Category: Discipleship

Friends

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, friendship, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus
July 29, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072924.cfm

Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary
to comfort them about their brother [Lazarus, who had died].
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,
she went to meet him;
but Mary sat at home.
Martha said to Jesus,
“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,
God will give you.”
John 11:19-22

Jesus needed and had friends, just like we do. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were that kind of close friends. Jesus could hang out at their house, be comfortable at their table. They loved when he visited, bustling about to tidy the house and make him a special meal. They could sit with him for the afternoon in the comfortable silence between close friends. And could expect him to share their joys and sorrows.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Jesus wants to be that kind of friend with us – sharing presence, refreshment, a quiet comfort, a lively conversation. He wants to share our ups and downs and in-betweens.He wants us to love him as he loves us.

Poetry: Malcolm Guite – The Anointing at Bethany

Come close with Mary, Martha, Lazarus
so close the candles stir with their soft breath
and kindle heart and soul to flame within us,
lit by these mysteries of life and death.
For beauty now begins the final movement
in quietness and intimate encounter.
The alabaster jar of precious ointment
is broken open for the world’s true Lover.
The whole room richly fills to feast the senses
with all the yearning such a fragrance brings.
The heart is mourning but the spirit dances,
here at the very center of all things,
here at the meeting place of love and loss,
we all foresee, and see beyond the cross.

Music: Pour My Love on You by Craig and Dean Phillips



Reform

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

Saturday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 27, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072724.cfm

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel:
Reform your ways and your deeds,
so that I may remain with you in this place.
Put not your trust in the deceitful words:
“This is the temple of the LORD!
The temple of the LORD! The temple of the LORD!”
Only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds;
if each of you deals justly with his neighbor;
if you no longer oppress the resident alien,
the orphan, and the widow;
if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place,
or follow strange gods to your own harm,
will I remain with you in this place,
in the land I gave your fathers long ago and forever.
Jeremiah 7:3-7

Jeremiah tells the people that God wants to reform them in a very particular way. They are to be reshaped by justice, truthfulness, mercy, holy hospitality, non-violence, and faithful worship.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We examine our lives for where we need reformation. Don’t tell me you don’t need it. Everybody needs it. We get weary, distracted, hurt, stubborn, fooled, proud, and arrogant. These human conditions knock us out of spiritual shape. How great that God grants us the indulgence to reform and gladly assists us in the process!

Wisdom:

“In a higher world
it is otherwise,
but here below to live
is to change,
and to be perfect
is to have changed often.”

St. John Henry Newman

Music: Purple Indulgence – Masako

Earthen

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Creation, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, spirituality4 Comments

Feast of Saint James, Apostle
July 25, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072524.cfm

We hold this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.
We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained;
perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed;
always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.
For we who live are constantly being given up to death
for the sake of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
2 Corinthians 4:7-11

Today’s passage from Corinthians reminds us that any beauty and goodness in us is a gracious gift from God. That gift strengthens us beyond any human or personal capacity so that our lives may give God glory.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We prayerfully relax in the Potter’s hands Who shapes our lives according to Mercy. We realize with Paul that, even in affliction, we give glory to God by our fidelity and trust.

Poetry: Within this earthen vessel – Kabir, (1398–1518) a well-known Indian mystic poet and saint.

Within this earthen vessel are bowers and groves,
and within it is the Creator:
Within this vessel are the seven oceans
and the unnumbered stars.
The touchstone and the jewel-appraiser are within;
And within this vessel the Eternal soundeth,
and the spring wells up.
Kabir says: “Listen to me, my Friend!
My beloved Lord is within.”

Music: Earthen Vessels – John Foley, SJ

Before …

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Scripture, spirituality1 Comment

Wednesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 24, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072424.cfm

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I dedicated you,
a prophet to the nations I appointed you.
“Ah, Lord GOD!” I said,
“I know not how to speak; I am too young.”
But the LORD answered me,
Say not, “I am too young.”
To whomever I send you, you shall go;
whatever I command you, you shall speak.
Have no fear before them,
because I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.
Jeremiah 1: 5-8

This passage recounting the call of Jeremiah is full of tenderness and encouragement. God assures Jeremiah that the world is bigger than his present hesitations, fears, and inadequacies.

God has known him and been with him even before he was born.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We give thanks that God has been with us always, even before we were born. God accompanies us through whatever fears and hesitations we have in living a good and holy life. Trust is the key that opens our hearts to this blessed truth.

Poetry: Before the World Was Made – W.B. Yeats

In this intriguing poem, Yeats writes from the perspective of a woman whose efforts at physical beauty leave her unfulfilled. She longs for the spiritual beauty she possessed “before the world was made”.

If I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity’s displayed:
I’m looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.

What if I look upon a man
As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while
And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
Or that he is betrayed?
I’d have him love the thing that was
Before the world was made.

Music: I Have Loved You – Michael Joncas

Sought

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality1 Comment

Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene
July 22, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072224.cfm

The Bride says:
On my bed at night I sought him
whom my heart loves–
I sought him but I did not find him.
I will rise then and go about the city;
in the streets and crossings I will seek
Him whom my heart loves.
I sought him but I did not find him.
The watchmen came upon me,
as they made their rounds of the city:
Have you seen him whom my heart loves?
I had hardly left them
when I found him whom my heart loves.
Song of Songs 3:1-48

This exquisite poem from the Song of Songs captures the spirit of Mary Magdalen who, throughout her life, sought a deep and transformative relationship with God.

When she anointed his feet, when she relentlessly sought him at the tomb, Mary longed for the Presence of Jesus. When she found Him whom she had sought, this premier Apostle of the Resurrection preached the first Easter news to her companions.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We honor Mary Magdalen, so long mischaracterized in Church history. We ask to be inspired by her deep love of Jesus and resolute desire to be united with him.

Poetry: The Magdalen, a Garden, and This – Kathleen O’Toole

She who is known by myth and association
as sinful, penitent, voluptuous perhaps…
but faithful to the last and then beyond.

A disciple for sure, confused often with Mary,
sister of Lazarus, or the woman caught
in adultery, or she who angered the men

by anointing Jesus with expensive oils.
She was the one from whom he cast out seven
demons-she’s named in that account.

Strip all else away and we know only
that she was grateful, that she found her way
to the cross, and that she returned

to the tomb, to the garden nearby, and there,
weeping at her loss, was recognized,
became known in the tender invocation

of her name. Mary: breathed by one
whom she mistook for the gardener, he
who in an instant brought her back to herself-

gave her in two syllables a life beloved,
gave me the only sure thing I’ll believe
of heaven, that if it be, it will consist

in this: the one unmistakable
rendering of your name.

Music: I Know That My Redeemer Liveth – G. F. Handel

Shepherd

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Prayer, spirituality1 Comment

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 21, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072124.cfm

Today’s Alleluia Verse encapsulates the theme of all the readings:

My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord;
I know them, and they follow me.

John 10:27

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We LISTEN – one of the hardest things to do in life. Really listen – to what we hear with our ears, but more importantly, what we hear with our hearts. God is always speaking to us. May we listen.

Poetry: You, Neighbor God – Ranier Maria Rilkë

You, neighbor god, if sometimes in the night
I rouse you with loud knocking, I do so
only because I seldom hear you breathe
and know: you are alone.
And should you need a drink, no one is there
to reach it to you, groping in the dark.
Always I hearken. Give but a small sign.
I am quite near.

Between us there is but a narrow wall,
and by sheer chance; for it would take
merely a call from your lips or from mine
to break it down,
and that without a sound.

The wall is builded of your images.

They stand before you hiding you like names.
And when the light within me blazes high
that in my inmost soul I know you by,
the radiance is squandered on their frames.

And then my senses, which too soon grow lame,
exiled from you, must go their homeless ways.

Music: The Lonely Shepherd – Gheorghe Zamfir

Woe

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

Tuesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 16, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071624.cfm

Jesus began to reproach the towns
where most of his mighty deeds had been done,
since they had not repented.
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!
For if the mighty deeds done in your midst
had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes.
Matthew 11:20-21

Chorazin and Bethsaida were privileged. They had been blessed to see God’s power miraculously displayed in Jesus. And yet they failed to believe! How can that be? Hard-heartedness? Stupidity?

I think that, more likely, it was fear – the woeful condition that holds us back from giving ourselves to the truth. What would be required of them if they believed? What changes would they have to make in their lives? How would their comfortable world be turned upside-down?

Repentance: that would be the fruit of faith in Jesus. Many of them just couldn’t face it.

Today in God’s Lavish Mercy:

How committed is my faith? How is the Truth of Jesus alive in my life? What repentance, large or small, do I need to offer God?

Poetry: Savior – Maya Angelou

Petulant priests, greedy
centurions, and one million
incensed gestures stand
between your love and me.

Your agape sacrifice
is reduced to colored glass,
vapid penance, and the
tedium of ritual.

Your footprints yet
mark the crest of
billowing seas but
your joy
fades upon the tablets
of ordained prophets.

Visit us again, Savior.
Your children, burdened with
disbelief, blinded by a patina
of wisdom,
carom down this vale of
fear. We cry for you
although we have lost
your name.

Music: Calling – Masako, Ackerman, Eaton

Peace

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Cross, Discipleship, Gospel, Jesus, justice, Mercy, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
July 15, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071524.cfm

Jesus said to his Apostles:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth.
I have come to bring not peace but the sword.
For I have come to set
a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s enemies will be those of his household.
Matthew 10:34-36

I would not have liked hearing these words from Jesus, would you? The last thing I would have ever wanted was to be set against my precious mother! So WHAT is Jesus talking about?

These words are central to Christ’s mandate to his disciples. He is telling them that they will inevitably meet painful conflict while living out his mission. Sometimes the conflict will even be within their families and among their friends.

This is because God’s Peace is not quiet indifference but the striving for just equanimity for all people. This is the sword of discipleship – we must cut ourselves away from anything that turns us from a just and merciful God.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy,
We pray for graced insight that we may see where the sword is pointing in our lives, and for courage that we may do the necessary cutting to be worthy disciples and build an honest peace in our world.

Poetry: Swords Into Plowshares – Daniel Berrigan, SJ
This poem was written in response to the conviction of the Plowshares Eight, of whom Berrigan was a member, for their civil disobedience against nuclear war.

Everything enhances, everything
gives glory—everything!

Between bark and bite
Judge Salus’s undermined soul
betrays him, mutters
very alleluias.

The iron cells—
Row on row of rose trellised
Mansions, bridal chambers!

Curses, vans, keys, guards—behold
the imperial lions of our vast acres!

And when hammers come down
and our years are tossed to four winds—

why, flowers blind the eye, the saints
pelt us with flowers!

For every hour
scant with discomfort
(the mastiff’s baleful eye,
the bailiff’s mastery)—

see, the Lord’s hands heap
eon upon eon,
like fruit bowls at a feast.

Music: Go Light Your World – Chris Rice

Shake

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

Memorial of Saint Benedict, abbot
July 11, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071124.cfm

Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it,
and stay there until you leave.
As you enter a house, wish it peace.
If the house is worthy,
let your peace come upon it;
if not, let your peace return to you.
Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words—
go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet.
Matthew 10: 11-14

Jesus gives his disciples a lesson on how to deal with disappointment and frustration as they spread the Gospel. Not every heart is going to be open to them. Jesus wants them to give their mission a heartfelt try. But if it meets a wall, they should not bang their head against it. Just turn around, let it go, and shake off their concern. Let it be like so much “dust in the wind”.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

All disciples of Jesus, all who sincerely live and preach the Gospel, are going to meet frustration at many points in their lives. We live in a world that is often diametrically opposed to the Beatitudes, the Magnificat, the Our Father. We live with people who cover classroom walls with the Ten Commandments while breaking every one of them in personal practice.

It can be frustrating, but Jesus says not to get caught in that frustration. Rather, he teaches, shake it off and move on to more receptive ground.

Jesus was serious about this and, in another passage, used some harsh words to make his point:

Do not give what is holy to the dogs;
nor cast your pearls before swine,
lest they trample them under their feet,
and turn and tear you in pieces.
Matthew 7:6-7

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Over the course of our lives, we will find ourselves somewhere in these passages – disciples or frustraters, pearl- givers or swine! Wherever we stand, God’s grace awaits us.

Poetry: Shake Thyself from the Dust – Mary Hoyt Loveland

Shake thyself from the dust, faint heart;
Loose thyself from bands that bind.
Thou art not Assyria’s thrall;
Captive, rise and freedom find!

Captive, this is Love’s own realm!
Lo! the very hills rejoice
That oppression is cast down;
Yea, the streams lift up their voice.

Yea, each dewy blossom glows,
Freed from error’s withering blight.
Loosed from tyranny and fear,
Captive, turn ye to the light!

Turn ye to the light, and see
That no evil can dismay,
Gathering clouds of bitterness,
Hiding harmony from day.

Turn ye to the light, faint one;
In the truth is freedom won!

Music: Dust in the Wind – by Kansas

Thorn

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Cross, Discipleship, holiness, spirituality, sufferingLeave a comment

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 7, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070724.cfm

That I, Paul, might not become too elated,
because of the abundance of the revelations,
a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan,
to beat me, to keep me from being too elated.
Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me,
but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you,
for power is made perfect in weakness.”
2 Corinthians 13:6-9

Two millennia of believers have speculated about Paul’s “thorn”. Was it a bad hip, sciatica, or maybe eczema? And why didn’t he just come right out and tell us what it was?

Such useless speculation may make us miss the point of this powerful passage. Paul was immensely graced by God to the point that he could easily have become proud. Although he begged for the “thorn” to leave him, he received it as a gift. That gift allowed Paul to give not only his strengths to God’s service, but also his weaknesses.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Do you have a little “thorn” somewhere that bothers and distracts you from full trust in God? Maybe an inability to forgive, an excessive need for control, an uncharitable judgment, a fear of change, an intolerance toward certain personalities, a fascination with personal achievements?

God invites us to transform these “thorns” into blessings by giving them to the Divine Energy Who calls us to love fiercely like Paul did.

Quote:

“The thorn from the bush
one has planted,
nourished and pruned
pricks more deeply
and draws more blood.”

Maya Angelou

Music: A Thorn Tree – from Trinity UMC in Montpelier, VT

I came upon this lovely rendition by accident, and I thought it was beautiful in its simplicity.