Category: Courage

Psalm 19: What Is Truth?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Faith, justice, ordinary time, Poetry, PsalmsLeave a comment

Saturday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

Saturday, January 16, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 19, a hymn to the beauty of God’s Law.

The law of the LORD is perfect,
    refreshing the soul;
The decree of the LORD is trustworthy,
   giving wisdom to the simple.

Psalm 19: 8

Placed as it is in today’s liturgy, the psalm brings added emphasis to our exquisite first reading from Hebrews:

The Word of God is living and effective,
sharper than any two-edged sword,
penetrating even between soul and spirit,
joints and marrow,
and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.

Hebrews 4: 12

LAW…WORD…TRUST…TRUTH…WISDOM…SPIRIT

These themes shout out to us from today’s readings. And they need to shout in order to be heard above the clamor of a culture that has so enfeebled “truth” that it can barely speak.

At the electoral confirmation hearings, after the Capitol insurrection, Mitt Romney bravely said, “The best way we could show respect for the voters who are upset is by telling them the truth”.

Unfortunately, this seems to be a novel idea in our fallacious political culture.

Praying Psalm 19 challenges me to recognize my role in reclaiming a mutually truthful, respectful, and reverently attentive society. It also summons me to demand the same from my political and religious leaders.

Poetry: two poems today

truth - Gwendolyn Brooks
And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?
Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years—
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?
Shall we not shudder?—
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?
Sweet is it, sweet is it
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.
The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes.

And this one from a Franciscan friend and revered mentor in social justice – Marie Lucey, OSF

A Justice- Seeker’s Journey
In high school art class—and in life--
I stayed within the lines.
“Timid soul,” the teacher branded me.
In English class I stood—green girl
in more ways than uniform--
to argue with the wiser nun
that men were more intelligent than women.
(Forgive me, God, and sisters!)

How did I get from there—a lifetime ago--
to here?
Over time layers of knowing peeled away,
core truths revealed.
Cries of people suffering—oppression,
injustice, human cruelty,
and my own dark nights,
insisted that I stand up, speak up, act up,
kneel down, reach out, reach in,
march, be cuffed and fined,
and even jailed just once.
Neither brave nor timid
I try to follow Jesus
who walked outside the lines.

Music: The Trouble with Truth – Joan Baez

Oh the trouble with the truth
Is it’s always the same old thing
So hard to forget, so impossible for me to change
Every time I try to fight it
I know I’ll be left to blame.

Oh the trouble with the truth
Is it’s always the same old thing
And the trouble with the truth
Is it’s just what I need to hear
Ringing so right, deep down inside my ear.


And it’s everything I want
And it’s everything I fear
Oh the trouble with the truth
Is it’s just what I need to hear

It had ruined the taste of the sweetest lies
Burned through my best alibis
Every sin that I deny
Keeps hanging round my door
Oh the trouble with the truth
Is it always begs for more

That’s the trouble, trouble with the truth
That’s the trouble, trouble with the truth
And the trouble with the truth
Is it just won’t let me rest
I run and hide, but there’s always another test
And I know that it won’t let me be
‘Till I’ve given it my best
The trouble with the truth
Is it just won’t let me rest

Psalm 78: Don’t Forget

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Faith, Forgiveness, ordinary time, Poetry, Psalms2 Comments

Friday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

January 15, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 78, a call to learn from experience and to teach its lessons to our posterity.

What we have heard and know,
and what our parents have declared to us,
we will declare to the generation to come
The glorious deeds of the LORD and his strength.

Psalm 78: 3-4

And the teaching is this:

That they too may rise and declare to their progeny
that they should put their hope in God,
And not forget the deeds of God
but keep God’s commands.

Psalm 78: 6-7

Though stern, the message seems obvious and simple, right?

But the last verses of our psalm today reveal a more complex historical reality:

And not be like their fathers,
a generation wayward and rebellious,
A generation that kept not its heart steadfast
nor its spirit faithful toward God.

Psalm 78: 8

In later verses of Psalm 78, Israel’s rebellion finally becomes the last straw. God rejects Israel (the northern kingdom) and chooses the southern kingdom to carry on the Promise. It was BIG!

But they tested and rebelled against God Most High,
whose decrees they did not observe.
They turned disloyal, faithless like their ancestors;
they proved false like a slack bow.
They enraged God with their high places,
and with their idols provoking God to jealous anger.
God heard and grew angry;
rejecting Israel completely.

Psalm 78: 56-59

Praying with the psalm today, my soul still swirling in our country’s current events, I ask myself a few questions:

  • how is God speaking in our political reality
  • what “forgetfulness” are we called to recognize
  • what role does acknowledgement and repentance have in redeeming our integrity
  • what has our experience taught us that we must safeguard for the future
  • how can we unite as a faith community to respond to grace

This commentary by Tom Roberts, former editor of the National Catholic Reporter, enlightened my prayer. I found it disturbing, compelling, and necessary to think on these things. I pray for the courage and discipline to act on them.

Tom Roberts Article

Poem: excerpt from “ON THE PULSE OF MORNING” by Maya Angelou
Presidential Inauguration Ceremony, January 20, 1993.
(It is a long, powerful poem. I will post it in a second posting for those who would like to read it in full.)

A Rock, A River, A Tree
 Hosts to species long since departed,   
 Marked the mastodon,
 The dinosaur, who left dried tokens   
 Of their sojourn here
 On our planet floor,
 Any broad alarm of their hastening doom   
 Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
 

 But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,   
 Come, you may stand upon my
 Back and face your distant destiny,
 But seek no haven in my shadow,
 I will give you no hiding place down here.
 

 You, created only a little lower than
 The angels, have crouched too long in   
 The bruising darkness
 Have lain too long
 Facedown in ignorance,
 Your mouths spilling words
 Armed for slaughter.
 

 The Rock cries out to us today,   
 You may stand upon me,   
 But do not hide your face.

Music: Learn Your Lessons Well from Godspell

Psalm 97: Ordinary?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Love, ordinary time, Poetry, PsalmsLeave a comment

Monday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

January 11,2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 97 which reminds us that, as Jesus begins his earthly ministry, he is accompanied by the unseen powers of heaven.

The heavens proclaim his justice,
and all peoples see his glory.
Let all his angels worship him.

Psalm 97: 6-7

The psalm is reflective of the glorious passage from our first reading describing the Divinity of Jesus:

The Son of God is…
the refulgence of God’s glory, 
the very imprint of God’s being,
who sustains all things by his mighty word.
When he had accomplished purification from sins, 
he took his seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
as far superior to the angels
as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Hebrews 1: 3-4

These seem perfect readings to begin a season described as “Ordinary Time” because they remind us that the power of Jesus Christ is far from ordinary.

And our days do not feel like ordinary times, do they? They are both fraught with threat and charged with hope.

They are times belabored by pandemic struggle, political vitriol, climate dissolution, global strife and systemic oppression.

But they are also times bristling with breakthrough discovery, civic renewal, social consciousness, communal courage and spiritual awakening.

Just as in our Gospel on this first day of “Ordinary Time”, Jesus asks his disciples to “Come”, dream extraordinary dreams with him, so he asks us. 

– He asks us to believe
that there are unseen angels attending us.
 
– He asks us to remember that we, like him,
are made in the refulgent image of God.

– He calls us, like Simon and Andrew, to believe
that our “ordinary time” is actually the “time of fulfillment”:

This is the time of fulfillment.
The Kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, and believe in the Gospel.

Mark 1:15

Poetry: Maya Angelou – Touched by an Angel

We, unaccustomed to courage,
exiles from delight,
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

Music: Ordinary Time – Marie Bellet

There will come a day for quiet kitchen mornings
Lunches with the girls, book clubs in the afternoon
There will come a day for chintz flowers on my sofa
Just the perfect lipstick, matching purse and shoes.

There will come a day without constant interruption
Confusing all my senses, my reason and my rhyme
But for now I trip on the backpacks in the hallway
Scrub the crayon from the walls that mark this ordinary time.

There will come a day for uneventful dinners
When no one drops their fork or spills their milk upon the floor
There will come a day, I’ll be wiser, I’ll be thinner
I will finish conversations before running out the door.

Well, isn’t that the way it is for all those happy women
Who smile at me from magazines there in the checkout line?
What about the tired, the simple and forgotten?
Blessed be the ordinary here in ordinary time.

He said “Who will feed my sheep?
Who will heed their cry?”
I said “I am vain and weak
But surely I will try.

You know everything
And You know that I’m
Just an ordinary woman 
here in ordinary time”.

There will come a day when everything is order
And I will be the queen of everything I see
But how my heart will leap to find one backpack in the hallway
With the promise of a face, and a story just for me.

So may I never yearn for those cocktail conversations
Clever observations made for fashionable minds
May I finally learn to be happy and have patience
With the constant changing rhythm of this ordinary time,
The constant changing rhythm of this ordinary time.

Psalm 72: Endow Our Leaders in Justice

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Faith, justice, Poetry, Psalms1 Comment

Thursday after Epiphany

January 7, 2020

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with another glance at Psalm 72. The verses offered us today jarred me when I first read them. And then they began to speak, even shout, to my spirit.

Praying with the Psalms will not benefit us
if they do not speak to our experience.
Today, Psalm 72 clearly spoke to mine.

I am outraged that my country finds itself continually at the edge of violence and unrest solely on the bidding of one to whom we have entrusted our well-being.

I am beyond sick of normalizing the outrageous irresponsibility of Donald Trump. The sickness has seeped into my prayer and my peace. It causes me sleepless concern for my country and our world.

As I pray Psalm 27 today, I seek a grace from its ancient words. I seek a blessing for our own time.

O God, with your judgment endow the leaders,
    and with your justice, those who legislate;
Let your people be governed with justice
   and your afflicted ones with mercy.

Psalm 72:1-2

As we move through these final fractious days of a deeply disturbing presidency, let us pray for civility, justice, honor, and peace not only for America but for all throughout the world who depend on our integrity.

Poetry: Beclouded by Emily Dickinson

The sky is low, the clouds are mean,
A travelling flake of snow
Across a barn or through a rut
Debates if it will go.
A narrow wind complains all day
How some one treated him;
Nature, like us, is sometimes caught
Without her diadem.

Music: Be a Blessing (Psalm 72) Richard Bruxvoort Colligan

Under Mary’s Protection

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Faith, Gospel, Hope4 Comments

January 1, 2021
Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

Today’s Readings

( I was invited to offer a reflection for my community for the celebration of New Year’s. I wanted to share it with our larger community here.)

Over the threshold of midnight, we step into the New Year 2021.

And, oh, how we have longed for it

  • ⁃ run toward it 
  • ⁃ run away from what the old year pressed on us 
  • ⁃ from what we heard unceasingly referred to as “these unsettling times”

Dear friends the phrase puts it mildly, doesn’t it?

Every one of us- to some degree- has felt the

  • loss 
  • sadness 
  • fear 
  • anxiety 
  • loneliness

We have been tested in our faith

  • our hope 
  • our love 
  • and, surely, our courage

Some have walked through the middle of hell
and some only on the edge.
But we have all felt its fire.

We are a world truly brought to its knees as we clothe ourselves in 2021’s first morning.

We come to our prayer to do as our reading from Numbers encourages us, emboldens us to do – to seek a blessing for the New Year:

May the Lord bless us and keep us 
shine the face of mercy on us 
be gracious to us 
look upon us kindly 
give us peace

But how will we find such a blessing, my friends, when we know that its hope is hidden in the unrelenting circumstances of our lives?

Let’s consider our Gospel today.
Just as Christ lay shining 
but in the damp hay of a dark manger…
Just as the word of his coming was announced 
but by rude shepherds who carried the angelic words,
so the blessing will come to us….clothed in the ordinariness of what we already know.

And it is this:

The power of God is always hidden 
in the flesh of our daily lives.

Let us turn to Mary today to remind ourselves of this mystery.

Before the Annunciation, when young Mary imagined the Messiah’s coming, do you think she pictured a godforsaken manger and a birth in a barn?

Do you think she imagined herself receiving ponderable angelic words through the mouths of illiterate shepherds?

Our inscrutable God comes to us
in ways we never imagine … yes, dear friends, even through pandemic suffering,
and the painful graces
it breaks open in our hearts.

Mary, whom we celebrate and invoke today, shows us how to take the next step into a new year —a year that will not perceptibly change in its challenges for some time to come.

It, too, will be filled with what looks like mangers and shepherds rather than the heavenly palaces and angels we might desire.

But Mary shows us that faith finds God by surrender to the grace of our ordinary lives.

Today, what we pray for one another through Mary’s intercession, is the grace to find the blessing in this mystery.

We pray to be encouraging witnesses for one another of:

  • faith even in darkness
  • resilience and courage during extraordinary challenge
  • hope in the face of discouragement
  • perseverance when we languish
  • loving service despite fear
  • Mercy pouring over pain

When we do these things, we become the blessing that we seek.

When we, like Mary, keep these things in our heart, we allow Christ to be born again even in our “unsettling” times.

Maria de Mercede, fresco by Domenico Ghirlandaio (c. 1472)

The most ancient prayer to Mary is the Sub Tuum Praesidium, dating from the 2nd century. It seems a perfect way to close our reflection today, and to open our hearts to hope for the New Year:

Under your protection,
we take our refuge, 
O Holy Mother of God:
despise not our petitions in our necessities,
but deliver us from all evil,
O pure and blessed one.
Amen.

A truly blessed and joyful New Year to you all, Beloveds.

Music: Sub Tuum Praesidium in Latin (see above for English)

Psalm 96: Let the Whole Earth Sing

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, FaithLeave a comment

The Fifth Day in the Octave of Christmas

December 29, 2020

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 96, an exuberant song of praise and an imperative to radical hope.

Sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all you lands.
Sing to the LORD; bless the Holy Name.

In the scriptures, hope is both a spiritual and political act. Hope stands up in the midst of pressing contradictions and declares, “God is with us. We give praise because of this conviction”.

Walter Brueggemann defines these elements in true praise:

  • First, praise is an act of imagination, not description. It sees the world through the lens of faith and dares to line out a world engaged in dialogical transactions between Creator and Creation.
  • Second, hymns of praise are acts of devotion with political and polemical overtones. Their work is to engage in “world making.” The very act of praise itself envisions a new world, a different world, a world alternative to the one in front of us.
  • Third, the Psalms voice and are embedded in a larger narrative in which YHWH (God) is the key character and lively agent.
  • Fourth, doxology (praise) is the exuberant abandonment of self over to God. In singing praise, all claims for the self are given up as the self is ceded over to God.
  • And fifth, such songs do not passively accommodate to an economic, political, and psychological status quo. They run the risks of being disruptive for the sake of another world —

—- a “Christed” world in which God is intimately engaged with our lives.

Thus we can rejoice in the closing verses of this dynamic psalm:

Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice;
let the sea and what fills it resound;g
let the plains be joyful and all that is in them.
Then let all the trees of the forest rejoice
before the LORD who comes,
who comes to govern the earth,
To govern the world with justice
and the peoples with faithfulness.

Psalm 96: 12-14

As the new week unfolds, and we move lingeringly away from Christmas comforts, we may forget what we have just commemorated…

Emmanuel- God With Us

As we re-enter a world still in frightening shadows, we must believe in the Light. As we slowly re-robe in the clothing of our daily responsibilities, we must not forget the Garment of Salvation we have just celebrated and received. 

Our Psalm calls us to be a daily witness to the Love we have been given:

Announce the Lord’s salvation, day after day.
Tell the Lord’s glory among the nations;
among all peoples, God’s wondrous deeds.

Psalm 96:2-3

Poetry: Hope by Philip Booth

Old spirit, in and beyond me,
keep and extend me. Amid strangers
friends, great trees and big seas breaking,
let love move me. Let me hear the whole music,
see clear, reach deep. Open me to find due words,
that I may shape them to ploughshares of my own making.
After such luck, however late, give me to give to
the oldest dance… Then to good sleep,
and - if it happens - glad waking.

Music: Sing a New Song – J.P. Putnam, sung here by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

I wanna sing a new song
Shout it out louder than before
Let the whole earth sing
The whole earth sing
Yeah yeah
Oh-oh-oh...

There is a place
We can seek his face
Changed in his presence
Touched by his grace

There is a sound
I hear it all around
Worship is rising
And people crying out

I wanna sing a new song
Shout it out louder than before
Let the whole earth sing
The whole earth sing

It's a song of praise
A song for all of the redeem
Let the whole earth sing
The whole earth sing

Never the same
He's taken my chains
There's freedom in Jesus
Power to save
There is a name
Like no other name (like no other name)
There's freedom in Jesus

(Come on, let's shout it)
Shout out his name
I wanna sing a new song
Shout it out louder than before
Let the whole earth sing
The whole earth sing
It's a song of praise
A song for all of the redeemed

Let the whole earth sing
The whole earth sing
Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I wanna sing a new song
Shout it out louder than before
Let the whole earth sing
The whole earth sing
It's a song of praise
A song for all of the redeem

Let the whole earth sing
The whole earth sing
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Oh yes, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah say
(Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah)

One more time sing
(Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah)
Somebody say God, you're glorious
(God, you are glorious)
God, you are glorious
(God, you are glorious)

Psalm 31: Soak in the Graces

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Eternal Life, FaithLeave a comment

Feast of Saint Stephen, first martyr

December 26, 2020

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, as we celebrate the Feast of St. Stephen, we pray with Psalm 31.

The Stoning of St. Stephen – Giovanni Lucini

Even while the gentle lights of Christmas linger, the Church reminds us that life in Christ requires a complete self-donation. Like Stephen, we pray to embrace that cost with courage and faith:

Into your hands I commend my spirit;
you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God.
I will rejoice and be glad because of your mercy.

Psalm 31: 6-8

Liturgically, we will be in the Christmas and Epiphany Season until January 10th. We have plenty of time to soak up the heavenly lights and the angelic songs as we slowly step back into an often shadowy world.

And I think the Church puts Stephen’s martyrdom so starkly at this juncture to remind us to SOAK – to fill our tanks with Christmas grace so that we are ready to accompany Christ in his ministry.

Be my rock of refuge,
a stronghold to give me safety.
You are my rock and my fortress;
for your name’s sake you will lead and guide me.

Psalm 31: 3-4
Nativity with San Lorenzo and San Francesco – Caravaggio

While your crèche is still enshrined in your home, take a morning to kneel beside Mary. Ask to learn her secrets for living fully in Christ. 

  • Do the same one morning with Joseph. Learn from his silent strength.
  • Learn from the shepherds who received astounding revelation with simple, unquestioning faith.
  • Learn from the animals who stand pure and guileless in the presence of God.
  • Ask to be ready, like Stephen, to give everything for what you learn.

I trust in you, LORD;
I say, “You are my God.”
My destiny is in your hands;
rescue me from any darkness,
from all pulls me away from you.
Let your face shine on your me
embrace me completely in your mercy.

Psalm 31: 16-17

Poem: THE STABLE by Sr. M. Chrysostom, O.S.B.

The winds were scornful,
Passing by;
And gathering Angels 
Wondered why
A burdened Mother 
Did not mind 
That only animals 
Were kind.
For who in all the world 
Could guess 
That God would search out 
Loneliness.

Music: Martyr Dei ( Martyr of God)

Martyr Dei, qui (quæ) unicum
Patris sequendo Filium,
victis triumphas hostibus,
victor (victrix) fruens cælestibus.
Tui precatus munere
nostrum reatum dilue,
arcens mali contagium,
vitæ repellens tædium.
Soluta sunt iam vincula
tui sacrati corporis;
nos solve vinclis sæculi,
amore Filii Dei.
Honor Patri cum Filio
et Spiritu Paraclito,
qui te corona perpeti
cingunt in aula gloriæ.

Martyr of God, whose strength was steeled
To follow close God’s only Son,
Well didst thou brave thy battlefield,
And well thy heavenly bliss was won!
Now join thy prayers with ours, who pray
That God may pardon us and bless;
For prayer keeps evil’s plague away,
And draws from life its weariness.
Long, long ago, were loosed the chains
That held thy body once in thrall;
For us how many a bond remains!
O Love of God release us all.
All praise to God the Father be,
All praise to Thee, eternal Son;
All praise, O Holy Spirit, to Thee
While never ending ages run.

Psalm 85: Rain Down, O Lord!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Courage, Faith, Poetry, PsalmsLeave a comment

Wednesday of the Third Week of Advent

December 16, 2020

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 85 – a song filled with urgency and expectation!

When we pray this psalm:

We are desperately thirsty nomads who hear promise in the hint of thunder.
We are the parched leaves stretching up to catch the first rain.
We are the foundered boat lifted on the gathering flume.

Tomorrow, we begin the exclamations of our answered hopes — the great O Antiphons.

But for today, let us relax into the certainty that, indeed, the Savior is coming – just as sure as the clouds turn silver with the weight of rain.

What is it in your heart today
that reaches for the cloudburst of grace?

Poetry: Last Night, the Rain Spoke to Me – Mary Oliver

Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,
what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again
in a new way
on the earth!
That’s what it said
as it dropped,
smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches
and the grass below.
Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing
under a tree.
The tree was a tree
with happy leaves,
and I was myself,
and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment,
at which moment
my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars
and the soft rain—
imagine! imagine!
the wild and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.

Music: Spirit of God, Rain Down – Nelson Jose

Gaudete Sunday: Rejoice!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Courage, Faith, Jesus, joy, Mary, Poetry, Prayer4 Comments

Third Sunday of Advent

December 13, 2020

The day takes its name from the Latin word Gaudete (“Rejoice”),
the first word of the Introit prayer for this day’s Mass taken from Philippians 4:
Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. 

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we prayerfully rejoice with Mary’s courageous and hopeful song:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked upon his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed.

Today is a break day midway through a season which is otherwise of a penitential character, and signifies the nearness of the Lord’s coming. On Gaudete Sunday, the Church is no longer inviting us to adore merely “The Lord who is to come”, but calling upon us to worship and hail with joy “The Lord who is now nigh and close at hand“.

While the whole Church is called this Sunday to rejoice in the approach of the Christ-event,  Mary’s Magnificat calls us to celebrate a specific “nearness” – God’s preferential affinity for those who are poor:

The Lord has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
remembering the promise of mercy.

The Gaudete message is not about a cheap and frenzied Christmas celebration. It is a profound reminder that Divine Joy seeks its home in a holy emptiness – in a heart space that has been reflectively cleared of spiritual arrogance.

His mercy is from age to age
to those who bow in awe.
He has shown might with his arm,
dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart.

Luke 150-51

How do we become, like Mary,
poor and humble before our God,
open to the Awesome Joy who is Christ?

We can pray according to Paul’s blessing to the Thessalonians in our second reading:

May the God of peace make us perfectly holy
and may we entirely, spirit, soul, and body,
be preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The One who calls us is faithful,
and will also accomplish it.

Poem: Heart Cave – Geoffrey Brown

I must remember to go down to the heart cave
And sweep it clean, make it warm, with fire on the hearth
And candles in their niches
The pictures on the walls glowing with quiet lights
I must remember to go down to the heart cave
And make the bed with the quilt from home
Strew rushes on the floor
And hang lavender and sage from the corners
I must remember to go down to the heart cave
And be there when you come.

Music: Gaudete – Steeleye Span 

This British folk rock group had a hit in 1973 (No. 14, UK singles chart) with an a cappella recording of the song. Guitarist Bob Johnson heard the song when he attended a folk-carol service with his father-in-law. 
This single is one of only three top 50 British hits to be sung fully in Latin (the others were both recordings of “Pie Jesu” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem)

Guadalupe: The Largesse of Mercy

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Mary, Poetry, Psalms2 Comments

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

December 12, 2020

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray in praise of Mary, with a passage from the Book of Judith as our Responsorial Psalm:

Blessed are you, daughter, by the Most High God,
above all the women on earth;
and blessed be the LORD God, 
the creator of heaven and earth.

Judith 13:18

Judith rescues her people’s future by an act of heroism against the enemy. That “deed of hope” saves the whole community from deadly oppression.

You are the highest honor of our human race.
Your deed of hope will never be forgotten
by those who tell of the might of God.

Judith 13:19

Judith’s deeds foreshadow Mary’s sublime obedience to the power of God. Her dynamic faith and trust free Mary to respond to God’s outrageous willingness to become flesh for our salvation.

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

Luke 1:38

Down through history, Mary continues to inspire that kind of faith in God’s People. Today, we remember two such inspired individuals:

Saint Juan Diego who, in receiving graces from Our Lady of Guadalupe, offered a “deed of hope” for the Mexican people.

Venerable Catherine McAuley who, in responding to her founder’s call, released the “deed of hope” ever afterward known as “the Sisters of Mercy”.

What “deed of hope” wants firing
in your heart today?

Let’s look to Mary and the Saints she has inspired, to encourage us.

Poetry: from Hafiz

Light
Will someday split you open
Even if your life is now a cage,

For a divine seed, the crown of destiny,
Is hidden and sown in an ancient fertile plain
You hold the title to.

Love will surely burst you wide open
Into an unfettered, blooming new galaxy…
A life–giving radiance will come,
The Beloved’s gratuity will come…..

Music: Sub Tuum Praesidium- “Beneath Thy Protection” – is the oldest preserved extant hymn to the the Blessed Virgin Mary. (mid 3rd century)

Sub tuum praesidium
confugimus,
Sancta Dei Genetrix.
Nostras deprecationes ne despicias
in necessitatibus nostris,
sed a periculis cunctis
libera nos semper,
Virgo gloriosa et benedicta.

We fly to Thy protection,
O Holy Mother of God;
Do not despise our petitions
in our necessities,
but deliver us always
from all dangers,
O Glorious and Blessed Virgin.