Category: Lent

Wholehearted

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Faith, Gospel, Lent, Love, spirituality5 Comments

Friday of the Third Week of Lent
March 8, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030824.cfm

The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.

The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.

Mark 12: 29-31

Is there even such a thing as a half-hearted love? When we truly love, we love completely. Otherwise, let’s call half-hearted love what it really is

  • convenience: I “love” because it fits my purposes
  • fear: I “love” because I am afraid of isolation and loneliness
  • pretense: I “love” because I don’t trust that I am loved in return
  • habit: I “love” because it’s the way I’ve always done things
  • keeping up appearances: I “love” because I don’t want anyone to know that I don’t really love

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s pray to love God for God’s purposes with a love that is fearless, trustful, passionate, and committed.

Jesus teaches that such wholehearted love of God is demonstrated by merciful love of neighbor. It’s an easy test — or is it?

Quote: from Rumi

A thousand half-loves must be forsaken 
to take one whole heart home.

Music: Wholehearted – by Newsong (lyrics below)

Trying to live in two worlds at one time
Holdin’ on to all the things that I call mine
Sayin’ one thing, but really livin’ two
It’s not just hard, it’s impossible to do

Lord, I want You to know
That this double life is through
And everything, all of me
I’m giving to You

And with my whole heart
I’m gonna love You
And with my whole life
I’m gonna live it for You
Take my heart, every secret part
I’m wholehearted in love with You

Talk about peace and talk about real joy
I’m talking about things I’ve never talked about before
Two roads to go, but only one road for me
I’ve seen both sides and I’m as sure as I can be

But, Lord, I want You to know
That this double life is through
And everything, all of me
I’m giving to You

And with my whole heart
I’m gonna love You
And with my whole life
I’m gonna live it for You
Take my heart, every secret part
I’m wholehearted in love with You

I’m not divided in my heart anymore
(‘Cause I know it’s You)
I said, it’s You and only You that I’m living for
(Only with my whole heart)

And with my whole heart
(Gonna love You)
With my whole heart
I’m gonna love You
And with my whole life
You know, I’m gonna live all it for You
Take my heart, every secret part
I’m wholehearted in love with You

With my whole heart
You know, I’m gonna love You
And with my whole life
I’m gonna live it all for You
Jesus, take my heart, every secret part
I’m wholehearted in love

Wholehearted in love
I’m in love with You, Lord…
You know, I’m gonna live it all for You, Jesus
Take my heart, take my soul
Wholehearted in love…

Observe

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Lent, Poetry, Praise, spirituality6 Comments

Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent
March 6, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030624.cfm

Moses spoke to the people and said:
“Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decrees
which I am teaching you to observe,
that you may live, and may enter in and take possession of the land
which the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.”

Deuteronomy 4:1

The word “observe” carries several meanings. We may, for example,

  • observe by giving full attention
  • observe by stating our assessment of something
  • observe a holiday or birthday by sending a card
  • observe an order from a superior
  • observe the sacred by a ritual of practice, silence, or waiting

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s take the final sense of sacred observing, placing our lives before God in faith, hope, and love. Each day that we live is a ritual of praise to the One Who created us. By living God’s Law of Love, we offer the praise for which God made us.

Poetry: from First Love by Denise Levertov

In the excerpt, Levertov “observes” by giving, and receiving, full attention.

`Convolvulus,' said my mother. 
Pale shell-pink, a chalice 
no wider across than a silver sixpence.
It looked at me, I looked 
back, delight 
filled me as if 
I, not the flower, 
were a flower and were brimful of rain. 
And there was endlesness. 
Perhaps through a lifetime what I've desired 
has always been to return 
to that endless giving and receiving, the wholeness 
of that attention, 
that once-in-a-lifetime 
secret communion.

Music: Touch of the Spirit – Nadama

Forgive

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, Jesus, Lent, spiritualityLeave a comment

Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent
March 5, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030524.cfm

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive him?
As many as seven times?”
Jesus answered,
“I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.

Matthew 18: 21-22

Today’s parable reminds us that often our desire to be forgiven does not match our desire to forgive others. Of course, we understand our personal circumstances and see clearly how they deserve leniency. Can’t you hear yourself saying:

  • “I didn’t mean it!”
  • “I just forgot.”
  • “Give me another chance!”
  • “I won’t let it happen again.”

Many times people do hurtful things because of their own fears. Mercy calls us to receive and forgive those fears and limitations with the same generous grace as God receives us. And our merciful openness must extend endlessly .. “77 times”. That kind of sincere forgiveness takes a lot of grace. Let’s pray for it today.

Poetry: Forgiveness – George MacDonald

God gives his child upon his slate a sum –
To find eternity in hours and years;
With both sides covered, back the child doth come,
His dim eyes swollen with shed and unshed tears;
God smiles, wipes clean the upper side and nether,
And says, ‘Now, dear, we’ll do the sum together!’

Music: Where Forgiveness Is – Sidewalk Prophets

Foolishness

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Discipleship, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Lent, spiritualityLeave a comment

Third Sunday of Lent
March 3, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030324-YearB.cfm

… We proclaim Christ crucified, …
… Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom,
and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

1 Corinthians 1: 22-25

This is a great mystery of our faith: that the all-powerful One chose to redeem us by assuming our human weakness, suffering torment, and dying an ignominious death.

When my three-year-old grand-niece visited our convent, she enjoyed walking through the huge motherhouse pointing out every statue of Our Lady of Mercy.

With each discovery she would pronounce the title: “Jeezie and his Mommy”. At the end of a very long corridor, we came to a life-size wooden carving of Jesus Crucified. Little Claire studied it, looked up at me and asked, “Who is that?”.

I simply said, “I don’t know” because her sweet little heart could not bear to learn, or to possibly understand, what happened to her “Jeezie”.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Lent is the time to deepen our understanding of what happened to Jesus because of the “foolishness of God”. That Omnipotent Love suffered, died, and rose for us so that we would understand and embrace the meaning of Love in our own lives.

Let’s pray today for a fuller awareness that our lives are a continuing participation in the Great Love. Let us use these Lenten days to find the pattern of the Cross in our world, and to look within it for the Light of the Resurrection.

Poetry: The Foolishness of God – Luci Shaw

Perform impossibilities
or perish. Thrust out now
the unseasonal ripe figs
among your leaves. Expect
the mountain to be moved.
Hate parents, friends, and all
materiality. Love every enemy.
Forgive more times than seventy-
seven. Camel-like, squeeze by
into the kingdom through
the needle’s eye. All fear quell.
Hack off your hand, or else,
unbloodied, go to hell.
Thus the divine unreason.
Despairing now, you cry
with earthy logic – How?
And I, your God, reply:
Leap from your weedy shallows.
Dive into the moving water.
Eyeless, learn to see
truly. Find in my folly your
true sanity. Then Spirit-driven,
run on my narrow way, sure
as a child. Probe, hold
my unhealed hand, and
bloody, enter heaven.

Music: The Cross is Foolishness – John Michael Talbot (lyrics below)

CHORUS:
The Cross is foolishness to those who perish
But for us it has become the wisdom of God
The Cross is foolishness to those who perish
But for us it is salvation and power from God

Some look for miracles, some look for wisdom
But we preach only Jesus crucified
It seems absurdity, it seems so foolish
But to us it is the wisdom of God

(CHORUS)

(CHORUS)

Eye has never seen, ear has never heard
Nor has it dawned on the limits of the mind
What God has surely prepared
For those who love Him
He reveals this wisdom through the Spirit of God

Cup

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness, Jesus, Lent, Mercy, peace, spirituality, suffering2 Comments

Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent
February 28, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022824.cfm

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee approached Jesus with her sons
and asked …
“Command that these two sons of mine sit,
one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom.”
Jesus said in reply,
“You do not know what you are asking.
Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?”
They said to him, “We can.”
He replied,
“My chalice you will indeed drink,
but to sit at my right and at my left,
this is not mine to give
but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”

Mark 10:20-23

In our Gospel, Jesus makes it clear that the path to heavenly glory is bound by a spiritual discipline that, in this contrary world, will cause us suffering. The cup is that chasm in life where we must choose peace over violence, generosity over selfishness, mercy over judgment, truth over deception, love over indifference. There will be resistance, both within us and around us, when we make such choices.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s be honest with ourselves as we answer Jesus’s question:
“Can you drink the cup that I will drink?”
Let’s pray for the grace to drink that cup as it comes to us in the particularities of our own lives.
Let’s ask for the spiritual confidence and understanding that the cup – our cup – leads to eternal life.

Poetry: Can You Drink the Cup? – by Scott Surrency, O.F.M. Cap. (2015)

I found this poem on the website https://thejesuitpost.org/2015/10/can-you-drink-the-cup/

Can you drink the cup?
Drink, not survey or analyze,
ponder or scrutinize –
from a distance.
But drink – imbibe, ingest,
take into you so that it becomes a piece of your inmost self.
And not with cautious sips
that barely moisten your lips,
but with audacious drafts
that spill down your chin and onto your chest.
(Forget decorum – reserve would give offense.)
Can you drink the cup?
The cup of rejection and opposition,
betrayal and regret.
Like vinegar and gall,
pungent and tart,
making you wince and recoil.
But not only that – for the cup is deceptively deep –
there are hopes and joys in there, too,
like thrilling champagne with bubbles
that tickle your nose on New Year’s Eve,
and fleeting moments of almost – almost – sheer ecstasy
that last as long as an eye-blink, or a champagne bubble,
but mysteriously satisfy and sustain.
Can you drink the cup?
Yes, you — with your insecurities,
visible and invisible.
You with the doubts that nibble around the edges
and the ones that devour in one great big gulp.
You with your impetuous starts and youth-like bursts of love and devotion.
You with your giving up too soon – or too late – and being tyrannically hard on yourself.
You with your Yes, but’s and I’m sorry’s – again.
Yes, you – but with my grace.
Can you drink the cup?
Can I drink the cup?
Yes.

Music: We Will Drink the Cup

We will drink the cup.
We will win the fight.
We will stand against the darkness of the night.
We will run the race
And see God’s face,
And build the Kingdom of love.

Do not fear for I am with you.
Be still and know that I am God.

You will run and not grow weary,
For I your God will be your strength.
Refrain

We are the Church, we are the Body.
We are God’s great work of art.

And build the Kingdom of love.

Snow …

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

Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent
February 27, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022724.cfm

Come now, let us set things right,
says the LORD:
Though your sins be like scarlet,
they may become white as snow;
Though they be crimson red,
they may become white as wool.

Isaiah 1:18

The greatest among you must be your servant.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled;
but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

Matthew 22:12

Today’s readings are studies in contrasts – white/scarlet; exaltation/humility.

Isaiah promises a transformative grace changing scarlet sins to snow-white goodness. In our Gospel, Jesus teaches the crowds that the way to holiness is in exact contrast to the practices of the Pharisees. The Gospel turns the patterns of the world upside down. Lent is the time to enter that turning.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s pray for the humility that will allow us to open ourselves to God’s transforming grace – that wash of insight over our spirits, cleansing us of spiritual confusion.

Humility can be a tricky virtue. Its essence is not a sense of worthlessness or “less-ness”. Humility is instead a profound awareness that all belongs to God, and that we are privileged to share in that Abundant Life. Humility does not concentrate on the Self. It looks at the Other in grateful and expectant obedience.

Poetry: A Woman in Winter – from In Wisdom’s Path: Discovering the Sacred in Every Season by Jan L. Richardson.

A woman in winter
is winter:
turning inward,
deepening,
elemental force,
time’s reckoning;
sudden frost
and fire’s warming,
depth of loss
and edge of storming.
She is avalanche,
quiet hungering,
utter stillness,
snowfall brewing;
hollowed, hallowed,
shadows casting,
field in fallow,
wisdom gathering.
Waiting, watching,
darkness craving,
shedding, touching,
reaching, laboring;
burning, carrying fire
within her,
a woman turning,
becoming winter.

Music: White As Snow – Maranatha Singers

Mountain

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Faith, Hope, Jesus, Lent, spirituality1 Comment

Second Sunday of Lent
February 25, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022524.cfm

“Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, 
and go to the land of Moriah.
There you shall offer him up as a holocaust 
on a mountain that I will point out to you.”

Jesus took Peter, James, and John 
and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves.
And he was transfigured before them, 
and his clothes became dazzling white, 
such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.

Often it is at the height of our joy, or the height of our sorrow that we feel closest to God. Intense experiences can bring us unequaled grace and opportunity for spiritual growth.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

In our prayer, we may gratefully remember the “mountains” of our lives, those times when joy, hope, pain, or anxiety built almost insurmountably in our hearts. How did God meet us in those moments? How did we meet God? How have our “mountains” transformed our lives?

Poetry: Unveiling the Heart’s Mirror – Rumi

All through eternity
Beauty unveils His exquisite form
in the solitude of nothingness;
He holds a mirror to His Face
and beholds His own beauty.
he is the knower and the known,
the seer and the seen;
No eye but His own
has ever looked upon this Universe.
His every quality finds an expression:
Eternity becomes the verdant field of Time and Space;
Love, the life-giving garden of this world.
Every branch and leaf and fruit
Reveals an aspect of His perfection.
The cypress gives hint of His majesty,
The rose gives tidings of His beauty.
Whenever Beauty looks,
Love is also there;
Whenever beauty shows a rosy cheek
Love lights Her fire from that flame.
When beauty dwells in the dark folds of night
Love comes and finds a heart
entangled in tresses.
Beauty and Love are as body and soul.
Beauty is the mine, Love is the diamond.
They have together
since the beginning of time-
Side by side, step by step.
I swear, since seeing Your face,
the whole world is fraud and fantasy
The garden is bewildered as to what is leaf
or blossom. The distracted birds
can’t distinguish the birdseed from the snare.
A house of love with no limits,
a presence more beautiful than venus or the moon,
a beauty whose image fills the mirror of the heart.

Music: God on the Mountain – Lynda Randle

Be!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Lent, Love, Mercy, spirituality4 Comments

Saturday of the First Week of Lent
February 24, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022424.cfm

Moses spoke to the people, saying:
“This day the LORD, your God,
commands you to observe these statutes and decrees.
Be careful, then,
to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.

Deuteronomy 26:16

… you are to be a people peculiarly God’s own, as promised you;
and provided you keep all his commandments,

Deuteronomy 26:18

… and you will be a people sacred to the LORD, your God,
as he promised.”

Deuteronomy 26:19

Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 5:48

In our readings today, God calls us to BE in the fullness of grace. For the people of the Old Testament, that path was found in the Law and Commandments. For Christians, that fullness is found in patterning our lives on Jesus. He showed us that God’s perfection is beyond Law. It is absolute Love and Mercy.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

In our prayer, we might ask for a deeper understanding of the “perfection” God asks of us – not a measurable, demonstrable alignment with subjective guidelines, but an unlimited openness to grace. God’s perfection is a Love without boundaries. Jesus is that Love made Flesh. In God, we are called to live in their example.

Poetry: Easy to Love a Perfect God – Shams-i of Tabrizi

Shams-i Tabrīzī (1185–1248) was a Persian poet who is credited as the spiritual instructor of Rumi and is referenced with great reverence in Rumi’s poetic collection. The tomb of Shams-i Tabrīzī was recently nominated to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It’s easy to love a perfect God, 
unblemished and infallible that God is. 
What is far more difficult 
is to love fellow human beings 
with all their imperfections and defects. 
Remember, only you can know 
what you are capable of loving. 
There is no wisdom without love. 
Unless we learn to love God’s creation, 
we can neither truly love 
nor truly know God.

Music: Perfectly Loved – Rachael Lampa

Son

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

Wednesday of the First Week in Lent
February 21, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022124.cfm

Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites,
so will the Son of Man be to this generation.
At the judgment
the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation
and she will condemn them,
because she came from the ends of the earth
to hear the wisdom of Solomon,
and there is something greater than Solomon here.

Luke 11: 30-31

Just like the Ninevites in Jonah’s time, we are called to turn our hearts fully to God. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, many prophets were sent with this message. But we have been given One greater than any of these prophets. Jesus is the ultimate Sign of God’s desire for our faith, love, and hope. We are called to live according to his Word.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy,

We might ask ourselves how free we are of the need to demand signs from God. When we live in deep relationship with another person, we trust their good will and loving intention toward us. We don’t have to ask them every five minutes if they still love us. We don’t have to pick apart their actions to test their intentions. We trust that they want only the best for us. How much more we can trust God who sent God’s own Beloved Son to redeem us!

Music: Two hymns today.

Son of God – by Starfield

God’s Own Son, Most Holy – by Ryan Flanagan

Verse 1: (From Christian Worship: a Lutheran hymnal‎ #17)
God’s own son, most holy
Came a servant lowly
Came to live among us
Came to suffer for us
Bore the cross to save us
Hope and freedom gave us

Verse 2: (From The 1982 Hymnal: Episcopal, #53)
Still he comes within us
Still his voice would win us
From the sins that hurt us
Would the truth convert us
Not in torment hold us
But in love enfold us

Chorus: (Derived from 4th verse Common Service Book Lutheran #10 and Lutheran Service Book )
Come, O come, Lord Jesus
From our sins release us
Let us here confess you God’s own Son

Verse 3
Thus, if we have known him
Not ashamed to own him
Nor have loved him coldly
But will trust him boldly
He will then receive us
Heal us and forgive us

Chorus
Come, O come, Lord Jesus
From our sins release us
Let us here confess you God’s own Son, most holy
Keep our hearts believing
That we, grace receiving
Ever may confess you God’s own Son, most holy

Verse 4 (From: The Chorale Book for England‎ #26, changed to new English first person plural)
But through many a trial
Deepest self denial
Long and brave endurance
Must we win assurance
That his own he makes us
And no more forsakes us

Pray

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Lent, Love, Prayer, spirituality2 Comments

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
February 20, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022024.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“In praying, do not babble like the pagans,
who think that they will be heard because of their many words.
Do not be like them.
Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Matthew 6: 7-8

I enjoy when Jesus is bluntly funny with his followers, as in today’s “Don’t babble!“. But my enjoyment wanes when I realize that he’s talking to me too. What about the quality of my prayer? Where do I fall on the “babble scale”?

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: 

We might consider the quality of our prayer, just as we might consider the quality of our conversation with anyone we dearly love. Do we talk with them enough? Do we listen to them well? Do we talk about things that matter? Do we say “the important things” to one another? Do we know and love each other well enough that we can communicate without even speaking?

That deep silent dialogue with God is referred to as contemplative prayer. The site below is a great place to enrich our practice of this type of prayer.

https://mcgrathblog.nd.edu/how-to-practice-centering-prayer-to-pray-and-be-with-god

Poetry: Prayer by Jorie Graham

One of the most celebrated poets of the American post-war generation, Jorie Graham is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including The Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1992 (1995) winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. She has taught for many years at Harvard University as the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, the first woman to be given this position, which was previously held by Seamus Heaney and many other writers dating back to the first Boylston Professor, John Quincy Adams.

Over a dock railing, I watch the minnows, thousands, swirl   
themselves, each a minuscule muscle, but also, without the   
way to create current, making of their unison (turning, re-
                                                                      infolding,
entering and exiting their own unison in unison) making of themselves a   
visual current, one that cannot freight or sway by   
minutest fractions the water’s downdrafts and upswirls, the   
dockside cycles of finally-arriving boat-wakes, there where   
they hit deeper resistance, water that seems to burst into   
itself (it has those layers), a real current though mostly   
invisible sending into the visible (minnows) arrowing
                                    motion that forces change

this is freedom. This is the force of faith. Nobody gets   
what they want. Never again are you the same. The longing
is to be pure. What you get is to be changed. More and more by
each glistening minute, through which infinity threads itself,   
also oblivion, of course, the aftershocks of something   
at sea. Here, hands full of sand, letting it sift through   
in the wind, I look in and say take this, this is   
what I have saved, take this, hurry. And if I listen   
now? Listen, I was not saying anything. It was only   
something I did. I could not choose words. I am free to go.   
I cannot of course come back. Not to this. Never.   
It is a ghost posed on my lips. Here: never.

Music: The Prayer – written by David Foster, Carole Bayer Sager, Alberto Testa and Tony Renis