Category: Eternal Life

Beyond Measure

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, Lent, Love, Prayer, spirituality1 Comment

Friday of the First Week of Lent

March 6, 2020

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ps130 iniquities

Today, in Mercy, our readings could confuse us with their threads of legalistic logic. We see several examples of “if-then” admonitions that can make us picture God as an accountant measuring every choice we make.

  • If the wicked man turns, … then he shall surely live
  • If the virtuous man turns, … then none of his good deeds shall be remembered.
  • If you, O Lord, Mark iniquities … then who can stand.
  • If you go to the altar unreconciled … then leave and be reconciled.

measure

Sometimes, we can get obsessive about the “if-then” aspects of religion. And IF we do, THEN we probably miss the whole point. Because folded in today’s “if-then” seesaws is the truth of these passages: that the Lord does NOT sit miserly in Heaven to mark our iniquities.

The Lord measures the righteousness of love.

“Thus says the LORD, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.—Jeremiah 9:23-24

Today’s Responsorial Psalm offers us a beautiful prayer for this morning as we pray in the embrace of God’s Lavish Mercy:

I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in his word.
My soul waits for the LORD
more than sentinels wait for the dawn.
Let Israel wait for the LORD.
For with the LORD is kindness
and with him is plenteous redemption;
And he will redeem Israel
from all their iniquities.

Let’s wait for the Lord today to see where God’s Grace invites us to the righteousness of Love.

Music: Everlasting Love – Mark Hendrickson & Family (Lyrics below)

Chorus
With an everlasting love
I love you I love you
With an everlasting love
a love that’ll never end
a love that’ll never end
I love you.

Till the stars lose their way
In the heavens up above
And the oceans all run dry
Till the clouds in the sky
Keep the rain all to themselves
Even longer I’ll love you
This I promise I’ll love you
My word I give it’s true
I love you

Till the morning sun ceases to arise
And the moon forgets to shine
Until heaven’s blue is erased from the sky
Even longer I’ll love you
This I promise I’ll love you
My word I give it’s true
I love you

A Second Chance

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

Wednesday of the First Week in Lent

March 4, 2020

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Jonah3_1another chance

Today, in Mercy, one line from our readings hit me like a lightening bolt:

The word of the LORD
came to Jonah
a second time.

Yes, it’s the truth! God will keep coming back again and again to encourage us to hear his true message for our lives.

Our Gospel gives us a hint about how resistant we sometimes are to this deep listening:

This generation is an evil generation;
it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it,
except the sign of Jonah.

 

What is the sign of Jonah anyway?

res and life

To put it simply, it is the witness of the Resurrection – that overarching event that changed everything for believers. For just as Jonah was able to return from certain death in the whale’s belly, so Christ conquered death and rose to new life, promising us the same power.

This is the central, life-changing belief for Christians. It should make a difference in how we live.

By our Lenten repentance, we can be like Jonah, grasping the second chance God always gives us to respond to our life circumstances with faith, hope, and love.

I would bet there is something in your life right now that is calling you to such a response. Someplace in your life, you may be caught in a bit of a “whale’s belly 🐳” about some issue, am I right?

God makes us ask ourselves questions most often when He intends to resolve them. He gives us needs that He alone can satisfy, and awakens capacities that He means to fulfill. Any perplexity is liable to be a spiritual gestation, leading to a new birth and a mystical regeneration.” ― Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas

Today’s readings remind us that we already have the glorious sign of the Resurrection to inspire us to leap from that dark “belly” into God’s hope for us!

Music:  a fun song “In the Belly of  Whale” – The Newsboys

Sheep or Goat?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, holiness, Jesus, Lent1 Comment

Monday of the First Week of Lent

March 2, 2020

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sheep mosaic

Today, in Mercy, we are invited to be like God:

The LORD said to Moses,
“Speak to the whole assembly of the children of Israel
and tell them:
Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.

Our first reading goes on to tell us how: be a decent person.

  • Don’t steal, lie, or cheat
  • Pay just wages
  • Respect and help those physically burdened
  • Be impartial and just
  • Defend life
  • Don’t slander, hate, take revenge, or hold a grudge

Basically, the message is about kindness … deep kindness, the type that comes from realizing how infinitely kind God is to us.

Leviticus, after a long list of practical examples, sums it up:

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
I am the LORD.

Our Gospel tells us what happens when we make the choice to take the Old Testament advice — or not.

little lamb

We are all familiar with the parable of the sheep and the goats. And we all hope our scorecard gets us in the right herd “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him …”

 

Basically, in this parable, Jesus puts the advice of Leviticus into practical form for his followers. But he adds one dynamic element that not only invites but impels our wholehearted response:

Amen, I say to you,
what you did not do for one of these least ones,
you did not do for me.

Leviticus invites us to become holy as God is holy. But Jesus reveals the secret that this Holy God lives in the poor, hungry, homeless, imprisoned and sick. By embracing these most beloved of God, we find the pattern of Holiness.

Music: The Least of These – Karl Kohlhase

No Apples!

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

First Sunday of Lent

March 1, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, we encounter themes of creation, life, temptation, sin, death, and repentance. I’d say that’s a pretty loaded Sunday!

apples

We start out with the simple, but heavily misinterpreted, story of Adam and Eve. This creation myth shared by Judea-Christian and Islamic religions serves as a foundation of these great faith traditions. 

The story is often the first we learn as we are introduced to our family’s faith practice. We imagine Adam and Eve as historically real personalities and the snake as a flesh and blood devil. Some of us never get beyond that elementary understanding of the story.

A and EA few decades ago, I taught New Testament Studies to a class of men aspiring to become deacons. During the session on today’s reading from Romans, a discussion arose about whether an entire human race could descend from just a “first man and woman”. When I pointed out that the creation story uses mythical elements to represent a broader reality, one man reacted adamantly. He could not imagine that there were not a specific “Adam” and “Eve”, but that instead these names represented humankind in their evolving relationship with God. The thought was so shattering to him that he dropped the class. 

That made me sad. But it also caused me to focus on the creation story myself to examine ways in which I might be missing or blocking its deep spiritual significance. Is it really just about temptation, sin, punishment, and death? Or is there a much deeper message for our faith?

One of my go-to theologians has helped me significantly. Walter Brueggemann says this about our consideration of the Creation Story:


Like the people in this narrative, our concern is not finally the danger of sex, the origin of evil, the appearance of death, or the power of the fall. It is, rather, the summons of this calling God for us to be his creatures, to live in his world on his terms.

We struggle throughout our lives to understand God and God’s ways – to live on God’s terms. We will never accomplish it.  We will always meet the “snakes” of questions like:
why

  • Why is there evil in the world?
  • Why does God let innocent people suffer?
  • Why is “this” (Whatever trial) happening to me?
  • Why did he or she have to die so young?
  • Why don’t the bad people die instead?
  • Why? Why? Why?

We want KNOWLEDGE – just what the “serpent” facetiously offered from the forbidden tree!

But this beautiful creation story teaches us that what God desires from us is not knowledge but rather TRUST – trust to live in the unfolding, but never fully-unfolded, mystery of God’s faithfulness to us.

So much in us wants to pluck the magic apple that will make us the “gods” of our existence, controlling life as we would like it to be.

God says instead that we should trust, and delight in sitting under the mysterious, nurturing tree of God’s irreversible, covenantal love – the same love Jesus trusts in today’s challenging Gospel.

Music: Nothing I Hold on To – Will Reagan ( Listen to it like a mantra and let your breathing synch to it. Breathe in Love. Breathe out Trust. No apples necessary.)

Leap … and Be Held

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Hope, justice, Lent, spiritualityLeave a comment

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

February 29, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, Isaiah continues his advice begun in yesterday’s reading. When he finishes the list of things we should and should not do, Isaiah tells us how God will respond:

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.
God will renew your strength,
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring whose water never fails.
The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake,
and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up ~

Oh, who can resist these glorious Isaiahan lines. It’s a beautiful picture, isn’t it? To imagine it offers us great encouragement as we lumber through Lent and out of the doldrums of February.

deer

How fitting that this should be our reading on “Leap Day”, a 24-hour period that many of us consider an extra gift.

Here’s a thought I wrote several years ago that I hope you will find beneficial:

Mitch Albom, the author who wrote “Tuesdays with Morrie”, wrote another book entitled “Just One More Day”.

It is an appropriate title to think about in this week in Leap Year when we will actually have “just one more day” than normal.

How often have we wished that phrase, perhaps near the end of a great vacation, or before an important project is due? Or maybe as Mitch Albom uses it: to have just one more day with someone who has passed from our lives.

With God, we always have one more day. God is Infinite Possibility and Eternal Generosity. Saturday – February 29 – is a good day to stretch our faith and ask what God would have us do with “just one more day” to witness to Divine Abundance in our lives.

Leap2020

Will it be one more day to love, to work, to be thankful, to be competitive, to take advantage or to give it?  The way we use that “one more day” will tell us a lot about how we are using all our days. Maybe we could consider a question that one of our older Sisters is famous for: “Wouldn’t it be sad to come to the last day of our lives – (no more days) —  and realize that we had missed the whole point?”

May all your “leaps” take you to blessed places, dear Friends.
Let go. Take the leap into God’s way, as Isaiah counsels. And just be held.

Music: Just Be Held – Casting Crown 

Lent: A Closer Walk

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Conversion, Discipleship, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Lent6 Comments

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

February 27, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, our readings confirm that a life patterned on Christ contradicts worldly definitions.

Dt.30_19 Chhose

Deuteronomy gives us stark, either-or, advice:

I have set before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse.
Choose life, then,
that you and your descendants may live,
by loving the LORD, your God,
heeding his voice,
and holding fast to him.

It’s definitive, but we could probably do that, right? Choose life, love God, heed God’s voice, hold fast to God? Sounds OK, doesn’t it?

It’s when Jesus comes along that it sounds difficult. 

Jesus tells us, “Here’s how you choose life –

“Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

Jesus tells us, “Here’s the God you must love, one who

“suffers greatly, is rejected, and is killed.”

Jesus tells us, “Here’s what my voice says to you –

“What profit is there for you to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit yourself?”

Jesus tells us, “Here’s how you hold fast to me –

‘Take up your cross daily and follow me.”

mcA Cross

Some have huge crosses to carry in their lives – perhaps famine, enslavement, untended illness, homelessness, persecution, poverty. Those who carry such crosses are singularly loved by God who dwells with them.

But if we don’t have big, obvious crosses in our lives – if we are among those the world deems fortunate – how do we follow the crucified Jesus to find our way to eternal life?

How do we really CHOOSE LIFE?

cross icon WP

We need to get close to the ones God singularly loves. We need to walk beside them and lift some of their heavy crosses. We need to help their voices be heard, their needs be met, their rights be honored.

Not all of us can do this by direct service. But we can do it by our advocacy, our material contributions, and our articulated support for justice.

We need to make these choices for life all the time. But Lent is a great time to examine the vigor and commitment of our choices, a time to take a closer walk with our suffering Christ and ask him to inspire our courage.

Music:  Just a Closer Walk with Thee – Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson

Creeping Up to Lent?

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

Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time

February 25, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, we are creeping up to Lent’s doorstep.

Doorstep

Are you beginning to consider your Lenten rituals? Our readings today might help orient us.

They leave this question hanging in the air: Who do I really want to be in my life?

Mk9_34 first last

James says that if we are someone who loves the world, we will find ourselves at enmity with God. James defines “the world” as a place in discord, conflicted by covetousness, envy, frustration, and death-dealing.

James is directly addressing damaging squabbles within the Church itself. Infighting has caused fractures within his believing community. Failures in mutual charity and sincere prayer have generated “wars” among the members.

Why would anybody choose to contribute to such a negative environment? 

James pins it on one thing: jealousy. We are jealous to be, have, control, and possess more than others. We are tempted by power, riches and esteem. We want our opinions to be honored, our needs to be met above and before others.

The reality exists today as well, as we know too well.

  • We see it in the Church from factions who want to bend the Gospel to their own agenda.
  • We see it within and between nations who raise the advantage of some over the welfare of others.
  • We see it in families, businesses, and social circles where individuals volley for position, influence, or control over others.

These conflicts pour out in criticism, judgements, biases, shunning, and all kinds of failures in compassion, respect, and honesty. They blind us to our common creaturehood in God, and to its demand for an equity of love, mercy, and justice.

Otherwise, 

  • How could we ever kill or enslave one another, either by aggression or neglect?
  • How could we separate parents from their children and put babies in cages?
  • How could we participate in a global economic tyranny that leaves some without land, homes, health care, or hope?
  • How could we use other human beings – or their vital resources – only for our own pleasure, power or enrichment?

Most of us do not outrightly choose these sinful behaviors. But we must ask ourselves to what degree we are complicit in them by our failures in just judgement, advocacy, political responsibility, globally sustainable choices, — just plain care and reverence for all human beings, all Creation.

The approach of Lent is a great time to revisit the question James hangs in the air for us:

  • Who do I really want to be in my life? 
  • Do I need to make changes to do that? 
  • How can I prepare for a Lent that helps me make those Grace-filled changes?

We are grown-ups now, and our Lenten repentances demand more than those we learned in grade school. Fasting from candy won’t cut it anymore. 

  • How about we fast from cable news that feeds our biases?
  • Or actually do something for our parish besides critique the Sunday sermon?
  • Maybe give up some of our polluting behaviors requiring plastic and other non-recyclables?
  • How about including a outsider in something where they are otherwise ignored?
  • Or providing for someone’s need who would hesitate to ask for your attention?

I think James would approve of choices like that because he says:

God bestows a greater grace; therefore, it says:
God resists the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.
So submit yourselves to God.
Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

Music: When It’s All Been Said and Done – Robin Mark

Simple Not Easy

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, holinessLeave a comment

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

February 23, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, our readings focus us on how to live a good,honest, holy life.

Leviticus makes it simple:

Lv19_18 neighbor

But “simple” does not mean easy. Jesus makes that clear in the Gospel. He tells us that we may thinks it’s enough to love our neighbor by:

  • an “eye for an eye” justice
  • accepting that one slap on the cheek
  • giving over some of our possessions
  • serving them for the time they ask

But Jesus says, “No. Not enough!” We must go all in for love:

  • take no “eye”, no legal repayment 
  • turn the other cheek
  • give both shirt AND jacket off your back
  • work twice as long and hard as demanded

kidding

Guess what? He’s not kidding. He goes on to double down on his words:

  • Don’t just love your neighbor as yourself, as Leviticus requires. Love your enemy that way too.
  • Do it because your Creator loves you, and all of us, that way — with Lavish Mercy.
  • Be that Mercy in the world.

Paul gives us an added incentive for living this challenge. He acknowledges that to live in Christian love and mercy seems foolish in the eyes of the world … BUT:

Let no one deceive himself.
If any one among you considers himself wise in this age,
let him become a fool, so as to become wise.
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God,
for it is written:
God catches the wise in their own ruses,
and again:
The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise,
that they are vain.

As I said at the outset, it’s simple, but it’s not easy. So much in our culture promotes the opposite approach to life – me first, exclude others, win at all costs, money matters over everything, use people and things then discard them, and on and on…..

Using our beautiful Responsorial Psalm, let us pray for the insight to see through to God’s Truth and Love, and for the courage to live them. 

Music: The Lord Is Kind and Merciful – Jean Cotter 

Refrain
The Lord is kind and merciful;
The Lord is kind and merciful.
Slow to anger, rich in kindness,
The Lord is kind and merciful.

Bless the Lord, O my soul;
All my being bless God’s name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul;
Forget not all God’s blessings.

The Lord is gracious and merciful,
Slow to anger, full of kindness.
God is good to all creation,
Full of compassion.

The goodness of God is from age to age,
Blessing those who choose to love.
And justice toward God’s children;
On all who keep the covenant.

What Profit?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Mercy, ordinary time, spirituality, sufferingLeave a comment

Friday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

February 21, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, James actually made me chuckle out loud! In today’s celebrated passage about faith and works, James – ever direct and uncompromising – really takes it home. Get this verse:

Do you want proof, you ignoramus,
that faith without works is useless?

OK, James! Tell us what you really think!😂

Well, here’s what he really thinks:

For just as a body without a spirit is dead,
so also faith without works is dead.

 

whole world

In our Gospel, Jesus says that living a life of good works is hard. He did it through the Cross and says we must follow his example:

Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake
and that of the Gospel will save it.

The Gospel Jesus is talking about, and the “works” James refers to,  are summarized like this:


Corporal Works of Mercy

feed the hungry.
give water to the thirsty.
clothe the naked.
shelter the homeless.
visit the sick.
visit the imprisoned, ransom the captive.
bury the dead.

Spiritual Works of Mercy

instruct the ignorant.
counsel the doubtful.
admonish the sinners.
bear patiently those who wrong us.
forgive offenses.
comfort the afflicted.
pray for the living and the dead.

If we live by these, we will find the Cross – but we will also find the Crown.

Music: Lose My Soul – TobyMac, a multi-award winning Christian hip-hop singer. The music is a departure for me, but I thought the song was really good (maybe of use to some of my readers who are teachers.) I hope you agree.

Count It All Joy!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Courage, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, joyLeave a comment

Monday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

February 17, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, in this week and a half before Ash Wednesday, we begin the Epistle of James.

800px-Epistle_of_James_Chapter_1-2_(Bible_Illustrations_by_Sweet_Media)
The Epistle of James- Chapter 1: Illustration provided to Wikimedia Commons by Distant Shores Media/Sweet Publishing as part of a cooperation project. Sweet Publishing released these images, which are taken from now-out-of-print Read’n Grow Picture Bible Illustrations (Biblical illustrations by Jim Padgett, courtesy of Sweet Publishing, Ft. Worth, TX, and Gospel Light, Ventura, CA. Copyright 1984.), under new license, CC-BY-SA 3.0

This letter is one of the very earliest of the New Testament. Scholars are mixed about exactly which “James” wrote it, but agree that it was one of several who were very close to Jesus – perhaps one of “the brothers of Jesus” mentioned in several New Testament passages:

  • Matthew 12:46-50
  • Mark 3:31
  • Luke 8:19
  • John 2:12
  • Acts 1:14
  • 1 Corinthians 9:5
  • and specifically “the Lord’s brother James” in Galatians 1:19

James writes in the style of Wisdom Literature, those Old Testament books that give advice, proverbs, and insights for living a holy life. His immediate audience was a community of dispersed Christian Jews whose world was filled with increasing upheaval and persecution.

When I read the following description I thought how germane James’s letter could be for our world today. His themes echo the teachings of Pope Francis for our chaotic time:

The epistle is renowned for exhortions on fighting poverty and caring for the poor in practical ways (1:26–27; 2:1-4; 2:14-19; 5:1-6), standing up for the oppressed (2:1-4; 5:1-6) and not being “like the world” in the way one responds to evil in the world (1:26-27; 2:11; 3:13-18; 4:1-10). Worldly wisdom is rejected and people are exhorted to embrace heavenly wisdom, which includes peacemaking and pursuing righteousness and justice (3:13-18).
(Jim Reiher, “Violent Language – a clue to the Historical Occasion of James.”Evangelical Quarterly. Vol. LXXXV No. 3. July 2013)

  • Be joyful in trials. (Wait! What!)
  • Let trials increase your perseverance not discourage you.
  • Doing this is a sign of wisdom.
  • When your wisdom is depleted, ask God for more with an open and trusting heart.
  • Honor all people, high or low in circumstances
  • Don’t be fooled by riches. They fade away.

In our Gospel, Jesus is frustrated with the Pharisees who insincerely demand a magical sign from him. They demonstrate none of the spiritual wisdom and openness to grace that James describes.

scale

When we think about our own faith, where does it fall on the scale of sincerity, on the spectrum of counter-culturalism?

Music: Count It All Joy – Scripture Memory Songs