Category: spirituality

Mantle

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality3 Comments

Saturday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 15, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061524.cfm

Elijah set out, and came upon Elisha, son of Shaphat,
as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen;
he was following the twelfth.
Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak over him.
Elisha left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said,
“Please, let me kiss my father and mother goodbye,
and I will follow you.”
1 Kings 19:19-20

Elijah delivers God’s call by placing his mantle across Elisha’s shoulders. The mantle is a symbol of prophetic power, authority, and duty. Elisha welcomes God’s call and the gifts and responsibilities it holds. This story offers us themes of vocation, mentorship, and spiritual eagerness to profess and practice God’s love in the world.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Each of us continually receives God’s call to grow in holiness. This is our vocation, the mantle of invitation to live our lives for and with God. We may choose our call in marriage, religious profession, ordination, or the single life.

Like Elisha, we could be minding our own business in a “field” somewhere when the awareness of God’s call falls over us in a mantle of grace. This call will repeat itself in new ways throughout the course of our lives. Again like Elisha, we pray to be spiritually open and eager to respond.

Poetry: Vocation – William E. Stafford

This dream the world is having about itself
includes a trace on the plains of the Oregon trail,
a groove in the grass my father showed us all
one day while meadowlarks were trying to tell
something better about to happen.
I dreamed the trace to the mountains, over the hills,
and there a girl who belonged wherever she was.
But then my mother called us back to the car:
she was afraid; she always blamed the place,
the time, anything my father planned.
Now both of my parents, the long line through the plain,
the meadowlarks, the sky, the world's whole dream
remain, and I hear him say while I stand between the two,
helpless, both of them part of me:
"Your job is to find what the world is trying to be."

Music: The Call – Vaughn Williams

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such a Way, as gives us breath:
Such a Truth, as ends all strife:
Such a Life, as killeth death

Come, My Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such a Light, as shows a feast:
Such a Feast, as mends in length:
Such a Strength, as makes his guest

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
Such a Joy, as none can move:
Such a Love, as none can part:
Such a Heart, as joys in love

U.S. Flag Day

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Prayer, spirituality3 Comments

June 14, 2024

I originally wrote this prayer for Thanksgiving over 20 years ago. But I have adapted here because I think it fits our celebration today, and may offer us all some food for thought.

For many years, I worked with Dr. Peter Keim, a wonderful friend and colleague. His passion outside of work was the history of the United States flag. I learned so much from Pete who, as well as being a devotee of American history, is an embodiment of the nobility our flag represents.

If you’d like to learn more about Dr. Keim’s work, follow the link below.
Thanks and
Happy Flag Day!

(You can zoom in to the pages by clicking “View” at the very top of your page.
You can move about the page by holding one finger on the mousepad or left click/hold mouse.)

Whisper

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Hope, spirituality6 Comments

Friday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 14, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061424.cfm

A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains
and crushing rocks before the LORD—
but the LORD was not in the wind.
After the wind there was an earthquake—
but the LORD was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake there was fire—
but the LORD was not in the fire.
After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound.
When he heard this,
Elijah hid his face in his cloak
and went and stood at the entrance of the cave.
A Voice said to him, “Why are you here, Elijah?”.
1 Kings 19:11-13

Elijah has been a fiery prophet, credibly demonstrating the call to believe in one God. But despite magnificent Divine demonstrations, the people have not been faithful. In today’s reading, the great Elijah goes to the mountain depressed and defeated. God tries to speak to Elijah in further stunning revelations, but Elijah can face only the whisper of God’s Will.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

This passage may lead us to consider the quiet, whispering influence of God in our lives. To do only that would neglect salient points in these verses. At this point in his life, Elijah feels that he has failed in his life’s mission. Israel has failed in fidelity to the Abrahamic covenant. The situation is a mess, God is fed up, and the time for judgment has come.

  • Do we ever feel that way about our world, our Church, even our own lives?
  • Do we ever wonder if what we have tried to be and do in life really matters?
  • Have we gotten so focused on our frustrations and fears that we miss the magnificent display of God’s love and hope for us?

If so, perhaps we can at least, like Elijah, open our hearts to the Divine Whisper ever-present to us. If we have drifted from wholehearted faith, how is God drawing us back with Gentle Presence?

Poetry: i thank you, God – e.e.cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Music: Courage of the Wind – David Lanz

Reconciled

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Creation, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, justice, spirituality4 Comments

Memorial of Saint Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church
June 13, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061324.cfm

Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar,
and there recall that your brother
has anything against you,
leave your gift there at the altar,
go first and be reconciled with your brother,
and then come and offer your gift.
Matthew 5: 23-24

Jesus teaches a profound lesson in today’s Gospel. We cannot be in balance with God if we are out of balance with our neighbor.

In the “court” of God’s justice, that balance resides not in judgment or vengeance. It resides in a love beyond “liking” — in reconciliation, forgiveness, mercy, patience, hospitality, reverence, and service toward one another.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We realize that we can’t like everybody. We can’t feel good toward everybody. We can’t approve of everybody. But we can choose to be Christlike to everybody.

May we grow in that grace, inspired by the awareness that we are One in God with all Creation.

Poetry: One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII – Pablo Neruda

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

Music: Amor Dei – Stephen Peppos

Consume

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Holy Spirit, Hope, Scripture, spirituality2 Comments

Wednesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 12, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061224.cfm

At the time for offering sacrifice,
the prophet Elijah came forward and said,
“LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel,
let it be known this day that you are God in Israel
and that I am your servant
and have done all these things by your command.
Answer me, LORD!
Answer me, that this people may know that you, LORD, are God
and that you have brought them back to their senses.”
The LORD’s fire came down
and consumed the burnt offering, wood, stones, and dust,
and it lapped up the water in the trench.
Seeing this, all the people fell prostrate and said,
“The LORD is God! The LORD is God!”
1 Kings 18:36-39

Elijah was certainly a colorful character, similar in pattern to John the Baptist. They were both so filled with love and commitment to God that their actions could seem outrageous to unbelievers. In today’s reading, Elijah creates an almost impossible situation then calls on God to show that all things are possible with faith.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We ask for the grace to live a passionate faith. May we grow in understanding that the love of God is a consuming love, not compartmentalized into a Sunday devotion or an isolated spiritual habit. May we fully give ourselves to this Love which has given Itself for us.

Poetry; Come, My Love – Thomas Merton

Come, my love,
Pass through my will
As through a window
Shine on my life
As on a meadow
I like the grass to be consumed
By the rays of the sun
On a late summer’s morning
Come, my love,
All through the night
I lay longing
Eagerly to wait
For love’s union
Like dawn’s flower awaits
For the wedding with the sun
Consummated in the light
Your light, my love,
Is stealing my heart
As a secret
I’m left
Like a vanishing form
That leaves no shadows
Exposed naked, alone
Between the heavens and the earth
Lifted high on the cross with the Savior
O life-giving tomb,
Prepared through the night
For dawn’s dying
Like a moon
Like the mansions of heaven
Await the rebirth of a child
New Jerusalem
So come to my life, Light of Heaven
Come, my love,
Pass through my will
As through a window
Shine on my life
As on a meadow
I like the grass to be washed
By the rays of the sun
On the late summer’s morning

Music: Veni, Creator Spiritus – Rabanus Maurus

English Version:
Come, Holy Spirit, Creator blest,
and in our souls take up Thy rest;
come with Thy grace and heavenly aid
to fill the hearts which Thou hast made.

O comforter, to Thee we cry,
O heavenly gift of God Most High,
O fount of life and fire of love,
and sweet anointing from above.

Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts are known;
Thou, finger of God’s hand we own;
Thou, promise of the Father,
Thou Who dost the tongue with power imbue.
Kindle our sense from above,
and make our hearts o’erflow with love;
with patience firm and virtue high
the weakness of our flesh supply.

Far from us drive the foe we dread,
and grant us Thy peace instead;
so shall we not, with Thee for guide,
turn from the path of life aside.

Oh, may Thy grace on us bestow
the Father and the Son to know;
and Thee, through endless times confessed, of both the eternal Spirit blest.

Now to the Father and the Son,
Who rose from death, be glory given,
with Thou, O Holy Comforter,
henceforth by all in earth and heaven. Amen.

Latin Version
Veni, Creator Spiritus,
mentes tuorum visita,
imple superna gratia
quae tu creasti pectora.

Qui diceris Paraclitus,
altissimi donum Dei,
fons vivus, ignis, caritas,
et spiritalis unctio.

Tu, septiformis munere,
digitus paternae
dexterae, Tu rite promissum
Patris, sermone ditans guttura.

Accende lumen sensibus:
infunde amorem cordibus:
infirma nostri corporis
virtute firmans perpeti.

Hostem repellas longius,
pacemque dones protinus:
ductore sic te praevio
vitemus omne noxium.

Per te sciamus da Patrem,
noscamus atque Filium;
Teque utriusque Spiritum
credamus omni tempore.

Deo Patri sit gloria,
et Filio, qui a mortuis surrexit,
ac Paraclito,
in saeculorum saecula. Amen.

Lampstand

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality3 Comments

Memorial of Saint Barnabas, Apostle
June 11, 2024

Today’s Readiings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061124.cfm

You are the light of the world.
A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;
it is set on a lampstand,
where it gives light to all in the house.
Just so, your light must shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds
and glorify your heavenly Father.
Matthew 5:14-16

Jesus tells us to let our light shine before others. Is this an invitation to show off or be prideful? Definitely not. It is a call to shine with “beatitudenal goodness” that gives glory to God.

We can take Jesus’s words as an invitation to spiritual transparency. We should, by our actions and choices, proclaim that we live in faith, hope, charity, and gratitude. The important part of the lampstand is the flame that it lifts up. So too with us – the important part of our faith is the witness it gives to the Gospel.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We pray for the simplicity and integrity of soul that allows God to shine through us.

Poetry: Let Your Light Shine – Marianne Williamson

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be 
brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. 
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking 
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest 
the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, 
we unconsciously give other people 
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, 
our presence automatically liberates others.

Music: We Are the Light of the World – Jean A. Greif

Ravens

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Faith, healing, spirituality4 Comments

Monday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 10, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061024.cfm

The LORD then said to Elijah:
“Leave here, go east
and hide in the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan.
You shall drink of the stream,
and I have commanded ravens to feed you there.”
So he left and did as the LORD had commanded.
He went and remained by the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan.
Ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning,
and bread and meat in the evening,
and he drank from the stream.
1 Kings 17:2-6

Ravens are highly intelligent animals. In 1 Kings, God uses them to nourish Elijah for the completion of his mission.

To bolster our faith and courage, we too receive nourishment from the wonders of Creation. Praying beside an ancient stream or resting under an infinite sky can remind us how small we are but how great is the God Who sustains us.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s focus our hearts on the many ways God feeds us through the witness of Creation. As we think of the ravens in this Bible passage, we recognize our own Divine messengers in the gifts of the Universe, Mother Earth, and the animals and humans with whom we share life.

Who are the “ravens” in your life today?

Poetry: Sabbaths – Wendell Berry

No, no, there is no going back.
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And you have become a sort of tree
standing over a grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.

Music: All Creatures of Our God and King – Tim Janis

Hide

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Faith, Scripture, spirituality2 Comments

Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 9, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/060924.cfm

After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree,
the LORD God called to the man and asked him, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden;
but I was afraid, because I was naked,
so I hid myself.”
Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked?
You have eaten, then,
from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!”
The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with me—
she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.”
The LORD God then asked the woman,
“Why did you do such a thing?”
The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.”
Genesis 3: 9-12

In the Creation story, we are invited to find ourselves in the excuses of Adam and Eve. They choose, but do not immediately accept responsibility for their choices. They hide in their personal reinterpretations of what happened.

But God wants to find them, release them, from hiding in their “coverups” by asking, “Where are you?” —

  • the you I created
  • the you I love
  • the you I invite to eternal relationship

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We listen to God’s question, “Where are you?”. We open to Mercy any place where we may be hiding from God’s invitation to fullness of life.

Poetry: from Paradise Lost by John Milton

In this small snippet from the very long poem, the poet invokes the “Heavenly Muse” to instruct him about the Fall of Adam and Eve.

Say first, for Heav'n hides nothing from thy view
Nor the deep Tract of Hell, say first what cause
Mov'd our Grand Parents in that happy State,
Favour'd of Heav'n so highly, to fall off
From thir Creator, and transgress his Will
For one restraint, Lords of the World besides?
Who first seduc'd them to that foul revolt?
Th' infernal Serpent; he it was, whose guile
Stird up with Envy and Revenge, deceiv'd
The Mother of Mankind, what time his Pride
Had cast him out from Heav'n, with all his Host
Of Rebel Angels, by whose aid aspiring
To set himself in Glory above his Peers,
He trusted to have equal'd the most High,
If he oppos'd; and with ambitious aim
Against the Throne and Monarchy of God
Rais'd impious War in Heav'n and Battel proud
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
Hurld headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie
With hideous ruine and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire,
Who durst defie th' Omnipotent to Arms.

Music: Adam and Eve Duet from The Creation by Joseph Haydn

This Adagio tells of the couple’s early bliss before their fall and attempt to hide from the Creator.

By thee with bliss, O bounteous Lord,
the heav’n and earth are stor’d.
This world, so great, so wonderful,
thy mighty hand has fram’d.

Sword

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, holiness, Mary, spirituality3 Comments

Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary
June 8, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/060824.cfm

When his parents saw him,
they were astonished,
and his mother said to him,
“Son, why have you done this to us?
Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”
And he said to them,
“Why were you looking for me?
Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
But they did not understand what he said to them.
He went down with them and came to Nazareth,
and was obedient to them;
and his mother kept all these things in her heart.
Luke 2: 48-51

Mary’s heart is formed in the image of the God who was her child. She, our Mother and Sister, conveys to us in human tenderness, the Divine Compassion that may sometimes seem inaccessible to our imperfect faith.

She was just a young girl when God espoused her for the purpose of our redemption. Still her utter “Fiat” opened her soul to the transformation that only sacrificial love can accomplish.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We reflect on Mary’s immutable alignment to the heart of Jesus, begun in the womb, confirmed on Calvary. We ask her guidance in patterning our hearts to Jesus as we meet him in the Gospel.

Prose: Caryll Houselander – The Reed of God

In this great fiat of the little girl Mary,
the strength and foundation of our life
of contemplation is grounded,
for it means absolute trust in God,
trust which will not set us free from suffering
but will set us free from anxiety, hesitation,
and above all from the fear of suffering.
Trust which makes us willing to be
what God wants us to be,
however great or however little that may prove.
Trust which accepts God as illimitable Love.

Music: Salve Regina

Cross

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Faith, Jesus, Love, spirituality, suffering2 Comments

Solemnity of Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
June 7, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/060724.cfm

When Israel was a child I loved him,
out of Egypt I called my son.
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
who took them in my arms;
I drew them with human cords,
with bands of love;
I fostered them like one
who raises an infant to his cheeks;
Yet, though I stooped to feed my child,
they did not know that I was their healer.
Hosea 11:1;3-4

Our readings today invite us to pray with the profoundly beautiful image of the Sacred Heart, the mystery of divinity and humanity united in the person of Jesus. The tenderness of Hosea flows into Paul’s description of the “inscrutable riches of Christ”. These passages culminate in John’s depiction of the unbroken body of Jesus on the Cross.

Together, these readings present us with the mystery of love fulfilled by sacrifice, a reality we may resist in our lives, but one that is nevertheless true. All love entails sacrifice. Jesus loves us completely and sacrificed his Sacred Heart completely for that Love.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We pray to grow in our understanding of the Cross and of the mystery of Love as revealed to us in the Sacred Heart.

Poetry: To the Sacred Heart of Jesus – Thérèse of Lisieux, translated by Donald Kinney, OCD

At the holy sepulchre, Mary Magdalene,
Searching for her Jesus, stooped down in tears.
The angels wanted to console her sorrow,
But nothing could calm her grief.
Bright angels, it was not you
Whom this fervent soul came searching for.
She wanted to see the Lord of the Angels,
To take him in her arms, to carry him far away.
Close by the tomb, the last one to stay,
She had come well before dawn.
Her God also came, veiling his light.
Mary could not vanquish him in love!
Showing her at first his Blessed Face,
Soon just one word sprang from his Heart,
Whispering the sweet name of: Mary,
Jesus gave her back her peace, her happinesss.
O my God, one day, like Mary Magdalene,
I wanted to see you and come close to you.
I looked down over the immense plain
Where I sought the Master and King,
And I cried, seeing the pure wave,
The starry azure, the flower, and the bird.
“Bright nature, if I do not see God,
You are nothing to me but a vast tomb.”
I need a heart burning with tenderness
Who will be my support forever,
Who loves everything in me, even my weakness…
And who never leaves me day or night.”
I could find no creature
Who could always love me and never die.
I must have a God who takes on my nature
And becomes my brother and is able to suffer!
You heard me, only Friend whom I love.
To ravish my heart, you became man.
You shed your blood, what a supreme mystery!…
And you still live for me on the Altar.
If I cannot see the brilliance of your Face
Or hear your sweet voice,
O my God, I can live by your grace,
I can rest on your Sacred Heart!
O Heart of Jesus, treasure of tenderness,
You Yourself are my happiness, my only hope.
You who knew how to charm my tender youth,
Stay near me till the last night.
Lord, to you alone I’ve given my life,
And all my desires are well known to you.
It’s in your ever-infinite goodness
That I want to lose myself, O Heart of Jesus!
Ah! I know well all our righteousness
Is worthless in your sight.
To give value to my sacrifices,
I want to cast them into your Divine Heart.
You did not find your angels without blemish.
In the midst of lightning you gave your law!…
I hide myself in your Sacred Heart, Jesus.
I do not fear, my virtue is You!…
To be able to gaze on your glory,
I know we have to pass through fire.
So I, for my purgatory,
Choose your burning love, O heart of my God!
On leaving this life, my exiled soul
Would like to make an act of pure love,
And then, flying away to Heaven, its Homeland,
Enter straightaway into your Heart.

Music: Only You – Michael Zabrocki