Category: holiness

Walk

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, justice, Mercy, repentance, spiritualityLeave a comment

Memorial of Saint Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
August 28, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082824.cfm

Blessed are you who fear the LORD,
who walk in his ways!
For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork;
blessed shall you be, and favored.
Psalm 128:1-2

In today’s Gospel, Jesus really slams the Pharisees! They had to walk away from his condemnation thinking twice about the pretense of their lives!

Paul advises his followers not to “walk in disorderly way” – a little bit gentler admonition, but still a call to get one’s act together.

Our instructive psalm tells us why we should pay attention to the reproofs of Jesus and Paul. It reminds us that to walk in the way of the Lord brings us eternal blessing and favor.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ask to continually learn how to walk in God’s grace for there is always a new challenge on Life’s pathway.

Thought:

As you start to walk on the way,
the way appears.

Rumi

Music: Walk in the Light – Aretha Franklin

Jesus is the light of the world
Come on choir

Walk in the light (walk in the light)
Beautiful light (well it’s a beautiful light)
Come where the dewdrops of mercy shine bright (Oh Lord)
Shine all around us by day and by night
Oh oh oh oh, Jesus is the light of the world

I wonder, do you know that this evening
Yeah yeah yeah

Walk in the light (we’re walk in the light)
Beautiful light (well it’s a beautiful light)
Come where the dewdrops of mercy shine bright 
Oh Lord, shine all around us by day and by night
Oh Lord, Jesus is the light of the world

Oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh, yeah

Walk in the light (we’re going the distance, yeah)
Beautiful light (we’re going the distance where the light)
Come where the dewdrops of mercy shine bright (of mercy shine bright)
Shine all around us by day and by night
(Oh Lord) Jesus is the light of the world (the Lord is the light of the world)

He’s shining (Yes, he’s shining)
He’s shining (oh yes he is, he’s shining)
He’s shining in my soul (oh yes he is, oh yeah)

Thanks

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, holiness, spirituality, Thanksgiving5 Comments

Monday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time
August 26, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082624.cfm

We ought to thank God always for you, brothers and sisters,
as is fitting, because your faith flourishes ever more,
and the love of every one of you for one another grows ever greater…

… We always pray for you,
that our God may make you worthy of his calling
and powerfully bring to fulfillment every good purpose
and every effort of faith,
that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you,
and you in him,
in accord with the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Thessalonians 1: 3-4; 11-12

How grateful we should be for the communities of faith that nurture us! In today’s beautiful words, Paul prays in gratitude for the faithful and generous Thessalonians community.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
If we have been blessed by the faith of family, friends, parish, school, religious community, or place of ministry, we can echo the words of Paul in his gratitude for the Thessalonians community.
Let’s take the time to recall and give thanks for those who bless us with their faith. Doing so will make us more grateful, humble, generous, and courageous.

Poetry: Common Prayer – Renee Yann, RSM

When she comes to morning prayer,
from night’s isolating shadows,
she comes from someplace
I have never been
with invitations to a place
that I could never be,
save her full divestiture
to God, done humbly before me.

Music: Contemplation – Tim Wheater

Garment

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, Mary, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary
August 22, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082224.cfm

But when the king came in to meet the guests
he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.
He said to him, “My friend, how is it
that you came in here without a wedding garment?”
Matthew 22:11-12

Today’s readings for the day do not mention Mary, although a second set of readings retells the account of the Annunciation.

I chose instead to pray with the concept of the “garment” which the wedding guest lacked, but that Mary wore in magnificence. The garment is God’s grace given to all of us as it was to Mary, but sometimes abandoned or forgotten as it was with the wedding guest.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray in thanksgiving for the garment of God’s grace and ask to wear it with honor and love.

Poetry: Suspended – Denise Levertov

I had grasped God's garment in the void
but my hand slipped
on the rich silk of it.
The 'everlasting arms' my sister loved to remember
must have upheld my leaden weight
from falling, even so,
for though I claw at empty air and feel
nothing, no embrace,
I have not plummeted.

Music: Clothed with Light / Kyrie Eleison – from a Russian Hymn

Clean

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

Saturday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 17, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081724.cfm

A clean heart create for me, O God;
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
Give me back the joy of your salvation,
and a willing spirit sustain in me.
Psalm 51:12-14

Today’s familiar and beloved Responsorial Psalm repeats yesterday’s heartfelt plea for spiritual innocence.

Jesus blesses such innocence in our Gospel by saying:

Jesus said,
“Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them;
for the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray for that deep trust in God which yields spiritual innocence. Such innocence is not naïve or childish. Rather it has discovered the profound wisdom that gives everything to God.

Poetry: Mary Oliver from House of Light

Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled 
— to cast aside the weight of facts 
and maybe even to float a little 
above this difficult world. 

I want to believe I am looking 
into the white fire of a great mystery. 
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing 
— that the light is everything 
— that it is more than the sum 
of each flawed blossom rising and falling. 
And I do. 

Music: Innocence – Jonas Kvarnström

Firstfruits

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Gospel, holiness, Jesus, Mary, spirituality1 Comment

Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
August 15, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081524-Day.cfm

Christ has been raised from the dead,
the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Corinthians 15:20

We celebrate Mary because of who she is in Christ, the firstfruits of a new and redeemed Creation. Mary is the one who bore these sacred firstfruits. Mothering Christ, she mothers too the gift of our Redemption.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We honor Mary whose simple life was translucent with faith. From that light, God took flesh and so redeemed us.

Poetry: The Assumption – Joachim Smet O.Carm

No painter ever caught the magic other going--
This was a matter of an inward growing,
Simple and imperceptible as thought.
It was no pageant wrought
Of sounding splendor, welter of gold bars
Of molten day, mad stars,
Flurry of quick angels' winging,
Bursts of their laughter ringing
In wild bliss.
The simple fact is this:
Love conquered at long last.
Her eager soul fled fast
With a great gladness like a song
Unto to her Spouse above,
And her pure flesh would not be parted long
For sheer love.

Music: Assumpta Est Maria

Latin Text

Assumpta est Maria in caelum,
gaudent angeli, laudantes benedicunt Dominum.
Gaudete et exsultate omnes recti corde.
Quia hodie Maria virgo cum Christo regnat in aeternum.

Quae est ista, quae progreditur
quasi aurora consurgens,
pulchra ut luna, electa ut sol,
terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata?
Gaudete et exsultate omnes recti corde.
Quia hodie Maria virgo cum Christo regnat in aeternum.

ENGLSIH TEXT
Mary has been received into Heaven:
the angels rejoice with praises and bless the Lord.
Let all rejoice and be glad with righteous heart,
for today the Virgin Mary reigns with Christ for evermore.

Who is she that cometh forth
as the morning rising,
fair as the moon, bright as the sun,
terrible as an army set in array ?
Let all rejoice and be glad with righteous heart,
for today the Virgin Mary reigns with Christ for evermore.

Covenant

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, holiness, Love, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Dominic, priest
August 8, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080824.cfm

But this is the covenant that I will make 
with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD.
I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; 
I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
No longer will they have need to teach their friends and relatives
how to know the LORD.
All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the LORD, 
for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.
Jeremiah 31:33-34

In today’s first reading, Jeremiah’s love song with God continues. He tells the people that God will “marry” their hearts by writing the Divine Design within them, and that all shall be included in that covenant of Infinite Mercy.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
In Jesus Christ, we are living in the fullness of that promise. Even in an apparently contradictory world, our faith impels us to believe, and to live a life which trusts that fulfillment.

Poetry: Draw Near – Scott Cairns

προσέλθετε (Come)

For near is where you’ll meet what you have wandered 
far to find. And near is where you’ll very likely see 
how far the near obtains. In the dark katholikon
the lighted candles lent their gold to give the eye
a more than common sense of what lay flickering
just beyond the ken, and lent the mind a likely
swoon just shy of apprehension. It was then
that time’s neat artifice fell in and made for us
a figure for when time would slip free altogether.
I have no sense of what this means to you, so little
sense of what to make of it myself, save one lit glimpse 
of how we live and move, a more expansive sense in Whom.

Music: Love Overflows – Michael Hoppé

One glass half empty
One glass half full,
Some may be dry now
Mine overflows.
See what you want to.
Each to their own.
My eyes are wide open
And love overflows

In the darkest hours
when you’re alone,
think of me, darling,
And love overflows.
In the darkest hours,
when you’re alone,
think of me, darling,
and love overflows.

Glory

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, Love, Praise, Prayer, spiritualityLeave a comment

Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord
August 6, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080624.cfm

Beloved:
We did not follow cleverly devised myths
when we made known to you
the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.
For he received honor and glory from God the Father
when that unique declaration came to him from the majestic glory,
“This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven
while we were with him on the holy mountain.
Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable.
You will do well to be attentive to it,
as to a lamp shining in a dark place,
until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
2 Peter 1:16-19

This beautiful passage from Peter shines with faith, adoration, and praise. It invites us to let go of our “thinking” about God and, instead, to bask in the Divine Glory of which our faith assures us.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
The Feast of the Transfiguration beckons us to be with God in the way we would be with someone we deeply love – not analyzing the bliss, but resting in it gratefully and contentedly.

Poetry: Transfiguration – Malcolm Guite

For that one moment, ‘in and out of time’,
On that one mountain where all moments meet,
The daily veil that covers the sublime
In darkling glass fell dazzled at his feet.
There were no angels full of eyes and wings
Just living glory full of truth and grace.
The Love that dances at the heart of things
Shone out upon us from a human face
And to that light the light in us leaped up,
We felt it quicken somewhere deep within,
A sudden blaze of long-extinguished hope
Trembled and tingled through the tender skin.
Nor can this blackened sky, this darkened scar
Eclipse that glimpse of how things really are.

Music: Transfiguration – by Wren and Manalo

Seed

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, holiness, spirituality2 Comments

Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 30, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/073024.cfm

The seed is the word of God,
Christ is the sower;
all who come to him
will live for ever.

Encapsulating today’s Gospel, our Responsorial Psalm delivers the clear message that Christ sows the Word of God in our hearts. Will that Divine Seed be overwhelmed by selfish weeds? Or will it thrive? The answer comes with very high stakes – eternal life.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray for a fertile soul, open to God’s Word, vibrant with the Gospel of Christ.

Poetry: May we raise children who love the unloved things – Nicolette Sowder

May we raise children
who love the unloved things – the dandelion, the
worms & spiderlings.
Children who sense
the rose needs the thorn
& run into rainswept days
the same way they turn towards sun…
And when they’re grown &
someone has to speak for those
who have no voice
may they draw upon that
wilder bond, those days of
tending tender things
and be the ones.

Music: Gardens of the Sun – Georgia Kelly

Earthen

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Creation, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, spirituality4 Comments

Feast of Saint James, Apostle
July 25, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072524.cfm

We hold this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.
We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained;
perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed;
always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.
For we who live are constantly being given up to death
for the sake of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
2 Corinthians 4:7-11

Today’s passage from Corinthians reminds us that any beauty and goodness in us is a gracious gift from God. That gift strengthens us beyond any human or personal capacity so that our lives may give God glory.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We prayerfully relax in the Potter’s hands Who shapes our lives according to Mercy. We realize with Paul that, even in affliction, we give glory to God by our fidelity and trust.

Poetry: Within this earthen vessel – Kabir, (1398–1518) a well-known Indian mystic poet and saint.

Within this earthen vessel are bowers and groves,
and within it is the Creator:
Within this vessel are the seven oceans
and the unnumbered stars.
The touchstone and the jewel-appraiser are within;
And within this vessel the Eternal soundeth,
and the spring wells up.
Kabir says: “Listen to me, my Friend!
My beloved Lord is within.”

Music: Earthen Vessels – John Foley, SJ

Seraphim

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, joy, Praise, spirituality1 Comment

Saturday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 13, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071324.cfm

I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne,
with the train of his garment filling the temple.
Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings:
with two they veiled their faces,
with two they veiled their feet,
and with two they hovered aloft.

They cried one to the other,
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!
All the earth is filled with his glory!”
Isaiah 6:1-3

There are times in life when we are graced to see through appearances to find the Holy – maybe the gaze of a newborn, the kindness of a stranger, the moment someone dies, the deep aloneness of nature.

Isaiah experiences such a moment in this reading – and it was supercharged! The trappings of earth fell away as Isaiah stood praying in the Temple. He saw the Seraphim singing praise to the Holiest of Beings. In that astounding light, Isaiah found a new self, one drenched in the Divine Presence and Will. It was in this moment that Isaiah truly became a prophet!

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We ask that our hearts be opened to the very real Presence of God in our ordinary lives. Let us trust that angels accompany us even though we do not see them. Let us listen to their song in those rare moments when we can almost touch the Holy under the surface of our lives.

Poem: I Saw the Seraphim – Robert Wagner

I saw the Seraphim one summer’s night
Reaping it seemed a field of endless wheat.
I heard their voices through the fading light
Wild, strange and yet intolerably sweet.
The hour such beauty first was born on earth
A dawn of sifting had that day begun
For some would not endure love’s second birth
Preferring their own darkness to that sun.
And still love’s sun must rise upon our night
For nothing can be hidden from its heat
And in that summer evening’s fading light
I saw his angels gather in the wheat.
Like beaten gold their beauty smote the air
And tongues of flame were streaming in their hair.

Music: I Saw the Seraphim – the poem set to music by JAC Reford