Category: Faith

Mercy … not calculation

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Gospel, Mercy, spirituality4 Comments

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 24, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 145 which, with our Sunday readings, ties together the themes of call and commitment.

In our first reading, Isaiah proclaims a repentant urgency to that call:

Seek the LORD 
while he may be found,
call him 
while he is still near.

Isaiah 55:6

In our second reading, Paul confirms his own ultimate commitment to that call and urges his followers to imitate him:

Christ will be magnified in my body, 
whether by life or by death….

Only, conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear news of you, that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind struggling together for the faith of the gospel.

Philippians 1:20;27

But our Gospel reveals that not everyone responds immediately to God’s voice in their lives. Some of us come late to the call of grace. Nevertheless, our generous God seeks us, time and again, and embraces us fully no matter how close to the evening.

The early hires chafe against this system, imagining themselves somehow deprived by the Master’s abundance. Perhaps we heard attitudes like theirs expressed in self-sufficient phrases like:

  • but I’ve worked hard for everything I have
  • you need to earn your way in life
  • it’s not a free ride
  • if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen

Walter Brueggemann writes that the Psalms refute such an attitude:

The counter-world of the Psalms 
contradicts our closely held world of self-sufficiency 
by mediating to us a world confident in God’s preferential option 
for those who call on him in their ultimate dependence.

Psalm 145 lifts us beyond our selfish imaginations. It expresses the grateful praise of one who, swaddled in God’s lavish blessing, recognizes that Divine Justice looks like Mercy not calculation.

The LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and of great kindness.
The LORD is good to all
and compassionate toward all his works.

Psalm 145: 8-9

Poem: by Rumi

By the mercy of God,
Paradise has eight doors.
One of those is the door of repentance, child. 
All the others are sometimes open, 
sometimes shut, 
but the door of repentance is never closed. 
Come seize the opportunity: 
the door is open; 
carry your baggage there at once.

Music: Psalm 145 = Francesca LaRosa

Invisible

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Faith, holiness, Hope, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Pius of Pietrelcina, Priest
Saturday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
September 23, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092323.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we have our final reading from 1 Timothy. In the closing words of this letter, Paul pleads with Timothy, and with the community Timothy shepherds, to stay faithful. Paul encourages them to do this even though the Power they believe in is invisible.

… keep the commandment without stain or reproach
until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ
that the blessed and only ruler
will make manifest at the proper time,
the King of kings and Lord of lords,
who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light,
and whom no human being has seen or can see.
To him be honor and eternal power. Amen.

1 Timothy 6:14-16

In our Gospel today, Jesus describes the Word of God aa a seed that falls upon the human heart with varying results. It is a parable we are familiar with and we get it. If we don’t have a ready heart, plowed and furrowed with faith and charity, that lonely seed is going to die.

The problem is that even when that seed falls into our very faithful hearts, we don’t always SEE the results. The work of faith is a work with invisible powers. It is a work with hope, with trust, with perseverance, with courage – much like the work in any garden.

I hear really good people, whose lives are beautiful witnesses to faith, still question themselves and their goodness. Because their lives are threaded with challenges and disappointments, they think their lack of faith might be the cause. Because the world at large may appear to be a mess, they wonder if the God they believe in is really there!

Indeed, even though the seed of God’s Word is alive, still it is buried in the realities of our lives. And we wait in sometimes doubtful anticipation for its flowering.

Paul knew that Timothy would encounter these roadblocks just as we all do. That is why his letters to Timothy are a powerful source of encouragement to us all as we strive to live a holy life. As we close these letters today, don’t put them on a shelf forever. I go back to Timothy often just to grab a few verses for light in a shadowy time. I encourage you to do the same.

The final verses of 1 Timothy struck me with a smile as I read them today. They follow just after today’s reading:

O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you.
Avoid profane babbling
and the absurdities of so-called knowledge.
By professing it,
some people have deviated from the faith.

Poetic Prose: Rainer Maria Rilke

When I think of the Paul’s letters to young Timothy, I am reminded of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. Here is a favorite passage:

You are so young; you stand before beginnings… 
have patience with everything that 
remains unsolved in your heart. 
Try to love the questions themselves, 
like locked rooms and like 
books written in a foreign language. 
Do not now look for the answers. 
They cannot now be given to you 
because you could not live them. 
It is a question of experiencing everything. 
At present you need to live the question. 
Perhaps you will gradually, 
without even noticing it, 
find yourself experiencing the answer,
 some distant day.

Music: Invisible Spirit – by Anandra

Money is Not Enough

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Faith, Love, spirituality1 Comment

Friday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
September 22, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092223.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 49, the point of which according to Walter Brueggemann is this:

The point is that death is the great equalizer, 
and those who are genuinely wise 
should not be impressed by or committed to 
that which the world over-values.

Walter Brueggemann: From Whom No Secrets Are Hid

We may have heard the sentiment stated more succinctly by an anonymous scholar:

You can’t take it with you.

This is the core message Paul imparts to Timothy in our first reading:

For the love of money is the root of all evils,
and some people in their desire for it have strayed from the faith
and have pierced themselves with many pains.

1 Timothy 6:10

The advice is about more than money, or “dollar-bucks” as my 7-year-old grandnephew calls them.

The instruction is about our priorities – 
whom, why and what 
we love, value, and sacrifice for.

Walter Brueggemann

The opposite of this “love of money” is an unselfish, sacrificial love for others. This is the love Jesus hopes for in his disciples as he blesses them in today’s Gospel.

It takes courage to live such discipleship. As human beings, we tend to fear any kind of deprivation. We crave security, and sometimes we think money and possessions can give us that. Our readings today redirect that all too common misperception.

The world can be a very dark place, and of course, we will have fears and worries. Paul and our psalmist direct us to the right place to calm these concerns. Jesus calls us to believe in and live in the Light which is our true security.

Our psalm reminds us to keep our eyes on the eternal promise we have all been given.

But God will redeem my life,
will take me from the hand of Darkness.

Psalm 49:16

Poetry: Accepting This – Mark Nepo

Yes, it is true. I confess,
I have thought great thoughts,
and sung great songs—all of it
rehearsal for the majesty
of being held.
The dream is awakened
when thinking I love you
and life begins
when saying I love you
and joy moves like blood
when embracing others with love.
My efforts now turn
from trying to outrun suffering
to accepting love wherever
I can find it.
Stripped of causes and plans
and things to strive for,
I have discovered everything
I could need or ask for
is right here—
in flawed abundance.
We cannot eliminate hunger,
but we can feed each other.
We cannot eliminate loneliness,
but we can hold each other.
We cannot eliminate pain,
but we can live a life
of compassion.
Ultimately,
we are small living things
awakened in the stream,
not gods who carve out rivers.
Like human fish,
we are asked to experience
meaning in the life that moves
through the gill of our heart.
There is nothing to do
and nowhere to go.
Accepting this,
we can do everything
and go anywhere.

Music: His Eye is on the Sparrow (You might recall this version from the movie “Sister Act II”)

Eternal Compassion

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn dying, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, spirituality1 Comment

Tuesday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
September 19, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/tuesday-twenty-fourth-week-ordinary-time

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Paul gives the Church a job description for bishops. Obviously, there was a time when the worshipping community had significant input into the choice of its spiritual leaders. Therefore, Paul counsels the community to look for appointees who are well-balanced at:

  • the family level
  • the ministry level
  • the societal level

While directed toward bishops and deacons, Paul’s words could serve as an examen for anyone who professes to minister in God’s name.

nain

However, it is the Gospel story of the widow of Nain where my prayer rests today. Reading it, I remember standing by a large walkway window at the Louisville Airport on a sweltering July day nearly twenty years ago.

Down on the heat-softened tarmac, a small bevy of soldiers stood at attention. Slowly, a flag-draped casket was lowered into their waiting arms. Just to the side, a huddled family waited as well. Two children clung to either side of their young mother. An older couple stood behind her, hands gentled on her shoulders.

At the window with me, several other travelers gathered in silence. A few teenage boys removed their inverted baseball caps when they noticed a distinguished older gentleman stand tall and hold a salute.

No one who witnessed that brief ceremony will ever forget it. The grief, reverence and astonishment at life’s fragility emblazoned the moment on every witnessing heart.

When Jesus passed the gates of Nain on that ancient morning, he had a like experience. He saw this “only son of a widowed mother”. Once again, shaken to his roots with compassion –splancha– he pulled heaven down to heal heart-breaking loss.

How I wished Jesus were flying out of Louisville that day in 2005! But then I realized He was there. The miracle was hidden, but still real. The Divine Compassion flowed through me, through the reverent gathering beside me, through the soldiers’ honoring arms, through the long prayerful memory we would all forever share.

That young man from Nain was raised from the dead… but only for a while. He, like all of us, eventually died. The miracle was not about him and the restoration of his life. The miracle was the visible sign of God’s infinite compassion for his mother, and for all of us – God’s “feeling-with-us” in all our experiences. That compassion, whether miraculously visible or not, is always with us.

It just took a different form that day in Louisville.

military funeral

Poetry: First Born Sons and the Widow of Main by Irene Zimmerman, OSF

Jesus halted on the road outside Nain
where a woman’s wailing drenched the air.
Out of the gates poured a somber procession
of dark-shawled women, hushed children,
young men bearing a litter that held
a body swathed in burial clothes,
and the woman, walking alone. 
A widow then—another bundle 
of begging rags at the city gates. 
A bruised reed! 
Her loud grief labored and churned in him till
“Halt!” he shouted.
The crowd, the woman, the dead man stopped.
Dust, raised by sandaled feet,
settled down again on the sandy road.
Insects waited in shocked silence. 
He walked to the litter, grasped a dead hand.
“Young man,” he called
in a voice that shook the walls of Sheol,
“I command you, rise!” 
The linens stirred.
Two firstborn sons from Nazareth and Nain
met, eye to eye. 
He placed the pulsing hand into hers.
“Woman, behold your son,” he smiled.

Music:  I was reminded of this consoling country song for today’s prayer. Like much country music, it hits the heart where it matters, even if the theology is a little frayed.

God Only Cries – written by Tim Johnson, sung here by Diamond Rio
Lyrics below

On an icy road one night
A young man loses his life
They marked the shoulder with a cross
An’ his family gathers round
On a piece of Hallowed ground
Their hearts are heavy with their loss
As the tears fall from their eyes
There’s one who’ll always sympathise

God only cries for the living
‘Cause it’s the living that are left to carry on
An’ all the angels up in Heaven
They’re not grieving because they’re gone
There’s a smile on their faces
‘Cause they’re in a better place than…
They’ve ever known.

God only cries for the living
‘Cause it’s the living that are so far from home

It still makes me sad
When I think of my Grand-dad
I miss him each and every day
But I know the time will come
When my own grandson
Wonders why I went away
Maybe we’re not meant to understand
Till we meet up in the Promised Land

Be Merciful

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Forgiveness, spirituality7 Comments

Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 17, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091723.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 103, and its gentle comforting refrain:

The Lord is kind and merciful, 
slow to anger, and rich in compassion.

Our Sunday readings encourage to become like this merciful, forgiving, patient, compassionate God.

I’m not doing so well at that. Anybody else with me? Sometimes I feel like we’re living in a desert devoid of humanness and reverence, and I am an unfortunate part of it!

Somehow, in our current political and cultural environment, too often I feel angry and even outraged. Those kinds of feelings don’t leave much room for compassion and its accompanying virtues!

Recently I witnessed two wonderful friends openly spat on social media because of their opposing political camps. I’ve seen family members shut each other out for the same reasons. We can’t turn on the TV without seeing a barrage of hateful words and actions unleashed against other human beings.

I feel poisoned and sick when I see the culture we have brewed for ourselves!

In our first reading, Sirach seems to have felt pretty sickened by his environment too. He counsels his listeners:

Forgive your neighbor’s injustice;
then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.
Could anyone nourish anger against another
and expect healing from the LORD?

Sirach 28:2-3

Paul, in our second reading, tells us why we should change our hateful behavior:

None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself.
For if we live, we live for the Lord,
and if we die, we die for the Lord;
so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.

Romans 14:7-8

In our Gospel, Jesus uses a stunning parable to drive home the commandment for forgiveness. I don’t think any of us really wants to end up like the selfish, wicked servant – handed over to the torture of our own hatreds.

Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers
until he should pay back the whole debt.
So will my heavenly Father do to you,
unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.

Matthew 18:35

This Sunday’s readings are serious. They’re not kidding. We have to change any sinful incivility or hate that resides in our hearts. We may not be able to change our feelings. But we can stop feeding them with lies, propaganda, and conspiracy theories.

What we can change are our actions and words. And we must.

Poetry: Love my enemies, enemy my love by Rebecca Seiferle

Oh, we fear our enemy’s mind, the shape
in his thought that resembles the cripple
in our own, for it’s not just his fear
we fear, but his love and his paradise .

We fear he will deprive us of our peace
of mind, and, fearing this, are thus deprived,
so we must go to war, to be free of this
terror, this unremitting fear, that he might

he might, he might. Oh it’s hard to say
what he might do or feel or think.
Except all that we cannot bear of
feeling or thinking—so his might

must be met with might of armor
and of intent—informed by all the hunker
down within the bunker of ourselves.
How does he love? and eat? and drink?

He must be all strategy or some sick lie.
How can reason unlock such a door,
for we bar it too with friends and lovers,
in waking hours, on ordinary days?

Finding the other so senseless and unknown,
we go to war to feel free of the fear
of our own minds, and so come
to ruin in our hearts of ordinary days.

Music: Kyrie Eleison – Lord, have Mercy

This is an extended, meditative singing of the prayer. I like to listen to it in the very early morning. Just doing that is a good prayer for me.

“Keeping” the Word

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Forgiveness, Mercy, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Saints Cornelius, Pope, and Cyprian, Bishop, Martyrs
Saturday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
September 16, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091623.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, in his letter to Timothy, we see that Paul thought he had been the foremost of bad dudes.

This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance:
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
Of these I am the foremost.

1 Timothy 1:15

Well, maybe – maybe not! It’s hard to imagine that a really bad guy could end up with the sacred portfolio Paul compiled before he met his maker. Jesus says as much in today’s Gospel:

A good tree does not bear rotten fruit,
nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit.
For every tree is known by its own fruit.

Luke 6:43-44

So let’s say Paul wasn’t really a “bad guy” before he got knocked off his Damascus-bound horse. Then what was he? The key word in Paul’s self-description is this: SINNER. Paul was a sinner.

Sinners are otherwise “good guys” who make bad choices for their spiritual lives. When those bad choices multiply and begin to feed on one another, the soul deteriorates like the rotten tree in Jesus’s image.

Jesus uses an additional metaphor to describe the process of continual spiritual conversion:

“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I command?
I will show you what someone is like who comes to me,
listens to my words, and acts on them.
That one is like a man building a house,
who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock;
when the flood came, the river burst against that house
but could not shake it because it had been well built.

Luke 6:46-48

We open our hearts to Mercy by these commitments to God’s Word in our daily spiritual life:

  • listening
  • acting
  • deepening

Integrity in these three spiritual practices requires dedicated prayer and reflection, a faithful “keeping” with the Word of God. As our Alleluia Verse assures us:

Alleluia, alleluia.
Whoever loves me will keep my Word,
and my Father will love them,
and we will come to them.

John 14:23

Poetry: [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] – e.e.cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Music: Remain in Me – Steve Angrisano

Her Joys and Her Sorrows

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, Mary, spiritualityLeave a comment

Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows
September 15, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091523.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, as we pray with Our Mother of Sorrows, we follow the liturgical cycle and return to Paul’s letter to Timothy for our first reading. However, we break from the cycle to honor Mary, Mother of Sorrows for our Gospel and Sequence.

What a solemn title this is for Mary! It is so much more comforting to think of her as the young, lively mother of Jesus, or the exuberant girl who happily visited her cousin Elizabeth.

But today, the Church remembers Mary’s suffering by which she intimately shared in Jesus’s redemption of the world.

At the cross her station keeping,
Stood the mournful Mother weeping,
Close to Jesus to the last.
Through her heart, his sorrow sharing,
All his bitter anguish bearing,
Now at length the sword had passed.

Mary’s life was full of both mind-blowing and heart-wrenching experiences!

  • Just imagine what it felt like to find an angel in one’s living room with an invitation to star in salvation history.
  • Imagine Mary’s pride, and perhaps frightened astonishment, at Cana when she tasted that “wine-formerly-known-as-water.”
  • Imagine how she fought the urge to slow Jesus down, to call him back to the comfort, safety and anonymity of their Nazareth home.
  • Imagine the utter bereavement of mind, heart, and spirit Mary suffered at the foot of the Cross.

Mary’s life was so full of joys and sorrows that there could be little in our lives she would not fully understand. Let’s be with her in prayer today, turning over our own blessings and difficulties with her – and those of our world – asking for her counsel and care.

Poetry: Mother of God – W. B. Yeats

The threefold terror of love; a fallen flare
Through the hollow of an ear;
Wings beating about the room;
The terror of all terrors that I bore
The Heavens in my womb.
Had I not found content among the shows
Every common woman knows,
Chimney corner, garden walk,
Or rocky cistern where we tread the clothes
And gather all the talk?
What is this flesh I purchased with my pains,
This fallen star my milk sustains,
This love that makes my heart’s blood stop
Or strikes a Sudden chill into my bones
And bids my hair stand up?

Music: Mary’s Heart – Danielle Rose

Oh Mary
Mother of Jesus
Give me your heart
That I might receive Jesus
Give me your heart
So beautiful, so pure
So immaculate, so full
Of love and humanity

Oh Mary
Mother of Jesus
Give me your heart
That I might receive Jesus
Give me your heart
To love him as you loved him
And serve him as you served him
In the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor

Oh Mary
Mother of Jesus
Give me your heart
That I might receive Jesus
In the bread of life
In the poorest of the poor
In distressing disguise
In Christ our Lord
In the bread of life
In the poorest of the poor
In distressing disguise
In Christ our Lord

Oh Mary
Mother of Jesus
Give me your heart
That I might receive Jesus
Jesus

We Adore You, O Christ

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Faith, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
September 14, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 78 which commands us:

Do not forget the works of the Lord!

The psalm, in its entirety, is a recital of God’s faithfulness to Israel over time, culminating in the triumph of David/Jerusalem/Temple.

God chose David his servant,
took him from the sheepfolds.
From tending ewes God brought him,
to shepherd Jacob, the people,
Israel, God’s heritage.
He shepherded them with a pure heart;
with skilled hands he guided them.

Psalm 78: 70-73

David foreshadows Jesus, the Good Shepherd who not only tends the sheep but becomes the Lamb of God. Jesus completes our salvation by his death on the Cross. In him, the long journey of Psalm 78 is ultimately fulfilled.

Philippians’ exquisite hymn captures the profound nature of that fulfillment:

Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
    Rather, he emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    coming in human likeness;
    and found human in appearance,
    he humbled himself,
    becoming obedient to death,
    even death on a cross.

Philippians 2:5-8

Each of our lives reflects, in its own way, the salvation journey we find in scripture. We experience the same kind of twists and turns, highs and lows as those described in Psalm 78.

In each of these moments, we are held in the mystery of the Cross wherein Christ transforms all suffering to grace:

Because of this, God greatly exalted him
    and bestowed on him the name
    that is above every name,
    that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
    and every tongue confess that
    Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:9-11

Poetry: Good Friday – Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Am I a stone and not a sheep 
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath thy cross, 
To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss, 
And yet not weep?
Not so those women loved 
Who with exceeding grief lamented thee; 
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly; 
Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the sun and moon 
Which hid their faces in a starless sky, 
A horror of great darkness at broad noon— 
I, only I.
Yet give not o’er, 
But seek thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock; 
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more 
And smite a rock.

Music: Adoramus Te, Christe

Simplicity Yields Freedom

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
September 13, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091323.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Gospel gives us a quick and intense course in the upside-down, inside-out world of Jesus Christ. The course is known by various names:

  • the Blessings and Woes
  • the Sermon on the Plain
  • the “other” Beatitudes

But the passage might just as well be called, “The Loving Slap in the Face Wake-up Call”.

Picture it. The Twelve have just been commissioned by Jesus as his Apostles (refer to yesterday’s Gospel). I mean this is a big deal! They’ve passed the toughest job interview ever … to stand in for God in the world! They probably want to go home and tell their families, “Guess what! I have a new, fabulous job!”

But then Jesus gives them the orientation manual – the Blessings and Woes – and it’s shocking!

“Blessed are you who are poor,
for the Kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are now hungry,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude and insult you,
and denounce your name as evil
on account of the Son of Man.”

Really? This is what will make me successful in this new gig?

I am called to honor and accompany those who are poor, hungry, heartbroken, hated, excluded and insulted? THEY are the blessed, the “successful” in God’s estimation?

Like many of us, the Apostles may have thought success looked just the opposite – a lot of money, extravagant possessions, careless jocularity, universal adulation, and unquestioned consumption of common resources. You know. – a big boat, a lot of fish, an unconscious immunity from worrying about the poor, hungry guy outside the boatyard.

Jesus turns all of this upside-down and inside-out. He warns that excessive satisfaction with the world’s goods distracts us from true life in God. It hardens us against a loving compassion for one another. It weakens our capacity to receive the immense joy and freedom of life in the Spirit. Jesus calls us to a simplicity of heart that frees us to see and love God in ourselves and others.

As we proceed through Luke’s Gospel, Jesus continues to teach his apostles its contradictory truth. Eleven of the aspirants absorbed his words, transforming their life in a holy “inversion”. Only one, in the long run, proved resistant.

Where might we find ourselves if we stood among them?

Poetry: by C. Austin Miles

A little more kindness, a little less creed
A little more giving, a little less greed
A little more smile, a little less frown
A little less kicking, A man when he's down
A little more "we" a little less "I",
A little more laugh, a little less cry,
A little more flowers on the pathway of life
And fewer on graves at the end of the strife.

Music: A Simple Man – by Lynyrd Skynyrd

Uncompromising Faith

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist
August 29, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082923.cfm

John the Baptist – Titian (1540)

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we honor John the Baptist under the title of his “Passion”. The memorial used to be called “the Beheading of John the Baptist”, a title that more referenced the act of the criminal rather than the perseverance of the martyr.

The Gospel narrative is gripping, as is much of the history of John the Baptist. He was no smoldering wick. Rather, John was on fire with the Truth of the Messiah and he never compromised.

Herod was the one who had John the Baptist arrested and bound in prison
on account of Herodias,
the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married.
John had said to Herod,
“It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”
Herodias harbored a grudge against him
and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so.

Mark 6: 17-19

In a commentary on this Gospel, Pope Francis described the central players like this: There are four characters:

  • King Herod “corrupt and indecisive”
  • Herodias, the wife of the king’s brother who “knew only how to hate”
  • Salome, “the vain ballerina”,
  • the “prophet, decapitated and alone in his cell”.

Pope Francis continued:

John had pointed Jesus out to His first disciples, indicating that He was the Light of the world. He, instead, gave his life little by little, to the point of being extinguished in the darkness of a prison cell.
Life has value only when we give it; when it is given in love, in truth; when we give it to others, in daily life, in our families. It should always be given. If someone grasps his or her life in order to keep it, like the king by his corruption, or the woman with her hatred, or the child, the young girl with her vanity that was that of an adolescent, naive, life dies, life ends up withered, it is useless”

Homily of Pope Francis, Santa Marta, 8 February 2019

Pope Benedict XVI also offered some compelling thoughts on the Passion of John the Baptist:
 “Celebrating the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist also reminds us – Christians in our own times – that we cannot give into compromise when it comes to our love for Christ, for his Word, for his Truth. The Truth is the Truth; there is no compromise. The Christian life requires, as it were, the ‘martyrdom’ of daily fidelity to the Gospel; the courage, that is, to allow Christ to increase in us and to direct our thoughts and actions.”

Francis and Benedict give us plenty to think about as we celebrate this solemn feast. Let us pray for the courage to live our faith wholeheartedly, inspired by the unswerving fidelity of St. John the Baptist.

Poetry: from “Saint John the Baptist” by Thomas Merton

St. John, strong Baptist,
Angel before the face of the Messiah
Desert-dweller, knowing the solitudes that lie
Beyond anxiety and doubt,
Eagle whose flight is higher than our atmosphere
Of hesitation and surmise,
You are the first Cistercian and the greatest Trappist:
Never abandon us, your few but faithful children,
For we remember your amazing life,
Where you laid down for us the form and pattern of
Our love for Christ,
Being so close to Him you were His twin.
Oh buy us, by your intercession, in your mighty heaven,
Not your great name, St. John, or ministry,
But oh, your solitude and death:
And most of all, gain us your great command of graces,
Making our poor hands also fountains full of life and wonder
Spending, in endless rivers, to the universe,
Christ, in secret, and His Father, and His sanctifying Spirit.

Music: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring – J.S. Bach – This beautiful hymn befits John’s great love and devotion to Jesus.