Category: spirituality

Holy

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, holiness, Lent, Praise, spiritualityLeave a comment

Monday of the First Week of Lent
February 19, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021924.cfm

The LORD said to Moses,
“Speak to the whole assembly of the children of Israel and tell them:
Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.

Leviticus 19:1

How do we become more like our loving, merciful God? How do we become holy? Today’s reading offers us a series of “shall nots” and “shalls” to guide us: (Click on the picture if you want to see it bigger.)

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy

Let’s hold our lives in prayer beside these images.

  • Are there “nots” we wish to eradicate?
  • Are there imperatives we wish to live by?

Poetry: I Too Am Alone in the World – from “The Book of Hours” by Rainer Maria Rilkē

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough
to make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action,
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that took me safely
through the wildest storm of all.

Music: Holy God, We Praise Thy Name – Ignaz Franz

Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” (original German: “Großer Gott, wir loben dich”) is a Christian hymn, a paraphrase of the Te Deum. The German Catholic priest Ignaz Franz wrote the original German lyrics in 1771 as a paraphrase of the Te Deum, a Christian hymn in Latin from the 4th century.

Test!!!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, Lent, spirituality1 Comment

First Sunday of Lent
February 18, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021824.cfm

The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert,
and he remained in the desert for forty days,
tempted by Satan.
He was among wild beasts,
and the angels ministered to him.

Mark 1:12-13

Isn’t it shocking that even our Godly Jesus experienced temptation?

There is a devotional tradition that considers temptation an act of God to test us. You have probably heard the tired old adage, “God will never test us beyond our endurance.”

I think that this is a limited and skewed image of God! God is not our Tester, our Tormentor, or our Tease. God is our Creator and Lover.

It is LIFE that tests us, and God abides with us in every aspect of that testing, just as the Father did with Jesus in the desert.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let us go with Jesus to the desert in our prayer today, asking his enlightenment over any dark corners of our faith, hope, and love. Life can tempt us to choose less than God desires for us. Let us ask for the strength to always choose God Who is Love.

Poetry: THE TESTING (A TRIPTYCH) – Irene Zimmerman, OSF
This is part 2 of a three-part poem by Irene Zimmerman. I highly recommend her beautiful spiritual poetry which illuminates the sacred scriptures.

Higher and yet higher he was led
till all the kingdoms of the world lay spread
before his eyes, more splendid still
than he had ever dreamed.
“Worship me and these are yours,”
the Tempter said.
Mountains boomed and echoed
a thundering “No!” The Son of Man would choose instead to go
where he was sent, to have no place
to lay his head, to be content
to spread himself cross-beamed
above a common hill.

Music: Jesus Tempted in the Desert – text by Herman G. Stuempfle (1923 – 2007); tune by Thomas J. Williams (1890)

If…

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Lent, spirituality3 Comments

Saturday after Ash Wednesday
February 17, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021724.cfm

Thus says the LORD:
If you remove from your midst oppression,
false accusation and malicious speech;
If you bestow your bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
Then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday;
Then the LORD will guide you always
and give you plenty even on the parched land.

Isaiah 58:9-11

So many critical aspects of our lives hinge on the word “If”!

  • If not
  • If so
  • If only
  • If I had
  • If I hadn’t
  • If just

That critical “if” reminds us that all life is about relationship. It is about how we and the one with whom we are in relationship respond to each other. It is about choosing and deciding. And remember, as one of my early favorite theologians famous said:

Not to decide is to decide.

Harvey Cox in “On Not Leaving It To the Snake”

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We are in constant relationship with God Whose Breath is the source of our life. Our life should be an act of reverence for that gift, responding always to God’s hope for us. Isaiah puts some of those hopes into words for us today. In our prayer, we might hear God whisper special “ifs” to us as we open our life and heart before God’s love and mercy.

Poetry: If by Rudyard Kipling

I know this poem came to your mind as soon as you saw today’s picture – right? Well, here it is.

If you can keep your head when all about you   
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;   
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;   
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
   With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
 and you will be a Woman, precious one! (my addition, I think Rudyard would be grateful))

Music: Whispering Sea – Tony O’Connor

Fasting

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Discipleship, Faith, Lent, spirituality2 Comments

Friday after Ash Wednesday
February 16, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021624.cfm

This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed,
breaking every yoke;
Sharing your bread with the hungry,
sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your wound shall quickly be healed;
Your vindication shall go before you,
and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer,
you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!

Isaiah 58:6-9

In today’s passage from Isaiah, we are given clear instructions about fasting – some forms of this practice matter more than others.

Depriving oneself of physical comforts is an ancient practice of penance. It is intended to make us more prayerfully aware of the dynamic of sin and grace in our lives. But obviously, it is a self-centered spiritual practice.

Our reading tells us that God desires an other-centered fasting – the practice of mercy toward our sisters and brothers. And Isaiah is clear about who those needy brethren are.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy

In order to practice this mercy-centered fasting, there must be touch-points in our lives where we meet those in need. Today, we might examine our lives for our degree of insulation or isolation from society’s needy ones. We may isolate them by our attitudes, by our prejudices, by our physical distance, or perhaps just by our indifference.

Let’s ask ourselves today, “How might I reach out in prayer, service, and tenderness toward those who are in need of mercy?”

Poetry: Fasting – translated from Rumi

There's hidden sweetness in the stomach's emptiness.
We are lutes, no more, no less. If the soundbox
is stuffed full of anything, no music.
If the brain and belly are burning clean
with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire.
The fog clears, and new energy makes you
run up the steps in front of you.

Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry.
Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.
When you're full of food and drink, Satan sits
where your spirit should, an ugly metal statue
in place of the Spirit. When you fast,
good habits gather like friends who want to help.

Fasting is Solomon's ring. Don't give it
to some illusion and lose your power,
but even if you have, if you've lost all will and control,
they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing
out of the ground, pennants flying above them.
A table descends to your tents,
Jesus' table.

Expect to see it, when you fast, this table
spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages.

Music: Forty Days and Forty Nights

Forty days and forty nights
You were fasting in the wild;
Forty days and forty nights
Tempted, and yet undefiled.

Shall not we your sorrow share
And from worldly joys abstain,
Fasting with unceasing prayer,
Strong with you to suffer pain?

Then if Satan on us press,
Flesh or spirit to assail,
Victor in the wilderness,
Grant we may not faint nor fail!


So shall we have peace divine;
Holier gladness ours shall be;
Round us, too, shall angels shine,
Such as served You faithfully.


Keep, O keep us, Savior dear,
Ever constant by your side,
That with you we may appear
At th’eternal Eastertide

Choose!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, Lent, spirituality3 Comments

Thursday after Ash Wednesday
February 15, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021524.cfm

Choose life, then,
that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God,
heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.
For that will mean life for you,
a long life for you to live on the land that the LORD swore
he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20

The capacity to choose is a Divine gift that enables us to will our relationship with God. God desires the gift of our free choice to love Him.

What an act of divine courage for God to place hope in us! God does not demand our love. God waits for us to choose.

And God does not punish us if we choose otherwise. The choice is its own punishment because it is a rejection of the gift of divine life.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

As we give thanks for the gift to choose, and for God’s desire for our love, we do so in the light of today’s Gospel. It clarifies the character of a sincere choice for Jesus Christ:

Then Jesus said to all,
“If anyone wishes to come after me, they must deny themselves
and take up the cross daily and follow me.
For those who wish to save their lives will lose them,
but those who lose their lives for my sake will save them.
What profit is there for us to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit ourselves?”

Luke 9:23-25

Poetry: from Kahil Gibran

Do Not Love Half Lovers.
Do Not Entertain Half Friends.
Do Not Indulge in Works of the Half Talented.
Do Not Live Half a Life,
And Do Not Die a Half Death.

If You Choose Silence, 
Then Be Silent.
When You Speak,
Do So Until You Are Finished.
Do Not Silence Yourself to Say Something,
And Do Not Speak To Be Silent.

If You Accept, 
Then Express It Bluntly,
Do Not Mask It.
If You Refuse, 
Then Be Clear About It,
For an Ambiguous Refusal
Is But a Weak Acceptance.

Do Not Accept Half a Solution.
Do Not Believe Half-Truths.
Do Not Dream Half a Dream.
Do Not Fantasize About Half Hopes.

Half a Drink Will Not Quench Your Thirst
Half a Meal Will Not Satiate Your Hunger
Half the Way Will Get You Nowhere
Half An Idea Will Bear You No Results.

Your Other Half Is Not
The One You Love,
It is You in Another Time
Yet In the Same Space
It is You when You Are Not.

Half A Life Is a Life You Didn’t live,
A Word You Have Not Said,
A smile You Postponed,
A Love You Have Not Had,
A Friendship You Did Not Know.

To Reach And Not Arrive,
Work And Not Work,
Attend Only To Be Absent.
What Makes You A Stranger
To Them Closest To You
And They Strangers To You.

The Half Is a Mere Moment Of Inability,
But You Are Able,
For You Are Not Half a Being
You Are A Whole That Exists
To Live a Life
Not Half a Life.

Music: I Choose God – Gospel Light Baptist Church

Ashes

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Lent, spirituality2 Comments

Ash Wednesday
February 14, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021424.cfm

But when you fast,
anoint your head and wash your face,
so that you may not appear to be fasting,
except to your Father who is hidden.
And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.

Matthew 6:17-18

Ashes are a sign to remind us that our bodily life is impermanent. Someday we will return to the earth, just as Jesus did. But the grace of our Baptism assures us that we will also rise again, just as Jesus did.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
As we bear the sign of ashes on our foreheads today, we also carry the joy of that Baptismal assurance. Therefore, in a joyful spirit, we offer our hidden prayer of thanksgiving to God for the times in our lives when “ashes” have been transformed to glory.

Poetry: Blessing the Dust – Jan Richardson

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

Music: Ashes by Tom Conry

Lent 2024

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Lent, spiritualityLeave a comment

Dear Friends,

The sacred season of Lent opens before us. Ash Wednesday is the first step in our journey with Jesus into the mystery of the Cross and the glory of the Resurrection.

Lent is an annual journey that most of us have taken for many years. We are familiar with the readings and rituals which lead us through these forty days. They are rich, complex, and profound – to the point that sometimes we may get lost in their complexity.

For the Lavish Mercy blog this year, I would like to simplify each day’s reflection by choosing only one word from the readings as the focus of each day’s prayer and meditation. My hope is that we receive that word in whatever manner it speaks to us in our particular circumstances.

You will notice that each day’s picture of the chosen word is overlaid on a repeated template:

The Word of God takes flesh in the person of Jesus and in our own lives. The purpose of our prayer is to become more and more one with that Word which comes to us in many forms each day – scripture, nature, relationships, events, the fruit of prayer, the gifts of silence….

I hope our Lenten reflections, and the single word they offer, will inspire us as we accompany Jesus through the dark and light journey to Easter morning.

Extra Pre-Lent #3

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality2 Comments

Tuesday before Lent
February 12, 2024

To help me more truly engage this Lenten time, I have considered some proven elements from our long Christian tradition.  I thought some of you might like to think about these as well. These three elements are: 

  • Practice
  • Time
  • Reflection

On Sunday, we thought about “Lenten Practice”. On Monday, “ Lenten Time”. Today, we consider “Lenten Reflection”

Lenten Reflection

How might I trace the effect of grace in my life as I make the Paschal journey with Jesus?

It is beneficial to commit to paper (or to voice recording) the effects of our prayer and spiritual practice. Journaling is a proven spiritual tradition to help focus our hearts on God and God’s goodness to us. Some easy ways to introduce this practice into our lives might be:

  • to choose a new book or tablet (or computer page) which might give us the sense of a fresh start
  • to record at least one phrase every morning and/or evening after our prayer
  • to draw, sketch, or doodle as we listen to spiritual or inspiring music
  • to re-read our entries weekly and consider how we have been blessed over those days.

What is essential is to focus our attention on God as we engage these practices, to make our actions a prayer.

I hope these simple suggestions have been helpful. Praying for a blessed Lent for all of you, and I hope that you will pray for me.

Constant Mercy

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Forgiveness, Mercy, repentance, spirituality1 Comment

Tuesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
February 13, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021324.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, James continues his spiritual encouragements.

For one thing, he makes it clear that God doesn’t tempt us. Some of us make the mistake of thinking that, saying things like, “God is testing me.”

James, outlining a perfect way to examine one’s conscience, says this:

No one experiencing temptation should say,
“I am being tempted by God”;
for God is not subject to temptation to evil,
and God himself tempts no one.
Rather, each person is tempted when lured and enticed by his own desire.
Then desire conceives and brings forth sin,
and when sin reaches maturity it gives birth to death.

James 1:13-15

Sin is an uncomfortable topic, and it’s an elusive one. Most of us aren’t outright blatant sinners. I think most of our sins are quiet indifferences, failures to love, unacknowledged greeds, self-imposed blindnesses to our responsibilities toward one another. These generate excuses that allow us to gossip, judge, blame, ignore, hurt and even use others both in our immediate world and in the larger global community.

In my experience, these desires are usually disguised, pretending to be beneficial for us at first sight. But underneath, they are rooted in selfishness and excess, diverting us from our center in God. 

So if we have some little labyrinths of temptation and sinful habits ensnaring us, we should listen to James. He encourages us to examine and check our own concupiscent desires as they are the seeds of our spiritual undoing.

In the second part of this passage, James takes the tone up a notch. He reminds us that, once centered on God, we realize that only good things come from God.

All good giving and every perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of lights,
with whom there is no alteration or shadow of turning.

James 1:17

I particularly love that last phrase, rendered in our hymn today like this:

It’s beautiful to see how James, as a real spiritual leader, is so aware of his flock’s human struggles. No doubt, he shares them. What a blessing that his wise and loving guidance has come down through the ages to us!

Prose: from Carl Jung

The worst sin is unconsciousness, 
but it is indulged in with the greatest piety 
even by those who should serve humankind 
as teachers and examples.

Music: Great Is Thy Faithfulness – sung by Chris Rice

Extra Pre-Lent #2

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spiritualityLeave a comment

Monday before Lent
February 12, 2024

Continuing from yesterday:

  • To help me more truly engage this Lenten time, I considered some proven elements from our long Christian tradition. I thought some of you might like to think about these as well. These three elements are:
  • Practice
  • Time
  • Reflection

On Sunday, we thought about “Lenten Practice”. Today, “Lenten Time”. Tomorrow, “Lenten Reflection”

Lenten Time
What time in my day might I reclaim for deepening my relationship with God in prayer and reflection?
Re-ordering our use of time is a great spiritual discipline. I can choose:

  • to dedicate a specific time slot to silence, prayer, and/or service. This dedicated time can be as short as a few minutes before we engage the ignition in our car, or as long as a dedicated Sunday to silence and prayer
  • to forego a daily TV show to instead do spiritual reading
  • to retire and rise earlier throughout Lent so that I have morning time to focus my day on God

What is essential is to focus our attention on God as we engage this simple practice, to make our actions a prayer.
A final thought tomorrow.