Category: Jesus

Guileless

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Discipleship, Faith, friendship, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality5 Comments

Feast of Saint Bartholomew, Apostle
August 24, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082424.cfm

Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him,
“Here is a true child of Israel.
There is no guile in him.”
Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” 
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.”
Nathanael answered him,
“Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”
John 1:47-49

I’m sure Jesus loved all his disciples, but I think he loved Nathaniel in a special way. Nathaniel was a WYSIWYG person – “what you see is what you get“. Jesus never had to second-guess Nathaniel. His faith and longing for holiness were clear. When he had doubts and reservations he brought them openly and humbly to God.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ask to be guileless, without duplicity with God, with ourselves, and with our companions. May we burn with a sincerity of heart lit by faith, hope, and charity.

Poetry: The Glance – George Herbert (1593-1633)

As he comes from under the fig tree, Nathaniel’s life is changed and consecrated by his first glance of Jesus.

The Glance

When first thy sweet and gracious eye
Vouchsaf’d ev’n in the midst of youth and night
To look upon me, who before did lie
Weltring in sinne;
I felt a sugred strange delight,
Passing all cordials made by any art,
Bedew, embalme, and overrunne my heart,
And take it in.

Since that time many a bitter storm
My soul hath felt, ev’n able to destroy,
Had the malicious and ill-meaning harm
His swing and sway:
But still thy sweet originall joy,
Sprung from thine eye, did work within my soul,
And surging griefs, when they grew bold, controll,
And got the day.

If thy first glance so powerfull be,
A mirth but open’d and seal’d up again;
What wonders shall we feel, when we shall see
Thy full-ey’d love!
When thou shalt look us out of pain,
And one aspect of thine spend in delight
More then a thousand sunnes dispurse in light,
In heav'n above.

Music: Hymn to St. Bartholomew (also known as Nathaniel) – Fr. Ricardo Arriola

Wisdom

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

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 18, 2024

Today’s Reading:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081824.cfm

Wisdom has built her house,
she has set up her seven columns;
she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine,
yes, she has spread her table.
She has sent out her maidens; she calls
from the heights out over the city:
“Let whoever is simple turn in here;
To the one who lacks understanding, she says,
Come, eat of my food,
and drink of the wine I have mixed!
Forsake foolishness that you may live;
advance in the way of understanding.”
Proverbs 9:1-6

Proverbs offers us the beautiful image of Divine Wisdom setting a table of grace for our nourishment.

In our Gospel, Jesus tells us that he is the divine nourishment foretold in Proverbs. Some resist Jesus’s invitation. Their faith languishes even while there is sacred food before them.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We give thanks for the Bread of Life given to us in Eucharist, Gospel, Creation, community, and merciful action. We ask for the grace to see God’s nourishing Presence right before us in our daily lives.

Poetry: I Am the Bread of Life – Malcolm Guite

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: Bread of Life – Bernadette Farrell

Clean

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

Saturday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 17, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081724.cfm

A clean heart create for me, O God;
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
Give me back the joy of your salvation,
and a willing spirit sustain in me.
Psalm 51:12-14

Today’s familiar and beloved Responsorial Psalm repeats yesterday’s heartfelt plea for spiritual innocence.

Jesus blesses such innocence in our Gospel by saying:

Jesus said,
“Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them;
for the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray for that deep trust in God which yields spiritual innocence. Such innocence is not naïve or childish. Rather it has discovered the profound wisdom that gives everything to God.

Poetry: Mary Oliver from House of Light

Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled 
— to cast aside the weight of facts 
and maybe even to float a little 
above this difficult world. 

I want to believe I am looking 
into the white fire of a great mystery. 
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing 
— that the light is everything 
— that it is more than the sum 
of each flawed blossom rising and falling. 
And I do. 

Music: Innocence – Jonas Kvarnström

Tested

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

Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 16, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081624.cfm

Some Pharisees approached Jesus,
and tested him, saying,
“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife
for any cause whatever?”

Matthew 19:3

The Pharisees miss the whole point of the Presence of Jesus. Think of it: here they have the Messiah they have longed for right in their midst. They can talk to him, touch him, listen to him. Instead, they are strangled in rationalizations which prevent them from believing.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ask for a clear and innocent faith, one not caught in the need for proofs and signs. May we hold nothing back from God in our practice of faith.

Poetry: Two Went Up Into the Temple to Pray – Richard Crashaw

Two went to pray? O rather say
  One went to brag, th’ other to pray:

   One stands up close and treads on high,
  Where th’ other dares not send his eye.

   One nearer to God’s altar trod,
  The other to the altar’s God.

Music: The Pharisee in Me – Temitope

Firstfruits

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Gospel, holiness, Jesus, Mary, spirituality1 Comment

Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
August 15, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081524-Day.cfm

Christ has been raised from the dead,
the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Corinthians 15:20

We celebrate Mary because of who she is in Christ, the firstfruits of a new and redeemed Creation. Mary is the one who bore these sacred firstfruits. Mothering Christ, she mothers too the gift of our Redemption.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We honor Mary whose simple life was translucent with faith. From that light, God took flesh and so redeemed us.

Poetry: The Assumption – Joachim Smet O.Carm

No painter ever caught the magic other going--
This was a matter of an inward growing,
Simple and imperceptible as thought.
It was no pageant wrought
Of sounding splendor, welter of gold bars
Of molten day, mad stars,
Flurry of quick angels' winging,
Bursts of their laughter ringing
In wild bliss.
The simple fact is this:
Love conquered at long last.
Her eager soul fled fast
With a great gladness like a song
Unto to her Spouse above,
And her pure flesh would not be parted long
For sheer love.

Music: Assumpta Est Maria

Latin Text

Assumpta est Maria in caelum,
gaudent angeli, laudantes benedicunt Dominum.
Gaudete et exsultate omnes recti corde.
Quia hodie Maria virgo cum Christo regnat in aeternum.

Quae est ista, quae progreditur
quasi aurora consurgens,
pulchra ut luna, electa ut sol,
terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata?
Gaudete et exsultate omnes recti corde.
Quia hodie Maria virgo cum Christo regnat in aeternum.

ENGLSIH TEXT
Mary has been received into Heaven:
the angels rejoice with praises and bless the Lord.
Let all rejoice and be glad with righteous heart,
for today the Virgin Mary reigns with Christ for evermore.

Who is she that cometh forth
as the morning rising,
fair as the moon, bright as the sun,
terrible as an army set in array ?
Let all rejoice and be glad with righteous heart,
for today the Virgin Mary reigns with Christ for evermore.

Coin

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

Monday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 12, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081224.cfm

When he came into the house, before he had time to speak,
Jesus asked him, “What is your opinion, Simon?
From whom do the kings of the earth take tolls or census tax?
From their subjects or from foreigners?”
When he said, “From foreigners,” Jesus said to him,
“Then the subjects are exempt.
But that we may not offend them, go to the sea, drop in a hook,
and take the first fish that comes up.
Open its mouth and you will find a coin worth twice the temple tax.
Give that to them for me and for you.”
Matthew 17:25-27

Can you see Peter shaking the little fish until the coin popped out in his hand? Can you see his astounded face at this magical miracle? As we picture the scene, we may realize that there are miracles hidden in all Creation, in all experience if we can trust and seek the truth.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Jesus wants to teach us too, just as he taught Peter and encouraged his faith. We need to look around our lives and to seek the hidden miracles in our daily experience. Jesus may smile at our grateful astonishment, just as he smiled at Peter.

Poetry: The Temple Tax – William Merriman

I have the taste of money in my mouth.
The metallic tang covers my tongue,
As my throat unslackens and unlooses
Prayers, praises, verses, songs
With one hand raised to the altar,
And the other in my pocket.

You who drew the fish from the water
And withdrew the coins of copper 
From its consuming, biting teeth
To pay the price of entry—
Kill this mammon greed,
And, instead, Lord, enter me. 

Music: some lovely music as you think about spiritual “fishing”

Aroma

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Creation, Faith, Jesus, spirituality5 Comments

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 11, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081124.cfm

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.
Ephesians 5:1-2

You are hungry. It is a cold, grey, and rainy day. You walk into your gently lit home needing rest and nourishment. Then, imagine the aroma of freshly baked bread, just lifted from the oven.

Jesus tells us that he is that Bread, given to feed the deep hungers of our soul, and the deep hungers of all Creation.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray for the graces we need to allow us a rich appreciation of Eucharist:

  • in our Church and its liturgies
  • in the world as we share life and ministry
  • in the reverence for all Creation which becomes complete by our completeness in Christ

Prose: from The Mass on the World – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Since once again, Lord — though this time not in the forests of the Aisne but in the steppes of Asia — I have neither bread, nor wine, nor altar, I will raise myself beyond these symbols, up to the pure majesty of the real itself; I, your priest, will make the whole earth my altar and on it will offer you all the labours and sufferings of the world.

Over there, on the horizon, the sun has just touched with light the outermost fringe of the eastern sky. Once again, beneath this moving sheet of fire, the living surface of the earth wakes and trembles, and once again begins its fearful travail. I will place on my paten, O God, the harvest to be won by this renewal of labour. Into my chalice I shall pour all the sap which is to be pressed out this day from the earth’s fruits.

My paten and my chalice are the depths of a soul laid widely open to all the forces which in a moment will rise up from every corner of the earth and converge upon the Spirit. Grant me the remembrance and the mystic presence of all those whom the light is now awakening to the new day.

Music: Fresh Bread – Chuck Girard

Fresh bread, cool water, come and receive it
Fresh bread, cool water, come and receive it
Cease from your labors, come now and dine
Fresh bread, cool water, come get the oil and wine

In every life there comes a time to dance
In every life there comes a time to be still
Sometimes you’re given’ out until there’s nothin’ left
Then there’s a time that comes to be refreshed and filled

Repeat chorus

Come get the oil of gladness, and the bread of life
Come get the living water, be refreshed tonight
Come get the fruit of joy, come on and dance in the dirt
We’ll get the mud off your shoes and  
Have you back to the table in time for dessert

Repeat chorus

There’s a season of labor, then a day of rest
There’s a time of trial, then you pass the test
There’s a time when the wind blows, then a time of peace
There’s a time when you have to fast, then a time, a time when you feast

CHORUS

Come get the living water
Come get the bread of life
Come get the oil of gladness
Be refreshed tonight 
Cease from your labor, come now and dine
Fresh bread, cool water, come get the oil and wine

Bread

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Love, spirituality2 Comments

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 4, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080424.cfm

Then the LORD said to Moses,
“I will now rain down bread from heaven for you.
Each day the people are to go out and gather their daily portion;
thus will I test them,
to see whether they follow my instructions or not.

“I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites.
Tell them: In the evening twilight you shall eat flesh,
and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread,
so that you may know that I, the LORD, am your God.”
Exodus 16:11-12

In both our readings, God recognizes physical hunger and ties it to spiritual strength.

In our Gospel, Jesus makes the connection clear. He tells his followers:

“For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.”

No matter how much we are “fed”, we will never be satisfied until our nurture blesses the rest of the world as well as ourselves.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ask to be more aware of, grateful for, and generous with the blessings we have received.

Poetry: Bread – Richard Levine

Each night, in a space he’d make
between waking and purpose,
my grandfather donned his one
suit, in our still dark house, and drove
through Brooklyn’s deserted streets
following trolley tracks to the bakery.
There he’d change into white
linen work clothes and cap,
and in the absence of women,
his hands were both loving, well
into dawn and throughout the day—
kneading, rolling out, shaping
each astonishing moment
of yeasty predictability
in that windowless world lit
by slightly swaying naked bulbs,
where the shadows staggered, woozy
with the aromatic warmth of the work.
Then, the suit and drive, again.
At our table, graced by a loaf
that steamed when we sliced it,
softened the butter and leavened
the very air we’d breathe,
he’d count us blessed.

Music: Bread for the World – Bernadette Farrell

Answer

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Cross, Faith, Jesus, Prayer, Psalms, spirituality3 Comments

Saturday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 3, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080324.cfm

In today’s readings, both Jeremiah and John the Baptist encounter persecution. Jeremiah is saved, but John is not. Maybe both of them had questions about how, when they were so dedicated to God, evil yet pursued them. Perhaps they felt they had run into a spiritual wall. Ever felt like that?

Our Responsorial Psalm captures the longing for an answer – an understanding of how and why God works in our lives.

Lord, in your great love,
answer me.

Psalm 69:14

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
I think it’s safe to say that we all have questions about life and death, good and evil, grace and darkness, worldly success and spiritual peace, God’s Presence and God’s apparent absence.

Poetry: The Answer – Carl Sandberg

You have spoken the answer.
A child searches far sometimes
Into the red dust
                       On a dark rose leaf
And so you have gone far
                       For the answer is:
                                           Silence.

   In the republic
Of the winking stars
                       and spent cataclysms
Sure we are it is off there the answer is hidden and folded over,
Sleeping in the sun, careless whether it is Sunday or any other
    day of the week,

Knowing silence will bring all one way or another.

Have we not seen
Purple of the pansy
            out of the mulch
            and mold
            crawl
            into a dusk
            of velvet?
            blur of yellow?
Almost we thought from nowhere but it was the silence,
            the future,
            working.

Music: Popule Meus – Motet by Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)

Ecce lignum crucis:
In quo salus mundi pependit,
Venite, adoremus.

Popule meus, quid feci tibi?
Aut in quo contristavi te?
Responde mihi.

Quia eduxi te de terra Aegypti,
Parasti Crucem Salvatori tuo.

Hagios o Theos. Sanctus Deus.
Hagios Ischyros. Sanctus Fortis.
Hagios Athanatos, eleison himas.
Sanctus Immortalis, miserere nobis.

Quia eduxi te per desertum
Quadraginta annis,
Et manna cibavi te,
Et introduxi te in terram satis bonam,
Parasti Crucem Salvatori tuo.

Hagios o Theos. Sanctus Deus.
Hagios Ischyros. Sanctus Fortis.
Hagios Athanatos, eleison himas.
Sanctus Immortalis, miserere nobis.

Ego propter te flagellavi Aegyptum
Cum primogenitis suis:
Et tu me flagellatum tradidisti.

Popule meus, quid feci tibi?
Aut in quo contristavi te?
Responde mihi.

Ego te eduxi de Aegypto,
Demerso Pharone in mare Rubrum,
Et tu me tradidisti
Principibus sacerdotum.

Popule meus, quid feci tibi?
Aut in quo contristavi te?
Responde mihi.

Ego ante te aperui mare,
Et tu aperuisti lancea latus meum.

Popule meus, quid feci tibi?
Aut in quo contristavi te?
Responde mihi.

Behold the wood of the cross:
On which hung the salvation of the world,
Come, let us adore.

O my people, what have I done to you?
Or wherein have I grieved you?
Answer me.

Because I led you out of the land of Egypt:
You have prepared a Cross for your Saviour.

O Holy God. O Holy God.
O Holy Strong One. O Holy Strong One.
O Holy and Immortal, have mercy upon us.
O Holy and Immortal, have mercy upon us.

Because I led you through the desert,
For forty years,
And fed you with manna,
And brought you into a land exceeding good,
You have prepared a Cross for your Savior.

O Holy God. O Holy God.
O Holy Strong One. O Holy Strong One.
O Holy and Immortal, have mercy upon us.
O Holy and Immortal, have mercy upon us.

For you I scourged Egypt,
And its firstborn,
And you have delivered me to be scourged.

O my people, what have I done to you?
Or wherein have I grieved you?
Answer me.

I brought you out of Egypt,
And sank Pharaoh in the Red Sea,
And you bave delivered Me
To the chief priests.

O my people, what have I done to you?
Or wherein have I grieved you?
Answer me.

I opened the sea before you,
And you have opened my side with a spear.

O my people, what have I done to you?
Or wherein have I grieved you?
Answer me.

Friends

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, friendship, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus
July 29, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072924.cfm

Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary
to comfort them about their brother [Lazarus, who had died].
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,
she went to meet him;
but Mary sat at home.
Martha said to Jesus,
“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,
God will give you.”
John 11:19-22

Jesus needed and had friends, just like we do. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were that kind of close friends. Jesus could hang out at their house, be comfortable at their table. They loved when he visited, bustling about to tidy the house and make him a special meal. They could sit with him for the afternoon in the comfortable silence between close friends. And could expect him to share their joys and sorrows.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Jesus wants to be that kind of friend with us – sharing presence, refreshment, a quiet comfort, a lively conversation. He wants to share our ups and downs and in-betweens.He wants us to love him as he loves us.

Poetry: Malcolm Guite – The Anointing at Bethany

Come close with Mary, Martha, Lazarus
so close the candles stir with their soft breath
and kindle heart and soul to flame within us,
lit by these mysteries of life and death.
For beauty now begins the final movement
in quietness and intimate encounter.
The alabaster jar of precious ointment
is broken open for the world’s true Lover.
The whole room richly fills to feast the senses
with all the yearning such a fragrance brings.
The heart is mourning but the spirit dances,
here at the very center of all things,
here at the meeting place of love and loss,
we all foresee, and see beyond the cross.

Music: Pour My Love on You by Craig and Dean Phillips