Category: Love

Sweet

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Creation, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Love, Psalms, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr
November 22, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112224.cfm

How sweet to my taste is your promise!
In the way of your decrees I rejoice,
as much as in all riches.
Yes, your decrees are my delight;
 they are my counselors.
The law of your mouth is to me more precious
than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
How sweet to my palate are your promises,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Your decrees are my inheritance forever;
the joy of my heart they are.
I gasp with open mouth
in my yearning for your commands.
from Psalm 119

Today, I choose to pray with our Responsorial Psalm 119, a beautiful love song to God. The psalm lists everything for which we might love God.

Picture a beloved asking you, “What do you love about me? Can you make a list?” Picture God doing the same thing. Psalm 119 is one person’s list of how they love the sweetness of God. What would your list look like?

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We take time in prayer to share “love talk” with God. How does the Divine Sweetness touch us, change us? How do we return that sweetness to God by our touch upon God’s Creation?

Poetry: Song Silence By Madeleva Wolff, CSC

Yes, I shall take this quiet house and keep it
With kindled hearth and candle-lighted board,
In singing silence garnish it and sweep it
                For Christ, my Lord.
 
My heart is filled with little songs to sing Him—
I dream them into words with careful art—
But this I think a better gift to bring Him,
                Nearer his heart.
 
The foxes have their holes, the wise, the clever;
The birds have each a safe and secret nest;
But He, my lover, walks the world with never
A place to rest.
 
I found Him once upon a straw bed lying;
(Once on His mother’s heart He laid His head)
He had a bramble pillow for His dying,
                A stone when dead.
 
I think to leave off singing for this reason,
Taking instead my Lord God’s house to keep,
Where He may find a home in every season
                To wake, to sleep.
 
Do you not think that in this holy sweetness
Of silence shared with God a whole life long
Both he and I shall find divine completeness
                Of perfect song?

Music: Cor Dulce – Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), sung by Benedictines of Mary

Sweet heart, most loving heart;
our love wounded,
our love languishing;
be merciful to me. 

Heart of Jesus, sweeter than honey;
heart purer than the sun;
Holy word of God,
fullness of God’s wealth.

Thy haven for a shipwrecked world;
secure portion for the faithful,
defender and refuge of our minds;
rest for our faithful hearts.

Cor dulce, Cor amabile,
Amore nostri saucium,
Amore nostri languidum,
Fac sis mihi placabile. 

Cor Jesu melle dulcius,
Cor sole puro purius,
Verbi Dei sacrarium,
Opum Dei compendium. 

Tu portus orbi naufrago,
Secura pars fidelibus,
Reis asylum mentibus,
Piis recessus cordibus.

Love

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Conversion, Courage, Cross, Faith, Love, spirituality1 Comment

Friday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
November 15, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111524.cfm

But now, Lady, I ask you,
not as though I were writing a new commandment
but the one we have had from the beginning:
let us love one another.
For this is love, that we walk according to his commandments;
this is the commandment, as you heard from the beginning,
in which you should walk.
2 John 4:5-6

The Motherhouse chapel is impressive, more like a cathedral than a chapel. I remember being led into it for the first time when, at 18 years old, I came for my initial interview. It took my breath away. You can imagine the intensity of my prayer as I knelt for the first time at the altar rail, realizing that my young, inscrutable choices were about to change my life irrevocably.

I looked up to the Gospel command emblazoned above the apse thinking, “That’s what this is all about. Let me begin.”

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Perhaps, remembering a long-ago choice in your life, you will see how it has unfolded in love over the years. This is a good day to pray those memories and blessings with God.

Poetry: Slowly – Macrina Wiederkehr

Life unfolds
a petal at a time
slowly

The beauty of the process is crippled
when I try to hurry growth.
Life has its inner rhythm
which must be respected.
It cannot be rushed or hurried.

Like daylight stepping out of darkness,
like morning creeping out of night,
life unfolds slowly a petal at a time
like a flower opening to the sun,
slowly.

God’s call unfolds
a Word at a time
slowly.

A disciple is not made in a hurry.
Slowly I become like the One
to whom I am listening.

Life unfolds
a petal at a time
like you and I
becoming followers of Jesus,
discipled into a new way of living
deeply and slowly.

Be patient with life’s unfolding petals.
If you hurry the bud it withers.
If you hurry life it limps.
Each unfolding is a teaching
a movement of grace filled with silent pauses
breathtaking beauty
tears and heartaches.

Life unfolds
a petal at a time
deeply and slowly.

May it come to pass!

Music: The Faith – Leonard Cohen

Woe

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Faith, Gospel, inclusivity, Jesus, justice, Love, spirituality1 Comment

Wednesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
October 16, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101624.cfm

The Lord said:
“Woe to you Pharisees!
You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb,
but you pay no attention to judgment and to love for God.
Luke 11:42

Jesus got fed up with those who lived a loveless law. The Pharisees were meticulous in their outward observation of the Law of Moses, but they failed its core test to love their neighbor as themselves as written in Leviticus.

Thought:

The only love of God that has any substance
is the love of God enacted as love of neighbor.

Walter Brueggemann

Music: Love God, Love Your Neighbor – Dale Sechrest

Friendship

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Books, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, friendship, Gospel, Jesus, Love, spirituality1 Comment

Thursday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
October 10, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101024.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Suppose one of you has a friend
to whom he goes at midnight and says,
‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread,
for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey
and I have nothing to offer him,’
and he says in reply from within,
‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked
and my children and I are already in bed.
I cannot get up to give you anything.’
I tell you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves
because of their friendship,
he will get up to give him whatever he needs
because of his persistence.

“And I tell you, ask and you will receive;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives;
and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Luke 11:5-11

In our Gospel today, Jesus describes the meaning of friendship and invites his disciples to receive that gift from God.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ask God to show us the profound beauty of Divine Friendship. We are grateful and humbled to be offered such a gift.

William Barry, SJ – one of my top ten spiritual writers – has written an inspiring book about friendship with God. Barry believes, as I do, that the concept of friendship best describes one’s deepening relationship with God.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=William+Barry&i=stripbooks&crid=3N6T8EPSQT76V&sprefix=william+barry%2Cstripbooks%2C93&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

Excerpt from William Barry, SJ:

What does God want in creating us? My stand is that what God wants is friendship.
To forestall immediate objections, let me say that I do not mean that God is lonely and therefore needs our friendship. This is a romantic and quite unorthodox notion that makes God ultimately unbelievable. No, I maintain that God—out of the abundance of divine relational life, not any need for us—desires humans into existence for the sake of friendship.

Music: I’ve Found a Friend – J. G. Small (1866)

Although this hymn echoes some revival tones of the 19th century, I think is still a beautiful and unexpectedtribute to Divine Friendship.

Better

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, holiness, Jesus, Love, Prayer, spirituality1 Comment

Tuesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
October 8, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/100824.cfm

Jesus entered a village
where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.
She had a sister named Mary
who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak.
Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said,
“Lord, do you not care
that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving?
Tell her to help me.”
The Lord said to her in reply,
“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her.”
Luke 10:38-42

What is the sacred balance between prayer and action? How do we acieve the sweet point where prayer and action infuse each other in mutual inspiration? In this Gospel, Jesus indicates that one element has precedence over the other — there is a “better part”.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We seek to deepen our prayer life while employing it to inspire our merciful service to Creation.

Poetry: Martha and Mary by John Newton (1725-1807)

Martha her love and joy expressed
By care to entertain her guest;
While Mary sat to hear her Lord,
And could not bear to lose a word.

The principle in both the same,
Produced in each a different aim;
The one to feast the Lord was led,
The other waited to be fed.

But Mary chose the better part,
Her Saviour’s words refreshed her heart;
While busy Martha angry grew,
And lost her time and temper too.

With warmth she to her sister spoke,
But brought upon herself rebuke;
One thing is needful, and but one,
Why do thy thoughts on many run?

How oft are we like Martha vexed,
Encumbered, hurried, and perplexed!
While trifles so engross our thought,
The one thing needful is forgot.

Lord teach us this one thing to choose,
Which they who gain can never lose;
Sufficient in itself alone,
And needful, were the world our own.

Let groveling hearts the world admire,
Thy love is all that I require!
Gladly I may the rest resign,
If the one needful thing be mine!

Music: Come Mary, Come Martha – Anna Purdum

Charity

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Church, Discipleship, Faith, Love, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, virgin and Doctor of the Church
October 1, 2024

Today’s Readings: from the Mass for St. Thérèse

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/1001-memorial-therese-child-jesus.cfm

The disciples approached Jesus and said,
“Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?”
He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said,
“Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children,
you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven.
Whoever humbles himself like this child
is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 18:1-4

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We celebrate one of the most beautiful souls in the Communion of Saints. Let us learn from her profound wisdom lived with impeccable simplicity.

Charity gave me the key to my vocation.
I understood that the Church
being a body composed of different members,
the most essential, the most noble of all the organs
would not be wanting to her;
I understood that the Church has a heart
and that this heart is burning with love;
that it is love alone that makes the members work,
that if love were to die away
apostles would no longer preach the Gospel,
martyrs would refuse to shed their blood.
I understood that love comprises all vocations,
that love is everything,
that it embraces all times and all places
because it is eternal!

Music: Love Changes Everything – Andrew Lloyd Webber, sung by Michael Ball

Alabaster

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Discipleship, Faith, friendship, Hope, Jesus, Love, spirituality2 Comments

Thursday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
September 19, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091924.cfm

Bringing an alabaster flask of ointment,
she stood behind him at his feet weeping
and began to bathe his feet with her tears.
Then she wiped them with her hair,
kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment….

Simon, when I entered your house,
you did not give me water for my feet,
but she has bathed them with her tears
and wiped them with her hair.
You did not give me a kiss,
but she has not ceased kissing my feet.
You did not anoint my head with oil,
but she anointed my feet with ointment.
So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven;
because she has shown great love.
Luke 7:37-38;44-47

Mary (identified in John’s Gospel as Mary of Bethany) loves Jesus beyond words. Sensing that his Passion and Death are near, she pours out that love in silent tenderness.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Prayerfully imagine the alabaster jar, holding it gently in your hands. It is fine and delicate, easily broken unless handled tenderly.

As we express our love for God and for God’s Creation, we carry it in delicate wrappings, like alabaster. Sometimes, we may doubt our capacity for love, faith, and hope. We may see our “sinfulness” rather than our spiritual strength.

But if we, like Mary, focus our hearts on God, and fearlessly pour our love over God’s Creation, our fragility becomes our strength.

Poetry: Anointings at Bethany – Irene Zimmerman, OSF

Solemnly, Mary entered the room,
holding high the alabaster jar.
It gleamed in the lamplight as she circled the room,
incensing the disciples, blessing Martha’s banquet.
“A splendid table!” Mary called with her eyes
as she whirled past her sister.

She came to a halt at last before Jesus,
bowed profoundly and knelt at his feet.
Deftly, she filled her right hand with nard,
placed the jar on the floor,
took one foot in her hands
and moved fragrant fingers across his instep. 

Over and over she made the journey
from heel to toes, thanking him
for every step he had made
on Judea’s stony hills,
for every stop at their home,
for bringing back Lazarus. 

She poured out more nard,
took his other foot in her hands
and started again with strong, rhythmic strokes.
She felt her hands’ heat draw out his tiredness,
take away the rebuffs he had known
—the shut doors, the shut hearts. 

Energy flowed like a river between them.
His saturated skin gleamed with oil. 

But she had no towel! 

In an instant she pulled off her veil,
pulled the pins from her hair,
shook it out till it fell in cascades
and once more cradled each foot,
dried the ankles, the insteps,
drew the strands between his toes.

Without warning, Judas Iscariot
spat out his anger, the words hissing
like lightning above her unveiled head:
“Why was this perfume not sold
for three hundred denarii
and the money given to the poor?” 

“Leave her alone!”
Jesus silenced the usurper.
“She bought it so that she might keep it
for the day of my burial.” 

The words poured like oil,
anointing her from head to foot.

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

I don’t know how to say exactly how I feel
And I can’t begin to tell you what your love has meant
I’m lost for words
Is there a way to show the passion in my heart
Can I express how truly great I think you are,
My dearest friend.
Lord, this is my desire:
To pour my love on You

Chorus:
Like oil upon your feet
Like wine for you to drink
Like water from my heart
I pour my love on you
If praise is like perfume
I’ll lavish mine on you
Till every drop is gone
I’ll pour my love on you.

Love

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Faith, Hope, Jesus, Love, spirituality1 Comment

Wednesday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
September 18, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091824.cfm

At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror,
but then face to face.
At present I know partially;
then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
So faith, hope, love remain, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:12-13

In this often recited and glorious passage from Corinthians, Paul recounts the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and love. He tells us that without love, the rest of the spiritual life is meaningless. And Jesus told us that to love only those who love us is not sufficient.

For if you love those who love you,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners love those who love them.

Luke 6:32

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Real love is not easy. We pray to grow better at loving as God loves – universally, selflessly, and limitlessly.

Poetry: Love’s As Warm As Tears – C.S. Lewis

Love’s as warm as tears,
Love is tears:
Pressure within the brain,
Tension at the throat,
Deluge, weeks of rain,
Haystacks afloat,
Featureless seas between
Hedges, where once was green.
Love’s as fierce as fire,
Love is fire:
All sorts—infernal heat
Clinkered with greed and pride,
Lyric desire, sharp-sweet,
Laughing, even when denied,
And that empyreal flame
Whence all loves came.
Love’s as fresh as spring,
Love is spring:
Bird-song hung in the air,
Cool smells in a wood,
Whispering ‘Dare! Dare!’
To sap, to blood,
Telling ‘Ease, safety, rest,
Are good; not best.’
Love’s as hard as nails,
Love is nails:
Blunt, thick, hammered through
The medial nerves of One
Who, having made us, knew
The thing He had done,
Seeing (with all that is)
Our cross, and His.

Music: The Greatest of These Is Love – Tina English and Jay Rouse

If I speak with the tongues of men and angels
but have not love, I am just a noise.
And if I have the gift of prophecy,
know all knowledge, have all faith,
understand all mystery, or remove mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give all I have to feed the poor,
but have not love,
nothing is gained, nothing gained.
Love is patient, love is kind.
Love does not brag, and is not arrogant.
Love is not proud, boastful, rude.

Love does not seek its own.
Love rejoices in the truth.
It keeps no record of wounds.
Love bears all things,believes all things.
Love hopes all things,
endures all things.

These three remain:
faith, hope, and love.
But the greatest of these is love.

Even

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Courage, Faith, Gospel, inclusivity, Jesus, Love, Mercy, Service, spirituality2 Comments

Thursday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
September 12, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091224.cfm

Do to others as you would have them do to you.
For if you love those who love you,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners do the same.
If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners lend to sinners,
and get back the same amount.
But rather, love your enemies and do good to them,
and lend expecting nothing back;
then your reward will be great
and you will be children of the Most High,
for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
Be merciful, just as also your Father is merciful.
Luke 6:31-36

“Even” can be a parsimonious word – as in “get even”, “even-steven”. In such phrases, “even” means we settle things without forgiveness or generosity. It means we get our due without considering the other’s need.

But Jesus says the Gospel heart is not about “evenness”. Rather it is weighted on the side of extravagant mercy, generosity, and forgiveness.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray for the courage to model our relationships with others on God’s incredible kindness to us.

Quote: Wendell Berry from his reflection, “Loving my enemies and living simply”.
The entire reflection is available here:
https://www.openhorizons.org/loving-my-enemies-and-living-simply-wendell-berry-on-jesus-and-the-gospels.html

But to take the Gospels seriously, to assume that they say what they mean and mean what they say, is the beginning of troubles. Those would-be literalists who yet argue that the Bible is unerring and unquestionable have not dealt with its contradictions, which of course it does contain, and the Gospels are not exempt. Some of Jesus’ instructions are burdensome not because they involve contradiction, but merely because they are so demanding.

The proposition that love, forgiveness and peaceableness are the only neighborly relationships that are acceptable to God is difficult for us weak and violent humans, but it is plain enough for any literalist. We must either accept it as an absolute or absolutely reject it. The same for the proposition that we are not permitted to choose our neighbors ahead of time or to limit neighborhood, as is plain from the parable of the Samaritan.

The same for the requirement that we must be perfect, like God, which seems as outrageous as the Buddhist vow to “save all sentient beings,” and perhaps is meant to measure and instruct us in the same way. It is, to say the least, unambiguous.

Music: Love Your Enemies – Kyle Sigmon

Pure

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Gospel, holiness, Jesus, Love, Mercy, spirituality1 Comment

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 1, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090124.cfm

Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you
and is able to save your souls.

Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this:
to care for orphans and widows in their affliction
and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
James 1:21-22;27

In his epistle, James is reiterating some strong words from Jesus.

In today’s Gospel, the Pharisees are all whipped up about hand-washing. They have succumbed to the temptation to live a religion of appearances. Jesus basically tells them that no one ever gained eternal life by washing their hands.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Jesus tells us, and so does James, how we stay clean and pure in God’s sight. Let’s take a look in the mirror to see how squeaky clean we look.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this:
to care for orphans and widows in their affliction
and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
James 1:21-22;27

Poetry: from Rumi

If you will be observant and vigilant,
you will see at every moment
the response to your action.

Be observant if you wouldst have a pure heart,
for something is born to you
in consequence of every action.

Music: Salvation – Michael Hoppé, Martin Tillman & Tim Wheater