Category: Courage

Caiaphas

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Faith, Gospel, Holy Spirit, Jesus, justice, spiritualityLeave a comment

Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent
March 23, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032324.cfm

So the chief priests and the Pharisees
convened the Sanhedrin and said,
“What are we going to do?
This man is performing many signs.
If we leave him alone, all will believe in him,
and the Romans will come
and take away both our land and our nation.”
But one of them, Caiaphas,
who was high priest that year, said to them,
“You know nothing,
nor do you consider that it is better for you
that one man should die instead of the people,
so that the whole nation may not perish.”

John 11: 47-50

From the moment described in this Gospel, down through the ages, the name “Caiaphas” shouts infamy. At a moment when he could have made all the difference in history, Caiaphas folded to political expediency, planting the seed for Jesus’s crucifixion.

Moral courage is a gift of the Holy Spirit. It strengthens us to tell the truth when doing so may cost us life, limb, or desired status in the world.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

With the gift of free will, God has given us tremendous power, just as God gave Caiaphas. Our words, or our silences, can make or break the flow of grace in the world. By the practice of prayerfully considering our allegiances and testimonies, we can fortify our spirits with a sacred honesty – the kind which Caiaphas lacked on that momentous day.

  • Why am I making this choice?
  • Why am I voicing this opinion?
  • Why am I standing on this side of justice or mercy?
  • Who benefits, or who suffers, because of my stance?

And, ultimately, will my testimony make the way for God’s grace?

Poetry: All Is Truth – Walt Whitman

O me, man of slack faith so long!
Standing aloof—denying portions so long;
Only aware to-day of compact, all-diffused truth;
Discovering to-day there is no lie, or form of lie, and can be none,
but grows as inevitably upon itself as the truth does upon
itself,
Or as any law of the earth, or any natural production of the earth
does.

(This is curious, and may not be realized immediately—But it must be
realized;
I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally with the rest,
And that the universe does.)

Where has fail'd a perfect return, indifferent of lies or the truth?
Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the spirit of man?
or in the meat and blood?

Meditating among liars, and retreating sternly into myself, I see
 that there are really no liars or lies after all,
And that nothing fails its perfect return—And that what are called
lies are perfect returns,
And that each thing exactly represents itself, 
and what has preceded it,
And that the truth includes all, and is compact, just as much as
space is compact,
And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth—but
 that all is truth without exception;
And henceforth I will go celebrate anything I see or am,
And sing and laugh, and deny nothing.

Music: If We’re Honest – Francesca Battistelli

Remain

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

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
March 20, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032024.cfm

Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him,
“If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples,
and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

John 8:31

In our first reading, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are examples of absolute trust in God. Their story is intended to assure the Jews in Babylonian captivity that God would deliver them.

In our Gospel, Jesus assures his followers that they too will be delivered from life’s tests if they trust fully in His Word.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s pray to deepen in our trust that God is with us always. Let’s sink the anchor of our faith, hope, and love into Christ’s promise. The more we can do this, the more we will be freed to love God, ourselves, and others with the fullness of Gospel love.

Poetry: Avowal – Denise Levertov

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

Music: How Beautiful Is Your Love – The Commons/Josh Blakesley

oh how beautiful is your love for me.
oh what joy is mine in this mystery.
i will not fear the dark
here in the presence of your heart.
oh how beautiful is your love.

oh how wonderful is your offering.
lamb laid down for me on compassion’s tree.
how could i turn away
from the mercy of your face?
oh how wonderful is your love.

Jesus, Jesus,
oh how beautiful is your love.
Jesus, Jesus,
oh how beautiful is your love.

so miraculous is your sacrifice.
body broken here that i might have life.
take everything i own,
let me be yours alone.
so miraculous is your love.

Jesus, Jesus,
oh how beautiful is your love.
Jesus, Jesus,
oh how beautiful is your love.

Heir

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Faith, Gospel, holiness, spirituality1 Comment

Solemnity of Saint Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary
March 19, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031924.cfm

The LORD spoke to Nathan and said:
“Go, tell my servant David,
‘When your time comes and you rest with your ancestors,
I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins,
and I will make his kingdom firm.
It is he who shall build a house for my name.
And I will make his royal throne firm forever.
I will be a father to him,
and he shall be a son to me.
Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me;
your throne shall stand firm forever.’”

2 Samuel 7: 2-5;12-14;16

Today’s genealogies establish Jesus as the Messianic Heir promised to the House of David. Joseph is the link in that promise.

We have so little factual knowledge of Joseph, yet so much prayerful devotion to him. Gospel tidbits from Matthew and Luke help us imagine a holy and tender man who loved Christ into his divinely missioned adulthood. We imagine Joseph’s simple and faithful life as the carpenter-provider for the Holy Family, and his peaceful death in the embrace of Mary and Jesus.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Wherever we are in our own lives, Joseph’s life can bring us inspiration and strength. Asking his guidance, we pray today for:

  • those making major life decisions
  • engaged couples learning to love and support one another
  • parents as they work to raise their children well
  • refugee parents protecting their families
  • workers struggling daily to provide for their families
  • the men in our lives who have nurtured, loved, and taught us
  • religious women and men in communities devoted to St. Joseph
  • those who are dying that they may have comfort and peace

Poetry: Prayer to St. Joseph – Cameron Belle

St. Joseph, patron saint of the unexpected,
How freely you stepped into the unknown
With your unwavering yes.

St. Joseph, dreamer of dreams,
How attuned your heart was, waking or sleeping,
To the promptings of angels.

St. Joseph, nurturing father,
How openly you accepted your unconventional family,
Lighting the way for us, too, to embrace all.

St. Joseph, there is still so much we don’t know about you,
But maybe that is your gift to us,
That we may see in the father of Jesus a mystery
That sanctifies the hidden and untold in our own lives.
May we, too, live our days in the holy shadow of your son.

Music: Joseph’s Song – Michael Card

Hidden

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

Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent
March 18, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031824.cfm

One day, while the elders were waiting for the right moment,
she entered the garden as usual, with two maids only.
Susanna decided to bathe, for the weather was warm.
Nobody else was there except the two elders,
who had hidden themselves and were watching her.
“Bring me oil and soap,” she said to the maids,
“and shut the garden doors while I bathe.”

Daniel 13:15-18

“Let the one among you who is without sin
be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Again he bent down and wrote on the ground.
And in response, they went away one by one,
beginning with the elders.
So he was left alone with the woman before him.
Then Jesus straightened up and said to her,
“Woman, where are they?

John 8: 7-10

We encounter so much in life that is hidden – motives, ambitions, agendas, pasts, judgments, reactions. We hide these things for all kinds of reasons. The lustful elders hid their actions for fear of discovery and condemnation. The Gospel stone throwers hid their pasts to exonerate themselves by judgment of another.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We are reminded that with God nothing is hidden. And nothing needs to be. We can place our lusts, false judgments, and any other shadow-laden weaknesses in God’s Light because that Light is Forgiveness and Healing. That Light will free us to become forgivers and healers ourselves.

Poetry: Peter Quince at the Clavier – Wallace Stevens

Wallace Steven’s poem and Handel’s oratorio indicate the extent to which the tale of Susanna has been culturally interpreted down through the ages.

Just as my fingers on these keys 
Make music, so the selfsame sounds 
On my spirit make a music, too. 

Music is feeling, then, not sound; 
And thus it is that what I feel, 
Here in this room, desiring you, 
Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk, 
Is music. It is like the strain 
Waked in the elders by Susanna: 
Of a green evening, clear and warm, 
She bathed in her still garden, while 
The red-eyed elders, watching, felt 
The basses of their beings throb 
In witching chords, and their thin blood 
Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna. 
                                              II 
In the green water, clear and warm, 
Susanna lay. 
She searched 
The touch of springs, 
And found 
Concealed imaginings. 
She sighed, 
For so much melody. 
Upon the bank, she stood 
In the cool 
Of spent emotions. 
She felt, among the leaves, 
The dew 
Of old devotions. 
She walked upon the grass, 
Still quavering. 
The winds were like her maids, 
On timid feet, 
Fetching her woven scarves, 
Yet wavering. 
A breath upon her hand 
Muted the night. 
She turned— 
A cymbal crashed, 
And roaring horns. 

                                           III 

Soon, with a noise like tambourines, 
Came her attendant Byzantines. 
They wondered why Susanna cried 
Against the elders by her side; 
And as they whispered, the refrain 
Was like a willow swept by rain. 
Anon, their lamps' uplifted flame 
Revealed Susanna and her shame. 
And then, the simpering Byzantines 
Fled, with a noise like tambourines. 

                                             IV 

Beauty is momentary in the mind— 
The fitful tracing of a portal; 
But in the flesh it is immortal. 
The body dies; the body's beauty lives. 
So evenings die, in their green going, 
A wave, interminably flowing. 
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting 
The cowl of winter, done repenting. 
So maidens die, to the auroral 
Celebration of a maiden's choral. 
Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings 
Of those white elders; but, escaping, 
Left only Death's ironic scraping. 
Now, in its immortality, it plays 
On the clear viol of her memory, 
And makes a constant sacrament of praise.

Music: Guilt trembling spoke my doom – George Frideric Handel

Susanna is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel. Handel composed the music in the summer of 1748 and premiered the work the next season at Covent Garden theatre, London, on 10 February 1749. (Lyrics below.)

Guilt trembling spoke my doom,
And vice her joy display’d,
Till truth dispell’d the gloom
And came to virtue’s aid.
Kind Heav’n, my pray’rs receive,
They’re due alone to thee,
Oppression’s left to grieve,
And innocence is free.

Plot

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Cross, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Lent, spirituality1 Comment

Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent
March 16, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031624.cfm

Yet I, like a trusting lamb led to slaughter,
had not realized that they were hatching plots against me:
“Let us destroy the tree in its vigor;
let us cut him off from the land of the living,
so that his name will be spoken no more.”

Jeremiah 11:19

“Plot” can be an ugly word – a sinister trap woven in the darkness of fear and ignorance. Such plotters are befuddled by innocence, freedom, honesty, and goodness. Without these virtues themselves, they have no tools to meet challenges with sincerity and trust..

In our readings, we see darkened souls interweaving their fears to trap both Jeremiah and Jesus. It’s a picture of “conspiracy theories” in Biblical times!

In our current culture, we see people design elaborate arguments to justify war, rioting, oppression, weaponry, economic excess, and all the many “isms” that trap others in their vulnerability.

Lent is not just a remembrance of things past. It is a living participation in the Paschal Mystery as Christ experiences it in our times. We must ask ourselves if we ever stand with, or even silently near, the “plotters”.

Poem: The Second Crucifixion – Richard Le Gallienne (1866 – 1947)

LOUD mockers in the roaring street   
  Say Christ is crucified again:   
Twice pierced His gospel-bearing feet,   
  Twice broken His great heart in vain.   
  
I hear, and to myself I smile,          
For Christ talks with me all the while.   
  
No angel now to roll the stone   
  From off His unawaking sleep,   
In vain shall Mary watch alone,   
  In vain the soldiers vigil keep.   
  
Yet while they deem my Lord is dead   
My eyes are on His shining head.   
  
Ah! never more shall Mary hear   
  That voice exceeding sweet and low   
Within the garden calling clear:   
  Her Lord is gone, and she must go.   
  
Yet all the while my Lord I meet   
In every London lane and street.   
  
Poor Lazarus shall wait in vain,   
  And Bartimæus still go blind;   
The healing hem shall ne'er again   
  Be touch'd by suffering humankind.   
  
Yet all the while I see them rest,   
The poor and outcast, on His breast.   
  
No more unto the stubborn heart   
  With gentle knocking shall He plead,   
No more the mystic pity start,   
  For Christ twice dead is dead indeed.   
  
So in the street I hear men say,   
Yet Christ is with me all the day.

Music: Agnus Dei – Michael Hoppé

Mountain

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

Second Sunday of Lent
February 25, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022524.cfm

“Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, 
and go to the land of Moriah.
There you shall offer him up as a holocaust 
on a mountain that I will point out to you.”

Jesus took Peter, James, and John 
and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves.
And he was transfigured before them, 
and his clothes became dazzling white, 
such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.

Often it is at the height of our joy, or the height of our sorrow that we feel closest to God. Intense experiences can bring us unequaled grace and opportunity for spiritual growth.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

In our prayer, we may gratefully remember the “mountains” of our lives, those times when joy, hope, pain, or anxiety built almost insurmountably in our hearts. How did God meet us in those moments? How did we meet God? How have our “mountains” transformed our lives?

Poetry: Unveiling the Heart’s Mirror – Rumi

All through eternity
Beauty unveils His exquisite form
in the solitude of nothingness;
He holds a mirror to His Face
and beholds His own beauty.
he is the knower and the known,
the seer and the seen;
No eye but His own
has ever looked upon this Universe.
His every quality finds an expression:
Eternity becomes the verdant field of Time and Space;
Love, the life-giving garden of this world.
Every branch and leaf and fruit
Reveals an aspect of His perfection.
The cypress gives hint of His majesty,
The rose gives tidings of His beauty.
Whenever Beauty looks,
Love is also there;
Whenever beauty shows a rosy cheek
Love lights Her fire from that flame.
When beauty dwells in the dark folds of night
Love comes and finds a heart
entangled in tresses.
Beauty and Love are as body and soul.
Beauty is the mine, Love is the diamond.
They have together
since the beginning of time-
Side by side, step by step.
I swear, since seeing Your face,
the whole world is fraud and fantasy
The garden is bewildered as to what is leaf
or blossom. The distracted birds
can’t distinguish the birdseed from the snare.
A house of love with no limits,
a presence more beautiful than venus or the moon,
a beauty whose image fills the mirror of the heart.

Music: God on the Mountain – Lynda Randle

Leprosy

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Courage, Faith, spirituality2 Comments

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
February 11, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021124.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings are connected by the topic of leprosy.

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron,
“If someone has on his skin a scab or pustule or blotch
which appears to be the sore of leprosy,
he shall be brought to Aaron, the priest,
or to one of the priests among his descendants.
If the man is leprous and unclean,
the priest shall declare him unclean
by reason of the sore on his head.

Leviticus 13:2-3

“Leprosy” (Hebrew “tzaraat“) is first mentioned in chapters 13 and 14 of the Book of Leviticus. The term referred not only to many types of skin maladies but to ritual impurities and visually perceptible “punishments for sin”. In ancient times, someone suffering from an affliction as common as eczema might have been shunned as a leper.

Essentially, Levitical Law could base moral judgment of a person on their physical appearance. One might be seen to suffer physical deformity because of their own sins or the sins of their ancestors. The illness or deformity was then used as an excuse to condemn and isolate the suffering person.

Cleansing of the Leper by Harold Copping

Even though our scripture readings today are ostensibly about “leprosy”, they are about much more. Our readings challenge our ability or inability to see, love, and support our neighbor for who they are, not for how they appear. 

Jesus sees the person who comes to him, not the disease or disfigurement which inhibits him.

A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said,
“If you wish, you can make me clean.”
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, 
touched him, and said to him, 
“I do will it. Be made clean.”

Mark 1: 40-41

Praying with today’s Gospel reminds me of the powerful movie “Philadelphia” starring Tom Hanks who won an Academy Award for his role as Andrew Beckett, a lawyer suffering from AIDS.

“Philadelphia” is notable for being one of the first mainstream Hollywood films not only to explicitly address HIV/AIDS and homophobia, but also to portray gay people in a positive light.
Andrew Beckett is a senior associate at the largest corporate law firm in Philadelphia. He conceals his homosexuality and his status as an AIDS patient from others in the office. A partner in the firm notices a lesion on Beckett’s forehead. Although Beckett attributes the lesion to a racquetball injury, it indicates Kaposi’s sarcoma, an AIDS-defining condition.

wikipedia

My own reflection today benefitted from revisiting this scene from the film. Like any parable, the story invites us to find ourselves somewhere in it.

People can be cut off from society for many conditions, be they leprosy, AIDS, or any other visible impediment. But the underlying reason they are shunned is fear — something about the person frightens us, or threatens to upset our religious, political, or economic securities.

If we want to be like Jesus, we must move beyond those fears and judgments – to see and love the person whom Mercy sees.

Music: “La Mamma Morta”, a 1950 Studio recording by Renata Tebaldi

Those who remember this movie will also remember this beautiful aria, played when Denzel Washington comes to consult with Tom Hanks in his home. The moment is a turning point for Washington who is fighting his own fears and prejudices as he takes on Hank’s case.

“La mamma morta” (They killed my mother) is a soprano aria from act 3 of the 1896 opera Andrea Chénier by Umberto Giordano. It is sung by Maddalena di Coigny to Gérard about how her mother died protecting her during the turmoils of the French Revolution.

Selflessness

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, spirituality6 Comments

Saturday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
February 3, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020324.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings offer us insights into the ministry of leadership. They are insights worth pondering for at least these two reasons:

  • We are all called to be leaders in some way in our lives, be it as parent, teacher, supervisor, team captain, committee lead, board chair … you name it.
  • We need to be able to recognize good leaders in order to follow wisely, otherwise we are following self-interested fools determined to re-create us in their likeness.

In both our readings, leadership is characterized by this key element: selflessness.

Solomon, when given the chance to ask for anything he wants, asks for a gift that will benefit the community.

Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart
to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.

1 Kings 4:9

Jesus and the disciples, exhausted from the press of the crowd, still respond in mercy to their relentless needs

Jesus said to the disciples,
“Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”
People were coming and going in great numbers,
and they had no opportunity even to eat.
So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place.
People saw them leaving and many came to know about it.
They hastened there on foot from all the towns
and arrived at the place before them.

When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd,
his heart was moved with pity for them,
for they were like sheep without a shepherd;
and he began to teach them many things.

Mark 6: 30-34

As we daily focus our lives on becoming more like Christ, the practice of selflessness can be tricky – how to live selflessly without losing one’s self; how to foster common and individual good without depleting one’s own spiritual strength. To my mind, these things are important:

Honesty: I think the grounding virtue of a good leader is honesty – with others and with self. Once a leader starts to pretend, deceive, equivocate, feign ignorance, or outright lie, (even to themselves), they are no longer fit to lead.

Spiritual Discipline: When we look at Jesus’s life, we see that he practiced a cycle of ministry and prayer. Several times in the Gospel, Jesus withdraws to commune with the Father. Although Christ was in union with the Father at all times, he exercised his ministry around a personal discipline of solitude and prayer.

Discernment: Solomon understands the importance of this gift. What Solomon actually prays for is the sensitivity to practice the “cardinal virtues” that we learned long ago in catechism class. Remember? Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance.

Prose: Remember the Baltimore Catechism? Well, maybe some of you are too young to remember, Here’s how wikipedia defines it:

A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, Prepared and Enjoined by Order of the Third Council of Baltimore, or simply the Baltimore Catechism, was the national Catholic catechism for children in the United States, based on St. Robert Bellarmine’s 1614 Small Catechism. The first such catechism written for Catholics in North America, it was the standard Catholic school text in the country from 1885 to the late 1960s. From its publication, however, there were calls to revise it, and many other catechisms were used during this period. It was officially replaced by the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults in 2004, based on the revised universal Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Throughout my adult life, I have retained an appreciation for what I learned from the now-defunct edition of the Baltimore Catechism. While it conveyed the impression that a recipe for holiness could be compacted into a small manual, its inimitable Thomistic logic left valuable lessons with me to which I often return. Here are a few that informed my prayer today as I reflected on “selflessness”:

Besides the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity there are other virtues, called moral virtues.

These virtues are called moral virtues because they dispose us to lead moral, or good lives, by aiding us to treat persons and things in the right way, that is, according to the will of God.

The chief moral virtues are: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance; these are called cardinal virtues.

These virtues are called cardinal virtues because they are like hinges on which hang all the other moral virtues and our whole moral life. The word “cardinal” is derived from the Latin word “cardo” meaning hinge.

  • Prudence disposes us in all circumstances to form right judgments about what we must do or not do.
  • Justice disposes us to give everyone what belongs to them.
  • Fortitude disposes us to do what is good despite any difficulty.
  • Temperance disposes us to control our desires and to use rightly the things which please ourselves.

Music: Song of Solomon – Martin Smith

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