Category: Discipleship

Thursday of the Second Week of Easter

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

April 28, 2022

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings demonstrate how hard it is for some people to believe – because deepening belief usually requires a soul-change.

disputebeforesanhedrin1700
Fra Angelico, Dispute before Sanhedrin, Cappella Niccolina, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican

In our first reading, the high priest and Sanhedrin just don’t get it. No matter how severe the oppression, Peter and the Apostles are not going to stop sharing the Good News. Even miracles and inexplicable prison escapes do not convince them that maybe the Apostles have some special blessing to offer them.

Why won’t the Sanhedrin listen? Why are they in such denial about what they are witnessing?

The Sanhedrin were members of a privileged class. They had things set up nicely to their material benefit. Jesus was a bombshell turning their comfortable world upside down. So they resorted to any tool possible to eradicate him: denial, oppression, persecution, even murder.

But the Good News of Jesus Christ is ineradicable.

Jn3_believe

In our Gospel, John minces no words about the fate of unbelievers:

The Father loves the Son
and has given everything over to him.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life,
but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life,
but the wrath of God remains upon him.

John 3:35-36

When I look at our world, I see a lot of that “wrath”, don’t you? I see situations of war, pain, injustice, greed, and irreverence for Creation that could not exist in a truly believing world.

Seeing these things, I examine my own life for the places where faith has not converted me, for the kinds of resistant behaviors that prevented the Sanhedrin from receiving the greatest gift possible – a fully faithful and compassionate heart in the image of Jesus Christ.

Poetry: What We Need is Here – Wendell Berry

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer’s end. In time’s maze
over fall fields, we name names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed’s marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

Music: A Faithful Heart – Libera
(I imagine that this lovely song is usually interpreted as a marriage canticle, but I think it perfectly describes the sacred covenant between God and the faithful believer.)

Wednesday of the Second Week of Easter: The Light

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

April 27, 2022

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we read about miracles and Light. These are good things, right? It would seem that we shouldn’t be slow to acknowledge the miracles around us, nor to open our eyes to the Light.

Well, let’s see….

In our reading from Acts, we read about a miracle:

The high priest rose up and all his companions,
that is, the party of the Sadducees,
and, filled with jealousy,
laid hands upon the Apostles and put them in the public jail.
But during the night, the angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison,
led them out, and said,
“Go and take your place in the temple area,
and tell the people everything about this life.”

Acts 5: 17-20

Still when the Temple guards and the High Priest discover God’s miraculous action, they re-arrest the disciples and try again to stop the spread of the Light!

When I read this I say, “Come on, guys! Take a hint! Maybe there is something to this preaching!”

But the truth is that it can be really hard to take that hint — to wake up, to acknowledge the miracles around us, and to choose Light over darkness. Why? Because miracles and Light get in the way of our agendas, our lazy choices, our indifference to others’ needs and our own excesses.

Most of us don’t want to live completely bereft of blessings and inspiration. We’d like a miracle now and again, but not enough to demand our deep conversion. We’d prefer a little shade and shadow, a little spiritual oblivion in our lives.

In our Gospel, John will have none of it! The Light demands our conversion to the fullness of the Gospel.

Listen to John’s astonishment that people choose darkness over Light.

And this is the verdict,
that the Light came into the world,
but people preferred darkness to light,
because their works were evil.

John 3:19

And yet, we see it all the time, don’t we? Even, unfortunately, sometimes in ourselves?

Let’s pray today for the strength to always choose God’s stunning yet healing Light. Let’s pray that strength for our terribly shadowed world – that we may open our prisoned hearts to the miracle of Light God has planted in each one of us.

Poetry: The Uses of Sorrow | Mary Oliver

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

Music: Coulin – James Last

Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter: 2022

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Discipleship, Eastertide, Eternal Life, Faith, spirituality1 Comment

April 26, 2022

Today’s Readings
Nicodemus

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we meet two towering figures of the early Christian story, Barnabas and Nicodemus.

In our first reading, Barnabas is cited as a devout member of the community of believers which …

… was of one heart and mind,
and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own,
but they had everything in common.

Acts 4:32

Our Gospel brings us Nicodemus who “came to Jesus under cover of the night”.  Nicodemus, obviously Ph.D. material, has a long exchange with Jesus in the attempt to come to intellectual comfort with Jesus’s message.

Nicodemus wants his faith to make logical sense before committing to it, to the point that Jesus sounds a little astounded at the effort:

You are the teacher of Israel 
and you do not understand 
what I am saying to you?

John 3:10

I think a little bit of both Barnabas and Nicodemus lives within each of us.

barnabas seesaw

Like Nicodemus, we do believe, but we would like to understand more. We grapple with concepts of “God’s plan”, with the problem of evil, with what seems the random mercilessness of nature, and myriad other inexplicable realities.

Still, like Barnabas, we trust and are willing to lay our lives at the feet of Christ to be his agents in the world.

That balancing of trust with anxiety is the story of faith for most of us. And it’s OK.  Both Nickie and Barnie turned out to be giants for Christ.  And so will we with God’s help.

Poetry: The Night – BY HENRY VAUGHAN
John 3.2

Through that pure virgin shrine,
That sacred veil drawn o’er Thy glorious noon,
That men might look and live, as glowworms shine,
And face the moon,
Wise Nicodemus saw such light
As made him know his God by night.

Most blest believer he!
Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes
Thy long-expected healing wings could see,
When Thou didst rise!
And, what can never more be done,
Did at midnight speak with the Sun!

O who will tell me where
He found Thee at that dead and silent hour?
What hallowed solitary ground did bear
So rare a flower,
Within whose sacred leaves did lie
The fulness of the Deity?

No mercy-seat of gold,
No dead and dusty cherub, nor carved stone,
But His own living works did my Lord hold
And lodge alone;
Where trees and herbs did watch and peep
And wonder, while the Jews did sleep.

Dear night! this world’s defeat
The stop to busy fools; care’s check and curb;
The day of spirits; my soul’s calm retreat
Which none disturb!
Christ’s progress, and His prayer time;
The hours to which high heaven doth chime;

God’s silent, searching flight;
When my Lord’s head is filled with dew, and all
His locks are wet with the clear drops of night;
His still, soft call;
His knocking time; the soul’s dumb watch,
When spirits their fair kindred catch.

Were all my loud, evil days
Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark tent,
Whose peace but by some angel’s wing or voice
Is seldom rent,
Then I in heaven all the long year
Would keep, and never wander here.

But living where the sun
Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire
Themselves and others, I consent and run
To every mire,
And by this world’s ill-guiding light,
Err more than I can do by night.

There is in God, som say,
A deep but dazzling darkness, as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
See not all clear.
O for that night! where I in Him
Might live invisible and dim!

Music: Ye Must Be Born Again – sung by The Sensational Nightingales, a beloved Black Gospel Quartet that, with several membership changes, has been popular for over seven decades.  (Lyrics below)

Ye Must Be Born Again
written by William T. Sleeper in 1877

A ruler once came to Jesus by night,
To ask Him the way of salvation and light;
The Master made answer in words true and plain,
“Ye must be born again!”
“Ye must be born again!”
“Ye must be born again!”
“I verily, verily say unto thee,
Ye must be born again!”

Ye children of men, attend to the word
So solemnly uttered by Jesus, the Lord,
And let not this message to you be in vain,
“Ye must be born again.”

Oh, ye who would enter that glorious rest,
And sing with the ransomed the song of the blest;
The life everlasting if ye would obtain,
“Ye must be born again.”

St. Mark: The Gift of a Gospel

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, spirituality1 Comment

April 25, 2022

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate Saint Mark the Evangelist.

Pordenone: M‡rk evangelista
Mark the Evangelist by Il Pordenone (c. 1484-1539)

Who exactly that person was hides in the mists of early Church history. Several possible “Marks” are mentioned at various points in the New Testament. Whether they are the same or different persons and which, if any, is the author of Mark’s Gospel are questions scripture detectives have chased for centuries.

What the readings offer us today is a young man whom Peter loved and who absorbed the Good News under Peter’s own tutelage.

In today’s passage from Acts, Peter writes to Christians scattered throughout Asia Minor at the time of the persecutions. His teaching is clearly that of the universal leader of the Church helping the scattered flock to hold on to the faith.

Your opponent the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion
looking for someone to devour.
Resist him, steadfast in faith,
knowing that your brothers and sisters throughout the world
undergo the same sufferings.

1 Peter 5: 8-9

It isn’t hard to read these ancient words and imagine Pope Francis speaking them to all of us today. The evils of the world still test our faith and resolve. But we are called to strengthen one another in faith, justice and mercy. Peter’s assurance can inspire us:

The God of all grace
who called you to his eternal glory through Christ Jesus
will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you
after you have suffered a little.
To him be dominion forever.  Amen.

1 Peter 5: 10-11

Mark, who sat at the feet of Peter’s strong and loving leadership, himself went on to become a devoted leader of Christ’s flock. Mark’s Gospel, reflecting much of Peter’s personal experience of Jesus, is an astounding gift to the Church yet to be born — to us!

How Mark must have cherished Peter’s brave and tender words to the young suffering Church and harkened back to them so often over the course of his life:

The chosen one (early Christian code for “the whole Church”)
sends you greeting, as does Mark, my son.
Greet one another with a loving kiss.
Peace to all of you who are in Christ.

1Peter5_14 kiss

That gracious “kiss” from Peter carried the love and power of every Christian, just as we carry it today in our constant prayer for and encouragement of one another.

Poetry: Mark – by Malcolm Guite

A wingèd lion, swift, immediate
Mark is the gospel of the sudden shift
From first to last, from grand to intimate,
From strength to weakness, and from debt to gift,
From a wide desert’s haunted emptiness
To a close city’s fervid atmosphere,
From a voice crying in the wilderness
To angels in an empty sepulcher.
And Christ makes the most sudden shift of all;
From swift action as a strong Messiah
Casting the very demons back to hell
To slow pain, and death as a pariah.
We see our Saviour’s life and death unmade
And flee his tomb dumbfounded and afraid.

Music: The St. Mark Passion – J.S. Bach

The St Mark Passion (German: Markus-Passion), BWV 247, is a lost Passion setting by Johann Sebastian Bach, first performed in Leipzig on Good Friday, 23 March 1731 and again, in a revised version, in 1744. Though Bach’s music is lost, the libretto by Picander is still extant, and from this, the work can to some degree be reconstructed.

The St. Mark Passion belongs to the lesser known treasures among the sacred opus of J.S. Bach. Thus, the present recording made in the Frauenkirche Dresden is all the more spectacular, since it is performed in the reconstructed version of 1731 published by Carus. The actor Dominique Horwitz recites the text of the Evangelist, alternating with the arias and chorales presented with impressive intonation and exciting drama by the Leipzig ensemble amarcord and the Kölner Akademie under the direction of Michael Alexander Willens.

Geh, Jesuh, geh zu deiner Pein!
Ich will so lange dich beweinen,
Bist mir dein Trost wird wiederscheinen,
Da ich versöhnet werde sein.

Go, Jesus, go to your suffering!
So long I will mourn you,
Until your consolation appears to me again,
When I shall be absolved.

Second Sunday of Easter: Sacred Shadows

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

April 24, 2022

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy,  our readings continue to show us the rising power of Christ after the Resurrection.

Acts5_15 shadow

Acts demonstrates how powerfully Jesus lives in his disciples, and in the faith of the emerging Church.

… the people esteemed them.
Yet more than ever, believers in the Lord,
great numbers of men and women, were added to them.
Thus they even carried the sick out into the streets
and laid them on cots and mats
so that when Peter came by,
at least his shadow might fall on one or another of them.

Acts 5: 13-15

Our Gospel recounts two Post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus where He bolsters that faith for these still fledgling followers. They were gathered in the Upper Room, doors locked and fearful. When Jesus appears, the first thing he says is, “Peace”, because that is what his little flock most needs.

In the course of the reading, we discover Thomas’s adamant doubt unless he can see and touch evidence of the Christ he once knew in the flesh. His doubt is so strong that his faith, when it comes, overwhelms him.

My Lord, and my God!

In these first sainted founders of the faith, we can find a mirror image of our own call to witness Christ. We are delegated to be his presence in the world, to cast a shadow that bears his blessing in the midst of suffering and confusion.

But in the locked room of our hearts, we may still be afraid. We may feel, like Thomas, that we were absent when the affirmation and courage were distributed!

Photo by Life Of Pix on Pexels.com

Knowing our own weaknesses – and captured in the maze of their little dramas – we may be skeptical that Christ desires to rise in us, to preach by our lives.

What Jesus said to these very fragile witnesses, he says to us

Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me,
so I send you.

Let us look around today in awareness of those who fall in the shadow of our faith: our children and families, our religious communities, our elders, our neighbors, our friends and co-workers. As we pass through life together, does our presence bless them with a trace of God?

As we pray today, let us place our doubts, fears, weaknesses and self-concerns into Christ’s sacred wounds. Let us leave them there in confidence as we humbly choose to be his Presence and Mercy for others by the simple, selfless choices of our lives.

Poetry: In the Upper Room – by Fr. Charles O’Donnell, CSC – 11th President of Notre Dame University (unfortunately not as well known for his beautiful, mystical poetry)

Music: Under the Shadow of Your Wings – Chris Bowater

Easter Friday: The Starboard Side

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, spirituality1 Comment

April 22, 2022

Today’s Readings
jn21_6-cast-net

Late April and the sweet fullness of a spring morning pours down on the silver water. It had been a fruitless night for the weary fishermen, but not an unpleasant one. They had distracted one another from their labors by singing their ancient folksongs and telling the stories of their recent epiphanies. As dawn cracked through darkness, they trailed their fingers in the gentle wake and turned their tired souls towards shore.

And He stood there, misted in diffused radiance. “The starboard side”, he called. “Why?,” they thought; and then again, “Why not?”. With just that small opening in the closed door of their hopelessness, they were overwhelmed with the stunning presence of possibility.

How could these seasoned fishermen have failed to notice the abundance swimming at their side? How could they, so accustomed to the rocking sea, have been narcotized by its lulling darkness?

When we have abandoned hope and tired of the rolling waves; when we have turned the bow toward shore in acquiescence to a hungry morning, remember these disciples. Like them, may we listen for the soft suggestion, “Children…the starboard side…”.

The Miraculous Draught of Fishes – Raphael

There is always another side, another path to the fullness of life. The hopeless dirges we repeat in our darkness are the devil’s deceptions. The truth is that life runs beside us and within us, just below the surface of our fears. Love stands on the shore and encourages us to go back for a moment into the darkness, to look again for the hidden blessing, and then to come to the feast in Love’s abiding presence.

Today, in the midst of our sometimes dark and discouraging world, we are the Apostles. What bold command is Jesus calling to us in the morning mist?

Music: Edward Elgar – The Apostles – a long, beautiful piece you may want to play in the background if you have a quiet space in your day.

Easter Thursday: Mystery Unfolds

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

April 21, 2022

Today’s Readings
luke-24_questions

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Jesus asks his disciples, “Why do questions arise in your heart?”

We might stand beside them with our own prayer:

Honestly, Lord? How could they not have questions arise? You have, after all, just RISEN FROM THE DEAD! We’re not used to that, and we’re not sure how to handle it!

And about that Last Supper, when you said the bread and wine were your Body and Blood? It’s a pretty amazing statement, and we’re still trying to comprehend it.

Besides all that, Lord, just now the whole world is languishing in the midst of violence, war, and disease and we’re not sure exactly where You are!

We’re just human beings, Lord. Our minds naturally work to solve problems. That’s why we have questions – we like answers.

Only now, as Resurrection People, are we beginning to learn that you are much more the “The Answer”.

You will always be “The Mystery” – the Infinity we are invited to –  where there is no end, only deeper, always deeper.

Help us to learn that our faith and our doubts are the same thing – they are our attempts to embrace the Question. Help us transform our doubts to faith by our unequivocal trust in your unfolding Mystery.

For God does not want to be believed in,
to be debated and defended by us,
but simply to be realized through us.”
― Martin Buber

Mystery is not to be construed
as a lacuna in our knowledge,
as a void to be filled,
but rather as a certain plentitude.
— Gabriel Marcel

Music: The Mystery of God – Dan Schutte

Easter Wednesday: The Dear Name

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, Prayer, spirituality5 Comments
Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our passage from Acts describes a sacred practice of the early Church – the invocation of the Name of Jesus as a source of spiritual power.

acts3_6 Name

Peter said, “I have neither silver nor gold,
but what I do have I give you:
in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk.”

These first Christians were so invested in the Gospel of Jesus Christ that they claimed the right to act in his Name. They also clearly believed that they had no power themselves, but only in that blessed Name.

To call someone by their given name is an act of familiarity, if not intimacy. For those closest to us, we often have nicknames or pet names, conveying a unique understanding of each other.

Calling God by name is an act of both intimacy and worship. In the book of Exodus, God takes the first step in that deeper friendship:

God also said to Moses, “I am the Lord.
I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob
as God Almighty,
but by my name “the Lord”
I did not make myself fully known to them.

With the Incarnation of Jesus, God took the ultimate step in loving friendship with us. To help us understand the nature of this friendship, Jesus gives himself some “nicknames” throughout the Gospel:

  • Good Shepherd
  • Lamb of God
  • the Vine
  • the Way, the Truth, the Life
  • the Bread of Life
  • the Light of the World

Each of these names helps us to enter more deeply into the infinite love God has for us.

Do you have a special name for God? Sometimes, early in the morning when First Light touches my window, I pray with that Name. I ask my Bright God to light my life and the lives of those I love this day. At night, that same window is full of Sweet Darkness, a Name I call God as I ask that we all find a peaceful, protected sleep.

We might also ask if God has a special name for us. At different moments and moods of your life, does God speak to you with a personal, loving “nickname”? If you haven’t heard it yet, why not ask God to whisper it to you in your next prayer?

Prose Poem: from Rumi

“All night, a man called out “God! God!”
Until his lips were bleeding.
Then the Adversary of mankind said, “Hey! Mr Gullible!
… How come you’ve been calling all night
And never once heard God say, “Here, I AM”?
You call out so earnestly and, in reply, what?
I’ll tell you what. Nothing!”

The man suddenly felt empty and abandoned.
Depressed, he threw himself on the ground
And fell into a deep sleep.
In a dream, he met an angel, who asked,
“Why are you regretting calling out to God?”

The man said, “ I called and called
But God never replied, “Here I AM.”

The Angel explained, “God has said,
“Your calling my name is My reply.
Your longing for Me is My message to you.
All your attempts to reach Me
Are in reality My attempts to reach you.
Your fear and love are a noose to catch Me.
In the silence surrounding every call of “God”
Waits a thousand replies of “Here I AM.”

Music: Jesus the Lord

Jesus, Jesus
Let all creation bend the knee to the Lord.

In Him we live, we move and have our being;
In Him the Christ, In Him the King!
Jesus the Lord.

Though Son, He did not cling to Godliness,
But emptied Himself, became a slave!
Jesus the Lord.

He lived obediently His Father’s will
Accepting His death, death on a cross!
Jesus the Lord.

Easter Tuesday: Yet We Believe

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, spirituality1 Comment

April 19, 2022

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings present us with a picture of the nascent Church as it works toward understanding itself in the physical absence of Jesus.

Throughout the Gospels, we see a Christian community forming around a Leader they can see, hear and touch. Acts reveals how that community awakens to itself when Jesus is no longer materially present.

Acts shows us a Church like us. We have never seen Christ, nor heard him, nor touched him. And yet we believe, or want to believe.

In our reading today, Peter preaches with brutal honesty:

Let the whole house of Israel know for certain
that God has made him both Lord and Christ,
this Jesus whom you crucified.

Acts 2:26
acts2_38_heartstruck

Peter’s message gets through to the assembly, to the point that, when they hear it, they are “cut to the heart”. This phrase indicates a profound conversion in the way they believed. Peter tells them that their faith, like Jesus’ life, must now become a sign of contradiction to a “corrupt generation “.

What might this powerful passage say to us?

For one thing, the reading calls us to be honest about the sincerity of our faith.

  • Is it the core of our lives?
  • Or is it, at best, a Sunday hobby?
  • Does it pervade our relationships and choices, giving witness to Christ’s commission to love?
  • Or is it a tool to judge and vilify those who differ from us?

The reading doesn’t demand that we “preach our faith out loud”. It calls us to a much deeper and more courageous witness:

  • to be Truth in a world of lies
  • to be Peace in violence
  • to be Justice in the face of abuse and domination
  • to be Servant rather than be served
  • to be Love for those deemed unlovable
  • in other words, to be like Jesus

And to do it all because we have been “cut to the heart” by the witness of the Cross and Resurrection.

Poetry: attributed to St. Teresa of Ávila

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which He looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are His body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Music: By Faith-Keith & Kristyn Getty

Easter Monday: Waking Ourselves to Resurrection

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Conversion, Courage, Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, spirituality5 Comments

April 18, 2022

Mt28_8 fear_joy

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy,  we enter the Easter Season which will last until June 4th. The next day we will celebrate Pentecost.

Throughout these several weeks, we will have a thorough reading of the Acts of the Apostles. 

Theologian Walter Brueggemann says this about Acts:

In the Book of Acts the church is
a restless, transformative agent
at work for emancipation
and well-being in the world.

As Easter People, transformed by the Resurrection of Jesus, that’s what we’re all called to be:

transformative agents
at work for emancipation
and well-being in the world.

Our models and inspiration will be found in these early women and men we read about over the next few weeks. This was a community fully committed and learning to be disciples. This was a community that acted – within a culture of death – for an alternative, life-giving world.

“The whole book of Acts is about power from God that the world cannot shut down. In scene after scene, there is a hard meeting between the church and worldly authorities, because worldly authorities are regularly baffled by this new power and resentful of it.”
At one point, in chapter 17, the followers of Jesus are accused of “turning the world upside down.” (Brueggemann)

Our world sorely needs such an active Church, speaking clearly to the issues that threaten and limit human life and wholeness in God. It’s not easy to be that witness, but it is critical. Our Gospel suggests the difficulty, but also defines the motivation:

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary
went away quickly from the tomb,
fearful yet overjoyed,
and ran to announce the good news …

May we, though sometimes fearful, choose to be agents of the joyful Good News for our times. By our choices, attitudes and actions, may we be brave in witnessing Christ, even in trying circumstances!

Prose: from Deitrich Bonhoeffer

Discipleship never consists
in this or that specific action:
it is always a decision
either for or against
Jesus Christ.

Music: Mozart’s Exsultate Jubilate – sung by Regula Mühlemann

Be sure to wait after the applause for the Alleluia segment.

Exsultate, jubilate,
o vos animae beatae!
Dulcia cantica canendo,
cantui vestro respondendo,
psallant aethera cum me.

Fulget amica dies,
iam fugere et nubila et procellae;
exortus est justis inexspectata quies.
Undique obscura regnabat nox;
surgite tandem laeti,
qui timuistis adhuc,
et iucundi aurorae fortunatae
frondes dextera plena et lilia date.

Tu, virginum corona,
tu nobis pacem dona.
Tu consolare affectus,
unde suspirat cor. Alleluia.

Exult, rejoice,
o blessed souls!
Singing sweet songs,
singing your song,
the heavens sing praise with me.

A friendly day shines forth,
clouds and thunderstorms recede;
unforeseen peace has come to the righteous.
Darkness was all over the world;
arise joyfully at last
you, who were hitherto in fear,
and, leaning to the blissful morning light
lavishly present wreaths of leaves and lilies.

You, the Virgin’s garland ,
grant us peace.
Dull the grief,
which makes our heart sigh. Halleluja.