Category: Love

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

Just

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

Memorial of Saint Pius X, Pope
August 21, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082124.cfm

Jesus told his disciples this parable:
“The Kingdom of heaven is like a landowner
who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard.
After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage,
he sent them into his vineyard.
Going out about nine o’clock,
he saw others standing idle in the marketplace,
and he said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard,
and I will give you what is just.’
Matthew 20:1-4

Jesus tells the parable of the generous landowner who measures out recompense by love not law. Jesus teaches that this new law of love is the Godly means to calculate justice.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray to live by the kind of loving justice Jesus calls us to, not by the measurements that keep others in subservience or oppression.
We might ask ourselves these questions:

  • What really belongs to me?
  • If I have achieved or received much in life is it not by the grace of God and good fortune?
  • How can I help others have what they justly deserve?

Poetry: from Rumi

When I am with you, everything is prayer.
I prayed for change,
so, I changed my mind.

I prayed for guidance
and learned to trust myself.

I prayed for happiness
and realized I am not my ego.

I prayed for peace
and learned to accept others unconditionally.

I prayed for abundance
and realized my doubt kept it out.

I prayed for wealth
and realized it is my health.

I prayed for a miracle
and realized I am the miracle.

I prayed for a soul mate
and realized I am with the One.

I prayed for love
and realized it is always knocking,
but I have to allow it in.

Music: Already All I Need – Christy Nockels

Covenant

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, holiness, Love, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Dominic, priest
August 8, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080824.cfm

But this is the covenant that I will make 
with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD.
I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; 
I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
No longer will they have need to teach their friends and relatives
how to know the LORD.
All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the LORD, 
for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.
Jeremiah 31:33-34

In today’s first reading, Jeremiah’s love song with God continues. He tells the people that God will “marry” their hearts by writing the Divine Design within them, and that all shall be included in that covenant of Infinite Mercy.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
In Jesus Christ, we are living in the fullness of that promise. Even in an apparently contradictory world, our faith impels us to believe, and to live a life which trusts that fulfillment.

Poetry: Draw Near – Scott Cairns

προσέλθετε (Come)

For near is where you’ll meet what you have wandered 
far to find. And near is where you’ll very likely see 
how far the near obtains. In the dark katholikon
the lighted candles lent their gold to give the eye
a more than common sense of what lay flickering
just beyond the ken, and lent the mind a likely
swoon just shy of apprehension. It was then
that time’s neat artifice fell in and made for us
a figure for when time would slip free altogether.
I have no sense of what this means to you, so little
sense of what to make of it myself, save one lit glimpse 
of how we live and move, a more expansive sense in Whom.

Music: Love Overflows – Michael Hoppé

One glass half empty
One glass half full,
Some may be dry now
Mine overflows.
See what you want to.
Each to their own.
My eyes are wide open
And love overflows

In the darkest hours
when you’re alone,
think of me, darling,
And love overflows.
In the darkest hours,
when you’re alone,
think of me, darling,
and love overflows.

Glory

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, Love, Praise, Prayer, spiritualityLeave a comment

Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord
August 6, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080624.cfm

Beloved:
We did not follow cleverly devised myths
when we made known to you
the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.
For he received honor and glory from God the Father
when that unique declaration came to him from the majestic glory,
“This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven
while we were with him on the holy mountain.
Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable.
You will do well to be attentive to it,
as to a lamp shining in a dark place,
until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
2 Peter 1:16-19

This beautiful passage from Peter shines with faith, adoration, and praise. It invites us to let go of our “thinking” about God and, instead, to bask in the Divine Glory of which our faith assures us.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
The Feast of the Transfiguration beckons us to be with God in the way we would be with someone we deeply love – not analyzing the bliss, but resting in it gratefully and contentedly.

Poetry: Transfiguration – Malcolm Guite

For that one moment, ‘in and out of time’,
On that one mountain where all moments meet,
The daily veil that covers the sublime
In darkling glass fell dazzled at his feet.
There were no angels full of eyes and wings
Just living glory full of truth and grace.
The Love that dances at the heart of things
Shone out upon us from a human face
And to that light the light in us leaped up,
We felt it quicken somewhere deep within,
A sudden blaze of long-extinguished hope
Trembled and tingled through the tender skin.
Nor can this blackened sky, this darkened scar
Eclipse that glimpse of how things really are.

Music: Transfiguration – by Wren and Manalo

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

Yield

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, Gospel, Love, Mary, spirituality3 Comments

Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne, Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary
July 26, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072624.cfm

But the seed sown on rich soil
is the one who hears the word and understands it,
who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.
Matthew 13:23

How appropriate, on this feast of Anne and Joachim, that the Gospel describes the abundant yield of love and fidelity. Those virtues in Anne and Joachim shaped the heart of Mary as the Vessel of God.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We gratefully remember those in our own lives who helped shape us by their faith, guardianship, and generosity – parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, trusted mentors, generous friends.

Poetry: The Splendor Falls – Alfred Lord Tennyson

The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O, hark, O, hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O, sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying,
Blow, bugles; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river;
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

I found a reference to this poem in a lovely reflection by Franciscan Sister Kathleen Murphy which you may read here:

Reflection on Saints Anne & Joachim

Music: Ancestors – by Sarah Pirtle

Chorus:
We are standing on the shoulders of the ones who came before us.
They are giving us their courage, and they say we are glad you’re in this world.

  1. May the strength of the ancestors encircle you.
    May the strength of the ancestors encircle you.
    And may this strength stay with you your whole life through.
    May the strength of the ancestors encircle you.

We are standing on the shoulders of the ones who came before us.
They are giving us their courage, and they say we are glad you’re in this world.

Refrain:
May you have all your choices. May you have all your voices.
May your wisdom now be heard.
They say we are glad you’re in this world.

  1. May the trust of the ancestors be healing you. (2x)
    And may this trust stay with you your whole life through.
    May the trust of the ancestors be healing you.

We are lifting up our vision to the ones who will come after.
We are sending them our courage, as they wait to come into this world.

Refrain:
May you have all your choices. May you have all your voices.
May your wisdom now be heard.
They say we are glad you’re in this world.

Mystery

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

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 14, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071424.cfm

In all wisdom and insight, God has made known to us
the mystery of the Divine Will in accord with the favor
set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of times,
to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth.
Ephesians 1:9-10

In this tiny passage from Ephesians, Paul describes infinite realities – that our Creator has shared with us a Divine Mystery that we will never fully understand in this life. The Mystery has been embodied in the life and Person of Jesus Christ so that we may see and imitate what Divine Love looks like. That alignment with Love is the Will of our God for us.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We ask that our simple faith may open itself to the Mystery of God’s Love. God is not a problem to be solved. Nor are God’s ways fully comprehensible to us. But Jesus has lived Love in our midst so that we can see the only thing we need to understand.

Poetry: Love’s Choice – Malcolm Guite

This bread is light, dissolving, almost air,
A little visitation on my tongue,
A wafer-thin sensation, hardly there.
This taste of wine is brief in flavour, flung
A moment to the palate’s roof and fled,
Even its aftertaste a memory.
Yet this is how He comes. 
Through wine and bread
Love chooses to be emptied into me.
He does not come in unimagined light
Too bright to be denied, too absolute
For consciousness, too strong for sight,
Leaving the seer blind, the poet mute;
Chooses instead to seep into each sense,
To dye himself into experience.

Music: The Mystery – Michael Card and John Michael Talbot

Could you be findin’ the mystery
You have been lookin’ for
A kingdom where servants will come to be kings
Are you lookin’ for
And you’ll know
That the sweet paradoxes unfold
And the mystery will clearly show
And you’ll know
And you’ll know

Jesus, paint my life
(Could you be findin’ the mystery)
Jesus, paint my life
(Could you be findin’ the mystery)
Jesus, paint my life
(Could you be findin’ the mystery)

And we know You are the Master of painters
Comin’ the true Prince of Peace
And we know You are the Tue Creator
Comin’ the King of kings

Jesus, paint my life with charity
Paint my life with mercy
Paint my life

Can you be the light of the world
Can you be the light
Then take the light that’s given to you
Can you be the light

Can you give your love to the world
Can you give your love
Take the love that’s given to you
Can you give your love

Jesus, paint my life with charity
Paint my life with mercy
Paint my life
Paint my life

Splancha

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Forgiveness, healing, Jesus, Love, Mercy, spirituality2 Comments

Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 9, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070924.cfm

Jesus went around to all the towns and villages,
teaching in their synagogues,
proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom,
and curing every disease and illness.
At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them
because they were troubled and abandoned,
like sheep without a shepherd.
Matthew 9:32-38

Have you ever felt your heart constrict or your belly drop in the face of deep sadness or shock? If so, you have felt “splancha”, the Greek word for that profound compassion that wells up from our innards for the sake of a suffering person.

Matthew tells us that Jesus felt “splancha” for the crowds because they were troubled and abandoned. They had lost their way to God and had no one to help them find it. Thus he reaches out to heal and teach them about God’s Lavish Mercy.

Today, in that same Lavish Mercy:
By the grace of God may we,
and all who are in need of grace,
be healed of trouble and abandonment
to find our way to God
through the Mercy of Jesus.

Poetry: Mercy by John F. Dean

Unholy we sang this morning, and prayed
as if we were not broken, crooked
the Christ-figure hung, splayed
on bloodied beams above us;
devious God, dweller in shadows,
mercy on us;
immortal, cross-shattered Christ—
your gentling grace down upon us.

Music: Merciful God – The Gettys and Stuart Townend