnwriter.

One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th-century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him “the best modern poet”, whilst William Wordsworth particularly admired his poem “Yardley-Oak”.

Cowper’s religious sentiment and association with John Newton (who wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace”) led to much of the poetry for which he is best remembered, and to the series of Olney Hymns. His poem “Light Shining out of Darkness” gave English the phrase: “God moves in a mysterious way/ His wonders to perform.” (Wikipedia)

Ye child of earth prepare the plough,
Break up your fallow ground;
The sower is gone forth to sow,
And scatter blessings round.
The seed that finds a stony soil
Shoots forth a hasty blade;
But ill repays the sower's toil,
Soon wither'd, scorch'd, and dead.
The thorny ground is sure to balk
All hopes of harvest there;
We find a tall and sickly stalk,
But not the fruitful ear.
The beaten path and highway side,
Receive the trust in vain;
The watchful birds the spoil divide,
And pick up all the grain.
But where the Lord of grace and power
Has bless'd the happy field,
How plenteous is the golden store
The deep-wrought furrows yield!
Father of mercies, we have need
Of thy preparing grace;
Let the same Hand that give me seed
Provide a fruitful place!

Music: Amazing Grace

Grief, Honor, and Mercy

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Forgiveness, friendship, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Saturday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
January 20, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012024.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings center on the themes of grief, honor, and mercy.

In the passage from 2 Samuel, Saul has been killed in battle. The news is brought to David by a scheming Amalekite who (later verses reveal) hopes to profit from his enterprise. He has stripped Saul’s dead body of its kingly insignia, obsequiously depositing it at David’s feet. The messenger expects David’s vengeful rejoicing and a hefty reward.

Instead David, with reverence and honor appropriate to a future king, launches a deep public mourning for Saul and Jonathan. It is a bereavement necessary to both cleanse and heal the community’s heart from all the strife leading up to it.

David seized his garments and rent them, 
and all the men who were with him did likewise.
They mourned and wept and fasted until evening 
for Saul and his son Jonathan, 
and for the soldiers of the LORD of the clans of Israel, 
because they had fallen by the sword.

2 Samuel 1:11-12

David’s lament is profound; it is ”splancha”, sprung from his innards, like the anguish Jesus felt for the suffering persons he encountered, as described in our Gospel.

A callous or indifferent heart cannot comprehend such pathos. Seeing it in Jesus, even his relatives thought him insane!

Jesus came with his disciples into the house.
Again the crowd gathered,
making it impossible for them even to eat.
When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him, 
for they said, “He is out of his mind.” 

Mark 3: 20-21

Our God is a God of boundless love 
and impractical mercy. 
David models a bit of that godliness. 
Jesus is its complete Incarnation.

Poetry: Talking to Grief – Denise Levertov

Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.
I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.
You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.

Music: Lascia Ch’io Pianga (Let Me Weep)- Georg Frideric Handel – a single piece of beautiful music today in two version, an aria and an instrumental interpretation.

Julia Lezhneva – soprano

Can God Do It?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, ordinary time, spiritualityLeave a comment

Memorial of Saint Anthony, Abbot
Wednesday of the Second week in Ordinary Time
January 17, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011724.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, both our readings are electric with emotion.

In our first reading, Israel is mortally threatened by the Philistines. We see Saul, their King, fearful and drained of courage. And we see David, their hope, filled with confidence in God’s presence and power.

David spoke to Saul:
“Let your majesty not lose courage.
I am at your service to go and fight this Philistine.”
But Saul answered David,
“You cannot go up against this Philistine and fight with him,
for you are only a youth, while he has been a warrior from his youth.”

David continued:
“The LORD, who delivered me from the claws of the lion and the bear,
will also keep me safe from the clutches of this Philistine.”
Saul answered David, “Go! the LORD will be with you.”

1 Samuel 17: 32-33;37

Young David engages God’s power with the confidence generated by innocence and goodness. This is the same confidence that Jesus has as he lives out his call. He knows what the Divine desire for us – our healing and wholeness. He is one with that desire.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus sees a man suffering from a withered hand. He knows he has the power to heal this man and that the Father desires such healing. But the Pharisees, who are afraid of Jesus’s power, invoke the Law in an attempt to control him.

The Pharisees watched Jesus closely
to see if Jesus would cure the man on the sabbath
so that they might accuse him.
He said to the man with the withered hand,
“Come up here before us.”
Then he said to the Pharisees,
“Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil,
to save life rather than to destroy it?”

Mark 3:2-4

But the Pharisees didn’t even have the guts to answer Jesus. This angered him. He was disgusted with their small-hearted selfishness. Rather than be filled with wonder at this man restored to wholeness, “… they went out and plotted against Jesus.”

We often encounter this kind of fearful smallness in our lives … sometimes even in ourselves. What can we learn from David and Jesus about confidently living a larger life, held within the power of God?

Prose Poem: West Wind 2 – Mary Oliver

You are young. So you know everything. You leap
into the boat and begin rowing. But, listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.

Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart, and your heart’s little intelligence, and listen to 
me.

There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a 
dead dog nine days unburied.

When you hear, a mile
away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks — when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming—then row, row for your life
toward it.

Music: Confidence – by Sanctus Real

Listen to the Whispers

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Prayer, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
January 14, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011424.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 40, the prayer of one at home with God:

I delight to do your will, my God;
your law is in my inner being!

Psalm 40:9

We are reminded that we find this kind of peace by believing and listening to our experience:

Throughout our readings today, God leans over heaven’s edge to whisper into human experience.

Samuel’s Call by Joshua Reynolds

In our first reading, that whisper comes in a sacred call to a listening Samuel:

When Samuel went to sleep in his place,
the LORD came and revealed his presence,
calling out as before, “Samuel, Samuel!”
Samuel answered, “Speak, for your servant is listening”.

1 Samuel 3: 9-10

In our second reading, Paul reminds us that the 
Whispering Spirit is already resident within us:

Do you not know that your body
is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you,
whom you have from God, 
and that you are not your own?

1 Corinthians 6:19

In our Gospel, Jesus – the Word, the Divine Whisper – invites us to come to him, to see his power with us in our ordinary lives.

The two disciples said to Jesus, 
“Rabbi, where do you live?”
He said to them, “Come, and you will see”.

John 1: 39

Praying with Psalm 40 can turn our hearts 
to listening for God’s voice 
under and within our experiences. 

  • It can wake us up, as Samuel was awakened.
  • It can attune us to the melody deep within our hearts.
  • It can reiterate God’s invitation to live our lives so fully in the Beloved’s Presence that, even without a sound, we know each other’s thoughts.

Poetry: from Whispers of the Beloved by Rumi

Do you know what the music is saying?
“Come follow me and you will find the way.
Your mistakes can also lead you to the Truth.
When you ask, the answer will be given.”

Music: All Praise to Him – Sovereign Grace Music