Category: Courage

The Key Hidden in Plain Sight

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Conversion, Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, spirituality2 Comments

Wednesday of the Third Week of Advent
December 20, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122023.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Isaiah foretells the conception and birth of the Messiah.

Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel.

Isaiah 7:14

Isaiah offered the prophecy to one of the bad guys of the Hebrew Scriptures – King Ahaz (who was, nevertheless, the 16th great-grandfather of Jesus in the long David line). But Ahaz refused to believe, subsequently pursuing his own agenda rather than God’s. Ahaz’s choice ended up in disaster for both the religious and social framework of Israel.

Isaiah had handed Ahaz the Key to believe
and to act in union with God’s Will,
but Ahaz remained closed to the grace.

About 700 years later, when an angel offers her the Key, a young girl opens her heart to the miracle Isaiah once prophesied.

In the sixth month,
the angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David,
and the virgin’s name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said,
“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end.”

Luke 1:26-33

The stark contrast between Ahaz’s and Mary’s responses encourages us to consider our own openness to God’s interventions in our lives. We live a series of experiences, learnings, mistakes, reminiscences, hopes, disappointments, and a thousand other turnings of circumstance and relationship. Each holds the potential to draw us closer to God if, by prayer and reverence, we can find the key hidden under human appearances.

We can hear Mary searching for that key in her question to the angel:

But Mary said to the angel,
“How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?”

Luke 1: 34

The angel assures Mary that there is a world transcending our perceptions where God’s power holds sway beyond all human calculation.

And the angel said to her in reply,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

Luke 1: 35

Expressing her profound faith and trust in God, Mary was able to suspend the limits of expectation and definition. Ahaz didn’t even try.

Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”

Luke 1: 38

Poetry: Annunciation – Marie Howe

Even if I don't see it again—nor ever feel it
I know it is—and that if once it hailed me
it ever does—
And so it is myself I want to turn in that direction
not as towards a place, but it was a tilting
within myself,
as one turns a mirror to flash the light to where
it isn't—I was blinded like that—and swam
in what shone at me
only able to endure it by being no one and so
specifically myself I thought I'd die
from being loved like that.

Music: The Annunciation from Rosary Sonata – Heinrich Biber

Look Up!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Courage, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality3 Comments

Memorial of Saint Lucy, Virgin and Martyr
Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent
December 13, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121323.cfm

St. Lucy – Giovanni Ricca (1603-56)

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we venerate St. Lucy, beloved and popular martyr of the 3rd century. Here is an encapsulation of her story from Wikipedia:

The oldest record of her story comes from the fifth-century Acts of the Martyrs. The single fact upon which various accounts agree is that a disappointed suitor accused Lucy of being a Christian, and she was executed in Syracuse, Sicily, in the year 304 during the Diocletianic Persecution. Her veneration spread to Rome, and by the sixth century to the whole Church. (Wiki)

The suitor was disappointed because Lucy chose to give her dowry to the poor - apparently the only reason he was marrying her. Tradition maintains that, at her martyrdom, Lucy's eyes were gouged out, an added violence of Diocletian who was angered at her prophecy of his impending downfall.

Isn’t it a bit amazing that an ordinary human story, as dramatic as it might have been, can endure for 2000 years?

We human beings treasure the witness of those whose courage and goodness we wish to imitate. They give us hope and wisdom. They light life’s way that is sometimes overshadowed by our worries. And we pass our confidences down to the generations we love hoping to strengthen them in faith.

The name “Lucy” comes from the Latin word “lux” which means “light”. St. Lucy’s life has inspired and illuminated the path for countless generations of believers, particularly those whose physical or spiritual sight or insight has been darkened or violated.

The same God who fired Lucy’s heart summons us today in the words of Isaiah. How fitting that we are called to lift up our eyes – to see, as Lucy did, beyond mere physical appearances, that our eternal Creator sustains us.

To whom can you liken me as an equal?
says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high
and see who has created these things:…

… Do you not know
or have you not heard?
The LORD is the eternal God,
creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint nor grow weary,
and his knowledge is beyond scrutiny.
He gives strength to the fainting;
for the weak he makes vigor abound.
Though young men faint and grow weary,
and youths stagger and fall,
They that hope in the LORD will renew their strength,
they will soar as with eagles’ wings;
They will run and not grow weary,
walk and not grow faint.

Isaiah 40:24-41, excerpts

Poetry: Saint Lucie’s Day by Thomas Merton

Lucy, whose day is in our darkest season,
(Although your name is full of light,)
We walkers in the murk and rain and flesh and sense,
Lost in the midnight of our dead world's winter solstice
Look for the fogs to open on your friendly star.
We have long since cut down the summer of our history;
Our cheerful towns have all gone out like fireflies in October.
The fields are flooded and the vines are bare:
How have our long days dwindled, and now the world is frozen!
Locked in the cold jails of our stubborn will,
Oh, hear the shovels growling in the gravel.
This is the way they'll make our beds forever,
Ours, whose Decembers have put out the sun:
Doors of whose souls are shut against the summertime!
Martyr, whose short day sees our winter and our Calvary,
Show us some light, who seem forsaken by the sky;
We have so dwelt in darkness that our eyes are screened
and dim,
And all but blinded by the weakest ray.
Hallow the vespers and December of our life,
O martyred Lucy:
Console our solstice with your friendly day.

Music: Candlelight Carol – John Rutter

St. Lucy’s inextinguishable faith was fired by the Light Whom we await this Advent. As we kindle our Advent candles, our hearts sing in renewed hope.

An Obstinate Faith

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Courage, Faith, Gospel, Hope, spirituality1 Comment

Thursday of the First Week of Advent
Memorial of Saint Ambrose, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
December 7, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/120723.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Isaiah describes the upside-down nature of God’s Reign:

Trust in the LORD forever!
For the LORD is an eternal Rock,
who humbles those in high places,
and the lofty city he brings down;
He tumbles it to the ground,
levels it with the dust.
It is trampled underfoot by the needy,
by the footsteps of the poor.

Isaiah 26:4-6

God humbles the haughty, dwindles the lofty, tramples the elite with the “footsteps of the poor”. Wow! God turns our messy world on its head to right it!

This eloquent prophecy was intended to bolster the hopes of Isaiah’s careworn exiled community. It imagines the embodiment of the hope for which they have no evidence. Isaiah tells a geographically imprisoned people that they will be the ultimate conquerors. He assures a shackled community that their trust will earn them jubilant liberation. He enjoins them to believe!

It is really hard to have that kind of faith and trust when we have no evidence of delivery from whatever imprisons or assails us. Sometimes we wait a lifetime for a prayer to be answered but it seems that it never is. Are we fools to keep believing under such circumstances? Or are we wise enough to trust that the answers have come in ways we could not yet discern?

Our Gospel summons us to the same type of wildly hopeful trust. Jesus says that we cannot foresee nor control what kind of weather will assail us in life. Therefore, we must have a firm and sure foundation in faith so that we may survive any storm.

Jesus tells us to hear the sacred word with integrity and to measure ourselves according to it, because simply murmuring “Lord, Lord” doesn’t merit a pass to eternal life.

Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them
will be like a wise one who built the house on rock. 
The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and buffeted the house. 
But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. 
And everyone who listens to these words of mine
but does not act on them
will be like a fool who built the house on sand. 
The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and buffeted the house. 
And it collapsed and was completely ruined.

Matthew 7:24-27

In this Advent time, let’s pray for a simple, wise and strong faith for ourselves and for those we love.

Prose: from On Obstinacy in Belief by C.S. Lewis

… a little bit long from Lewis but so worth it! If you like the excerpt, here’s a link to the entire essay:

https://thesewaneereview.com/articles/on-obstinacy-and-belief

Christians seem to praise an adherence to the original belief which holds out against any evidence whatever. I must now try to show why such praise is in fact a logical conclusion from the original belief itself.

This can be done best by thinking for a moment of situations in which the thing is reversed. In Christianity such faith is demanded of us; but there are situations in which we demand it of others. There are times when we can do all that a fellow creature needs if only he will trust us. 

In getting a dog out of a trap, in extracting a thorn from a child’s finger, in teaching a boy to swim or rescuing one who can’t, in getting a frightened beginner over a nasty place on a mountain, the one fatal obstacle may be their distrust. 

We are asking them to trust us in the teeth of their senses, their imagination, and their intelligence. We ask them to believe that what is painful will relieve their pain and that what looks dangerous is their only safety. We ask them to accept apparent impossibilities: that moving the paw further back into the trap is the way to get it out; that hurting the finger very much more will stop the finger hurting; that water which is obviously permeable will resist and support the body; that holding onto the only support within reach is not the way to avoid sinking; that to go higher and onto a more exposed ledge is the way not to fall. 

To support all these incredibilia we can rely only on the other party’s confidence in us—a confidence certainly not based on demonstration, admittedly shot through with emotion, and perhaps, if we are strangers, resting on nothing but such assurance as the look of our face and the tone of our voice can supply, or even, for the dog, on our smell. Sometimes, because of their unbelief, we can do no mighty works. 

But if we succeed, we do so because they have maintained their faith in us against apparently contrary evidence. No one blames us for demanding such faith. No one blames them for giving it. No one says afterward what an unintelligent dog or child or boy that must have been to trust us. If the young mountaineer were a scientist it would not be held against him, when he came up for a fellowship, that he had once departed from Clifford’s rule of evidence by entertaining a belief with strength greater than the evidence logically obliged him to.

Now to accept the Christian propositions is ipso facto to believe that we are to God, always, as that dog or child or bather or mountain climber was to us, only very much more so.

Music: Sheep May Safely Graze – J. S. Bach from from Cantata No. 208, “Was mir behagt” (Hunt Cantata), BWV 208, arr. by Egon Petri, (Oliver Schnyder – Piano)

A Message in Crisis

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Creation, Faith, Hope, Scripture, spiritualityLeave a comment

Friday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
December 1, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/120123.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Responsorial Psalm from Daniel gives us a beautiful prayer. But, in the first reading, we pray with some pretty dramatic passages from the Book of Daniel. I mean, it’s the stuff of a rather scary special effects movie!

Even Daniel indicates how disturbing his visions are:

Because of this, my spirit was anguished and I, Daniel,
was terrified by my visions.

Daniel 7:15

So does the Church, or maybe even God, want us to be disturbed in our prayer today and tomorrow with our last two readings before Advent?

Listen! If you’re not disturbed already by the strain of unholiness in the world, then Daniel isn’t going to rock your boat! But if you, like most good people, have trouble even watching the evening news without anguish, then Daniel is speaking to you.

The writer of Daniel was delivering a message to the people of their time. The visions of chapters 7–12 reflect the crisis which took place in Judea in 167–164 BCE when Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Greek king of the Seleucid Empire, threatened to destroy traditional Jewish worship in Jerusalem.

The message was:

  • pay attention to the changing world
  • focus on God in the disturbing change
  • choose to be faithful, hopeful, and brave
  • God will always remain faithful to us and most important of all:
  • God is coming to deliver us!

As with all Scripture, texts that spoke to an ancient people continue to speak to us. Our world suffers and hopes in the same way Daniel’s did. For us, the elements of today’s passage can serve as pre-Advent encouragements. Trusting them, we are moved to pray with all Creation which is ever steadfast in praising God:

Give glory and eternal praise to him!
“Mountains and hills, bless the Lord;
    praise and exalt him above all forever.”
“Everything growing from the earth
“You springs, bless the Lord;
“Seas and rivers, bless the Lord;
“You dolphins and all water creatures, bless the Lord;
“All you birds of the air, bless the Lord;
“All you beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord;
    praise and exalt him above all forever.”
R.    Give glory and eternal praise to him!

Poetry: The Second Coming – William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Music: Michael Hoppé – Shadows Fall

Breaking into Newness

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

Tuesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
November 28, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112823.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Daniel interprets a dream in which a statue spontaneously breaks apart, and Jesus warns that the beloved Temple will someday do the same thing. Our scriptures beg the question: how does one find strength to rebuild again?

We don’t like things to break apart that we hadn’t expected to break apart – even stupid things. I had a favorite old plastic mug that I loved to pack with ice and B.O.C. (beverage of choice) as I headed to the beach on a hot summer day. It was about a thousand years old but part of its famed origin was still visible on the faded side:

For some inexplicable reason, one morning I decided to pour my hot tea into that irreplaceable mug. It basically melted into itself like the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz. It wasn’t a tragedy tantamount to Daniel’s dream or the Temple collapsing, but I’ll tell you, I have NEVER since had a matching drink on the beach!

My treasured mug disintegrated because I used it for the wrong purpose. And that is also the point of both our readings. Daniel describes how the ensuing generations, who misuse their power, will disappear one after the other until God establishes the permanent reign of justice:

… the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile.
The iron mixed with clay tile
means that they shall seal their alliances by intermarriage,
but they shall not stay united, any more than iron mixes with clay.
In the lifetime of those kings
the God of heaven will set up a kingdom
that shall never be destroyed or delivered up to another people;
rather, it shall break in pieces all these kingdoms
and put an end to them, and it shall stand forever.

Daniel 2:42-44

Jesus describes the same dynamic in relationship to the Temple because its use has been diverted into material show and adornment rather than worship and the works of justice:

While some people were speaking about
how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings,
Jesus said, “All that you see here–
the days will come when there will not be left
a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.”

Luke 21:5

But, here’s the thing about God’s action to break up in our lives that which is no longer life-giving — the breakup will always yield new life if we can open our hearts to its grace.

As we look back over 2023, we may see a lot of disassembled pieces scattered across the landscape. Maybe some of the plans we had never flew, or maybe the string broke on some of the kites we’d been flying for years! There may have been small losses that seemed monumental at the time, or truly monumental losses whose significance has only deepened.

Wherever we stand amid our dreams and our temples, we can be sure of this as 2024 approaches: grace is always with us, renewing us in the ever clearer image of God.

This final week before Advent is a great time to take inventory of our spiritual lives. What needs to go and what needs to be strengthened? Most likely, we already know the answers. Now let’s gather the courage and focus to do what grace suggests.

Poem: Beginners – Denise Levertov

Levertov writes about hope, courage, justice, and mercy. The poem begins with a stanza from The Garden of Proserpine by Algernon Charles Swinburne, introduced by a dedication to activists Karen Silkwood and Eliot Gralia.

𝘋𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘒𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯 𝘚𝘪𝘭𝘬𝘸𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘌𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘵 𝘎𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘢

“From too much love of living,
Hope and desire set free,
Even the weariest river
Winds somewhere to the sea—“
– – – – – – –

But we have only begun
To love the earth.

We have only begun
To imagine the fullness of life.

How could we tire of hope?
— so much is in bud.

How can desire fail?
— we have only begun

to imagine justice and mercy,
only begun to envision

how it might be
to live as siblings with beast and flower,
not as oppressors.

Surely our river
cannot already be hastening
into the sea of nonbeing?

Surely it cannot
drag, in the silt,
all that is innocent?

Not yet, not yet—
there is too much broken
that must be mended,

too much hurt we have done to each other
that cannot yet be forgiven.

We have only begun to know
the power that is in us if we would join
our solitudes in the communion of struggle.

So much is unfolding that must
complete its gesture,

so much is in bud.

Music: Sacred River – Gandalf
As you experience this beautiful video, allow your spirit to remember the challenges and blessings of this past year that have brought you to this place with God, ready for a new beginning and a deeper love.

Trust not Fear

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, spirituality, suffering1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr
Wednesday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
November 22, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112223.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our two readings are dramatically intense. 

Who can read the story of the Maccabean Martyrs without a mix of horror, empathy, and astonishment?

It happened that seven brothers with their mother were arrested
and tortured with whips and scourges by the king,
to force them to eat pork in violation of God’s law.
Most admirable and worthy of everlasting remembrance was the mother,
who saw her seven sons perish in a single day,
yet bore it courageously because of her hope in the Lord.

2 Maccabees 7: 1;20

And don’t we all feel a pang of pity for the poor, fearful servant who hid his talent in a handkerchief much to the King’s displeasure?

‘Sir, here is your gold coin;
I kept it stored away in a handkerchief,
for I was afraid of you, because you are a demanding man;
you take up what you did not lay down
and you harvest what you did not plant.’
He said to him,
‘With your own words I shall condemn you,
you wicked servant.
You knew I was a demanding man,
taking up what I did not lay down
and harvesting what I did not plant;
why did you not put my money in a bank?

Luke 19:20-23

The two stories paint a contrasting picture of courageous faith against fearful subservience. The difference between the actors lies in their capacity, or lack thereof, to look beyond themselves toward eternal life.

The Courage of a Mother – Gustave Doré

Mother Maccabee bolsters her sons with her faith in a life beyond their current circumstances:

… the Creator of the universe
who shapes each man’s beginning,
as he brings about the origin of everything,
he, in his mercy,
will give you back both breath and life,
because you now disregard yourselves
for the sake of his law.

The poor soul in Jesus’s parable doesn’t have that faith and vision. His perception of God, represented by the King, is one of only harsh judgment. His fear causes him to bury not only his talent, but also his openness to the possibilities of grace and transformed relationship with God.

Jesus told his parable because indeed the Kingdom was at hand. He and his disciples were near Jerusalem where the Passion, Death and Resurrection events would begin.

He wants his followers to realize the challenging gift they have been given in their call to be his disciples. He wants them to see that it is now on them to magnify his message courageously and generously until he returns to perfect the Kingdom.

He wants us to understand that too.

Poetry – John Milton, Sonnet 19

Milton (1608- 1674) is widely considered one of the preeminent writers of the English language. By 1652, Milton had become totally blind and had to dictate his verse. He appears to wonder, in this sonnet, how his God-given talent for writing will be enhanced now that he is “light denied”. He looks to another parable for his answer – the Parable of the Workers. Even those who only stood and waited were rewarded.

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Music:   Be Not Afraid – written by Bob Dufford, SJ, sung here by Cat Jahnke

Stretching for God

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

Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Tuesday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
November 21, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112123.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings are about living in the big picture of God’s vision for us.

Lk19_3 forest_trees

Once again, we meet Zacchaeus who, due to his short stature, was unable to get a glimpse of Jesus walking nearby. He wasn’t getting the whole picture but he wanted to!

Zacchaeus ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus,
who was about to pass that way.
When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said,
“Zacchaeus, come down quickly,
for today I must stay at your house.”
And he came down quickly and received him with joy.

Luke 19:4-5

Sometimes we miss Christ in our midst, don’t we? It may be because we’re “short” on time, patience, faith, attention, courage, peace, desire … you name it.

Zacchaeus may have been physically short, but he was tall in will and intention to see Jesus. The trees became his tools, not his obstacles.

In our first reading, Eleazar was a giant in the virtues necessary to “see beyond the trees” of his current circumstances. A more spiritually short-sighted person might have succumbed to the temptation to save himself at the cost of his faith and witness.

But Eleazar’s faith was long, both in years and in depth. He kept the eyes of his heart focused on that faith and was delivered beyond any short-sighted choices.

Eleazar made up his mind in a noble manner,
worthy of his years, the dignity of his advanced age,
the merited distinction of his gray hair,
and of the admirable life he had lived from childhood;
and so he declared that above all
he would be loyal to the holy laws given by God.

2 Maccabees 6:23

It’s hard sometimes to see the forest beyond the trees – to direct our choices, attitudes, and actions by a vision we glimpse only in the stretch of faith and prayer.

Perhaps these two God-seekers can inspire us today by their courage, steadfastness and faith to always live within God’s long eternal vision for us.

Zaccheus – by Richard Medrington

I hope you enjoy this clever poem as much as I did.

Here’s a man we all despise,
Damn his hide and damn his eyes.
Pray that God will some day free us,
From that loathsome leech Zacchaeus.
See him sitting at his table,
Takes as much tax as he’s able,
Stashes some away for later,
Dirty, double-dealing traitor.
Lord of liars, chief of crooks,
Look at how he cooks the books!
Renders what is ours to Caesar,
Cheating, money-grubbing geezer.
He’s the man we love to hate,
Vulgar, vapid reprobate,
Lounging in his lavish house,
Cringing toady, thieving louse.
Wonder how he got so rich?
Greedy, filching, little snitch.
We would lynch the poison gnome,
Were he not employed by Rome.
Then when Jesus comes to town,
See his smile turn to a frown!
Though he’s arrogant and proud,
He cannot see above the crowd.
How we laugh to see him squirm,
Nasty, creeping, crawling worm,
But here’s a thing not seen before:
A sell-out in a sycamore!
Now he’s shouting from the tree,
“Jesus, Jesus look at me!”
Hope he falls, the tiresome tyke,
Falls and lands upon a spike.
Careful Jesus. Don’t be conned,
Just ignore him, don’t respond.
Move on quickly, if you linger
He will twist you round his finger.
Then a voice rings loud and clear,
“Zack mate, get yourself down here!
I spy you in that sycamore,
And you’re the man I’m looking for.”
Now he’s off to have his dinner
With a man who is a sinner
And a traitor to our nation!
He’s gone down in our estimation.
Fraternising with our foe,
Of all the places he could go!
Who would think a man like that
Would take his meals with such a rat?
I beg your pardon, did you say
Zach’s giving half his wealth away?
Dispensing money to the poor?
This too has not been seen before.
And if he’s asked for too much tax
He’s giving fourfold rebates back?
Well, that’s amazing! If it’s true,
There’s going to be a massive queue.
I’m not that easy to deceive.
When I see it, I’ll believe.
He’ll fleece us when the Master’s gone,
It’s just another taxman’s con.
But Jesus says, “It is no scam,
He is a son of Abraham.
Salvation landed here today,
I seek for those who’ve gone astray,
And even though you think it strange,
Occasionally people change,
So do not look at him askance
But give the man a second chance.”
Of course at first this all seemed grand,
The thought of all that cash in hand!
But very soon we came to see
That nothing in this world is free.
In righteous wrath we had estranged him,
Then someone came along and changed him!
Thank you, Jesus. Smashing! Great!
Now there’s no one left to hate!
Since Zach is generous and kind
We’ve nothing left to hide behind.
He radiates with joy and thus
His kindly light exposes us.
His very presence seems to say,
“My life has changed from night to day.
Now tell me what is stopping you
From changing things in your life too?”
So here’s the source of our complaints:
Zacchaeus made us feel like saints,
But now we must admit it’s true
That we are rotten sinners too.
We pray that God will soon restore
Zacchaeus as he was before,
Or Jericho shall rue the day
That Jesus chose to pass this way.

Music: Zacchaeus – An oldie but goodie from Sister Miriam Therese Winter and the Medical Mission Sisters

Endurance

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

Monday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
November 20, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112023.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we enter the liturgical year’s final two weeks. Our companions from the Hebrew Scriptures will be the Maccabees and Daniel. Our New Testament companion will continue to be the eloquent Luke.

The singular virtue proclaimed through the Books of Maccabees and Daniel is this: FAITHFUL ENDURANCE. As we approach the “end times” of our Liturgical Year, the Church is reminding us to pursue and value this virtue in our own lives.

Anthiochos – Michel Francois DandrE Bardon
(Anthiochos IV Epiphanes Orders the Massacre of the Maccabees)

In today’s passage from Maccabees, we read about King Antiochus Epiphanes’s sacrilegious enculturation of the Israelites in an attempt to gain civil appeasement and material prosperity. Antiochus was a mean and bad guy. Likely because he felt his power threatened by them, he tried – in the vilest of ways – to suppress the Jews and their religious culture. The Book of Maccabees is the story of Jews who stood up to the suppression.

In our Gospel, Jesus meets a blind person who pleads with him, “Lord, please let me see!”. Jesus restores the person’s vision with the assurance that faith has wrought the miracle. In other words, the blind person already “saw” in a deeper way because of faith. That faith offered the insight to engage Jesus’s Divine Power for complete healing.

Because of their profound faith, the Maccabees could see through the king’s faithless campaign. They could endure ruthless persecution to remain faithful to the God they believed in.

Few of us will meet the kind of physical persecution for the faith endured by the Maccabees. But throughout our lives, our fidelity will be ruthlessly tested by our culture. We will continually be tempted to compromise our faithful practice for the sake of convenience, appeasement, material prosperity, or advantage over others.

And so often we are blind to these enculturations. We become insensitive or indifferent to the injustices and fallacies of our culture and how they might be affecting our attitudes, choices, and behavior.

As we journey with the Maccabees, Daniel, and Luke over these two weeks, let’s pray for clear vision and courageous action around the profound sacrileges of our times: war, violence, irreverence for life, exaltation of gun culture, economic domination, immigration injustice, and the many systemic “isms” by which we marginalize our sisters and brothers.

Prayer: Our Responsorial Psalm today offers a powerful plea to be delivered from the culture of death so predominant in our world:

R. Give me life, O Lord, and I will do your commands.
Indignation seizes me because of the wicked
who forsake your law.
R. Give me life, O Lord, and I will do your commands.
Though the snares of the wicked are twined about me,
your law I have not forgotten.
R. Give me life, O Lord, and I will do your commands.
Redeem me from the oppression about me,
that I may keep your precepts.
R. Give me life, O Lord, and I will do your commands.
I am attacked by malicious persecutors
who are far from your law.
R. Give me life, O Lord, and I will do your commands.
Far from sinners is salvation,
because they seek not your statutes.
R. Give me life, O Lord, and I will do your commands.
I beheld the apostates with loathing,
because they kept not to your promise.
R. Give me life, O Lord, and I will do your commands.

Music: For What It’s Worth – Buffalo Springfield

Swooped into God!

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

Memorial of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary
Friday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
November 17, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111723.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our two readings remind us that the journey into God is an ever-deepening passage to which we must continually open our hearts.

The Wisdom writer addresses those who sincerely seek God, but who cannot see beyond God’s handiwork. So they are satisfied to make gods of these created wonders:

All persons were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God,
and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is,
and from studying the works did not discern the artisan;
But either fire, or wind, or the swift air,
or the circuit of the stars, or the mighty water,
or the luminaries of heaven, the governors of the world, they considered gods.
Now if out of joy in their beauty they thought them gods,
let them know how far more excellent is the Lord than these;
for the original source of beauty fashioned them.

Wisdom 13:1-3

The writer seems astounded that these seekers get lost on their way to full knowledge of God:

For they search busily among his works,
but are distracted by what they see,
because the things seen are fair.
But again, not even these are pardonable.
For if they so far succeeded in knowledge
that they could speculate about the world,
how did they not more quickly find its Lord?

Wisdom 13: 7-9

I don’t find it so astounding. The invisible God we love and worship can be elusive, and the world through which we seek that God can be deeply distracting. I think it’s pretty easy to get stuck worshipping signs of God (which we can see) rather than God (Whom we cannot see). I think that’s what Jesus might have meant when he said, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.”

Our Gospel reading gives us a hint about truly seeking God. It’s a reading I have always found a little bit scary. As a child, I envisioned myself, or the dear person next to me, getting swooped up in some unexpected divine tornado. It wasn’t a comfortable image.

I tell you, on that night there will be two people in one bed;
one will be taken, the other left.
And there will be two women grinding meal together;
one will be taken, the other left.”
They said to him in reply, “Where, Lord?”
He said to them, “Where the body is,
there also the vultures will gather.”

Luke 17: 34-37

I mean, really, this is nobody’s favorite scripture passage! But what can it teach us? Maybe this: just like the unfulfilled worshippers in our Wisdom passage, the folks Jesus describes were distracted by the necessities and frivolities of life. In their spiritual journeys, they had not fully opened their hearts to the holy expectation of God. When God comes in a swoop of Infinite Grace, they’re just not ready for the swooping!

In our readings today, both the Wisdom writer and Jesus are encouraging us to meet every life experience as an opportunity to move deeper into the mystery of God.

The Wise One tells us to look beyond the beautiful distractions of our lives into the One Who ordains them:

Now if out of joy in their beauty they thought them gods,
let them know how far more excellent is the Lord than these;
for the original source of beauty fashioned them.

Wisdom 13:3

And Jesus very bluntly tells us that our visible experiences hold a deeper meaning that we will never know unless we yield our life fully to God’s transforming grace:

Whoever seeks to preserve their life will lose it,
but whoever loses it will save it.

Luke 17:33

Poetry: If only there were stillness, full, complete – Rainer Maria Rilke

If only there were stillness, full, complete.
If all the random and approximate
were muted, with neighbors’ laughter, for your sake,
and if the clamor that my senses make
did not confound the vigil I would keep —
Then in a thousandfold thought I could think
you out, even to your utmost brink,
and (while a smile endures) possess you, giving
you away, as though I were but giving thanks,
to all the living.

Music: Jessye Norman – Sanctus from Messe solennelle de Sainte Cécile in G major, by Charles Gounod

I never hear this piece without being awestruck by Ms. Norman’s magnificent voice. I had the great joy of meeting her and working with her briefly on a project over thirty years ago. She was majestic in every way. May she rest in Peace.

Outrageous Faith

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini
Monday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
November 13, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111323.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we have only three weeks left in Ordinary Time before Advent. Today, we begin a week of first readings from the beautifully written Book of Wisdom.

These will be counterpointed by readings from Luke 17, filled with familiar images like millstones, mustard seeds, ungrateful lepers, a grateful one, and the one plowman taken from a field while the shocked other is left.

While our Gospel readings call us to be alert to the end of time and the coming of the Reign of God, our Wisdom readings – while cautionary – stretch us beyond time to the awareness of an Eternal Love rooted in our own hearts:

For wisdom is a kindly spirit,
yet she acquits not the blasphemer of their guilty lips;
Because God is the witness of the inmost self
and the sure observer of the heart
and the listener to the tongue.
For the Spirit of the Lord fills the world,
is all-embracing, and knows what the human heart says.

Wisdom 1: 6-7

In our Gospel, Jesus calls us to model goodness, practice forgiveness, and exercise an outrageous faith.

And the Apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”
The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed,
you would say to this mulberry tree,
‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

Luke 17: 5-6

Perhaps we’re not really too interested in throwing a mulberry tree into the sea, but let’s desire to live our faith so fully that the world considers us outrageously foolish for the sake of Christ.

Thinking about that this morning, I remember dear Mr. Stein, the owner of the delicatessen where I worked throughout my high school years. The Stein family loved me and all were so kind to me. But when I told them I would be leaving to enter the convent, they were shocked and terribly upset. You would have thought I was leaving for a life sentence in Sing Sing! Mr. Stein took me aside and said, “Renee, please don’t be so foolish and waste your life! I’ll buy you a new car if you don’t go!”

Besides the fact that I didn’t drive at the time, Mr. Stein’s offer didn’t sway me. I knew the treasure I had found. I just hoped that, watching my life unfold over the coming years, Mr. Stein (and quite a few other skeptics!) might recognize the treasure too.
(P.S. I didn’t learn to drive for almost another twenty years!)

Poetry: The Mustard Seed – Meister Eckhart

I.

In the Beginning
High above understanding
Is ever the Word.
O rich treasure,
There the Beginning always bore the Beginning.
O Father’s Breast,
From thy delight
The Word ever flows!
Yet the bosom
Retains the Word, truly.

II.

From the two as one source,
The fire of love.
The bond of both,
Known to both,
Flows the All-Sweet Spirit
Co-equal,
Undivided
The Three are One.
Do you understand why? No.
It best understands itself.

III.

The bond of three
Causes deep fear.
Of this circle
There is no understanding.
Here is a depth without ground.
Check and mate
To time, forms, place!
The wondrous circle
Is the Principle,
Its point never moves.

IV.

The mountain of this point
Ascend without activity.
O intellect!
The road leads you
Into a marvelous desert,
So broad, so wide,
It stretches out immeasurably.
The desert has,
Neither time nor place,
Its mode of being is singular.

V.

The good desert
No foot disturbs it,
Created being
Never enters there:
It is, and no one knows why.
It is here, it is there,
It is far, it is near,
It is deep, it is high,
It is in such a way
That it is neither this nor that.

VI.

It is light, it is clear,
It is totally dark,
It is unnamed,
It is unknown,
Free of beginning or end.
It stands still,
Pure, unclothed.
Who knows its dwelling?
Let him come forth
And tells us what sort it is.

VII.

Become like a child,
Become deaf, become blind.
Your own something
Must become nothing;
Drive away all something, all nothing!
Leave place, leave time,
Avoid even image!
Go without a way
On the narrow path,
Then you will find the desert’s track.

VIII.

O my soul,
Go out, let God in!
Sink all my something
In God’s nothing.
Sink in the bottomless flood!
If I flee from You,
You come to me.
If I lose myself,
Then I find You,
O Goodness above being!

Music: This Ancient Love – Carolyn McDade