Category: Poetry

Blossoming Exultation!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Gospel, Hope, Jesus, ordinary time, Poetry, Prayer, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

January 11, 2022
Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

Today’s Readings

Ordinary Time 2022:
The extraordinary reality is that we have been given the gift of life!
Each day we are given a new portion of grace to deepen in God!
Let us focus our reflections on the “hidden extraordinary”
– a word, thought, or challenge in each day’s readings
that we might otherwise have taken for granted.
May God give us the graceful appreciation to unwrap these gifts!

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we awaken to extraordinary gifts revealed in three words from our readings:

Downcast – Amazed – Exultant

In our first reading, Hannah’s story continues to unfold. And we feel for her, don’t we? The woman is desperate to bear life! Not only does she long for her own sweet child; she longs as well for restored standing in her neighborhood and family as one who is fertile not barren. This meant everything in Hannah’s community as fertility defined a woman’s importance.

Have you ever prayed like Hannah prays in this chapter? Has any need in your life ever so demanded God’s mercy? These are times that ask for our complete vulnerability before God’s Omnipotence.

In her bitterness she prayed to the LORD, weeping copiously,
and she made a vow, promising: “O LORD of hosts,
if you look with pity on the misery of your handmaid,
if you remember me and do not forget me,
if you give your handmaid a male child,
I will give him to the LORD for as long as he lives…

1 Samuel 1: 10-11
Vasili Petrovich Vereshchagin (1864)

Eli witnesses Hannah’s vulnerable prayer. He blesses her and hope cracks through her gloom:
She replied, “Think kindly of your maidservant,” and left.
She went to her quarters, ate and drank with her husband,
and no longer appeared downcast.

1 Samuel 1:18

Extraordinary Vulnerability!

Jesus Casts Out Demons – Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld

In the Gospel reading, Jesus is still very early in his ministry. He has come to the synagogue to teach and people are “astonished” to hear the depth of his authority. But their astonishment grows even more when Jesus successfully commands the unclean spirit to leave the tortured man.
All were amazed and asked one another,
“What is this?
A new teaching with authority.
He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”

Mark 1:27

Can we let ourselves be constantly amazed at God’s Presence, Power, and Mercy in all Creation?


Extraordinary Holy Amazement!

Once again, our Responsorial Psalm offes a way to pray when our downcast desperation meets God’s amazing, transforming grace. It is the “Magnificat” of Hannah:

And Hannah prayed:

“My heart exults in the LORD,
my horn is exalted by my God.
I have swallowed up my enemies;
I rejoice in your victory.
There is no Holy One like the LORD;
there is no Rock like our God.
1 Samuel 2: 1-2

1 Samual 2: 1-2

Extraordinary Exultation!

Through our scripture-nourished prayer,
may we open the gifts of extraordinary vulnerability, extraordinary hope, and extraordinary exultation
wrapped in our own ordinary lives this day.

Poetry: Bare Tree – Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Already I have shed the leaves of youth,
stripped by the wind of time down to the truth
of winter branches. Linear and alone
I stand, a lens for lives beyond my own,
a frame through which another's fire may glow,
a harp on which another's passion, blow.
The pattern of my boughs, an open chart
spread on the sky, to others may impart
its leafless mysteries that I once prized,
before bare roots and branches equalized,
tendrils that tap the rain or twigs the sun
are all the same, shadow and substance one.
Now that my vulnerable leaves are cast aside,
there's nothing left to shield, nothing to hide.
Blow through me, Life, pared down at last to bone,
so fragile and so fearless have I grown!

Music: Listen to the Trees

Anno Domini – New Year’s Day

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Gospel, Mary, Poetry, spirituality4 Comments

January 1, 2022
The Octave Day of Christmas – Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God

Today’s Readings

Happy New Year, everyone!
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate Mary, Mother of Jesus.

Theotokos, a mosaic mural from the Gelati Monastery, Georgia, (1125-1130 AD)

I begin my prayer today by asking a question posed by distinguished theologian, Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ:

What would be a theologically sound, spiritually empowering and ethically challenging theology of Mary, mother of Jesus the Christ, for the 21st century? This question has no simple answer, for the first-century Jewish woman Miriam of Nazareth, also held in faith to be Theotokos, the God-bearer, is arguably the most celebrated woman in the Christian tradition. One could almost drown surveying the ways different eras have honored her in painting, sculpture, icons, architecture, music and poetry; venerated her with titles, liturgies, prayers and feasts; and taught about her in spiritual writings, theology and official doctrine.

In my own prayer today, though, I am not reaching for a deeper theological understanding of Mary. I simply want to talk with her as my Mother, my older Sister, my Friend. I want to seek her guidance and her inspiration. I want to thank her for her continual willingness to bear Christ into the world, and into my life.

How significant it is that the Church begins the year inviting us all to Mary’s Light! Our first reading blesses us in a way that Mary might bless us:

The LORD bless you and keep you!
The LORD let his face shine upon you,
and be gracious to you!
The LORD look upon you kindly
and give you peace!

Mary was all about giving us the LORD, not giving us herself. We see Mary best when we see her holding Christ toward us – the “God-bearer” or “Theotokos”.

Theotokos Vladimirskaya icon, Vologda, Vladimirskaya Church, mid-end 16 century

This title, used especially in Eastern Christianity, originated in the 3rd century Syriac tradition. It affirms Mary as the Mother of Jesus, Who was both human and divine in nature.

Our reading from Galatians assures us that we too, by our Baptism, are the daughters and sons of God – thus becoming Mary’s own. She is our Mother too by the power of this sacrament.

Our Gospel reveals the spirituality of Mary who “pondered” all the mysterious workings of God deep in her heart. This Mary is my revered sister, guiding me as I meet the unfolding of God in my own life.

Today, let us pray with Mary, our Mother, our Sister, Bearer of God. Let us pray for the whole Church, the whole world – all of whom she tenderly loves.

Poetry: Mary Poems – Lucille Clifton (1936 –2010) was an American poet, writer, and educator from Buffalo, New York. She was Poet Laureate of Maryland and twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

Clifton traced her family’s roots to the West African Kingdom of Dahomey, now the Republic of Benin. Growing up, she was told by her mother, “Be proud, you’re from Dahomey women!”. (You will catch some of her Creole cadence in the verses below.)

Her uniquely insightful poems about Mary capture aspects of Mary’s humanity, vulnerability and womanhood that we might otherwise not consider in a religious tradition that highly spiritualizes Mary.

A Song of Mary

somewhere it being yesterday.
i a maiden in my mother’s house.
the animals silent outside.
is morning.
princes sitting on thrones in the east
studying the incomprehensible heavens.
joseph carving a table somewhere
in another place.
i watching my mother.
i smiling an ordinary smile.

****************

Mary’s Dream

winged women was saying
"full of grace" and like.
was light beyond sun and words
of a name and a blessing.
winged women to only i.
i joined them, whispering
yes.

****************

Holy Night

Joseph, I afraid of stars,
their brilliant seeing.
so many eyes, such light.
joseph, I cannot still these limbs,
I hands keep moving toward I breasts,
so many stars. so bright.
joseph, is wind burning from east
joseph, I shine, oh joseph, oh
illuminated night.

****************

Island Mary

after the all been done and i
one old creature carried on
another creature's back, i wonder
could i have fought these thing?
surrounded by no son of mine save
old men calling Mother like in the tale
the astrologer tell, i wonder
could i have walk away when voices
singing in my sleep? i one old woman.
always i seem to worrying now for
another young girl asleep
in the plain evening.
what song around her ear?
what star still choosing?

Music: A Peaceful Hymn to the Theotokos – Nuns of the Carmazani Monastery in Romania

The Last Hour…

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Poetry, Scripture, spirituality2 Comments

December 31, 2021
Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, on this New Year’s Eve, our spirits are occupied with the passage of time – the endings and beginnings that compose a life.

In the public domain, this night is often characterized as one of wild celebrations, almost as if we need to prove our endurance within time.

But in the privacy of our hearts, there are the moments of quiet nostalgia, bittersweet memory, and inexpressible gratitude for all that has been in this past year and the years preceding.

On this Sacred Eve, as people of faith, we will hold time’s hourglass up to the Light of eternity, knowing that – in God – there is no time.

In God, there is only love – the only human capacity which endures beyond time. In heaven, we will not need faith because we will see. We will not need hope, because all will be fulfilled.

But we will always need love.

In the end, there are three things that last –
faith, hope, and love.
And the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13

Photo by Digital Buggu on Pexels.com

So before the tolls welcome midnight, let us raise up to God our Eucharist of 2021:

  • those whose lives have been completed; those who have just begun
  • the efforts we made which succeeded; those which failed
  • the dreams secured; the dreams abandoned
  • the opportunities for grace that we seized; those lost which we hope to reclaim
  • the prayers answered as we had desired; the prayers answered in ways we hadn’t expected
  • all that we have loved; all that we hope to love more worthily

As John says in our first reading,
“Children, it is the last hour …” 
May we let it go
with gratitude, wisdom and joy.

But as John also says in our Gospel:

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God …
…. and from his fullness we have all received,
grace flowing upon grace …

May we welcome the grace
of eternal life and hope
given to us
in another New Year.

New Year’s Chimes by Francis Thompson, the English poet and Catholic mystic whose most famous poem is “The Hound of Heaven”. The poem is so worth your time if you can spare it. I take it in small doses to squeeze out the amazing imagery in every stanza.

What is the song the stars sing?
(And a million songs are as song of one)
This is the song the stars sing:
(Sweeter song’s none).

One to set, and many to sing.
(And a million songs are as song of one)
One to stand, and many to cling,
The many things and the one Thing,
The one that runs not, the many that run.

The ever new weaveth the ever old,
(And a million songs are as song of one)
Ever telling the never told;
The silver saith, and the said is gold,
And done ever the never done.

The Chase that’s chased is the Lord o’ the chase,
(And a million songs are as song of one)
And the Pursued cries on in the race;
And the hounds in leash are the hounds that run.

Hidden stars by the shown stars’ sheen;
(And a million suns are but as one)
Colours unseen by the colours seen,
And sounds unheard heard sounds between.
And a night is in the light of the sun.

An ambuscade of light in night,
(And a million secrets are but as one)
And a night is dark in the sun’s light,
And a world in the world man looks upon.

The world above in the world below,
(And a million worlds are but as one)
And the One in all; as the sun’s strength so
Strives in all strength, glows in all glow
Of the earth that wits not, and man thereon.

Braced in its own fourfold embrace
(and a million worlds are but as one)
And round it all God’s arms of grace,
The world, so as the Vision says,
Doth with its great lightning tramples on.

And the thunder bruiteth into thunder,
(And a million sounds are as sound of one)
From stellate peak to peak is tossed a voice of wonder
And the height stoops down to the depths thereunder,
And sun leans forth to his brother sun.

And the more ample years unfold
(With a million songs as song of one)
A little new of the ever old,
A little told of the never told,
Added act of the never done.

Loud the descant, and low the theme,
(A million songs are as song of one)
And the dream of the world is dream in dream,
But the one Is is, or nought could seem;
And the song runs round to the song begun.

This is the song the stars sing,
(Tunèd all in time)
Tintinnabulous, tuned to ring
A multitudinous-single thing
(Rung all in rhyme).

Blessed 2022, dear friends.

Music: Two songs — for “old times sake”?

Amazing Grace ~ Salt Lake City Vocal Artists

Auld Lang Syne – sung by Helmut Lotti

God’s Whispers

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Poetry, spiritualityLeave a comment

December 27, 2021
Feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate John, “the Beloved Disciple”.

Throughout John’s magnificent writings, the themes of Love and Light stretch our perception of God, and challenge us to love like God loves.

John’s deep love of God, and devotion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, pour out in his epistles which we will be blessed with over the next several weeks.

Sometimes John’s poetic style can be a little off-setting to those more comfortable with practical prose. But if we can allow our minds to savor the rich layers of meaning within the words, we will start to experience the lyrical mystery of John’s relationship with God.

On these holy days, while we still bask in Christmas glory, we might ask in prayer to be deepened in our friendship with God. We might imagine ourselves resting our head on Jesus’s shoulder, just as John did at the Last Supper. We might listen there for the holy secrets God wants to whisper into our lives.

Jesus and St. John at Last Supper from 19th century – in St. Michaels church (Michelskerk).

Poetry: To Imagination – Emily Brontë.
Brontë wrote this poem to imagination, but I think it could easily be addressed to the Spirit of God in our souls.

When weary with the long day’s care,
And earthly change from pain to pain,
And lost and ready to despair,
Thy kind voice calls me back again:
Oh, my true friend! I am not lone,
While thou canst speak with such a tone! 

So hopeless is the world without;
The world within I doubly prize;
Thy world, where guile, and hate, and doubt,
And cold suspicion never rise;
Where thou, and I, and Liberty,
Have undisputed sovereignty.

What matters it, that, all around,
Danger, and guilt, and darkness lie,
If but within our bosom’s bound
We hold a bright, untroubled sky
Warm with ten thousand mingled rays
Of suns that know no winter days? 

Reason, indeed, may oft complain
For Nature’s sad reality,
And tell the suffering heart, how vain
Its cherished dreams must always be;
And Truth may rudely trample down
The flowers of Fancy, newly-blown: 

But, thou art ever there, to bring
The hovering vision back, and breathe
New glories o’er the blighted spring,
And call a lovelier Life from Death,
And whisper, with a voice divine,
Of real worlds, as bright as thine.

I trust not to thy phantom bliss,
Yet, still, in evening’s quiet hour,
With never-failing thankfulness,
I welcome thee, Benignant Power;
Sure solacer of human cares,
And sweeter hope, when hope despairs!

Music: Whisper – Jason Upton

Rain Down, Lord!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Creation, Faith, healing, Jesus, Poetry, Prayer, Psalms, spirituality2 Comments

December 15, 2021
Wednesday of the Third Week in Advent

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Isaiah and Luke who both offer us passages in which God self-describes in displays of omnipotence and tenderness.

In Isaiah, we meet the powerful Creator Who dispenses both justice and mercy.

In Luke, we meet the merciful Savior Who tenderly uses that power to heal.

With our psalm response from Isaiah, we voice our longing to be healed by God’s infinite power – a power which finds the world’s brokenness, seeps into it like rain, transforms it with love.

Poetry: I Rain by Hafiz

The poem came to mind when I prayed the verse:
Let the clouds rain down the Just One, and the earth bring forth a Savior.

I rain
Because your meadows call
For God.

I weave light into words so that
When your mind holds them

Your eyes will relinquish their sadness,
Turn bright, a little brighter, giving to us
The way a candle does
To the dark.

I have wrapped my laughter like a gift
And left it beside your bed.

I have planted my heart’s wisdom
Next to every signpost in the sky.

A wealthy one, seeing all this,
May become eccentric,

A divinely wild soul
transformed to infinite generosity

Tying gold sacks of gratuity
To the dangling feet of moons, planets, ecstatic
Midair dances, and singing birds.

I speak
Because every cell in your body
Is thirsty
For God.

Music: Waiting for the Rain – Kathryn Kaye

Freshness and Light

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Faith, Hope, Poetry, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

December 9, 2021
Thursday of the Second Week in Advent

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with inspired Isaiah who must have had such a beautiful mind – a mind to imagine God making a tired world new!

In our first reading, Isaiah shows us what our radiant and nourishing God can do for those who live in darkness, destitution and fear. (Once we get past the unfortunate metaphor of being called a worm!)

I will open up rivers on the bare heights,
    and fountains in the broad valleys;
I will turn the desert into a marshland,
    and the dry ground into springs of water.
I will plant in the desert the cedar,
    acacia, myrtle, and olive;
I will set in the wasteland the cypress,
    together with the plane tree and the pine,
That all may see and know,
    observe and understand,
That the hand of the LORD has done this,
    the Holy One of Israel has created it.

Isaiah 41:18-20

Psalm 145 reminds that God is with us – on our side – in both Advent and our Life Journey.

As the year moves closer to its time of deepest darkness, may we know God’s bright Presence in our hearts. May we sense God lighting, once again, the dark places in our lives and in our world.

We all have parched and painful situations, unanswered hopes, lingering fears.  Let us bring them out of the shadows today and open them to the refreshing grace of God who made the stars to give us hope.

Jupiter Over the Motherhouse

Poetry:

Music: Fiona Joy Hawkins – Blue Dream

No More Tears

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, healing, Poetry, spiritualityLeave a comment

December 4, 2021
Saturday of the First Week of Advent

Today’s Readings

Today, in Mercy, Isaiah – in glorious prophecy – promises God’s People better times.

Thus says the Lord GOD,
    the Holy One of Israel:
O people of Zion, who dwell in Jerusalem,
    no more will you weep;
GOD will be gracious to you when you cry out,
    answering as soon as you are heard.
The Lord will give you the bread you need
    and the water for which you thirst.
No longer will your Teacher be hidden,
    but with your own eyes you shall see your Teacher,
While from behind, a voice shall sound in your ears:
    “This is the way; walk in it,”
    when you would turn to the right or to the left.

Isaiah 30: 19-21

Oh my, don’t we all long for the fulfillment of that promise! So much in both our larger and smaller worlds longs for healing!

Perhaps we can use our prayer within these readings today to call on God for the promised healing.

It is a healing that requires our cooperation. Isaiah says that we must name our pain to God – for ourselves and for all who suffer in our world:

The Lord will be gracious to you when you cry out,
answering as soon as you are heard.

The prophet says that this crying out will change us. We will see the Lord with us in our suffering. God will lead us through that suffering by our acts of faith, hope, love, justice and mercy:

No longer will your Teacher be hidden,
but with your own eyes you shall see your Teacher,
While from behind, a voice shall sound in your ears:
“This is the way; walk in it,”
when you would turn to the right or to the left.

Our Gospel tells us that we are called to be Christ’s disciples, and that disciples are healers. By letting our lives become sources of healing in the world, Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled for our time.

Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus,
“Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons.
Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”

Matthew 10:5-8

How we do these wondrous deeds in the world is an ongoing revelation. When I was very young, I took the proclamation quite literally. But I soon lost the expectation that I would ever help “cure” anyone of anything!

Life has blessed me with the realization that there is a difference between “curing” and “healing” – and that there are many degrees of healing.

  • There are many ways in which living people are caught in deadly lives.
  • There are all kinds of “lepers” in our society, rendered so by the prejudices of others.
  • Certainly, many of us carry all sorts of crippling demons.

All these situations, and others like them, invite us to offer the gift of sacred healing implanted in us at our Baptism.

Acknowledging the pain in ourselves and others,
and trusting that God wants us to be healed and whole,
is the work of true discipleship.

Let’s draw strength from Isaiah’s promise in order to find a generous, merciful courage for our call to be “healed healers”.

Poetry: The Cure of Souls – Denise Levertov

The pastor
of grief and dreams

guides his flock towards
the next field

with all his care.
He has heard

the bell tolling
but the sheep

are hungry and need
the grass, today and

every day. Beautiful
his patience, his long

shadow, the rippling
sound of the flocks moving

along the valley.

Music: Your Healing Touch – Joe Bongiorno

In a very little while …

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Courage, Hope, Poetry, spirituality2 Comments

December 3, 2021
Friday of the First Week of Advent
Memorial of St. Francis Xavier

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we stand with Isaiah on the rim of hope. We wait, trusting that “in a very little while”, the Lord will make Creation whole.

It’s a precipitous place, this cliff called “Hope”. It requires that we risk ourselves solely on the promises of a God we cannot see. It invites us to leap into a mist we cannot control.

Or can we?

In today’s Gospel, Jesus invites the blind men to the cliff’s edge by asking them:

Do you believe that I can do this?

Well, that’s everything, isn’t it? If our answer is “No”, “Maybe”, or “Kinda’”, we might as well just lie down on this side of the Promise.

But if our answer is brave, like the Gospel blind ones, we too may have our vision cleared to see that there is no leap required. We already stand beside God.

When his children see
the work of my hands in his midst,
They shall keep my name holy;
they shall reverence the Holy One of Jacob,
and be in awe of the God of Israel.
Isaiah 29:23

Poetry:Hope – Lisel Mueller

It hovers in dark corners
before the lights are turned on,
it shakes sleep from its eyes
and drops from mushroom gills,
it explodes in the starry heads
of dandelions turned sages,
it sticks to the wings of green angels
that sail from the tops of maples.

It sprouts in each occluded eye
of the many-eyed potato,
it lives in each earthworm segment
surviving cruelty,
it is the motion that runs
from the eyes to the tail of a dog,
it is the mouth that inflates the lungs
of the child that has just been born.

It is the singular gift
we cannot destroy in ourselves,
the argument that refutes death,
the genius that invents the future,
all we know of God.

It is the serum which makes us swear
not to betray one another;
it is in this poem, trying to speak.

Music: Amazing Grace sung by Il Divo

Table of Comfort

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Church, Community, Faith, Jesus, Poetry, spiritualityLeave a comment

December 1, 2021
Wednesday of the First Week of Advent

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings take us to the Lord’s banquet. It is a rich image that threads through scripture and helps us understand what characterizes the perfect reign of God.

The readings, coming just on the heels of Thanksgiving, present familiar images to us. Last week, you may have been part of the preparation of the feast for your family and friends. Maybe you’re the master carver, or brought sides of old family recipes. Or you might be the table decorator or, most important, the clean-up guru!

Or maybe you were the one who steered the conversation so that all felt welcomed and included in the gathering. Maybe you were the one who took someone aside if they needed an extra portion of care. Maybe you were the one who invited someone with no other place to go.

That Thanksgiving meal, and every meal, can be a symbol of the heavenly banquet.

Isaiah’s banquet is all elegance and fullness. He describes an end-time when, despite a path through suffering, all is brought to perfection in God:

On this mountain the LORD of hosts
will provide for all peoples
A feast of rich food and choice wines,
juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.

Jesus’s feast is more “now”, and more rustic. He takes the ordinary stuff of present life and transforms it to satisfy the immediate needs of those gathered. With sparse and simple ingredients, Jesus creates the “miracle meal” for the poor and hungry.

He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground.
Then he took the seven loaves and the fish,
gave thanks, broke the loaves,
and gave them to the disciples,
who in turn gave them to the crowds.
They all ate and were satisfied. 

Christ’s presence with us in the Eucharist is both kinds of meal.

  • It points us to the perfection of heaven, where the “web” will be lifted from our eyes and we will see ourselves as one in Christ.
  • It calls us to be Christ for one another in this world – creating miracles of love and mercy so that all are adequately fed, in body and soul, for the journey we share.

Poetry: Love Bade Me Welcome – George Herbert, (1593 – 1633) – a Welsh-born poet, orator, and priest of the Church of England. His poetry is associated with the writings of the metaphysical poets, and he is recognized as “one of the foremost British devotional lyricists.

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back 
                              Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack 
                             From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
                             If I lacked any thing.
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
                             Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
                             I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
                             Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
                             Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
                             My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
                            So I did sit and eat.

Music:  Banquet- Graham Kendrick (Lyrics below)

There’s no banquet so rich
As the bread and the wine
No table more holy
No welcome so kind
There’s no mercy so wide
As the arms of the cross
Come and taste, come and see
Come find and be found

There’s no banquet so rich
For what feast could compare
With the body of Jesus
Blessed, broken and shared?
Here is grace to forgive
Here is blood that atoned
Come and taste, come and see
Come know and be known

Take the bread, drink the wine
And remember His sacrifice
There’s no banquet so rich
As the feast we will share
When God gathers the nations
And dines with us here
When death’s shadow is gone
Every tear wiped away
Come and eat, come and drink
Come welcome that day

There’s no banquet so rich
For our Saviour we find
Present here in the mystery
Of these humble signs
Cleansed, renewed, reconciled
Let us go out as one
Live in love, and proclaim
His death till he comes

Promise Fulfilled

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Faith, Poetry, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

First Sunday of Advent
November 28, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we begin our Advent journey remembering a promise:

The days are coming, says the LORD, 
    when I will fulfill the promise 
    I made to the house of Israel and Judah.

Jeremiah 33:14

“Promise” is a powerfully dynamic concept whose meaning we sometimes constrict. 

We might say something like, “I promise to pay you back someday” – thereby limiting “promise” to some future event that may or may not happen.

But “promise”, in its richer meaning, is an inward turning toward a journey, each step a necessary component of the ultimate fulfillment. 

In this sense, “promise” is more akin to “vow” or “covenant”. It unfolds as life unfolds. It grows through stages, like a fruit tree from a tiny seed. Its meaning, at first indistinctly seen, blossoms as it is fed with faith, hope, and enduring love.

This is the nature of God’s promise to us. It is not only some salvific event in our future. It is the flowering of grace, again and again, in our life choices for God. 

It is the classic example of that insightful phrase, “The journey is the destination.” In other words, Jesus cannot be born for us on Christmas if He is not born in us every day.

Thus, Psalm 25 is the perfect prayer as we reflect on our journey during Advent.

To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.

Your ways, O LORD, make known to me;
   teach me your paths,
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
   for you are God my savior,
   and for you I wait all the day. 

All Your paths are kindness and constancy
   toward those who keep Your covenant and decrees.
Your friendship is with those 

who hold themselves in awe before You,
   and Your covenant is for their daily instruction.

Psalm 25: 4-5; 10,14

As we begin this Advent,
let us ask God to show us
the promise longing for fulfillment
in each moment and
in every event of our daily lives.
Let us give our hearts to it.

Poetry: Advent Credo from Walking on Thorns by Allan Boesak

It is not true that creation and the human family are doomed to destruction and loss—
This is true: For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life;

It is not true that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination, hunger and poverty, death and destruction—
This is true: I have come that they may have life, and that abundantly.

It is not true that violence and hatred should have the last word, and that war and destruction rule forever—
This is true: Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, his name shall be called wonderful councilor, mighty God, the Everlasting, the Prince of peace.

It is not true that we are simply victims of the powers of evil who seek to rule the world—
This is true: To me is given authority in heaven and on earth, and lo I am with you, even until the end of the world.

It is not true that we have to wait for those who are specially gifted, who are the prophets of the Church before we can be peacemakers—
This is true: I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions and your old men shall have dreams.

It is not true that our hopes for liberation of humankind, of justice, of human dignity of peace are not meant for this earth and for this history—
This is true: The hour comes, and it is now, that the true worshipers shall worship God in spirit and in truth.

So let us enter Advent in hope, even hope against hope. Let us see visions of love and peace and justice. Let us affirm with humility, with joy, with faith, with courage: Jesus Christ—the life of the world.

Music: Psalm 26 – Kendrick and Redman