Category: Eternal Life

What is “Mammon” Anyway?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, inclusivity, Jesus, Prayer, Truth2 Comments

Saturday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

June 22, 2019

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Life’s dilemmas confound some of us:

Dickens

Today, in Mercy,  Jesus addresses the confounding problem of spiritual schizophrenia.

No one can serve two masters.
He will either hate one and love the other,
or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon.

Mammon (μαμωνᾷ), a concept that is rather simplistically translated as “money”, actually connotes a much more complex meaning. Strong’s Concordance of the Bible offers related words that help enrich our understanding of the word “mammon”:

  • Excess
  • Dis-ease
  • Unrighteousness 
  • Imbalance

This is the dissonance Jesus speaks to in today’s Gospel. “Money”, or possessions, – like good wine – in excess can dehumanize us. We can become entangled, addicted and covetous of it. We can forget who we truly are when we allow ourselves to drown in it. We can lose connection to the community in which we exist.

But we need “money”, don’t we? Very few people desire real material poverty. How does Jesus guide us to face this internal dichotomy?

Mt6_33 FIRST

Jesus says that our FIRST concern must be the Kingdom of God. Motivated by that core intention, the rest of our concerns will fall into proper place.  Pope Francis reiterates this truth for our times in the encyclical “Laudato Sì”. Let’s pray with it today:

Christian spirituality proposes an alternative understanding of the quality of life, and encourages a prophetic and contemplative lifestyle, one capable of deep enjoyment free of the obsession with consumption. We need to take up an ancient lesson, found in different religious traditions and also in the Bible. It is the conviction that “less is more”. A constant flood of new consumer goods can baffle the heart and prevent us from cherishing each thing and each moment. To be serenely present to each reality, however small it may be, opens us to much greater horizons of understanding and personal fulfilment. Christian spirituality proposes a growth marked by moderation and the capacity to be happy with little. It is a return to that simplicity which allows us to stop and appreciate the small things, to be grateful for the opportunities which life affords us, to be spiritually detached from what we possess, and not to succumb to sadness for what we lack. This implies avoiding the dynamic of dominion and the mere accumulation of pleasures. (223)

Music: Seek Ye First – Maranatha Singers

Is Scrooge My Hero?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Conversion, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, Jesus, justice, Love1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious

June 21, 2019

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Today, in Mercy, Jesus puts the whole spiritual life in a nutshell:

Luke heart treasure

When I was a kid (and maybe even now), one of my favorite cartoon characters was Uncle Scrooge McDuck.

Scrooge

I was amazed to think that someone could accumulate all that money, and fascinated to see that all he wanted to do was sit on it!

Both Uncle Scrooge and Jesus pose some deep questions to us today.

  • How much do we really need to make us happy?
  • Will having it actually make us happy in the long run?
  • Where does our happiness come from, if we have happiness at all?

We have seen the theme in a hundred books and movies – poor little rich boy or girl starving for love. We all seem to realize that true wealth comes from love. But do we live and choose by that understanding?

Possessions can distract us from what is truly essential for our soul. Greed and selfishness can kill the Spirit within us.

Our coöptation by materialism and greediness doesn’t have to rise to the level of Scrooge’s mounted millions. So often a miserly heart is crippled by things much more complex than money. We can be sinfully stingy with:

  • our attention to those deemed unimportant
  • our kindness to those struggling with life
  • our forgiveness to the unappreciative 
  • our presuppositions about what belongs to whom

The following parable has always shaken me down at the root of my assumed entitlements:

A young woman was waiting to catch a flight in the boarding area of the airport. Given that her wait was going to be several hours she decided to buy a book to read along with a packet of cookies to enjoy. She sat down in an armchair in the VIP room of the airport to relax and read her book in peace. 

Beside the armchair where the packet of cookies lay, a man was seated next to her reading his magazine.  When the woman reached into the packet of cookies to take the first cookie, the man next to her also took one. She was irritated but said nothing. “What nerve this man has!” she thought.  For each cookie she took the man also took a cookie. 

She was infuriated but didn’t want to cause a scene. When only one cookie remained she thought to herself, “what will this horrible man do now?” The man reached down and broke the cookie into even halves and handed one half to her. It was more than she could handle!  She grabbed her things in a huff, refused the half, and stormed off to the boarding area.  

When she got onto her seat on the plane she reached into her purse to get her reading glasses and, to her surprise, her packet of cookies was sitting there untouched and unopened.

We might wish to spend some prayer time considering the application of this story to our own attitudes.

Music: Where Your Treasure Is – Marty Haugen

Be Perfected in Mercy

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness, Jesus, Love, Mercy, spirituality1 Comment

Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

June 18, 2019

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Today, in Mercy, both Jesus and Paul teach us about the true meaning of charity and community.

Mt5_43_48 PerfectJPG

Throughout his journey among the Gentile Christians, Paul conducts a collection for the poor of the Jerusalem Church.

Galatians 2:9-10

James, Cephas, and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

Romans 15:25-26

Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the Lord’s people there. For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the Lord’s people in Jerusalem.

In today’s passage, Paul encourages the Corinthians to contribute by holding up to them the generosity of the churches of Macedonia. Great strategy, eh?

In our Gospel, Jesus shows how deep our generosity, hospitality, mercy, forgiveness,  and love should be: boundless. He gives such a reasonable argument:

For if you love those who love you,
what recompense will you have?
Do not the tax collectors do the same?

Jesus tells us that we must far exceed the tax collectors, that we must be “perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect” – perfected, whole, and completed by Mercy and Love.

For Paul, this meant embracing both the Jewish and Gentile Christians as one community.

For Jesus, it means loving all Creation as God Loves.

Beloved friends, what does it mean for us?

Music: In Perfect Charity – Randall deBruyn (Lyrics below)

Verse 1

O most high and glorious God,
Cast your light into the darkness of my heart.
Give me right faith, and certain hope,
And perfect, perfect charity.
Give me true insight, Lord, and wisdom,
That I may always live within your ever holy will,
Lord may your light within me burn,
Shining out in perfect charity.

Verse 2

O most high and glorious God,
Open wide the door that leads me to your love.
Give me your firm, yet gentle strength;
May I live that perfect charity.
Lord, may your peace be ever in me,
That I may always seek to serve your children here on earth;
That I may find my home in you,
And live in perfect charity.

Verse 3

Then most high and thankful praise
I will sing unto the glory of your name:
To Father, Son, and Spirit bright,
Living Presence, Perfect Charity.
Praise to the Love that shines in splendour,
That lights the pathways of my heart,
And brings me close to you. O Holy One,
Invite me in, where you live in perfect charity.

The Good, The True and The Beautiful

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Eternal Life, Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Prayer, TruthLeave a comment

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

June 16, 2019

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Trinity

Today, in Mercy, we celebrate the feast of the Blessed Trinity, a mystery of our faith beyond full human comprehension. Clearly realizing this, John Wesley, founder of the Methodist religion said this:

Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man,
and then I will show you a man that can comprehend the Triune God.

Still, as we pray, we have some limited conceptualization of this Divine Mystery. We reshape it into human terms we can relate to:

Father, Son, Spirit
Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier

These give us some insight into the heart of the Triune God, but only from the limits of our human perspective. It is a mystery so infinite that even in heaven we may not plumb its depths.

Many theologians and philosophers have tried to stretch our perspectives. The great Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar writes:

The One, the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, these are
what we call the transcendental attributes of Being,
because they surpass all the limits of essences
and are coextensive with Being.

It may be helpful in our prayer to think of the Trinity in these terms- The Good, The True, and the Beautiful. These concepts, while we can experience them clearly in an individual or an object, far surpass that one particular presence or circumstance.

So it is with the nature of the Trinity. We perceive it simply in glimpses. Though Its totality far surpasses our comprehension, perhaps these glimpses are enough:
C.S. Lewis puts it this way:

Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun
which you could never get from reading books on astronomy.
These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’
in the woods of our experience.

What does all this mean in our daily spirituality? How can we find a Trinitarian spirituality in our daily encounter with God? How can we find the “patches of Godlight”?

Pope Francis brings it down to our experience of family:

All of the love that God has in Himself,
all the beauty that God has in Himself,
all the truth that God has in Himself,
He gives to the family.

So, in the sincere love – given and received – of a family or community, we find the reflection of this immense mystery.

And St. Catherine of Siena confidently prays about this truth in this way:

You, Eternal Trinity, are my Creator,
and I am the work of Your hands,
and I know through the new creation
which You have given me in the blood of Your Son,
that You are enamored of the beauty of Your workmanship.

Music: Amazing Love – Billy Martin, Peggy Dequesnel, Steve Hall

We Are A New Creation

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus, ordinary time, spirituality, TruthLeave a comment

Saturday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

June 15, 2019

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Today, in Mercy,  we are reminded of two fundamentals of our spiritual life.

  1. In Christ, we are a New Creation. (2 Cor.5:17)
  2. We are called to live in the fullness of that Truth  (Mt.5:37)

If we could only believe and act from that power how our lives might be transformed!

2Cor5_7 new

Often, we let the relentless passing of time convince us each day that, rather than “new”, we are an older creation. Some of us tend to meet the cycles of life as challenges rather than opportunities. We use old, comfortable solutions that don’t quite meet the test. We get stuck, because life can be hard work!

But what if we realized that, every morning, God is imagining us into new possibility? That together with God, we have another day to become a sign of the Spirit in the world?

What if we consciously chose to meet any dispiriting situation with the attitude Jesus might take toward it? What if we lived life as an unfolding, glorious mystery rather than a problem?

What if we lived fully in the Truth that we are God’s beloved and, with God, capable of eternal life?

Today’s scriptures invite us to consider these questions with openness and faith.

Music: I Am a New Creation- The Worship Collection

Climbing Toward God

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Creation, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Prayer, Thanksgiving1 Comment

Friday of the Tenth Week  in Ordinary Time

June 14, 2019

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Today, in Mercy, Paul, follows on yesterday’s magnificent passage about

the Gospel of the glory of Christ,
who is the image of God.

The power of this Gospel is the “treasure” about which Paul writes in today’s first reading.

2Cor4_7

In this passage, Paul describes the miracle of contradiction in us who believe. We carry the  infinite light of God’s Glory in the fragile, imperfect vessels of our existence. By the power of God, the omnipotent sublime shines from within the ordinary.

We see, in these lines, Paul the humble and tested preacher. He has grown in his deep understanding of himself as God’s imperfect instrument.

All of us who want to live the Gospel are called to experience a deepening like Paul’s. The poet Mary Oliver reflects such a transformation in her poem On Thy Wondrous Works I Will Meditate (Psalm 145). Here is the last delightful stanza, which may inspire our prayer today. (I will send the full poem a little later.)

Every morning I want to kneel down on the golden
cloth of the sand and say
some kind of musical thanks for
the world that is happening again—another day—
from the shawl of wind coming out of the
west to the firm green
flesh of the melon lately sliced open and
eaten, its chill and ample body
flavored with mercy. I want
to be worthy—of what? Glory? Yes, unimaginable glory.
O Lord of melons, of mercy, though I am
not ready, nor worthy, I am climbing toward you.

Music: Earthen Vessels – John Foley, SJ

Glory following Glory

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus, ordinary time, spiritualityLeave a comment

Memorial of Saint Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church

June 13, 2019

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Today, in Mercy, we celebrate the feast of St. Anthony. Many of us are close friends with him, as we mislay our keys, glasses, phones and wallets on a regular basis. But we might want to consider St. Anthony’s more universal contribution to the Church. A Franciscan friar, Anthony was noted by his contemporaries for his powerful preaching, expert knowledge of scripture, and undying love and devotion to the poor and the sick – virtues we are called to imitate by his canonization.

On another note, today’s readings for Ordinary Time focus on seeing past the letter of the Law to its Spirit.

 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus, preaching charity over ritual, says:

Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar,
and there recall that your brother
has anything against you,
leave your gift there at the altar,
go first and be reconciled with your brother,
and then come and offer your gift.

In the magnificent passage from 2 Corinthians, Paul, describing the Old Law of requirements as a veil over our eyes, writes:

2Cor3_18

Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is freedom.
All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord,
are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory,
as from the Lord who is the Spirit.

glory

May our lives, blessed by the freedom of the Holy Spirit, move gratefully, humbly, and joyously “from glory to glory” – growing ever more deeply into the merciful Heart of God.

Music:  Dwelling Place – John Foley, SJ

Praying with Jesus

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eastertide, Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, Jesus, PrayerLeave a comment

Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter 

June 6, 2019

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Today, in Mercy, Jesus continues to pray. What a blessing it is to be able to place ourselves next to Jesus and listen to his prayer!

The flow of this prayer shows clearly that it is part of an ongoing and continual conversation. Jesus is always in a relationship of presence with the Father. He just allows us to listen in John 17.

John17_11 One

By our listening, we may grow in the depth of our own prayer. Jesus prays:

  • for God to be glorified
  • for all to be one in God
  • for the wholeness and perfection of all Creation
  • for eternal, Trinitarian life for his followers
  • for God’s love to live in our hearts

These requests are the same things the Father wants. These are the reasons the Father sent Jesus into the world. So, in his prayer, Jesus is praying for God’s Will of love and wholeness in the world. He is praying for oneness with the Father.

We can grow in this kind of prayer by opening our minds and spirits to God’s heartbeat in our lives. St. Teresa of Avila said it like this:

“Through a truth glimpsed fleetingly in a state of prayer he calls to us.
No matter how halfhearted such insights may be, God rejoices
whenever we learn what he is trying to teach us.”
– The Interior Castle

and

“Let the truth be in your hearts, as it will be if you practice meditation,
and you will see clearly what love we are bound to have for our neighbors.”– The Way of Perfection

Through intention and practice, and responsive to grace, there comes a point in our spiritual life when we are never unaware of the Presence of God. The intensity of this awareness will vary, like the volume in a beautiful piece of music, but the Divine music is still always there, even in its necessary rests.

( Rests are intervals of silence in pieces of music, marked by symbols indicating the length of the pause. Each rest symbol and name corresponds with a particular note value, indicating how long the silence should last.)

Whether we are in a “rest” or a full, resounding note, let us become aware of God’s Presence in us and our presence in God.

Music:   My TOP favorite piece of music. ( P.S. Whoever is in charge, please play this at my funeral.)

Messe solennelle en l’honneur de sainte Cécile: Sanctus – Jessye Norman

Farewell

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, dying, Eastertide, Eternal Life, Faith, friendship, Holy Spirit, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter 

June 4, 2019

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Today, in Mercy, we have two farewell readings.

Jn17_2

It’s an appropriate theme at this time of weddings, graduations, retirements, house-hunting, and other temporary or final leave-takings.

Farewells are tough, aren’t they? They are an uneven mix of sadness and joy, one party often more heavily burdened than the other.

I think of the day I left home to enter the convent. I was bursting with joy, enthusiasm, curiosity and wonder. But I was woefully unaware of my parent’s profound sense of loss. It was a stunningly uneven farewell that I only came to understand in my growing maturity.

In our readings today, Paul and Jesus are poignantly aware of their farewells. 

Paul says:

But now I know that none of you
to whom I preached the kingdom during my travels
will ever see my face again.

And Jesus says:

And now I will no longer be in the world,
but (my followers) are in the world,
while I am coming to the Father.

Both Paul and Jesus use their farewells to pray for their disciples, to confirm their strength, and to proclaim that their followers are ready to carry on the mission. You can almost envision these two great mentors releasing their disciples into the fullness of their own call.

Over our lifetimes, we will love and mentor many people: children, friends, students, protégés. There will come times when we must release them into new dimensions of their lives.

Sometimes we are the ones breaking forth to a new horizon, strengthened by the generous direction of those we leave behind.

In each situation, may we treasure the love that is generous enough to give new life. May we bless one another with a magnanimity like that of Jesus when He made his farewell:

I pray for you and …
I will ask the Father
and he will give you his Spirit
to be with you always.

As I look back on that day long ago, standing with my parents at the front door of the Motherhouse, it was that kind of farewell that they unselfishly gave to me.

Music: Spirit of Life by Carolyn McDade

Embraced by Love

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, LoveLeave a comment

Seventh Sunday of Easter

June 2, 2019

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Today, in Mercy, our readings might make us burst out with, “Isn’t June a beautiful month!”

It is the month building up to Pentecost, when Christ again and again assures us of his love.  Look at this from Revelations today:

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
Let the hearer say, “Come.”
Let the one who thirsts come forward,
and the one who wants it receive the gift of life-giving water.

And this from our Alleluia Verse:

I will not leave you orphans, says the Lord.
I will come back to you, and your hearts will rejoice.

And this from our Gospel:
Father, they are your gift to me.
I wish that where I am they also may be with me,
that they may see my glory that you gave me,
because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

Oh, how Jesus loves us. And now, as He prepares to rejoin the Father, Jesus promises the Holy Spirit, so that we who believe may be embraced by the Infinitely Complete Love that is Trinity.

jn17_20_24

Friends, these are wonderful readings. On this warm June morning, let yourselves be loved by them.

Music: Cherubic Hymn to the Trinity- Tchaikovsky (English Lyrics below)

Let us represent the cherubim in mystic harmony, mystic harmony,
praise the Father, Son and Spirit,
raise our three-fold song, raise our three-fold song,
praise the Trinity, praise the Trinity, raise our three-fold song to the Trinity,
Let us now cast aside, cast aside, let us cast aside all this earthly life,
cast aside, cast aside, cast aside, all this earthly life.  Amen.

King of all, we may receive God the King, we may receive Him!
He who in glory enters in with mighty hosts of angels,
with mighty hosts of angels. Alleluia!