Category: Discipleship

Teaching the Faith

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, spiritualityLeave a comment

Saturday of the Sixth Week of Easter
May 20, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052023.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings remind us that there are many ways to learn about and grow deeper in our relationship with God.

We can learn from teachers, each of whom has a different tincture to enrich the body of Christian teaching. Today, we meet a few of these very early teachers – Apollos, Priscilla, Aquila, and of course the Teaching Master, Jesus.

Apollos, Aquila and Priscilla

Apollos was a Jewish Christian from Alexandria, Egypt. He was brilliant, steeped in the knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. He was a compelling presenter and an exceptional logician. Luke tells us that Apollos had been instructed in the “Way of the Lord”. When he arrived in Ephesus, Apollos immediately began to “speak boldly” in the synagogue.

There was a problem though. Even though he knew the “Way” or the Gospel, Apollos hadn’t completed the whole course, so to speak. He knew only the baptism of John and not that of the Holy Spirit. So there were some gaps in his “curriculum”, gaps which were evident to two other excellent teachers – the husband and wife team of Priscilla and Aquila.

Priscilla was so kind. She took Apollos aside and quietly redirected some of his thinking. He must have been so grateful for her wise attention and gentle collegial wisdom. And Apollos deserves credit too. He was receptive to the fraternal correction, even that of a woman! Imagine!

This passage from Acts offers us so much food for thought. As we learn and share our faith and spiritual understanding, we must seek guiding input from well-grounded teachers. We should be willing to speak up when we hear the Gospel poorly interpreted or used inappropriately for the advancement of personal and political agendas.

Over the 2000-year evolution of Christianity, many suspect offshoots have arisen. In the early centuries, Christian teachers coped with various heresies which you may have studied in high school such as Arianism, Pantheism, Pelagianism, Gnosticism, etc.

In our modern world, major religions deal with such aberrations as the distortions of the “prosperity Gospel”, exaggerated fundamentalism, and abusive Sharia law.

In our Gospel, Jesus is clear that true faith resides in those who love him, and who love as He has loved. They live and teach in His Name. Without love like Christ’s at its core, any purported religious teaching is a mere shell of the true Gospel.

The hour is coming
when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech,
but I will tell you clearly about the Father.
On that day you will ask in my name,
and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you.
For the Father himself loves you because you have loved me
and have come to believe that I came from God.
I came from the Father and have come into the world.
Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.

John 16:25-28

Prose: from Rabindranath Tagore

A teacher can never truly teach
unless he too continues to teach himself.
One lamp can never light another
unless it continues to burn its own flames.

Similarly, the teacher who has come
to the end of his subject,
and has no living traffic with his knowledge
but merely repeats his lessons to his students,
can only burden their minds,
he cannot inspire them.

Truth not only must inform
but also inspire;
if this inspiration dies out
and information merely keeps on accumulating,
then truth loses its infinity.

Music: Teach Us, Good Lord (The Prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola – see below) – Music, David Ogden

Teach us, good Lord,
to serve you as you deserve;
to give, and not to count the cost,
to fight, and not to heed the wounds,
to toil, and not to seek for rest,
to labor, and not to ask for reward,
except that of knowing
that we are doing your will.

Unchained….

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eastertide, Gospel, spirituality4 Comments

Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
May 16, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051623.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we meet people who are deeply dedicated to their life commitments – sometimes for good, sometimes for woe.

In Acts, we meet the unnamed “jailer”. Paul and Silas have been manhandled and thrown into prison. Their jailer receives the instruction to “guard them securely” and he takes it very seriously, binding them in chains in the innermost dungeon.

This man revels in his job, to the degree that it is his only identification in the scriptures. We never know his real name.

His job gives him authority and power he would not have in his ordinary circumstances. Perhaps his job has even become his identity so that without it, he feels like little or nothing. When God decides to “earthquake” Paul and Silas out of their chains, the guard freaks. It’s more than an earthquake to him – his very identity is crumbling in the tumult.

And how about Paul? Is he cool in this reading, or what??? Paul’s power relies not on an assumed identity but on God’s centrality in his life.

When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open,
he drew his sword and was about to kill himself,
thinking that the prisoners had escaped.
But Paul shouted out in a loud voice,
“Do no harm to yourself; we are all here.”

The jailer’s awed response is full-hearted! He does a transformational flip which transfers all his past “job dedication” into his new spiritual conversion. Not only does he allow the disciples to go free, he guides them to his own house, ministers to them, and is baptised. No doubt, his past employers were not too happy with him!

In our Gospel, the disciples, who are deeply dedicated to their vocations, still demonstrate a bit of job-jitters.

Jesus has made it clear that he’s on his way to another dimension and that his disciples will to have to carry on the evangelization business on their own. He promises them all kinds of supernatural help but they can’t imagine functioning without him.

Finally Jesus tells them that, in his physical absence, the Spirit will give them an enhanced power to promulgate the Gospel:

But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go.
For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you.
But if I go, I will send him to you.
And when he comes he will convict the world
in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation

Both our readings today remind us that it’s all about what really makes us tick. Do we really understand that it is God’s life with us that gives us “importance”, security and identity? Do we tap into that Infinite Power to give us hope, confidence and transformational resilience in life’s many earthquakes? If so, we like the disciples, will be “unchainable” — because it isn’t about us. It is about the God we love whose Spirit lives in us.

Poetry: Peter and the Angel – Denise Levertov

(This poem is not about Paul and Silas, but rather about Peter when he too was freed from prison by Divine intervention (Acts 12:5-17))

Delivered out of raw continual pain,
smell of darkness, groans of those others
to whom he was chained—
unchained, and led
past the sleepers,
door after door silently opening—
out!
And along a long street's
majestic emptiness under the moon:
one hand on the angel's shoulder, one
feeling the air before him,
eyes open but fixed . . .
And not till he saw the angel had left him,
alone and free to resume
the ecstatic, dangerous, wearisome roads of
what he had still to do,
not till then did he recognize
this was no dream. More frightening
than arrest, than being chained to his warders:
he could hear his own footsteps suddenly.
Had the angel's feet
made any sound? He could not recall.
No one had missed him, no one was in pursuit.
He himself must be
the key, now, to the next door,
the next terrors of freedom and joy.

Music: Love is the Only Way – from the film Paul, Apostle of Christ by Jan Kaczmarek

An extra treat to bless your day: this beautiful and powerful rendition of “Unchained Melody’

The Musikschau der Nationen invites army orchestras from almost a dozen countries the U.S. Army website classifies as “Europe’s biggest brass band music festival.” Though not always consecutive, the festival enjoys over 35 years of time-honored traditions. Some participants besides the U.S. included Vietnam, Russia, and Mexico, among others. In 2002, they performed an all-orchestra version of “Unchained Melody”. The performance represented the largest millitary orchestra in the world.

Colorful Faith

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Discipleship, Gospel, spirituality3 Comments

Monday of the Sixth Week of Easter
May 15, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051523.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our first reading opens with the beautiful image of Paul and co-ministers sailing off into the Mediterranean blue, finally ending up in Philippi.

There they meet Lydia, “a dealer in purple cloth”. Lydia was a notable figure. Some scripture scholars say she was businesswoman and head of a significant household who offered hospitality to Paul’s entire traveling team. Others see her as a morally questionable “huckster” whose invitation of men to her home would have been morally questionable.

In a magnificent paper for her doctoral dissertation, Alexandra Gruca-Macaulay argues for Lydia as the “Perceptive Disciple” whose true heart became an agent for God’s Word.

Click to access Gruca-Macaulay_Alexandra_2013_thesis.pdf

A complex but excellent read for those who might be interested.

However we imagine Lydia, Acts clearly notes that she was already a “worshipper of God”, Lydia listened to the disciples’ evangelization. God opened her heart and she accepted Jesus Christ. This is most significant because her heart-opening, much like Mary’s, allowed the Gospel to pass through to her household and, symbolically, to all of Asia Minor.

Halliday, Edward Irvine; St Paul Meeting Lydia of Thyatira; University of Liverpool; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/st-paul-meeting-lydia-of-thyatira-66511

Lydia is the first Christian convert in Philippi, a church which Paul grew to love deeply as we can discern from his beautiful letter to the Philippians. As Paul and his company finish their initial evangelization in Philipppi, the community is entrusted to the hands of Lydia and her devoted neighbors.

What exactly was Lydia’s role as Paul sailed on to other horizons? As in so many cases involving early Church women, history folds that answer into the opinionated edits of 2000 years of monks and translators.

I choose to think that Lydia continued at least as a presbyter, if not a priest. The community had long gathered around her generous and dynamic leadership. Why would that change after Paul departed?

In our Gospel, Jesus is speaking to people like Lydia and like us, down through the ages. He indicates that once we are transformed in the Holy Spirit, we can’t help but cry out the wonder of God in our lives.

Jesus said to his disciples:
“When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father,
he will testify to me.
And you also testify,
because you have been with me from the beginning.

John 15:26-27

Let’s pray to and for all true disciples, especially the women God has chosen to stand at the center of an ever-evolving Church and to weave its energy always toward an inclusive community.

Poetry: Epilogue – Sister Lou Ella Hickman, a widely published poet whose collection ” she:robed and wordless” captures the essence of many biblical women. Her poem cited here attracted me because of the colors – purple, of course, then oranges and reds. I can almost hear our Lydia reciting such a poem!

Music: Piano instrumental of the beautiful song Deep Purple

Confirmed in the Spirit

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, spiritualityLeave a comment

Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 14, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, many of our readings this week prepare us for the Ascension event, a leave-taking with deep gifts and emotions attached.

Our readings from Acts assure us that the early Church, despite the physical absence of Jesus, burst into blossom throughout much of Asia Minor. Today’s passage notes this flowering even in Samaria, where the Jewish faith had been truncated ever since the reign of Jereboam a thousand years before Christ. We read today about the Samaritans receiving their Confirmation:

Now when the apostles in Jerusalem
heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God,
they sent them Peter and John,
who went down and prayed for them,
that they might receive the Holy Spirit,
for it had not yet fallen upon any of them;
they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Then they laid hands on them
and they received the Holy Spirit.

Acts 8: 14-17

In our Gospel, we see Jesus preparing the disciples for their own Confirmation which will come on Pentecost. Jesus is tender yet intentional in his instruction of the disciples. He knows that it will be challenging for them to move the Gospel forward without him right beside them. But he assures them that the Holy Spirit will sustain them through that challenge.

Jesus said to his disciples:
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
And I will ask the Father,
and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always,
the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept,
because it neither sees nor knows him.
But you know him, because he remains with you,
and will be in you.

John 14:15-18

What about us – those charged with moving the Gospel forward today. We, like the disciples, must garner the courage to do this even though Jesus is not physically with us.

And we too have been given the amazing gift of the Holy Spirit! Do we ever think about our Confirmation? Or do we remember it only as a symbolic event that happened in our childhood?

How foolish we are if that’s the case! We have buckets of supernatural gifts to empower and nourish us if only we pay attention and ask. We, like the disciples, have not been left orphans of grace!

(Click on the buckets to enlarge if you wish.)

Poetry: God’s Grandeur – 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: I Will Not Leave You Orphans – Carey Landry

Potholes

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Courage, Discipleship, Eastertide, spiritualityLeave a comment

Saturday of the Fifth Week of Easter
May 13, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051323.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings can serve to remind us that Christian discipleship is not always a smooth ride. There are “potholes” — as in all of life.

Pothole 1: Rejection in Lycaonia
Paul, after being stoned, rejected and otherwise harassed, takes off for Derbe and Lystra to test the readiness of that community to receive the Gospel. There, Paul meets Timothy who would become a beloved friend and companion, traveling and ministering with Paul for the next decade.

Pothole 2: Sorry, Tim!
But the relationship starts out with a problem. Timothy’s dad was Greek and, per custom, did not have Timothy circumcised at birth. Even though the Jerusalem apostles had adjudicated circumcision as unnecessary, Paul – who had been its main critic – requires the rite for Timothy. Paul was convinced that the Jews to whom they would be preaching would reject Timothy otherwise.

Pothole 3: Rejection in Asia
They traveled through the Phrygian and Galatian territory
because they had been prevented by the Holy Spirit
from preaching the message in the province of Asia. (Acts 16:6)

Pothole 4: Bypassing Bithynia
When they came to Mysia, they tried to go on into Bithynia,
but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them,
so they crossed through Mysia and came down to Troas. (Acts 16:7)

When we see the massive success and widespread influence of the Church today, we might think it was easy to get this whole thing started – to light the fire of faith in the early years. It wasn’t! And it’s still not easy, despite some appearances.

Jesus counseled his disciples that it would be this way, and encouraged them:

Jesus said to his disciples:
“If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.
If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own;
but because you do not belong to the world,
and I have chosen you out of the world,
the world hates you.
Remember the word I spoke to you,
‘No slave is greater than his master.’
If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
And they will do all these things to you on account of my name,
because they do not know the one who sent me.”

John 15:18-21

That encouragement was enough for Paul and Timothy to keep going. May it be so for us, and for all who would lead the Church into the future Jesus desired for us..

Poetry: Portia Nelson, There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk from The Romance of Self-Discovery

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost… I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes me a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in. It’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault. I get out immediately.

walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

I walk down another street.

Music: just for some pothole fun today – I Love My Juggernaut – an Irish lorry driven bemoans the pothole problem. Lyrics below.

This is an enjoyable Irish song highlighting a long-standing pothole problem in Cavan, a small city near the border with Northern Ireland. The town is located on the junction of two national routes, the N3 to Dublin and N55 to Athlone. Until recently there was no bypass around Cavan town to eliminate the heavy traffic passing through an already congested town –thus, the legendary pothole problem!

Oh believe it or believe it not, I love me Juggernaut !!
I’ve been all over Ireland, to the North I’ve seen the lot.
I’m hauling great big bales of hay, I’m heading for Mayo.
With potholes all through Cavan, sure I’ll have to drive so slow.

In the morning I’m up early on the road at half past five.
The air is fresh and crispy boy it’s great to be alive.
I fall in behind a crawler put me foot down on the gas.
But the roads are to bumpy for me Juggernaut to pass.

Chorus

Oh believe it or believe it not i love me Juggernaut !!
I’ve been all over Ireland, to the North I’ve seen the lot.
I’m hauling great big bales of hay, I’m heading for Mayo.
With potholes all through Cavan, sure i’ll have to drive so slow.

(Johnny) “Breaker, Breaker, I’m looking for a copy”
(Richie) “10/4…This is big Rich’ come back”
(Johnny) “Ah, this is your auld pal Johnny”
(Richie) “A, Johnny what’s your 20”

I’m in the County Offaly and I’m awfully sorry now.
I broke the mirrors of me cab and I’d like to tell you how.
With sceachs, bows and bushes rubbing of me load.
I wish the county council would trim along the road.

Chorus

Oh believe it or believe it not I love me Juggernaut !!
I‘ve been all over Ireland, to the North I’ve seen the lot.
I’m hauling great big bales of hay, I’m heading for Mayo.
With potholes all through Cavan, sure I’ll have to drive so slow.

(Richie) “Come back Johnny, come back”

Some people call us Juggernaut’s, Artic’s or big trucks.
Some people even give us horrid dirty looks.
I know you’ve got your reasons, sometimes for to frown.
But did you ever try to drive a Scania through your town.

Chorus

Oh believe it or believe it not I love me Juggernaut !!
I’ve been all over Ireland to the North, I’ve seen the lot.
I’m hauling great big bales of hay, I’m heading for Mayo.
With potholes all through Cavan, sure I’ll have to drive so slow.

(Richie) “Stay wut her Johnny, stay wut her”
(Johnny ) “That’s right, that’s the truth, rev’er on the corners”
(Richie) “And face her for Mount Leinster”

I know I swing me volvo all around your market square.
I know that you think lorry drivers we just don’t care.
But the streets are so narrow, built so many years ago.
They were built for horses carts, not juggernauts you know.

Chorus

Oh believe it or believe it not I love me juggernaut!!
I’ve been all over Ireland, to the North I’ve seen the lot.
I’m hauling great big bales of hay, I’m heading for Mayo.
With potholes all through Cavan, sure I’ll have to drive so slow.

(Richie) “Come back Johnny, come back, we’ll leave the last one to you”

I’m in the County Offaly and I’m awfully sorry now.
I broke the mirrors off me cab and I’d like to tell you how.
With sceachs, bows and bushes the council will not cut.
When I get back to the depot, the boss will do his nut.
Oh when I get back to the depot, the boss will do his nut.

A Circumcised Heart

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Eastertide, inclusivity, spiritualityLeave a comment

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter
May 10, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051023.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, there’s a lot of clipping going on and being talked about.

In Acts, we read about the hubbub around circumcision of the Gentile Christians. Basically, early Christianity was an offshoot of Judaism. All the very earliest Christians were Jews. In many ways, they still thought with Jewish minds not new Christian ones.

The question of circumcision is one of their first wake-ups. Jews considered circumcision a sign of their covenant with God. Greeks on the other hand abhorred the practice. The Apostles were faced with the dilemma:

If our new faith is for all people, how will that change some of our practices?
Which pratices are essential to Christian life, and which are not?

As today’s reading ends, the Apostles are still sequestered on the issue. But the eventual resolution around circumcision proved to be a key factor in the cultural separation of Christianity from Judaism.

In our Gospel, Jesus talks about another kind of pruning, but the parallels are interesting.

A healthy and vigorous life in Christ is one that is “cultured” by God’s grace. That grace serves to cut away the unholy accretions that sometimes surface in our lives – sin, temptation, spiritual indifference, rampant self-interest, religious ennui……

Jesus said to his disciples:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.
He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit,
and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.
You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.

John 15: 1-3

God’s Word touches us through scripture, through spiritual teaching, and through our reverent assimilation of our life experiences. We must listen to our lives to hear God’s Word. There is never a moment when God is not speaking to us in love – and often to a completely new understanding of what it means to be in covenant with God.

The Apostles finally come to the decision that one does not become a disciple by physical circumcision but rather by a grafting of one’s heart to God’s own heart. May we, the Church, learn from that openness for our own times. May we become more aware of those assumptions which cut off whole segments of humanity, relegating them to the ecclesiastical sidelines.

I am the vine, you are the branches.
Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit,
because without me you can do nothing…

If you remain in me and my words remain in you,
ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.
By this is my Father glorified,
that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

John 15: 5;7-8

Poetry: I Am the Vine – Malcolm Guite

How might it feel to be part of the vine?
Not just to see the vineyard from afar
Or even pluck the clusters, press the wine,
But to be grafted in, to feel the stir
Of inward sap that rises from our root,
Himself deep planted in the ground of Love,
To feel a leaf unfold a tender shoot,
As tendrils curled unfurl, as branches give
A little to the swelling of the grape,
In gradual perfection, round and full,
To bear within oneself the joy and hope
Of God’s good vintage, till it’s ripe and whole.
What might it mean to bide and to abide
In such rich love as makes the poor heart glad?

Music: Landscapes of the Heart – Gary Schmidt

Becoming “Gospel Real”

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Discipleship, Eastertide, holiness, spirituality5 Comments

Monday of the Fifth Week of Easter
May 8, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050823.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Paul and Barnabas get into a bit of a pickle – actually two pickles.

1- The passage from Acts opens with a planned attempt on their lives:

There was an attempt in Iconium
by both the Gentiles and the Jews,
together with their leaders,
to attack and stone Paul and Barnabas.

Acts 14:5

2- They escape that attempt and flee to Lycaonia where the residents, rather than stoning them, want to idolize them:

When the crowds saw what Paul had done,
they cried out in Lycaonian,
“The gods have come down to us in human form.” 
They called Barnabas “Zeus” and Paul “Hermes,”
because he was the chief speaker.
And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city,
brought oxen and garlands to the gates,
for he together with the people intended to offer sacrifice.

Acts 14: 11-13

In both these situations, the listeners cannot accept the good news being preached to them – One Living God who indwells them and all Creation:

We proclaim to you good news
that you should turn from these idols to the living God,
who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.

Acts 14:15

In our Gospel, Jude asks Jesus about this. He wants to know why he has received the gift of faith and others haven’t:

Jesus said to his disciples:
“”Whoever has my commandments and observes them
is the one who loves me.
Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father,
and I will love him and reveal myself to him.””
Judas, not the Iscariot, said to him,
“”Master, then what happened that you will reveal yourself to us
and not to the world?””

John 14:21-22

Jesus tells Jude that it’s pretty simple. You have to love God and do God’s work. If you don’t, no deal:

Jesus answered and said to him,
“”Whoever loves me will keep my word,
and my Father will love him,
and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.
Whoever does not love me does not keep my words;
yet the word you hear is not mine
but that of the Father who sent me.

John 14:23-24

In Acts, the two resistant crowds resort to stones as means to reject the invitation to a Gospel life.

  • The gang from Iconium would use stones to kill the bearers of the Word.
  • The Lystra crowd wants to “idolize” Paul and Barnabas, a word which means “to convert to an image”, like a stone statue.

When we try to kill or to idolize something or someone, we distance ourselves from it. We make it “other”, unlike us, unattainable to relationship.

Jesus is real, not stone. He wants to live in us, not be enshrined.

The Gospel is real and needs to be expressed in our real lives – in our actions, choices and relationships.

We must look deep into ourselves for even the smallest place where we kill or petrify the Infinite Love that calls us to become Real within It’s Heart.

Prose: ― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

“Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse.
‘It’s a thing that happens to you.
When a child loves you for a long, long time,
not just to play with, but REALLY loves you,
then you become Real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse,
for he was always truthful.
‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once,
like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse.
‘You become. It takes a long time.
That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily,
or have sharp edges,
or who have to be carefully kept.
Generally, by the time you are Real,
most of your hair has been loved off,
and your eyes drop out
and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.
But these things don’t matter at all,
because once you are Real you can’t be ugly,
except to people who don’t understand.”

Music:What Is Real – adapted by Glyn Lehman form The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

Velveteen Rabbit
What is real?
What is real?
And how does it feel?
Does it happen all at once?
Does it happen all at once, or bit by bit?
What is real?
What is real?

Skin Horse
Real is when somebody cares
And you feel alive for the very first time
It won’t happen at once
You will slowly become
You will see yourself through their eyes
See yourself through their eyes

Velveteen Rabbit
What is real?
What is real?
And how does it feel?
Does it hurt a little bit?
Does it hurt a little bit to make that change?
To be real
To be real

Skin Horse
Real is when somebody cares
And you feel alive for the very first time
Sometimes real can hurt
But you really won’t mind
If that’s what it takes to be real
What it takes to be real

It’s like magic when you are loved
Though you are worn, your seams are torn
There’s a glow inside
That is real

Velveteen Rabbit
That is real

Skin Horse, Velveteen Rabbit
That is real

Plug In!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Discipleship, Eastertide, spiritualityLeave a comment

Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 7, 2023

Today’s readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050723.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, and as we come closer to the end of the Easter season, our Sunday readings repeat essential themes which invite us to the Beloved Community:

  • In Acts, the nascent Christian community grows, organizes, reflects and preaches the Good News.
  • In John’s Gospel, Jesus reiterates his enduring presence and love for all who live in his Word.
  • In his letter, Peter calls the growing community to recognize themselves as God’s dwelling place whose foundation has been secured in Christ.

This Sunday’s readings invite us, for the sake of the whole Church, to draw power for our Christian lives today:

They ask us to reflect on the experience of the early Church
and to learn from the way these Christians grew
in their understanding of faith and discipleship.

As the number of disciples continued to grow…
the Twelve called together the community of the disciples….
The proposal was acceptable to the whole community…
The word of God continued to spread,
and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly

Acts 6

They ask us to respond to the timeless call
to be God’s Presence in the world.

Come to him, a living stone, rejected by human beings
but chosen and precious in the sight of God,
and, like living stones,
let yourselves be built into a spiritual house…
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:4-5

They assure us that Jesus indwells and blesses
our faithful commitment to this call.

Do not let your hearts be troubled.
You have faith in God; have faith also in me.
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places…

Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes in me will do the works that I do,
and will do greater ones than these,
because I am going to the Father.

John 14:1-2;12

Let’s face it, we live a long way in time from that bubbling little faith community described in Acts. Peter’s and Jesus’ encouragement have to echo down two thousand years to reach us! It’s not easy to stay plugged in to the dynamic power offered in today’s readings. How do we do that?

We have these amazing gifts to draw on:

  • the capacity to pray
  • the indwelling of the Holy Spirit resident in our souls
  • the blessing of a sacramental life
  • the living Word of the scriptures
  • the rich legacy of spiritual writings stored up through history
  • the current library of spiritual and theological literature
  • the sacred gifts of poetry, music and art
  • the beauty of God’s Creation in nature
  • the witness of our surrounding faith communities both living and dead

How unfortunate if we fail to recognize these gifts, given as means to open our hearts to our shared call to holiness!

Poetry: Mysteries, Yes – Mary Oliver

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

Music: One Love – Bob Marley

This Day I Have Begotten You

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Eastertide, Eternal Life, Faith, spirituality5 Comments

Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter
May 5, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050523.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings again draw our hearts to the power of the Resurrection to transform our lives.

The passage from Acts gives us the first half of Paul’s sermon in Pisidian Antioch, to a gathering of both Jews and Gentiles. Paul, who did not know Christ before the Resurrection, calls on the witness of the original disciples who shared earthly ministry with Jesus:

For even though (the inhabitants of Jerusalem and their leaders) 
found no grounds for a death sentence,
they asked Pilate to have Jesus put to death,
and when they had accomplished all that was written about him,
they took him down from the tree and placed him in a tomb. 
But God raised him from the dead,
and for many days he appeared to those
who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. 
These are now his witnesses before the people.

Acts 13:28-31

These witnesses attest to the primordial element of our faith:

Jesus Christ conquered death
and, in doing so,
gave all of us
the gift of eternal life in him.

This amazing truth is not something outside or distant from us. This truth is the core of our lives in faith. By believing it, remembering it, calling its dynamism into our dailyness, we are endowed with the power of God to live beyond death even in the midst of it.

In the life of my religious community, spring is always a time of Jubilee – a time to acclaim God’s rejuvenation of nature and life.

Just after Easter, we capture Alleluia grace to celebrate our sisters and their decades of fidelity. These Silver, Golden and Diamond years unfold in a perpetual wave from the time of Catherine McAuley. At Jubilee, we bathe in their awesome and unwordable grace. Last Friday evening, we held this year’s celebration, one bursting with the sentiments of “L’chiam” – To Life!

But just on that same Friday afternoon, one of our venerable sisters had died after living over 70 years in Mercy. I know the contrasting emotions struck many of us in our jubilant chapel. These feelings became even more evident as we read the back cover of our program naming all those Jubilarians who had preceded us to heaven.

Will we all meet in heaven?

O what joy even to think of it.

Catherine McAuley: Letter to Teresa White February 3, 1841

And that, my dear friends, is the key word: HEAVEN – another word for the eternal life given us in the Resurrected Christ. We don’t always realize it but, through Easter grace, we are living in heaven right now. Death, transformed forever in Jesus, is the unmasking which allows our full realization.

This is what Jesus conveyed to his disciples in today’s Gospel. Don’t be afrain of anything – not even death. I am already completely with you.

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. 
You have faith in God; have faith also in me. 
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.
If there were not,
would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come back again and take you to myself,
so that where I am you also may be.
Where I am going you know the way.”

John 14:1-4

In Greek, the phrase for “do not be troubled” ( ταρασσεσθω – tar-as’-so) pertains particularly to the dread of death natural to the human condition. This is the fear that Jesus wishes to alleviate for his disciples, especially as he moves into the Paschal event.

He wishes to soothe that fear in us as well. We have the inifinite assurance of eternal life. When we face death, the loss of friends, or the overwhelming weight of the passing years, we can reach through any heaviness to that Resurrecting Light. By the life-giving invitation of Christ, we – and all whom we ever love – are already residents in the mansion of God.

Alleluia – Jubilate

The Jubilarian celebrants, most in the video above, are:

75 years: Sister Mary Jude DiSciascio, Sister Mary Klock, Sister Eileen Trinity

70 years: Sister Maryann Burgoyne, Sister Maria Madonna Johnson, Sister Joanne McIlhenney, Sister Rosemary Powers

60 years: Sister Sara Anne Condart, Sister Maureen Crissy, Sister Georgia Greene, Sister LaVerne Marie King, Sister Patricia Leipold, Sister Dorothea Maholland, Sister Mary Mulholland, Sister Beverly Palumbo, Sister Benvinda Ann Pereira, Sister Elaine Schaeffer, Sister Monica Sheehy, Sister Bonita Marie Smith, Sister Renee Yann

50 Golden Years: Maureen Roe, Terry Saetta, Susan Walsh and Regina Ward.

Poetry: Near Sunset on the Shore – Renee Yann, RSM


Four o’clock, life’s waning autumn afternoon;
daylight spent against the salted sea.
Tide, this moment, turns to imperceptible ebb.
Evening imagines its own midnight, indigo.

Same shore; same horizon. Only
sky, drunk deep, betrays change.
Jigger of sunset, rubied brandy,
introduced to unintoxicated day.

Now come the memories, wave
upon wave, inviting immersion. Now come
the lingering hopes, vortex of longing for
all that has or might have been loved.

Now in near-dusk, understanding,
feeble at first, then determined.
Can so little really have mattered?
Can the one truth simply have been

riveted presence, moment by moment,
to pain and to joy; fascination, ennui?
Has Sacred Fire smoldered so long
In such innocent ashes?

The question, or is it the answer, hovers and stills.
Sweet, purple evening rises like smoke from the embers
Of the inessential and shorn. Once, some distant morning,
hearts were set to this moment in brilliant, unproven vows.

The ocean of years, in hypnotic cadence,
Allowed, then rescinded, distraction.
Now, under its waves, tenacious and constant,
deep diving down in the luminous darkness of God.

Music: Divine Mystery – Heather Houston (lyrices below)

Oh I am opening up for a dance with Divine Mystery
Oh I am trusting the path that’s unfolding before me with ease

Just let go now, trust the flow
Just let go now, then you’ll know

Right on time now, I’ve arrived
Right on time now, I’m aligned

Upside-Down, Inside-Out

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Cross, Discipleship, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, spirituality4 Comments

Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter
May 4, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our two readings take us on a journey. We sail through Israel’s long and spectacular salvation history from Moses through David and forward to Jesus. And in the sailing, we get turned head over heels.

In our first reading, Paul encapsulates twelve hundred years in a few elegant verses. (Nice job, Paul!)

The touchpoints of his homily are these:

  • the sojourn in the land of Egypt. 
  • forty years in the desert.
  • destruction of Canaan,
  • judges up to Samuel the prophet.
  • King Saul, for forty years. 
  • King David whose descendants gave Israel …
  • JESUS
  • then a little mention of John the Baptist

Paul’s succinct preaching allows us to see God’s powerful arm reaching through the long sleeve of Isreal’s history, finally handing the Chosen People the ultimate gift — Jesus Christ the Messiah.

Ah, but then we have our Gospel – which does today what it always does so well. It turns everything upside down and inside-out.

Through the twelve hundred years of Israel’s pre-Christian history, we see an agonizingly slow rise to power and glory culminating in David’s reign. How deeply later Israelites longed for a future Savior who would shine like the royal David had – who would restore the glory of Israel. That was their cherished expectation.

But Jesus turns that long sleeve of salvation history inside out. He preaches an inverse power fueled by service, a glory dressed in humble acts of mercy and forgiveness.

His longing is not for a worldly restoration, but for a whole New Creation born of sacrificial love. His hope is not for a secular kingdom but for a transformational community enlivened in the Triune God.

When Jesus had washed the disciples’ feet, he said to them:
“Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master
nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him.
If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.

John 12:16-20

As we read and pray the scriptures, we get better at seeing the sacred understory of grace sustaining us. Upside-down, inside-out, our daily life is filled with divine mystery and revelation. We just have to look at the flip side to catch hold of the sail.

I was a teenager during the golden age of the 33 and 45 rpm records. I had a slew of Elvis, Fats Domino, Roy Orbison, The Everley Brothers, Ray Charles, The Supremes and many others. Each record had a hit on one side, and I rarely bothered to look at the other side. One day I flipped one of my “Top 10s” (The Wildcat Blues) to take a look at the other side, only to find what would become one of my favorite songs of all time: Petite Fleur. After the 1950s, it faded from the top ten list, but it has stayed on my list for 60 years.

When I hear that song, it sinks into my spirit creating a feeling that resists words. Like much good music, it reorders something in my spirit so that I see the world a little differently. And I would never have found it if I hadn’t turned things upside down to listen to the understory.

If we allow ourselves to dive deep under the scriptures – to go to the “flip side” – as Jesus invites us to do in today’s Gospel, we will find our own “petite fleurs” of insight and grace.

If you understand this,
blessed are you if you do it.

John 13:17

Prose: from Seeing by Annie Dillard

The secret of seeing is, then, the pearl of great price. 
If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever 
I would stagger barefoot across a hundred deserts 
after any lunatic at all. 

But although the pearl may be found,
it may not be sought. 
The literature of illumination reveals this above all: 
although it comes to those who wait for it, 
it is always, even to the most practiced and adept, 
a gift and a total surprise… 

I cannot cause light; 
the most I can do is try to put myself 
in the path of its beam. 
It is possible, in deep space, to sail on solar wind. 
Light, be it particle or wave, has force: 
you rig a giant sail and go. 

The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind.
Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, 
whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff.

Music: Petite Fleur – Chris Barber