Category: Love

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…

Measure

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

Monday of the Second Week in Lent
February 26, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022624.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

“Stop judging and you will not be judged.
Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven.
Give and gifts will be given to you;
a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,
will be poured into your lap.
For the measure with which you measure
will in return be measured out to you.”

Luke 6: 36-38

How many times in our lives have we realized that, in giving or serving, we have received much more than we have given? No material recompense can rival the gift of another’s gratitude and trust. When we are merciful as God is merciful, we know a joy beyond measure.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

A wise older friend said this to me long ago, challenging me to live my life by the abundance of Divine Measure. You might like to reflect on her phrase as you pray today’s Gospel:

Never resist
a generous impulse.

Prose: from Gratitude by David Whyte

Thankfulness finds its full measure
in generosity of presence, 
both through participation and witness. 
We sit at the table as part of every other person’s world 
while making our own world without will or effort, 
this is what is extraordinary and gifted, 
this is the essence of gratefulness, 
seeing to the heart of privilege. 
Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence 
meets all other presences. 
Being unappreciative might mean 
that we are simply not paying attention.

Music: Measureless – Shelly E. Johnson

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

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

Incomprehensible Love

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Faith, Love, Mary, Prayer, spirituality4 Comments

Thursday of the Third Week of Advent
December 21, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122123.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, the Church sings out to God the warm, familiar Advent invitation:

Our first reading from the Song of Songs vibrates with anticipation of God’s arrival:

Hark! my lover–here he comes
springing across the mountains,
leaping across the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Here he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattices.

Song of Songs 2: 8-9

When the Divine Lover arrives, the one who waits must be awakened from frost, flood, or barrenness that has drowsed them.

“Arise, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one,
and come!
“For see, the winter is past,
the rains are over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of pruning the vines has come,
and the song of the dove is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,
and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance.
Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one,
and come!

Song of Songs 2: 10-12

As we pray with the Song of Songs, we are reminded that relationship with God exceeds our comprehension and expression. We have only our human descriptions to help us explore the infinite dimensions of Grace and Mercy. We image the Holy One as Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Child, Light, Wisdom, Love, Lover, or Beloved – each aspect offering a necessarily limited metaphor for the Incomprehensible One.

As we consider places in our world, and in our own hearts, which are frozen, flooded, or barren of life, let us invite the Passion of God to rescue and reinvigorate us.

As we reflect on today’s Gospel, we can imagine both Mary and Elizabeth filled with that Holy Vigor which changes and restores everything to God’s original hope for Creation. It was into such ready openness that God’s Word leapt in one moment 2000 years ago. May it leap again into our hearts.

Poetry: Love Gaze – Renee Yann, RSM

Caught in the ferocious wind
of my own inadequacies,
I cling by finest web
to the energy You are,
fixing my soul on yours
in that precarious holding.

You are the magnet, gathering
all my emptiness beyond itself.
As if my fears were only stones
to tread upon, You come into the marshes
of my life as stillness, paused
and vibrating like a deer
among the reeds in dusklight.

I cannot word what it is
to swim in the deep pool of your Eyes.
All the universe, and all my understanding
turn reverently aside to offer privacy
for such profound combining.

Music: Veni, Dilecte Mi – Orlande de Lassus (1532-1594), one of the leading composers of the later Renaissance

Latin:
Prima pars
7:11 Veni dilecte mi, egrediamur in agrum, commoremur in villis,
7:12 Mane surgamus ad vineas. Videamus si floruit vinea, si flores
fructus parturiunt, si floruerunt mala punica.
Ibi dabo tibi ubera mea.


Secunda pars
4:11a Favus distillans labia tua, [dilecte mi], mel et lac
sub lingua tua.
8:6a Pone me ut signaculum super cor tuum,
quia fortis est ut mors dilectio, dura sicut infernus aemulatio.

English:
Prima pars
7:11 Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us abide in the villages.
7:12 Let us get up early to the vineyards, let us see if the vineyard flourish, if the flowers
be ready to bring forth fruits, if the pomegranates flourish:
there will I give thee my breasts.

Secunda pars
4:11a Thy lips, my spouse, are as a dropping honeycomb, [my beloved] honey and milk are under thy tongue;
8:6a Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm,
for love is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell.
(Douai-Rheims)

Preventing One Another

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Discipleship, Gospel, Love, spirituality6 Comments

Tuesday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
November 7, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/110723.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Paul gives us one of his most heartfelt and beautiful passages, and Jesus offers us a puzzling parable about the kingdom.

Rms12_10 honor

Paul’s exhortation to sincere holiness is a passage that warrants frequent reading. At any given point in our lives, one or another of its encouragements will seem to ring profoundly true with our circumstances.

One of the lines that I particularly cherish goes like this in the old Douay-Rheims version, which is where I first encountered it as a young girl:

Love one another with fraternal charity:
with honor preventing one another.

The bolded phrase fascinated me. I didn’t understand what it meant. From what were we to prevent one another?

It was not until I came to the convent that I begin to discern the power of this verse. At the time (during the Dark Ages, of course), the Sisters lived under the 1952 Constitutions of the Sisters of Mercy, an adaptation of the ancient Rule of St. Augustine. As postulants, we each received a 4×6, 128 page copy of the Rule. In direct and intentional language, it set the frame for our whole lives.

I nearly memorized it, especially Chapter 14 on Union and Charity. Right in the middle of the Chapter, I found this precious line:

They (the Sisters) shall sincerely respect one another. The young shall reverence the old and all shall unceasingly try in true humility to promote constant mutual cordiality and deference, “with honor preventing one another”.

Sister Inez, our dear early instructor, explained that this meant to anticipate the needs of our beloved sisters, especially the elderly; to do for them what might be difficult for them before they had to ask. In other words, to prevent their need. She said that this anticipatory charity should mark our service toward everyone, especially the poor, sick and ignorant whom we would vow to serve.

The more all of us can live together with this mutual love and respect, the closer we come to the kingdom of God, to the banquet table described in today’s Gospel. Jesus came to gather us all around this table. Pity on those who resist his invitation because their lives are entangled in self-interested endeavors. Their places are taken by “the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame” and all those on the margins of society.

As we join our sisters and brothers at the banquet of life, may we love and serve one another sincerely, always with honor preventing one another.

Poetry: Emily Dickinson

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Music: a little motion mantra this morning. Maybe you might want to get up outta’ that chair and join in🤗

Money is Not Enough

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

Friday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
September 22, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092223.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 49, the point of which according to Walter Brueggemann is this:

The point is that death is the great equalizer, 
and those who are genuinely wise 
should not be impressed by or committed to 
that which the world over-values.

Walter Brueggemann: From Whom No Secrets Are Hid

We may have heard the sentiment stated more succinctly by an anonymous scholar:

You can’t take it with you.

This is the core message Paul imparts to Timothy in our first reading:

For the love of money is the root of all evils,
and some people in their desire for it have strayed from the faith
and have pierced themselves with many pains.

1 Timothy 6:10

The advice is about more than money, or “dollar-bucks” as my 7-year-old grandnephew calls them.

The instruction is about our priorities – 
whom, why and what 
we love, value, and sacrifice for.

Walter Brueggemann

The opposite of this “love of money” is an unselfish, sacrificial love for others. This is the love Jesus hopes for in his disciples as he blesses them in today’s Gospel.

It takes courage to live such discipleship. As human beings, we tend to fear any kind of deprivation. We crave security, and sometimes we think money and possessions can give us that. Our readings today redirect that all too common misperception.

The world can be a very dark place, and of course, we will have fears and worries. Paul and our psalmist direct us to the right place to calm these concerns. Jesus calls us to believe in and live in the Light which is our true security.

Our psalm reminds us to keep our eyes on the eternal promise we have all been given.

But God will redeem my life,
will take me from the hand of Darkness.

Psalm 49:16

Poetry: Accepting This – Mark Nepo

Yes, it is true. I confess,
I have thought great thoughts,
and sung great songs—all of it
rehearsal for the majesty
of being held.
The dream is awakened
when thinking I love you
and life begins
when saying I love you
and joy moves like blood
when embracing others with love.
My efforts now turn
from trying to outrun suffering
to accepting love wherever
I can find it.
Stripped of causes and plans
and things to strive for,
I have discovered everything
I could need or ask for
is right here—
in flawed abundance.
We cannot eliminate hunger,
but we can feed each other.
We cannot eliminate loneliness,
but we can hold each other.
We cannot eliminate pain,
but we can live a life
of compassion.
Ultimately,
we are small living things
awakened in the stream,
not gods who carve out rivers.
Like human fish,
we are asked to experience
meaning in the life that moves
through the gill of our heart.
There is nothing to do
and nowhere to go.
Accepting this,
we can do everything
and go anywhere.

Music: His Eye is on the Sparrow (You might recall this version from the movie “Sister Act II”)

Clouds and Parables

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Love, Prayer, spirituality1 Comment

Thursday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 27, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072723.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings lead us to consider when, why, and how God speaks.

We all know that the big scene from Exodus is the delivery of the Ten Commandments. So as Sinai bubbles and churns in today’s reading, we may be waiting for that theophany.

But today’s passage from Exodus is not about the Commandments themselves. It is about getting oneself ready to hear what God is about to say.

God instructs Moses on how to prepare the people so that they have listening hearts able to respond with understanding and commitment.

While Israel was encamped here in front of the mountain,
the LORD told Moses,
“I am coming to you in a dense cloud,
so that when the people hear me speaking with you,
they may always have faith in you also.”
When Moses, then, had reported to the LORD the response of the people,
the LORD added, “Go to the people
and have them sanctify themselves today and tomorrow.
Make them wash their garments and be ready for the third day;
for on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai
before the eyes of all the people.”

Exodus 19:9-11
  • They are to expect a “cloud”
  • They are to see Moses as a conduit to God.
  • They are to prepare their hearts by symbolically preparing their garments.
  • They are to wait, in the mode of a vigil, for the Lord to speak.

In the late 1960s I, like the rest of the immediately post-Vatican II Church, was hungry to learn more enlightened theology. Around that time, I had the amazing opportunity of attending a lecture by the controversial priest and theologian Fr. Hans Küng. Some considered him a prophet, and some an iconoclast. But no one disagreed that he was a genius and an eminent voice for reform in the Catholic Church.

I was just beginning my theological education, and I knew — well actually — zip!

So I began to read everything I could find by or about Küng. I did serious prep work before the day came for the lecture. And it helped. I was ready to listen. My brain was spinning when I left the presentation (Küng is not easy!). Still, what little I understood inspired me to the next steps in my learning which has been life-long.

I think that’s what God is doing in today’s passage – readying hearts to listen to God’s life-long invitation to Covenant. That Covenant will be rooted in the community’s hearts by their faithfulness to the spirit of the Ten Commandments. And it will grow like any healthy relationship in love and mutual disclosure.

In our Gospel, Jesus talks about listening too. When asked why he spoke in parables to the crowd, Jesus replies:

Because knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven
has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.
To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich;
from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in parables, because
they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.

Matthew 13:11-13

Parables can be a little bit like those Sinai clouds – their truth may not be immediately evident. But by faithfulness, the horizon clears and the light dawns. Although they might appear to be, parables are not descriptions of sowers and seed, and prodigal children or devoted fathers. Jesus’s parables are revelations about us and God, told in simple stories so that we won’t be quite as dazed by their powerful truth as I was by that long-ago lecture.

When I walked out of the Küng lecture, believe me, I was in a cloud. His presentation was so dense with meaning that I felt like I knew less coming out than going in! Sometimes when we hear the parables, we might have a similar feeling. But that’s why we pray, year after year, with the infinitely revealing scriptures. They meet us where we are in our particular circumstances, and will always take us deeper into God if we are prepared to let them.

And Jesus assures us that our efforts to follow him will be rewarded:

But blessed are your eyes, because they see,
and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
longed to see what you see but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”

Matthew 13:16-17

Coming into deeper relationship with God takes time – dedicated time for silence, prayer, reflection, learning, and action born of contemplation. Let’s renew our deep desire for this kind of relationship.

Prose: excerpts from “The Cloud of Unknowing“, which is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in Middle English in the latter half of the 14th century. The text is a spiritual guide on contemplative prayer in the Late Middle Ages. The underlying message of this work suggests that the way to know God is to abandon consideration of God’s particular activities and attributes, and be courageous enough to surrender one’s mind and ego to the realm of “unknowing”, at which point one may begin to glimpse the nature of God. (Wikipedia)

  1. When you first begin, you find only darkness, and as it were a cloud of unknowing. You don’t know what this means except that in your will you feel a simple steadfast intention reaching out towards God. Do what you will, and this darkness and this cloud remain between you and God… Reconcile yourself to wait in this darkness as long as is necessary, but still go on longing after him whom you love.
  2. The nature of love is that it shares everything. Love Jesus, and everything he has is yours.…He may, perhaps, send out a shaft of spiritual light, which pierces this cloud of unknowing beteween you, and show you some of his secrets… then will you feel your affection flame with the fire of his love, far more than I can possibly say now…

Music: Transcending from “The Cloud of Unknowing” by Robert Kyr

Caritas patiens est benigna est
omnia suffert omnia credit
omnia sperat omnia sustinet
videmus enim nunc
per speculum in enigmate
tunc autem facie ad faciem
nunc cognosco ex parte
tunc autem cognoscam
sicut et cognitus sum
nunc autem manet
fides spes caritas
tria haec
maior autem his est caritas

Love is patient, Love is kind.
It bears all things, Believes all things,
Hopes all things, Endures all things.
For now we see
In a mirror, dimly,
But then we will see face to face.
Now I know only in part;
Then I will know fully,
Even as I have been fully known.
So now remain Faith, hope, love; These three,
But the greatest of these is love.

Beyond Expectation…

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Church, Community, Faith, Jesus, Love, spirituality3 Comments

Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary
June 20, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062023.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we receive an in-depth teaching on Christian generosity.

In the early Church, as in the Church today, evangelism and ministry require material support. In Paul’s time, the mother Church in Jerusalem needed funds to support ongoing mission activity.

In our first reading, Paul writes a “fund-raising” letter to the Greek Corinthians. He challenges them to be generous by raising up to them the outstanding example of the Macedonian churches (Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea). These communities, despite their current hardship, gave beyond expectation to the Church’s need.

Macedonia and Greece had a competitive political relationship. Whether or not Paul was using this contention to stoke a response in Corinthian generosity, we can only guess. However, Paul is very clear about what should motivate the Christian heart to charity:

For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that for your sake he became poor although he was rich,
so that by his poverty you might become rich.

2 Corinthians 8:9

While Paul has offered a tutorial on material giving, Jesus inspires us to a much deeper generosity. Jesus asks us to imitate God in our loving benevolence:

Jesus said to his disciples:
“You have heard that it was said,
You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
But I say to you, love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your heavenly Father,
for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

Matthew 5:43-45

God’s generosity – God’s beautiful Mercy – does not distiguish between who is deserving and who is not. God’s love is universal and irrevocable. Jesus, who is the enfleshment of God’s Love, explains that God’s perfection consists in this Absolute Mercy. He tells us that we should strive to live a life in imitation of this Merciful Perfection.

For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?
Do not the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brothers only,
what is unusual about that?
Do not the pagans do the same?
So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Matthew 5:46-48

Jesus is telling us that by living in generous mercy, beyond worldly expectation, we become “perfect” or whole in the Wholeness of God. Mercy heals not only those we touch, it heals us.

Poetry: To Live in the Mercy of God – Denise Levertov

To lie back under the tallest
oldest trees. How far the stems
rise, rise
                 before ribs of shelter
                                                 open!

To live in the mercy of God. The complete
sentence too adequate, has no give.
Awe, not comfort. Stone, elbows of
stony wood beneath lenient
moss bed.
And awe suddenly
passing beyond itself. Becomes
a form of comfort.
                         Becomes the steady
air you glide on, arms
stretched like the wings of flying foxes.
To hear the multiple silence
of trees, the rainy
forest depths of their listening.
To float, upheld,
                  as salt water
                  would hold you,
                                              once you dared.
To live in the mercy of God.
To feel vibrate the enraptured
waterfall flinging itself
unabating down and down
                                   to clenched fists of rock.
Swiftness of plunge,
hour after year after century,
                                                          O or Ah
uninterrupted, voice
many-stranded.
                                  To breathe
spray. The smoke of it.
                                  Arcs
of steelwhite foam, glissades
of fugitive jade barely perceptible. Such passion—
rage or joy?
                                  Thus, not mild, not temperate,
God’s love for the world. Vast
flood of mercy
                         flung on resistance.

Music: Mormon Tabernacle Choir – Holy Art Thou »-(adapted from Handel’s Largo “Ombra mai fu” in “Xerxes”. A beautiful instrumental version is under the hymn lyrics below.)

Holy art Thou, Holy art Thou, Lord God Almighty
Glory and Majesty, in Heav′n are Thine
Earth’s lowly bending, swells the full harmony
Blessing and Glory to the Lamb, forevermore
For worthy, worthy art Thou
Worthy art Thou

Let all nations and kindreds and peoples
Give thanks to Thee, forevermore
Give thanks forevermore

Let all nations and kindreds and peoples
Give thanks to Thee, forevermore

God Has Always Been in Love with Us!

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

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
January 18, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061823.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our beautiful readings this Sunday paint the picture of a God Who is eternally in love with us.

The writer of Exodus twenty-five hundred years ago knew this.

Then the LORD called to Moses and said,
“Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob;
tell the Israelites:
You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians
and how I bore you up on eagle wings
and brought you here to myself.
Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant,
you shall be my special possession,
dearer to me than all other people,
though all the earth is mine.

Exodus 19:3-5

Yes, God is eternally in love with us. Paul knew this when he wrote to the Romans about a half-century after Jesus lived on earth.

For Christ, while we were still helpless,
yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly.
Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person,
though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die.
But God proves his love for us in that
while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

Romans 5:6-8

And Matthew knew that God is eternally in love with us when he recorded this memory of his beloved Jesus:

At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them
because they were troubled and abandoned,
like sheep without a shepherd.
….
Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus,
“Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town.
Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons.

Matthew 9:36; 10:5-8

If God has loved us this long and this much, isn’t it time for us to really love God back?

In the above situations, and in our own lives, all that God ever asks for is faithfulness – through ups and downs, through ins and outs – God longs for our unwavering relationship.

A deep loving relationship like that requires our complete attention toward the Beloved.

How’re you doing with that?

It’s a question I’ll be asking myself – and God – in my prayer today.

Poetry: from Love’s Fire: Re-Creations of Rumi by Andrew Harvey

It is He who suffers his absence in me 
Who through me cries out to himself. 
Love’s most strange, most holy mystery-- 
We are intimate beyond belief.

Music: The Everlasting Love of God – Matt Boswell and Matt Papa