Category: Jesus

Memorial of Saint Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

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

May 2, 2022

For some info on Athanasius,
click the button below.
St. Athanasius
Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Acts introduces us to Stephen, so filled with the Holy Spirit that “his face was like the face of an angel”.

Acts6_8 Stephen

Stephen is among the first group of Christians designated as deacons “to serve at table” – in other words, to do the administrative tasks that kept the community whole.

However, Stephen’s gifts went well beyond these services. Acts describes him like this:

Stephen, filled with grace and power,
was working great wonders and signs among the people.

For today’s reflection, though, our focus will be John 6 which is the beginning of a week-long journey into the discourse on the Bread of Life (Jn 6:22-71). These passages, going from today until Friday, are like a “faith boot camp” for Jesus’s followers. They contain the core message of who Jesus is and how we are brought into communion with him.

John’s Gospel does not include an account of the Last Supper and institution of the Eucharist. The Bread of Life Discourse is where Jesus proclaims those teachings in John. It is a more detailed instruction and, as we pray with it over the course of the week, we may trace our own past and current awakening in faith.

painting
Limbourg Brothers, Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, Jesus Feeding the 5,000 Source Wikimedia Commons

Today’s verses offer very basic training. Jesus has just fed 5000 people in the miracle of the loaves and fishes. The crowds, not having a global view of the miracle like we do, are confused. They know they got plenty to eat, but did everybody? They heard many people ate, but they saw only their nearby neighbors. What really happened out on the green field?

Finding Jesus the next day, they are ready for another meal. They’re more interested in matzoh than miracles. Their basic hunger for physical sustenance consumes them. Jesus begins the task of opening their hearts to their deeper hungers and his desire to meet them:

Jesus said,
“You are looking for me
not because you saw signs
but because you ate the loaves and were filled.
Do not work for food that perishes
but for the food that endures for eternal life.”

John 6: 26-27
Jn6_27 food

Praying with today’s Gospel, we might ask ourselves some basic questions about our own faith.

  • When we go looking for God, as these hungry people did, what is it that we are looking for?
  • Do we talk to God only when we need something the way these folks needed another loaf or fish?
  • Jesus is inviting us to Eucharist, to Communion with him. To what degree have we opened our hearts to that invitation by our reflective prayer and acts of mercy?

Jesus’s basic message to his flock today is this:

Don’t be satisfied by a tasty roll, a fat fish,
(or a fancy car, a good job, a comfortable life.)
God made you for much more than these things.
Come to Me and feed your deepest hunger.

Maybe, as we pray, we can ask the question posed at end of today’s Gospel and listen intently to Jesus’s answer:

So they said to him,
“What can we do to accomplish the works of God?”
Jesus answered and said to them,
“This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”

Poetry: Bread of Life by Malcolm Guite

6: 35 Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. 
Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, 
and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Where to get bread? An ever-pressing question
That trembles on the lips of anxious mothers,
Bread for their families, bread for all these others;
A whole world on the margin of exhaustion.
And where that hunger has been satisfied
Where to get bread? The question still returns
In our abundance something starves and yearns
We crave fulfillment, crave and are denied.
And then comes One who speaks into our needs
Who opens out the secret hopes we cherish
Whose presence calls our hidden hearts to flourish
Whose words unfold in us like living seeds
Come to me, broken, hungry, incomplete,
I Am the Bread of Life, break Me and eat.

Music: Hungry – Kathryn Scott

Third Sunday of Easter

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

May 1, 2022

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Mercy, Jesus asks Peter an open-ended question, the kind that leaves both parties very vulnerable to the answer:

Do you love me?

Jn21_17

Wow! What if Peter says “No”, or “Sort of” or worse yet, just stares off into the distance in silence? Would that break Jesus’ heart?!

And the question is kind of scary for Peter too. Maybe he’s thinking, “OK, this is it. Jesus wants me to lay it all on the line. Am I ready?” — because, as Jesus says so clearly, the measure of true love is service and sacrifice:

Jesus said to him the third time,
“Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was distressed that Jesus had said to him a third time,
“Do you love me?” and he said to him,
“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.
Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger,
you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted;
but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands,
and someone else will dress you
and lead you where you do not want to go.”

John 21: 17-19

The Gospel poses questions to each of us today as well:

  • Who and what do I really love?
  • How does my primary love drive my life choices?
  • Are there places in my life that lack love – places where prejudice, blindness, selfishness or hate have filled in the emptiness?
  • How inclusive is my love? How redemptive? How merciful? How Christlike?
  • Where is God in my loves?

Prose: St. John of the Cross wrote this:

At the end of our lives we will be judged on love.
Learn therefore to love God as God wishes to be loved.

Music: Where Charity and Love Prevail – a lovely English translation of Ubi Caritas, written in Gregorian chant.

Memorial of St. Catherine of Siena

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

April 29, 2022

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we meet Gamaliel, the revered rabbinical teacher and early mentor of St. Paul.

Rembrandt_-_Old_Rabbi_-_WGA19186
The Old Rabbi by Rembrandt

With his patient wisdom, Gamaliel famously intervened  to save Peter and John from the Sanhedrin’s wrath.

“Fellow children of Israel,
be careful what you are about to do to these men….
…I tell you,
have nothing to do with these men, and let them go.
For if this endeavor is of human origin,
it will destroy itself.
But if it comes from God, you will not be able to destroy them;
you may even find yourselves fighting against God.”

Acts 5: 35-38

Biblical scholars have interpreted Gamaliel’s intervention in various and even contradictory ways. Some see in him a hesitancy which will believe only that which is proven and successful. Others suggest that Gamaliel was already a believer who maintained his Sanhedrin position in order to assist the early Christians. In the Catholic canon, Gamaliel is venerated as a saint whose feastday is August 30.

Thinking about Gamaliel may lead us to the question, “What do I need in order to believe?” 

  • Do I, like the Sanhedrin, need to see proven success?
  • Do I, like some of the crowd fed in today’s Gospel, need miracles?
  • Do I, like the rich young man, need answers to all of my questions?
  • Do I, like Thomas, need to see and touch the Resurrected Christ?

In other words, am I looking for a faith that is a fail-proof blueprint, or is my faith a living journey with Christ, as was Peter’s and John’s?

John4_4 bread word

The Apostles’ faith and trust were so complete that they saw even persecution as evidence of God’s plan and power:

So the Apostles left the presence of the Sanhedrin,
rejoicing that they had been found worthy
to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.
And all day long, both at the temple and in their homes,
they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the Christ, Jesus.

Acts 5: 41-42

When we are completely given to God in faith, all our life experiences bring us closer to God. All circumstances reveal God to the deeply believing heart.

May we grow every day in that kind of faith.

Today, as we celebrate the feast of the great Saint Catherine of Siena, a reflection in place of our usual poetry.

We can learn Catherine’s spiritual wisdom. Without formal education, she grew by grace into a Doctor of the Church.

Siena

She was born Catherine Benincasa on March 25, 1347, in Siena, Italy, and was a twin, the 24th child of 25. She only lived to the age of 33, dying of a stroke in Rome in 1380. Catherine of Siena, often referred to as “great Kate,” is well known for her expressive life of prayer shared in three major sources of writings: over 400 letters, 26 prayers, and The Dialogue of Divine Providence, which she referred to as “the book,” written in the format of a conversation between herself and God. She was noted for her style of learning, not acquired from formal education and degrees, but gained from an interior wisdom that came from lived experiences and a mystical life of prayer. ( https://www.hprweb.com/2020/02/the-trinitarian-theology-of-the-eucharist-according-to-st-catherine-of-siena/)

Here are two selections from Catherine’s extensive writings which reveal her ever-deepening relationship with God through the gift of the Bread of Life.

Eternal God, Eternal Trinity, You have made the Blood of Christ so precious through His sharing in your Divine Nature. You are a mystery as deep as the sea; the more I search, the more I find, and the more I find the more I search for You. But I can never be satisfied; what I receive will ever leave me desiring more. When You fill my soul I have an ever-greater hunger, and I grow more famished for Your Light. I desire above all to see You, the true Light, as you really are.

St. Catherine of Siena, Prayer 12, V 124–157

And by the light of most holy faith
I shall contemplate myself in you.
And I shall clothe myself in your eternal will,
And by this light I shall come to know
That you, eternal Trinity,
Are table
And food
And waiter for us.

You, eternal Father,
Are the table
That offers us as food
The Lamb, your only-begotten Son.

He is the most exquisite of foods for us,
Both in his teaching,
Which nourishes us in your will,
And in the sacrament
That we receive in Holy Communion,
Which feeds and strengthens us
While we are pilgrim travelers in this life.

And the Holy Spirit
Is indeed a waiter for us,
For he serves us this teaching
By enlightening our mind’s eye with it
And inspiring us to follow it.
And he serves us charity for our neighbors
And hunger to have as food
Souls
And the salvation of the whole world
For the Father’s honor

So we see that souls enlightened in you,
True light,
Never let a moment pass
Without eating this exquisite food
For your honor.

Music:  Ave Verum Corpus – words attributed to 14th century Pope Innocent VI, melody to Mozart

Holy Thursday 2022

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, Jesus, Lent, spirituality1 Comment

April 14, 2022
Holy Thursday

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, as supper time falls slowly from east to west over the Earth, so will Christians worldwide seek communion with Christ and the believing community.

A great surge of intentional communion will join us in an irrepressible wave of faith. The evening skies will echo with the precious words that, despite whatever distances, gather us into one people in Christ:

Jesus took bread, and, after he had given thanks,
broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying,
“This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.

Our Gospel reminds us that there are two equally significant dimensions to a full understanding of Eucharist:

  • the Body and Blood we share in Eucharist
  • the sacrificial service we live daily among the People of God
    who are the living Body of Christ for us.

In these times of worldly suffering and war, that second dimension sustains us.

foot

Eucharist is offered when we wash the feet of our sisters and brothers:

  • by those who tend and comfort the sick, poor, war ravaged, and desolate.
  • by the suffering themselves who endure in faith and hope 
  • by those who serve other’s needs for sustenance and safety
  • by those who pray for the healing, courage and restoration of all Creation 
  • by each one of us as we turn from self toward the good of the Whole

As Jesus leans to wash the feet of his disciples, so may we lean in service over our suffering world. Jesus asks us:

Do you realize what I, your Lord and Master, have done for you?

bowl

We do not realize fully, Lord, what You have done for us.

But we are daily learning a new depth of understanding.

The realization rises like a slow dawn over the shadows of our selfishness.
It is a sunrise which continues throughout our lives.
Please help us to rise with You no matter how the darkness weighs on us.

Like the fragile bread and fluid wine which hide your Omnipotent Presence,
may we become holy nourishment and joy for one another
– a true and living memorial to your infinite act of love for us.

Prose Prayer: excerpts from Mass on the World – Pierre Teilhard De Chardin, SJ

Receive, O Lord, this all-embracing host which your whole creation, moved by your magnetism, offers you at this dawn of a new day.

This bread, our toil, is of itself, I know, but an immense fragmentation; this wine, our pain, is no more, I know, than a draught that dissolves. Yet in the very depths of this formless mass you have implanted — and this I am sure of, for I sense it — a desire, irresistible, hallowing, which makes us cry out, believer and unbeliever alike:
‘Lord, make us one.’

You have come down, Lord, into this day which is now beginning. But alas, how infinitely different in degree is your presence for one and another of us in the events which are now preparing and which all of us together will experience! In the very same circumstances which are soon to surround me and my fellow-men you may be present in small measure, in great measure, more and more or not at all.
Therefore, Lord, that no poison may harm me this day, no death destroy me, no wine befuddle me, that in every creature I may discover and sense you, I beg you: give me faith.

Music: Pange Lingua – Chant of the Mystics
Written by St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century
English lyrics below

Sing, my tongue, the Saviour’s glory,
Of His Flesh, the mystery sing;
Of the Blood, all price exceeding,
Shed by our Immortal King,
Destined, for the world’s redemption,
From a noble Womb to spring.

Of a pure and spotless Virgin
Born for us on earth below,
He, as Man, with man conversing,
Stayed, the seeds of truth to sow;
Then He closed in solemn order
Wondrously His Life of woe.

On the night of that Last Supper,
Seated with His chosen band,
He, the Paschal Victim eating,
First fulfils the Law’s command;
Then as Food to all his brethren
Gives Himself with His own Hand.

Word-made-Flesh, the bread of nature
By His Word to Flesh He turns;
Wine into His Blood He changes:
What though sense no change discerns.
Only be the heart in earnest,
Faith her lesson quickly learns.

Down in adoration falling,
Lo, the sacred Host we hail,
Lo, o’er ancient forms departing
Newer rites of grace prevail:
Faith for all defects supplying,
When the feeble senses fail.

To the Everlasting Father
And the Son who comes on high
With the Holy Ghost proceeding
Forth from each eternally,
Be salvation, honor, blessing,
Might and endless majesty.
Amen.

Holy Tuesday:Faithful Waiting

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

April 12, 2022
Tuesday of Holy Week

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Gospel tells the sad story of Jesus’s betrayal by his closest friends.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”
The disciples looked at one another, at a loss as to whom he meant.
One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved,
was reclining at Jesus’ side.
So Simon Peter nodded to him to find out whom he meant.
He leaned back against Jesus’ chest and said to him,
“Master, who is it?”
Jesus answered,
“It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.”
So he dipped the morsel and took it and handed it to Judas,
son of Simon the Iscariot.
After Judas took the morsel, Satan entered him.

The Last Supper (1630–1631) is an oil painting by Peter Paul Rubens. The painting depicts Jesus and the Apostles during the Last Supper, with Judas dressed in blue turning back towards the viewer and away from the table. Other than Jesus, the most prominent figure is Judas. Judas holds his right hand to his mouth with his eyes avoiding direct contact with the other figures in the painting creating a nervous expression. (Wikipedia)

Pope Francis, in his 2020 Palm Sunday homily, reflected on the depth of these betrayals:

Jesus suffered betrayal by the disciple who sold him and by the disciple who denied him.  He was betrayed by the people who sang hosanna to him and then shouted: “Crucify him!” He was betrayed by the religious institution that unjustly condemned him and by the political institution that washed its hands of him.  

We can think of all the small or great betrayals that we have suffered in life.  It is terrible to discover that a firmly placed trust has been betrayed.  From deep within our heart a disappointment surges up that can even make life seem meaningless.  This happens because we were born to be loved and to love, and the most painful thing is to be betrayed by someone who promised to be loyal and close to us.  We cannot even imagine how painful it was for God who is love.

thorns

These first three days of Holy Week are like the days in our lives when we know there is a wave of suffering coming but it hasn’t quite broken over us. Something just isn’t right in our bodies, minds, spirits, or in the world around us. In such times, the actual pain might be muted, but the fear, loneliness, anxiety and dark imaginations can be acute.

It’s hard to be with ourselves or with another in this kind of suffering. We see in our Gospel how hard it was for the disciples.

All one really has in such moments are the faith and trust that God ever abides with us. It is the kind of assurance Jesus had with the Father.

As we walk beside Jesus on this Fearful Tuesday, let us confide our sufferings, current or remembered, asking to be gracefully transformed by them. Let us listen to Jesus’s pain and heart-break, asking to be a source of comfort and love to Him.

With Jesus, may we carry in our prayer all those throughout the world suffering abandonment, fear, loss, or betrayal at this painful time.

Saint Judas – James Wright

When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.
Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.

Music: I Will Carry You – Sean Clive
You might hear this song in many ways. Perhaps Jesus comforts you with it. Or you might comfort Jesus in his escalating suffering. Or together, Jesus and you may sing it over a suffering world.
(Lyrics below)

I will carry you when you are weak.
I will carry you when you can’t speak.
I will carry you when you can’t pray.
I will carry you each night and day.

I will carry you when times are hard.
I will carry you both near & far.
I’ll be there with you whenever you fall.
I will carry you through it all.

My arms are wider than the sky,
softer than a little child,
stronger than the raging,
calming like a gentle breeze.
Trust in me to hold on tight because

I will carry you when you can’t stand.
I’ll be there for you to hold your hand.
And I will show you that you’re never alone.
I will carry you and bring you back home.

Not pain, not fear, not death, no nothing at all
can separate you from my love.
My arms and hands will hold you close.
Just reach out and take them in your own.
Trust in me to hold on tight.
I will carry you.

Lent: Closer to the Cross

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

April 9, 2022
Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, worlds are splitting apart, but the Word of God comes to heal them.

In our first reading, we share in the experience of the prophet Ezekiel.

Ezekiel and his wife lived during the Babylonian Captivity on banks of the Chenab River which is in modern day Iraq. He lived during the siege of Jerusalem in 589 BC. In Ezekiel’s day the northern kingdom had been conquered and destroyed 150 years earlier.

In other words, Ezekiel, like his contemporary Jeremiah, had his heart torn apart along with the homeland they cherished as God’s promise to them. 

dry bones
The Valley of the Dry Bones – artist unknown

In today’s reading, which comes immediately after his vision of the Dry Bones, Ezekiel prophesies a message of hope and restoration to a fragmented and devastated nation.

In our Gospel, Jesus is the new Ezekiel. He stands in the midst of the bigger “nation” of all God’s Creation which has been fragmented by the failure to love. Like Ezekiel, Jesus offers a message of hope and restoration to sinners.

In this Gospel, Jesus himself is the “Temple” about to destroyed. The prophecy of its destruction is unwittingly delivered by the high priest Caiaphas:

Caiaphas,
who was high priest that year, 
said to the Pharisees and Sanhedrin,
“You know nothing,
nor do you consider that it is better for you
that one man should die instead of the people,
so that the whole nation may not perish.”
He did not say this on his own,
but since he was high priest for that year,
he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation,
and not only for the nation,
but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.

John 11: 49-52

Within Christ’s new law of love, these “children of God” go far beyond the Jewish nation. They are you and me, and every other creature with whom we share this time and universe. The fragmentations which separate and alienate us are dissolved in the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

holy week

Holy Week will begin tomorrow when all believers will intensify their desire to join Christ in his final journey to Resurrection, to understand our own lives anew in the power of Paschal Grace.

Let’s pray for one another, dear friends, for the grace we need to be deepened in the life of Jesus, and for that deepening to bless and heal our suffering world.

Poetry: The New Ezekiel – Emma Lazarus

What, can these dead bones live, whose sap is dried 
        By twenty scorching centuries of wrong? 
    Is this the House of Israel, whose pride 
        Is as a tale that’s told, an ancient song? 
    Are these ignoble relics all that live 
        Of psalmist, priest, and prophet? Can the breath 
    Of very heaven bid these bones revive, 
        Open the graves and clothe the ribs of death? 

    Yea, Prophesy, the Lord hath said. Again 
      Say to the wind, Come forth and breathe afresh, 
  Even that they may live upon these slain, 
      And bone to bone shall leap, and flesh to flesh. 
  The Spirit is not dead, proclaim the word, 
      Where lay dead bones, a host of armed men stand! 
  I ope your graves, my people, saith the Lord, 
      And I shall place you living in your land.

Music:  Make Us One – featuring James Loynes. Written by Sally DeFord
(Lyrics below)

Lyrics

How shall we stand amid uncertainty?
Where is our comfort in travail?
How shall we walk amid infirmity,
When feeble limbs are worn and frail?
And as we pass through mortal sorrow,
How shall our hearts abide the day?
Where is the strength the soul may borrow?
Teach us thy way.

Chorus:
Make us one, that our burdens may be light
Make us one as we seek eternal life
Unite our hands to serve thy children well
Unite us in obedience to thy will.
Make us one! teach us, Lord, to be
Of one faith, of one heart
One in thee.
Then shall our souls be filled with charity,
Then shall all hate and anger cease
And though we strive amid adversity,
Yet shall we find thy perfect peace
So shall we stand despite our weakness,
So shall our strength be strength enough
We bring our hearts to thee in meekness;
Lord, wilt thou bind them in thy love?

(Repeat chorus)

Take from me this heart of stone,
And make it flesh even as thine own
Take from me unfeeling pride;
Teach me compassion; cast my fear aside.
Give us one heart, give us one mind
Lord, make us thine
Oh, make us thine!
(Repeat chorus)

Lent: Redemptive Suffering

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Cross, Faith, Jesus, Psalms, spirituality, suffering2 Comments

April 8, 2022
Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, as we inch closer to Holy Week, we meet both a very troubled Jeremiah and Jesus.

V0034343 The prophet Jeremiah wailing alone on a hill. Engraving.
The Prophet Jeremiah Weeping Alone on a Hill (from the Wellcome Trust)

Jeremiah, the Old Testament mirror of Jesus’s sufferings, bewails the treachery even of his friends:

I hear the whisperings of many:
“Terror on every side!
Denounce! let us denounce him!”
All those who were my friends
are on the watch for any misstep of mine.

Jeremiah 20:10

That’s really raw, because you can get through almost anything in the company of true friends.

Jesus weeps
Jesus Weeping Over Jerusalem by Ary Scheffer (1795-1858)

Jesus came as a Friend and hoped to find Friends of God by his ministry. And he did find many. But not all.

It takes some work to be a true friend of Jesus. Some didn’t have the courage, or generosity, or passion, or hopeful imagination to reach past their self-protective boundaries – to step into eternal life even as they walked the time-bound earth.

In today’s Gospel this band of resisters project their fears and doubts to the crowds around them. The evil sparks inflame the ready tinder of human selfishness. The mob turns on Jesus, spiritual misers scoffing at the generous challenge to believe.

Jesus pleads with them to realize what they are doing:

If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me;
but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me,
believe the works, so that you may realize and understand
that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.

John 10:37-38

But Jesus and Jeremiah, though troubled, are grounded in God. Our Responsorial Psalm captures what might have been their silent prayer:

Psalm18 distress

Poetry: The following transliteration of Psalm 18, composed by Christine Robinson, might help us to be with Jesus in his moment, and in our own moments of fear, anxiety, or doubt.

I open my heart to you, O God
for you are my strength, my fortress,
the rock on whom I build my life.
I have been lost in my fears and my angers
caught up in falseness, fearful, and furious
I cried to you in my anguish.
You have brought me to an open space.
You saved me because you took delight in me.
I try to be good, to be just, to be generous
to walk in your ways.
I fail, but you are my lamp.
You make my darkness bright
With your help, I continue to scale the walls
and break down the barriers that fragment me.
I would be whole, and happy, and wise
and know your love
Always.

Music: Overcome – Psalm 18 by James Block

Lent: Through Fire and Storm

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

April 6, 2022
Wednesday of he Fifth Week of Lent

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we see faith tested by fire.

7SRCYZFA2A

In our first reading, three young men stand convinced of God. Even the threat of a fiery death cannot shake them from that conviction.

And their faith is not a quid pro quo – a case where they say to God, “I’ll believe if you do ‘X’ for me.” No, their commitment is unqualified and complete:

If our God, whom we serve,
can save us from the white-hot furnace
and from your hands, O king, may he save us!
But even if he will not, know, O king,
that we will not serve your god
or worship the golden statue.

Daniel 3: 17-18

When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are cast into the furnace, a fourth figure appears with them, an angel of God who delivers them safely through their trial.

fire

In our Gospel, even “the Jews who believed” in Jesus begin to quibble with him. They stand with him at the threshold of his Passion and Death, the great fire that will test them all. Like the three young men at the furnace, they face the ultimate choice:

Who do you really believe in?
What God will you give your life to?

Jesus challenges them to follow him into the fire that faces him:

Jesus answered them, “Amen, amen, I say to you …
… if the Son frees you, then you will truly be free.
I know that you are descendants of Abraham.
But you are trying to kill me,
because my word has no room among you.
I tell you what I have seen in the Father’s presence;
then do what you have heard from the Father.

John 8: 34-36

Throughout our lives, our faith will be tested many times. That’s why it’s called “faith” and not “certainty ”. Our life circumstances will ask us, again and again, if our faith is strong enough to stand in the fire, to walk the Calvary road with Jesus.

Let the testimony of the ages inspire us with courage. From our scriptural heritage, we know the fire hid an angel. We know the road continued past the bloody hill and on to the Resurrection. We know that every storm will pass and leave us washed anew in grace if we make that ultimate choice to be faithful.

Poetry: Touched by an Angel – Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage 
exiles from delight 
live coiled in shells of loneliness 
until love leaves its high holy temple 
and comes into our sight 
to liberate us into life. 

Love arrives 
and in its train come ecstasies 
old memories of pleasure 
ancient histories of pain. 
Yet if we are bold, 
love strikes away the chains of fear 
from our souls. 

We are weaned from our timidity 
In the flush of love’s light 
we dare be brave 
And suddenly we see 
that love costs all we are 
and will ever be. 
Yet it is only love 
which sets us free.

Music: Praise You in This Storm – Casting Crowns

Lent: Will We Be Able to See?

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

April 5, 2022
Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, there are some common threads running through our readings.

Jn8_28 sign

In the passage from Numbers, we have a restless crowd, confused and hungry, feeling directionless in a vast wilderness. They demand an answer from Moses:

Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert,
where there is no food or water?
We are disgusted with this wretched food!”

To make things worse, God, annoyed at their complaints, sends a bunch of snakes to hassle them.

In John’s Gospel, a disgruntled gathering of Pharisees pesters Jesus for a resolution to their questions. Even after all Jesus’ signs and preaching, they ask Him, “Who are you?”

  • In both instances, it is impossible for the questioners to receive the answer they seek because they lack faith.
  • In both instances, they are told that a sign will be lifted up before them and that then they will understand.

We’re on a life’s journey, at times confused and disgruntled, just like those ancient Hebrews.

We may be locked in faithless expectations of God, just like those debating Pharisees.

In our difficulties and challenges,
will we be able to see
the sign that God offers us?
Not the one we design or demand –
but the unexpected one rising up
out of the depths of our faith?

Poetry: The Crosse – George Herbert

What is this strange and uncouth thing?

To make me sigh, and seek, and faint, and die,

Untill I had some place, where I might sing,

          And serve thee; and not onely I,

But all my wealth and familie might combine

To set thy honour up, as our designe.

          And then when after much delay,

Much wrastling, many a combate, this deare end,

So much desir’d, is giv’n, to take away

          My power to serve thee; to unbend

All my abilities, my designes confound,

And lay my threatnings bleeding on the ground.

          One ague dwelleth in my bones,

Another in my soul (the memorie

What I would do for thee, if once my grones

          Could be allow’d for harmonie):

I am in all a weak disabled thing,

Save in the sight thereof, where strength doth sting.

          Besides, things sort not to my will,

Ev’n when my will doth studie thy renown:

Thou turnest th’ edge of all things on me still,

          Taking me up to throw me down:

So that, ev’n when my hopes seem to be sped,

I am to grief alive, to them as dead.

          To have my aim, and yet to be

Further from it then when I bent my bow;

To make my hopes my torture, and the fee

          Of all my woes another wo,

Is in the midst of delicates to need,

And ev’n in Paradise to be a weed.

          Ah my deare Father, ease my smart!

These contrarieties crush me: these crosse actions

Doe winde a rope about, and cut my heart:

          And yet since these thy contradictions

Are properly a crosse felt by the Sonne,

With but foure words, my words, Thy will be done.

( George Herbert (3 April 1593 – 1 March 1633) was a Welsh poet, orator, and priest of the Church of England. His poetry is associated with the writings of the metaphysical poets, and he is recognized as “one of the foremost British devotional lyricists.” He was born into an artistic and wealthy family and largely raised in England. He received a good education that led to his admission to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1609. He went there with the intention of becoming a priest, but he became the University’s Public Orator and attracted the attention of King James I. He served in the Parliament of England in 1624 and briefly in 1625.

After the death of King James, Herbert renewed his interest in ordination. He gave up his secular ambitions in his mid-thirties and took holy orders in the Church of England, spending the rest of his life as the rector of the rural parish of Fugglestone St Peter, just outside Salisbury. He was noted for unfailing care for his parishioners, bringing the sacraments to them when they were ill and providing food and clothing for those in need. Henry Vaughan called him “a most glorious saint and seer”.[4] He was never a healthy man and died of consumption at age 39. ~ from Wikipedia)

Music: By Grace Alone – David Ward

Lent: Trust the Light

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Lent, spiritualityLeave a comment

April 4, 2022
Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our first reading offers us one of the most captivating, and perhaps infuriating, stories of the Bible – the story of Susanna. This is a tale that can offer us many points of reflection. Rather than offer you my own, I would like to refer you to this excellent article by Dr. Malka Zeiger Simkovich is a the Crown-Ryan Chair of Jewish Studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and the director of their Catholic-Jewish Studies program.

The Tale of Susanna – A Story About Daniel

Our Gospel for today picks of the themes of knowledge, truth and judgement we have found in Daniel.

Jesus in facing mounting harassment and criticism from those threatened by his message. In today’s passage, a group of Pharisees engages in a verbal duel with Jesus:

The Pharisees said to him,
“You testify on your own behalf,
so your testimony cannot be verified.”
Jesus answered and said to them,
“Even if I do testify on my own behalf, my testimony can be verified,
because I know where I came from and where I am going.
But you do not know where I come from or where I am going.
You judge by appearances, but I do not judge anyone.

Jesus makes it clear that such mental gymnastics, devoid of heart and spirit, are nothing but a journey in darkness:

Jesus spoke to them again, saying,
“I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness,
but will have the light of life.”

We’ve all met people who want to make faith into a mental Rubik’s cube. But deep faith will never fit into blocks and clever twists. Deep faith releases us from the need to have everything fit – from the futile imagination that we are in control of anything but our power to love.

As we pray with the little pieces of Susanna, Pharisees, and wicked elders we might discover in our own lives, let’s ask for the courage and grace to relax into the Light that Jesus offers us today.

Poetry: Peter Quince at the Clavier – Wallace Stevens

  I 

Just as my fingers on these keys 

Make music, so the selfsame sounds 

On my spirit make a music, too. 

Music is feeling, then, not sound; 

And thus it is that what I feel, 

Here in this room, desiring you, 

Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk, 

Is music. It is like the strain 

Waked in the elders by Susanna: 

Of a green evening, clear and warm, 

She bathed in her still garden, while 

The red-eyed elders, watching, felt 

The basses of their beings throb 

In witching chords, and their thin blood 

Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna. 

                                              II 

In the green water, clear and warm, 

Susanna lay. 

She searched 

The touch of springs, 

And found 

Concealed imaginings. 

She sighed, 

For so much melody. 

Upon the bank, she stood 

In the cool 

Of spent emotions. 

She felt, among the leaves, 

The dew 

Of old devotions. 

She walked upon the grass, 

Still quavering. 

The winds were like her maids, 

On timid feet, 

Fetching her woven scarves, 

Yet wavering. 

A breath upon her hand 

Muted the night. 

She turned— 

A cymbal crashed, 

And roaring horns. 

                                           III 

Soon, with a noise like tambourines, 

Came her attendant Byzantines. 

They wondered why Susanna cried 

Against the elders by her side; 

And as they whispered, the refrain 

Was like a willow swept by rain. 

Anon, their lamps’ uplifted flame 

Revealed Susanna and her shame. 

And then, the simpering Byzantines 

Fled, with a noise like tambourines. 

                                             IV 

Beauty is momentary in the mind— 

The fitful tracing of a portal; 

But in the flesh it is immortal. 

The body dies; the body’s beauty lives. 

So evenings die, in their green going, 

A wave, interminably flowing. 

So gardens die, their meek breath scenting 

The cowl of winter, done repenting. 

So maidens die, to the auroral 

Celebration of a maiden’s choral. 

Susanna’s music touched the bawdy strings 

Of those white elders; but, escaping, 

Left only Death’s ironic scraping. 

Now, in its immortality, it plays 

On the clear viol of her memory, 

And makes a constant sacrament of praise.

Music: Bach: Prelude in C Major, BWV 846, The Well-Tempered Clavier