Category: Eternal Life

Consecrate

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, Holy Spirit, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Wednesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
May 15, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051524.cfm

And now I commend you to God
and to that gracious word of his that can build you up
and give you the inheritance among all who are consecrated.
Acts 20:32

Consecrate them in the truth.
Your word is truth.
As you sent me into the world,
so I sent them into the world.
And I consecrate myself for them,
so that they also may be consecrated in truth.
John 17: 17-19

Both our readings today describe the act of consecration. In Acts, Paul blesses the presbyters in Ephesus, anointing them for Gospel ministry. In John 17, Jesus prays to the Father for his disciples – that they may be blessed and confirmed in the Word which is Truth.

At some point in our lives, each one of us has been consecrated in that same Truth. We may have been baptized, confirmed, blessed, ordained, and professed. Through those consecrations, the Holy Spirit has been breathed into our hearts to form us in Truth which is God’s Word.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s gratefully remember the fullness of our consecration. By the grace of God, we embody the Divine Power of truth, love, and mercy. How often do we remember to call on this Power when life threatens to overwhelm or confuse us?

Poetry: A Blessing for Wedding – Jane Hirshfield
While Hirshfield’s poem is directed toward the marriage vow, it is clearly applicable to all consecrations in which God is the sacred partner.

Today when persimmons ripen
Today when fox-kits come out of their den into snow
Today when the spotted egg releases its wren song
Today when the maple sets down its red leaves
Today when windows keep their promise to open
Today when fire keeps its promise to warm
Today when someone you love has died
or someone you never met has died
Today when someone you love has been born
or someone you will not meet has been born
Today when rain leaps to the waiting of roots in their dryness
Today when starlight bends to the roofs of the hungry and tired
Today when someone sits long inside his last sorrow
Today when someone steps into the heat of her first embrace
Today, let this light bless you
With these friends let it bless you
With snow-scent and lavender bless you
Let the vow of this day keep itself wildly and wholly
Spoken and silent, surprise you inside your ears
Sleeping and waking, unfold itself inside your eyes
Let its fierceness and tenderness hold you
Let its vastness be undisguised in all your days

Music: Sanctus – Jessye Norman

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus
Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
Pleni sunt cæli et terra gloria tua.
Hosanna in excelsis.
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
Hosanna in excelsis.

Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God of hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord:
Hosanna in the highest.

Keep

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

Seventh Sunday of Easter
May 12, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051224-Sunday.cfm

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying:
“Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me,
so that they may be one just as we are one.
When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me,
and I guarded them, and none of them was lost
except the son of destruction,
in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
But now I am coming to you.
I speak this in the world
so that they may share my joy completely.
I gave them your word, and the world hated them,
because they do not belong to the world
any more than I belong to the world.
I do not ask that you take them out of the world
but that you keep them from the evil one.
John 17:11-15

In today’s Gospel, Jesus prays with great tenderness for his beloved disciples. He asks the Father to “keep” his friends, the way we keep precious things in our hearts, our prayers, and our memories.

I have prayed like this for the people I love, haven’t you? We ask God to protect them the way we would protect them. We don’t ask for miracles, but simply that they be delivered from the evils of “this world”.

We want them to have the courage to live good lives, and to be blessed by that goodness. We want them to find joy in the immense blessings God offers us, yes, in “this world” as God created it.

This is the prayer Jesus offers for his disciples … and for each one of us.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Rest in Jesus’s prayer for those who love him that we may be one with him in Trinitarian Love. Let it convince your heart of the joy, hope, love, and mercy God has for each of us.

Poetry: May They Be One – Bob Hartman

And Jesus said:

This is my prayer. 
My prayer for the disciples who follow me now. 
And my prayer for all the disciples to come.
One. May they be One.
As I am One with you, Father.
As you are One with me.
May they be One. One with us.
So the world will believe that you have sent me.
One. May they be One.
For you have given me your glory,
and that's why I have passed it on to them.
That they might be like you and me.
That they might be One.
One. May they be One.
Completely One.
I in them.
You in me.
One.
So the world will know you sent me,
and that you love them,
just like you love me…

Music: We Are One – Three O’Clock Session

Ascend

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

Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter – Ascension
May 9, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050924.cfm

When they had gathered together they asked him,
“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
He answered them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons
that the Father has established by his own authority.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you,
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
throughout Judea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth.”
When he had said this, as they were looking on,
he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.
While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going,
suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them.
They said, “Men of Galilee,
why are you standing there looking at the sky?
This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven
will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”
Acts 1: 6-12

Our Gospel today recounts how Jesus ultimately left his disciples to reassume his fullest self in heaven. There are many lessons in this reading but one strikes me particularly on this Ascension Thursday.

Just as Jesus returned to heaven so will each of us – to assume the fullness of ourselves as we were created to be; to be folded completely into the Eternal Love of the Trinity.

In the meantime, like the disciples, we have received the fullness of the Holy Spirit to become Christ’s witnesses in our time.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We stand beside those who love Jesus as he ascends from their midst. We feel their sadness, joy, amazement, anxiety, and hope. We feel their confidence that, in the power of the Holy Spirit, all good things are possible in their yet uncharted future.

Let’s talk to Jesus about this special moment, and what graces it might waken in our own hearts.

Poetry: At Burgos – Arthur Symons

On Ascension Day, Symons reflects at the beautiful St. Mary’s Cathedral in Burgos, Spain

Miraculous silver-work in stone
Against the blue miraculous skies,
The belfry towers and turrets rise
Out of the arches that enthrone
That airy wonder of the skies.

Softly against the burning sun
The great cathedral spreads its wings;
High up, the lyric belfry sings.

Behold Ascension Day begun
Under the shadow of those wings!

Music: The Ascension by Robert W. Smith

Truth

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Eternal Life, Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus, spirituality, Truth1 Comment

Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
May 8, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050824.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,
he will guide you to all truth.
He will not speak on his own,
but he will speak what he hears,
and will declare to you the things that are coming.
John 16:12-13

In this passage, Jesus indicates that the “Truth” can be overwhelming. He tells the disciples that they cannot bear it all just now. But the Holy Spirit will guide them to receive the Truth.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Isn’t that a fact for all of us? Don’t we need to grow into the Truth rather than comprehend it all at once?

At best, we live in a world of appearances and, at worst, a world of fabrication. We may be tempted to judge reality based on these thin and misleading surfaces.

To respond to the deep truths of life, we need to prayerfully follow the Spirit – to be gradually strengthened in our capacity to see the world as God sees it, to respond to the world as God would respond. – in Truth.

Poetry: Witness – Denise Levertov 

Sometimes the mountain
is hidden from me in veils
of cloud, sometimes
I am hidden from the mountain
in veils of inattention, apathy, fatique,
when I forget or refuse to go
down to the shore or a few yards
up the road, on a clear day,
to reconfirm
that witnessing presence.

Music: Holy Spirit, Truth Divine – David Eck

Love

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Eternal Life, Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Love, spirituality4 Comments

Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 5, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050524.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you
and your joy might be complete.
John 15:9-11

What would it be like if we loved as the Creator loves – eternal life flowing out from Trinitarian Love to sustain all of us for always?

Jesus says that this is how the Father loves, and how Jesus loves all of us. He says that we abide in this Love when we indeed love God above all and our Neighbor as ourselves.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Honestly, can there be a more ubiquitous word than “Love”, and yet we find so little of its true practice in our increasingly self-absorbed and violent culture!

If, when we “love”, it does not strengthen sacred life in another or in the world, then we have not truly loved. We may have desired, admired, adulated, or ingratiated, but we have not loved as God loves.

Let’s pray to be open and responsive to the gift of God’s Love flowing into our hearts.

Prose: from Embodied Love in John of the Cross – Richard P. Hardy, Ph.D.

For John of the Cross, being wholly converted into divine love means actually living God's own life:
The soul lives the life of God.
And the will, which previously loved in a base and deadly way with only its natural affection, is now changed into the life of divine love, for it loves in a lofty way with divine affection, moved by the strength of the Holy Spirit in which it now lives the life of love. By means of this union God's will and the soul's will are now one.
Finally all the movements, operations, and inclinations the soul had previously from the principle and strength of its natural life are now in this union dead to what they formerly were, changed into divine movements, and alive to God.

Music: Amazing Love – Peggy Duquesnel

Gospel

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

Feast of Saints Philip and James, Apostles
May 3, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050324.cfm

I am reminding you, brothers and sisters,
of the Gospel I preached to you,
which you indeed received and in which you also stand.
Through it you are also being saved,
if you hold fast to the word I preached to you,
unless you believed in vain.
1 Corinthians 15:1-2

In today’s passage, Paul describes the Gospel as a gift, given through his preaching, and received by his listeners.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Think of the most precious gift that has ever been placed in your hands – how carefully and tenderly you received it, handled it, cared for it. I think of the times the newborns of our family have been handed to me, and how I cherished them and vigilantly held them.

Paul, and our early leaders such as Philip and James, have handed on to us the precious Gospel as they received from Christ himself. It is the key to our eternal life. How we should treasure it, learn from it, stand in it, and hold fast to it, as Paul encourages us to do!

Prose: from John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life

“The Gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life. 
It cannot be grasped by reason and memory only, 
but it is fully understood when it possesses the whole soul 
and penetrates to the inner recesses of the heart.”

Music: Verbum Dei (Word of God) – by Voices Thules

Vocal ensemble Voces Thules was founded in 1992 and has established itself as a leading ensemble for performance and research on Icelandic medieval and traditional music in Iceland. Voces Thules perform both sacred and secular music either a-cappella or with Medieval period instruments.

Joy

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, joy, Love, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
May 2, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050224.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.

“I have told you this so that
my joy might be in you and
your joy might be complete.”
John 15: 9-11

What a joy to hear someone say, “I love you.”! What a gift to be invited to “remain” in another’s heart!

Jesus wants his disciples, and he wants us, to have that joy. He wants it so much that his own joy depends on it!

God wants our love. God wants us to remain in God’s heart!

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let yourself just sink into that amazing revelation, Beloved of God! Jesus’s declaration and invitation are specifically made to YOU!

Poetry: The Madness of Love – Hadewijch Of Antwerp

The madness of love
Is a blessed fate;
And if we understood this
We would seek no other:
It brings into unity
What was divided,
And this is the truth:
Bitterness it makes sweet,
It makes the stranger a neighbor,
And what was lowly it raises on high.

Music: Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony

1 Joyful, joyful, we adore You,
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flow’rs before You, Op’ning to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness; Drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness,
Fill us with the light of day!

2 All Your works with joy surround You, Earth and heav’n reflect Your rays,
Stars and angels sing around You,
Center of unbroken praise;
Field and forest, vale and mountain, Flow’ry meadow, flashing sea,
Chanting bird and flowing fountain Praising You eternally!		3 Always giving and forgiving,
Ever blessing, ever blest,
Well-spring of the joy of living,
Ocean-depth of happy rest!
Loving Father, Christ our Brother,
Let Your light upon us shine;
Teach us how to love each other,
Lift us to the joy divine.

4 Mortals, join the mighty chorus,
Which the morning stars began; 
God’s own love is reigning o’er us, 
Joining people hand in hand.
Ever singing, march we onward,
Victors in the midst of strife;
Joyful music leads us sunward
In the triumph song of life.

Remain

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus, spirituality3 Comments

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter
May 1, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050124.cfm

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.
Remain in me, as I remain in you.
John 15: 1-4

What a tender and comforting passage! When we are invited to “remain” somewhere ( as in, “Please stay for dinner.”), it indicates that we have already arrived into that inviting presence.

Jesus tells us that we are already living in God’s Presence and that he wants us to always remain there in God’s Love. He tells us that we are established in that Presence – that we are already “pruned” for God.

We don’t realize how holy we are. I live with almost 100 spiritually noble women. I have the joy of knowing Mercy Associates, dear family, and personal friends who enrich my life by their desire to live in God’s Light! They would probably never describe themselves as “holy”.

But they are. They have spent their lives steeping themselves in the things of God, and God has delighted in them – invited them to “remain” in Love.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s take time to think about our holiness, not in pride but in humble thanks for the gift God has given us. Each of our lives has “pruned” us in a particular way to reflect God’s glory. Let’s remain – let’s linger – in that blessing as we pray today.

Poetry: To Live with the Spirit of God – Jessica Powers

To live with the Spirit of God is to be a listener.
It is to keep the vigil of mystery,
earthless and still.
One leans to catch the stirring of the Spirit,
strange as the wind’s will. 

The soul that walks where the wind of the Spirit blows
turns like a wandering weather vane toward love.
It may lament like Job or Jeremiah,
echo the wounded hart, the mateless dove.
It may rejoice in spaciousness of meadow
that emulates the freedom of the sky.
Always it walks in waylessness, unknowing;
it has cast down forever from its hand
the compass of the whither and the why. 

To live with the Spirit of God is to be a lover.
It is becoming love, and like to Him
toward Whom we strain with metaphors of creatures:
fire-sweep and water-rush and the wind’s whim.
The soul is all activity, all silence;
and though it surges Godward to its goal,
it holds, as moving earth holds sleeping noonday,
the peace that is the listening of the soul.

Music: Return to the Heart – David Lanz

Peace

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

Tuesday of Fifth Week of Easter
April 30, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/043024.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.
Not as the world gives do I give it to you.
Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
~ John 14:27

Jesus did a lot to prepare his disciples for his suffering and death – sort of an “anticipatory grief” workshop! And the essential coping gift he gives them is peace. Not a peace that means free from trouble or conflict, but rather a peace like his own – one of being resolutely grounded in God.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We pray to be so deeply rooted in God that we see all experience through the lens of God’s peaceful abiding in our hearts.

Poetry: Making Peace – Denise Levertov

A voice from the dark called out,
             ‘The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.’
                                   But peace, like a poem,
is not there ahead of itself,
can’t be imagined before it is made,
can’t be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.
                                       A feeling towards it,
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.
                                              A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses . . .
                        A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light—facets
of the forming crystal.

Music: Inner Peace – Hennie Bekker

Advocate

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, Holy Spirit, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Catherine of Siena,
Virgin and Doctor of the Church
April 29, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042924.cfm

Whoever loves me will keep my word,
and my Father will love them,
and we will come to them and make our dwelling with them…

I have told you this while I am with you.
The Advocate, the Holy Spirit
whom the Father will send in my name —
will teach you everything
and remind you of all that I told you.

Through the gift of Baptism, the power of the Holy Spirit pours into our hearts — a Waterfall of Grace to nourish us throughout our lives. This is the promise Jesus gives in today’s reading.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We pray to recognize and open ourselves fully to the Spirit Creator’s desire to be in our hearts.

Prayer: The Holy Spirit Prayer of Catherine of Siena

Holy Spirit, come into my heart;
draw it to You by Your power, O my God,
and grant me charity with devoted awe of You.
Preserve me, O beautiful love, from every evil thought;
warm me, inflame me with Your dear love,
and every pain will seem light to me.
My Father, my sweet Lord, help me in all my actions.
Jesus, love, Jesus, love. Amen.

Music: Ablaze – Ken Walther (Lyrics below)
Inspired by the wisdom of St. Catherine of Siena, Ben Walther composed an upbeat song to encourage today’s generation to set the world on fire with God’s love.

[Verse 1]
By His grace, we are conceived
To be mercy, to be peace
To be light amidst the darkness
In His image, we are made
To be brilliant, to be great
To present the world His likeness

[Chorus]
Let’s set the world on fire
Let’s raise His banner higher
Let’s set a broken world ablaze, oh
Let’s hear a generation
Proclaiming His salvation
With every breath and endless praise
And set the world ablaze

[Verse 2]
All aflame but not consumed
We are burning with the truth
For His presence makes us holy
Fanning flicker into flame
Till His love is what remains
For to Him belongs all glory

[Chorus]
Let’s set the world on fire
Let’s raise His banner higher
Let’s set a broken world ablaze, oh
Let’s hear a generation
Proclaiming His salvation
With every breath and endless praise
And set the world ablaze
Set the world ablaze
Set the world ablaze
Let’s set the world on fire
Let’s raise His banner higher
Let’s set a broken world ablaze, oh
Let’s hear a generation
Proclaiming His salvation
With every breath and endless praise
And set the world ablaze
Set the world ablaze