Category: Gospel

A Budding Promise

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

Tuesday of the First Week of Advent
December 5, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/120523.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Isaiah challenges us with his outrageously hopeful poetry.

After describing, in lyrical magnificence, the Messianic Ruler, Isaiah tells us this:

Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
The calf and the young lion shall browse together,
with a little child to guide them.
The cow and the bear shall be neighbors,
together their young shall rest;
the lion shall eat hay like the ox.
The baby shall play by the cobra’s den,
and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair.
There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD,
as water covers the sea.

Isaiah 11:6-10

We love this lilting Advent balladry, don’t we? Its movement is laced with hidden bells and waft of pine. It makes us remember Handel’s Messiah and resolve to find and play the CD we put away last January.

But as much as we might love the passage, do we believe it? Is the era of messianic peace possible, and will it be realized through the mystery of Divine Love incarnate in Jesus Christ?

Well, here are the facts:

Isaiah lived and prophesied a redeemed kingdom about 700 years before Christ. When Christ was born, the world was in pretty much the same sad shape as it was when Isaiah wrote.

Jesus lived 2000 years ago, speaking and modeling specific instructions for the world’s transformation. But the world is in pretty much the same sad shape today as it was when Jesus lived.

So where is all this “peaceable kingdom” stuff happening? Is it non-existent or just invisible? Is it just the rather lunatic imagining of ancient prophets?

Today’s Gospel offers us an understanding of God’s Reign too deep for the world’s logic. By the gift of faith and the grace of Baptism, we have been given a new set of eyes, charged with the same outrageous yet real hope evident in Isaiah and enfleshed in Christ.

I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to the childlike…

… Turning to the disciples in private he said,
“Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.
For I say to you,
many prophets and kings desired to see what you see,
but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.

Luke 10:21-24

If we can give ourselves to the vulnerable simplicity Jesus describes, faith can transform us. The “Kingdom” can live in us and because of us!

We too will see the bud beyond the stump. New life will arise from what appears lifeless. The worldly fears and inhospitalities that prey on us will be tamed by a holy confidence. In life’s sinuous circumstances, we will see the Holy Mystery unfolding.

The Kingdom, so indiscernible in our fractious world, will “advent” in us. This is what we long for in our Advent prayer.

Poetry: Advent Credo – Allan Boesak, a South African pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church, politician, anti-apartheid activist, and author of fifteen books. This poem is taken from his book Walking on Thorns (Eerdmans, 1984), and is often but wrongly attributed to Daniel Berrigan.

It is not true that creation and the human family are doomed to destruction and loss—
This is true: For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life;
It is not true that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination, hunger and poverty, death and destruction—
This is true: I have come that they may have life, and that abundantly.
It is not true that violence and hatred should have the last word, and that war and destruction rule forever—
This is true: Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, his name shall be called wonderful councilor, mighty God, the Everlasting, the Prince of peace.
It is not true that we are simply victims of the powers of evil who seek to rule the world—
This is true: To me is given authority in heaven and on earth, and lo I am with you, even until the end of the world.
It is not true that we have to wait for those who are specially gifted, who are the prophets of the Church before we can be peacemakers—
This is true: I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions and your old men shall have dreams.

It is not true that our hopes for liberation of humankind, of justice, of human dignity of peace are not meant for this earth and for this history—
This is true: The hour comes, and it is now, that the true worshipers shall worship God in spirit and in truth.

So let us enter Advent in hope, even hope against hope. Let us see visions of love and peace and justice. Let us affirm with humility, with joy, with faith, with courage: Jesus Christ—the life of the world.

Music: Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming – pre-17th century anonymous hymn

From Wikipedia: The hymn was originally written with two verses that describe the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah foretelling the birth of Jesus. It emphasizes the royal genealogy of Jesus and Christian messianic prophecies. The hymn describes a rose sprouting from the stem of the Tree of Jesse, a symbolic device that depicts the descent of Jesus from Jesse of Bethlehem, the father of King David. The image was especially popular in medieval times, and it features in many works of religious art from the period. It has its origin in the Book of Isaiah:

And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.— Isaiah 11:1

All Nations …

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

Monday of the First Week of Advent
December 4, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/120423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Isaiah opens our prayer with this amazingly inclusive passage, both a vision and an invitation:

In days to come,
The mountain of the LORD’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain
and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it;
many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us climb the LORD’s mountain,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
That he may instruct us in his ways,
and we may walk in his paths.”

Isaiah 2:2-3

These first chapters of Isaiah were written about 8oo years before Christ, near the time of the Babylonian Captivity. The faith, vision, and hope of Israel were being sorely tested. Isaiah’s core message to these beleaguered people is that even when we do not see God, God abides. This abiding God will lead them to a new reality … to the “highest mountain” as opposed to their current valley of tears.

Isaiah is clear that this abiding promise is extended not only to Israel, but to all nations! What a surprising statement to find in the precious literature of Israel’s exceptionalism!

Jesus Heals a Centurion’s Servant – William Brassey Hole

To confirm this open invitation to “all nations”, our Gospel relates a complementary story. One of the first figures presented to us early in this Advent journey is the Gospel centurion, a Gentile with imperceptible religion but striking faith. His humble response to Jesus acknowledges that he, with all Creation, is subject to an infinitely loving Authority:

Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof;
only say the word and my servant will be healed.
For I too am a man subject to authority,
with soldiers subject to me.
And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes;
and to another, ‘Come here,’ and he comes;
and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” 

Matthew 8:6-9

Our Advent lesson? Maybe this. To bring, as the centurion did, our beloved hopes and needs before God. To place them lovingly, confidently in the Divine Heart. To trust and receive God’s answers with all the faith we can gather. And to look, not past the moment, but through it to the holy mountain in the distance – a distance which is shortened by our faithful Advent prayer.

Poetry: I couldn’t come up with a written poem today, so I drew one:

Music: Healing – Peter Kater

Miracles

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality6 Comments

Feast of Saint Andrew, Apostle
November 30, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/113023.cfm

Rom 10_17 Andrew

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate the Feast of St. Andrew, the brother of Peter, also a fisherman, a beloved Apostle and friend of Jesus.

Our Gospel tells the story of Andrew’s call.

As Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers,
Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew,
casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen.
He said to them,
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
At once they left their nets and followed him.

Matthew 4;18-20

Another favorite passage about Andrew is when he points out to Jesus that, in the hungry crowd, there is a young boy with five loaves and two fish. 

One of the disciples—it was Andrew, brother to Simon Peter—said,
“There’s a little boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.
But that’s a drop in the bucket for a crowd like this.”
Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.”
There was a nice carpet of green grass in this place.
They sat down, about five thousand of them.
Then Jesus took the bread and, having given thanks,
gave it to those who were seated.
He did the same with the fish.
All ate as much as they wanted.

John 6:8-11

How simple and complete was Andrew’s faith! Those seven little groceries must have seemed so minute among 5000. Can you picture Andrew looking into Jesus’s eyes as if to say, “I know it’s not much but you can do anything!” Maybe it was that one devoted look that prompted Jesus to perform this amazing miracle!

We trust that our deep devotion and faith can move God’s heart too – or, more accurately, can move our hearts to embrace God’s Presence. On this feast of St. Andrew, many people begin a prayer which carries them through to Christmas. Praying it, we ask for particular favors from God.

I love this prayer because it was taught to me by my mother, a woman blessed with simple faith like Andrew’s. As I recite it, I ask to be gifted with the same kind of faith.

( Another reason I love it is this: how often in life do you get a chance to say a word like “vouchsafe“! )

St. Andrew Christmas Novena
Hail and blessed be the hour and moment
in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary,
at midnight, in Bethlehem, in the piercing cold.
In that hour vouchsafe, I beseech Thee, O my God,
to hear my prayer and grant my desires
through the merits of Our Savior Jesus Christ,
and of His blessed Mother. Amen.

As we draw near to the Season of great blessings, we see our world filled with conflict and violence. Let’s fold our Advent prayers around its many wounds.

Poetry: Monet Refuses the Operation – Lisel Mueller

How wonderful to allow ourselves to see the world differently – to see it charged with heavenly illuminations and latent miracles!

Rouen Cathedral: Morning Light (1894) – Claude Monet

Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don’t see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolve
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don’t know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and change our bones, skin, clothes
to gases. Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

Music:  Hear my prayer, O Lord is an eight-part choral anthem by the English composer Henry Purcell (1659–1695). The anthem is a setting of the first verse of Psalm 102 in the version of the Book of Common Prayer. Purcell composed it c. 1682 at the beginning of his tenure as Organist and Master of the Choristers for Westminster Abbey.

Forgeries?

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

Wednesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
November 29. 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112923.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we have a fascinating passage from the Book of Daniel, a masterpiece in apocalyptic literature. I enjoyed imagining the scene described by the author in which a magical hand appears to execute “the handwriting on the wall”.

As King Balshazzar and his thousand guests drank sacrilegiously from the sacred Temple chalices, this fabulous thing happened:

Suddenly, opposite the lampstand,
the fingers of a human hand appeared,
writing on the plaster of the wall in the king’s palace.
When the king saw the wrist and hand that wrote, his face blanched;
his thoughts terrified him, his hip joints shook,
and his knees knocked.

Daniel 5:5-6

The image is so wonderful that it has peppered our language and imagination for over two thousand years!

Belshazzar’s Feast – Rembrandt

Morris Bender, an American neuroscientist, offered this clever quip:

A skeptic is a person who, 
when he sees the handwriting on the wall, 
claims it is a forgery.

After a little chuckle, I realized how wise and accurate Bender is. How many times have I not only missed, but actively ignored, the handwriting on the wall! Our minds, hearts, and spirits continually give us signs to direct us in life. How well do we do at discerning these gifts.

The fruit of a deep spiritual life is to become more attentive to the suggestions of grace, and to respond to them with faith and courage. In our Gospel, Jesus makes it clear to his followers that this kind of faithful response will cost them much — possibly even their lives.

Jesus said to the crowd:
“They will seize and persecute you,
they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons,
and they will have you led before kings and governors
because of my name.

Luke 21:12

Still, Jesus tells them not to be afraid, that their lives are “secured” by their faith:

You will even be handed over by parents,
brothers, relatives, and friends,
and they will put some of you to death.
You will be hated by all because of my name,
but not a hair on your head will be destroyed.
By your perseverance you will secure your lives.

Luke 21:16-19

The Church uses the apocalyptic stories from Daniel and the dire warnings from Jesus to remind us that we do not live for this world alone. The fullness of eternal life awaits us after the completion of our earthly journey. We have to keep ourselves aware that our life is infinitely larger than it may appear to us in any given moment.

Faith, prayer, and the practice of interior silence can help us to live in that infinite largeness even though we have limited vision of it in this world. The coming days of Advent offer us a dedicated time to renew ourselves in these practices.

Poetry: from Rumi

O love,
O heart,
Find the way to heaven.
Set your sights on a place
Higher than your eyes can see.
For it was the higher aim
That brought you here
In the first place.
Now be silent.
Let the One who creates the words speak.
He made the door.
He made the lock.
He also made the key.
How many men have found tragic ends
Running after beauty?
Why don’t they look for you? -
The heart and spirit of all beauty.

Music: Secrets and Dreams – Fairborn Lachini

Breaking into Newness

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Tuesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
November 28, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112823.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Daniel interprets a dream in which a statue spontaneously breaks apart, and Jesus warns that the beloved Temple will someday do the same thing. Our scriptures beg the question: how does one find strength to rebuild again?

We don’t like things to break apart that we hadn’t expected to break apart – even stupid things. I had a favorite old plastic mug that I loved to pack with ice and B.O.C. (beverage of choice) as I headed to the beach on a hot summer day. It was about a thousand years old but part of its famed origin was still visible on the faded side:

For some inexplicable reason, one morning I decided to pour my hot tea into that irreplaceable mug. It basically melted into itself like the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz. It wasn’t a tragedy tantamount to Daniel’s dream or the Temple collapsing, but I’ll tell you, I have NEVER since had a matching drink on the beach!

My treasured mug disintegrated because I used it for the wrong purpose. And that is also the point of both our readings. Daniel describes how the ensuing generations, who misuse their power, will disappear one after the other until God establishes the permanent reign of justice:

… the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile.
The iron mixed with clay tile
means that they shall seal their alliances by intermarriage,
but they shall not stay united, any more than iron mixes with clay.
In the lifetime of those kings
the God of heaven will set up a kingdom
that shall never be destroyed or delivered up to another people;
rather, it shall break in pieces all these kingdoms
and put an end to them, and it shall stand forever.

Daniel 2:42-44

Jesus describes the same dynamic in relationship to the Temple because its use has been diverted into material show and adornment rather than worship and the works of justice:

While some people were speaking about
how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings,
Jesus said, “All that you see here–
the days will come when there will not be left
a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.”

Luke 21:5

But, here’s the thing about God’s action to break up in our lives that which is no longer life-giving — the breakup will always yield new life if we can open our hearts to its grace.

As we look back over 2023, we may see a lot of disassembled pieces scattered across the landscape. Maybe some of the plans we had never flew, or maybe the string broke on some of the kites we’d been flying for years! There may have been small losses that seemed monumental at the time, or truly monumental losses whose significance has only deepened.

Wherever we stand amid our dreams and our temples, we can be sure of this as 2024 approaches: grace is always with us, renewing us in the ever clearer image of God.

This final week before Advent is a great time to take inventory of our spiritual lives. What needs to go and what needs to be strengthened? Most likely, we already know the answers. Now let’s gather the courage and focus to do what grace suggests.

Poem: Beginners – Denise Levertov

Levertov writes about hope, courage, justice, and mercy. The poem begins with a stanza from The Garden of Proserpine by Algernon Charles Swinburne, introduced by a dedication to activists Karen Silkwood and Eliot Gralia.

𝘋𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘒𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯 𝘚𝘪𝘭𝘬𝘸𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘌𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘵 𝘎𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘢

“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: Sacred River – Gandalf
As you experience this beautiful video, allow your spirit to remember the challenges and blessings of this past year that have brought you to this place with God, ready for a new beginning and a deeper love.

… the Time Will Come

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

Monday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
November 27, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112723.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we begin a series of readings from the Book of Daniel. It is the only time throughout the Liturgical Year that we get a good dose of Daniel. And it is well placed, coming in this final week before Advent.

Daniel is apocalyptic literature, a genre that conveys the author’s perception of the end times through dreams, visions, and prophecies. Like many of our readings of the past weeks, Daniel focuses us on God’s Final Coming into time by interpreting current circumstances in a spiritual light.

Today’s Gospel also focuses us on our “end times”, but in a little different way from Daniel. 

Jesus tells the story of the poor widow who gave everything she had for the sake of the poor. This widow, in a sense, already lives in the “end times”, a time when our only “possessions” will be the good we have done in our lives.

Jesus said, “I tell you truly,
this poor widow put in more than all the rest;
for those others have all made offerings from their surplus wealth,
but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.”

Luke 21:3-4

Both these readings orient us to reflect on our lives and times as we approach Advent. This sacred season is the annual reenactment of Christ’s First Coming in order to prepare us for:

  • Christ’s daily revelation in our lives
  • Christ’s Final Coming at the end of time
Mt24_awake

All of Daniel’s complex visions and prophecies can feel a little confusing, but we can focus on this:

  • God is continually revealing the Face of the Trinity in the ordinary circumstances of time.
  • We can open ourselves to this revelation by our humble prayer and good works.
  • Staying awake like this in our hearts and souls will allow us to pass seamlessly into God’s Presence when the end times come.

Poetry: Psalm 96 – Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

Christ's first and second coming.
Sing to the Lord, ye distant lands,
Ye tribes of every tongue;
His new-discovered grace demands
A new and nobler song.
Say to the nations, Jesus reigns,
God's own almighty Son;
His power the sinking world sustains,
And grace surrounds his throne.
Let heav'n proclaim the joyful day,
Joy through the earth be seen;
Let cities shine in bright array,
And fields in cheerful green.
Let an unusual joy surprise
The islands of the sea:
Ye mountains, sink; ye valleys, rise;
Prepare the Lord his way.
Behold, he comes, he comes to bless
The nations as their God;
To show the world his righteousness,
And send his truth abroad.
But when his voice shall raise the dead,
And bid the world draw near,
How will the guilty nations dread
To see their Judge appear!

Music: Be Thou My Vision

Trust not Fear

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, spirituality, suffering1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr
Wednesday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
November 22, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112223.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our two readings are dramatically intense. 

Who can read the story of the Maccabean Martyrs without a mix of horror, empathy, and astonishment?

It happened that seven brothers with their mother were arrested
and tortured with whips and scourges by the king,
to force them to eat pork in violation of God’s law.
Most admirable and worthy of everlasting remembrance was the mother,
who saw her seven sons perish in a single day,
yet bore it courageously because of her hope in the Lord.

2 Maccabees 7: 1;20

And don’t we all feel a pang of pity for the poor, fearful servant who hid his talent in a handkerchief much to the King’s displeasure?

‘Sir, here is your gold coin;
I kept it stored away in a handkerchief,
for I was afraid of you, because you are a demanding man;
you take up what you did not lay down
and you harvest what you did not plant.’
He said to him,
‘With your own words I shall condemn you,
you wicked servant.
You knew I was a demanding man,
taking up what I did not lay down
and harvesting what I did not plant;
why did you not put my money in a bank?

Luke 19:20-23

The two stories paint a contrasting picture of courageous faith against fearful subservience. The difference between the actors lies in their capacity, or lack thereof, to look beyond themselves toward eternal life.

The Courage of a Mother – Gustave Doré

Mother Maccabee bolsters her sons with her faith in a life beyond their current circumstances:

… the Creator of the universe
who shapes each man’s beginning,
as he brings about the origin of everything,
he, in his mercy,
will give you back both breath and life,
because you now disregard yourselves
for the sake of his law.

The poor soul in Jesus’s parable doesn’t have that faith and vision. His perception of God, represented by the King, is one of only harsh judgment. His fear causes him to bury not only his talent, but also his openness to the possibilities of grace and transformed relationship with God.

Jesus told his parable because indeed the Kingdom was at hand. He and his disciples were near Jerusalem where the Passion, Death and Resurrection events would begin.

He wants his followers to realize the challenging gift they have been given in their call to be his disciples. He wants them to see that it is now on them to magnify his message courageously and generously until he returns to perfect the Kingdom.

He wants us to understand that too.

Poetry – John Milton, Sonnet 19

Milton (1608- 1674) is widely considered one of the preeminent writers of the English language. By 1652, Milton had become totally blind and had to dictate his verse. He appears to wonder, in this sonnet, how his God-given talent for writing will be enhanced now that he is “light denied”. He looks to another parable for his answer – the Parable of the Workers. Even those who only stood and waited were rewarded.

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Music:   Be Not Afraid – written by Bob Dufford, SJ, sung here by Cat Jahnke

Stretching for God

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Tuesday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
November 21, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112123.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings are about living in the big picture of God’s vision for us.

Lk19_3 forest_trees

Once again, we meet Zacchaeus who, due to his short stature, was unable to get a glimpse of Jesus walking nearby. He wasn’t getting the whole picture but he wanted to!

Zacchaeus ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus,
who was about to pass that way.
When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said,
“Zacchaeus, come down quickly,
for today I must stay at your house.”
And he came down quickly and received him with joy.

Luke 19:4-5

Sometimes we miss Christ in our midst, don’t we? It may be because we’re “short” on time, patience, faith, attention, courage, peace, desire … you name it.

Zacchaeus may have been physically short, but he was tall in will and intention to see Jesus. The trees became his tools, not his obstacles.

In our first reading, Eleazar was a giant in the virtues necessary to “see beyond the trees” of his current circumstances. A more spiritually short-sighted person might have succumbed to the temptation to save himself at the cost of his faith and witness.

But Eleazar’s faith was long, both in years and in depth. He kept the eyes of his heart focused on that faith and was delivered beyond any short-sighted choices.

Eleazar made up his mind in a noble manner,
worthy of his years, the dignity of his advanced age,
the merited distinction of his gray hair,
and of the admirable life he had lived from childhood;
and so he declared that above all
he would be loyal to the holy laws given by God.

2 Maccabees 6:23

It’s hard sometimes to see the forest beyond the trees – to direct our choices, attitudes, and actions by a vision we glimpse only in the stretch of faith and prayer.

Perhaps these two God-seekers can inspire us today by their courage, steadfastness and faith to always live within God’s long eternal vision for us.

Zaccheus – by Richard Medrington

I hope you enjoy this clever poem as much as I did.

Here’s a man we all despise,
Damn his hide and damn his eyes.
Pray that God will some day free us,
From that loathsome leech Zacchaeus.
See him sitting at his table,
Takes as much tax as he’s able,
Stashes some away for later,
Dirty, double-dealing traitor.
Lord of liars, chief of crooks,
Look at how he cooks the books!
Renders what is ours to Caesar,
Cheating, money-grubbing geezer.
He’s the man we love to hate,
Vulgar, vapid reprobate,
Lounging in his lavish house,
Cringing toady, thieving louse.
Wonder how he got so rich?
Greedy, filching, little snitch.
We would lynch the poison gnome,
Were he not employed by Rome.
Then when Jesus comes to town,
See his smile turn to a frown!
Though he’s arrogant and proud,
He cannot see above the crowd.
How we laugh to see him squirm,
Nasty, creeping, crawling worm,
But here’s a thing not seen before:
A sell-out in a sycamore!
Now he’s shouting from the tree,
“Jesus, Jesus look at me!”
Hope he falls, the tiresome tyke,
Falls and lands upon a spike.
Careful Jesus. Don’t be conned,
Just ignore him, don’t respond.
Move on quickly, if you linger
He will twist you round his finger.
Then a voice rings loud and clear,
“Zack mate, get yourself down here!
I spy you in that sycamore,
And you’re the man I’m looking for.”
Now he’s off to have his dinner
With a man who is a sinner
And a traitor to our nation!
He’s gone down in our estimation.
Fraternising with our foe,
Of all the places he could go!
Who would think a man like that
Would take his meals with such a rat?
I beg your pardon, did you say
Zach’s giving half his wealth away?
Dispensing money to the poor?
This too has not been seen before.
And if he’s asked for too much tax
He’s giving fourfold rebates back?
Well, that’s amazing! If it’s true,
There’s going to be a massive queue.
I’m not that easy to deceive.
When I see it, I’ll believe.
He’ll fleece us when the Master’s gone,
It’s just another taxman’s con.
But Jesus says, “It is no scam,
He is a son of Abraham.
Salvation landed here today,
I seek for those who’ve gone astray,
And even though you think it strange,
Occasionally people change,
So do not look at him askance
But give the man a second chance.”
Of course at first this all seemed grand,
The thought of all that cash in hand!
But very soon we came to see
That nothing in this world is free.
In righteous wrath we had estranged him,
Then someone came along and changed him!
Thank you, Jesus. Smashing! Great!
Now there’s no one left to hate!
Since Zach is generous and kind
We’ve nothing left to hide behind.
He radiates with joy and thus
His kindly light exposes us.
His very presence seems to say,
“My life has changed from night to day.
Now tell me what is stopping you
From changing things in your life too?”
So here’s the source of our complaints:
Zacchaeus made us feel like saints,
But now we must admit it’s true
That we are rotten sinners too.
We pray that God will soon restore
Zacchaeus as he was before,
Or Jericho shall rue the day
That Jesus chose to pass this way.

Music: Zacchaeus – An oldie but goodie from Sister Miriam Therese Winter and the Medical Mission Sisters

Endurance

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Faith, Gospel, healing, spirituality1 Comment

Monday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
November 20, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112023.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we enter the liturgical year’s final two weeks. Our companions from the Hebrew Scriptures will be the Maccabees and Daniel. Our New Testament companion will continue to be the eloquent Luke.

The singular virtue proclaimed through the Books of Maccabees and Daniel is this: FAITHFUL ENDURANCE. As we approach the “end times” of our Liturgical Year, the Church is reminding us to pursue and value this virtue in our own lives.

Anthiochos – Michel Francois DandrE Bardon
(Anthiochos IV Epiphanes Orders the Massacre of the Maccabees)

In today’s passage from Maccabees, we read about King Antiochus Epiphanes’s sacrilegious enculturation of the Israelites in an attempt to gain civil appeasement and material prosperity. Antiochus was a mean and bad guy. Likely because he felt his power threatened by them, he tried – in the vilest of ways – to suppress the Jews and their religious culture. The Book of Maccabees is the story of Jews who stood up to the suppression.

In our Gospel, Jesus meets a blind person who pleads with him, “Lord, please let me see!”. Jesus restores the person’s vision with the assurance that faith has wrought the miracle. In other words, the blind person already “saw” in a deeper way because of faith. That faith offered the insight to engage Jesus’s Divine Power for complete healing.

Because of their profound faith, the Maccabees could see through the king’s faithless campaign. They could endure ruthless persecution to remain faithful to the God they believed in.

Few of us will meet the kind of physical persecution for the faith endured by the Maccabees. But throughout our lives, our fidelity will be ruthlessly tested by our culture. We will continually be tempted to compromise our faithful practice for the sake of convenience, appeasement, material prosperity, or advantage over others.

And so often we are blind to these enculturations. We become insensitive or indifferent to the injustices and fallacies of our culture and how they might be affecting our attitudes, choices, and behavior.

As we journey with the Maccabees, Daniel, and Luke over these two weeks, let’s pray for clear vision and courageous action around the profound sacrileges of our times: war, violence, irreverence for life, exaltation of gun culture, economic domination, immigration injustice, and the many systemic “isms” by which we marginalize our sisters and brothers.

Prayer: Our Responsorial Psalm today offers a powerful plea to be delivered from the culture of death so predominant in our world:

R. Give me life, O Lord, and I will do your commands.
Indignation seizes me because of the wicked
who forsake your law.
R. Give me life, O Lord, and I will do your commands.
Though the snares of the wicked are twined about me,
your law I have not forgotten.
R. Give me life, O Lord, and I will do your commands.
Redeem me from the oppression about me,
that I may keep your precepts.
R. Give me life, O Lord, and I will do your commands.
I am attacked by malicious persecutors
who are far from your law.
R. Give me life, O Lord, and I will do your commands.
Far from sinners is salvation,
because they seek not your statutes.
R. Give me life, O Lord, and I will do your commands.
I beheld the apostates with loathing,
because they kept not to your promise.
R. Give me life, O Lord, and I will do your commands.

Music: For What It’s Worth – Buffalo Springfield

Well Done!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, ordinary time, spirituality1 Comment

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
November 19, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111923.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we have reached the next-to-last Sunday of Liturgical Year 2023. It’s a time when the Church asks us to step back from our lives and take a good look at them – much in the way we would look at a painting or building project we have almost finished.

When a couple of us moved into a new apartment over thirty years ago, I was still pretty nimble and handy with home improvement projects. I decided to fit out an old closet space with new shelving. The project went really well until near the end when I stepped back and realized that the top shelf was too high for anybody to reach but six-foot me. The “aha moment” called for a lot of reassessment and redesign.

With today’s readings, we are encouraged to step back and take a look at our lives from the perspective of the end times. Have we done our best to make the pieces of our lives fit with God’s design? Are there elements we need to remove or re-order to come into alignment with God’s hope for us?

Kudos to the “worthy wife” from Proverbs! She seems to have gotten it right. Her “worthiness” is rooted in these virtues: goodness, hard work, care for those who are poor, natural sincerity, and reverence for God.

Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting;
the woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Give her a reward for her labors,
and let her works praise her at the city gates.

Proverbs 31:30-31

Paul’s Thessalonian community seems in good shape too. Paul says that they already are awake and well aware of the coming end times:

But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness,
for that day to overtake you like a thief.
For all of you are children of the light
and children of the day.
We are not of the night or of darkness.
Therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do,
but let us stay alert and sober.

1 Thessalonians 5:4-6

Jesus tells the story of a few stewards, some who used their talents well and some who didn’t. He’s alerting us that we too have been given immeasurable gifts against which we will be measured at the end of our earthly lives.

This next-to-last Sunday poses some questions for us:

  • Did we bury our talents in selfishness looking to advantage only ourselves?
  • Or did we “reach out” like the worthy wife?
  • Did we live in light like the Thessalonians?
  • Like the good servant, did we double our graces by using them generously among our sisters and brothers?

Prose: from C.S. Lewis – The Weight of Glory – I will leave the bulk of your time today to this wonderful passage from Lewis, taken from a sermon preached originally in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, on June 8, 1942.

When I began to look into this matter I was shocked to find such different Christians as Milton, Johnson and Thomas Aquinas taking heavenly glory quite frankly in the sense of fame or good report. But not fame conferred by our fellow creatures—fame with God, approval or (I might say) “appreciation’ by God. And then, when I had thought it over, I saw that this view was scriptural; nothing can eliminate from the parable the divine accolade, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” 

With that, a good deal of what I had been thinking all my life fell down like a house of cards. I suddenly remembered that no one can enter heaven except as a child; and nothing is so obvious in a child—not in a conceited child, but in a good child—as its great and undisguised pleasure in being praised. Not only in a child, either, but even in a dog or a horse. 

Apparently what I had mistaken for humility had, all these years. prevented me from understanding what is in fact the humblest, the most childlike, the most creaturely of pleasures— nay, the specific pleasure of the inferior: the pleasure a beast before men, a child before its father, a pupil before his teacher, a creature before its Creator. 

I am not forgetting how horribly this most innocent desire is parodied in our human ambitions, or how very quickly, in my own experience, the lawful pleasure of praise from those whom it was my duty to please turns into the deadly poison of self-admiration. But I thought I could detect a moment—a very, very short moment—before this happened, during which the satisfaction of having pleased those whom I rightly loved and rightly feared was pure. 

And that is enough to raise our thoughts to what may happen when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope and nearly beyond belief, learns at last that she has pleased Him whom she was created to please. There will be no room for vanity then. She will be free from the miserable illusion that it is her doing. With no taint of what we should now call self-approval she will most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be, and the moment which heals her old inferiority complex for ever will also drown her pride deeper than Prospero’s book. Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself; “it is not for her to bandy compliments with her Sovereign.” 

I can imagine someone saying that he dislikes my idea of heaven as a place where we are patted on the back. But proud misunderstanding is behind that dislike. In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised.

Music: Benedictus – Karl Jenkins