Category: holiness

Consecrate

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, Holy Spirit, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Wednesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
May 15, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051524.cfm

And now I commend you to God
and to that gracious word of his that can build you up
and give you the inheritance among all who are consecrated.
Acts 20:32

Consecrate them in the truth.
Your word is truth.
As you sent me into the world,
so I sent them into the world.
And I consecrate myself for them,
so that they also may be consecrated in truth.
John 17: 17-19

Both our readings today describe the act of consecration. In Acts, Paul blesses the presbyters in Ephesus, anointing them for Gospel ministry. In John 17, Jesus prays to the Father for his disciples – that they may be blessed and confirmed in the Word which is Truth.

At some point in our lives, each one of us has been consecrated in that same Truth. We may have been baptized, confirmed, blessed, ordained, and professed. Through those consecrations, the Holy Spirit has been breathed into our hearts to form us in Truth which is God’s Word.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s gratefully remember the fullness of our consecration. By the grace of God, we embody the Divine Power of truth, love, and mercy. How often do we remember to call on this Power when life threatens to overwhelm or confuse us?

Poetry: A Blessing for Wedding – Jane Hirshfield
While Hirshfield’s poem is directed toward the marriage vow, it is clearly applicable to all consecrations in which God is the sacred partner.

Today when persimmons ripen
Today when fox-kits come out of their den into snow
Today when the spotted egg releases its wren song
Today when the maple sets down its red leaves
Today when windows keep their promise to open
Today when fire keeps its promise to warm
Today when someone you love has died
or someone you never met has died
Today when someone you love has been born
or someone you will not meet has been born
Today when rain leaps to the waiting of roots in their dryness
Today when starlight bends to the roofs of the hungry and tired
Today when someone sits long inside his last sorrow
Today when someone steps into the heat of her first embrace
Today, let this light bless you
With these friends let it bless you
With snow-scent and lavender bless you
Let the vow of this day keep itself wildly and wholly
Spoken and silent, surprise you inside your ears
Sleeping and waking, unfold itself inside your eyes
Let its fierceness and tenderness hold you
Let its vastness be undisguised in all your days

Music: Sanctus – Jessye Norman

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus
Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
Pleni sunt cæli et terra gloria tua.
Hosanna in excelsis.
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
Hosanna in excelsis.

Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God of hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord:
Hosanna in the highest.

Advocate

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, Holy Spirit, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Catherine of Siena,
Virgin and Doctor of the Church
April 29, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042924.cfm

Whoever loves me will keep my word,
and my Father will love them,
and we will come to them and make our dwelling with them…

I have told you this while I am with you.
The Advocate, the Holy Spirit
whom the Father will send in my name —
will teach you everything
and remind you of all that I told you.

Through the gift of Baptism, the power of the Holy Spirit pours into our hearts — a Waterfall of Grace to nourish us throughout our lives. This is the promise Jesus gives in today’s reading.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We pray to recognize and open ourselves fully to the Spirit Creator’s desire to be in our hearts.

Prayer: The Holy Spirit Prayer of Catherine of Siena

Holy Spirit, come into my heart;
draw it to You by Your power, O my God,
and grant me charity with devoted awe of You.
Preserve me, O beautiful love, from every evil thought;
warm me, inflame me with Your dear love,
and every pain will seem light to me.
My Father, my sweet Lord, help me in all my actions.
Jesus, love, Jesus, love. Amen.

Music: Ablaze – Ken Walther (Lyrics below)
Inspired by the wisdom of St. Catherine of Siena, Ben Walther composed an upbeat song to encourage today’s generation to set the world on fire with God’s love.

[Verse 1]
By His grace, we are conceived
To be mercy, to be peace
To be light amidst the darkness
In His image, we are made
To be brilliant, to be great
To present the world His likeness

[Chorus]
Let’s set the world on fire
Let’s raise His banner higher
Let’s set a broken world ablaze, oh
Let’s hear a generation
Proclaiming His salvation
With every breath and endless praise
And set the world ablaze

[Verse 2]
All aflame but not consumed
We are burning with the truth
For His presence makes us holy
Fanning flicker into flame
Till His love is what remains
For to Him belongs all glory

[Chorus]
Let’s set the world on fire
Let’s raise His banner higher
Let’s set a broken world ablaze, oh
Let’s hear a generation
Proclaiming His salvation
With every breath and endless praise
And set the world ablaze
Set the world ablaze
Set the world ablaze
Let’s set the world on fire
Let’s raise His banner higher
Let’s set a broken world ablaze, oh
Let’s hear a generation
Proclaiming His salvation
With every breath and endless praise
And set the world ablaze
Set the world ablaze

Deed

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

Fifth Sunday of Easter
April 28, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042824.cfm

Children, let us love not in word or speech
but in deed and truth.
Now this is how we shall know that we belong to the truth
and reassure our hearts before him
in whatever our hearts condemn,
for God is greater than our hearts and knows everything.
Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us,
we have confidence in God
and receive from him whatever we ask,
because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.

1 John 3:18-22

John makes it so clear and simple, doesn’t he? It’s what we do that matters, not what we say. Jesus said the same thing once when he pointed out a tree to his disciples and said, “By their fruits, you will know them..”

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s take a good look at our lives, and the lives of those we allow to influence us. Are we like trees bearing good fruit – good deeds of charity, peace, forgiveness, mercy, honesty, respect, encouragement, hope, and fidelity?

If our deeds reflect the opposite of these virtues, John says they condemn us. He calls us to Gospel faithfulness in what we do as well as what we say.

Poetry:

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a weary world.

William Shakespeare

Music: Good Tree – Hillbilly Thomists (I thought these guys were fascinating! See more about them on their website: https://www.hillbillythomists.com/about)

You can’t gather grapes from a bramble bush
Or pick a fig from thorns
What I’d like to be
Oh, to be a good tree

Some fall in the rocks, on the beaten path
Some sink into great soil
From a tiny seed
Oh, to a good tree

Like a cedar high
And mustard wide
Where all the birds of the air can hide
Find rest inside

Oh, a good tree
The beetle bites
The black rot strikes
From the inside
Have your enemies

Oh, if you’re a good tree
High and dry
Some branches die
From time to time
A prune’s required
If you wanna be
Oh, a good tree

Even when I’m old
I still will be
Still full of sap, still green
That’s what I want to be
Oh, to be a good tree

By Your word
The dark is light
The tree of death becomes the tree of life
So let it be
Oh, to be a good tree
Oh, to be a good tree
Oh, to be a good tree
Oh, to be a good tree
Oh, to be a good tree

Show

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, holiness, Jesus, spirituality1 Comment

Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter
April 27, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042724.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“If you know me, then you will also know my Father.
From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip said to Jesus,
“Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time
and you still do not know me, Philip?
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

Philip is like a lot of us. He is more comfortable with knowledge than with faith. He wants to be shown the Father, the way we might ask to be shown the facts, the details, the plan for something. But faith can’t be boiled down to facts and blueprints. Faith can’t be described or detailed in a presentation or an image.

Jesus challenges Philip to give himself fully to relationship with Jesus. In that shared love, wisdom, trust, and acceptance, Philip already knows the Father. Jesus is the human revelation of the Infinite Love, Wisdom, and Goodness of the Trinity.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We pray for the spiritual freedom to release our hearts from any doubt or reservation in our faith. We ask for the grace to trust the Presence of God in our lives and to respond in love to that ineffable Loving Presence.

Prayer: from Julian of Norwich

God, of thy goodness, give me Thyself;
for Thou art enough for me,
and I can ask for nothing less
that can be full honor to Thee.
And if I ask anything that is less,
ever Shall I be in want,
for only in Thee have I all.

Music: Expecting Miracles – Velma Frye and Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB

Midnight moon, let your soft light fall gently,
Gently upon all that has grown dim in our lives.
Midnight moon, pour yourself into places
Where we are weary,
Midnight moon, refresh our bodies
And our hearts.
Let us watch throughout the long night as ones,
As ones expecting miracles.

Morning sun, let your soft light fall gently,
Gently upon all that has grown dim in our lives.
Morning sun, pour yourself into places
Where we are weary,
Morning sun, refresh our bodies and our hearts.
Let us step into this new day as ones,
As ones expecting miracles.

May we live this day
With the presence of disciples of joy!

Heir

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

Solemnity of Saint Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary
March 19, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031924.cfm

The LORD spoke to Nathan and said:
“Go, tell my servant David,
‘When your time comes and you rest with your ancestors,
I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins,
and I will make his kingdom firm.
It is he who shall build a house for my name.
And I will make his royal throne firm forever.
I will be a father to him,
and he shall be a son to me.
Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me;
your throne shall stand firm forever.’”

2 Samuel 7: 2-5;12-14;16

Today’s genealogies establish Jesus as the Messianic Heir promised to the House of David. Joseph is the link in that promise.

We have so little factual knowledge of Joseph, yet so much prayerful devotion to him. Gospel tidbits from Matthew and Luke help us imagine a holy and tender man who loved Christ into his divinely missioned adulthood. We imagine Joseph’s simple and faithful life as the carpenter-provider for the Holy Family, and his peaceful death in the embrace of Mary and Jesus.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Wherever we are in our own lives, Joseph’s life can bring us inspiration and strength. Asking his guidance, we pray today for:

  • those making major life decisions
  • engaged couples learning to love and support one another
  • parents as they work to raise their children well
  • refugee parents protecting their families
  • workers struggling daily to provide for their families
  • the men in our lives who have nurtured, loved, and taught us
  • religious women and men in communities devoted to St. Joseph
  • those who are dying that they may have comfort and peace

Poetry: Prayer to St. Joseph – Cameron Belle

St. Joseph, patron saint of the unexpected,
How freely you stepped into the unknown
With your unwavering yes.

St. Joseph, dreamer of dreams,
How attuned your heart was, waking or sleeping,
To the promptings of angels.

St. Joseph, nurturing father,
How openly you accepted your unconventional family,
Lighting the way for us, too, to embrace all.

St. Joseph, there is still so much we don’t know about you,
But maybe that is your gift to us,
That we may see in the father of Jesus a mystery
That sanctifies the hidden and untold in our own lives.
May we, too, live our days in the holy shadow of your son.

Music: Joseph’s Song – Michael Card

Piety

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness, holiness, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Saturday of the Third Week of Lent
March 9, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030924.cfm

Your piety is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that early passes away.

Hosea 6:4

_______

… the tax collector stood off at a distance
and would not even raise his eyes to heaven
but beat his breast and prayed,
‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former;
for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Luke 18: 13-14

I think the word “Piety” has taken on a rather saccharine connotation because we mistake it for an overly sentimental, and sometimes insincere, devotion. However, the word piety comes from the Latin word pietas, the noun form of the adjective pius (which means “devout” or “dutiful”).

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Picture Michelangelo’s Pieta. Let yourself feel the emotion captured in the heart of that sculpture. That is pietas/piety – a deep, penetrating presence and love that cannot fully be put into words. A humble, sincere prayer like that of the tax collector is the fruit of such piety.

Most of us are not great sinners. We just make some mean – and perhaps continual – choices that can block the flow of grace into our hearts. God stands beside us as we make such choices, ready to hear us when we turn and ask for the Mercy that will free and deepen us.

Prose: from Point Counterpoint by Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including novels and non-fiction works, essays, narratives, and poems.
By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times.

From the quote below, Huxley obviously had strong opinions about religion but especially about false piety. Although Jesus would never have put it this way, the sentiments echo those in today’s readings.

“In the abstract you know that music exists and is beautiful. But don’t therefore pretend, when you hear Mozart, to go into raptures which you don’t feel. If you do, you become one of those idiotic music-snobs … unable to distinguish Bach from Wagner, but mooing with ecstasy as soon as the fiddles strike up. 

It’s exactly the same with God. The world’s full of ridiculous God-snobs. People who aren’t really alive, who’ve never done any vital act, who aren’t in any living relation with anything; people who haven’t the slightest personal or practical knowledge of what God is. But they moo away in churches, they coo over their prayers, they pervert and destroy their whole dismal existences by acting in accordance with the will of an arbitrarily imagined abstraction which they choose to call God. 

Just a pack of God-snobs. They’re as grotesque and contemptible as the music-snobs … but nobody has the sense to say so. The God-snobs are admired for being so good and pious and Christian. When they’re merely dead and ought to be having their bottoms kicked and their noses tweaked to make them sit up and come to life.” 

Holy

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, holiness, Lent, Praise, spiritualityLeave a comment

Monday of the First Week of Lent
February 19, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021924.cfm

The LORD said to Moses,
“Speak to the whole assembly of the children of Israel and tell them:
Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.

Leviticus 19:1

How do we become more like our loving, merciful God? How do we become holy? Today’s reading offers us a series of “shall nots” and “shalls” to guide us: (Click on the picture if you want to see it bigger.)

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy

Let’s hold our lives in prayer beside these images.

  • Are there “nots” we wish to eradicate?
  • Are there imperatives we wish to live by?

Poetry: I Too Am Alone in the World – from “The Book of Hours” by Rainer Maria Rilkē

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough
to make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action,
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that took me safely
through the wildest storm of all.

Music: Holy God, We Praise Thy Name – Ignaz Franz

Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” (original German: “Großer Gott, wir loben dich”) is a Christian hymn, a paraphrase of the Te Deum. The German Catholic priest Ignaz Franz wrote the original German lyrics in 1771 as a paraphrase of the Te Deum, a Christian hymn in Latin from the 4th century.

Presence

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, holiness, Holy Spirit, spirituality4 Comments

Memorial of Saint Agatha, Virgin and Martyr
Monday of the Fifth week in Ordinary Time
February 5, 2024

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, both our readings lead us to pray with the mystery of God’s Presence.

In the passage from Kings, Solomon has completed his most memorable task – the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. Today’s verses describe the transfer of the Ark of the Covenant from its holding place to its permanent home in the Temple.

Upon the completion of that festive transfer, the Divine Presence is manifested by a cloud which fills the Holy of Holies.

When the priests left the holy place,
the cloud filled the temple of the LORD
so that the priests could no longer minister because of the cloud,
since the LORD’s glory had filled the temple of the LORD.
Then Solomon said, “The LORD intends to dwell in the dark cloud;
I have truly built you a princely house,
a dwelling where you may abide forever.”

1 Kings 8:10-11

In Mark’s Gospel today, the townspeople of Gennesaret become aware that Jesus is present in their vicinity. They have heard about his miracles. As Mark puts it, they scurry to gather all their needy friends and relatives into Christ’s healing Presence.

After making the crossing to the other side of the sea,
Jesus and his disciples came to land at Gennesaret
and tied up there.
As they were leaving the boat, people immediately recognized him.
They scurried about the surrounding country
and began to bring in the sick on mats
to wherever they heard he was.
Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered,
they laid the sick in the marketplaces
and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak;
and as many as touched it were healed.

Mark 6:53-56

As we pray these passages, we might long for the tactile presence of God in the cloudiness of our own lives. Sometimes God seems far away, hidden somewhere beyond the stars – disconnected from the flesh-and-bone challenges of our existence.

But as we pray today we might remind ourselves that we are a Temple. God dwells in us as truly as God dwelt in the Holy of Holies. Any felt distance is not on God’s part, it is on ours and our restrained and anxious faith.

May these readings inspire us to be as sincere in our prayer as were the Gennesarenes – to scurry to the hem of Christ’s garment, to grasp its tassel in the fullness of faith, hope, and love.

Thought:

‘The mystery of God hugs you
in its all-encompassing arms.”-

Hildegard von Bingin

Music: Invocation: Hildegard von Bingen ~ Written by Emma Bergen, sung by Anonymous 4

Traditionally the Hebrew term Shekinah שכינה means ‘dwelling’, as a way of describing the Presence of the Divine. As the term is feminine, it also has come to be used to describe the feminine aspect of the divinity: the Divine Feminine.

Emma Bergen writes: “I came to learn about the Shekinah while I was writing about the Gnostic Sophia, and was inspired to write my ‘Invocation’ as a way, both of expressing what such a contact means to me personally, and to reach out in the spirit (and within myself) to what has been described as ‘the feminine face of God’. Oppression has many faces, some serious, and others so subtle that they might remain unnoticed by others. I invite you to join me in this invocation, written for all women everywhere, in whatever circumstances they might find themselves.”

(To see the words more clearly in the video, click on the little white square in the lower right-hand corner of the YouTube screen.)

Noble Soul

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Faith, Forgiveness, holiness, spirituality1 Comment

Friday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
January 19, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011924.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, David spares Saul’s life even though Saul is in murderous pursuit of him. (Here is a video for kids featuring the moment. But I thought it was pretty cool. Maybe you will too.)

Is David noble or naïve? Is he magnanimous or stupid? As I pray this morning, I ask myself what it is that God might be saying to me through this passage.

Two things rise up:

  1. Above all else, David is motivated by a deep respect for God’s Will and Presence in his life.

David said to his men,
“The LORD forbid that I should do such a thing to my master,
the LORD’s anointed, as to lay a hand on him,
for he is the LORD’s anointed.”

1 Samuel 24:7

    2.  David engages Saul directly and respectfully in the hope of reaching a resolution of    their issues.

When David finished saying these things to Saul, Saul answered,
“Is that your voice, my son David?”
And Saul wept aloud.

1 Samuel 24:17

Reverence and honesty rooted in sincere love and respect for one another! What a world we would live in if each of us practiced these things unfailingly!

In our Gospel, Jesus calls his disciples to live in the world in just such a way – to bring healing and wholeness in the Name of Christ, for the sake of Love.

Our Alleluia Verse today captures the essence of Christ’s call to them —- and to us:

God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ,
and entrusting to us the message of that reconciliation.

2 Corinthians 5:19

Poetry: Noble Deeds – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Whene'er a noble deed is wrought,
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise. 

The tidal wave of deeper souls
    Into our inmost being rolls,
        And lifts us unawares
        Out of all meaner cares.

    Honor to those whose words or deeds
    Thus help us in our daily needs,
        And by their overflow
        Raise us from what is low!

Music: To Fill the World with Love sung by Richard Harris
(Lyrics below, but you will no doubt recall them from the fabulous film “Goodbye Mr. Chips”.)

In the morning of my life I shall look to the sunrise.
At a moment in my life when the world is new.
And the blessing I shall ask is that God will grant me,
To be brave and strong and true,
And to fill the world with love my whole life through.

And to fill the world with love
And to fill the world with love
And to fill the world with love my whole life through

In the noontime of my life I shall look to the sunshine,
At a moment in my life when the sky is blue.
And the blessing I shall ask shall remain unchanging.
To be brave and strong and true,
And to fill the world with love my whole life through

In the evening of my life I shall look to the sunset,
At a moment in my life when the night is due.
And the question I shall ask only You can answer.
Was I brave and strong and true?
Did I fill the world with love my whole life through?

Beyond Fear

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Creation, Faith, holiness, spirituality3 Comments

Memorial of Saint Martin of Tours, Bishop
November 11, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111123.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, there is a graceful coincidence of several themes calling me to prayer. I share them with you:

  • On November 11th, Sisters of Mercy throughout the world commemorate the death of our beloved founder Catherine McAuley.
  • This year that commemoration falls on the feast of the beautiful St. Martin of Tours.
  • Our readings for the day prompt us to consider our beloved companions on our spiritual journey who provide a harbor of blessings in a fearsome world.

Not just today, but often, I think about what Catherine would be like if she lived among us today. In her day, she was ever practical, focusing on healing the greatest unmet needs around her.

Her “un-technologized” world was smaller than ours. She encountered need simply by a walk through Dublin’s neighborhoods. Were she here today, need would pour into her awareness from every corner of the earth via technological means. How would she focus the power of her merciful heart for our times?

Our readings prompt me to think that Catherine would do the same three things she did almost two hundred years ago:

  • She would gather her companions on the journey
  • Together, they would empty their spirits of anything that was not of God
  • In that profound spiritual clarity, they would see where God called them to be Mercy for the world.

In our first reading, Paul names a number of his companions, those who strengthened and assisted him in life and ministry. Catherine too had beloved companions without whom she could not have met the challenges of her call.

In our Gospel, Jesus affirms that our hearts must be emptied of the undue love of anything that distracts us from God and God’s Way:

No servant can serve two masters.
He will either hate one and love the other,
or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon.”
The Pharisees, who loved money,
heard all these things and sneered at him.And he said to them,
“You justify yourselves in the sight of others,
but God knows your hearts;
for what is of human esteem is an abomination in the sight of God.”

Luke 16: 12-15

While in her times, Catherine encountered the ravages of material poverty, I think that something much less tangible, but exponentially more destructive, would capture her ministerial awareness today.

Our world suffers from an intrinsic and debilitating fear which inclines us to amass power and possessions to the impoverishment of those around us. The fear of not being or having enough drives the systemic predation of the rich upon the poor, and the powerful over the weak. It is a fear that grows in a heart emptied of God.

While Catherine would continue to address the needs of those suffering from poverty and disenfranchisement, I think she would reach out in a new way to the healing of those underlying fears. These fears fester in a culture of spiritual ignorance endemic to our modern society. The naming and healing of that ignorance is deeply congruous with Catherine’s charism and calls to us urgently today.

About St. Martin de Porres, Pope John XXIII said this:

“He loved his neighbors with the benevolence
of the heroes of the Christian faith.”

So did Catherine McAuley. So must we.

Poetry: Where the Mind is Without Fear – Rabindranath Tagore

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let us awake.

Music: There is No Fear in Love – The Bible Project