Category: Faith

Alleluia: You were BORN beautiful!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, spirituality10 Comments

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 31, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/073122.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings focus on “vanity” – its threats and remedies.

Often, we think of vanity as a physical emotion – that Narcissistic self-absorption that keeps us in front of a mirror for inordinate amounts of time. Our culture promotes this kind of vanity by working endlessly to convince us that without certain products we are “not enough” on our own. 

mirror statue
Vanity gazing in its mirror

Historically, this kind of rhetoric was directed primarily toward women, spawning a nearly $500 billion global cosmetic market! But men are catching up! The men’s market is forecasted to reach nearly $30 billion by 2023.

Several years ago, while flying home from a business trip, I was seated across from two young women. As we approached home, the one nearest me began to prepare for landing. She initiated an elaborate cosmetic ritual that involved no fewer than ten brushes plus an array of tubes and compacts. At first, it struck me really funny. Then I realized how very sad it was.

This maturing child was no more than eighteen. She was naturally beautiful with the vigor of youth. But she had obviously spent a lot of money and time not believing in her natural beauty.

Society considers vanity as a kind of pride and pomposity. I think just the opposite. I think vanity is really fear, self-dissatisfaction, anxiety and pain because something has convinced us that we are inadequate.

Vanity damages souls as well as bodies. It makes us behave in greedy, self-absorbed and careless ways toward our neighbors. It makes us pretend we are more than we think we are. It saps us of the strength to be generous, trusting, honest and hopeful.

Paul, in his letter to the Colossians, tells us to get over this kind of vanity:

Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly:
immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire,
and the greed that is idolatry.
Stop lying to one another,
since you have taken off the old self with its practices
and have put on the new self,
which is being renewed, for knowledge,
in the image of its creator. 

Col3_10 new image

What if that sweet girl on Flight 419 had been able to look in her mirror and see the image of her Creator? What if we could all do that? How might we spend our time and money differently if we were convinced of how beautiful we – and every creature – are to God?

Poetry: a repeat poem which is well worth repeating:

The Divine Image
William Blake

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.

Music: How Could Anyone Ever Tell You – Shaina Noll

I have added two versions of this beautiful song which never fails to leave me misty-eyed. Let God sing it to you in your prayer today.

Alleluia: For the Sake of Righteousness

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality4 Comments

Saturday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 30, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/073022.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are they who are persecuted
for the sake of righteousness
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

( Dear Friends, I have just come home from the funeral of one of our Sisters – a beloved, holy, humble human being – full of love, generosity and joy. I would love to offer today’s reflection based on the power of her Home-Going Ceremony. But I need more time to let that brew in my heart. So, since I am running quite late, I am offering an edited reflection from two years ago for today’s reflection. But, trust me, you will be hearing soon about the miracle of Sister Margery Lowry.)

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Jeremiah and John the Baptist are living out the meaning.of Psalm 69.

Each of these great prophets has been ensnared by the civic evil of their times, personified in Old Testament princes and New Testament Herod and Herodias. The power structure surrounding each prophet stood in direct contradiction to their witness to God’s Word. Those structures, when confronted with a sacred truth, tried to overwhelm the messenger, like quicksand swallows an innocent traveler.

Rescue me out of the mire; may I not sink!
may I be rescued from my foes,
and from the watery depths.
Let not the flood-waters overwhelm me,
nor the abyss swallow me up,
nor the pit close its mouth over me.

Psalm 69 raises to our prayer the reality that such struggles continue in our time. We live in a wonderful but still sinful world where every person decides, everyday, where he or she will stand in the contest between good and evil.

The decision is sometimes very clear. At other times, the waters are so muddied with lies, propaganda, greed, fear, bias. and unexamined privilege that we feel mired in confusion or resistance.

But I am afflicted and in pain;
let your saving help, O God, protect me.
I will praise the name of God in song,
and I will glorify him with thanksgiving.

Psalm 69 throws us a rescue line in today’s final verse:

See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the LORD hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds God spurns not.

The steady path to truth lies with those who seek God among the humble and poor. The humble are the ones through whom the Lord speaks. They are God’s own. Jeremiah and the Baptist understood this truth and preached it by their lives.

We might examine our lives today in the light of their witness and the message of this challenging psalm.

Poetry:  Beginners – Denise Levertov

‘From too much love of living,
Hope and desire set free,
Even the weariest river
Winds somewhere to the sea—‘


But we have only begun
to love the earth.
We have only begun
to imagine the fullness of life.
How could we tire of hope?
—so much is in bud.
How can desire fail?
—we have only begun
to imagine justice and mercy,
only begun to envision
how it might be
to live as siblings with beast and flower,
not as oppressors.
Surely our river
cannot already be hastening
into the sea of nonbeing?
Surely it cannot
drag, in the silt,
all that is innocent?
Not yet, not yet—
there is too much broken
that must be mended,
too much hurt we have done to each other
that cannot yet be forgiven.
We have only begun to know
the power that is in us if we would join
our solitudes in the communion of struggle.
So much is unfolding that must
complete its gesture,
so much is in bud.

Music:  The Cry of the Poor – John Foley, SJ

Alleluia: Rise from the Dead!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, Jesus, Poetry, spirituality4 Comments

Memorial of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus
Friday, July 29, 2022

Today’s Readings: (for this wonderful feast, I have used the alternate readings for Martha, Mary and Lazarus)

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/0729-memorial-martha.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we enter the stories of three closest friends of Jesus – Martha, Mary and Lazarus. There were the bosom buddies of Jesus – doing salvation things with him for sure, but also laughing, remembering, supporting, challenging and, like all good friends, loving.

When I think of the home of this Bethany family, many characteristics come to mind. Foremost for me is hospitality. We must be welcomed into a place in order to find friendship there. We must be comfortable, cared about, and appreciated. We must feel at home.

We’ve all been in homes that make us feel this way, and hopefully our own home offers such hospitality to us and others. I think this morning of three old friends now at home with God. They were the sisters of a beloved pastor with whom I worked. We got to know them well at the time of his death and continued our friendship until they too died.

We often visited their old but perfectly appointed little home. And their hospitality took very evident forms: a prepared pitcher of Manhattans in the fridge, little snacks that we might have mentioned we liked, lively conversation, and the sharing of life-making stories – with a few secrets sprinkled in between.

I think that’s the same kind of hospitable home Mary, Martha, and Lazarus offered Jesus – a tasty meal, some good wine, and the sharing of life, laughter, and tears.

We may not immediately think of these things as holy — but I think they are. The way we welcome one another – visit, feed, listen, appreciate, care for and enjoy one another – these things open the door to more fully absorb God’s love. Hospitality is very definitely a ministry and a sacrament.

When we open our hearts to be the presence of God’s own welcome, we too can share the bread of life, the wine of experience, and the certainty of love with our infinitely hospitable Creator.

What immeasurable gifts! Having received them from God, may we offer them to others especially those who find them nowhere else.

May all our loving hospitality create a dwelling place for God in our hearts!

Imagine what is was like for Jesus to decide to raise this dearest friend Lazarus FROM THE DEAD!!!!

Imagine what it was like for Lazarus for the rest of his life to be the guy – “Hey? Weren’t you DEAD once????)

There may be things in our own lives that echo these feelings. Have we ever given everything for a friend or beloved when others don’t understand?

Have we come back from a place of death which, once again, no one really understands?

Talk with Jesus and Lazarus about your experiences in your prayer toady.

Poetry: The Raising of Lazarus by Franz Wright
from a fragment by Rainer Maria Rilke

But Jesus knew his friends. Before they were,
he knew them; and they knew
that he would never leave them
desolate here. So he let his exhausted eyes close
at first glimpse of the village.
And immediately he seemed
to be standing in their midst.

 Here was Martha, the dead boy’s sister.
He knew he would always find her
at his right hand, and beside her
Mary. They were all here.
Yet opening his eyes it was not so.
He was standing apart,
even the two women
slowly backing away,
as if from concern for their good name.

 Then he began to hear voices
muttering under their breath
quite distinctly; or thinking,
Lord, if you had been here
our friend might not have died. 

(At that, he seemed to reach out
to touch someone’s face
with infinite gentleness,
and silently wept.) He asked them the way
to the grave. And he followed
behind them, preparing
to do what is not done
to that green silent place
where life and death are one. 

 Merely to walk down this road
had started to feel like a test,
or a poorly prepared-for performance
with actors unsure of their lines,
or which play they were supposed to be in;
a feverish outrage rising inside him
at the glib ease with which words like “living”
and “being dead” rolled off their tongues.
And awe flooded his body
when he hoarsely cried,
“Move the stone!”

 “By now he must stink,”
somebody helpfully shouted.
(And it was true, the body
had been lying in the tomb
four days.) But he was far away,
too far away inside himself
to hear it, beginning
to fill with that gesture
which rose through him:
no hand this heavy
had ever been raised, no human hand
had ever reached this height
shining an instant in air, then
all at once clenching into itself
at the thought all the dead might return
from that tomb where
the enormous cocoon
of the corpse was beginning to stir.

In the end, though, nobody stood
there at its entrance
but the young man
who had freed his right arm
and was pulling at his face,
at small strips of grave wrappings.
Peter looked across at Jesus
with an expression that seemed to say
You did it, or What have you done? And all
saw how their vague and inaccurate
life made room for him once more.

Music: Dwelling Place – John Foley, SJ (Click ” Watch on YouTube” )

Let’s be a place where God, and all God’s creatures, find a dwelling place of hospitality.

Alleluia: Nets and Clay

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Poetry, spiritualityLeave a comment

Thursday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 28, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072822.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Jeremiah gives us the wonderful image of the potter and the clay. Through this image, Israel is called to repentance, faith and transformation.

Whenever the object of clay which the potter was making
turned out badly in his hand, 
he tried again,
making of the clay another object of whatever sort he pleased.
Then the word of the LORD came to me:
Can I not do to you, house of Israel,
as this potter has done? says the LORD.
Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter,
so are you in my hand, house of Israel.

The passage carries the warning that some of potter’s attempts don’t quite cut it. They will be culled for the  spiritual “recycle bin”. Today’s Gospel offers a similar forewarning.

The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea,
which collects fish of every kind.
When it is full they haul it ashore
and sit down to put what is good into buckets.
What is bad they throw away.
Thus it will be at the end of the age.

Friends, we all want to make it into the heavenly bucket, right? So let’s sincerely pray the prayer of our Alleluia Verse:

Alleluia, alleluia.
Open our heart, O Lord,
to listen to the words of your Son.

Poetry: The Song of the Potter – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

Turn, turn, my wheel! Turn round and round,
Without a pause, without a sound:
So spins the flying world away!
This clay, well mixed with marl and sand,
Follows the motion of my hand;
For some must follow, and some command,
Though all are made of clay!

Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change
To something new, to something strange;
Nothing that is can pause or stay;
The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,
To-morrow be to-day.

Turn, turn, my wheel! All life is brief;
What now is bud will soon be leaf,
What now is leaf will soon decay;
The wind blows east, the wind blows west;
The blue eggs in the robin’s nest
Will soon have wings and beak and breast,
And flutter and fly away.

Turn, turn, my wheel! This earthen jar
A touch can make, a touch can mar;
And shall it to the Potter say,
What makest thou? Thou hast no hand?
As men who think to understand
A world by their Creator planned,
Who wiser is than they.

Turn, turn, my wheel! ‘Tis nature’s plan
The child should grow into the man,
The man grow wrinkled, old, and gray;
In youth the heart exults and sings,
The pulses leap, the feet have wings;
In age the cricket chirps, and brings
The harvest home of day.

Turn, turn, my wheel! The human race,
Of every tongue, of every place,
Caucasian, Coptic, or Malay,
All that inhabit this great earth,
Whatever be their rank or worth,
Are kindred and allied by birth,
And made of the same clay.

Turn, turn, my wheel! What is begun
At daybreak must at dark be done,
To-morrow will be another day;
To-morrow the hot furnace flame
Will search the heart and try the frame,
And stamp with honor or with shame
These vessels made of clay.

Stop, stop, my wheel! Too soon, too soon
The noon will be the afternoon,
Too soon to-day be yesterday;
Behind us in our path we cast
The broken potsherds of the past,
And all are ground to dust at last,
And trodden into clay.

Music: The Potter’s Hand- Helen  Baylor

I know for sure, all of my days are held in Your hands
Crafted into Your perfect plan
You gently call me, into Your presence
Guiding me by, Your Holy Spirit
Teach me dear Lord
To live all of my life through Your eyes
I’m captured by, Your Holy calling
Set me apart
I know You’re drawing me to Yourself
Lead me Lord I pray
Take me, and mold me
Use me, fill me
I give my life to the Potter’s hands
Hold me, You guide me
Lead me, walk beside me
I give my life to the Potter’s hand
You gently call me, into Your presence
Guiding me by, Your Holy Spirit
Teach me dear Lord
To live all of my life through Your eyes
I’m captured by, Your Holy calling
Set me apart
I know You’re drawing me to Yourself
Lead me Lord I pray
Take me, and mold me
Use me, fill me
I give my life to my Potter’s hands
Hold me, You guide me
Lead me, walk beside me
I give my life to my Potter’s hand
Take me, and mold me
Use me, fill me
I give my life to my Potter’s hands
Hold me, You guide me
Lead me, walk beside me
I give my life to my Potter’s hand
Give Him everything
Give Him everything
Right now, give Him everything
Everything
Give Him everything
Lord, I give it all
To You

Alleluia: Friends of God

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Cross, Discipleship, Faith, friendship, spirituality1 Comment

Wednesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 27, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072722.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
I call you my friends, says the Lord,
for I have made known to you
all that the Father has told me.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings begin with Jeremiah’s heartfelt lament.

Woe to me, mother, that you gave me birth!
a man of strife and contention to all the land!

Jeremiah 15:10

The cry reminds us of Isaiah’s words heard during Lent to describe Jesus’s Passion, words which inspired a magnificent aria in Handel’s Messiah::

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with sorrow. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Isaiah 53:3

It is not always easy to be a  “friend of God”. These scriptures paint a clear picture of the prophet’s painful path – whether Jeremiah, Isaiah, Jesus, or today’s prophets like Pope Francis. There will always be enemies who, for the sake of their twisted self-interest, attack good with evil.

But there is also always hope. God is with us, a stronghold of Mercy, as our Responsorial Psalm tells us:

But I will sing of your strength
and revel at dawn in your mercy;
You have been my stronghold,
my refuge in the day of distress.

O my strength! your praise will I sing;
for you, O God, are my stronghold,
my merciful God!

Psalm 59: 10-11; 17,18

Our Gospel assures us that, though at times costly, there is no treasure greater than God’s friendship.

The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field,
which a person finds and hides again,
and out of joy goes and sells everything to buy that field.

Notice that the person patiently plans to buy the whole field, not just the one discovered gem. Friendship with God never exhausts its hidden surprises. There are always more treasures in the field as we grow deeper in God’s love.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Poem: The Bright Field – R.S. Thomas

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

Music: The Field – Kristene DiMarco (Lyrics below)

What do I have but Jesus
I have found no one Like Him
All the World has 
loses its Appeal
When He Stands beside me

[Chorus]
The World can keep its Praises
All its Riches and its Treasures
‘Cause there’s nothing
Like His Presence to me
And man may give their Favor
All their Fleeting awe and Honor
But there’s nothing
Like His Presence to me

[Verse 2]
What do I have but Jesus
Nothing I’ve gained Compares
His Friendship is all
The Strength I need
To never grow weary

[Chorus]
The World can keep its Praises
All its Riches and its Treasures
‘Cause there’s nothing
Like His Presence to me
And man may give their Favor
All their Fleeting awe and Honor
But there’s nothing
Like His Presence to me

[Outro]
I bought the Field
And I keep digging up
More Treasure
It turns out it’s here in the ground
I could never Measure
Is there even a Cost if I end up
Holding Heaven
Oh, the Beauty of Living
In Your Presence

Alleluia: Foundations of Faith

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, spirituality4 Comments

Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne,
Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary
July 26, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072622.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, between two readings full of warnings and advised repentance, our Verse anchors us to the foundation of our faith:

Alleluia, alleluia.
The seed is the word of God,
Christ is the sower;
all who come to him will live for ever.

As we celebrate the feast of Saints Anne and Joachim, we might spend some prayer time in gratitude for those who have transmitted that faith to us – some of whom we have known personally, and some who reach all the way back through the ages to Christ.

Anne and Joachim are the grandparents of Jesus, transmitters of tradition and faith to him when he was a child. Nothing is known of them from the Bible, but there are references in an apocryphal piece called the Gospel of James. There are also many legends surrounding this holy couple. But the fact is that we know little or nothing, for certain about them.

Ps36_ Anne _Joachim

We shape our conception of Anne and Joachim from what we know about their daughter, a woman of such profound goodness that she was the means for God to become one of us. We give them honor and devotion because of what we know about their grandson, Jesus.

Anne and Joachim, together with Mary and Joseph, formed the first, loving nuclear community that fostered the life of Jesus. Like all newborns, Jesus was given over by God into these human hands. What an awesome responsibility and privilege!

Let us pray today for all young children that they may be blessed with caring parents and grandparents. Let us pray especially for grandparents (and grandaunts and uncles) who carry a special kind of love to their grands, one filled with a generational wisdom, generous fidelity, and tempered mercy so necessary for a joyful life.

And, children, listen to your grands.  They really have seen it all, ridden the big waves of time.. really did – ahem – “walk to school with the snow above their ears”! They can be a fount of wisdom and love. Trust them! Respect them! Enjoy them! For this we pray!

Poetry: Two poems today, one for Grandmothers, one for Grandfathers

I DREAM OF MY GRANDMOTHER AND GREAT-GRANDMOTHER by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, an Italian-American poet. She has published 18 books. Since 2012 she has been in the Honor Committee of Immagine & Poesia, the artistic literary movement founded in Turin, Italy, with the patronage of Aeronwy Thomas (Dylan Thomas’s daughter).

I imagine them walking down rocky paths
toward me, strong, Italian women returning
at dusk from fields where they worked all day
on farms built like steps up the sides
of steep mountains, graceful women carrying water
in terra cotta jugs on their heads.

What I know of these women, whom I never met,
I know from my mother, a few pictures
of my grandmother, standing at the doorway
of the fieldstone house in Santo Mauro,
the stories my mother told of them,

but I know them most of all from watching
my mother, her strong arms lifting sheets
out of the cold water in the wringer washer,
or from the way she stepped back,
wiping her hands on her homemade floursack apron,
and admired her jars of canned peaches
that glowed like amber in the dim cellar light.

I see those women in my mother
as she worked, grinning and happy,
in her garden that spilled its bounty into her arms.
She gave away baskets of peppers,
lettuce, eggplant, gave away bowls of pasts,
meatballs, zeppoli, loaves of homemade bread.
"It was a miracle," she said.
"The more I gave away, the more I had to give."

Now I see her in my daughter,
the same unending energy,
that quick mind,
that hand, open and extended to the world.

When I watch my daughter clean the kitchen counter,
watch her turn, laughing,
I remember my mother as she lay dying,
how she said of my daughter, "that Jennifer,
she's all the treasure you'll ever need."

I turn now, as my daughter turns,
and see my mother walking toward us
down crooked mountain paths,
behind her, all those women
dressed in black

A Garden – Author unknown

My grandfather kept a garden.
A garden of the heart;
He planted all the good things,
That gave our lives their start.

He turned us to the sunshine,
And encouraged us to dream;
Fostering and nurturing
the seeds of self-esteem.

And when the winds and rain came,
He protected me enough;
But not too much because he knew
I would stand up strong and tough.

His constant good example
Always taught me right from wrong;
Markers for our pathway
that will last a lifetime long.

I am my grandfather’s garden;
I am his legacy.

Music: Grandpa Told Me So – Kenny Chesney

Alleluia: Bear Fruit!

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

Feast of Saint James, Apostle
July 25, 2022

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072522.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
I chose you from the world,
to go and bear fruit that will last,
says the Lord.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate the feast of one of Christ’s closest companions and the first Apostle to be martyred. James, and his brother John, held a special place in Jesus’s friendship as only they, with Peter, were invited to witness the Transfiguration.

James, John and Peter astounded at the Transfiguration

What a journey James took in his short life: from his father Zebedee’s fishing boat, to that glorious transfiguring mountain, through the world-changing Paschal events, to a martyr’s testimony against Herod’s sword.

Call of the Sons of Zebedee – Marco Basaiti

James’s discipleship is fired by a willingness to change and grow at God’s call. Jesus dubbed James and John with the nickname “Boanerges”, meaning “Sons of Thunder”. One can imagine them as tough and tumble, boisterous young men. Jesus captured their fire and used it to form a pillar of the faith.

In our first reading from Corinthians, Paul highlights the essence of such pure discipleship as he writes to the early Church:

For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to bring to light the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ.

…

We hold this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.

….

Everything indeed is for you,
so that the grace bestowed in abundance on more and more people
may cause the thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God.

As we pray with James today, may we be strengthened in the grace of true discipleship – reflecting God’s glory even through the “earthen vessel” of our fragile humanity. May we use our gifts – even the “thunderous” ones – to bless others with the fruits of generous and vibrant faith.

Poetry: St. James Day – John Keble

Sit down and take thy fill of joy
At God's right hand, a bidden guest,
Drink of the cup that cannot cloy,
Eat of the bread that cannot waste.
O great Apostle! rightly now
Thou readest all thy Saviour meant,
What time His grave yet gentle brow
In sweet reproof on thee was bent.

"Seek ye to sit enthroned by me?
Alas! ye know not what ye ask,
The first in shame and agony,
The lowest in the meanest task -
This can ye be? and came ye drink
The cup that I in tears must steep,
Nor from the 'whelming waters shrink
That o'er Me roll so dark and deep?"

"We can--Thine are we, dearest Lord,
In glory and in agony,
To do and suffer all Thy word;
Only be Thou for ever nigh." -
"Then be it so--My cup receive,
And of My woes baptismal taste:
But for the crown, that angels weave
For those next Me in glory placed,

"I give it not by partial love;
But in My Father's book are writ
What names on earth shall lowliest prove,
That they in Heaven may highest sit."
Take up the lesson, O my heart;
Thou Lord of meekness, write it there,
Thine own meek self to me impart,
Thy lofty hope, thy lowly prayer.

If ever on the mount with Thee
I seem to soar in vision bright,
With thoughts of coming agony,
Stay Thou the too presumptuous flight:
Gently along the vale of tears
Lead me from Tabor's sunbright steep,
Let me not grudge a few short years
With thee t'ward Heaven to walk and weep:

Too happy, on my silent path,
If now and then allowed, with Thee
Watching some placid holy death,
Thy secret work of love to see;
But, oh! most happy, should Thy call,
Thy welcome call, at last be given -
"Come where thou long hast storeth thy all
Come see thy place prepared in Heaven."

Music: Gloria for the Mass of St. James – Guillaume Dufay (1397 – 1474) was a French composer and music theorist of the early Renaissance

Alleluia: Welcome the Word

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, spirituality1 Comment

Saturday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 23, 2022

Today’s Readings 

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072322.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we are reminded that God’s Word dwells in us and will bear fruit according to our “welcome” – that is, to the degree that we nourish it.

Alleluia, alleluia.
Humbly welcome the word 
that has been planted in you
and is able to save your souls.

Our readings ask and answer the question “Where does God’s Word dwell?”.

  • In the compassionate heart. 
  • In the mutuality of sincere community. 
  • In reverence for all Creation.

And there are conditions for that indwelling.  Jeremiah defines them clearly:

Only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds;
if each of you deals justly with the neighbor;
if you no longer oppress the resident alien,
the orphan, and the widow;
if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place,
or follow strange gods to your own harm,
will I remain with you in this place,
in the land I gave your forbears long ago and forever.

Jesus tells us that our desire to meet such conditions will be tested by a selfish and sinful culture, like the good wheat which struggles to thrive amidst the weeds.

He says that only at the harvest will the crop’s value be affirmed, indicating that we must be patient, persevering and steadfast even in the moral confusions of our world.

“Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?
Where have the weeds come from?”
He answered, “An enemy has done this.”
His slaves said to him, “Do you want us to go and pull them up?”
He replied, “No, if you pull up the weeds
you might uproot the wheat along with them.
Let them grow together until harvest;
then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters,
‘First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning;
but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

Psalm 84 beautifully captures our longing to be this kind of dwelling place for God. You might wish to pray with the following interpretation of this psalm.

Poetry: Psalm 84 – Ease by Christine Robinson 

The sparrow has a place in the rafters.
The swallow raises her young in the nest she has made.
They live and move easily in their places.
They flit and soar around Your world altar.
They are home.

It is not so easy for me.
I long for that ease of being and pray
for the grace to live in the world as at Your altar.

Happy are they who live in the Pilgrim way;
They walk through desolate landscapes
and find your springs.
They toil through mountains and discover your peaks.
They set themselves to the tasks of love and service
and know deep satisfaction

One day lived in this grace is better than a thousand spent
at our own devices.
When we walk our appointed path in peace,
We find our home and our way.

Music: How Lovely Is Your Dwelling Place – Jesuit Music Ministry 

Alleluia: My Redeemer Lives

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, spirituality5 Comments

Feast of St. Mary Magdalen
July 22, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072222.cfm

Edited in Prisma app with Huawei HiAI

Alleluia, alleluia.
Tell us Mary, what did you see on the way?
I saw the glory of the risen Christ,
I saw his empty tomb.

Modern scripture scholarship recognizes Mary Magdalen as a disciple and companion of Jesus.  She is present in stories throughout all four Gospels, and most notably, as one who remained with Jesus at the foot of the Cross. Mary is the first witness to the Resurrection who then announces the Good News to the other disciples.

Over the centuries, Mary Magdalen has been confused with the many other Marys in the Gospel, as well as with the unnamed repentant woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears. These confusions have inclined us to think of Mary Magdalen as a reformed prostitute. This erroneous concept has supported a diminished understanding of the role of women in the ministry of Jesus and done a huge disservice to Mary’s vital role as beloved disciple.

The Gospel passage for the feast captures the powerful moment when the Resurrected Jesus is first revealed to the world. The scene also portrays the deep love, trust and friendship between Jesus and Mary Magdalen – a relationship which serves as a model for all of us who want to be Christ’s disciples. I imagined the scene like this in an past reflection:

 Rabbouni

 The Upper Room on Holy Saturday evening: a place filled with sadness, silence and seeking. Jesus was dead. Believers around Jerusalem, scattered to their various houses to keep Shabbat, murmur their shocked questions under their shaky prayers.

 We have all been in rooms like this. They enclose a special kind of agony – one teetering between hope and doubt, between loss and restoration. It may have been a surgical waiting room or the hallway outside the courtroom. Sometimes, such a space is not bricks and mortar.  It can be the space between a sealed envelope and the news inside. It is the hesitant pause between a heartfelt request and the critical response. In each of these places, we exist as if in a held breath, hoping against hope for life, freedom, and wholeness.

 It was from such a room that Mary Magdalen stole away in the wee hours. A woman unafraid of loneliness, she walked in tearful prayer along the path to Jesus’ tomb. Scent of jasmine rose up on the early morning mist. Hope rose with it that his vow to return might be true. Then she saw the gaping tomb, the alarm that thieves had stolen him to sabotage his promise. She ran to the emptiness seeking him. She was met by angels clothed in light and glory, but they were not enough to soothe her.

Turning from them, she bumped against a gardener whom she begged for word of Jesus, just so she might tend to him again. A single word revealed his glory, “Mary”. He spoke her name in love.

As we seek the assurance of God’s presence in our lives, we too may be unaware that God is already with us. The deep listening of our spirit, dulled with daily burdens, may not hear our name lovingly spoken in the circumstances of our lives. God is standing behind every moment. All we need do is turn to recognize him.

 Turn anger into understanding. Turn vengeance into forgiveness. Turn entitlement into gratitude. Turn indifference into love. All we need do is turn to recognize him.

For a comprehensive and enlightening lecture on the current theological and scriptural thinking on Mary Magdalen, follow this link to an Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ lecture at Fordham.
There is a long intro, but you can slide to the 14 minute mark for Elizabeth’s start.

https://www.library.fordham.edu/digital/collection/VIDEO/id/824

Music: I Know That My Redeemer Liveth

Alleluia: Innocence!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Mercy, Poetry, spirituality1 Comment

Thursday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 21, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072122.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Jeremiah images Israel as a bride, the sacred betrothed of God:

I remember the devotion of your youth,
how you loved me as a bride,
Following me in the desert,
in a land unsown.
Sacred to the LORD was Israel,
the first fruits of his harvest;
Should any presume to partake of them,
evil would befall them, says the LORD.

Jeremiah 2: 1-3

These passionate verses portray a heartbroken and angry God lamenting Israel’s ingratitude and unfaithfulness.

Be amazed at this, O heavens,
and shudder with sheer horror, says the LORD.
Two evils have my people done:
they have forsaken me, the source of living waters;
They have dug themselves cisterns,
broken cisterns, that hold no water.

Jeremiah 2:12-13

This reading from Jeremiah is about a loss of innocence, and the spiritual fragmentation it can bring. Our Alleluia Verse, on the other hand, leads to a Gospel that proclaims the restoration of an “eternal innocence” rooted in “knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven”.

Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are you, God,
Creator of heaven and earth;
you have revealed to little ones
the mysteries of the Kingdom.

There is a human innocence that comes from not knowing any better, a kind of blind trust that hasn’t yet been “burned”.

But don’t confuse “innocence” with naïveté.

The Gospel innocence Jesus describes isn’t blind and it isn’t naive. It does know better. It recognizes and chooses the cost of a faithful life. That recognition and choice yield a profound spiritual freedom that is the ultimate innocence.

Blessed are your eyes, because they see,
and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
longed to see what you see but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

Matthew 13: 16-17

Poetry: The Divine Image – William Blake

from The Project Gutenberg
To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
All pray in their distress,
And to these virtues of delight 
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love, 
Is God our Father dear
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love, 
Is man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart ; 
Pity, a human face ;
And Love, the human form divine ;
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress, 
Prays to the human form divine :
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form, 
In heathen, Turk, or Jew,
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell, 
There God is dwelling too.

Music: U2 – A Song for Someone from Songs of Innocence

When you listen to this highly poetic song, could God be your “someone”?