Category: Jesus

Don’t Miss Sirach!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, ordinary time, Scripture, spirituality4 Comments

Memorial of St. Justin, Martyr
June 1, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/060123.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with one of our last few readings from the Book of Sirach. On Saturday, we will finish this book and, on Monday, move on to the Book of Tobit.

Both Sirach and Tobit are considered deuterocanonical (or “second list”) books of the Bible. That’s a really big word that makes you sound smart but its meaning is simple. The term refers to a group of writings composed sometime in the 300 years before the birth of Christ. The Catholic Church considers them part of the Old Testament. Most Protestant denominations do not.

Therefore, my readers who are not Catholic may be unfamiliar with these books. The Protestant Bible is composed of the protocanonical (or “first list”) of books, the earlier texts which comprised the Hebrew scriptures. Catholic translations of the Bible include both proto and deutero books.

So who cares, you might be saying. Well, I think it’s helpful to realize that the formulation of what comprises the Bible was a fluid process. Jews, Catholics and Protestants mean different things when they say “my Bible”. We share many of the same readings, but may never have heard some others. Sirach and Tobit are good examples of those sometimes missed readings.

And what a shame it would be to miss the wise and lyrical Sirach who was a real poet writing around 200 years before Jesus was born. His work was preserved, popular and shared. Many references in the New Testament indicate that Jesus and the disciples were familiar with Sirach’s work. That’s cool, don’t you think? I like to think of Jesus listening to sacred stories or reading books like Sirach before he went to bed at night.

And maybe Jesus, as we might this morning, walked along the beach or sat by a dawn-lit window praying with these beautiful words:

Now will I recall God’s works;
what I have seen, I will describe.
At God’s word were his works brought into being;
they do his will as he has ordained for them.
As the rising sun is clear to all,
so the glory of the LORD fills all his works;
Yet even God’s holy ones must fail
in recounting the wonders of the LORD,
Though God has given these, his hosts, the strength
to stand firm before his glory.

Sirach 2:15-17

Our Gospel may lead us to pray with Bartimeus, begging for the kind of sight Sirach describes – an inner sight that comes from allowing God to plumb our hearts:

He plumbs the depths and penetrates the heart;
their innermost being he understands.
The Most High possesses all knowledge,
and sees from of old the things that are to come:
He makes known the past and the future,
and reveals the deepest secrets.

Sirach 42:18-19

Poetry: how about if we just enjoy more of Sirach’s elegant poetry

How beautiful are all God's works!
even to the spark and fleeting vision!
The universe lives and abides forever;
to meet each need, each creature is preserved.
All of them differ, one from another,
yet none of them has God made in vain,
For each in turn, as it comes, is good;
can one ever see enough of their splendor?

Music: Across the Universe – John Lennon and the Beatles

This song reminds me that God’s Universe is everlasting. Nothing will change God’s Presence to us. The phrase “Jai Guru Deva” is a Sanskrit phrase which can be translated “Glory to the Shining Remover of Darkness”, reminding us of Bartimeus’s experience of being healed from his blindness.

Do You Love Me?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality3 Comments

Memorial of Saint Philip Neri, Priest
May 26, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052623.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we stand beside Peter as Jesus asks him the most important question of his life.

After Jesus had revealed himself to his disciples and eaten breakfast with them,
he said to Simon Peter,
“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”

John 21:15

What was Jesus really getting at? Here they all are enjoying a nice breakfast on the beach. Their hearts are overjoyed to be in the presence of their Eastered Lord. Life must have felt good that sunny, post-Resurrection morning. And probably all that Peter really wanted out of life was another piece of fired fish or toasted bread, and for their seashore picnic to linger into an eternal evening.

Then here comes Jesus with his cosmic questions! What does he mean, “Do I love him”! Of course, I love him! Haven’t I hung around for three years trying to make this thing work, climbing out of my several missteps to try to be everything he wanted and needed? Oh my goodness, where is he going to call me now with this confusing question: Do you love me?

Yes, Jesus knows that Peter loves him in Peter’s way. He trusts Peter’s affection, devotion, and utter commitment to him. But Jesus’s question is pulling Peter way beyond the salted scents of that Tiberias beach. He wants Peter to love him in God’s way!

Jesus is calling Peter to a timeless answer and a transcendent love. What he is asking Peter is this:

  • Will you leave the man who was “Simon, son of John” to become “Peter, the Rock on which I build my Church”.
  • Will you love me to the point of giving yourself completely so that I may continue to love through you?

Today, as we settle into the sandy dunes with Jesus and his BFFs, Jesus might glance at us as he passes his smoked fish our way. His beautiful eyes might hold a question for us as well as for Peter. Through each of us, Jesus wants to continue to love the world into wholeness. Let’s ask his help in learning how to do that.

Maxim: from St. John of the Cross, a 16th century mystic, who understood Jesus’s eternal question and answered it in this way:

In the evening of our lives we will be judged on love.
Let us therefore learn to love God as God wishes to be loved.

Music: Fill the World with Love – from “Goodbye, Mr. Chips”, music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse

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.

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 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 God can answer.
Was I brave and strong and true?
Did I fill the world with love my whole life through?

Did I fill the world with love?
Did I fill the world with love?
Did I fill the world with love
My whole life through?

Praying for Those We Love

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter
May 25, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/lecturas/052523.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Jesus prays for those he loves.

In our Gospel. we come to the last section of John 17, the High-Priestly Prayer of Jesus. In his prayer, Jesus prays for three things:

  • God’s glory,
  • the spiritual strength of his disciples
  • for us and all who will believe in him down through history

Today’s passage is the third part. It is about us, and the long line of believers preceding and following our lifetimes. Listen to how Jesus loves us all and begs the Creator to enfold us in the same Abundant Unity whch holds the Trinity together in Love :

(I pray) for those who will believe in me through their word,
so that they may all be one,
as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
that they also may be in us,
that the world may believe that you sent me.
And I have given them the glory you gave me,
so that they may be one, as we are one,
I in them and you in me,
that they may be brought to perfection as one,
that the world may know that you sent me,
and that you loved them even as you loved me.

John 17:20-23

This is such a powerful passage. It tells us that when we truly love one another, with a love like God’s, we generate the image of God for our own time. That image is realized among us in many ways: Church, family, community, friendship, sisterhood, brotherhood. These are the constructs through which the human community experiences, learns ,and practices the Love which is Christ’s Gift to us.

Walter Brueggemann desribes this kind of love as “neighborliness” – that discipline of heart, mind, and spirit through which we are so connected to God’s Abundance that we willingly pass it along to one another. in a sacred mutuality of being. Brueggemann writes extensively and inspiringly on the topic, but I found some of his thoughts outlined in this excellent paper that you might want to reflect on someday at your leisure:

https://learningcenter.montpellier-bs.com/doc_num.php?explnum_id=5010

In his prayer, Jesus is tapping into the Infinite Generosity we call God,
that Generosity Who has loved us so much that we came into being,
that Generosity Who continues to love us eternally 
into the abundance of life we call Heaven.

Being loved like this, can we be anything but generous in our love for others? It’s a good question to ask ourselves when we reflect on our day before we fall asleep each night.

Poetry: Neighbors by Rudyard Kipling – Kipling gives us an enjoyable interpretation of the Golden Rule to love our neighbors.

The man that is open of heart to his neighbor,
And stops to consider his likes and dislikes,
His blood shall be wholesome whatever his labor,
His luck shall be with him whatever he strikes.
The Splendor of Morning shall duly possess him,
That he may not be sad at the falling of eve.
And, when he has done with mere living, God bless him!
A many shall sigh, and one Woman shall grieve!
But he that is costive of soul toward his fellow,
Through the ways, and the works, and the woes of this life,
Him food shall not fatten, him drink shall not mellow;
And his innards shall brew him perpetual strife.
His eye shall be blind to God's Glory above him;
His ear shall be deaf to Earth's Laughter around;
His Friends and his Club and his Dog shall not love him;
And his Widow shall skip when he goes underground!

Music: Bring Him Home – original music by Claude-Michel Schönberg
Lyrics written by
Alain Boublil, Herbert Kretzmer

The sentiments of the beautiful song from Les Misérables are very similar in tone to the prayer that Jesus prays near the end of his life. Jesus wants his followers to live eternally. The singer seems to want the same thing.

Learning to Say Goodbye

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Faith, Hope, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

Wednesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
May 24, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Jesus and Paul continue to teach us how to say goodbye.

I think most big goodbyes are pretty hard. Even if we’re not completely in love with our situation, we might still be comfortable in it. We don’t want to make the effort to change or to disconnect from the dailyness to which we are accustomed.

And when we are in love with our situation – with the people and activities that give us life – then goodbyes can be brutal. These kinds of goodbyes are often unchosen, unwelcome, and disorienting.

We can all recall scores of goodbyes we have either chosen or been forced to say. Most of them, I think, are a mix of the two descriptions above – a little bit of sugar and a little bit of vinegar.

One of the many goodbyes I remember came after I had lived in and taught at a lovely parish for over a decade. Our convent was blessed with a wonderful community of sisters. We loved our generous pastors, our welcoming parishioners, and the engaging neighborhood around us. I loved my students and the work I did with them. I loved the sisters I lived with. We recognized our blessings and often quipped to one another that we were living in our “Golden Years”.

But after eleven years, I knew it was time for something different in my life, A call to a new ministry emerged in my heart and that was exciting. But the leave-taking still cut like a razor.

That story has repeated itself several times in my life with different settings and different casts of characters. And I know the same thing is true in each of your lives. When we pause to reflect on all those goodbyes, we may realize that each led to an unimagined hello – hellos that offered us new graces to deepen our lives.

In our readings today, Jesus and Paul stand on that fragile beam which leads from goodbye to hello. Their disciples stand there with them, so both Jesus and Paul make every effort to help them balance themselves to step into the future.

Paul does it like this:

Be vigilant and remember that for three years, night and day,
I unceasingly admonished each of you with tears.
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 20:31-32

Jesus does it with a prayer:

Holy Father, keep them in your name
that you have given me,
so that they may be one just as we are one.
When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me,
and I guarded them, and none of them was lost
except the son of destruction,
in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
But now I am coming to you.
I speak this in the world
so that they may share my joy completely.

John 17:11-13

Today, we may want to spend a little time with Jesus and Paul looking back over the long beam of our lives, thanking God for the graces that poured from our many goodbyes and hellos.

Poetry: In My Dreams – Stevie Smith

In my dreams I am always saying goodbye and riding away,
Whither and why I know not nor do I care.
And the parting is sweet and the parting over is sweeter,
And sweetest of all is the night and the rushing air.

In my dreams they are always waving their hands and saying goodbye,
And they give me the stirrup cup and I smile as I drink,
I am glad the journey is set, I am glad I am going,
I am glad, I am glad, that my friends don’t know what I think.

Music: Every Goodbye Is Hello – Andrew Lippi from the musical “John and Jen”

There’s a wonderful place
Just waiting for you
There are wonderful things
You’ll get to do
Out there, somewhere, the world
And all its wonders
One small step is all it takes to know
Every goodbye is hello
There’s a magical phrase

I’ll tell it to you
Always honor the old
But live for the new
Out there, somewhere

About to be discovered
Trust yourself and
each new day will show
How every goodbye is hello
I will always be near

To hear of all the things you’ll be
Everyone needs a home to return to
And you can turn to me
There’s a time in our

lives when we will know
(There’s a time in our
lives when we will know)
There’s a time to stay home
And a time to grow
Out there, somewhere, your life
And all its promise
Sometimes part of love is letting go
But every goodbye is

Welcome to the world
(Welcome to the world)
Hello

To Live in the Holy Spirit

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

Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter
May 22, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052223.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we begin a week of final and powerful readings which close both the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel of John. These readings proclaim the inherent centrality of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church and of every Chrisitan believer.

In Acts, Paul has traveled deeper into the heart of Asia Minor, where he meets “disciples” who have never even heard of the Holy Spirit. They have much to learn about the faith and how it will live in them now, after the conclusion of Christ’s life on earth.

“Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?”
They answered him,
“We have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”
He said, “How were you baptized?”
They replied, “With the baptism of John.”

Acts 19:2-3

The baptism of John was a sacred ritual of the Old Testament which prepared its recipients to open their hearts to a new understanding of God. That new understanding is manifested in the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus. It is then in Jesus’ Name, and in our communion with him, that we are able to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit, just as the disciples did on Pentecost.

So the process looks like this:

In Scripture: In our lives:
Baptism of Johnwe desire to believe and deepen our life in God
Incarnation of God in Christwe learn what God is like and how to love God through the life and teachings of Jesus
Manifestation of God on Pentecostwe are immersed in the Holy Spirit, God’s life living eternally within us

In our Gospel today, Jesus continues to lead his disciples to the awareness that he is returning to God and that the Spirit will come. They express their reliance on him, but he tells them that that is not enough. In his physical absence, that reliance will be sorely tested and they will retreat into their own fragile securities.

However, Jesus assures them that his transcendent relationship with the Creator in the Holy Spirit will sustain him. His disciples should find peace in that knowledge and the strength to overcome whatever has weakened and “scattered” them.

(the disciples said)
“Now we realize that you know everything
and that you do not need to have anyone question you.
Because of this we believe that you came from God.”
Jesus answered them, “Do you believe now?
Behold, the hour is coming and has arrived
when each of you will be scattered to his own home
and you will leave me alone.
But I am not alone, because the Father is with me.
I have told you this so that you might have peace in me.

John 16:30-33

As we read these profound and pivotal passages, we must remember that every word in Scripture also speaks to us. We too are approaching the great epiphany of Pentecost when our hearts are renewed in God’s incandescent Eternal Love. Filled with the peace Jesus offers in our Gospel, let us respond in synchonicity with our Alleluia Verse today:

Alleluia! Alleluia!
If then you were raised with Christ,
seek what is above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Colossians 3:1

Poetry: To Live with the Spirit of God – Jessica Powers

To live with the Spirit of God is to be a listener.
It is to keep the vigil of mystery,
earthless and still.
One leans to catch the stirring of the Spirit,
strange as the wind’s will.
The soul that walks where the wind of the Spirit blows
turns like a wandering weather-vane toward love.
It may lament like Job or Jeremiah,
echo the wounded hart, the mateless dove.
It may rejoice in spaciousness of meadow
that emulates the freedom of the sky.
Always it walks in waylessness, unknowing;
it has cast down forever from its hand
the compass of the whither and the why.
To live with the Spirit of God is to be a lover.
It is becoming love, and like to Him
toward Whom we strain with metaphors of creatures:
fire-sweep and water-rush and the wind’s whim.
The soul is all activity, all silence;
and though it surges Godward to its goal,
it holds, as moving earth holds sleeping noonday,
the peace that is the listening of the soul.

Music: Veni Sancte Spiritus – Mozart

Sacred Decade of Days

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Poetry, Prayer, spirituality1 Comment

Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter
May 19, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051923.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings suggest a slight tone of “the after-Ascension” blues.

It’s a bit like how we might feel on the day after Christmas. The big celebration has come and gone. The company has all gone home. Maybe we’re exhausted from the preparations and clean-ups. Maybe we had been so busy that we didn’t take enough time to think about the meaning of the Feast. Maybe we feel like we’ve been spun around in time’s tumbler and can’t believe it’s now the end of the year. It’s a “what do we do next?” time when we come out of a flurry and need to get our bearings.

Click the arrow to get the spun-around feeling!

And for the disciples, it’s a morning they wake up and realize that Jesus has really gone home. In an otherwise chilly room, they might linger in their cozy cots reflecting on his parting words:

Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn,
while the world rejoices;
you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.
When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived;
but when she has given birth to a child,
she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy
that a child has been born into the world.
So you also are now in anguish.
But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice,
and no one will take your joy away from you.

These very special days between the Ascension and Pentecost offer the perfect time to quiet our spirits and get our spiritual bearings. Unlike the video of the deer above, it is a time to stop the spin, to clear the inner space, to ready ourselves for the promised and longed-for Spirit.

It’s a time not to be afraid of the silence or the echoing space deep in our hearts which longs for the presence of God.

Even if we are still in the midst of our busy lives, we can make a choice to be on “inner retreat” – to limit useless noise, directionless activity, and mumifying distractions.

If we have forgotten how to sit quietly enough to hear the wind and the distant meadowlark, let’s try to remember. Let’s try to make an inner chamber for the whisper of God Who hums through these ten days until bursting forth in Pentecost.

This decade of hours is a very special time to pray.

Poetry: excerpt from Sara Teasdale’s poem “Silence” (I love her archaic British term “anhungered“)

We are anhungered after solitude,
Deep stillness pure of any speech or sound,
Soft quiet hovering over pools profound,
The silences that on the desert brood,
Above a windless hush of empty seas,
The broad unfurling banners of the dawn,
A faery forest where there sleeps a Faun;
Our souls are fain of solitudes like these.

and a second brief but powerful verse from Emily Dickinson:

Silence is all we dread.
There’s Ransom in a Voice –
But Silence is Infinity.
Himself have not a face.

Music: Achtsamkeit (German for “Mindfulness”) this is an hour’s worth of beautiful music. You can tap into various parts of the video to hear different pieces.

Amid Trumpet Blasts

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

The Ascension of the Lord
May 18, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051823-Ascension.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 47, one of seven enthronement psalms which celebrate a “coronation” of God.

All you peoples, clap your hands,
    shout to God with cries of gladness,
For the LORD, the Most High, the awesome,
    is the great king over all the earth.

Psalm 47: 1

Used for the feast of the Ascension, the point of the psalm is much more than an exercise of pageantry. It is an act of faith and reverence to God, the Loving Omnipotence who chose to redeem us by assuming our humanity.

It is a confirmation that we believers do see the Supreme Being in the human Jesus we have come to love. This is what Paul prays for the Ephesians in our second reading:

May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened,
that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call,
what are the riches of glory
in his inheritance among the holy ones,
and what is the surpassing greatness of his power
for us who believe,
in accord with the exercise of his great might,
which he worked in Christ,
raising him from the dead
and seating him at his right hand in the heavens,
far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion,
and every name that is named
not only in this age but also in the one to come.

Ephesians 1:18-21

The Great Commission, found in today’s Gospel, is the true gift of the Ascension.

Go into the whole world
and proclaim the gospel to every creature.

Mark 16: 15

Jesus tells us that his time on earth is complete. The lesson of Incarnational Love has been taught. We now are given the power to continue the message for all time. 

Jesus promises that our faith will:


–overcome evil
-create new possibilities to preach the Gospel
-show courage against antagonism
-resist suppression
-heal and strengthen others to believe

These signs will accompany those who believe:

-in my name they will drive out demons,
-they will speak new languages.
-They will pick up serpents with their hands,
-drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them.
–lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.

If we believe and open our hearts to this message, indeed, it is a day for trumpet blasts! Here are a few from one of my favorite triumphal pieces! If the Apostles had only had trumpets, they might have played something like this for the Lord as He ascended 🙂

Poetry: Ascension Sonnet – Malcolm Guite

We saw his light break through the cloud of glory
Whilst we were rooted still in time and place
As earth became a part of Heaven’s story
And heaven opened to his human face.

We saw him go and yet we were not parted
He took us with him to the heart of things
The heart that broke for all the broken-hearted
Is whole and Heaven-centred now, and sings,

Sings in the strength that rises out of weakness,
Sings through the clouds that veil him from our sight,
Whilst we our selves become his clouds of witness
And sing the waning darkness into light,

His light in us, and ours in him concealed,
Which all creation waits to see revealed.

Music: Psalm 47 – Rory Cooney

Faith and Truth

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

Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
May 17, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051723.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Paul is the headliner at the famed Areopagus in Athens.

The Areopagus is a prominent rock outcropping located northwest of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. The name Areopagus also referred, in classical times, to the Athenian governing council, because they convened in this location. It was the ancient version of a stadium, but one provided by nature rather than human hands.

Paul’s address, from Acts today, has been perfectly crafted for his audience who are Gentile intellectuals and philosophers. We are familiar, up until now, with Paul’s speeches to Jews whom he wishes to convert. In those circumstances, he drew on the Hebrew scriptures with which they are familiar. But for the Athenians, Paul uses their art, poetry and philosophy to lead them to the topic of Jesus as the one true God.

And things go well for Paul in his long and finely detailed oration. The thoughtful Athenians are listening, that is until they hit a snag:

(Paul proclaimed) God demands that all people everywhere repent
because he has established a day on which he will ‘judge the world
with justice’ through a man he has appointed,
and he has provided confirmation for all
by raising him from the dead.”

When they heard about resurrection of the dead,
some began to scoff, but others said,
“We should like to hear you on this some other time.”
And so Paul left them.

Acts 17:30-33

Jesus Christ, Risen from the dead is the touchstone of our Christian faith. It is the Sacred Reality that surpasses and changes every other reality we encounter.

Resurrection faith is not something we can study, analyze, or comprehand with simply the powers of our minds. That’s what the Athenians tried to do, but their analytical inclinations blocked them.

Resurrection faith is a Divine gift, given through the Spirit, to a heart opened in trust and readiness to God. It defies logic and philosophy because it is greater than they are. For one who has this kind of faith, explanations are not only unnecessary, they are restrictive and superfluous.

Jesus understood that to live with such faith is challenging. He suggests that the disciples cannot bear the weight of it without the indwelling companionship of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said to his disciples:
“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when the Spirit comes, the Spirit of truth,
you will be guided to all truth.

John 16:12-13

As people desiring to grow in faith, we can learn from the Athenians who walked away from the Grecian hillside. Is my capacity to believe limited by what my small human intellect can define? Or are my heart and mind given in trust to the infinite God Who loves me into the fullness of Truth.

Poetry: Tell All the Truth, but Tell It Slant – Emily Dickenson

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant –
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind –

Music: The Faith – Leonard Cohen

The sea so deep and blind
The sun, the wild regret
The club, the wheel, the mind,
O love, aren’t you tired yet?
The club, the wheel, the mind
O love, aren’t you tired yet?

The blood, the soil, the faith
These words you can’t forget
Your vow, your holy place
O love, aren’t you tired yet?
The blood, the soil, the faith
O love, aren’t you tired yet?

A cross on every hill
A star, a minaret
So many graves to fill
O love, aren’t you tired yet?
So many graves to fill
O love, aren’t you tired yet?

The sea so deep and blind
Where still the sun must set
And time itself unwind
O love, aren’t you tired yet?
And time itself unwind
O love, aren’t you tired yet?

The Letter

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Eastertide, Faith, Jesus, Love, Mercy, spirituality5 Comments

Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter
May 12, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051223.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Judas Barsabbas and Silas are chosen to deliver a letter from the Apostles to the Gentiles in Antioch. It’s a critical letter – containing the apostolic decision regarding how the Antiochan church must observe religious practice.

Have you ever waited for a “decision letter”, one for which you were not sure of the outcome? Maybe a college or job acceptance letter? A bid on a new house? Or maybe a contest you entered desperate to win?

I remember waiting for the letter announcing whether or not the Sisters of Mercy would accept me into their community. It was a nerve-wracking wait for many reasons. I really wanted to be a Sister of Mercy but, after the initial interview, I wasn’t sure I could fill the bill.

The ride to the interview had seemed so distant from where I lived – in many ways. I had never seen such beautiful houses as those in the neighborhood surrounding the Motherhouse. And the entrance to the convent itself was, and still is, breath-taking. My six-foot self felt extremely small.

Sister Mary Assisium, who interviewed my parents and me, was an icon of the pre-Vatican II religious. She was perfection in her beautiful habit, cultured speech, quiet gait, and ultra-serious tone of voice. Her eyes seemed like big lakes in a sacred monument.

She scared me to death! I was a lanky, loping, gum-chewing teenager who still dropped the “g”s on my “ing”s. As we drove home from the meeting, I was pretty sure there was no way these women were going to invite me to join them! I think my parents were pretty sure too.

That interview happened on April 7, 1963. On June 2nd, I came home from work at the neighborhood deli, carrying a pastrami sandwich, to find an unopened letter lying on our dining room credenza. About ten feet away, Mom sat in the kitchen staring back and forth from the letter to me. For a few minutes, I stared back and forth from the letter to Mom, then finally got the guts to open it. It was dated May 31, 1963, Feast of the Queenship of Mary. ( After 1969, that date became Feast of the Visitation)

It said this, but in a lot of different, more beautiful words:

But the letter also implied, although not stated, an understanding that reassured my doubts.

Judas Barsabbas and Silas carried the same kind of letter to the Chrisitan Gentiles in Antioch. “You’re in. Just as you are.” And our Gospel today, tells us why that is so – Love.

Love is the test which measures us for Christianity – not religious practice, rituals, or personaility traits. The apostolic decision-makers understood this and came to a conclusion based on Gospel love.

Jesus makes this clear in our reading today, and how blessed are we to receive his invitation:

This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I no longer call you slaves,
because a slave does not know what his master is doing.
I have called you friends,
because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,
so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
This I command you: love one another.

Poetry: Acceptance – Robert Frost

When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be.'

Music: The Letter – by the Boxtops: Well, the Sisters of Mercy didn’t exactly say they “couldn’t live without me no more”. But that’s the way I read it! 🙂

Find the Light Within the Question

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

Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter
May 6, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050623.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings present us with two strikingly different forms of resistance to God’s Word.

In our first reading, we see that the community in Pisidian Antioch has responded positively to Paul’s inaugural preaching. He has returned, by invitation, for a second Sabbath to share the Good News. But the reaction is not so smooth this second time.

In a pattern very similar to what Jesus experienced when he preached in his home town synagogue, Paul meets initial approbation, cynicism, rejection and expulsion. And, like Jesus, he turns on his heel, leaving his rejectors tangled in their own faithless criticisms.

The resistance we see here is active. It is a choice not to believe.

On the following sabbath
almost the whole city
gathered to hear the word of the Lord. 
When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy
and with violent abuse contradicted what Paul said. 
Both Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said,
“It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first,
but since you reject it
and condemn yourselves as unworthy of eternal life,
we now turn to the Gentiles. 

Acts 13:44-46

Today’s Gospel shows us another kind of resistance to the full embrace of faith.

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. 
How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? 

This is a passive resistance, one Philip didn’t even recognize in himself. What was it in him that made him impervious to the presence of God in Jesus? Was Philip dull, distracted, hyper-critical, unreflective?

I can’t speak for Philip, but I can tell you that when I miss a sacred point in my life, it is exectly for those reasons! When the moment of grace has passed me by, I do a swift re-take and realize that I had been caught in one or more of the following passive resistant behaviors:

  • too noisy
  • too opinionated
  • too sure of myself
  • too busy
  • too tired
  • too impatient
  • too scattered

If Philip was in the same boat, he did a good job getting out of it. He sailed on to be one of the great saints and teachers of the Church. Philip really heard Jesus’s answer to his oblivious question:

Jesus said:
The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. 
The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. 
Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me,
or else, believe because of the works themselves. 
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes in me will do the works that I do,
and will do greater ones than these,
because I am going to the Father. 
And whatever you ask in my name, I will do,
so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 
If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”

John 14:10-14

May we not miss the point of Christ’s Presence in our lives. May we notice and lower our own resistances to hear the sacred answers right in front of us.

Poetry: After the Rain – Jared Carter

After the rain, it’s time to walk the field
again, near where the river bends. Each year
I come to look for what this place will yield—
lost things still rising here.
The farmer’s plow turns over, without fail,
a crop of arrowheads, but where or why
they fall is hard to say. They seem, like hail,
dropped from an empty sky,
Yet for an hour or two, after the rain
has washed away the dusty afterbirth
of their return, a few will show up plain
on the reopened earth.
Still, even these are hard to see—
at first they look like any other stone.
The trick to finding them is not to be
too sure about what’s known;
Conviction’s liable to say straight off
this one’s a leaf, or that one’s merely clay,
and miss the point: after the rain, soft
furrows show one way
Across the field, but what is hidden here
requires a different view—the glance of one
not looking straight ahead, who in the clear
light of the morning sun
Simply keeps wandering across the rows,
letting his own perspective change.
After the rain, perhaps, something will show,
glittering and strange.

Music: The Light Within – Peter Sterling