Category: Gospel

Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Loyola

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Creation, Faith, Gospel, inclusivity, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Saturday, July 31, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 67 which calls on God to bless all people.

O God, be merciful to us and bless us,
show us the light of your countenance and come to us.
So may your way be known upon earth;
   among all nations, your salvation.

Psalm 67: 1-2

This psalm is notable for its inclusiveness of nations outside of Israel. Most psalms focus inwardly on Israel’s needs, hopes and memories. But Psalm 67 calls on God to gather and bless universally:

May the nations be glad and exult
    because you rule the peoples in equity;
    the nations on the earth you guide.

For this reason, Psalm 67 has been called “the missionary psalm”, and is such a fitting prayer on this feast of St. Ignatius who founded a community which has carried the faith throughout the world.

Click here for a good article about St. Ignatius

As we pray our psalm today, we might examine how our own faith reaches out, includes and blesses others.  

Our final verses today point back to our first reading from Leviticus. While the math and calendar counting could get me pretty mixed up, the message is clear. It is a Jubilee message:

  • Stop. 
  • Take a good look at your life and the harvest of your years. 
  • Be grateful.
  • Be just.
  • Share. 
  • Bring others into your bounty because it all belongs to God, not you.

When we do these things, Psalm 67 becomes our prayer:

Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, 
for you judge the peoples with equity
and guide all the nations upon earth.
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you.
The earth has brought forth its increase; 
may you, O God our God, bless us.
May you bless us,
and may all the ends of the earth stand in awe of you.

Poetry: This Is My Song by Lloyd Stone and Georgia Harkness

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar and mine;
this is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine:
but other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;
but other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
and skies are everywhere as blue as mine:
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
a song of peace for their land and for mine.

May truth and freedom come to every nation;
may peace abound where strife has raged so long;
that each may seek to love and build together,
a world united, righting every wrong;
a world united in its love for freedom,
proclaiming peace together in one song.

Music: Finlandia, Opus 26

The above poem is sung to the tune of the final hymn in this work by Jean Sibelius. I think you will enjoy this beautiful video, especially the young ducks about midway through. Be sure to click the little arrowhead under the right side of the video to read the great history of this musical composition.

Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Gospel, healing, Love, Mercy, Poetry, Prayer, Psalms2 Comments

July 5, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with the beautiful Psalm 91, so full of images to help us experience the steadfast tenderness of God.

Our Gospel shows us this tender mercy in the story of Jesus and two complementary healings – the woman who suffered for twelve years, and the young girl who has lived only twelve years.

In both cases Jesus, by a touch received or given, gathers a broken soul under Mercy’s wing. In the mystery of that grace-filled shade, the soul is restored to the fullness of Light.

As we pray Psalm 91 today let us, like the Gospel’s woman and young girl, reach for any healing and wholeness we long for. 

Is there something in us
that has died too soon
and longs to be reborn?

Is there something
crippled in us
that longs to leap once more
and run free?

May we find new life under God’s infinitely caring wing which ever hovers over us in love.

Poetry: A video mix of Rumi and Hafiz, a dynamite combo!

Music: Shadow of Your Wings – Jeff Nelson

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Faith, Gospel, Hope, Jesus, ordinary time, peace, Poetry, PsalmsLeave a comment

Sunday, June 20, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 107, a poem filled with images that hold secrets for our spiritual journey:

They who sailed the sea in ships,
    trading on the deep waters,
These saw the works of the LORD
    and God’s wonders in the abyss.

Psalm 107:23-24

Those who have the opportunity to see the ocean in its many moods will quickly understand the analogy. 

Life is an ocean, but we are not sailing it alone.

That’s what the Lord suggests to Job in our first reading, and what Jesus points out to the nervous disciples in our Gospel.

Psalm 107 tells us that when life distresses us we should do just what the disciples did:

They cried to the LORD in their distress;
    from their straits he rescued them,
God hushed the storm to a gentle breeze
    and the billows of the sea were stilled

Psalm 107: 28-29

It also suggests us that we can hope for this result:

They rejoiced that they were calmed,
    and  brought to their desired haven.
Let them give thanks fo the Lord’s kindness
    and  wondrous deeds to us all.

Psalm 107:30-31

The message of today’s readings for me is trust and hope
— in both calm and storm. Let’s pray for it.

Poetry: blessing of the boats – Lucille Clifton

                                    (at St. Mary’s)

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back     may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that.

Music: Secret Ocean – Peter Kater

Monday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Poetry, PsalmsLeave a comment

June 14, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 98, a prayer filled with hints of joyful thanksgiving and exuberant music.

At first reading, the psalm is a surprising companion to our other readings.

In the passage to the Corinthians, Paul doesn’t sound like he’s singing. He cites the struggles a committed disciple will face in order to spread the Gospel:

We cause no one to stumble in anything,
in order that no fault may be found with our ministry;
on the contrary, in everything we commend ourselves
as ministers of God, through much endurance –

2 Corinthians 6:3-4

He then offers quite a catalog of endured tests.

Jesus isn’t singing either in our reading from Mark. Instead, he enumerates the list of trials to be endured, if necessary, to live a radical commitment to the Gospel – even including lost eyes and teeth, multiple slaps, indentured clothing and service, and self-effacing generosity.

Feel like singing yet?

But here’s the thing. Praying with these passages allows us to break through their surface to understand their heart, as our Alleluia Verse explains:

A lamp to my feet is your word,
a light to my path.

Psalm 119:105

Jesus and Paul remind us that all our experiences, good and bad, are transformed in the light of the Word. That transformation calls us to respond to our lives from a well of radical faith which contradicts the deceits and interpretations of the world.

And if we answer the call to discipleship, where will it lead us? What decisions and partings will it demand? To answer this question we shall have to go to him, for only he knows the answer. Only Jesus Christ, who bids us follow him, knows the journey’s end. But we do know that it will be a road of boundless mercy. Discipleship means joy.

Deitrich Bonhoeffer

Deep faith allows us to see things, such as the listed trials, from a “new” perspective.

It is when we get to that place of freedom in our spiritual lives that we can truly “sing a new song unto the Lord”!

Poetry: Unconditional by Jennifer Paine Welwood

Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
Opening to my loss,
I gain the embrace of the universe;
Surrendering into emptiness,
I find fullness without end.
Each condition I flee from pursues me,
Each condition I welcome transforms me
And becomes itself transformed
Into its radiant jewel-like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so,
Who has crafted this Master Game;
To play it is purest delight -
To honor its form, true devotion.

Music: I Want to Sing a New Song – BJ Putnam and the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

Memorial of Saint Boniface, Bishop and Martyr

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Faith, Gospel, ordinary time, Poetry, Prayer2 Comments

Saturday, June 5, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with the final prayer of Tobit for our Responsorial Psalm.

The Church has  followed Tobit’s story for a little over a week. We have seen a man who, even through his dramatic ups and downs, remains a steadfast believer. 

For Tobit, the exigencies of his life do not dictate the intensity of his faith. Rather, that intense faith fuels his response to life.

The Lord scourges and then has mercy;
    casts down to the depths of the nether world,
    and brings up from the great abyss.
No one can escape the Lord’s hand.
So now consider what the Lord has done for you,
    and give praise with full voice.
Bless the Lord of righteousness,
    and exalt the King of ages.

Tobit 13: 2,6

Tobit realized that his faith stood as a sign to others. He preached by his attitude in life, not so much by his words:

In the land of my exile I praise him
    and show his power and majesty to a sinful nation.

Tobit 13:7

Written from a place of exile, the Book of Tobit gives us good advice to sustain faith in our own small “exiles”. Always bless and praise God. Find the points of light and joy. Cling to and celebrate them.

Bless the Lord, all you his chosen ones,
    and may all of you praise his majesty.
Celebrate days of gladness, and give the Lord praise.

Tobit 13:8

Tobit is a make-believe person. But our Gospel shows us a real woman who embodies the simple, steadfast faith which the Book of Tobit preaches. She also preached with her actions rather than her words.

Although she had little, she lived out of her abundance not her scarcity. That abundance was fired by the God she believed in and trusted, as was the faith of apocryphal Tobit.

As we pray with Tobit and the widow, we might share with them our own faith, both its strengths and it weaknesses, asking to draw inspiration and courage from their stories.

Poetry: This Place of Abundance – Catherine of Siena
~ from Love Poems from God – Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West
by Daniel Ladinsky

We know nothing until we know everything.
    I have no object to defend
    for all is of equal value
    to me.

I cannot lose anything in this
place of abundance
I found.

    If something my heart cherishes
    is taken away,
    I just say, “Lord, what
    happened?”

And a hundred more
appear.

Music: Live Like You’re Loved – Hawk Nelson

Memorial of Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, LoveLeave a comment

June 3, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 128 which is a recounting of how blessed we are when we live in God’s Presence.

Our Gospel reveals the clear and essential key to attaining that Presence – love of God and neighbor.

The scribe in today’s Gospel is well on his way to living in God’s embrace.

We might choose to go with him to Jesus today to ask what is most important for us as we continually try to open our lives to God’s grace.

How can we increase
our understanding, strength, and charity
in our everyday choices?
….
How can we love more like God loves?

Poetry: Love as if … by Vinita Hampton Wright

Love as if loving is the first thing on your to-do list.
Love as if you have no other plan but to love.
Love as if you are confident that love makes good things happen.
Love as if this is your first opportunity to love.
Love as if this is your last opportunity to love.
Love as if loving can heal all wounds.
Love as if loving is your first purpose on earth.
Love as if loving is your favorite choice.
Love as if you have that kind of power.
Love as if it will keep the earth spinning in vast, beautiful space.

Music: You Shall Love the Lord with All Your Heart

Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, Gospel, Mary, Poetry, Prayer1 Comment

May 31, 2021

Today’s Readings

A “Women’s Feast”?

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate the Feast of the Visitation, when a newly-pregnant Mary travels to be with her shockingly pregnant older cousin, Elizabeth. Although a universal feast, it is certainly a feast for women to treasure.

The Carmignano Visitation, a unique masterpiece by one of sixteenth-century Italy’s greatest painters, Jacopo da Pontormo (1494-1557)

The Gospel is replete with the quiet but powerful understandings women share with one another:

  • the haste to support one another
  • the blessing and bolstering of each other’s faith
  • the shared joy to cause a baby’s leap in the womb
  • the desire for mercy and justice for the suffering
  • the “staying with” until need’s end

Of course, men too experience many of these holy sensibilities, but today most certainly invites women to celebrate the gifts of God within their bodies, minds and spirits.

Perhaps we might pray on these things while watching this movie clip of the imagined scene:

Poetry: Two poems to honor the two blessed women of this scene

The Visitation by Joyce Kilmer
(For Louise Imogen Guiney)

There is a wall of flesh before the eyes
Of John, who yet perceives and hails his King.
It is Our Lady’s painful bliss to bring
Before mankind the Glory of the skies.
Her cousin feels her womb’s sweet burden rise
And leap with joy, and she comes forth to sing,
With trembling mouth, her words of welcoming.
She knows her hidden God, and prophesies.
Saint John, pray for us, weary souls that tarry
Where life is withered by sin’s deadly breath.
Pray for us, whom the dogs of Satan harry,
Saint John, Saint Anne, and Saint Elizabeth.
And, Mother Mary, give us Christ to carry
Within our hearts, that we may conquer death.

Visitation Villanelle by Sarah O’Brien

She came to me, the mother of my Lord,
and grinned with amazement at the sight.
All creation with me seemed to roar.

Grey haired, belly swollen like a gourd,
I stood to kiss her in the morning light.
She came to me, the mother of my Lord.

Her voice, as she crossed the threshold of my door,
rang through my womb –  from a great height,
all creation with me seemed to roar.

The baby leapt – tethered only by the cord.
The joy coursing through us! I shouted outright.
She came to me, the mother of my Lord.

Already she faced her share of the sword
She who believed all God said would be, might –
All creation with me seemed to roar.

Blessed one! With your yes you moved us toward
the home we long for, and all things made right.
She came to me, the mother of my Lord.
All creation with me seemed to roar.

Music: Also two selections for this wonderful Feastday:

Ave Maria (Schubert) sung in German, as Schubert wrote it, by the incomparable Marian Anderson

Magnificat (Bach)
Imagine composing this powerful first movement based on only a single word: “Magnificat”

Thursday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Gospel, ordinary time, Prayer, PsalmsLeave a comment

May 27, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 33. It is a song of extravagant praise to the Creator of a universe which extends infinitely both within and without us.

Our readings call us to be aware – to see – this infinite power and generosity of God, and to order our life upon the abundance of that vision.

Our lyrical passage from Sirach includes this:

How beautiful are all God’s works!
    even to the spark and fleeting vision!
The universe lives and abides forever;
    to meet each need, each creature is preserved.
All of them differ, one from another,
    yet none of them has God made in vain,
For each in turn, as it comes, is good;
    can one ever see enough of their splendor?

Sirach 15:22-25

In Mark’s Gospel, a blind man – one who longs to see – cries out for Jesus:

Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”
So they called the blind man, saying to him,
“Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.”
He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.
Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?”
The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.”
Jesus told him, ‘Go your way; your faith has saved you.”
Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.

Mark 10:49-52

God is calling us too, as we pray Psalm 33, to be grateful, to trust, to SEE the wonders around and within us:

Give thanks to the LORD on the harp;
on the ten-stringed lyre offer praise.
Sing to God a new song;
skillfully play with joyful chant.
For the LORD’s word is upright,
and works are trustworthy.
God loves justice and right.
The earth is full of the mercy of the LORD.

Psalm 33:2-5

This kind of seeing is more than just looking.
It is letting go of prefabricated expectation.
It is waiting in trust for the Invisible
to capture our hearts.

Prose: from de Chardin

“Seeing. One could say that the whole of life lies in seeing — if not ultimately, at least essentially. To be more is to be more united — and this sums up and is the very conclusion of the work to follow. But unity grows, and we will affirm this again, only if it is supported by an increase of consciousness, of vision. That is probably why the history of the living world can be reduced to the elaboration of ever more perfect eyes at the heart of a cosmos where it is always possible to discern more. Are not the perfection of an animal and the supremacy of the thinking being measured by the penetration and power of synthesis of their glance? To try to see more and to see better is not, therefore, just a fantasy, curiosity, or a luxury. See or perish. This is the situation imposed on every element of the universe by the mysterious gift of existence. And thus, to a higher degree, this is the human condition.”
(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: The Human Phenomenon, trans. Sarah Appleton-Weber, p. 3)

Music: Vision of Change by Back to Earth

Saturday of the Sixth Week of Easter

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, joy, Prayer, PsalmsLeave a comment

May 15, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 47 which keeps us on point as we move toward Pentecost:

All you peoples, clap your hands;
    shout to God with cries of gladness.
For the LORD, the Most High, the awesome,
    is the great king over all the earth.

Psalm 47: 2-3

We can be confident. Christ’s work is accomplished. We await the Spirit which will accompany us now in living the Gospel fully.

For king of all the earth is God;
    sing hymns of praise.
God reigns over the nations,
    God sits upon his holy throne. 

Psalm 47: 8-9

Our Gospel today confirms us in our call, like the newly-gathered Twelve, to radical discipleship:

On that day you will ask in my name,
and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you.
For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me
and have come to believe that I came from God.

These days before Pentecost
offer a good time to talk with God
about my call and my response.

And if we answer the call to discipleship, where will it lead us? What decisions and partings will it demand? To answer this question we shall have to go to him, for only he knows the answer. Only Jesus Christ, who bids us follow him, knows the journey’s end. But we do know that it will be a road of boundless mercy. Discipleship means joy.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Music: A New Commandment

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, Gospel, JesusLeave a comment

May 13, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 47, one of seven enthronement psalms which celebrate a “coronation” of God.

All you peoples, clap your hands,
    shout to God with cries of gladness,
For the LORD, the Most High, the awesome,
    is the great king over all the earth.

Psalm 47: 1

Used for the feast of the Ascension, the point of the psalm is much more than an exercise of pageantry. It is an act of faith and reverence to God, the Loving Omnipotence who chose to redeem us by assuming our humanity.

It is a confirmation that we believers do see the Supreme Being in the human Jesus we have come to love. This is what Paul prays for the Ephesians in our second reading:

May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened,
that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call,
what are the riches of glory
in his inheritance among the holy ones,
and what is the surpassing greatness of his power
for us who believe,
in accord with the exercise of his great might,
which he worked in Christ,
raising him from the dead
and seating him at his right hand in the heavens,
far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion,
and every name that is named
not only in this age but also in the one to come.

Ephesians 1:18-21

The Great Commission, found in today’s Gospel, is the true gift of the Ascension.

Go into the whole world
and proclaim the gospel to every creature.

Mark 16:15

Jesus tells us that his time on earth is complete. The lesson of Love has been taught. We now are given the power to continue the message for all time. 

Jesus promises that our faith will:


–overcome evil
-create new possibilities to preach the Gospel
-show courage against antagonism
-resist suppression
-heal and strengthen others to believe

These signs will accompany those who believe:

-in my name they will drive out demons,
-they will speak new languages.
-They will pick up serpents with their hands,
-drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them.
–lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.

If we believe and open our hearts to this message, indeed, it is a day for trumpet blasts! Here are a few from one of my favorite triumphal pieces! If the Apostles had only had trumpets, they might have played something like this for the Lord as He ascended 🙂

Poetry: Ascension Sonnet – Malcolm Guite

We saw his light break through the cloud of glory
Whilst we were rooted still in time and place
As earth became a part of Heaven’s story
And heaven opened to his human face.

We saw him go and yet we were not parted
He took us with him to the heart of things
The heart that broke for all the broken-hearted
Is whole and Heaven-centred now, and sings,

Sings in the strength that rises out of weakness,
Sings through the clouds that veil him from our sight,
Whilst we our selves become his clouds of witness
And sing the waning darkness into light,

His light in us, and ours in him concealed,
Which all creation waits to see revealed.

Music: Psalm 47 – Rory Cooney