Category: Jesus

The Key of Knowledge

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

Memorial of Saints John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues
Thursday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
October 19, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101923.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, “the Law” plays a central role in our readings.

At their best, laws are those commonly agreed-upon markers that guide the human community on its shared journey. Ideally conceived in the context of justice, every law will lead to a balance of well-being for all concerned.

It is in the human administration of law that we meet challenges. Such administration rests in the hands of “superiors” who are, like all of us, subject to prejudice, ignorance, domination, and arrogance. These individuals can regress to an interpretation of law that benefits only themselves and those they favor.

In our Gospel, Jesus vociferously condemns this corruption of the Law by the very people who have been entrusted with its integrity:

Woe to you, scholars of the law!
You have taken away the key of knowledge.
You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter.

Luke 11:52

What is that “key of knowledge” Jesus refers to? I think it is this: that the Law is only peripheral. While it must be respected, it must also be transcended so that we live beyond it and into the Spirit Who generates it.

In our first reading, Paul makes an astounding statement that surely knocked the pharisaical legalists on their pins! Paul says that God’s righteousness is not found in the Law but solely in faith in Jesus Christ.

Now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law,
though testified to by the law and the prophets,
the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ
for all who believe.

Romans 3:21-22

This passage in Romans is critical to the Christian understanding of “righteousness”. No one can achieve righteousness apart from the grace of God which is given to us solely as gift and not reward for our actions. But it is also essential that a person create an inner receptivity to grace, a receptivity achieved through the personal exercise of faith, hope, and love – that is, by the works of mercy.

Since the early 16th century, various Christian denominations have been trying to split the hair of this argument which is dubbed “Sola Fide (faith alone)”. The argument asks, “Are we made right with God by faith alone, or by faith demonstrated in good works?”.

Paul and Jesus addressed the question fifteen hundred years before anybody even thought up the Sola Fide conundrum. They did so in direct and simple language so that their listeners could learn and feel confident in their faith life.

The debate around “sola fide” can devolve into theological hair-splitting, an exercise that seems almost like an intellectual game. Contrary to hair-splitting, our faith life is fostered by a theology deeply rooted in spirituality and evidenced in reverent, grateful, and charitable living. Laws can help us with that pursuit but they can’t accomplish it. Only an active, loving faith, responsive to God’s grace, can unlock that door.

Prose: Excerpt from Lumen Fidei (The Light of Faith), the first encyclical of Pope Francis (June 29, 2013)

(This passage and the encyclical as a whole are so beautiful that I hope you will take time to savor the words, even in small doses. I broke it up into small sections because that’s the way I best prayed with it.)

Since faith is a light, it draws us into itself, 
inviting us to explore ever more fully 
the horizon which it illumines, 
all the better to know the object of our love. 

Christian theology is born of this desire. 
Clearly, theology is impossible without faith; 
it is part of the very process of faith, 
which seeks an ever deeper understanding 
of God’s self-disclosure culminating in Christ. 

It follows that theology is more 
than simply an effort of human reason 
to analyze and understand, 
along the lines of the experimental sciences. 
God cannot be reduced to an object. 
He is a subject who makes himself known 
and perceived in an interpersonal relationship. 

Right faith orients reason to open itself 
to the light which comes from God, 
so that reason, guided by love of the truth, 
can come to a deeper knowledge of God. 

The great medieval theologians and teachers 
rightly held that theology, as a science of faith, 
is a participation in God’s own knowledge of himself. 
It is not just our discourse about God, 
but first and foremost the acceptance and the pursuit 
of a deeper understanding 
of the word which God speaks to us, 
the word which God speaks about himself, 
for he is an eternal dialogue of communion, 
and he allows us to enter into this dialogue. 

Theology thus demands the humility 
to be "touched" by God, 
admitting its own limitations before the mystery, 
while striving to investigate, 
with the discipline proper to reason, 
the inexhaustible riches of this mystery.

Music: Spirit Seeking Light and Beauty – Janet Erskine Stuart, RSCJ

Be Like Luke!

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

Feast of Saint Luke, evangelist
October 18, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101823.cfm

“The Tradition of the Orthodox Church says that
Luke was a painter who created icons of Mary.
Historian Theodorus Lector mentions St Luke drawing the Virgin;
Saint Andrew of Crete wrote about St Luke depicting both Mary and Christ;
Saint Simeon the Metaphrast, historian and the author of many biographies of saints,
mentioned one icon of the Virgin Mary holding Christ.
He said that it was painted by St Luke and is “honored even to this day.”
(from the Convent of St. Elizabeth website: https://obitel-minsk.org/history)

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with St. Luke, the elegant author who has painted a tender picture of God on human hearts. That picture has the beautiful face of Jesus Christ, Incarnate Mercy for all people.

God is portrayed throughout the Old and New Testaments as a warrior or a stern judge, but Luke, through his parables, presents God as a loving, anxious father who forgives his erring son before the boy can ask to be forgiven and lavishes love on him.

Joseph Blenkinsopp: Luke’s Jesus

Today’s first reading gives us some insight into Luke’s character and personal committment to the spread of the Gospel:

Beloved:
Demas, enamored of the present world,
deserted me and went to Thessalonica,
Crescens to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia.
Luke is the only one with me.

2 Timothy 4:10

Apparently Luke, unlike Demas, was not “enamored of the present world”. Wow! What a packed description that is! Paul is obviously disappointed. It would appear that Demas, Crescens, and Titus decided to opt out of their contracts. Only Luke hung on with a rather gloomy-sounding Paul who is pining for his cloak and papyrus rolls.

I would imagine Paul was not an easy boss to work for. He was a firebrand – both when he fought against the Gospel and when he fought for it. No doubt he demanded the same intensity from those who directly assisted him. And the work itself was daunting. Luke recounts in the Acts of the Apostles the many trials that had to be met before any small success.

Some of the apostolic candidates just didn’t vibe with all of that. But Luke could work with Paul’s fire. And he could uncover the glorious story within the many challenging folds they navigated. What a blessing he must have been to the wildly dynamic and sometimes mercurial Paul!

Luke had incorporated into his own life Jesus’s ministerial call so clearly described in today’s Gospel:

Go on your way;
behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.
Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals;
and greet no one along the way.
Into whatever house you enter,
first say, ‘Peace to this household.’
If a peaceful person lives there,
your peace will rest on him;
but if not, it will return to you.

Luke 10:3-6

Like Paul, Luke never met Jesus in person. Both were born shortly after Jesus’s time on earth. But the two of them knew Christ intimately and carried that inspirited knowledge to their own world and to the ages.

Our picture of Jesus would be a lot blurrier without Luke. Nearly half of Luke’s content is not found in the other three Gospels.

Many stories, sayings, and images found only in Luke have become an indispensable part of Christian consciousness. The Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Pharisee and the Publican, the encounter with the Risen One on the Road to Emmaus, the Magnificat, the angel’s song Peace on Earth are only in Luke, but it is difficult to imagine the Christian tradition without them.

Eugene Boring: Introduction to the New Testament: History, Literature, Theology

Perhaps you have a favorite among the exclusive stories cited above. This feast of St. Luke may be a good day to remember why that story is important to you and to thank Luke for its gift.

Poetry: Luke – Malcolm Guite

His gospel is itself a living creature
A ground and glory round the throne of God,
Where earth and heaven breathe through human nature
And One upon the throne sees it is good.
Luke is the living pillar of our healing,
A lowly ox, the servant of the four,
We turn his page to find his face revealing
The wonder, and the welcome of the poor.
He breathes good news to all who bear a burden
Good news to all who turn and try again,
The meek rejoice and prodigals find pardon,
A lost thief reaches paradise through pain
The voiceless find their voice in every word
And, with Our Lady, magnify Our Lord.

Music: Luke’s Gospel contains four special canticles connected to the Birth of Jesus:

  • The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-56)
  • The Benedictus (Luke 1: 67-79)
  • The Gloria in Excelsis (Luke 2:13-14)
  • The Nunc Dimittis ( Luke 2:29-32)

The Lie and The Truth

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Creation, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality, Truth1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr
Tuesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
October 17, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101723.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, both Paul and Jesus speak forcefully against an endemic human fault: dishonesty.

Paul castigates “those who suppress the truth by their wickedness”:

The wrath of God is indeed being revealed from heaven
against every impiety and wickedness
of those who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
For what can be known about God is evident to them,
because God made it evident to them.
Ever since the creation of the world,
his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity
have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.

Romans 1:18-20

These “truth suppressors” are guilty for one reason – they know better! God’s Truth is evident to them in Creation yet they deny and pervert it for the sake of their own selfish ends.

As a result, they have no excuse;
for although they knew God
they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks.
Instead, they became vain in their reasoning,
and their senseless minds were darkened.
While claiming to be wise, they became fools
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God
for the likeness of an image of mortal man
or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes.

Romans 1:20-23

Jesus defines this untruth more clearly. He says that it presents itself in pretense – the external dissimulation which masquerades narcissistic motivations:

The Pharisee (who had invited Jesus to dinner) was amazed to see
that Jesus did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal.
The Lord said to him, “Oh you Pharisees!
Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish,
inside you are filled with plunder and evil.
You fools!
Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside?
But as to what is within, give alms,
and behold, everything will be clean for you.”

Luke 11:38-41

Jesus indicates that charity is the perfect “cleanser” for dirty cup interiors (and dingy moral codes). Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? Well, maybe not so easy but certainly clear and simple.

Charity is rooted in the interior recognition that we are all children of our Creator and that we have a responsibility for one another’s welfare. Acting on that recognition is “almsgiving” which comes from the same Greek root, “eleemosyne“, as the word mercy.

Our world, like Paul’s, is challenged by the suppression of truth. Much of our visible culture is based on lies and pretense. Political hoodwinking, media non-objectivity, economic duplicity, and exploitive advertising conspire to convince us that:

  • we ourselves never are or have enough
  • anyone not “like us” is a threat to our insufficiency
  • foreigners are dangerous
  • power grants sovereignty
  • the poor are solely responsible for their poverty.

Jesus and Paul tell us that we must resist such lies, purify our hearts of their influence, and live a Gospel life of truth, charity, and mercy.

Prose: from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

I found this definition of almsgiving very thought-provoking because it indicates that “almsgiving or “mercy” is more than an act or actions. It is an attitude and lifestyle, a lens through which we consider all things in the light of the Gospel for the sake of the poor:

Any material favor done to assist the needy, and prompted by charity, is almsgiving. It is evident, then, that almsgiving implies much more than the transmission of some temporal commodity to the indigent. According to the creed of political economy, every material deed wrought by humans to benefit the needy is almsgiving. According to the creed of Christianity, almsgiving implies a material service rendered to the poor for Christ’s sake. Materially, there is scarcely any difference between these two views; formally, they are essentially different. This is why the inspired writer says: “Blessed is the one that considers the needy and the poor” (Psalm 40:2) — not the one that gives to the needy and the poor.

Music: The Prisoners’ Chorus – from Beethoven’s only opera Fidelio

Fidelio is inspired by a true story from the French Revolution. It centers on a woman, Leonore, whose husband Florestan has been unjustly imprisoned by his political rival – the villainous Don Pizarro. In the magnificent “Prisoners’ Chorus”, the prisoners sing powerfully about the gift and need for freedom.

Oh what joy, in the open air
Freely to breathe again!
Up here alone is life!
The dungeon is a grave.

FIRST PRISONER
We shall with all our faith
Trust in the help of God!
Hope whispers softly in my ears!
We shall be free, we shall find peace.

ALL THE OTHERS
Oh Heaven! Salvation! Happiness!
Oh Freedom! Will you be given us?

The Obedience of Faith

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

Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
October 16, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101623.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we begin about a month of readings from Paul’s letter to the Romans. We will also continue with Luke’s Gospel all the way up to Advent.

In my 2019 reflections on these passages, to help me understand Romans, I used a book by Scott W. Hahn, Father Michael Scanlan Chair of Biblical Theology at Steubenville University. I decided to return to that opening reflection as we meet Romans again today.

In his introduction, Hahn says this:

Hahn_Romans

Today’s reading offered me these elements to ponder and pray with:

  • Paul calls himself a “slave” of Jesus Christ
  • He invokes his call as an Apostle
  • He sets himself in the company of the prophets
  • He appeals to Jews who revere David
  • but proclaims Christ, through his Resurrection, as Messiah beyond human lineage
  • He proclaims his mission to the Gentiles
  • to bring about “the obedience of faith”

I’ll be honest with you. I’ve read or heard this passage maybe fifty times in my lifetime, and it has meant little or nothing to me. At best, it has sounded like a formal introduction such as those we hear from government “whereas” type decrees.

But I took Dr. Hahn’s advice, studying the passage, and reading it slowly and prayerfully. Here’s what I received:

  • Paul’s Apostolic call, to which he willingly enslaved his heart, was to preach the Good News of our redemption in Jesus Christ – to preach it to Jews, Romans, Gentiles, and all people.
  • It is an awesome and incredible message that can be received only through the gift of faith.
  • It is a message rooted in the scripture stories we love, and where we look to find a reflection of our own stories.
  • Learning from these realities will help us come to a faith which expresses itself in action and gives glory to God in our own time.

Luke gives us one such story today. Jesus reminds the crowd of two familiar passages – that of Jonah and the “Queen of the South” (the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings 10). He indicates that the people in these stories believed without a sign.

Jesus tells the people gathered around him  to learn from this. The crowd demands a sign, but Jesus says the sign is right in front of you – it is only your open heart that is lacking.

In his introduction, Paul prays for such open hearts in the Romans:

Rm1_grace_peace

Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.

By that same grace, may we receive faith’s blessing as well.

Poetry: Love Constraining to Obedience – William Cowper (1731-1800)
Cowper’s poem captures the interior transformation that occurs when our obedience is motivated by love rather than simply by duty.

No strength of nature can suffice 
To serve the Lord aright:
And what she has she misapplies, 
For want of clearer light.

How long beneath the Law I lay 
In bondage and distress;
I toiled the precept to obey, 
But toiled without success.

Then, to abstain from outward sin 
Was more than I could do;
Now, if I feel its power within, 
I feel I hate it too.

Then all my servile works were done 
A righteousness to raise;
Now, freely chosen in the Son, 
I freely choose His ways.

‘What shall I do,’ was then the word, 
‘That I may worthier grow?’
‘What shall I render to the Lord?’ 
Is my inquiry now.

To see the law by Christ fulfilled 
And hear His pardoning voice,
Changes a slave into a child, 
And duty into choice.

Music: Grace and Peace – Fernando Ortega

Valley of Decision

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, repentance, spirituality1 Comment

Saturday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
October 14, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Joel launches into a cautionary poem replete with metaphors. His images are so effective that, even 3000 years later, many will be very familiar to us from the liturgy and even from modern culture.

Some of my readers may be of an age to remember the wonderful film “The Valley of Decision” starring two of the all-time greats, Greer Garson and Gregory Peck. The film’s title is plucked right out of Joel.

Apply the sickle,
for the harvest is ripe;
Come and tread,
for the wine press is full;
The vats overflow,
for great is their malice.
Crowd upon crowd
in the valley of decision;
For near is the day of the LORD
in the valley of decision.
Sun and moon are darkened,
and the stars withhold their brightness.
The LORD roars from Zion,
and from Jerusalem raises his voice;
The heavens and the earth quake,
but the LORD is a refuge to his people,
a stronghold to the children of Israel.

By using metaphors, the poet-prophet accomplishes an extensive lesson that, delivered in prose, would have exhausted his beleaguered audience.

Metaphors have a way
of holding the most truth
in the least space.

Orson Scott Card

Like all prophets, Joel employs current events to point to a deeper understanding. Many of the metaphors he uses throughout his prophecy have been employed in the liturgy, particularly during Lent. Joel’s message is a universal call to repentance germane to every generation, but particularly to that liturgical season.

Yet even now,’ declares the Lord,
‘return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and rend your hearts and not your garments.

Joel 2: 12-13

In our Gospel. the core of Joel’s message is given direct and fuller voice in Jesus’ statement:

Blessed are those
who hear the Word of God
and observe it.

Luke 11:28

In our own lives – our own “valleys of decision”, this is the foolproof way we prepare for the Day of the Lord – hearing and observing the Word of God.

Music: Valley of Decision – Christafari

(When I read about Christafari, I am reminded that we can never underestimate or judge the many ways that people come to Christ.)

Christafari was founded in 1989 by Pastor Mark Mohr. Raised in a Christian family, during his teens Mohr strayed from his spiritual upbringing and turned to drugs and alcohol, going as far as growing and even dealing marijuana. After running away from home, living on the streets, and hitting rock-bottom, he had an undeniable encounter with God that drastically transformed his world. At 17, Mark re-committed his life to Christ and took what he now calls his “Freedom Step” out of addiction.

Christafari is comprised of men and women from various continents, countries, and cultures who are true missionaries at heart and share a love for reggae music and passion for following Jesus to the ends of the earth.

Run come and fall
People take heed to His call
Valley of decision
(Valley of decision)
This is no game
People have to die in His name
Valley of decision
(Valley of decision)
Darkness, it looms all around us
I find it hard to see
But I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know
Whether I should stay or whether I should flee
People all around me seem, they seem to be so sad
I hear them cry, I hear them ball
I see them back against the wall
I wish I could wipe away their tears
There’s a Holy
A Holy hill
Holy mount Zion
Holy, Holy mount Zion
Just know that He’s the Lord, Your God, yeah
In this valley of decision
Valley of decision
Even though I run through enough hills and valleys
I fear no evil, ’cause God is with me
Even though I run through enough hills and valleys
Thy rod and staff, they will comfort me
Even though I run through enough hills and valleys
I fear no evil, ’cause God is with me
Even though I run through enough hills and valleys
Thy rod and staff, they will comfort me
Run come and fall
People take heed to His call
Valley of decision
(Valley of decision)
This is no game
People have to die in His name
Valley of decision
(Valley of decision)
There’s a Holy
A Holy hill
Holy mount Zion
Holy, Holy mount Zion
Just know that He’s the Lord, Your God, yeah
In this valley of decision
Valley of decision
Even though I run through enough hills and valleys
I fear no evil, ’cause God is with me
Even though I run through enough hills and valleys
Thy rod and staff, they will comfort me
Even though I run through enough hills and valleys
I fear no evil, ’cause God is with me
Even though I run through enough hills and valleys
Thy rod and staff, they will comfort me
Jah great and dreadful day will soon come
Jah will pour out His mighty, mighty, mighty Spirit to all mankind
Through Him all creation, all creation was made
Those who call upon His name
(Call on His name and You will be saved)
There’s a Holy
A Holy hill
Holy mount Zion
Holy, Holy mount Zion
Just know that He’s the Lord, Your God, yeah
In this valley of decision
Valley of decision
Run come and fall
People take heed to His call
Valley of decision
(Valley of decision)
This is no game
People have to die in His name
Valley of decision
(Valley of decision)
Even though I run through enough hills and valleys
I fear no evil, ’cause God is with me
Even though I run through enough hills and valleys
Thy rod and staff, they will comfort me
Even though I run through enough hills and valleys
I fear no evil, ’cause God is with me
Even though I run through enough hills and valleys
Thy rod and staff, they will comfort me
Even though I run through enough hills and valleys
I fear no evil, ’cause God is with me
Even though I run through enough hills and valleys
Thy rod and staff, they will comfort me

Neighbor

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Faith, friendship, Gospel, inclusivity, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
October 9, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/100923.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, get ready for a three-day cruise with Jonah and a radical journey down the Jericho road with the Good Samaritan.

The message of Jonah is clear: all people, even hated Ninevites, are children of God’s Mercy. Resisting that understanding can be catastrophic to our spiritual life.

Patricia Tull, Rhodes Professor Emerita of Old Testament at Louisville Seminary, summarizes the Book of Jonah like this:

A postexilic book, Jonah’s story is atypical for prophetic works. Not only is it a narrative about the prophet rather than his speeches, but it also rebuffs Jonah for his refusal to preach to foreign enemies. Jonah’s story portrays foreigners as more than ready to repent and turn to God. The book uses humor, hyperbole, and irony to make its parabolic point.

Our Gospel gives us one of the most beloved yet challenging parables of Jesus – who is our “neighbor”. The infinite dimensions within this parable continue to unfold for us as we deepen in our mercy spirituality.

God does not see anyone as a “foreigner”. Every human being lives with the breath of God. We are “neighbors” because we share that breath, that “neighborhood” of God’s boundless Love.

But, oh my God, how we have forgotten or rejected that common bond of reverence for one another! Just yesterday, one of our sisters brought up the subject of a recent hit-and-run accident in Philadelphia. It now seems to be the common practice to leave the scene of such an occurrence, abandoning the victim to his fatal circumstance. She wondered, incredulously, how anyone could be that callous.

Our Gospel parable describes that callousness. Notice that both the priest and the Levite pass the victim by “on the opposite side“. The phrase implies that if I can build a wall to make you invisible to me, I can more easily ignore your claim on my merciful neighborliness.

The Samaritan lived without those walls. He did not see a Jew, or a foreigner, or an expendable “other”. He saw a human being, like himself – a neighbor who was struggling to live.

The Good Samaritan (1880) by Aimé Morot

Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan is a clear example of the call of the Gospel to neighborliness. In the story, such a call is an inconvenient truth because it summons outside the comfortable community to find the neighbor among the not-well-regarded “others.” 

Walter Brueggemann, Health Progress, January – February 2010

We don’t want to be like resistant Jonah, nor like the prejudicially blinded priest and Levite of our parable. But it is hard. The world conspires to separate us into the haves and the have-nots, the deserving and the undeserving, the winners and the losers, the sinners and the saints. Mercy not only resists but dismantles such walls. Do we have the courage to examine our own prejudices and to step across from “the opposite side” for the sake of our neighbor?

Poem: Neighbor – Iain Crichton Smith

Build me a bridge over the stream
to my neighbour’s house
where he is standing in dungarees
in the fresh morning.
O ring of snowdrops
spread wherever you want
and you also blackbird
sing across the fences.
My neighbor, if the rain falls on you,
let it fall on me also
from the same black cloud
that does not recognize gates.

Music: JJ Heller – Neighbor

Sometimes it's easier to jump to conclusions
Than walk across the street
It's like I'd rather fill the blanks with illusions
Than take the time to see
You are tryna close the back door of your car
You are balancing the groceries and a baby in your arms
You are more than just a sign in your front yard
You are my neighbor
I can get so lost in the mission
Of defending what I think
I've been surfing on a sea of opinions
But just behind the screen
You are grateful that the work day's finally done
You are stuck in miles of traffic, looking at your phone
You are tryin' to feel a little less alone
You are my neighbor
When the chasm between us feels so wide
That it's hard to imagine the other side
But we don't have to see things eye to eye
For me to love you like you are my neighbor
My neighbor
Oh, to fear the unfamiliar
Is the easy way to go
But I believe we are connected more than we might ever know
There's a light that shines on both the rich and poor
Looks beyond where we came from and who we voted for
'Til I can't see a stranger anymore
I see my neighbor
May my heart be an open door to my neighbor
You are my neighbor

Living Gratitude

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Creation, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi
October 4, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/1004-memorial-francis-assisi.cfm

(I chose to offer a reflection on the readings for the Memorial of St. Francis rather than for Wednesday of the Twenty-sixth Week)

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) , one of the most revered figures in Christianity, an Italian mystic and Catholic friar who founded the Franciscans.

The simple holiness of St. Francis has had an immeasurable effect not only on Christianity but even on secular culture. No matter their religious interest, most people would recognize this humble, medieval itinerant preacher and understand the witness of his life.

from phillyvoice.com

Our current Holy Father, in a surprise move, chose St. Francis as his patron and model:

When the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio went over the 77 votes needed to become pope, he said that his friend Cardinal Hummes “hugged me, kissed me and said, ‘Don’t forget the poor.’”
At the time of his election, Pope Francis told thousands of journalists that he took to heart the words of his friend and chose to be called after St. Francis of Assisi, “the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation.”

In our readings today, both the Responsorial Psalm and the Gospel echo a spirituality deeply compatible with the Franciscan spirit.

Francis, who renounced his wealthy lifestyle and inheritance for the riches of Christ, surely found inspiration when he prayed Psalm 16:

You are my inheritance, O Lord.
Keep me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
I say to the LORD, “My Lord are you.”
O LORD, my allotted portion and my cup,
you it is who hold fast my lot.

I bless the LORD who counsels me;
even in the night my heart exhorts me.
I set the LORD ever before me;
with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.

You will show me the path to life,
fullness of joys in your presence,
the delights at your right hand forever.

Most of us reading this reflection have so much in life. We are blessed beyond description with everything we need and even want. Praying in the spirit of St. Francis can help us discern how to honor and use what we have in a way that pleases God.

Keep a clear eye toward life’s end. Do not forget your purpose and destiny as God’s creature. What you are in God’s sight is what you are and nothing more. Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take nothing that you have received…but only what you have given; a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice, and courage.

Francis of Assisi

Poetry: ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI – A SERMON TO THE BIRDS
Francis made his deep spirituality and radical teaching easily accessible with unpretentious parables like this one. He imitated Jesus himself who taught us how to live by telling simple stories in which we could find ourselves. So let’s learn from this one, my little “birds”. 

My little sisters the birds,
Ye owe much to God, your Creator,
And ye ought to sing his praise at all times and in all places, 
Because he has given you liberty to fly about into all places; 
And though ye neither spin nor sew,
He has given you a twofold and a threefold clothing
For yourselves and for your offspring.
Two of all your species He sent into the Ark with Noah
That you might not be lost to the world;
Besides which, He feeds you, though ye neither sow nor reap.
He has given you fountains and rivers to quench your thirst, 
Mountains and valleys in which to take refuge,
And trees in which to build your nests;
So that your Creator loves you much,
Having thus favored you with such bounties.
Beware, my little sisters, of the sin of ingratitude, 
And study always to give praise to God.” Amen

Music: St. Francis of Assisi by Mendoza Musicals

Toward Jerusalem

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

Tuesday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time
October 3, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/100323.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 87, a Song of Zion which imagines the future Jerusalem as the world’s center of worship.

The foundation upon the holy mountains
    the LORD loves:
The gates of Zion,
    more than any dwelling of Jacob.
Glorious things are said of you,
    O city of God!

Psalm 87: 1-3

For centuries, the Jews had been scattered through many alien countries. Some had lost their ties to their inherited faith. The psalm calls all people “home” to the worship of the one, true God.

Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives by Frederic Edwin Church

Jerusalem is a profoundly unifying symbol for Jews. That is why it is so important for Jesus to “go up to Jerusalem” in order to accomplish our redemption. As today’s Gospel tells us:

When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled,
he steadfastly turned his face to Jerusalem.

Luke 9:51

Praying with these passages may seem difficult for Christians if we have no emotional ties to the city of Jerusalem. But for us too, the concept of “Jerusalem” serves as a symbol of that stable and committed faith that allows us to live our lives in the pattern of Jesus.

We journey too, as Jesus did toward the fullness of life in God. Our journey takes singular steadfastness, just as his did, a commitment rooted in faith and grace.

Together in faith, we form a New Jerusalem, glorious in each one of us through our Baptism into Christ.

Poetry: A Sonnet – Malcolm Guite

Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,
The seething holy city of my heart,
The saviour comes. But will I welcome him?
Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;
They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing,
And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find
The challenge, the reversal he is bringing
Changes their tune. I know what lies behind
The surface flourish that so quickly fades;
Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,
The hardness of the heart, its barricades,
And at the core, the dreadful emptiness
Of a perverted temple. Jesus  come
Break my resistance and make me your home.

Music: Jerusalem, My Destiny – Rory Cooney

God’s Will?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Hope, Jesus, spirituality, suffering3 Comments

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
October 1, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/100123.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 25, set perfectly in the midst of a few readings that speak to us about, among other things , “the Father’s Will”.

I think there is no greater spiritual mystery than the meaning of  “God’s Will”, (and not wanting to show up Thomas Aquinas, I’ll resist explaining it here. 😂🧐)

But we’ve all heard attempts at explaining it, haven’t we, especially as it relates to suffering— as in:

  • everything that happens is God’s Will, so we must accept it
  • God wills our suffering to test us
  • if God wills that we suffer, He will give us the strength to endure it

I just don’t think so … not the God I love and Who loves me.

But these attempts to explain suffering are understandable because we want to rationalize the things we fear. Most of us, I think, struggle with the problem of evil and suffering in the world. We want to know what to do when, as Rabbi Kushner wrote, “… Bad Things Happen to Good People”.

Our first reading from Ezekiel shows us that even the ancient peoples met this struggle. The prophet seems to suggest that if you’re bad, you’ll suffer. If you repent, you won’t. Well, we all know that’s not quite the reality! But nice try, Ezekiel.

Our psalm gently leads to another way of facing suffering as the psalmist prays for wisdom, compassion and divine guidance. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus himself prayed like this as he confronted his impending suffering.

In our second reading, Paul places before us the example of Jesus who, in the face of suffering, was transformed by love:

Praying with these readings, each one of us must come to our own peace with the mystery of suffering. What we can be sure of is this: God’s Will is always for our wholeness and joy as so simply taught to us when we were little children:

God made me to know, love, and serve God, 
and to be happy with God in this world and forever.

Our Gospel tells us that such happiness comes through faith and loving service, through responding to “the Father’s Will”.  May we have the insight, the love, and the courage!

Poetry: Of Being by Denise Levertov 

I know this happiness is provisional:
the looming presences
— great suffering, great fear—
withdraw only into peripheral vision:
but ineluctable this shimmering of wind
in the blue leaves: this flood of stillness
widening the lake of sky:
this need to dance,
this need to kneel:
this mystery:

Music: To You, O Lord (Psalm 25) Graham Kendrick

Breathers of Hope

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality4 Comments

Monday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
September 25, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092523.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we begin three weeks of readings from some of the lesser known prophets and reformers in ancient Israel:

  • Ezra: instrumental in restoring the Jewish scriptures and religion to the people after the return from the Babylonian Captivity and is a highly respected figure in Judaism.
  • Nehemiah: his book describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period.
  • Haggai: a Hebrew prophet during the building of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and one of the twelve minor prophets in the Hebrew Bible. He is known for his prophecy in 520 BCE, commanding the Jews to rebuild the Temple
  • Zechariah: His greatest concern was with the building of the Second Temple
  • Baruch: the prophet Jeremiah’s scribe who is mentioned at Baruch 1:1. The book is a reflection of a late Jewish writer on the circumstances of Jewish exiles from Babylon
  • Malachi: Malachi describes a priesthood that is forgetful of its duties, a Temple that is underfunded because the people have lost interest in it, and a society in which Jewish men divorce their Jewish wives to marry out of the faith. (W. Gunther Plaut)
  • Joel: delivers a message of warning and repentance to the southern kingdom of Judah after the nation was divided.
  • Jonah: prophesied the destruction of Nineveh, but attempts to escape his divine mission.

Now some of my readers who are scripture geeks like me may have been interested in the above list. The rest of you skipped down to this paragraph to see if I had anything at all interesting to say about today’s readings. 😉

How about this? While Israel’s prophets and reformers speak to a certain time in history, their themes speak powerfully to our own times and culture as well:

Walter Brueggemann describes the prophets’ two primary themes:

  • First, they are very sure that political economic arrangements that contradict the purpose of God cannot be sustained.
  • Second, the prophets are voices of hope that affirm that God is a future-creating agent who keeps promises and who, against all odds, creates a new world reality that is distinct from present power arrangements.

Walter Brueggemann: From Judgment to Hope

The prophets remind us that, beyond any purely temporal interpretation of life, God is real and intimately involved in the unfolding of both our personal and global histories. When we pray with the prophets, we are strengthened in courage to engage our world, and to act in hope for the redemption of our culture.

In today’s reading, the reformer Ezra speaks a word of liberating alternative hope to a people who had been decimated by the Babylonian Captivity. Many of them thought they had lost their soul in Babylon. Ezra, by the power of God, breathes it back into them.

Therefore, whoever among you belongs to any part of his people,
let him go up, and may his God be with them!
Let everyone who has survived, in whatever place they may have dwelt,
be assisted by the people of that place
with silver, gold, goods, and cattle,
together with free-will offerings
for the house of God in Jerusalem

Ezra 1:3-4

As we consider our own times, our “breathers of hope” may come to mind: Pope Francis working to rebuild the Church, and Martin Luther King inspiring a vision of equity, respect and inclusion. We may think of voices like St. Oscar Romero, Venerable Catherine McAuley, Simone Weil, St. Edith Stein, Greta Thunberg, Servant of God Dorothy Day, or Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Each one has spoken selflessly for peace, mercy, justice, and wholeness in a fragmented, sinfully distracted society.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus, Divine Daystar of every prophet’s hope, calls each one of us to the work of hope-filled prophecy, and faith-filled listening:

Jesus said to the crowd:
“No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel
or sets it under a bed;
rather, he places it on a lampstand
so that those who enter may see the light.
For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible,
and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light.
Take care, then, how you hear.
To anyone who has, more will be given,
and from the one who has not,
even what he seems to have will be taken away.”

Matthew 5:1-6

Poetry: Advice to a Prophet – Richard Wilbur

When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city,
Mad-eyed from stating the obvious,
Not proclaiming our fall but begging us
In God’s name to have self-pity,
Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range,
The long numbers that rocket the mind;
Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind,
Unable to fear what is too strange.
Nor shall you scare us with talk of the death of the race.
How should we dream of this place without us?—
The sun mere fire, the leaves untroubled about us,
A stone look on the stone’s face?
Speak of the world’s own change. Though we cannot conceive
Of an undreamt thing, we know to our cost
How the dreamt cloud crumbles, the vines are blackened by frost,
How the view alters. We could believe,
If you told us so, that the white-tailed deer will slip
Into perfect shade, grown perfectly shy,
The lark avoid the reaches of our eye,
The jack-pine lose its knuckled grip
On the cold ledge, and every torrent burn
As Xanthus once, its gliding trout
Stunned in a twinkling. What should we be without
The dolphin’s arc, the dove’s return,
These things in which we have seen ourselves and spoken?
Ask us, prophet, how we shall call
Our natures forth when that live tongue is all
Dispelled, that glass obscured or broken
In which we have said the rose of our love and the clean
Horse of our courage, in which beheld
The singing locust of the soul unshelled,
And all we mean or wish to mean.
Ask us, ask us whether with the worldless rose
Our hearts shall fail us; come demanding
Whether there shall be lofty or long-standing
When the bronze annals of the oak tree close.

Music: Daystar – Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir (Lyrics below)

Lily of the Valley, let your sweet aroma fill my life
Rose of Sharon show me how to grow in beauty in God's sight
Fairest of ten thousand make me a reflection of your light
Daystar shine down on me let your love shine through me in the night

Lead me Lord, I'll follow. Anywhere you open up the door
Let your word speak to me, show me what I've never seen before
Lord I want to be your witness, you can take what's wrong and make it right
Daystar shine down on me, let your love shine through me in the night

Lord I've seen a world that's dying wounded by the master of deceit
Groping in the darkness, haunted by the years of past defeat
But when I see you standing near me shining with compassion in your eyes
I pray Jesus shine down on me let your love shine through me in the night

Lead me Lord, I'll follow anywhere you open up the door
Let your word speak to me, show me what I've never seen before
Lord I want to be your witness, you can take what's wrong and make it right
Daystar shine down on me, let your love shine through me in the night