Category: Faith

Mothers of Kings

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Creation, Faith, Mary, spirituality1 Comment

Friday of the Third Week of Advent
December 22, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122223.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray a heartfelt antiphon beseeching God to transform our world.

Our readings strengthen our prayer because they vibrate with luminous faith deepened by a palpable humanness like our own. We pray with these spiritually powerful women:

Mary and Hannah
courageous mothers
shining believers
agents of worship
prophets in common disguise.

Our first reading once again foreshadows Christ’s life. Hannah, a mother like Mary, gives her only son fully to God’s work. Notice that Hannah, not her husband, brings Samuel to the Temple and initiates the ritual of his dedication. It is Hannah who, claiming her womanhood, utters the simple canon that dedicates Samuel’s life.

Hannah brought Samuel with her,
along with a three-year-old bull,
an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine,
and presented him at the temple of the LORD in Shiloh……

I am the woman who stood near you here, praying to the LORD.
I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my request.
Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD;
as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the LORD.”
She left Samuel there.

1 Samuel 1:24-28

Hannah Leaves Samson at the Temple

But how poignantly the reading ends! Do not miss the human emptiness that filled her heart as she returned to her childless home.

She left Samuel there.

1 Samuel 1:28

In our Gospel, Mary offers us her Liturgy of the Word as she proclaims the liberated dimensions of a redeemed world.

My soul proclaims your greatness, O God! 
My heart rejoices in you, my Savior,
because you have showered your servant with blessing! 
From now to the end of time,
all generations will know the great things you have done for me.
Mighty One! Your name is holy! 
In every age, your compassion flows to those who reverence you! 
But all who seek to exalt themselves in arrogance 
will be leveled by your power.
You have deposed the mighty from their seats of power, 
and have raised the lowly to high places. 
Those who suffer hunger, you have filled with good things. 
Those who are privileged, you have turned away empty-handed.
You have come to the aid of your people, 
in fulfillment of the promise you made to our ancestors 
when you spoke blessing to Sarah and Hagar 
and all their descendants, to the utmost generation!

from the Cortona Altarpiece by Fra Angelico

After her courageous declaration, Mary spends three months with Elizabeth in a mutually-directed matriarchal retreat. She then goes back, alone but not alone, to the life she has yet to shape for the coming God. Once again, the striking solitude of this young mother as she travels home:

Mary remained with Elizabeth about three months
and then returned to her home.

Luke 1:56

What can we learn from these women today as we make a place for God in our hearts and in our world? Like Hannah, to what liturgies of giving am I called? Like Mary, does my life proclaim my faith in God’s transformative intention for Creation?

Poetry: The Eternal Feminine by Pierre de Chardin

When the world was born, I came into being.
Before the centuries were made, I issued from the hand of God. . .
God instilled me into the initial multiple 
as a force of condensation and concentration.
In me is seen that side of beings by which they are joined as one,
in me the fragrance that makes them hasten together and leads them,
freely and passionately, along their road to unity.

Through me, all things have their movement and are made to work as one.
I am the beauty running through the world, 
to make it associate in ordered groups;
the ideal held up before the world to make it ascend.
I am the Eternal Feminine.
I was the bond that held together the foundations of the universe. . .
I extend my being into the soul of the world. . .
I am the magnetic force of the universal presence 
and the ceaseless ripple of its smile.
I open the door to the whole heart of creation: 
I, the Gateway of the Earth, the Initiation. . .

In me, the soul is at work to sublimate the body — 
Grace to divinize the soul.
Those who wish to continue to possess me 
must change as I change. . .
It is God who awaits you in me!. . .
If, God, then, was able to emerge from himself,
he had first to lay a pathway of desire before his feet,
he had to spread before him a sweet savor of beauty.
It was then that he caused me to rise up,
a luminous mist hanging over the abyss—
between the earth and himself—
that, in me, he might dwell among you. . .

Lying between God and the earth, 
as a zone of mutual attraction,
I draw them both together in a passionate union.
. . . I am the Eternal Feminine.

Music – Magnificat – Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (8 March 1714 – 14 December 1788), commonly abbreviated C. P. E. Bach, was a German Classical period composer and musician, the fifth child and second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach.
Throughout his lifetime, Bach worked on the Magnificat in D, Wq. 215. J. S. Bach was alive to hear it in 1749, and C. P. E. continued to revise and perform it as late as 1786. The work clearly shows the influence of J.S. Bach’s own Magnificat, including the striking resemblance of the Deposuit movements in both works.

This is the track list for the album Magnificat, taking the various phrases of the Latin prayer and expressing them in melody. If you don’t have time to listen to the whole thing, you might like to take a portion or two at a time.

Tracklist:
00:00:00   Symphony in G Major, Wq 173:  I.    Allegro assai
00:02:59    Symphony in G Major, Wq 173:  II.   Andante
00:05:34    Symphony in G Major, Wq 173:  III.  Allegretto

00:08:38    Symphony in G Major, Wq 180:  I.    Allegro di molto
00:12:50     Symphony in G Major, Wq 180:  II.  Largo
00:17:12      Symphony in G Major, Wq 180:  III. Allegro assai

00:20:26    Magnificat in D Major,  Wq 215:  I.    Magnificat (Chorus)
00:23:18     Magnificat in D Major,  Wq 215:  II.   Aria. Quia respexit (Soprano)
00:29:35    Magnificat in D Major,  Wq 215: III.   Aria. Quia fecit (Tenor)
00:33:40    Magnificat in D Major,  Wq 215: IV.   Et misericordia eius (Chorus)
00:41:28     Magnificat in D Major,  Wq 215: V.    Aria. Fecit potentiam (Bass)
00:45:14     Magnificat in D Major,  Wq 215: VI.  Duet. Deposuit potentes (Contralto, Tenor)
00:51:00    Magnificat in D Major,  Wq 215: VII. Aria. Suscepit Israel (Contralto)
00:56:31     Magnificat in D Major,  Wq 215: VIII. Gloria (Chorus)
00:58:17     Magnificat in D Major,   Wq 215: IX.   Sicut erat (Chorus)

Incomprehensible Love

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Faith, Love, Mary, Prayer, spirituality4 Comments

Thursday of the Third Week of Advent
December 21, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122123.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, the Church sings out to God the warm, familiar Advent invitation:

Our first reading from the Song of Songs vibrates with anticipation of God’s arrival:

Hark! my lover–here he comes
springing across the mountains,
leaping across the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Here he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattices.

Song of Songs 2: 8-9

When the Divine Lover arrives, the one who waits must be awakened from frost, flood, or barrenness that has drowsed them.

“Arise, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one,
and come!
“For see, the winter is past,
the rains are over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of pruning the vines has come,
and the song of the dove is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,
and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance.
Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one,
and come!

Song of Songs 2: 10-12

As we pray with the Song of Songs, we are reminded that relationship with God exceeds our comprehension and expression. We have only our human descriptions to help us explore the infinite dimensions of Grace and Mercy. We image the Holy One as Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Child, Light, Wisdom, Love, Lover, or Beloved – each aspect offering a necessarily limited metaphor for the Incomprehensible One.

As we consider places in our world, and in our own hearts, which are frozen, flooded, or barren of life, let us invite the Passion of God to rescue and reinvigorate us.

As we reflect on today’s Gospel, we can imagine both Mary and Elizabeth filled with that Holy Vigor which changes and restores everything to God’s original hope for Creation. It was into such ready openness that God’s Word leapt in one moment 2000 years ago. May it leap again into our hearts.

Poetry: Love Gaze – Renee Yann, RSM

Caught in the ferocious wind
of my own inadequacies,
I cling by finest web
to the energy You are,
fixing my soul on yours
in that precarious holding.

You are the magnet, gathering
all my emptiness beyond itself.
As if my fears were only stones
to tread upon, You come into the marshes
of my life as stillness, paused
and vibrating like a deer
among the reeds in dusklight.

I cannot word what it is
to swim in the deep pool of your Eyes.
All the universe, and all my understanding
turn reverently aside to offer privacy
for such profound combining.

Music: Veni, Dilecte Mi – Orlande de Lassus (1532-1594), one of the leading composers of the later Renaissance

Latin:
Prima pars
7:11 Veni dilecte mi, egrediamur in agrum, commoremur in villis,
7:12 Mane surgamus ad vineas. Videamus si floruit vinea, si flores
fructus parturiunt, si floruerunt mala punica.
Ibi dabo tibi ubera mea.


Secunda pars
4:11a Favus distillans labia tua, [dilecte mi], mel et lac
sub lingua tua.
8:6a Pone me ut signaculum super cor tuum,
quia fortis est ut mors dilectio, dura sicut infernus aemulatio.

English:
Prima pars
7:11 Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us abide in the villages.
7:12 Let us get up early to the vineyards, let us see if the vineyard flourish, if the flowers
be ready to bring forth fruits, if the pomegranates flourish:
there will I give thee my breasts.

Secunda pars
4:11a Thy lips, my spouse, are as a dropping honeycomb, [my beloved] honey and milk are under thy tongue;
8:6a Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm,
for love is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell.
(Douai-Rheims)

The Key Hidden in Plain Sight

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Conversion, Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, spirituality2 Comments

Wednesday of the Third Week of Advent
December 20, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122023.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Isaiah foretells the conception and birth of the Messiah.

Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel.

Isaiah 7:14

Isaiah offered the prophecy to one of the bad guys of the Hebrew Scriptures – King Ahaz (who was, nevertheless, the 16th great-grandfather of Jesus in the long David line). But Ahaz refused to believe, subsequently pursuing his own agenda rather than God’s. Ahaz’s choice ended up in disaster for both the religious and social framework of Israel.

Isaiah had handed Ahaz the Key to believe
and to act in union with God’s Will,
but Ahaz remained closed to the grace.

About 700 years later, when an angel offers her the Key, a young girl opens her heart to the miracle Isaiah once prophesied.

In the sixth month,
the angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David,
and the virgin’s name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said,
“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end.”

Luke 1:26-33

The stark contrast between Ahaz’s and Mary’s responses encourages us to consider our own openness to God’s interventions in our lives. We live a series of experiences, learnings, mistakes, reminiscences, hopes, disappointments, and a thousand other turnings of circumstance and relationship. Each holds the potential to draw us closer to God if, by prayer and reverence, we can find the key hidden under human appearances.

We can hear Mary searching for that key in her question to the angel:

But Mary said to the angel,
“How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?”

Luke 1: 34

The angel assures Mary that there is a world transcending our perceptions where God’s power holds sway beyond all human calculation.

And the angel said to her in reply,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

Luke 1: 35

Expressing her profound faith and trust in God, Mary was able to suspend the limits of expectation and definition. Ahaz didn’t even try.

Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”

Luke 1: 38

Poetry: Annunciation – Marie Howe

Even if I don't see it again—nor ever feel it
I know it is—and that if once it hailed me
it ever does—
And so it is myself I want to turn in that direction
not as towards a place, but it was a tilting
within myself,
as one turns a mirror to flash the light to where
it isn't—I was blinded like that—and swam
in what shone at me
only able to endure it by being no one and so
specifically myself I thought I'd die
from being loved like that.

Music: The Annunciation from Rosary Sonata – Heinrich Biber

Righteous Root

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Eternal Life, Faith, Holy Spirit, spirituality1 Comment

Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent
December 19, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121923.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we summon the Redeemer with the title, “O Root of Jesse”. Our readings, rich with biblical tradition, sculpt an image of Christ as an omnipotent radical Presence who alters the course of time.

To clarify that image for us, our readings first offer Samson, a prototype of Jesus in these ways:

  • surprising birth
  • announced by an angel
  • a Nazarite and righteous man
  • core figure in Israel’s deliverance
  • God-rooted strength

Samson by Norman Rockwell,
commissioned by Cecil B. Moore
for the film Samson and Delilah (1947)

The woman went and told her husband,
“A man of God came to me;
he had the appearance of an angel of God, terrible indeed.
I did not ask him where he came from, nor did he tell me his name.
But he said to me,
‘You will be with child and will bear a son.
So take neither wine nor strong drink, and eat nothing unclean.
For the boy shall be consecrated to God from the womb,
until the day of his death.'”

The woman bore a son and named him Samson.
The boy grew up and the LORD blessed him;
the Spirit of the LORD stirred him.

Judges 13: 6-9

The Church gives us this reading about Samson today so that we can focus on these characteristics of the Messiah whom Samson foreshadows.

Praying with those images, I remember an amazing tree I once saw in South Carolina. My friend Mike, a proud South Carolinian with a mellow drawl and a matching hospitality, suggested that we take a short ride from Charleston to visit a remarkable treasure (and to enjoy a Gullah dinner on the way home!).

The Angel Oak Park is located on Johns Island where you can find what is known as “A Lowcountry Treasure”. The Southern Live Oak tree is a historical site and focal point of one of the City of Charleston’s public parks. It is considered to be the largest Live Oak Tree east of the Mississippi estimated to be 300 to 400 years old. The Angel Oak receives approximately 400,000 visitors each year. The tree is 65 feet high with a circumference of 25.5 feet, shading an area of 17,000 square feet.

https://www.charleston-sc.gov/153/Angel-Oak

The tree is breathtaking. Being in its presence at once propels us back centuries while convincing us that life endures forever into the future. Standing in its expansive shade, we sense the immeasurable rootedness underfoot, and implacable steadfastness proven in storm.

The tree suggests, although it does not possess, the eternal steadfastness of God. With that suggestion, we are inspired to pray under its silent branches.

Such is the power of Samson in today’s reading. We are reminded and foretold, before Christmas Day, of the omnipotence of our longed-for Redeemer so that we may be more open to the surprising graces he will bring.

The Angel’s Visit to Zechariah – Luis Paret y Alcazar

Fittingly, our Gospel gives us another kind of angel, a real one – not a tree. This angel comes and nearly shocks the tonsils out of Zechariah, another good and righteous man. In his imposed silence, Zechariah hears a description of his son and of the coming Christ. The description is rich with images no doubt familiar from Zechariah’s long life of scripture study. Maybe, as he listens, he thinks of Samson and all the long lineage now tied into his own bloodline!

With the angel’s word Zechariah is given the gift of his own kind of nine-month spiritual pregnancy – one in which to let those images mature in him like the burgeoning of a faith-filled tree.

As we pray with these scriptures today, what angels and images visit us to prepare us for the rebirth of Christ in our hearts?

Poetry: Song of Zechariah (Luke 1:59-79) – Irene Zimmerman, OSF

At the circumcision of his son,
relatives and neighbors came
to speak for Zechariah of the tied 
tongue. The child, they concurred,
would bear his worthy father's name.
But during her husband's silence,
old Elizabeth had found her voice.
"His name will be John," she said.

Why this strange, unprecedented choice,
the relatives and neighbors wondered.
Armed with writing instrument,
back they went to poor, dumb Zechariah.
But during the long confinement,
as young Mary and Elizabeth
spoke about the missions of their sons,
he had listened and grown wise.
Straightaway, he wrote, "His name is John."
he caught Elizabeth's smiling eyes,
felt his old tongue loosen, found his voice,
    sang of God's tender mercy,
    sang of the breaking dawn,
    sang of the prophet, their son,
    who would make straight the way
    for the long-awaited One.

Music: Sacred Silence – Lyrics by Tom Booth, Jenny Pixler, and Anthony Kuner

Rescue Us from Ourselves, O Adonai!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Community, Conversion, Faith, spirituality6 Comments

Monday of the Third Week of Advent
December 18, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121823.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with our beautiful O Antiphon:

In our prayer, we call out to God as a Leader, a Leader we desperately crave because we cannot find the way ourselves. Oh, how badly we need that Divine Leader today!

Throughout these past few weeks, as I have prayed and written about the salvation history of Israel, interwoven with our Christian faith, I have been so painfully aware of the current situation in the Holy Land. The human carnage being executed there, as well as in Ukraine, screams against our mounting stagnation and indifference.

As the world observes and opines over the sacrilegious slaughter of human life, I know God’s heart breaks, as does the heart of anyone who loves as God loves. Where are the human leaders who will hear God’s cries to fashion a peace for these people, and for the world which is sickened by their suffering.

“We, people of God who proclaim the Gospel of the Risen One, have the duty to cry out this truth of faith: God is a God of peace, love, and hope. A God who wants us all to be brothers and sisters, as His Son Jesus Christ taught us. The horrors of war, of every war, offend the most holy name of God. And they offend Him even more if His name is abused to justify such unspeakable carnage.”

Pope Francis

War, and its reflection in proliferating smaller violences, is the extreme expression of a heart and a civilization deadened by sin. When a culture has normalized the tactics of death, it can be rescued only by the Divine.

As we pray today with Jeremiah’s promise to a beleaguered people, let us pray for mercy and justice for all people, especially women, children, and the poor who are always the most brutalized in war. And let’s do all that we can to move our government to moral leadership against the embedded sin of global violence.

Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD,
when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David;
As king he shall reign and govern wisely,
he shall do what is just and right in the land.
In his days Judah shall be saved,
Israel shall dwell in security.
This is the name they give him:
“The LORD our justice.”

Jeremiah 3:5-6

Prayer: On Peace and War – Walter Brueggemann from Prayers for a Privileged People

We are aware, acutely aware in your presence,
of the grind of tanks,
of the blast of mines hidden against human flesh, 
of the rat-tat-tat of sniper fire.
We are aware of the stench of death,
bodies of our own military women and men, bodies of countless Iraqis,
and the smell makes us shiver.

Such smells and sounds are remote from us, 
but not remote from us are bewilderment,
and anxiety, and double-mindedness.
We are bewildered,
whether we are liberators or invaders,
whether they are terrorists or freedom fighters, whether we should yearn for peace or savor victory.

The world has become so strange,
and our place in it so tenuous,
where gray seems clearer than the white purity of our hopes,
or the darkness of our deathly passions.
There is so little agreement among us,
perhaps so little truth among us,
so little, good Lord, that we scarcely know how to pray,
or for what to pray.

We do know, however, to whom we pray!
We pray to you, creator God, who wills the world good;
We pray to you, redeemer God, who makes all things new. 
We pray to you, stirring Spirit, healer of the nations.
We pray for guidance,
And before that, we pray in repentance,
for too much wanting the world on our own terms.

We pray for your powerful mercy,
to put the world – and us – in a new way,
a way after Jesus who gave himself,
a way after Jesus who confounded the authorities and
who lived more excellently.
Whelm us by your newness, by peace on your terms 
– the newness you have promised,
of which we have seen glimpses in your Son
who is our Lord.

Music: End the War. Grant Us Peace – Lord’s Loving Melody

Sing Out Your Joy

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Faith, Jesus, joy, Mary, spirituality5 Comments

Third Sunday of Advent
Gaudete Sunday
December 17, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121723.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, what glorious readings we have, capturing our exuberant hope. In our Responsorial Psalm, Mary proclaims the profound re-ordering of the world in justice and mercy.

Walter Brueggemann says “the song of Mary (the Magnificat; Luke 1:46–55) is about the unthinkable turn in human destinies when all seemed impossible: “For with God nothing will be impossible” (v. 37).

Our God has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty;.
has come to the help of our people
and remembered the promise of mercy…

Luke 1:63-64

With Isaiah, the whole earth sings out: “GAUDETE’ – REJOICE”, because the Divine Light breaks on the horizon. Isaiah imagines the self-proclamation of this glorious Messiah Who rises out of history’s darkness:

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor,
to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives
and release to the prisoners,
to announce a year of favor from the LORD
and a day of vindication by our God.

I rejoice heartily in the LORD,
in my God is the joy of my soul;
for he has clothed me with a robe of salvation
and wrapped me in a mantle of justice,
like a bridegroom adorned with a diadem,
like a bride bedecked with her jewels.
As the earth brings forth its plants,
and a garden makes its growth spring up,
so will the Lord GOD make justice and praise
spring up before all the nations.

Isaiah 61: 1-2A;10-12

Finally, in our Gospel, John the Baptist instructs his questioning followers about finding “the One Who is to come”. His words give us a precious insight into how we will find this emergent Savior in our own lives:

John answered them,
“I baptize with water;
but there is one among you whom you do not recognize,
the one who is coming after me,
whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.”
This happened in Bethany across the Jordan,
where John was baptizing.

John 1:20-28

The jubilant grace of Gaudete Sunday may be this:

  • the spiritual energy to find God, as John did, in the shrouded complexities of our lives and times
  • to believe, as Mary did, that God will enact an incredible restoration of Creation
  • to rejoice heartily with Isaiah in the One who is the “joy of my soul”

Prose: Willa Cather in Death Comes for the Archbishop

The miracles of the church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.

Music: Rejoice in the Lord Alway – Henry Purcell

Praying with the Prophets

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Faith, Hope, spiritualityLeave a comment

Saturday of the Second Week of Advent
December 16, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121623.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we think about John the Baptist. For several days in this middle part of Advent, our Gospel makes reference to John, the Precursor of the Messiah.

411px-Saint_John_The_Baptist_Preaching_In_The_Wilderness_by_Anton_Raphael
John the Baptist by Anton Raphael Mengs

Faithful Jews had an expectation that there would be a Messiah, and that a fiery Precursor would announce him. They identified this forerunner with the prophet Elijah, based on writings like today’s from Sirach:

How awesome are you, Elijah, in your wondrous deeds!
Whose glory is equal to yours?
You were taken aloft in a whirlwind of fire,
in a chariot with fiery horses.
You were destined, it is written, in time to come
to put an end to wrath before the day of the LORD…

800px-Elijah,_a_prophet_and_a_miracle_worker
Elijah, a prophet and a miracle worker, Gračanica monastery

In our Gospel, Jesus indicates that John the Baptist is the new Elijah, preparing the way for Jesus’s ministry.

As they were coming down from the mountain,
the disciples asked Jesus,
“Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”
He said in reply, “Elijah will indeed come and restore all things;
but I tell you that Elijah has already come,
and they did not recognize him but did to him whatever they pleased.
So also will the Son of Man suffer at their hands.”
Then the disciples understood
that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.

Matthew 17: 9-13

As we pray today with these two greatest prophets, we might examine our own readiness to receive God’s revealing grace in our lives:

  • What is it in my life that prepares me to receive God in my heart?
  • What inspires me “prepare the way of the Lord” in the many “worlds” that I touch?
  • Am I attuned to God’s “announcements”, those quiet inklings that tell me God is trying to make something new in my life?

Jesus says that Elijah “has already come” but has been rejected by the people.

  • Are there habits and choices in my life that make it hard for God to get through to me?
  • Maybe God is sending an “Elijah”or “Baptist” my way today. Will I recognize that Precursor? Will I be open to the message?

Poetry: The Cup of Eliyahu – Marge Piercy

Eliyahu is a masculine Hebrew given name and surname of biblical origin. It means “My God is Yahweh” and derives from the prophet Elijah who, according to the Bible, lived during the reign of King Ahab (9th century BC).

In life you had a temper.
Your sarcasm was a whetted knife.
Sometimes you shuddered with fear
but you made yourself act no matter
how few stood with you.
Open the door for Eliyahu
that he may come in.
Now you return to us
in rough times, out of smoke
and dust that swirls blinding us.
You come in vision, you come
in lightning on blackness.
Open the door for Eliyahu
that he may come in.
In every generation you return
speaking what few want to hear
words that burn us, that cut
us loose so we rise and go again
over the sharp rocks upward.
Open the door for Eliyahu
that he may come in.
You come as a wild man,
as a homeless sidewalk orator,
you come as a woman taking the bima,
you come in prayer and song,
you come in a fierce rant.
Open the door for Eliyahu
that she may come in.
Prophecy is not a gift, but
sometimes a curse, Jonah
refusing. It is dangerous
to be right, to be righteous.
To stand against the wall of might.
Open the door for Eliyahu
that he may come in.
There are moments for each
of us when you summon, when
you call the whirlwind, when you
shake us like a rattle: then we
too must become you and rise.
Open the door for Eliyahu
that we may come in.

Music: Days of Elijah – Robin Mark

The commentary in the Worship & Song Leader’s Edition contains a good summary of this hymn’s text: “This is a song of victory and of hope, of God’s triumph forever over death and of Christ’s eternal reign. It also calls believers to stand fast, even in the face of troubles, and to witness to the promised coming of Christ.”

Fuller Every Day

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Creation, Faith, Hope, Prayer, spiritualityLeave a comment

Friday of the Second Week of Advent
December 15, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121523.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Isaiah paints a poetic picture of the soul fully taught by God. He describes that sacred obedience, or heart’s listening to God, which leads to fullness of joy, peace, and eternal life.

I, the LORD, your God,
teach you what is for your good,
and lead you on the way you should go.
If you would hearken to my commandments,
your prosperity would be like a river,
and your vindication like the waves of the sea;
Your descendants would be like the sand,
and those born of your stock like its grains,
Their name never cut off
or blotted out from my presence.

Isaiah 48:17-19

When looking for music to complement Isaiah’s passage, I found a hymn written in 1876 by Frances R. Havergal, an English Anglican poet and hymn writer.

Her hymn Like a River Glorious, although written in older style language, spoke to me. It contains several beautiful metaphors, many reflective of today’s passage from Isaiah.

You might want to pray with one or two of these images today as you think about your own relationship with God and the Advent hopes flowing in your heart:

river
A river of grace – perfect, yet deepening
stand_anchor
Our hearts “stayed” upon God, anchored in faith
chick
Being hidden in the hollow of God’s hand
wind
“no blast of hurry” to disturb our peace (so appropriate to this busy season)
sundial
Our joys and sorrows falling like shadows
across the sundial of our lives

Throughout the ages, believers have used images to open their hearts to the graces of prayer. Think about the magnificent stained glass windows in the world’s churches — and of the centuries of our ancestors who have prayed beside them.

I hope you enjoy praying with this hymn, and the accompanying pictures, as much as I did.

Music: Like a River Glorious – Frances R. Havergal – 1876; performed here by the Parkview Mennonite Church. Follow the images and verses below.

river
A river of grace – perfect, yet deepening

Like a river glorious is God’s perfect peace,
Over all victorious, in its bright increase;
Perfect, yet it floweth fuller every day,
Perfect, yet it groweth deeper all the way.

stand_anchor
Our hearts “stayed” upon God, anchored in faith

Refrain:
Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest
Finding, as He promised, perfect peace and rest.

chick
Being hidden in the hollow of God’s hand

Hidden in the hollow of His blessed hand,
Never foe can follow, never traitor stand;

wind
“no blast of hurry” to disturb our peace (so appropriate to this busy season)

Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care,
Not a blast of hurry touch the spirit there.

sundial
Our joys and sorrows falling like shadows across the sundial of our lives

(Refrain then …)

Every joy or trial falleth from above,
Traced upon our dial by the Sun of Love;
We may trust Him fully, all for us to do;
They who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true.

Rain Down the Just One

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Faith, Hope, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

Memorial of Saint John of the Cross, Priest and Doctor of the Church
Thursday of the Second Week of Advent
December 14, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Isaiah offers us polar opposites for our prayer: some charmless metaphors and some beautiful lyricism.

In a graphic attempt to alert us to our spiritual weakness, Isaiah suggests that we are worms and maggots whom God still loves. It’s a comparison I get, but I choose not to linger on in my prayer.

Still, I don’t want to miss the point. No matter how unimportant we may feel in human estimation, we are ardently cared for by God who does not want us to be afraid. God wants us to turn from our worrisome self-estimation toward the hope that God’s Love promises:

The afflicted and the needy seek water in vain,
their tongues are parched with thirst.
I, the LORD, will answer them;
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
I will open up rivers on the bare heights,
and fountains in the broad valleys;
I will turn the desert into a marshland,
and the dry ground into springs of water.
I will plant in the desert the cedar,
acacia, myrtle, and olive;
I will set in the wasteland the cypress,
together with the plane tree and the pine,
That all may see and know,
observe and understand,
That the hand of the LORD has done this,
the Holy One of Israel has created it.

Isaiah 41:17-20

In our Gospel, Jesus praises John the Baptist, a preacher who could get a little wormy too at times. But John’s core message bursts with hope as does Isaiah’s. Their messages sound like this in my spirit:

Your soul is a window into eternity!
Stop looking in your unlit mirror!
Repent! Turn your heart toward God!
Believe in the New Dawn
rising in Jesus Christ!

Imagery:

As our Alleluia Verse charges us:

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Let the clouds rain down the Just One,
and the earth bring forth a Savior.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Music: Window of the Soul – Chuck Loeb

Look Up!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Courage, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality3 Comments

Memorial of Saint Lucy, Virgin and Martyr
Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent
December 13, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121323.cfm

St. Lucy – Giovanni Ricca (1603-56)

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we venerate St. Lucy, beloved and popular martyr of the 3rd century. Here is an encapsulation of her story from Wikipedia:

The oldest record of her story comes from the fifth-century Acts of the Martyrs. The single fact upon which various accounts agree is that a disappointed suitor accused Lucy of being a Christian, and she was executed in Syracuse, Sicily, in the year 304 during the Diocletianic Persecution. Her veneration spread to Rome, and by the sixth century to the whole Church. (Wiki)

The suitor was disappointed because Lucy chose to give her dowry to the poor - apparently the only reason he was marrying her. Tradition maintains that, at her martyrdom, Lucy's eyes were gouged out, an added violence of Diocletian who was angered at her prophecy of his impending downfall.

Isn’t it a bit amazing that an ordinary human story, as dramatic as it might have been, can endure for 2000 years?

We human beings treasure the witness of those whose courage and goodness we wish to imitate. They give us hope and wisdom. They light life’s way that is sometimes overshadowed by our worries. And we pass our confidences down to the generations we love hoping to strengthen them in faith.

The name “Lucy” comes from the Latin word “lux” which means “light”. St. Lucy’s life has inspired and illuminated the path for countless generations of believers, particularly those whose physical or spiritual sight or insight has been darkened or violated.

The same God who fired Lucy’s heart summons us today in the words of Isaiah. How fitting that we are called to lift up our eyes – to see, as Lucy did, beyond mere physical appearances, that our eternal Creator sustains us.

To whom can you liken me as an equal?
says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high
and see who has created these things:…

… Do you not know
or have you not heard?
The LORD is the eternal God,
creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint nor grow weary,
and his knowledge is beyond scrutiny.
He gives strength to the fainting;
for the weak he makes vigor abound.
Though young men faint and grow weary,
and youths stagger and fall,
They that hope in the LORD will renew their strength,
they will soar as with eagles’ wings;
They will run and not grow weary,
walk and not grow faint.

Isaiah 40:24-41, excerpts

Poetry: Saint Lucie’s Day by Thomas Merton

Lucy, whose day is in our darkest season,
(Although your name is full of light,)
We walkers in the murk and rain and flesh and sense,
Lost in the midnight of our dead world's winter solstice
Look for the fogs to open on your friendly star.
We have long since cut down the summer of our history;
Our cheerful towns have all gone out like fireflies in October.
The fields are flooded and the vines are bare:
How have our long days dwindled, and now the world is frozen!
Locked in the cold jails of our stubborn will,
Oh, hear the shovels growling in the gravel.
This is the way they'll make our beds forever,
Ours, whose Decembers have put out the sun:
Doors of whose souls are shut against the summertime!
Martyr, whose short day sees our winter and our Calvary,
Show us some light, who seem forsaken by the sky;
We have so dwelt in darkness that our eyes are screened
and dim,
And all but blinded by the weakest ray.
Hallow the vespers and December of our life,
O martyred Lucy:
Console our solstice with your friendly day.

Music: Candlelight Carol – John Rutter

St. Lucy’s inextinguishable faith was fired by the Light Whom we await this Advent. As we kindle our Advent candles, our hearts sing in renewed hope.