Category: Forgiveness

Renewal Offer

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness, Jesus, repentance, spirituality6 Comments

Second Sunday of Advent
December 10, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121023.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings ask us, for an Advent moment, to disentangle ourselves from time and space, and to see the world as God sees it.

Isaiah, hearing God’s insistence in his prophet’s heart, assures us of God’s mercy and of our deliverance from the world’s confusions:

Handel: Messiah / Part 1 – “Comfort ye, My people… Ev’ry Valley shall be exalted”
Conducted by Sir Neville Mariner

Comfort, give comfort to my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her
that her service is at an end,
her guilt is expiated;
indeed, she has received from the hand of the LORD
double for all her sins.

Isaiah 40: 1-2

Isaiah analogizes these confusions in rich terrestrial metaphors: a desert, a wasteland, a depressed valley, a rough road. Probably most of us have been in one or two of these spots in the past year. Am I right?

A voice cries out:
In the desert prepare the way of the LORD!
Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill shall be made low;
the rugged land shall be made a plain,
the rough country, a broad valley.
Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together;
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Isaiah 40:3-5

But just how is our deliverance from these dead-end places to be accomplished? Peter offers an answer – it is accomplished through repentance.

Do not ignore this one fact, beloved,
that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years
and a thousand years like one day.
The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay,”
but he is patient with you,
not wishing that any should perish
but that all should come to repentance.

2 Peter 3:8-9

If we were lost in a desert or trapped in an unscalable valley, all we would want is to get out. We might not pause to ask ourselves, “How did I get here?”, or “How can I avoid a return?”. The same thing might be true of our spiritual deserts and valleys.

Isaiah, Peter, and Jesus tell us that it is our resistance to God’s vision, our sinfulness, that captures us in our desolations – and that “repentance” is the antidote.

Since everything is to be dissolved in this way,
what sort of persons ought you to be,
conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion,
waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God,
because of which the heavens will be dissolved in flames
and the elements melted by fire.
But according to his promise
we await new heavens and a new earth
in which righteousness dwells.
Therefore, beloved, since you await these things,
be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace.

2 Peter 3:11-14

In our Gospel, John the Baptist also tells us to repent. And, honestly, when I first read his Advent proclamation every year, I find myself telling God something like this:

You know, dear God, I’m not really that bad off that I need to — well, you know…. like actually REPENT!!!! I’ve been doing the best I can. I’m one of the “Goodies” in this bad, bad world! You see that, don’t You?

Then Isaiah’s gentle Shepherd comes along, lifts me into those comforting arms, and convinces me that the world can be transformed if I will let myself see it as God sees it. All the normalized uncharities of my life — the judgments, the ungenerous hesitations, the excused prejudices, the unforgiven mistakes, the selfish expectations. Yes, all those deserts and valleys that we dismiss unresolved will just accumulate and stagnate in our listless spirits! It is from these crooked ways that God offers to deliver us once again in this year’s Advent reimagining.

So, what a wonderful invitation we receive in today’s readings! It is time to begin again – fresh, reinvigorated, and amazed at the power of grace in our lives!

Go up on to a high mountain,
Zion, herald of glad tidings;
cry out at the top of your voice,
Jerusalem, herald of good news!
Fear not to cry out
and say to the cities of Judah:
Here is your God!
Here comes with power
the Lord GOD,
who rules by his strong arm;
here is his reward with him,
his recompense before him.
Like a shepherd he feeds his flock;
in his arms he gathers the lambs,
carrying them in his bosom,
and leading the ewes with care.

Isaiah 40:9-11

On this Advent’s Second Sunday, let’s rest with that comforting but convincing Shepherd to learn where graceful change will free us for rebirth.

Poetry: Reminder – Mark Jarman

For God is in heaven, and you upon earth.
—Ecclesiastes 5:2

Don’t take your eyes off the road.
Accept nothing as given.
Watch where you put your hands.
You’re here and God’s in heaven.

Be careful where you step.
The drop-off’s somewhere near.
The fog won’t lift tonight.
God’s in heaven. You’re here.

That word you wish to say,
That score you’d like to even—
Don’t hurry either while
You’re here and God’s in heaven.

The earth says, “Take the wheel.
But no matter how you steer,
I’ll still go round in circles.
God’s in heaven. You’re here.”

Music: Like A Shepherd – John Foley, SJ

One Bad Apple …?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness, repentance, spirituality1 Comment

Saturday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
October 21, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102123.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our scripture readings are a little heavy. I had to dig to get my inspiration. But there are gems in these dense words!

It was not through the law
that the promise was made to Abraham and his descendants
that he would inherit the world,
but through the righteousness that comes from faith.

This is a spiritually freeing passage. It assures us that God is with us through our faith, not through the perfection with which we keep laws and rules.

Our Gospel reinforces the message:

Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven,
but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit
will not be forgiven.

Luke 12:10
lk12_10HolySpirit

The passage is a little scary when first read, because we all hope we haven’t done anything to offend the Holy Spirit. But what Jesus is telling his listeners is this:

If a person criticizes or rejects Christ’s life and teaching, forgiveness is still possible when they come to their senses and repent. It’s like cutting the bad spot out of an otherwise good apple.

But if a person chooses to live a life which blasphemes (mocks, dismisses) the Spirit of life, love, mercy and peace, that person can never be forgiven — because they can never repent. They will be hardened and rotten to the core.

So the advice of Paul and Jesus boils down to this, I think. Befriend the Holy Spirit by your life of faithful choices. Listen to Her inspiration. Help others to do the same. And do not worry when you make a few mistakes. God stands by the promise to be with us always.

Prose: Christmas Address of Pope Francis – 12/22/2022

Much has happened in the course of this year and, before anything else, we want to thank the Lord for all his blessings. Yet we hope that among those blessings is that of our conversion. Conversion is a never-ending story. The worst thing that could happen to us is to think that we are no longer in need of conversion, either as individuals or as a community.
To be converted is to learn ever anew how to take the Gospel message seriously and to put it into practice in our lives. It is not simply about avoiding evil but doing all the good that we can. That is what it means to be converted. Where the Gospel is concerned, we are always like children needing to learn. The illusion that we have learned everything makes us fall into spiritual pride.

Music: Spirit of the Living God- Divine Hymns

Got Sin?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Forgiveness, repentance, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary
Saturday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time
October 7, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/100723.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Baruch continues to instruct his flock on the necessity and practice of repentance.

Baruch puts this wonderful image into the mouth of personified Jerusalem as she calls her people to repentance:

As your hearts have been disposed to stray from God,
turn now ten times the more to seek him…

Doesn’t that verse perfectly describe how we struggle to move beyond our sinful fascinations into freedom and wholeness? I’m sure that, at some time in our lives, we have twirled more than once around some of the deadly sins to the point of getting ourselves all wound up!

Baruch says, “Rewind — even ten times! Go back to the heart of God!”

But that repentance to the tenth power may not be so easy to achieve. The topic of sin isn’t so popular today, although its practice seems to be doing just fine. Dr. Rebecca DeYoung, graduate of Notre Dame, specializes in research about the seven deadly sins and spiritual formation. She says this about our density to the power of sin in our lives:

We deceive ourselves about how powerful sin actually is, and when we finally do face our flaws, we often find ourselves, as Augustine said in his Confessions, “chained by the power of habit.” What would it look like to take sin seriously—to acknowledge how susceptible we are to the dark power of our own disordered desires? And what difference does it make to think of sin as self-destructive habit that shapes our lives from the inside out?

Prose: You may enjoy reading Professor DeYoung’s article as much as I did. Here is the link;

How We Got the Seven Deadly Sins

Music: Where I Find God – Larry Fleet

That moment of repentance and redemption can come in the most unexpected ways as attested to in this great country song. Fleet wrote this song which was one of the 50 most listened to country songs of 2021.

The night I hit rock bottom, sittin’ on an old barstool
He paid my tab and put me in a cab, but he didn’t have to
But he could see I was hurtin’, oh, I wish I’d got his name
‘Cause I didn’t feel worth savin’, but he saved me just the same

That day out on the water, when the fish just wouldn’t bite
I put my pole down, I floated around, was just so quiet
And I could hear my old man sayin’ “Son, just be still
‘Cause you can’t find peace like this in a bottle or a pill”

From a bar stool to that Evinrude
Sunday mornin’ in a church pew
In a deer stand or a hay field
An interstate back to Nashville
A Chevrolet with the windows down
Me and him just ridin’ around
Sometimes, whether I’m lookin’ for Him or not
That’s where I find God

Sometimes late at night, I lie there and listen
To the sound of her heart beatin’
And the song the crickets are singin’
And I don’t know what they’re sayin’
But it sounds like a hymn to me
Naw, I ain’t too good at prayin’
But thanks for everything

From a bar stool, to that Evinrude
Sunday mornin’ in a church pew
In a deer stand or a hay field
An interstate back to Nashville
A Chevrolet with the windows down
Me and him just ridin’ around
Sometimes, whether I’m lookin’ for Him or not
That’s where I find God

From a bar stool, to that Evinrude
Sunday mornin’ in a church pew
In a deer stand or a hay field
An interstate back to Nashville
A Chevrolet with the windows down
Me and him just ridin’ around
Talkin’, well I do that a lot
Well, I do that a lot
That’s where I find God

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

Hidden Motives

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Conversion, Forgiveness, repentance, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Dominic, Priest
Tuesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 8, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080823.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 51 which expresses the ardent desire for forgiveness and reconciliation.

The psalm reflects back to our first reading – an episode of sibling rivalry, jealousy, and hidden motives.

Moses, favored of God and leader of the people, makes a questionable choice. He marries outside the tribe, after telling everyone else not to. Hmmm. His siblings, Aaron and Miriam, don’t like that. So they indignantly complain:

Is it through Moses alone that the LORD speaks?
Does God not speak through us also?

Numbers 12:2

God hears their complaint and sees through it. God sees that they are less concerned about the marriage and more concerned about themselves. They’re tired of Moses telling them what to do. They think God could have picked a better leader — one of them!

God sets them straight about how special Moses is, and their responsibility to support, not undermine, him.

Should there be a prophet among you,
in visions will I reveal myself to him,
in dreams will I speak to him;
not so with my servant Moses!
Throughout my house he bears my trust:
face to face I speak to him;
plainly and not in riddles.
The presence of the LORD he beholds.

Numbers 12:6-7

The whole story is really about motives. Everything we do must be done out of love – out of reverence for God, and out of respect and hope for ourselves and others. This is what it means to have a clean heart. And it is the plea of Psalm 51.

A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not off from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.

Psalm 51: 12-13

Prose: This is a great piece by Sister Joyce Rupp on a clean heart (published in America magazine)

https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/clean-heart

Music: Psalm 51 – Chant of the Heart

Jubilee!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Creation, Faith, Forgiveness, justice, Mercy, spiritualityLeave a comment

Saturday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Saturday, August 5, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080523.cfm

One in a series of 60 paintings by Jacob Lawrence which captures
the journeys of millions of African-Americans
who left the Jim Crow South
in search of better lives elsewhere.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Leviticus offers us a reading critical to our moral clarity.

This fiftieth year you shall make sacred
by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants.
It shall be a jubilee for you,
when every one of you shall return to his own property,
every one to his own family estate.

Leviticus 25:10

Leviticus 25 is the account of Jubilee which, for the Mosaic community, was the quintessential practice of justice.

When the Israelites came to the Promised Land, they came as an emancipated people to share in the abundance to which God had delivered them. There was initial equity in the sharing. But over time, power, influence and wealth were hoarded – endangerments that threaten all communities.

In the proclamation of Jubilee, God directs the people to return to an original justice in which all persons are freed from indebtedness of any kind in order to live in communal harmony.

Consider the hypothetical example of an Israelite family that lost their land twelve years before the Jubilee Year. On the tenth day of the seventh month, the entire community participates in the Day of Atonement and its ritual purging of sin. On this very same day, the trumpet is blown and the Jubilee year is announced; in this year, both sins and debts are forgiven, and the family that had been forced to live and work in another’s household for more than a decade regain possession of their land.

Imagine the joy of this moment! Imagine the dreams and desires! After having served as hired hands for a generation, now to be restored to a position of social and economic strength!

Michael J. Rhodes – Jubilee Formation: Cultivating Desire and Dependence in Leviticus 25

The concept of this type of justice is alien to our capitalist and consumerist orientations. We may have heard the attitude expressed, or we may hold it ourselves, that some people have and some people don’t. And the ones who “have” earned it and deserve it.

“Jubilee” instructs us that this is a false context for fulfilling God’s Will for the wholeness of Creation. In such a false context, reward ensues from avarice, dominance, possessiveness, and aggression, yielding a continually deeper gap between those who have and those who do not, between those who influence and those who cannot, between those who thrive and those who do not.

“Jubilee” resets the game board and in so doing resets attitudes about who owns what and how they must use it to enact the Reign of God.

I recently heard a story which speaks of forgetting to whom things belong. A very proper lady went to a tea shop. She sat at a table for two, ordered a pot of tea, and prepared to eat some cookies which she had in her purse. Because the tea shop was crowded, a man took the other chair and also ordered tea. As it happened, he was a Jamaican black, though that is not essential to the story. The woman was prepared for a leisurely time, so she began to read her paper. As she did so, she took a cookie from the package. As she read, she noticed that the man across also took a cookie from the package. This upset her greatly, but she ignored it and kept reading. After a while she took another cookie. And so did he. This unnerved her and she glared at the man. While she glared, he reached for the fifth and last cookie, smiled and offered her half of it. She was indignant. She paid her money and left in a great hurry, enraged at such a presumptuous man. She hurried to her bus stop just ouside. She opened her purse to get a coin for her bus ticket. And then she saw, much to her distress, that in her purse was her package of cookies unopened. The lady is not different from all of us. Sometimes we possess things so long that do not really belong to us that we come to think they are ours. Sometimes, by the mercy of God, we have occasion to see to whom these things in fact belong.

Walter Brueggemann, “Voices of the Night—Against Justice,” in To Act Justly, Love Tenderly, Walk Humbly: An Agenda for Ministers

The applications are abundant, obvious, and profound for our own lives in the various communites in which we live. But they are not easy applications to confront or practice. They pose the ultimate question to us: where do we place our security? The answer determines how fully we understand “Jubilee”.

You have two meaningful prose passages to consider today so let’s just add a little music for your prayer time.

Gabriel’s Oboe – Ennio Morricone played by Henrik Chaim Goldschmidt

Coming to Forgiveness

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Cross, Faith, Forgiveness, spirituality5 Comments

Memorial of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, Virgin
Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 14, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Gospel describes the suffering to be encountered by disciples as they live and preach the Gospel.

Jesus said to his Apostles:
“Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves;
so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.
But beware of men,
for they will hand you over to courts
and scourge you in their synagogues,
and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake
as a witness before them and the pagans.

Matthew 10:16-18

The suffering is predicted to come from many quarters, but perhaps the most heart-breaking is persecutioin within families:

Brother will hand over brother to death,
and the father his child;
children will rise up against parents and have them put to death.
You will be hated by all because of my name,
but whoever endures to the end will be saved.

Matthew 10:21-22

Our reading from Genesis, on the other hand, describes the loving resolution of a long-standing family rupture as Jacob (now called “Israel”) reunites with his long-lost son:

Israel had sent Judah ahead to Joseph,
so that he might meet him in Goshen.
On his arrival in the region of Goshen,
Joseph hitched the horses to his chariot
and rode to meet his father Israel in Goshen.
As soon as Joseph saw him, he flung himself on his neck
and wept a long time in his arms.
And Israel said to Joseph, “At last I can die,
now that I have seen for myself that Joseph is still alive.”

Genesis 46:28-30

Many of us have borne the pain of similar fractures in our various “families”: family of origin, community, church or friends. Sometimes the cause of these breaks may be contradictions in faith and moral practice. At other times, loving bonds break because of willfulness, arrogance, ignorance, small-heartedness or the many other forms of human limitation.

The outrageous jealousy of Joseph’s brothers cleft their otherwise contented family. But into that chasm, God poured time’s grace and Joseph’s healing. From these gifts, Joseph was able to step into reconciliation, inviting his repentant brothers to join him.

In our own lives, such a step can be inordinately huge. The longer we hesitate to take it, the more it widens, sometimes to the point of apparent no return. But the grace of forgiveness is always available to us even if actual reconciliation is impossible because of the recalcitrance, inaccessibility, or perhaps even death of the other party.

When they hand you over,
do not worry about how you are to speak
or what you are to say.
You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
For it will not be you who speak
but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

Matthew 10:19-20

Psalm Poem: Psalm 37 – interpreted by Christine Robinson

The evil prosper, but don’t you wallow in anger.
Do what you can and let it go.
Remember the long arc of the universe
and how it bends towards justice.
Set your feet on that path; it is True.
Be still.
Wait for God’s word to speak to your heart.
Enjoy your life as it is, find your work, love those around you.
Hold your head up and teach your children.
Notice those who are honest.
Join the upright
Make peace where you can
Trust in God.

Music: excerpts from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat – Andrew Llyod Webber

These two videos capture the story of Jacob’s arrival in Egypt and Joseph’s self-reconciliation. The first ends rather abruptly, but thesecond picks up the action. All lyrics are below.

[NARRATOR]
Joseph knew by this his brothers now were honest men
The time had come at last to reunite them all again

[JOSEPH]
Can’t you recognize my face? Is it hard to see
That Joseph, who you thought was dead, your brother
It’s me?

[ENESMBLE]
Joseph, Joseph, is it really true?
Joseph, Joseph, is it really you?

[NARRATOR & ENESMBLE]
Joseph! Joseph!

——————-

So Jacob came to Egypt
No longer feeling old
And Joseph came to meet him
In his chariot of gold
Of gold
Of gold
Of gold!

————-

[JOSEPH]
I closed my eyes, drew back the curtain
To see for certain what I thought I knew
Far, far away, someone was weeping
But the world was sleeping
Any dream will do

[JOSEPH & CHILDREN]
I wore my coat with golden lining
Bright colors shining, wonderful and new
And in the east, the dawn was breaking
And the world was waking
Any dream will do
A crash of drums

[NARRATOR]
A flash of light

[JOSEPH]
My golden coat flew out of sight

[JOSEPH & NARRATOR]
The colors faded into darkness
I was left alone

[JOSEPH, NARRATOR & CHILDREN]
May I return to the beginning?
The light is dimming, and the dream is too
The world and I, we are still waiting
Still hesitating
Any dream will do

Blessed Retrospect!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, Forgiveness, spiritualityLeave a comment

Thursday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 13, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071323.cfm

Joseph Forgives His Brothers – Joseph Von Cornelius

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Joseph forgives his brothers and Jesus commissions his disciples.

The story of Joseph’s forgiveness makes a tender and indelible mark on the prayerful reader. How we wish we could be as magnanimous as Joseph in our forbearance!

Joseph’s experience is one of a long-held hurt that he sets aside to pursue another life. But even though he achieves tremendous success in his new environment, hurts like this are never forgotten. Joseph’s sobs at verse four indicate the painful memory’s depth.

Joseph could no longer control himself
in the presence of all his attendants,
so he cried out, “Have everyone withdraw from me!”
Thus no one else was about when he made himself known to his brothers.
But his sobs were so loud that the Egyptians heard him,
and so the news reached Pharaoh’s palace.
“I am Joseph,” he said to his brothers.
“Is my father still in good health?”
But his brothers could give him no answer,
so dumbfounded were they at him.

Genesis 45:1-3

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free
and discover that the prisoner was you.”

Lewis B. Smedes

So many lessons can be drawn from this passage, but clearly the power of forgiveness is most evident. Joseph has been able to live a fruitful life in Egypt because he has already forgiven his brothers’ treachery, long before they unexpectedly arrive at his palace doorstep. He has chosen not to live under the burden of their treacherous choice.

In the wider perspective of God’s timing, we see that the treachery actually yielded a blessing not only for Joseph, but for all of Israel. We ask for the grace to see how our own need to give and receive forgiveness holds a larger blessing for our lives.

Poetry: Let It Go – e.e.cummings

Let it go – the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise – let it go it
was sworn to
go
 
let them go – the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers – you must let them go they
were born
to go
 
let all go – the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things – let all go
dear
 
so comes love

Music: Remember Not the Things of the Past – Bob Hurd

Remember not the things of the past;
now I do something new,
do you not see it?
Now I do something new, says the Lord.
 
In our distress God has grasped us by the hand,
opened a path in the sea, and we shall pass over,
we shall pass over, free at last.
 
In our parched land of hypocrisy and hate,
God makes a river spring forth,
a river of mercy, truth and compassion;
come and drink.
 
And who among us is sinless in God’s sight?
Then who will cast the first stone,
when he who was sinless
carried our failings to the cross?
 
Pressing ahead, letting go what lies behind,
may we be found in the Lord, and sharing his dying,
share in his rising from the dead.

Radical Prayer

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, Jesus, Prayer, spirituality2 Comments

Thursday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
June 22. 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062223.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Jesus teaches us how to pray.

Jesus said to his disciples:
“In praying, do not babble like the pagans,
who think that they will be heard because of their many words.
Do not be like them.
Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

“This is how you are to pray:
‘Our Father…

Matthew 6:7-9

“Don’t babble …”. Gosh, haven’t you wanted to say that to a few people when they ramble around the point without ever making it! And here we have Jesus saying it to us, kindly and instructively, but nonetheless directly.

This morning, I was thinking about the quality of my own prayer, realizing that every now and again I do babble a lot of nonsense to God before coming to a point of grateful adoration and listening.

And then I remembered a brief clip of conversation from yesterday.

One of the blessings of living in our large Motherhouse is that I am surrounded by wise and holy women steeped in decades of deepening prayer. One of these beloved elders chatted with me last night about her recent retreat. She said, “It was such a peaceful time to pray. And I really wanted to pray… me and God, God and me.” The joyful sincerity and clarity of her statement blessed me with an equal desire to pray that simply.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus opens the door for us to this kind of radical prayer.

It is a prayer which:
grants us the privilege of calling heaven down to earthOur Father who art in heaven
basks in God’s awesome Presencehallowed be thy name
invokes that Presence to unfold Love’s designthy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
It is a prayer of:
consistent trustGive us this day our daily bread
willing repentanceand forgive us our trespasses
unmeasured forgiveness as we forgive those who trespass against us
and a quenchless hunger for graceand lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

Jesus is teaching us how to pray. His prayer is simple, authentic, and direct. He begins by naming his relationship with God, Abba, Father – an act of humble, intimate mutuality. How do we speak to God in our prayer? How do we name God in the deep silence of our hearts? Father, Mother, Beloved, Sweet Light, Tender Mercy? And by what name does God call me in the quiet rhythm of prayer? Perhaps with words, or with unwordable love.

Poetry: Praying – Mary Oliver

It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Music: Prayer – Ernest Bloch

“Nigun” means a traditional synagogue melody, with tones that Jesus might have heard as he prayed.