Category: Jesus

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Discipleship, Jesus, ordinary time, Poetry, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 78 which commands us:

Do not forget the works of the Lord!

The psalm, in its entirety, is a recital of God’s faithfulness to Israel over time, culminating in the triumph of David/Jerusalem/Temple.

God chose David his servant,
took him from the sheepfolds.
From tending ewes God brought him,
to shepherd Jacob, the people,
Israel, God’s heritage.
He shepherded them with a pure heart;
with skilled hands he guided them.

Psalm 78: 70-73

David foreshadows Jesus, the Good Shepherd who not only tends the sheep but becomes the Lamb of God. Jesus completes our salvation by his death on the Cross. In him, the long journey of Psalm 78 is ultimately fulfilled.

Philippians’ exquisite hymn captures the profound nature of that fulfillment:

Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
    Rather, he emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    coming in human likeness;
    and found human in appearance,
    he humbled himself,
    becoming obedient to death,
    even death on a cross.

Philippians 2:5-8

Each of our lives reflects, in its own way, the salvation journey we find in scripture. We experience the same kind of twists and turns, highs and lows as those described in Psalm 78.

In each of these moments, we are held in the mystery of the Cross wherein Christ transforms all suffering to grace:

Because of this, God greatly exalted him
    and bestowed on him the name
    that is above every name,
    that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
    and every tongue confess that
    Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2: 9-11

Poetry: Good Friday – Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Am I a stone and not a sheep 
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath thy cross, 
To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss, 
And yet not weep?
Not so those women loved 
Who with exceeding grief lamented thee; 
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly; 
Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the sun and moon 
Which hid their faces in a starless sky, 
A horror of great darkness at broad noon— 
I, only I.
Yet give not o’er, 
But seek thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock; 
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more 
And smite a rock.

Music: Adoramus Te, Christe

Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, ordinary time, spiritualityLeave a comment

Sunday, September 12, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Sunday readings increase in dramatic tone.  The passage from Isaiah describes a Savior bent on his mission despite mounting resistance and expressed hatred.

The Lord GOD opens my ear that I may hear;
and I have not rebelled,
    have not turned back.
I gave my back to those who beat me,
    my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
my face I did not shield
    from buffets and spitting.

Isaiah 50:5-6

Psalm 116 paints a person set upon by suffering and death threats, still trusting in the Lord’s saving grace.

The cords of death encompassed me;
    the snares of the netherworld seized upon me;
    I fell into distress and sorrow,
And I called upon the name of the LORD,
    “O LORD, save my life!”

Psalm 116: 3-4

In the Epistle, James says we must demonstrate our faith by our works — by putting our money where our mouth is.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters,
if someone says he has faith but does not have works? 

James 2:14

And in our Gospel, Jesus says we demonstrate our faith by following him, renouncing ourselves and taking up our cross.

This is heavy stuff. Jesus wants us to be like him — and it would be so much easier not to be!  It would be so much easier to think that our life is all about ourselves, and that we have no responsibility for Beloved Creation.

It would be so much easier not to give our lives to Christ to allow Him to bless the world through our love.

But if we wish to “save” our lives like this, we will — in the end — lose them for eternity.

Let us pray today for the grace to take our life and lay it down over the Cross of Christ.

In that laying down, to conform ourselves to the pattern of his love, to place the weight of our burdens and hopes on the crossbeam of his strength.

Let us ask for the strength to live 

  • for God
  • for others
  • for good in the world
  • and never for self when it injures or lessens others or our Sacred Home.

This is the way we will keep our lives in Christ.

Music: Renouncement – Michael Hoppé

Tuesday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Jesus, ordinary time, Poetry, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Tuesday, September 7, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 145 in which the psalmist, filled with gratitude and joy, makes a prodigious promise:

Every day will I bless you,
    and I will praise your name forever and ever.
Everyday! Forever and ever!

Psalm 145:2

Such a promise requires all one’s attention, discipline and practice. We must learn to see all experience in God’s Light so that everything becomes a reason for praise.

Paul, guiding the Colossians to live that kind of life, tells them:

As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him,
rooted in him and built upon him
and established in the faith as you were taught,
abounding in thanksgiving.

Colossians 2:6-7

Powerful words:
~ walk in Christ
~ be rooted and built in Christ
~ be established in faith
~ be abundant in thanksgiving 

God is gracious and merciful toward us as we pray for the psalmist’s prayer to be fulfilled in us and in our lives:

Let all your works give you thanks, O LORD,
    and let your faithful ones bless you.
Let them discourse of the glory of your Kingdom
    and speak of your might.

Psalm 145:10-11

Poetry: from the Book of Hours – Rainer Maria Rilke

You are the future, the great sunrise red
above the broad plains of eternity.
You are the cock-crow when time’s night has fled,
You are the dew, the matins, and the maid,
the stranger and the mother, you are death.

You are the changeful shape that out of Fate
rears up in everlasting solitude,
the unlamented and the unacclaimed,
beyond describing as some savage wood.

You are the deep epitome of things
that keeps its being’s secret with locked lip,
and shows itself to others otherwise:
to the ship, a haven — to the land, a ship.

Music: Psalm 145 – Travis Cottrel

Memorial of Saint Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Prayer, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Friday, September 3, 2021

 

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 100 which both invites and commands:

Come with joy into the Presence of the Lord.

Psalm 100:2

To know and honor this Presence is the sole pursuit of the Christian life.

Understanding is the reward of faith.
Therefore, seek not to understand that you may believe,
but believe that you may understand.

Augustine of Hippo

Our first reading from Colossians offers a beautiful hymn for our meditation as we pray to open ourselves to a deepening awareness of Jesus, present in our lives:

Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God,
    the firstborn of all creation.
For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth,
    the visible and the invisible,
    whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;
    all things were created through him and for him.
He is before all things,
    and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the Body, the Church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
    that in all things he himself might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,
    and through him to reconcile all things for him,
    making peace by the Blood of his cross
    through him, whether those on earth or those in heaven.

Colossians 1:15-20

Prose: Jesus Prayer – John Henry Newman

Dear Jesus,
Help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly,
that my life may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in
contact with may feel Your presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus!
Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine,
so to shine as to be a light to others;
The light, O Jesus will be all from You;
none of it will be mine;
It will be you shining on others through me.

Music: Jesus the Lord – Roc O’Connor

Thursday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

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

Thursday, September 2, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 98 which we reflected on just this past Saturday on the feast of St. Augustine. Here’s a refresher if you’d care to glance back.

Memorial of Saint Augustine

Because they proclaim God’s faithfulness, today’s psalm verses ready us to receive the Gospel’s expansive injunction: 

As we pass through the waters of life, we each meet our own “deeps”. Sometimes we do not recognize them as the sacred places where we are to meet God’s call.

Sometimes we see only their choppy surface, their tangled riptides, their frightening shadows.

Sometimes we miss the bounty held in the mystery of these moments. We fold our nets and try to sail away. 

As he did for the weary disciples, Jesus

  • lovingly contradicts our fear, 
  • releases our hope, 
  • fills the flimsy net of our faith to bursting … 

… if we will just trust his Word, and cast out with him over the waters of our lives.

A little visual “poetry” today:

Music: Cast Your Net – Timothy R. Smith

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

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

Sunday, August 29, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy,  we read from James who writes elegantly to his community. He reminds them and us that all gifts originate in our changeless, loving God Who breathed us into life from Infinite and Lavish Mercy.

Then James just so simply enjoins us:

  • So hear God’s Word of Love in your hearts
  • Be good by doing good for the afflicted

James says that doing this is
“religion pure and undefined”.

James 1:27

In our Gospel, Jesus reinforces this truth. The Pharisees want to condemn Jesus and the disciples for breaking a ritual hand-washing rule. Jesus says those human rules are lip-worship. What God wants is a loving and sincere heart proven by loving and sincere deeds.

On this last Sunday of August, let us rejoice in the gifts God has given us- life, faith, the ability to love and hope. Let us reach out by prayer and service to those who might be blessed by our sharing. 

That reach can be so simple: a smile, a phone call, a small courtesy, a solitary prayer. Or it can be huge: a long-delayed forgiveness, a turning from unhealthy or unholy behaviors, a commitment to faith and service. We ask the Creator of Lights to inspire us.

Poetry – excerpt from George MacDonald’s poem “Light”. I’ll post the entire poem separately today – long and very beautiful. Many of you may enjoy it.

Gentle winds through forests calling;
    Big waves on the sea-shore falling;
    Bright birds through the thick leaves glancing;
    Light boats on the big waves dancing;
    Children in the clear pool laving;
    Mountain streams glad music giving;
    Yellow corn and green grass waving;
    Long-haired, bright-eyed maidens living;
    Light on all things, even as now--
    God, our Father, it is Thou!
    Light, O Radiant! thou didst come abroad,
    To mediate 'twixt our ignorance and God;
    Forming ever without form;
    Showing, but thyself unseen;
    Pouring stillness on the storm;
    Making life where death had been!
    If thou, Light, didst cease to be,
    Death and Chaos soon were out,
    Weltering o'er the slimy sea,
    Riding on the whirlwind's rout;
    And if God did cease to be,
    O Beloved! where were we?
    
Father of Lights, pure and unspeakable,
    On whom no changing shadow ever fell!
    Thy light we know not, are content to see;
    And shall we doubt because we know not Thee?
    Or, when thy wisdom cannot be expressed,
    Fear lest dark vapors dwell within thy breast?
    Nay, nay, ye shadows on our souls descending!
    Ye bear good witness to the light on high,
    Sad shades of something 'twixt us and the sky!
    And this word, known and unknown radiant blending,
    Shall make us rest, like children in the night,--
    Word infinite in meaning: God is Light.
    We walk in mystery all the shining day
    Of light unfathomed that bestows our seeing,
    Unknown its source, unknown its ebb and flow:
    Thy living light's eternal fountain-play
    In ceaseless rainbow pulse bestows our being--
    Its motions, whence or whither, who shall know?
    O Light, if I had said all I could say
    Of thy essential glory and thy might,
    Something within my heart unsaid yet lay,
    And there for lack of words unsaid must stay:
    For God is Light.

Music: Every Good Gift ~ One:A Worship Collective

Every good gift flows from Your heart, O God.

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Discipleship, Gospel, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment
Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, as we pray with Psalm 34, our Sunday readings present us with spiritual ultimatums.

In our first reading, sensing his impending death, Joshua gathers the tribes on the Great Plains of Shechem – the land of their father Abraham. Joshua requires a commitment from the people:

“If it does not please you to serve the LORD,
decide today whom you will serve …
As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Joshua 24:15

In other words, “fish or cut bait” – you’re either with God, or you’re not. And your lives should reflect the choice.

In our Gospel, Jesus too feels death’s approach. His teachings have become more intense and direct, particularly regarding the Eucharist. This intensity has caused some of his listeners to waver. They’re not sure they can accept his words. Some drift away.

Jesus challenges the Twelve, those on whom he depends to carry his message after his death.

“Do you also want to leave?

These readings talk about the big choices, the soul’s orientation, either:

  • to seek and respond to God in our daily interactions
  • to be indifferent toward God’s Presence in our lives

Jesus’s question is before us all the time?
Do we hear it?

(As for the unfortunate and contested second reading from Ephesians, this long but superb article from Elizabeth Johnson is worth your time.)

https://bcm.bc.edu/issues/summer_2004/features.html

Poetry: Choose – Rainer Maria Rilke

You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything:
The darkness that comes with every infinite fall
And the shivering blaze of every step up.
So many live on and want nothing
And are raised to the rank of prince
By the slippery ease of their light judgments
But what you love to see are faces
That do work and feel thirst…
You have not grown old,
And it is not too late to dive
Into your increasing depths where life
Calmly gives out its own secret.

Music:  I Will Choose Christ – Tom Booth

Memorial of Saint Pius X, Pope

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

Saturday, August 21, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 128. It describes the blessed scene that might ensue from the kind of hopeful and just community described in yesterday’s reflection. Because of its final verse, I like to think of it as a “Grandparents’ Blessing”.

Happy are they all who fear the Lord,
and who follow in the ways of God!
You shall eat the fruit of your labor; 
happiness and prosperity shall be yours.
Your beloved shall be like a fruitful vine within your house, 
your children like olive shoots round about your table.
The one who fears the Lord 
shall thus indeed be blessed.
The Lord bless you from Zion,
and may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem 
all the days of your life.

May you live to see your children’s children; 
may peace be upon your household.

In our Gospel, Jesus tells us that we achieve such blessedness by actions, not simply by words.

Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying,
“The scribes and the Pharisees
have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.
Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,
but do not follow their example.
For they preach but they do not practice.

Matthew 23: 1-3

I took that admonition to heart today. I do a lot of “preaching” on these pages. Following the example of Jesus, I need to see if those words come to life in my actions.

Are you with me?

Poetry: The Words We Speak – Hafiz

The words
We speak
Become the house we live in.
Who will want to sleep in your bed
If the roof leaks
Right above
It?
Look what happens when the tongue
Cannot say to kindness,
“I will be your slave.”
The moon
Covers her face with both hands
And can’t bear
To look.

Music: Without Words – Bethel Music

Just a pretty cool instrumental to reflect with today.

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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

Sunday, August 8, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings capture the essence of life in God through Christ.

The first reading from Kings tells how Elijah, after eating the food God had provided him, was able to endure the long journey to God’s mountain. There, the sweetest whisper carried to Elijah the voice of God!

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus makes clear that no one makes that journey into the heart of God unless God calls us. But Jesus says that the invitation is given to all who believe. He says that, just as with Elijah, the Father gives us food – Jesus himself – the bread of life.

The second reading from Ephesians says that we have already “been sealed for the day of redemption through the Holy Spirit.” Paul says that, given this amazing gift, we have only one job:

So be imitators of God, as beloved children,
and live in love,
as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us
as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.

We are so accustomed to hearing these astounding passages that we may miss how astounding they really are. But Macrina Wiederkehr says:

When Jesus’ words begin to sound naive
to our 21st century minds,
let us look through the words,
in between the words,
underneath for a deeper truth.

Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the great Jesuit mystical theologian, upon reading these passages, saw the mystery of the Body of Christ. He saw our call to be the heart of Christ in the world. He saw Christ’s promise to become one with us in Eucharist. He saw that, through this Infinite Love played out in our ordinary lives, God continues to redeem Creation.

In each soul,
God loves and partly saves
the whole world which that soul sums up
in an incommunicable and particular way.

The Divine Milieu

Poetry: Love after Love by Derek Walcott

The time will come when with elation
you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome
and say, sit here, eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self

Give wine, give bread.
Give back your heart to itself,
to the stranger who has loved you all your life
whom you ignored for another
who knows you by heart

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Music: Quintessence – Spencer Brewer

May this lovely instrumental piece help take us to a deeply prayerful place as we contemplate God’s gift in Jesus.

Memorial of Saint Bonaventure

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Poetry, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Thursday, July 15, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 105 which depicts a “Remembering God” who calls us to respond as a “Remembering People”.

“Forever” is a word whose true meaning can be found only in an Eternal God. In Exodus, and in our Psalm 105, we see God inviting us to that fullness.

Our first reading recounts the Abrahamic covenant renewed with Moses. God, flaming out of a bush, tells Moses that God sticks by agreements.

God spoke further to Moses,
“Thus shall you say to the children of Israel:
The LORD, the God of your fathers,
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob,
has sent me to you.
    “This is my name forever;
        this my title for all generations.

Exodus 3:15

(I don’t know about you, but I’ve flashbacking all week to to Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 classic, The Ten Commandments.)

Our psalm reinforces the Exodus commitment:

God remembers forever the covenant 
    made binding for a thousand generations
    entered into with Abraham
    and by the oath to Isaac.

Psalm 105: 8-9

Our brief but beautiful Gospel shows us what God’s promise looks like in the tender person of Jesus:

Jesus said:
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

Matthew 11: 28-30

Throughout the ages,
God’s reiterated fidelity
calls us to obedience – that “heart-listening”
which hears the invitation to Love.

Poetry: Everything That Was Broken – Mary Oliver

Everything that was broken has
forgotten its brokenness. I live
now in a sky-house, through every
window the sun. Also your presence.
Our touching, our stories. Earthy
and holy both. How can this be, but
it is. Every day has something in
it whose name is Forever.

Music; Forever – Edelis