Category: Gospel

Fearful Tuesday

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, dying, Faith, Gospel, Hope, Jesus, joy, Lent, Love, Prayer2 Comments

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Click here for readings.

Today, in Mercy, as Holy Week deepens, so does confusion, fear, and even betrayal among Christ’s disciples.

fearful tuesday

In today’s Gospel, we see Judas turn from his own truth to a disastrous treachery.

We see John and Peter full of questions, confused by the turn of events. Jesus foretells the impending denial by Peter, his chosen successor.

The great trials of Christ’s Passion and Death emerge from the shadows of rumor and deception. Jesus makes it clear that the end is near.

As we read the passage, we can feel the fear mounting in everyone but Jesus. In him, we see see Isaiah’s description strengthening- the Lord’s Glorious Servant rising as the Light of Nations.

Fear destroys while trust and hope liberate.

Praying with this Gospel this morning, I remember the face of a woman I had seen on the evening news. At a contentious political rally, she was loudly shouting her preference to live under a dictator rather than live in a country “full of filthy immigrants”. She thought her raging made her strong. But I saw a person filled with ignorance and fear.

I can’t forget her face. It so saddened me to see the child of a beautiful God so distorted by weakness, prejudice and fear. She could no longer see the face of God in another human being. I think hers would have been the face I saw on Judas, had I met him as he left the Last Supper.

Fear is a disfiguring disease. It seeps into our heart and mind to blind and deafen us to God’s power in our life. It cripples our graced potential. It eventually kills the “glorious servant” we too have been called to become.

Paula D’Arcy says this:

Who would I be,
and what power
would be expressed in my life,
if I were not dominated by fear?

It’s a powerful question.

How does fear keep me:

  • from loving?
  • from hoping?
  • from believing?
  • from giving?
  • from receiving?

Today’s Responsorial Psalm, filled with beautiful phrases, offers us a heartfelt prayer as we place our fears in God’s hands:

R. I will sing of your salvation.
In you, O LORD, I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame.
In your justice rescue me, and deliver me;
incline your ear to me, and save me.
R. I will sing of your salvation.
Be my rock of refuge,
a stronghold to give me safety,
for you are my rock and my fortress.
O my God, rescue me from the hand of the wicked.
R. I will sing of your salvation.
For you are my hope, O LORD;
my trust, O God, from my youth.
On you I depend from birth;
from my mother’s womb you are my strength.
R. I will sing of your salvation.
My mouth shall declare your justice,
day by day your salvation.
O God, you have taught me from my youth,
and till the present I proclaim your wondrous deeds.
R. I will sing of your salvation.

Music:  Where Feet May Fail – Hillsong

Believe the Works!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, LentLeave a comment

Friday, April 12, 2019

Click here for readings

Jn10_38

Today, in Mercy,  in our readings the distress of both Jeremiah and Jesus becomes palpable.

Jeremiah says:

All those who were my friends
are on the watch for any misstep of mine.

And Jesus, as the crowd pick up stones to throw at him, says:

I have shown you many good works from my Father.
For which of these are you trying to stone me?

The Psalmist responds for both Jesus and Jeremiah:

In my distress I called upon the LORD
and cried out to my God;
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry to him reached his ears.

Jesus tells his persecutors:

If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me;
but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me,
believe the works, so that you may realize and understand
that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.

Perhaps Jesus is also speaking to us in any place where our faith is weak, or we harbor doubts. He is asking us to place absolute trust in him in all things. It’s a big request and one we work a lifetime to achieve.

In our prayer, we might take time to remember the works God has already accomplished in our lives, the gifts God has given us through the years, the wonders of Creation we have experienced, the loves that have graced our days.

In gratitude and trust, let us place any distress in our hearts into the open heart of Jesus, repeating our Gospel verse for today:

Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life;
you have the words of everlasting life.

Music: Your Words Are Spirit and Life – Bernadette Farrell 

Be Made New!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Forgiveness, Gospel, Jesus, Lent, Mercy, Seasons, suffering3 Comments

Sunday, April 7, 2019

Click here for readings

Today, in Mercy, Jesus writes new rules for life in the venerable Jerusalem dust.

Jn8_1_11JPG

Jesus enjoys an early morning walk from the Mount of Olives to the Temple. The weather, no doubt, was typically beautiful since others easily gathered and sat around Jesus to hear his teaching.

But the Pharisees, vigilant for an opportunity to condemn Jesus, executed a mean-hearted plot.

Dragging a woman “caught in the act of adultery” before the encircled men, they demanded Jesus’s judgment of the distraught woman.

Imagine the woman’s terror.  Her poverty and loneliness have already forced her into an ignoble commerce. Had she the chance, she surely would have chosen an easier life.

Now, her meager quarters have been broken into, her privacy invaded in the most intimate of circumstances.  Her adulterous accomplice has either turned her in, or absconded in cowardice. She is surrounded by brutal accusers, many of whom are likely her former customers.

But Jesus sees the woman, not her sin. He responds to her heart not her actions.  He also sees these evil, plotting men and responds to their veiled motivations.

Wouldn’t we love to know what Jesus scribbled in the Temple dirt as these blood-thirsty hypocrites hung over him?

Might it have been the names of those who also visited the woman on earlier nights?

Might it have been some of their hidden sins?

Challenged to cast the first stone if they were sinless, the plotters slowly slink away.  Jesus is left to forgive and heal this suffering woman.

Jesus tells her to go and sin no more, to -as the first reading says – “remember not the things of the past”. Jesus has made her into a new person by the power of his mercy.

May that renewing mercy touch us, and our world, where we sorely need it.

May it flow through our renewed hearts to everyone we encounter, no matter the circumstances.

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

When the Hour Comes…

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

Friday, April 5, 2019

Click here for readings

Today, in Mercy, John let’s us know how difficult things were for Jesus. Even very early in John’s Gospel, doubt, criticism, jealousy, and hatred swirl around Jesus. He realizes that people are trying to kill Him. All this because he does good and preaches love! How can that be?

Jn7_30 hourJPG

Jesus upset the apple cart, and many people didn’t like that. They preferred control over love, familiarity over faith. There were others who wanted a more violent shake-up, a political overthrow rather than a spiritual transformation. Basically, people wanted to remake Jesus’s message in their own design. And we’ve been doing the same thing ever since.

Eventually these opposing forces meet in the contradiction of the Cross – that place where Love seems to lose, and Life seems to die. But when Jesus’s hour comes – that timeless moment when Eternal Love and Life break open in the Resurrection – our faith in Christ will be confirmed.

We pray today for all those experiencing great trauma or testing in their lives. May their faith sustain, restore and surprise them.

We pray for ourselves that, like Jesus, when our “hour comes” we are ready because we have already deepened and steadied our hearts in prayer and fidelity.

Music: I Need Thee Every Hour – Annie Hawks (May 28, 1836 – January 3, 1918), an American poet and Gospel hymnist who wrote a number of hymns with her pastor, Robert Lowry.

In 1872, the hymn by which Hawks is most widely known, “I Need Thee Every Hour”, was written. It is said to have been translated into more foreign languages than any other modern hymn at the time of her death. Hawks stated:— “For myself, the hymn was prophetic rather than expressive of my own experiences, for it was wafted out to the world on the wings of love and joy, instead of under the stress of personal sorrow.”

Be Light!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Lent, spiritualityLeave a comment

Thursday, April 4, 2019

Click here for readings

Jn5_35 light

Today, in Mercy, the Gospel gives us Jesus claiming his throne. He is setting his disciples straight before he is no longer with them. He drives home each of the pillars of his Messiahship, like so many stakes in the ground:

  • I have testimony greater than John’s.
  • The works that the Father gave me to accomplish,these works that I perform testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.
  • The Father has testified on my behalf.
  • I came in the name of my Father.

Jesus is saying these things to his persecutors, but he says them for the benefit of his surrounding disciples. He wants them to remember these things to sustain them in the dark times to come.

In this passage, Jesus also pays a glorious compliment to John the Baptist:

He was a burning and shining lamp.

Now Jesus wants his followers, fired by their faith, to burn with an even greater light. He wants us to do the same, to burn with a flame steadied by Christ’s assurances, by the stunning testimony of his Passion, Death and Resurrection.

Music:  But Who May Abide the Day of His Coming – Handel

But who may abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth? For He is like a refiner’s fire.

Mercy, like spring rain…

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, Lent, Mercy, repentance, spiritualityLeave a comment

Saturday, March 30, 2019

Click here for readings

Hosea6_3 rainJPG

Today, in Mercy, our two readings encourage us to be humble and repentant.

In the reading from Hosea, God is very clear:

For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice,
and knowledge of God
rather than burnt offerings.

In our Gospel, Jesus tells us the parable of the proud Pharisee and the humble tax collector. The Pharisee’s prayer shows his judgmental self-satisfaction with all the sacrifices he’s made:

O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity —
greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week,
and I pay tithes on my whole income.’

On the other hand, we have the scorned tax collector ( a status we can understand this time of year:-)  who admits his weakness and need for God’s mercy.

Oh God, have mercy on me, a sinner!

The readings are really about seeing ourselves in the light of God’s truth, while knowing that our merciful God loves us infinitely, even in our weakness. They are about being open to that mercy so that we can know the fullness of God’s grace.

Music: Humble – Audrey Assad

To See As God Sees

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Forgiveness, Gospel, holiness, Jesus, Lent, LoveLeave a comment

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Click here for readings

Today, in Mercy, our readings describe God’s lavish mercy and the expectation for our reciprocity.

love one another

The passage from the Book of Daniel, written in lilting prose, quotes the prayer of Azariah. It gives us several phrases to savor in our own prayer, depending on the particular disposition of our heart on any given day:

To whom you promised …. like the stars of heaven, or the sand on the shore of the sea.
What has God promised you to give you hope in your life? Can you call on those promises today in your prayer?

For we are reduced, O Lord, beyond any other nation…
Are you feeling sad, disconnected, humiliated or depressed? Can you give these feelings to God and open your heart to healing?

We have in our day no prince, prophet, or leader,
no burnt offering, sacrifice, oblation, or incense,
no place to offer first fruits, to find favor with you.
Do you ever feel abandoned by the institutions we all once depended on, whether Church, government, law etc.? Can we pray for the courage to depend only on God in all things?

Now we follow you with our whole heart…
Have our life circumstances brought us to the point of placing ourselves totally in God’s care? Can we pray with that peaceful and holy abandonment?

Deliver us by your wonders, and bring glory to your name, O Lord.Can our prayer be one of giving glory to God for all the blessings in our lives?

God has been so good to us! Our Gospel enjoins us to be reciprocally good to others.

Music: Give Me Your Eyes – An interesting song by rock singer Brian Heath. As his plane is landing one night, he receives a grace to pray for new eyes — eyes that see and love  all humanity as God does.

According to Thy Word

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Mary2 Comments

Monday, March 25, 2019

Click here for readings

Today, in Mercy, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord. It is a sacred and beloved feast.  Have we not come to love its phrases, ringing in our hearts like treasured memories? Let us pray with them today, asking to welcome the astonishing Will of God in our own life as Mary did.

The angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth…

Annunciation,_Rome_-_Fra_Lippi
by Fra Filippo Lippi

And the angel said:
“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”

Botticelli,_annunciazione_di_cestello_02
by Botticelli

Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus, for nothing is impossible for God.

BURNE-Jones,_Edward_The_Annunciation_1876-79
by Edward Burne-Jones

Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”

The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner 1896
by Henry Ossawa Tanner

Music: Ave Maria – Franz Schubert

Heart-Burn?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Lent, repentance1 Comment

Sunday, March 24, 2019

Click here for readings

Today, in Mercy, we have powerful readings – they get really serious about repentance!

Ex3_2 bush

In our first reading, Moses has been on a kind of decades-long sabbatical on his father-in-law’s homestead. After the young glory days of Egypt, and the ensuing drama that exiled him, Moses had settled into being a humble shepherd in Midian. He probably wasn’t expecting a fiery, direct telegram from God.

But God never gives up on his plan for us. So God, divinely expert at getting our attention, conflagrates a bush right in front of Moses.  Supposedly, it was not that unusual for this type of bush to spontaneously combust in the desert heat. What was unusual was for it not to be consumed by the fire.

God then delivers a message of overwhelming fidelity to Moses:

Thus shall you say to the Israelites:
The LORD, the God of your fathers,
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob,
has sent me to you.
This is my name forever;
thus am I to be remembered through all generations.

Because of God’s mercy and fidelity, the Israelites – and Moses – are getting another chance to live in covenant with God.

In our Gospel, Jesus tells his followers not to ignore such chances. He reminds his listeners that life is fragile and transitory. If we haven’t acted on God’s invitation to grace, we might lose the opportunity.

If we look back over our lives, we might realize that there have been burning bushes all over the place – times and events where life offered us a choice between grace and sin, smallness of heart, selfishness. When we chose grace, the bush kept burning and was not consumed. It lit our way to deeper covenant with God.

These final weeks of Lent offer us countless encouragements to look for God’s Fire in our hearts and to go deeper toward the Light. Let’s not ignore them.

Music: Fire of God – Craig Musseau

None like You, Merciful God

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Gospel, Jesus, Mary, Mercy, Prayer, repentance1 Comment

Saturday, March 23, 2019

Click here for readings

Today, in Mercy, our readings pour out the lavish mercy of God. Our prayer invites us bask in that warmth and understanding.

Prodigal son

The prophet Micah asks,

“Who is there like You … the God who delights in clemency?”

Our Psalm reminds us that “the Lord is kind and merciful”:

For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he put our transgressions from us.

(Two musical selections today.)

Then Jesus tells us the tender parable of the Prodigal Son, which is really more about the Merciful Father. He receives his contrite child in the same way that God receives us in our repentance.

Sometimes we become so content with ourselves that we fail to realize our need for contrition. Sometimes our failures are buried so deep and so long in us that we become blind to them. Repentance is the grace to break through that blindness.

We were created to be an image of the merciful God we meet in today’s scripture. Where we are short of that in our actions, words, choices and attitudes – that’s where we have need of repentance.

Rembrandt’s magnificent painting captures a sacred feeling that might help our prayer. Sometimes we are the gracious Father – loving, forgiving, hoping and working for life in others. Sometimes we are the son, returning from our own destructive selfishness to seek a new beginning. Sometimes we are a little bit of each.

Music: Father, I Have Sinned – Eugene O’Reilly