Category: Eternal Life

Alleluia: Be Mercy

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

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 10, 2022

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071022.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings take us on a centuries-long journey from Sinai nearly to the foot of Calvary. 

Our guideline for the pilgrimage is the Word:

  • given first to Moses
  • cherished in Psalms
  • and finally revealed in the full glory of the Incarnated Christ.

Throughout the ages, each of us receives the same direction to holiness as that given by Moses thousands of years ago:

If only you would
heed the voice of the LORD, your God…

The young man in today’s Gospel requests such direction straight from the mouth of Jesus. And he receives it in the form of an iconic story which holds in simplicity all the ponderous theology of the ages:

Which of these three, in your opinion,
was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?”
He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.”
Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

With this story, Jesus translates into action that age-old Biblical Word:

  • Hear Mercy
  • Love Mercy
  • Do Mercy
  • Become Mercy

Poetry: Ramadan –  Erik K. Taylor

It was the month of Ramadan, 
the month when Muslims fast. 
From the day’s first light, 
when they could tell a white thread from a black one, 
until evening hid the difference again, 
they did not eat, did not drink, and 
– here in rural Liberia – 
did not even swallow their own spit.

We were three thousand miles from home 
when the telegram came. 
My mother’s father had died. 

From Gbapa, three miles away, 
five dark-skinned Mandingo men 
came walking to our house. 
Students from her English class, 
a class in a building with mud-brick walls 
and a tin roof that pinged in the rain. 
She drove to them several nights each week, 
teaching them to write “hut” and “mat” and “cat,” 
drawing little pictures beside the words. 

But this day, they came to her, 
walking over dusty, rust-colored roads, 
under the African sun. 
They came to sit with her, 
to offer what comfort they could.

We could not offer them water or coke or tea. 
For a few hours they sat, talking in soft voices, 
stepping out occasionally to spit. 
Then home again… 
waiting for black and white to merge back into one.

Someone once asked Jesus 
what it meant to love our neighbor. 
He said it was to be those men.

Music: Kyrie ( Lord, have Mercy) – Robert Gass

Alleluia: Heaven’s at Hand

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

Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 6, 2022

Today’s Readings 

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070622.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our first reading and Responsorial Psalm encourage us to seek God. 

Sow for yourselves justice,
reap the fruit of piety;
break up for yourselves a new field,
for it is time to seek the LORD …

And our Gospel proclaims that we have already found God through Jesus Christ.

Jesus sent out these Twelve
after instructing them thus,
…. “As you go, make this proclamation:
‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

The word “seek” is one we don’t use frequently, except to describe games that hide things from us – “Seek and Find”, “Hide and Seek”. In these games, someone is trying to fool us or outwit us.

But God is not trying to hide from us. Our scriptures are about a whole different kind of seeking. We might think of it like this:

Have you ever opened a kitchen drawer looking for a particular utensil but been unable to find it? You might exclaim aloud, “Where’s that darn corkscrew???!!!”, just as your sister leans in and picks it out of the drawer for you.

It was right there in front of you all the time. You just couldn’t see it — couldn’t put your hand on it.

Jesus tells us it is like that with the Kingdom of Heaven. We may be seeking it with all our effort while all the while it is right at hand. We sometimes fail to see the “touchable grace” in our lives because we throw a camouflage of unawareness or ingratitude over it.

Alleluia, alleluia.
The Kingdom of God is at hand:
repent and believe in the Gospel.

The poet Mary Oliver offers the antidote to that kind of blindness:

Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

Mary Oliver

Today, let’s pay attention to the wonder of our lives. Let’s seek God’s face in our ordinary circumstances. God is not hiding – we just have to look with the insightful eyes of faith, love, and hope.

Poetry: Rumi

Your task is not 
to seek for love, 
but merely 
to seek and find 
all the barriers 
within yourself 
that you have built 
against it. 

Music: Seek God’s Face – Jules Riding

Alleluia: Unmuted!

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

Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 5, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070522.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, a double-sided theme runs through our readings

Our first reading references idols of silver and gold, “the work of artisans, no god at all”. 

The Responsorial Psalm describes in detail how the power of God’s creative Word  contrasts to these mute and powerless idols.

Our God is in heaven;
whatever God wills, God does.
Their idols are silver and gold,
the handiwork of men.
R. Alleluia.

They have mouths but speak not;
they have eyes but see not;
They have ears but hear not;
they have noses but smell not.
R. Alleluia.

They have hands but feel not;
they have feet but walk not.
Their makers shall be like them,
everyone that trusts in them.
R. Alleluia

In today’s Gospel, we see the power of the Living Word, Jesus, to release the mute man from his demons. As we pray with this Gospel, we can think of the word “mute” in many ways.

Wherever truth, integrity, kindness and respect are stifled – whether in us or in others – God’s desire to speak to and through us is muted. 

Sometimes we mute ourselves by burying our true voice under a blanket of pretenses, frivolities, excuses, or useless ambitions. We can mute others by our prejudices, judgements and indifference. And we can do it all so easily, like flipping a button on the TV remote!

Let’s pray to be amazed today, as were the Gospel crowds, at the power of Jesus to free the Word in us!

Poetry: In Silence by Thomas Merton

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your

name.
Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”

Music: Echo of Our Souls – Kerani

Some lovely instrumental music to unmute the Word as we pray.

Alleluia: Arise

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, healing, Jesus, Prayer, spiritualityLeave a comment

Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 4, 2022

Today’s Readings 

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070422.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, the power of eternal life flows in an Almighty Current through our readings.

Hosea imagines an amorous God who allures the beloved to full and faithful relationship.

Beautiful Psalm 145 might be read as the grateful response of that redeemed beloved … of us as we are continually gathered back into God’s heart.

The Alleluia Verse assures us that the ultimate “gathering back” has occurred through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are forever allured, redeemed, arisen in Christ!

Alleluia, alleluia.
Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death
and brought life to light through the Gospel.

Today’s Gospel, tells the miraculous stories of two women – one young, one old – touched to new life by Jesus. Each of us could linger in these stories at the thousand places where our own lives might mirror the needs of that breathless little girl or that exhausted woman. We pause with one or the other of them today, have a little talk in our prayer, see how the power of Jesus covered them.

In our scriptures today, all kinds of death are destroyed through the infinite gift of God’s love and mercy. What deathly threats might we bring to God’s touch as we pray today?

Poetry: WOMAN UN-BENT (LUKE 13:10–17) – Irene Zimmerman, OSF

That Sabbath day as always
she went to the synagogue
and took the place assigned her
right behind the grill where,
the elders had concurred,
she would block no one’s view,
she could lean her heavy head,
and (though this was not said)
she’d give a good example to
the ones who stood behind her. 

That day, intent as always
on the Word (for eighteen years
she’d listened thus), she heard
Authority when Jesus spoke. 

Though long stripped
of forwardness,
she came forward, nonetheless,
when Jesus summoned her.
“Woman, you are free
of your infirmity,” he said. 

The leader of the synagogue
worked himself into a sweat
as he tried to bend the Sabbath
and the woman back in place. 

But she stood up straight and let
God’s glory touch her face.

Music: He Touched Me – Gaithersburg Brothers 

This extremely popular American Gospel song was written by Bill Gaithers in 1963. It has been recorded and released over 10 times by artists such as Jimmy Durante, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Lawrence Welk and Elvis Presley.

Alleluia: Hear; Know; Follow

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

Saturday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 2, 2022

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070222.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Alleluia Verse paints the dynamic picture of Christ’s relationship with those who follow him. With due respect to the ancient “shepherd” image, the verse might speak to us better like this:

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

In our readings today, we see the cycle of grace and resistance worked out in the lives of the ancients. Our passage from Amos talks about the full restoration of Israel to a place in God’s favor. Our Gospel shows that those with closed hearts cannot receive the lavish mercy of God given to us in the gift of Jesus.

What about us? Can we open ourselves to that powerful grace? Can we respond in reciprocity to this Divine invitation:

I am the Beloved. 
And my own beloved hear Me.
I know them.
And they follow me.

Poetry: TO LIVE WITH THE SPIRIT – 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: Path of Joy – Daniel Kobialka

Alleluia: Grafted to God

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, Jesus, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Thursday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 30, 2022

Today’s readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/063022.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we move from Amos’s angry God to the gentle Jesus of our Gospel who gently lifts a broken man out of both his paralysis and sin.

These readings offer quite a leap as we try to image our invisible God! And, once again, our Alleluia Verse is the bridge that helps us do so.

The verse assures us that, in all circumstances, God in restoring us to a share in Divine Life.

Alleluia, alleluia.
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ
and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

2 Corinthians 5:19

The image that comes to my mind is that of an expert gardener grafting a broken shoot on to a vibrant tree.

That “grafting” occurs within the context of our life stories. In Amos’s time, it was a story fraught with political struggles crippling the community’s moral life. The crowd gathered around Jesus are challenged by the crippling effects of their lack of faith. His cure of the paralytic demonstrates how God wishes to restore their spiritual freedom.

God continues to reconcile the world in Christ
even in our own time.
How am I a recipient
and how am I an agent
of that merciful, conciliatory grace? 

Praying with the elements of Responsorial Psalm 19 today suggests a guide for us. When our lives are reconciled with God, we should experience these gifts:

  • truth
  • justice
  • wholeness
  • refreshment
  • trustworthiness
  • wisdom
  • simplicity
  • right balance
  • joy
  • clarity
  • enlightenment
  • purity
  • steadfastness
  • and spiritual sweetness

Poetry: from Rumi

Find the sweetness 
in your own heart, 
then you may find the sweetness 
in every heart.

Music: Sweet Will of God – by Lelia Naylor Morris (1862 – 1929) an American Methodist hymn writer. In the 1890s, she began to write hymns and gospel songs; it has been said that she wrote more than 1,000 songs and tunes, and that she did so while doing her housework. In 1913, her eyesight began to fail; her son thereupon constructed for her a blackboard 28 feet (8.5 m) long with oversized staff lines, so that she could continue to compose.

In 1900, she published Sweet Will of God, about  the true “sweetness” of a deep spiritual life.

Two versions today. The first is the entire hymn sung by Amy Grant. The second is just the interlude so beautifully sung by Junior W. Smith that I had to share it. (Lyrics below)

Amy Grant

Junior W. Smith

My stubborn will at last hath yielded;
I would be Thine, and Thine alone;
And this the prayer my lips are bringing,
“Lord, let in me Thy will be done.”

Sweet will of God, still fold me closer;
Till I am wholly lost in Thee;
Sweet will of God, still fold me closer,
Till I am wholly lost in Thee.

Thy precious will, O conquering Saviour,
Doth now embrace and compass me;
All discords hushed, my peace a river,
My soul, a prisoned bird, set free.

Shut in with Thee, O Lord, forever,
My wayward feet no more to roam;
What power from Thee my soul can sever?
The centre of God’s will my home.

Alleluia: God Loves to Talk with Us

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

Monday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 27, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062722.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings dispense a serious dose of fire and brimstone! 

Beware, I will crush you into the ground
as a wagon crushes when laden with sheaves.

Amos 2:13

Consider this, you who forget God,
lest I rend you and there be no one to rescue you.

Psalm 50:22

Some of the prophets, and some preachers even now, have considered “F&B” an effective strategy to reach the hardened sinner. Even our sweet, gentle Jesus comes through tough in today’s Gospel:

Another of his disciples said to him,
“Lord, let me go first and bury my father.”
But Jesus answered him, “Follow me,
and let the dead bury their dead.”

Matthew 8:22

I’ve never been a fan of the hellfire approach to evangelization. I think it tends to raise a wall of fear around our hearts rather than invite a deep conversion.

Our Alleluia Verse helps me to cut through the sulfurous verbiage to the point that might actually change me: God wants to speak to me. Don’t be hard-hearted to God’s message.

Alleluia, alleluia.
If today you hear his voice,
harden not your hearts.

That’s it. That’s the message. Today it’s wrapped in some blazing language but the core is the same.

A loving God wants to speak to me
in every moment of my life.

Poetry: excerpt from Dante’s Inferno

This passage from the epic poem focuses on the sin of indifference, not caring enough to be either bad or good. It made me think of a powerful verse from the Book of Revelation:

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

Revelation 3: 15-16

And I — my head oppressed by horror — said:

“Master, what is it that I hear? Who are

those people so defeated by their pain?”

      And he to me: “This miserable way

is taken by the sorry souls of those

who lived without disgrace and without praise.

      They now commingle with the coward angels,

the company of those who were not rebels

nor faithful to their God, but stood apart.

      The heavens, that their beauty not be lessened,

have cast them out, nor will deep Hell receive them —

even the wicked cannot glory in them.” 

Dante Alighieri, Inferno

Music: De Profundis – Vasari Singers

Psalmus 129 (130)Psalm 129 (130)
1 De profundis clamavi ad te Domine1 Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord:
2 Domine exaudi vocem meam fiant aures tuae intendentes in vocem deprecationis meae2 Lord, hear my voice. Let thy ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.
3 Si iniquitates observabis Domine Domine quis sustinebit3 If thou, O Lord, wilt mark iniquities: Lord, who shall stand it.
4 Quia apud te propitiatio est propter legem tuam sustinui te Domine sustinuit anima mea in verbum eius4 For with thee there is merciful forgiveness: and by reason of thy law, I have waited for thee, O Lord. My soul hath relied on his word:
5 Speravit anima mea in Domino5 my soul hath hoped in the Lord.
6 A custodia matutina usque ad noctem speret Israel in Domino6 From the morning watch even until night, let Israel hope in the Lord.
7 Quia apud Dominum misericordia et copiosa apud eum redemptio7 Because with the Lord there is mercy: and with him plentiful redemption.
8 Et ipse redimet Israel ex omnibus iniquitatibus eius8 And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
______________________

Alleluia: Living Bread

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Love, spiritualityLeave a comment

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
June 19, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061922.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate the most intimate and sacred feast of “Corpus Christi”, as we called it in our Latinized “old days”. In those days, we tried very hard to celebrate the feast in the best way we knew how — processions, hymns, exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Yet nothing did, nor ever will, come close to capturing the mystery we honor on this holy day.

Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven,
says the Lord;
whoever eats this bread will live forever.

The items of faith contained in this short verse are earth-shattering. We are asked to believe that Jesus

  • came down from heaven
  • is the visible Presence of the infinite Love of God
  • lives on with in the Eucharist and in the community of the Church
  • grants us a share in eternal life
  • and is present to us beyond time, space, and appearances

The mystery of the Body of Christ/Living Bread is infinite and profound. Great minds such as Pierre Teilhard deChardin spent entire lives plumbing its depths.

When one understands how physical and immediate is the omni-influence of Christ, the vigor assumed by every detail of the Christian life is quite astonishing; it gains an emphasis never dreamt of by those who are frightened of the realistic view of the mystery of the Incarnation.

Take charity, for example, that complete change of attitude so insistently taught by Christ. It has nothing in common with our colorless philanthropy, but represents the essential affinity which brings human beings closer together, not in the superficial sphere of sensible affections or earthly interests, but in building up the pleroma (the fullness of God in Creation.).

The possibility, and even the obligation of doing everything for God are no longer based solely on the virtue of obedience, or solely on the moral value of intention; they can be explained, in short, only by the marvelous grace, instilled into every human effort, no matter how material, of effectively cooperating, through its physical result, in the fulfillment of the body of Christ.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in Christianity and Evolution

As I pray this rather heady passage from de Chardin, I reflect on these thoughts:

  • All Creation generates from God and returns to God in the fullness of Love.
  • Jesus Christ is the visible gift of that Love born into our human story.
  • By our faith in Jesus, and our choice to participate in his life, we become part of the ongoing perfection of Creation.
  • The Body of Christ, once present in the flesh in time, now sanctifies Creation through our lives, united in the Bread of Life.

No poetry today. Slowly read and re-read the passage from de Chardin. Find it’s message for you … perhaps just a word or a phrase:

  • the omni-influence of Christ
  • charity, …. that complete change of attitude so insistently taught by Christ
  • nothing in common with our colorless philanthropy
  • building up the fullness of God in Creation
  • the marvelous grace… of effectively cooperating … in the fulfillment of the Body of Christ

Music: Benedictus – Karl Jenkins

Alleluia: I’m Rich!

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

Saturday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
June 18, 2022

Today’s readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061822.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Alleluia Verse tells us a secret: there is a greater wealth than this world would have us believe. It is a wealth contradicted by human definitions but proven in the Resurrection of Christ.

Alleluia, alleluia.
Jesus Christ became poor although he was rich,
so that by his poverty you might become rich.

This secret doesn’t make sense to one without faith. But if we observe the Iives of those with faith, we will discover their accumulating riches: peace, joy, trust, enthusiasm, hope, gratitude, wisdom, courage….

The Gospel to which our verse leads describes such a faithful life:

Look at the birds in the sky;
they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns,
yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are not you more important than they?
Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?
Why are you anxious about clothes?
Learn from the way the wild flowers grow.
They do not work or spin.
But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor
was clothed like one of them.

Matthew 6: 26-27

Does this all mean we won’t have challenges in our lives, or disappointment, or suffering? No, I don’t think so.

What is does mean is that we will know what is truly important and precious in our lives – those things that “money can’t buy”. And we will honor them, work for them, share them. Hopefully, people can look at us and find that kind of wealth.

Poetry: Worry About Money – Kathleen Raine

Wearing worry about money like a hair shirt
I lie down in my bed and wrestle with my angel.

My bank-manager could not sanction my continuance for another day
But life itself wakes me each morning, and love

Urges me to give although I have no money
In the bank at this moment, and ought properly

To cease to exist in a world where poverty
Is a shameful and ridiculous offence.

Having no one to advise me, I open the Bible
And shut my eyes and put my finger on a text

And read that the widow with the young son
Must give first to the prophetic genius
From the little there is in the bin of flour and the cruse of oil.

Music: two songs today – one for reflection and one for fun

The Glory Way – Badnarik

Side by Side – Brenda Lee

Alleluia: A Heart Freed to Love

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

Friday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
June 17, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061722.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Alleluia Verse blesses us with one of the Beatitudes

Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are the poor in spirit;
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

Poverty of spirit! The concept presents all kinds of questions:

  • What does it really mean? 
  • Must we be materially poor?
  • Will material poverty make us holy?
  • What other kinds greed, besides the love of money, can consume the soul?

Michael Crosby wrote a book – decades ago now – that touched me deeply. It’s one of the signature books of my spiritual life. Here is a quote from it about being poor in spirit:

The Kingdom of God can only be received by empty hands. Jesus warns against

(a) worldly self-sufficiency: you trust yourself and your own resources and don’t need God; 

(b) religious self-sufficiency: you trust your religious attitude and moral life and don’t need Jesus.

Michael H. Crosby, Spirituality of the Beatitudes: Matthew’s Vision for the Church in an Unjust World

Our verse today leads to one of the most profound lines of the Gospel:

Let’s think on these simple yet power-packed encouragements as we examine our own possessions and poverties.

Poetry: from Augustine of Hippo

Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, 
and our heart is restless 
until it finds its rest in thee.

Music: St. Augustine’s Prayer – Ed Conlin