Category: Gospel

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

Worthy by God’s Grace

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn dying, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Hope, spiritualityLeave a comment

Tuesday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
November 14, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings share a common theme of “worthiness“.

In a passage familiar to us from the many funeral Masses we have attended in our lives, the Wisdom writer assures us that God will find us worthy if we are just:

But the souls of the just are in the hand of God,
and no torment shall touch them.
They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead;
and their passing away was thought an affliction
and their going forth from us, utter destruction.
But they are in peace.
For if before observers, indeed, they be punished,
yet is their hope full of immortality;
Chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed,
because they have been tested
and found worthy by God.

Wisdom 3: 1-5

The Wisdom writer seems to be so practical! He imagines life as a test, but one that God assures us we will pass if we live justly.

The word “just” comes from the Latin word meaning law, or right. To be just, in the sense of our first reading, is to be in alignment with the Divine Balance Who created us … to be “in the hand of God”.

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

But life does test our balance, doesn’t it! And if, by the poor use of our free will, we have climbed or tumbled out of God’s hand, the test can upend us.

Still, Wisdom instructs us that all is never lost. God loves us too much not to pick us up again into the palm of grace and mercy:

Those who trust in God shall understand truth,
and the faithful shall abide with God in love:
Because grace and mercy are with God’s holy ones,
God cares tenderly for us beloved.

Wisdom 3:9

In our Gospel reading from Luke, Jesus gives us some advice about how to keep that graceful balance which aligns us with God. He compares us to devoted servants who, so deep is their gratitude, cannot do enough for the master who loves them:

When you have done all you have been commanded, say,
‘We are unprofitable servants;
we have done what we were obliged to do.”

Luke 17:10

Indeed, as grateful creatures, we are obliged to love the God who deigned to create us. But the more we deepen in that love, the less it is an obligation. It becomes a delight, a reciprocal exchange, a sustaining source of the grace and mercy that justifies us.

Poetry: from Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood – William Wordsworth.

I cite only a section here. If you would like to read it in its beautiful context, click here. This poem is so worth your time!:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45536/ode-intimations-of-immortality-from-recollections-of-early-childhood

                      O joy! that in our embers
                     Is something that doth live,
                      That Nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:—
                      Not for these I raise
                      The song of thanks and praise
                But for those obstinate questionings
                Of sense and outward things,
                Fallings from us, vanishings;
                Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
                      But for those first affections,
                      Those shadowy recollections,
                Which, be they what they may
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
                Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
                To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
                      Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
                Hence in a season of calm weather
                      Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
                      Which brought us hither,
                Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore

Music: Inner Peace – Hennie Becker

“Hate” Enough to Love Completely

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, justice, Mercy, spirituality1 Comment

Wednesday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
November 8, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/110823.cfm

Roman13_8 owe nothing

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Paul and Jesus seem to give us contradictory messages. Paul talks about love, and Jesus tells us what we must “hate” – a bit of a challenge to untangle the core message.

Here’s one way.

We don’t like Jesus telling us to “hate” anything, as in:

If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters,
and even his own life,
he cannot be my disciple.

Luke 14:26

Come on, Jesus! You don’t mean that do you – my sweet mom, my precious kids???

No, the scholars say, Jesus doesn’t mean “hate” the way we interpret it in modern English. He is using the common, hyperbolic language of the ancient East which, in this circumstance, would mean “love less or without bias”.

So what is Jesus really saying? 

This.

We love many people and things in our lives. But we must love God, and God’s dream for all people, above and within all things. 

And that’s not easy! Life is a maze of relationships and situations that can get us very confused about what is most important. That’s why Jesus uses such strong language to remind us that there is only one way through the maze: to love as God loves. This is the heartbeat of our life in God!

Paul says this too, indicating as well how to negotiate the maze by keeping Love’s commandments.

We have such a critical example of this love-hate dynamic in our world just now. The terrible situation in the Holy Land has brought out radical feelings in people all over the world. People who love Israel and abhor violence are disgusted and furious over the attack against the Israeli people. People who love and pity the Palestinians, who have been suppressed into human desperation for decades, are equally disgusted and furious over the mass revenge being wrought upon innocents in Gaza and the West Bank.

I think Jesus would say this to us: You must “hate” those human relationships enough to make you not take sides in this horror. You must look past blood ties and religious ties. You must look to the human person, God’s creature like you who is the innocent victim of political forces. You must add to the voice for justice, mercy, and humane solutions.

No matter how far we may feel from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, each one of us is at a point of moral discernment regarding them. As massive funding is poured into weapons of war, how do we respond to the ongoing massacre of innocent people? I ask myself what is required of me as a citizen of the world to make my voice heard in this unspeakable tragedy.

If we love with God’s love, of course we will love those we cherish. But we will love them selflessly, with an infinite generosity that always chooses their eternal good. And we will try always to love all Creatures in the same way, seeking to the degree that is possible their well-being and peace. This is the kind of love Jesus taught us on the Cross. May God give us the courage to learn.

Prose: Remarks of Pope Francis at the Angelus on October 15, 2023

Dear brothers and sisters, I continue to follow with great sorrow what is happening in Israel and Palestine. I think again of the many people … in particular of the children and the elderly. I renew my appeal for the release of the hostages, and I strongly ask that children, the sick, the elderly, women, and all civilians not be made victims of the conflict. May Humanitarian Law be respected, especially in Gaza, where it is urgent and necessary to ensure humanitarian corridors and to come to the aid of the entire population. Brothers and sisters, many have already died. Please, let no more innocent blood be shed, neither in the Holy Land nor in Ukraine, nor in any other place! Enough! Wars are always a defeat, always!

Prayer is the meek and holy force to oppose the diabolical force of hatred, terrorism and war.

Music: Ubi Caritas performed by Stockholm University Choir (texts below)

Latin Text

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor.
Exsultemus, et in ipso jucundemur.
Timeamus, et amemus Deum vivum.
Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero.
Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
Simul ergo cum in unum congregamur:
Ne nos mente dividamur, caveamus.
Cessent iurgia maligna, cessent lites.
Et in medio nostri sit Christus Deus.
Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
Simul quoque cum beatis videamus,
Glorianter vultum tuum, Christe Deus:
Gaudium quod est immensum, atque probum,
Saecula per infinita saeculorum. Amen.

English Translation
Where charity and love are, God is there.
Love of Christ has gathered us into one.
Let us rejoice in Him and be glad.
Let us fear, and let us love the living God.
And from a sincere heart let us love one.
Where charity and love are, God is there.
At the same time, therefore, are gathered into one:
Lest we be divided in mind, let us beware.
Let evil impulses stop, let controversy cease.
And in the midst of us be Christ our God.
Where charity and love are, God is there.
At the same time we see that with the saints also,
Thy face in glory, O Christ our God:
The joy that is immense and good,
Unto the World without end. Amen.

Preventing One Another

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Discipleship, Gospel, Love, spirituality6 Comments

Tuesday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
November 7, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/110723.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Paul gives us one of his most heartfelt and beautiful passages, and Jesus offers us a puzzling parable about the kingdom.

Rms12_10 honor

Paul’s exhortation to sincere holiness is a passage that warrants frequent reading. At any given point in our lives, one or another of its encouragements will seem to ring profoundly true with our circumstances.

One of the lines that I particularly cherish goes like this in the old Douay-Rheims version, which is where I first encountered it as a young girl:

Love one another with fraternal charity:
with honor preventing one another.

The bolded phrase fascinated me. I didn’t understand what it meant. From what were we to prevent one another?

It was not until I came to the convent that I begin to discern the power of this verse. At the time (during the Dark Ages, of course), the Sisters lived under the 1952 Constitutions of the Sisters of Mercy, an adaptation of the ancient Rule of St. Augustine. As postulants, we each received a 4×6, 128 page copy of the Rule. In direct and intentional language, it set the frame for our whole lives.

I nearly memorized it, especially Chapter 14 on Union and Charity. Right in the middle of the Chapter, I found this precious line:

They (the Sisters) shall sincerely respect one another. The young shall reverence the old and all shall unceasingly try in true humility to promote constant mutual cordiality and deference, “with honor preventing one another”.

Sister Inez, our dear early instructor, explained that this meant to anticipate the needs of our beloved sisters, especially the elderly; to do for them what might be difficult for them before they had to ask. In other words, to prevent their need. She said that this anticipatory charity should mark our service toward everyone, especially the poor, sick and ignorant whom we would vow to serve.

The more all of us can live together with this mutual love and respect, the closer we come to the kingdom of God, to the banquet table described in today’s Gospel. Jesus came to gather us all around this table. Pity on those who resist his invitation because their lives are entangled in self-interested endeavors. Their places are taken by “the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame” and all those on the margins of society.

As we join our sisters and brothers at the banquet of life, may we love and serve one another sincerely, always with honor preventing one another.

Poetry: Emily Dickinson

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Music: a little motion mantra this morning. Maybe you might want to get up outta’ that chair and join in🤗

The Inscrutable Plan

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Gospel, inclusivity, spirituality1 Comment

Monday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
November 6, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/110623.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, to understand our first reading from Romans, we have to put ourselves back in time to sit beside Paul as he writes.

Paul was a devout Jew. Remember how, before his conversion, he felt called to persecute Jews who had become Christians? Now here he is writing and preaching the Christian message himself. Still he believes in his deepest heart that God has a particular affection for the Jews and wills their salvation. So Paul tries to explain how this will happen.

The explanation can sort of leave your head spinning. But essentially, Paul believes that salvation will be accomplished when all people, Gentile and Jew, repent from whatever is their unfaithfulness and receive God’s Mercy – that from all eternity, God’s “inscrutable” plan was to redeem us all, not just Israel. Paul still seems a little amazed by this revelation and tries to pound it home to his listeners:

Just as you once disobeyed God 
but have now received mercy
because of their disobedience,
so they have now disobeyed in order that,
by virtue of the mercy shown to you,
they too may now receive mercy.
For God delivered all to disobedience,
that he might have mercy upon all.

Romans 11:30-32

Paul’s apologia meant more to the listeners of his time than it probably does to us. But it is in the final verses of the passage that Paul captures an eternal truth that rings as true today as it did in early Christian times:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!

For who has known the mind of the Lord
or who has been his counselor?
Or who has given him anything
that he may be repaid?

For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To God be glory forever. Amen.

Romans 11: 33-36

These magnificent lines remind all of us – Jew or Gentile, ancient or contemporary believer – that God is accomplishing the work of salvation in a depth of love beyond our understanding. Perhaps we spend moments of our lives wondering “why God lets things happen”, or “why God doesn’t intervene”.

Paul says we cannot answer those questions. God’s ways are infinitely beyond us, but nevertheless faithful and abiding. In our fidelity and hope, we see the unsearchable ways of God slowly unfold, moment by moment, in our lives and in our world.

The young, fiery Paul we first meet in Acts never expected his faith to be fulfilled outside the borders of Judaism. But our expectations and God’s inscrutable plan rarely align. That’s the wonder and mystery of the spiritual life! God will always surprise us, just as God surprised the deeply Judaic Paul into Christianity, even to the role of “Apostle to the Gentiles”!

I bet almost every one of us finds ourselves trying to “become holy” in a way we had not at first imagined. The challenges, opportunities, choices, responsibilities, and obstructions life presents take us down roads we did not envision. When Paul was thrown from his horse on the way to Damascus, his whole life plan was overthrown with him. And from that tailspin, the path to True Life opened up before him.

I’m going to spend some time in prayer thinking about my own life summersaults and how God has used them to lead me according to that “inscrutable plan”. Maybe you’d want to do the same.

Poetry: Light Shining Out of Darkness – William Cowper (1731-1800)

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sov’reign will.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow’r.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

Music: Who Has Known – John Foley, SJ

Oh, the depth of the riches of God
And the breadth of the wisdom and knowledge of God
For who has known the mind of God
To Him be glory forever

A virgin will carry a child and give birth
And His name shall be called Emmanuel
For who has known the mind of God
To Him be glory forever

The people in darkness have seen a great light
For a child has been born, His dominion is wide
For who has known the mind of God
To Him be glory forever

Phat Phylacteries!

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

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
November 5, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/110523.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings perfectly complement one another delivering a clear message: all leadership, including spiritual leadership, requires the disciplines of humility, honesty, justice, mercy, and love.

These disciplines are so easy to lose in the euphoria of power and the delusions of superiority. Malachi, prophet of the 5th century before Christ, vehemently points this out. Speaking for God, the prophet states:

O priests, … I will send a curse upon you
and of your blessing I will make a curse.
You have turned aside from the way,
and have caused many to falter by your instruction;
you have made void the covenant of Levi,
says the LORD of hosts.
I, therefore, have made you contemptible
and base before all the people,
since you do not keep my ways,
but show partiality in your decisions.

Malachi 2:2

Five hundred years later, Jesus echoes the rebuke to his own generation:

Do not follow the example of the scribes and Pharisees.
For they preach but they do not practice.
They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry
and lay them on people’s shoulders,
but they will not lift a finger to move them.
All their works are performed to be seen.
They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.
They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues,
greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’

Matthew 23: 3-7

What are phylacteries anyway, and what is Jesus talking about when he describes them as widened?

The wearing of phylacteries in Jewish practice is similar to Christians wearing crosses or being signed with ashes on Ash Wednesday, All of these devotional acts are intended to demonstrate one’s faith and invite others to faithful practice. But when exaggerated, such practices draw attention to oneself rather than to the faith. It is often an attempt to proclaim the superiority of one’s faith perhaps because, in our hearts, we are unsure of it.

Jesus says that such exaggerated devotion is unnecessary when our lives speak for themselves, demonstrating faith through our works of mercy.

You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers.
Call no one on earth your father;
you have but one Father in heaven.
Do not be called ‘Master’;
you have but one master, the Christ.
The greatest among you must be your servant.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled;
but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

Matthew 23: 8-12

We are all leaders at some level in our lives — parents, teachers, supervisors, politicians, clinicians, and everyone who has influence over another’s life. In each of these roles, our soul’s lens can be turned toward ourselves, or it can be turned in merciful care toward the other. The way we effectively turn the lens is to continually deepen ourselves in the greatest commandment: Love God above all things and your neighbor as yourself.

Poetry: Some keep the Sabbath going to Church – Emily Dickinson

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –
I keep it, staying at Home –
With a Bobolink for a Chorister –
And an Orchard, for a Dome –
Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice –
I, just wear my Wings –
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton – sings.
God preaches, a noted Clergyman –
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last –
I’m going, all along.

Music: Where I Find God – Larry Fleet

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

Humble Desire

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

Memorial of Saint Charles Borromeo, Bishop
Saturday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time
November 4, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/110423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, the message of the readings seems to be that we can miss out on grace if we don’t humbly pay attention to its call.

It’s tough to miss out on something when you really want it. I’ve told the story here before of the elderly gentleman at the supermarket ice cream freezer. He was having trouble locating his favorite pineapple ice cream among the oceans of mint chocolate chip and moosetracks. Reaching into the freezer to help him, I found the last pineapple carton. He was delighted but instead of taking it, he said, “Won’t you please try it, I think you will love it. It would make me happy if you did.” In a sense, he missed out on something he really wanted, but he gained something immensely more important.

Paul wants his fellow Israelites to do something similar. He tells them that because they hesitated to embrace Christ’s message, they missed out for a while. In their place, the Gentiles have received the Gospel. But now Paul is asking his fellow Israelites to complete the Gospel community by joining and welcoming the larger Church.

But through their transgression
salvation has come to the Gentiles,
so as to make them jealous.
Now if their transgression is enrichment for the world,
and if their diminished number is enrichment for the Gentiles,
how much more their full number.

Romans 11: 11-12

Our Gospel offers a slightly different approach. Yes, it’s tough to miss out on something you really want. But it’s even worse to miss out because you’re too dense, dumb, or distracted to know what’s good for you.

The invitees to the wedding banquet are so self-absorbed that they don’t even consider the comfort of their fellow guests. Their pride merits them the lowest seat at the table while the humble guests are brought up closer to the host.

“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet,
do not recline at table in the place of honor.
A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him,
and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say,
‘Give your place to this man,’
and then you would proceed with embarrassment
to take the lowest place.
Rather, when you are invited,
go and take the lowest place
so that when the host comes to you he may say,
‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’
Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table.
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Luke 14: 8-11

The proud guests in the Gospel really wanted the prestigious seats. But these were seats that only the host (God) could give. Grappling to land the best chair, they got in their own way and missed the sacred invitation which only the humble can hear.

Song Poem: I Don’t Want to be a Pharisee – for your fine listening pleasure and sophisticated spiritual enrichment: 😉

I don’t want to be a pharisee
Or anyone like that.
It’s stupid swallowing camels
Whilst straining out a gnat.
To keep the letter of the law,
They forgot the people it was for.
So I don’t want to be a Pharisee,
I don’t want to be a Pharisee,
I don’t want to be a Pharisee
Or anyone like that.

But They Kept Silent

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, healing, inclusivity, Jesus, Mercy, spiritualityLeave a comment

Friday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time
November 3, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/110323.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, as we read our scriptures for the day, we sense that both Jesus and Paul suffer heartbreak for those who resist the Gospel.

Brothers and sisters:
I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie;
my conscience joins with the Holy Spirit in bearing me witness
that I have great sorrow and constant anguish in my heart.
For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ
for the sake of my own people,
my kindred according to the flesh.

Romans 9:1-3

Paul expresses his deep regret that his own people, the Israelites, resist the Messiah who is God’s final gift to them in a long line of unique blessings:

They are children of Israel;
theirs the adoption, the glory, the covenants,
the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises;
theirs the patriarchs, and from them,
according to the flesh, is the Christ,
who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

Romans 9:4-5

In our Gospel, Jesus encounters a man with a withered hand. From the get-go, Jesus plans to heal the suffering man, but he decides to use the occasion to teach the Pharisees a lesson.

Jesus invites the scholars and Pharisees to move beyond the written Law and into the true practice of its spirit:

Jesus spoke to the scholars of the law and Pharisees in reply, asking,
“Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath or not?”
But they kept silent; so he took the man and,
after he had healed him, dismissed him.
Then he said to them
“Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern,
would not immediately pull him out on the sabbath day?”
But they were unable to answer his question.

Luke 14: 5-6

What Jesus asked was apparently too much for them. They were so encrusted in the worldly benefits the Law had brought them that they couldn’t challenge themselves to hear Jesus’s message. So they were silent – they gave no response to the divine invitation to life-giving change.

And to be fair to the Pharisees, Jesus’s invitation was a huge challenge. Their lives had become entirely dependent on a system that had lost its true meaning. The Law no longer led them to God but to themselves. They had lost the way through the woods, as you will see in Kipling’s poem below.

There are many levels on which we can pray with this passage. We are surely aware of the same kind of resistant silences in ourselves and in our world.

We may be caught in a sort of personal woods where we can’t make our way through to a life-giving choice or, like the Pharisees, to an inclusive, merciful understanding.

Or we may see this kind of entrapment happening in a beloved’s life.

Or we may see the atrophic effects of dead, unreviewed laws in our country, world, and Church. Failing to adapt laws that have lost their true spirit allows us to normalize outrageous behaviors based on manufactured”legality”. The image of a 16-year-old carrying an AK-47 down a neighborhood street, “legally” shooting unarmed protesters, comes to my mind!

All of these situations arise when we are entwined in a system that no longer gives life. The spirit and energy of the Gospel is the key to our un-entwining. Let’s pray for it in ourselves and in our very knotted world.

Poetry: The Way Through the Woods – Rudyard Kipling

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few.)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods.
But there is no road through the woods.

Music: Dave Eggar – Fallen Leaves