Category: Jesus

It’s That Simple

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, repentance, spirituality3 Comments

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
October 29, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102923.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings instruct us on how to love God. Now maybe you think you don’t need any help on that topic, and maybe you’re right. But — just maybeeeeee – you and I are a little bit like the folks in our passage from Exodus who sometimes forgot that the way to love God is to love neighbor.

“You shall not molest or oppress an alien,
for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. 
You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. 
If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me,
I will surely hear their cry. 

Exodus 22;21-22

It seems that these Exodus folks suffer from spiritual obtusity. They are a little forgetful of who they really are. They forget their roots – that they were once aliens themselves. They forget that widows and orphans matter as much as they do. They forget that their neighbor needs a cloak (or a home) to be able to sleep at night.

So God tells them, “Hey, I love these people you have conveniently “forgotten”. So don’t pretend you love me if you don’t love them.” It’s that simple.

In our Gospel, Jesus basically says the same thing. When the brilliant Pharisee tries to trap Jesus in an obtuse intellectual argument, Jesus disarms him with a clear and simple response:

Jesus said to him,
“You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your soul,
and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22:37-40

The whole enterprise of the spiritual life is to actualize Jesus’s response in one’s life. In the process of doing that by our response to God’s grace, we might sometimes get caught in spiritual forgetfulness, intellectual excuses, or the blare of a dissonant culture.

In our second reading, Paul commends the Thessalonians for having done well in this spiritual endeavor. They did it by replacing what was idolatrous in their lives with the living and true God:

You turned to God from idols
to serve the living and true God
and to await his Son from heaven,
whom he raised from the dead,
Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath.

1 Thessalonians 1:9-10

I don’t like to think of myself as particularly idolatrous, but I do have little false gods pop up in my life at times. They tend to wear the deceptive costumes of the seven deadly sins convincing me that I have a right, or at least an excuse, to ignore my neighbor for the sake of my egotism, possessiveness, or spiritual laziness.

May today’s readings wake us up to anything we need to hear within them so that we may freely sing with today’s psalmist:

I love you, my true God, my strength,
my neighbor God, present in my life,
my balance, safety, comforter.
My God, my dear steady God,
my protection, well of my salvation,
my trustworthy Friend!
I praise You because, with You,
I am safe from any false god
and anointed by your grace
for the journey.

Psalm 18: my prayerful adaptation

Poetry: You, Neighbor God – Rainer Maria Rilkë

You, neighbor god, if sometimes in the night
I rouse you with loud knocking, I do so
only because I seldom hear you breathe
and know: you are alone.
And should you need a drink, no one is there
to reach it to you, groping in the dark.
Always I hearken. Give but a small sign.
I am quite near.
Between us there is but a narrow wall,
and by sheer chance; for it would take
merely a call from your lips or from mine
to break it down,
and that without a sound.
The wall is builded of your images.
They stand before you hiding you like names.
And when the light within me blazes high
that in my inmost soul I know you by,
the radiance is squandered on their frames.
And then my senses, which too soon grow lame,
exiled from you, must go their homeless ways.

Music: Overcome – Psalm 18 – James Block

This song renders the Psalm in a beautiful melody. The Psalm, however, retains the militant images so prevalent in the culture of ancient Israel (and sadly in our own). Our task, as we listen and pray these Psalms, is to hear those images as metaphors for our own spiritual challenges and blessings, rather than as an approbation of war and domination.

Obedient Heart

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

Wednesday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
October 25, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102523.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Paul and Jesus both instruct and challenge their listeners and us.

Rm6_17 obedient heart

… thanks be to God that, although you were once slaves of sin,
you have become obedient from the heart
to the pattern of teaching to which you were entrusted.
Freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.

Romans 6:17

Paul wants us to understand that, through our Baptism, we are living in a whole new power for goodness and grace. The world may look the same as it did before we belonged to Christ, but it isn’t. 

To use a phrase from the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins,

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

If we see with the new eyes of grace, we will be able to respond to Jesus’s challenge:

Stay awake!
For you do not know when the Son of Man will come.

Matthew 24:42

Stay awake. See the world and your life as they truly are  – places where God awaits you in every moment. Incline your heart to listen lovingly to the sound of the Holy Spirit in your life. That obedient heart is precious to God!

Poetry: Immersion – Denise Levertov

There is anger abroad in the world, a numb thunder,
because of God’s silence. But how naïve,
to keep wanting words we could speak ourselves,
English, Urdu, Tagalog, the French of Tours, the French of Haiti…
Yes, that was one way omnipotence chose
to address us—Hebrew, Aramaic, or whatever the patriarchs
chose in their turn to call what they heard. Moses
demanded the word, spoken and written. But perfect freedom
assured other ways of speech. God is surely
patiently trying to immerse us in a different language,
events of grace, horrifying scrolls of history
and the unearned retrieval of blessings lost for ever,
the poor grass returning after drought, timid, persistent.
God’s abstention is only from human dialects. The holy voice
utters its woe and glory in myriad musics, in signs and portents.
Our own words are for us to speak, a way to ask and to answer.

Music:  Speak, O Lord – Kristyn Getty

Be Brave!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Hope, Jesus, spirituality7 Comments

Tuesday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
October 24, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Paul contrasts the sin of “Adam” with the gift of Jesus, demonstrating the specifics of Christ’s redemptive act.

Adam

A key phrase for our prayer might be the following. The concupiscence of human nature will always make the sinful choice a possibility. But we can gain courage and strength from this powerful line from Paul:

Where sin increased,
grace overflowed all the more….

Romans 5:15

In our Gospel, Jesus teaches a lesson about perseverance in the spiritual life. He says if we stick with it, God will welcome us the way a generous master thanks and embraces a loyal servant. He adds a comforting thought for those of us of “a certain age”.

And should he come in the second or third watch
and find them prepared in this way,
blessed are those servants.

Luke 12:38

Speaking personally now, I find that moving into “the second or third watch” can be a little scary. As various physical functions occasionally fail me, and some of my joints are replaced with earth minerals, a line from Yeats’s poem comes to mind – “things fall apart“:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...

As I look through my reading glasses at the information for my new titanium knee, I remember the young athlete who could drive a basketball down the lane for an explosive layup, often being knocked on her nethers by a powerful opponent. Nevertheless, she would jump up for the next rebound. What happened to that girl?

This Gospel reminds me that she is still inside me, but she is golden now — lifting her spirit, by God’s grace, to deeper challenge.

 I am beginning to understand that aging is its own life phase, not just a final comfortable fixity in one’s maturing. Just as every other life phase requires a gradual mastery of its challenges, so does aging. Toddlers must conquer balance and language skills. Teens must gain confidence and self-direction. Young adults work for greater wisdom and meaningful life relationships. Those “post-50” evaluate and may be challenged by the “successes” of their past years. And those in the sometimes not-so-really golden years are still doing all these earlier tasks while meeting the unique challenges of aging. One must be brave!

I hope some of you are Harry Potter fans. The books have powerful little encouragements tucked in their magical dialogue. One of my favorites is this. Harry, encouraging his elderly and fearful teacher to make a courageous choice, says, “Be brave, Professor… Otherwise, the bowl will remain empty… forever.”

The bowl of our life is never filled until it’s filled. Jesus reminds us that none of us knows when that day of fulfillment will come and we must be vigilant for it until it does.

Blessed are those servants
whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.
Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself,
have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them.

Luke 12:37

We draw courage for that vigilance not from Harry Potter of course, but from Christ’s own promise to us that there is a special blessing especially for us 2nd or 3rd watchers:

And should he come in the second or third watch
and find them prepared in this way,
blessed are those servants.

Luke 12:38

I believe that if we prayerfully listen, we will find that this blessing already suggests itself this side of Christ’s final arrival. As Paul indicates in our first reading, when we remain open to graceful relationship with God, we already live in the peaceable kingdom.

… how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace
and the gift of justification
come to reign in life through the one Jesus Christ…

Romans 5:17

Poetry: Sailing to Byzantium – William Butler Yeats

I

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

II

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III

O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Music: Candlelight – Ottmar Liebert

Liebert is a German classical guitarist, songwriter and producer best known for his Spanish-influenced music. A five-time Grammy Award nominee, he is also an ordained Zen monk.

Trusting the Promise

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

Monday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
October 23, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102323.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Paul counsels us to be steadfast in our faith. Jesus counsels us to avoid greed. How might the two be connected?

Perhaps like this. Only by faith do we have the courage to repudiate the allurements of greed.

Paul lauds Abraham whose faith convinced him that God’s promise to him would be fulfilled. Jesus promises us eternal life in a realm apart from any earthly treasure. If we believe in Jesus’s promise, we realize the futility of possessiveness, greed and consumerism.

Abraham did not doubt God’s promise in unbelief;
rather, he was empowered by faith and gave glory to God
and was fully convinced that what God had promised
he was also able to do.
That is why it was credited to him as righteousness.

Romans 4:20-22

That’s a really hard call in our society which makes it hard to believe in anything including God and ourselves! Every type of media conspires to convince us that we are not enough as we are. We need a better car, house, clothes, haircut, and on and on to make us “acceptable”. Populism and racism ingrained in our politics convince us that we need to be a certain color, nationality, religion, speak a certain language to be worth anything.

Mt5_3 poor

Jesus says NO. You are beautiful just as I created you. And you already have everything you need to merit my promise of eternal life. You have only one need in this world — to love yourself and one another so that my promise can be released in you and in all Creation.

Then Jesus said to the crowd,
“Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

Luke 12:15

Poetry: from Rumi

When I am with you, everything is prayer.
I prayed for change,
so, I changed my mind.

I prayed for guidance
and learned to trust myself.

I prayed for happiness
and realized I am not my ego.

I prayed for peace
and learned to accept others unconditionally.

I prayed for abundance
and realized my doubt kept it out.

I prayed for wealth
and realized it is my health.

I prayed for a miracle
and realized I am the miracle.

I prayed for a soul mate
and realized I am with the One.

I prayed for love
and realized it is always knocking,
but I have to allow it in.

Music: How Could Anyone Ever Tell You – Shaina Noll

Leaven!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Faith, Jesus, Poetry, spirituality1 Comment

Friday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
October 20, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102023.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we have a Gospel passage which is both scary and beautiful!

I tell you, my friends,
do not be afraid of those who kill the body
but after that can do no more.
I shall show you whom to fear.
Be afraid of the one who after killing
has the power to cast into Gehenna;
yes, I tell you, be afraid of that one.
Are not five sparrows sold for two small coins?
Yet not one of them has escaped the notice of God.
Even the hairs of your head have all been counted.
Do not be afraid.
You are worth more than many sparrows.

Luke 12:4-7

Jesus, with radical clarity, tells us that God is both a relentless judge and a tender parent. Who God is toward us depends on our choices in life, because our choices either open or close us to know God.

Jesus says that we will be condemned if we choose to live a hypocritical life like the Pharisees.

There are many images of “Gehenna”, both within and outside of the Gospel. For some of us, that condemnation is represented in hellfire, brimstone, devils, and pitchforks.

But today’s Gospel might incline us to consider that the condemnation is more a personal choice for spiritual alienation from God – in other words, sin. By that choice, we isolate ourselves from God’s tenderness choosing instead selfishness, prevarication, and hard-heartedness. We become less than we were created to be, and that in itself is a tragic self-condemnation.

Jesus says that when that kind of choosing becomes a habitual part of our lives, it is like leaven that permeates our very personhood. It changes us from God’s child to our own biggest fan. Like the Pharisees, we live a lie of who we pretend to be. And, especially from a position of power, we can infect others with our deception. They become “leavenized”: they “drink the kool-aid”.

Ironically, at the end of this tirade, Jesus gives us two of the tenderest images of God: God the Hairdresser and God the Bird Lover. Praying with these images, I remember my mother tenderly fingering my hair as I sat beside her in the evening. I picture my father spreading birdseed on the frozen patio when the winter juncos struggled to find food.

In our prayer today, Jesus invites us to encounter God with this kind of tender familiarity.

Poetry: The Creation of the Birds – Renee Yann, RSM

O, the wonderful mood that seized You
God, as you created birds;
you dancing there, twirling in light,
flinging your crystal arms to infinite music,
flicking your hands like magic fountains,
feathers and colors splashing out from your fingertips,
chattering, rainbowed profusions
of your Boundless Life.
Your depthless, joy-filled soul laughing out
the soaring beings into the still universe,
peals of you infusing them each
to their measure with notes of your inner song.
O, I see your Holy Eyes flash color to them
as they fly, strobing their feathers
with shards of your prismed white light.
This morning, seeing only one,
free and jubilant in a thin sycamore,
I consume it as
part of your Delightful Essence,
this day’s communion with you, grey
and orange wafer filling me with mysteries
of the primal dance from which
we both began.

Music: His Eye Is On the Sparrow

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