Category: Creation

Wing

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Praise, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels (Readings from Mass of the Angels)
October 2, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/1002-memorial-guardian-angels.cfm

I dwell in the shelter of the Most High.
and abide in the shadow of the Holy One.
I say, “You are my refuge and stronghold,
my God in whom I put my trust.
You will deliver me from the snare of the hunter
and from all manner of evils.
You will cover me with your pinions
and hide me in the shadow of your wings.
I need not be afraid of any terror of the night,
or danger of the day.
I will be strong in the face of difficulty
and face the trials of my life with calm assurance.
I need not fear illness or injury,
people who roar like lions or hiss like snakes,
You will tread on my fears.I hear you whisper,

“I am bound to you in love,
therefore I will help you in times of trouble.
I am with you when you call for me.
I will dwell in your heart through the years of your life.
Psalm 91 (interpreted by Christine Robinson)

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray with the angels. They are not chubby little cherubs on Christmas cards. Rather, they are magnificent beings with whom we share God’s breath. They worship God with all their vitality, and guide us so that we may someday share in their sacred ministry.

We honor our angels, asking to learn from the purity of their love for God.

Prose: from Thomas Merton

The angels are our brothers/sisters and fellow servants in a world of freedom and of grace. Like us, they are saved by Christ the Lord and King of Angels. With Christ their King and sent by his command, they come to us as invisible messengers of his divine will, as mysterious protectors and friends in the spiritual order. Their presence around us, unimaginable, tender, solicitous, and mighty, terrible as it is gentle, is more and more forgotten while the personal horizon of our spiritual vision shrinks and closes in upon ourselves.

Music: Adoro Te Devote – written by Thomas Aquinas, sung by Juliano Ravanello

… time …

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Creation, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, Hope, Mercy, ordinary time, Poetry, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Vincent de Paul, Priest
September 27, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092724.cfm

What advantage have workers from their toil?
I have considered the task that God has appointed
for us to be busied about.
The Infinite One has made everything appropriate to its time,
and has put the timeless into their hearts,
without our ever discovering,
from beginning to end, the work which God has done.
Ecclesiastes 3:9-11

Three thousand years ago, in the Book of Ecclesiastes, a writer called Kohelet meditated on God’s Mercy experienced over a lifetime. Like the writer, we may have done the same thing at various significant times in our lives.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We place our lives against the timepiece pictured above. We may pray over a specific time of challenge and grace. Or we may consider the whole pattern of mercy passing slowly yet constantly through our lives, like the ticking of a steadfast clock.

Poetry: XC Domine, refugium – Malcolm Suite
In this poem, Guite refers to a poem by Philip Larkin which may be read here: https://allpoetry.com/Cut-Grass

XC Domine, refugium
Malcolm Guite

A cosy comforter, a lucky charm?
Not with this psalmist, for he praises God
From everlasting ages, in his psalm. 
A God of refuge –yes – and yet a God
Who knows the death that comes before each birth,
Who sees each generation die, a God

Before whom all the ages of the earth
Are like a passing day, like the cut grass
In Larkin’s limpid verse: ‘brief is the breath

Mown stalks exhale’. So we and all things pass,
And God endures beyond us. Yet he cares
For our brief lives, his loving tenderness

Extends to all his creatures, our swift years
Are precious in his sight. In Christ he shares
Our grief and he will wipe away our tears.

Music: There Is A Season – Tom Kendzia

Light

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

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

Today’s Readings:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is a light that

shimmers so deep it never goes anywhere
but to shimmer.

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

blueprint of vibrations shifting through
all directions of time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then more light.

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

Template of light to bring more love.

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

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

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

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

Resurrection

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Hope, Jesus, Mercy, spiritualityLeave a comment

Memorial of Saints Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn, Paul Chŏng Ha-sang, and Companions, Martyrs
September 20, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092024.cfm

If Christ is preached as raised from the dead,
how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
If there is no resurrection of the dead,
then neither has Christ been raised.
And if Christ has not been raised, then empty too is our preaching;
empty, too, your faith.
1 Corinthians 15:12-14

Paul takes his listeners to the foundation of their faith – the Resurrection. Believing in it, we are freed from our greatest common fear – the fear of Death.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
In rising from the dead, Jesus changed Darkness to Light. Every dawn transforms our nights to Easter if we allow Christ to rise in us, making all things new.

Poetry: excerpts from The Exultet

O wonder of your humble care for us!
O love, O charity beyond all telling,
to ransom a slave you gave away your Son!
O truly necessary sin of Adam,
destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!
O happy fault
that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!
O truly blessed night,
worthy alone to know the time and hour
when Christ rose from the underworld!
This is the night
of which it is written:
The night shall be as bright as day,
dazzling is the night for me,
and full of gladness.

Music: The Exultet

Flint

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

Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 15, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091524.cfm

The Lord GOD opens my ear that I may hear;
and I have not rebelled,
have not turned back.
I gave my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
my face I did not shield
from buffets and spitting.

The Lord GOD is my help,
therefore I am not disgraced;
I have set my face like flint,
knowing that I shall not be put to shame.
Isaiah 50:5-7

This solemn reading from Isaiah follows appropriately on yesterday’s honoring of the Holy Cross.

Isaiah writes of the prophet who, during the Babylonia Captivity, suffers for his testimony to the Truth.

The passage foretells Jesus’s embrace of his suffering for the sake of our Redemption.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
As we pray with Isaiah and Jesus, we ask to deeply reverence God’s participation in the suffering of Creation – both in the human and the natural world.

Poetry: The Grandeur of God – Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs-
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Music: Pie Jesu – Gabriel Fauré

The French creator of the soul-stirring Pie Jesu, Gabriel Fauré, was one of the premier composers and directors of the 19th/20th centuries though, surprisingly, he was not a man of deep faith. Yet, he must have had a mystical soul. The Pie Jesu is the centerpiece of Fauré’s Requiem, which he completed in 1890, and which is often considered his greatest composition. It is undoubtedly imbued with the deepest sentiments of devotion.

A requiem, as such, is a distinct musical genre and a Christian liturgical art form. In essence, it is a small symphony meant to provide deep solace to mourners at the loss of a loved one, although it is rarely played at funerals. Full requiems are generally too long for that! Nonetheless, all the great composers from the 15th century onward created their own requiems.

It is believed that Fauré composed this piece in honor of his own father a few years after the elder Fauré’s death, but the composer never revealed his motive. This Requiem was, fittingly, performed at Fauré’s own funeral in 1924.

Notes on the Requiem itself
Fauré’s Requiem has seven sections, and the Pie Jesu (Merciful Jesus) is easily the most beautiful of the seven, but not by much. The Agnus Dei and In Paradisum are exquisite in their own right.

It is interesting to note that Fauré replaced the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) of traditional requiems with the Pie Jesu, emphasizing mercy rather than judgment, and also anticipating in some way the Divine Mercy devotion of the 20th century.

In the video below, the incomparable lyric soprano, Kathleen Battle, performs her ravishing interpretation of the lovely Pie Jesu.

Stretch

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Creation, Faith, Gospel, holiness, Jesus, spirituality3 Comments

Memorial of Saint Peter Claver, Priest
September 9, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090924.cfm

But Jesus realized the Pharisee’s intentions
and said to the man with the withered hand,
“Come up and stand before us.”
And he rose and stood there.
Then Jesus said to them,
“I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the sabbath
rather than to do evil,
to save life rather than to destroy it?”
Looking around at them all, he then said to him,
“Stretch out your hand.”
He did so and his hand was restored.
Luke 6:8-10

In this reading, Jesus invites the crippled man to stretch out his hand – to reach beyond himself for the healing grace God offers. Jesus is inviting the Pharisees, who suffer from a crippled faith, to reach out as well. Is Jesus inviting you to stretch?

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
I have included a picture of my beloved statue of giraffes. When I pray with this carving, no words are necessary. The youngster is stretching up to receive grace, nourishment, and love. For me, it is an image of our stretching up to God and God’s tender leaning toward us.

Poetry: Movement by Denise Levertov

Towards not being 
anyone else’s center 
of gravity

A wanting 
to love: not 
an other, and fall, 
but feel within one 
a flexible steel 
upright, parallel
to the spine but 
longer, from which to stretch; 
one’s own 
grave springboard; the outlying spirit’s 
vertical trampoline.

Meditative Music:

Aroma

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

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 11, 2024

Today’s Readings:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Music: Fresh Bread – Chuck Girard

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

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

Repeat chorus

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

Repeat chorus

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

CHORUS

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

Unless…

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Creation, Cross, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, spirituality3 Comments

Feast of Saint Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr
August 10, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081024.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat;
but if it dies, it produces much fruit.
John 12:24

The great paradox of existence is that, in order to live, we must die. It is a truth endemic to all Creation. It is a reality lived out in all relationships.

Jesus cites this universal truth to teach his disciples the key to eternal life. We must die to self to find our life in God.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We prayerfully reflect on the times when this truth has been evident in our lives. When have we found new life? When have we experienced the freedom to grow? What had to die in us before these graces could transform us?

Poetry: Unless a Grain of Wheat – Malcolm Guite

Oh let me fall as grain to the good earth
And die away from all dry separation,
Die to my sole self, and find new birth
Within that very death, a dark fruition,
Deep in this crowded underground, to learn
The earthy otherness of every other,
To know that nothing is achieved alone
But only where these other fallen gather.

If I bear fruit and break through to bright air,
Then fall upon me with your freeing flail
To shuck this husk and leave me sheer and clear
As heaven-handled Hopkins, that my fall
May be more fruitful and my autumn still
A golden evening where your barns are full.

Music: Unless a Grain of Wheat Shall Fall – Bernadette Farrell

Deny

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Conversion, Courage, Creation, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, spiritualityLeave a comment

Friday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 9, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080924.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 16: 24-25

This passage from Matthew is one of the most astounding challenges Jesus gave his disciples: deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me.

What does it really mean to deny oneself? Does it mean to become a doormat or a Milquetoast? Does it suggest repressing one’s personality or ambitions? To act like a nobody?

Of course not! So many places in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures assure us that we are unique, precious, and beloved of God. God doesn’t want us not to be ourselves because that’s who we were created to be!

I think denying oneself means not getting caught in the mirror of selfishness. Instead we are called to focus on Jesus and his absolute care for all Creation, especially those who are poor, sick, outcast, and troubled. We can’t really do that if we are consumed with self-interest.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ask for the grace to be aware, brave, and faithful enough to put the good of others first for the sake of Christ.

Poetry: As the Ruin Falls – C.S. Lewis

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.

I never had a selfless thought since I was born.

I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.

I see the chasm.
 And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man.
 And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls.
 The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

Music: Deny Yourself – Paul Melley

Deny yourself.

Take up your cross
.
Despite the pain

Despite the cost.
Leave all behind

and follow me.

Deny yourself,

be free.

For what will it profit to gain the world
and lose your life? 

Those who would save their life will lose it.

What can you give in return for your life?

For those would lose their life will find it.

Deny yourself.

Come, take up your cross and daily follow me 

and you will have rich reward in heaven.

Those who have left their home and family for his sake

inherit one hundred fold,

inherit eternal life.
Deny yourself.

What can you give in return for your life?
For those who would lose their life,

lose their life will find it

Deny yourself

Lord, you reveal the depth 
of your life and your love
in your everlasting covenant.

Strengthen the faith we share,
fill our work with your love,
and bring all of us to grace,
to the grace you promise.