Category: Eternal Life

Observe

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Lent, Poetry, Praise, spirituality6 Comments

Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent
March 6, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030624.cfm

Moses spoke to the people and said:
“Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decrees
which I am teaching you to observe,
that you may live, and may enter in and take possession of the land
which the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.”

Deuteronomy 4:1

The word “observe” carries several meanings. We may, for example,

  • observe by giving full attention
  • observe by stating our assessment of something
  • observe a holiday or birthday by sending a card
  • observe an order from a superior
  • observe the sacred by a ritual of practice, silence, or waiting

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s take the final sense of sacred observing, placing our lives before God in faith, hope, and love. Each day that we live is a ritual of praise to the One Who created us. By living God’s Law of Love, we offer the praise for which God made us.

Poetry: from First Love by Denise Levertov

In the excerpt, Levertov “observes” by giving, and receiving, full attention.

`Convolvulus,' said my mother. 
Pale shell-pink, a chalice 
no wider across than a silver sixpence.
It looked at me, I looked 
back, delight 
filled me as if 
I, not the flower, 
were a flower and were brimful of rain. 
And there was endlesness. 
Perhaps through a lifetime what I've desired 
has always been to return 
to that endless giving and receiving, the wholeness 
of that attention, 
that once-in-a-lifetime 
secret communion.

Music: Touch of the Spirit – Nadama

Foolishness

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Discipleship, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Lent, spiritualityLeave a comment

Third Sunday of Lent
March 3, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030324-YearB.cfm

… We proclaim Christ crucified, …
… Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom,
and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

1 Corinthians 1: 22-25

This is a great mystery of our faith: that the all-powerful One chose to redeem us by assuming our human weakness, suffering torment, and dying an ignominious death.

When my three-year-old grand-niece visited our convent, she enjoyed walking through the huge motherhouse pointing out every statue of Our Lady of Mercy.

With each discovery she would pronounce the title: “Jeezie and his Mommy”. At the end of a very long corridor, we came to a life-size wooden carving of Jesus Crucified. Little Claire studied it, looked up at me and asked, “Who is that?”.

I simply said, “I don’t know” because her sweet little heart could not bear to learn, or to possibly understand, what happened to her “Jeezie”.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Lent is the time to deepen our understanding of what happened to Jesus because of the “foolishness of God”. That Omnipotent Love suffered, died, and rose for us so that we would understand and embrace the meaning of Love in our own lives.

Let’s pray today for a fuller awareness that our lives are a continuing participation in the Great Love. Let us use these Lenten days to find the pattern of the Cross in our world, and to look within it for the Light of the Resurrection.

Poetry: The Foolishness of God – Luci Shaw

Perform impossibilities
or perish. Thrust out now
the unseasonal ripe figs
among your leaves. Expect
the mountain to be moved.
Hate parents, friends, and all
materiality. Love every enemy.
Forgive more times than seventy-
seven. Camel-like, squeeze by
into the kingdom through
the needle’s eye. All fear quell.
Hack off your hand, or else,
unbloodied, go to hell.
Thus the divine unreason.
Despairing now, you cry
with earthy logic – How?
And I, your God, reply:
Leap from your weedy shallows.
Dive into the moving water.
Eyeless, learn to see
truly. Find in my folly your
true sanity. Then Spirit-driven,
run on my narrow way, sure
as a child. Probe, hold
my unhealed hand, and
bloody, enter heaven.

Music: The Cross is Foolishness – John Michael Talbot (lyrics below)

CHORUS:
The Cross is foolishness to those who perish
But for us it has become the wisdom of God
The Cross is foolishness to those who perish
But for us it is salvation and power from God

Some look for miracles, some look for wisdom
But we preach only Jesus crucified
It seems absurdity, it seems so foolish
But to us it is the wisdom of God

(CHORUS)

(CHORUS)

Eye has never seen, ear has never heard
Nor has it dawned on the limits of the mind
What God has surely prepared
For those who love Him
He reveals this wisdom through the Spirit of God

Prodigal

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

Saturday of the Second Week of Lent
March 2, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030224.cfm

Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt
and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance;
Who does not persist in anger forever,
but delights rather in clemency,
And will again have compassion on us,
treading underfoot our guilt?

Micah 7:18-19

We are all familiar with the powerful story of the Prodigal Son.

The word “prodigal”, like many words, can have both light and dark connotations. Its definition, according to Oxford Languages, is twofold:

  • spending resources recklessly
  • giving on a lavish scale

On the darker side, many of us interpret the parable from the viewpoint of the son, considering him “prodigal” because he is excessive in the abuse of his inheritance.
Others see the “Father” as an expression of God’s Lavish Mercy and Prodigal Love toward us even when we make life-changing mistakes.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We might choose to pursue both understandings of the word “prodigal” in our prayer today:

  • to ask God’s forgiveness and healing for any sinful prodigality in our lives
  • to imitate God’s Prodigal Generosity in our interactions and relationships

Poetry: The Prodigal – Nancy Cardozo

Prodigal of prayer am I,
Prodigal of tear,
But I have used God sparingly —
I think He does not hear.
Stars to wish on flicker flash
And I know stars will wear;
But I doubt and if I weep,
Stars will never care.
I have let my prayer sift down
Through a starry sieve;
Will God gather up the dust
If I believe?

Music: He Ran To Me’ (The Prodigal Son) – Phillips, Craig and Dean

Barren

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Eternal Life, Faith, healing, joy, Prayer, spiritualityLeave a comment

Thursday of the Second Week of Lent
February 29, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022924.cfm

Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings,
who seeks strength in flesh,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
Such a person is like a barren bush in the desert
that enjoys no change of season,
But stands in a lava waste,
a salt and empty earth.

Jeremiah 17: 5-6

Have you encountered a person who is spiritually languishing, or even dead? The light of their spirit has gone out. There is no joy, hope, delight, or generosity in them. Sometimes their barrenness is buried under false hilarity or bravado, but after leaving them we find ourselves confused, saddened, empty, tired, or even a little angry.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s pray for any barren spirit we have encountered. They badly need our prayers.
And let’s ask God for the merciful freshening of our own spirit, seeking it by prayer, loving silence, and honest reflection on our choices and actions.

Poetry: What the Fig Tree Said – Denise Levertov

Literal minds! Embarrassed humans! His friends
were blurting for Him
in secret: wouldn’t admit they were shocked.
They thought Him
petulant to curse me!—yet how could the Lord
be unfair?—so they looked away,
then and now.
But I, I knew that
helplessly barren though I was,
my day had come. I served
Christ the Poet,
who spoke in images: I was at hand,
a metaphor for their failure to bring forth
what is within them (as figs
were not within me). They who had walked
in His sunlight presence,
they could have ripened,
could have perceived His thirst and hunger,
His innocent appetite;
they could have offered
human fruits—compassion, comprehension—
without being asked,
without being told of need.
My absent fruit
stood for their barren hearts. He cursed
not me, not them, but
(ears that hear not, eyes that see not)
their dullness, that withholds
gifts unimagined.

Music: Happy Sad Empty Full – The Gothard Sisters

Cup

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness, Jesus, Lent, Mercy, peace, spirituality, suffering2 Comments

Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent
February 28, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022824.cfm

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee approached Jesus with her sons
and asked …
“Command that these two sons of mine sit,
one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom.”
Jesus said in reply,
“You do not know what you are asking.
Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?”
They said to him, “We can.”
He replied,
“My chalice you will indeed drink,
but to sit at my right and at my left,
this is not mine to give
but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”

Mark 10:20-23

In our Gospel, Jesus makes it clear that the path to heavenly glory is bound by a spiritual discipline that, in this contrary world, will cause us suffering. The cup is that chasm in life where we must choose peace over violence, generosity over selfishness, mercy over judgment, truth over deception, love over indifference. There will be resistance, both within us and around us, when we make such choices.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s be honest with ourselves as we answer Jesus’s question:
“Can you drink the cup that I will drink?”
Let’s pray for the grace to drink that cup as it comes to us in the particularities of our own lives.
Let’s ask for the spiritual confidence and understanding that the cup – our cup – leads to eternal life.

Poetry: Can You Drink the Cup? – by Scott Surrency, O.F.M. Cap. (2015)

I found this poem on the website https://thejesuitpost.org/2015/10/can-you-drink-the-cup/

Can you drink the cup?
Drink, not survey or analyze,
ponder or scrutinize –
from a distance.
But drink – imbibe, ingest,
take into you so that it becomes a piece of your inmost self.
And not with cautious sips
that barely moisten your lips,
but with audacious drafts
that spill down your chin and onto your chest.
(Forget decorum – reserve would give offense.)
Can you drink the cup?
The cup of rejection and opposition,
betrayal and regret.
Like vinegar and gall,
pungent and tart,
making you wince and recoil.
But not only that – for the cup is deceptively deep –
there are hopes and joys in there, too,
like thrilling champagne with bubbles
that tickle your nose on New Year’s Eve,
and fleeting moments of almost – almost – sheer ecstasy
that last as long as an eye-blink, or a champagne bubble,
but mysteriously satisfy and sustain.
Can you drink the cup?
Yes, you — with your insecurities,
visible and invisible.
You with the doubts that nibble around the edges
and the ones that devour in one great big gulp.
You with your impetuous starts and youth-like bursts of love and devotion.
You with your giving up too soon – or too late – and being tyrannically hard on yourself.
You with your Yes, but’s and I’m sorry’s – again.
Yes, you – but with my grace.
Can you drink the cup?
Can I drink the cup?
Yes.

Music: We Will Drink the Cup

We will drink the cup.
We will win the fight.
We will stand against the darkness of the night.
We will run the race
And see God’s face,
And build the Kingdom of love.

Do not fear for I am with you.
Be still and know that I am God.

You will run and not grow weary,
For I your God will be your strength.
Refrain

We are the Church, we are the Body.
We are God’s great work of art.

And build the Kingdom of love.

Snow …

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Lent, repentance, spiritualityLeave a comment

Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent
February 27, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022724.cfm

Come now, let us set things right,
says the LORD:
Though your sins be like scarlet,
they may become white as snow;
Though they be crimson red,
they may become white as wool.

Isaiah 1:18

The greatest among you must be your servant.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled;
but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

Matthew 22:12

Today’s readings are studies in contrasts – white/scarlet; exaltation/humility.

Isaiah promises a transformative grace changing scarlet sins to snow-white goodness. In our Gospel, Jesus teaches the crowds that the way to holiness is in exact contrast to the practices of the Pharisees. The Gospel turns the patterns of the world upside down. Lent is the time to enter that turning.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s pray for the humility that will allow us to open ourselves to God’s transforming grace – that wash of insight over our spirits, cleansing us of spiritual confusion.

Humility can be a tricky virtue. Its essence is not a sense of worthlessness or “less-ness”. Humility is instead a profound awareness that all belongs to God, and that we are privileged to share in that Abundant Life. Humility does not concentrate on the Self. It looks at the Other in grateful and expectant obedience.

Poetry: A Woman in Winter – from In Wisdom’s Path: Discovering the Sacred in Every Season by Jan L. Richardson.

A woman in winter
is winter:
turning inward,
deepening,
elemental force,
time’s reckoning;
sudden frost
and fire’s warming,
depth of loss
and edge of storming.
She is avalanche,
quiet hungering,
utter stillness,
snowfall brewing;
hollowed, hallowed,
shadows casting,
field in fallow,
wisdom gathering.
Waiting, watching,
darkness craving,
shedding, touching,
reaching, laboring;
burning, carrying fire
within her,
a woman turning,
becoming winter.

Music: White As Snow – Maranatha Singers

Measure

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Love, spirituality2 Comments

Monday of the Second Week in Lent
February 26, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022624.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

“Stop judging and you will not be judged.
Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven.
Give and gifts will be given to you;
a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,
will be poured into your lap.
For the measure with which you measure
will in return be measured out to you.”

Luke 6: 36-38

How many times in our lives have we realized that, in giving or serving, we have received much more than we have given? No material recompense can rival the gift of another’s gratitude and trust. When we are merciful as God is merciful, we know a joy beyond measure.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

A wise older friend said this to me long ago, challenging me to live my life by the abundance of Divine Measure. You might like to reflect on her phrase as you pray today’s Gospel:

Never resist
a generous impulse.

Prose: from Gratitude by David Whyte

Thankfulness finds its full measure
in generosity of presence, 
both through participation and witness. 
We sit at the table as part of every other person’s world 
while making our own world without will or effort, 
this is what is extraordinary and gifted, 
this is the essence of gratefulness, 
seeing to the heart of privilege. 
Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence 
meets all other presences. 
Being unappreciative might mean 
that we are simply not paying attention.

Music: Measureless – Shelly E. Johnson

Be!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Lent, Love, Mercy, spirituality4 Comments

Saturday of the First Week of Lent
February 24, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022424.cfm

Moses spoke to the people, saying:
“This day the LORD, your God,
commands you to observe these statutes and decrees.
Be careful, then,
to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.

Deuteronomy 26:16

… you are to be a people peculiarly God’s own, as promised you;
and provided you keep all his commandments,

Deuteronomy 26:18

… and you will be a people sacred to the LORD, your God,
as he promised.”

Deuteronomy 26:19

Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 5:48

In our readings today, God calls us to BE in the fullness of grace. For the people of the Old Testament, that path was found in the Law and Commandments. For Christians, that fullness is found in patterning our lives on Jesus. He showed us that God’s perfection is beyond Law. It is absolute Love and Mercy.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

In our prayer, we might ask for a deeper understanding of the “perfection” God asks of us – not a measurable, demonstrable alignment with subjective guidelines, but an unlimited openness to grace. God’s perfection is a Love without boundaries. Jesus is that Love made Flesh. In God, we are called to live in their example.

Poetry: Easy to Love a Perfect God – Shams-i of Tabrizi

Shams-i Tabrīzī (1185–1248) was a Persian poet who is credited as the spiritual instructor of Rumi and is referenced with great reverence in Rumi’s poetic collection. The tomb of Shams-i Tabrīzī was recently nominated to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It’s easy to love a perfect God, 
unblemished and infallible that God is. 
What is far more difficult 
is to love fellow human beings 
with all their imperfections and defects. 
Remember, only you can know 
what you are capable of loving. 
There is no wisdom without love. 
Unless we learn to love God’s creation, 
we can neither truly love 
nor truly know God.

Music: Perfectly Loved – Rachael Lampa

Son

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

Wednesday of the First Week in Lent
February 21, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022124.cfm

Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites,
so will the Son of Man be to this generation.
At the judgment
the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation
and she will condemn them,
because she came from the ends of the earth
to hear the wisdom of Solomon,
and there is something greater than Solomon here.

Luke 11: 30-31

Just like the Ninevites in Jonah’s time, we are called to turn our hearts fully to God. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, many prophets were sent with this message. But we have been given One greater than any of these prophets. Jesus is the ultimate Sign of God’s desire for our faith, love, and hope. We are called to live according to his Word.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy,

We might ask ourselves how free we are of the need to demand signs from God. When we live in deep relationship with another person, we trust their good will and loving intention toward us. We don’t have to ask them every five minutes if they still love us. We don’t have to pick apart their actions to test their intentions. We trust that they want only the best for us. How much more we can trust God who sent God’s own Beloved Son to redeem us!

Music: Two hymns today.

Son of God – by Starfield

God’s Own Son, Most Holy – by Ryan Flanagan

Verse 1: (From Christian Worship: a Lutheran hymnal‎ #17)
God’s own son, most holy
Came a servant lowly
Came to live among us
Came to suffer for us
Bore the cross to save us
Hope and freedom gave us

Verse 2: (From The 1982 Hymnal: Episcopal, #53)
Still he comes within us
Still his voice would win us
From the sins that hurt us
Would the truth convert us
Not in torment hold us
But in love enfold us

Chorus: (Derived from 4th verse Common Service Book Lutheran #10 and Lutheran Service Book )
Come, O come, Lord Jesus
From our sins release us
Let us here confess you God’s own Son

Verse 3
Thus, if we have known him
Not ashamed to own him
Nor have loved him coldly
But will trust him boldly
He will then receive us
Heal us and forgive us

Chorus
Come, O come, Lord Jesus
From our sins release us
Let us here confess you God’s own Son, most holy
Keep our hearts believing
That we, grace receiving
Ever may confess you God’s own Son, most holy

Verse 4 (From: The Chorale Book for England‎ #26, changed to new English first person plural)
But through many a trial
Deepest self denial
Long and brave endurance
Must we win assurance
That his own he makes us
And no more forsakes us

If…

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Lent, spirituality3 Comments

Saturday after Ash Wednesday
February 17, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021724.cfm

Thus says the LORD:
If you remove from your midst oppression,
false accusation and malicious speech;
If you bestow your bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
Then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday;
Then the LORD will guide you always
and give you plenty even on the parched land.

Isaiah 58:9-11

So many critical aspects of our lives hinge on the word “If”!

  • If not
  • If so
  • If only
  • If I had
  • If I hadn’t
  • If just

That critical “if” reminds us that all life is about relationship. It is about how we and the one with whom we are in relationship respond to each other. It is about choosing and deciding. And remember, as one of my early favorite theologians famous said:

Not to decide is to decide.

Harvey Cox in “On Not Leaving It To the Snake”

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We are in constant relationship with God Whose Breath is the source of our life. Our life should be an act of reverence for that gift, responding always to God’s hope for us. Isaiah puts some of those hopes into words for us today. In our prayer, we might hear God whisper special “ifs” to us as we open our life and heart before God’s love and mercy.

Poetry: If by Rudyard Kipling

I know this poem came to your mind as soon as you saw today’s picture – right? Well, here it is.

If you can keep your head when all about you   
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;   
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;   
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
   With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
 and you will be a Woman, precious one! (my addition, I think Rudyard would be grateful))

Music: Whispering Sea – Tony O’Connor