Category: spirituality

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

Mary, Friend and Prophet

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Books, Faith, Jesus, Mary, spirituality5 Comments

Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
June 17, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061723.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate Mary, our beautiful human kinswoman who allowed God to take flesh within her. In so doing, Mary taught us how to enflesh God in our own lives. Over a lifetime of prayer with her, we will continually learn her lesson.

Concepts of Mary, and her role in Salvation History, abound in theology and culture.  

madonna-della-seggiola-artwork-photo-1

Madonna della Seggiola ~ Raphael

While many of these images introduce us to a particular understanding of Mary, some can also limit her to deficient descriptions as sweet, passive, and limited in her role as young mother and wife.

immaculate heart

The hope is that Christians today will look beyond any limited definition to find the Prophet who voices a strong, faithful witness to Christ and to his Gospel for the poor and disenfranchised – a Mary whose life offers inspiration for the challenges we face in our own lives.

The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner 1896

The Annunciation ~ Henry Ossawa Tanner

Dr. Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ is distinguished Professor Emerita at Fordham University. In her ground-breaking book on Mary, Truly Our Sister, she says:

“Remembering Mary as a friend of God and prophet in the communion of saints, a woman who is truly sister to our strivings, allows the power of her life to play in the religious consciousness of the church, encouraging ever-deeper relationship with the living God in whom our spirits rejoice, and allying us with God’s redemptive designs for the hungry, the lowly, and all those who suffer, including in an unforgettable way women with their children in situations of poverty, prejudice, and violence.”

Today, in our prayer, let’s invite ourselves to an ever deeper understanding and relationship with Mary who, with her Immaculate Heart, is nevertheless truly our sister.

windsock visitation

Windsock Visitation ~ Michael O’Neil McGrath, OSFS

Poetry: Women Weaving – from Incarnation by Irene Zimmerman, SSSF

Afterwards, Mary moved from fear
(Will they drag me to the stoning place?)
to pain (Will Joseph doubt my faithfulness?)
to trust (I fear no evil—Thou art with me.)
and back again to fear. “I must go to my cousin,”
she said, and set out in haste for Judea.

As her feet unraveled the warp and woof
of valleys and hills, darkness and days
from Nazareth to Elizabeth,
Mary wove the heart of her Son.

When her newly-womaned cousin came,
Elizabeth, wise old weaver herself
for several months by then, instantly
saw the signs and heavily ran to meet her.

‘Who am I,” she called, “that the mother
of my Lord should come to visit me?”
and helplessly held her sides as laughter
shuttled back and forth inside her.

Then Mary sang the seamless song
she’d woven on the way.

Music:  Behold ( A modern Magnificat) ~ David Kauffmann ( Lyrics Below)

Behold, Behold
The mighty one has done great things for me
Behold, Behold
The mighty one has done great things for me
And Holy is your name
And Holy is your name

My soul exalts you
Behold my Lord whose mercy lies on me
My soul magnifies the Lord
My spirit rejoices in my savior
He looks at me with kindness
As with holy eyes of blindness
and all will call me blessed
Refrain

My soul exalts you
Behold my Lord whose mercy lies on me
Compassion inhabits those who fear him
He has done great deeds with his arms
Scattered the proud. Rulers are brought down,
and he has lifted the humble
Refrain

My soul exalts you
Behold my Lord whose mercy lies on me
He has filled the hungry with good things
and sent away the selfish empty handed
He has sent his servant, in remembrance of his mercy
and he has kept his promise
Refrain

My soul exalts you
Behold my Lord whose mercy lies on me
Whose mercy lies on me.

Come to Me

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Love, spirituality3 Comments

Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
June 16, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061623.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we hear Moses tell the People:

You are a people sacred to the LORD, your God;
he has chosen you from all the nations on the face of the earth
to be a people peculiarly his own.

Deuteronomy 7:6

We modern readers may be a little put off by the use of the word “peculiar” which, since the 16th century, has taken on the connotation of “odd” or “uncommon”. But the original meaning of the word is “to belong exclusively to one person“, as in “Honey, I love you and you belong to me!” Moses is telling Israel that this is the way God loves them.

Below is a song many us will remember. Maybe as teenagers we even did the “Stroll” to its dulcet tones. The love described in this song is but a pale shadow of the love God has for us, and the longing sung about is but a weak imitation of God’s longing for us. Listen to it and let God sing to you – singing around the words and into the meaning behind them.

Thinking of God as we listen to a song like this can make God very human. And, of course, that is exactly who Jesus Christ is. Jesus loves us with a human heart and a divine love. He loves us with a Sacred Heart.

All love is refined and proven in sacrifice. Jesus testified to his infinite love for us in his Passion, Death and Resurrection. In that miracle of redemptive love, God embraces, strengthens and commissions us. We are to love as God loves – to have hearts themselves made sacred by imitation of Christ.

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

Prose: In the late 17th, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque shared her vision of Christ’s Sacred Heart. In a book of her writings published after her death we read:

Christ showed me that it was His great desire
to be loved by human beings 
and of withdrawing them from the path of ruin 
that made Him form the design 
of manifesting His Heart to us, 
with all the treasures of love, of mercy, of grace, 
of sanctification and salvation which it contains, 
in order that those who desire 
to render Him and procure Him 
all the honor and love possible, 
might themselves be abundantly enriched 
with those divine treasures 
of which His heart is the source.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart was fostered by the Jesuits and Franciscans, but it was not until the 1928 encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor by Pope Pius XI that the Church validated the credibility of St. Margaret Mary’s visions of Jesus Christ in having “promised her that all those who rendered this honor to His Heart would be endowed with an abundance of heavenly graces.”

( see: https://sacredheartfla.org/sunday-mornings/seasonal/feast-days-solemnities/the-solemnity-of-the-most-sacred-heart-of-jesus/

Music: Empty Space – Jose Mari Chan

The Indescribable Gift

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Forgiveness, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

Thursday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary
June 15, 2023

Today’s Reading:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061523.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings offer us insight into spiritual clarity.

For sure I, like all of you reading this blog, want to know God more deeply.
Moses did.
The people of the Hebrew Scriptures did.
But Paul tells us in our first reading that they didn’t have the advantage – the “indescribable gift” – that we have: Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God.

To this day, whenever Moses is read,
a veil lies over the hearts of the children of Israel,
but whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is removed.
Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is freedom.

2 Corinthians 3:15-17

Paul says that despite this gift, some of us, blinded by “the god of this age” may remain in darkness:

And even though our Gospel is veiled,
it is veiled for those who are perishing,
in whose case the god of this age
has blinded the minds of the unbelievers,

2 Corinthians 4:3-4

Paul compares this blocked vision to a veil covering our eyes and distancing us from the fullness of God.

It’s a great image! Don’t we unconsciously cover our eyes when we don’t want to see what’s really going on? Don’t we cast our own glance downward to obscure our eyes when we are unsure of ourselves or, maybe, telling a white lie?

This morning, when I read about Paul’s “veil”, I remembered a funny but instructive incident from my childhood. I was about seven years old and had been sent to my room for some egregious infraction of household law. Convinced of my innocence and righteousness, I pouted there until Mom called me downstairs for dinner.

Still angry, I didn’t want to go, so I decided not to “face” my family at the dinner table. Probably, deep in my heart, I knew I had been wrong but didn’t yet have the freedom to “face” myself. So, employing a pair of Mom’s old sunglasses and Grandpop’s handkerchief, I appeared at the dinner table like this – “veiled”. (Believe me, it was no fun trying to eat my mashed potatoes that way!)

I am a long, long way from that bratty little girl now. But there are still places in my life where I want to reach for the hanky and the glasses because I’m not ready for God’s overwhelming grace offered to me in every life circumstance. So often, I am still convinced that I see the darkness that I see, rather than the Mystery within it inviting me to Light..

For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness”,
has shone in our hearts to bring to light
the knowledge of the glory of God
on the face of Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 4:6

Back when I was seven years old, it was Uncle Joe who teased me, with a gentle love, out of my peevishness. Maybe God is trying to do that for you, for me, today. What do you think?

(Uncle Joe and me, about 35 years after the described incident.)

Poetry: from Rumi

Your thoughts are a veil 
on the face of the Moon. 

That Moon is your heart, 
and those thoughts cover your heart. 

So let them go, 
just let them fall into the water.

Music: Heaven’s Window – Peter Kater – you will hear a gentle call to Agnus Dei, Jesus Lamb of God as the music lifts the veil to heaven. Just relax and let the music lift you too.

Promise Fulfilled

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, spiritualityLeave a comment

Wednesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 14, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, both Paul and Jesus work to open the minds of their listeners to the wonder and mystery of Jesus Christ and his Gospel.

Paul tells the Corinthians that the old law did not bring life. In other words, it was a set of laws, precriptions, and memories. The old law was only letters. The New Law gives life through the living Spirit of God into Whom we have been baptized.

Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, was so glorious
that the children of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses
because of its glory that was going to fade,
how much more will the ministry of the Spirit be glorious?
For if the ministry of condemnation was glorious,
the ministry of righteousness will abound much more in glory.

2 corinthians 3:7-9

Jesus talks about the old law too. He assures his listeners that he has not come to abolish it, but to fulfill it.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter
will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.

Matthew 5: 17-18

I’m sure you’ve spent a few Easters opening plastic eggs with the kids in the family. Early on Easter morning, the eggs look so pretty sparkling undisturbed in their tiny baskets. But they can’t stay like that because the real treasure is inside – candy, coins or other little joy-giving gifts.

The Old Law was like those eggs, beautiful and perfect for its time, but existing for the sake of what would follow. With each Gospel teaching and act of his life, Jesus breaks open the Old to fulfill God’s promise and reveal the life-giving New.

Once again, Matthew paints a picture of Jesus as God’s Promise fulfilled. In each of our lives, that fulfillment continues as we grow in our love for and commitment to the Gospel.. May we “break open a few eggs”, and deepen in grateful awareness and understanding.

Poetry: Breakage – Mary Oliver

I go down to the edge of the sea.
How everything shines in the morning light!
The cusp of the whelk,
the broken cupboard of the clam,
the opened, blue mussels,
moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—
and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,
dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.
It's like a schoolhouse
of little words,
thousands of words.
First you figure out what each one means by itself,
the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop
full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

Music: Morning Has Broken – Cat Stevens

Jesus, the Eternal “Yes”

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Anthony of Padua
June 13, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061323.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings are about Truth, Spiritual Vigor, Holy Light.

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed to you
was not “yes” and “no,” but only “Yes”.
For however many are the promises of God,
their Yes is in Jesus Christ …

2 Corinthians 1:19-20

A good friend of mine has taught me a lot about “Yes”, the kind of “Yes” I think Paul is describing in this passage. Sometimes, as with all friends, we might need a favor from each other – picking up a quart of milk, typing out a letter, providing transportation to a doctor.

I usually begin such a request with the phrase, “Could you do ^ me a favor…?” Somewhere in between “do” and “me”, my friend always shouts, “YES!!!” even before she hears what the favor is. Her “Yes”, rooted in loving friendship, is complete, unqualified, and inexhaustible.

God’s “Yes” to us, incarnate in the Gift of Jesus Christ, is eternally complete, unqualified, and inexhaustible!

Wow! Just think about that! Believing it can release immense power in our relationship with God! It can drag our Light out from under the bushel basket and into the world which is aching in darkness!

Our Gospel today, which continues Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, describes what a Christian looks like who is trying to live their own “yes” back to God.

Such a believer is like salt, like light, like an elevated city calling us higher.

  • Salt – which releases and accents the good already inherent in our nature
  • Light – which makes the sacred path discoverable even in life’s shadows
  • City on the hilltop – which not only assures us that the journey can be accomplished, but turns to beckon and encourage us in our climb

Poetry: love is a place – e.e.cummings

love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skillfully curled)
all worlds

Music: Salt and Light – Lauren Daigle

Blessed

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality6 Comments

Monday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 12, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/monday-tenth-week-ordinary-time

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we resume reading Matthew’s Gospel which will last all the way to the beginning of September. What a gift to spend the summer with Jesus as Matthew came to understand and proclaim him.

So who is the “Jesus of Matthew”? Matthew’s Jesus is the Messiah, the long-awaited fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, a promise woven throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. Matthew writes to an audience who believe in Christ but who are nevertheless steeped in the Jewish religion. Matthew is intent on showing Jesus as the fulfillment of all they have believed.

Matthew’s Jesus is very Jewish. He is the Promise realized, the Hope fulfilled, Salvation achieved.

But Matthew’s Jesus is also the Challenger, the Upsetter and the Revolutionary.

In his Gospel sermon today, Jesus asks his believers to invert their worldly thinking and to take on the new mind of God – a God who loves the losers more than the winners! In the Beatitudes, Jesus gives an astounding new meaning to the word ‘blessed”.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus contradicted all human judgments and all nationalistic expectations of the kingdom of God. The kingdom is given to the poor, not the rich; the feeble, not the mighty; to little children humble enough to accept it, not to soldiers who boast that they can obtain it by their own prowess.

John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount

I’ve been reading the Beatitudes my whole life, and they still confound me. I can’t honestly say that I want to be poor, mourning, meek, hungry, or thirsty. The only way I have been able to comprehend the Beatitudes is when I have found them in someone else and they have been kind enough to teach me.

I found “Blessed are the poor in spirit” one morning where he lived on a steam vent in downtown Philadelphia. He taught me courage and honesty.

“Blessed are those who mourn” was a brokenhearted young wife who taught me how to love by steadfastly caring for her dying husband during his hospice journey.

“Blessed are the meek” was a Cuban exile physician who was barred from a U.S. medical license. He taught me by lovingly serving as an orderly in the E.R. where I worked.

“Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness” was an old Franciscan sister who was arrested with me in the Nevada desert as we protested nuclear war. Authorities had to handcuff her to her walker so that she could remain standing in the holding cell in the wretched heat.

“Blessed are the merciful” is the name of our sisters and nurses at our healthcare facility who teach me by their tireless tenderness toward those who suffer

“Blessed are the pure of heart” has sat with me a thousand times to pray and discern God’s Spirit in our hearts

“Blessed are the peacemakers” have walked beside me in protests, written letters, made phone calls, witnessed peace in their own lives

“Blessed are the persecuted” are my Black, Latino, differently-abled, and LGBTQ friends who have both taught and forgiven me for my prejudices, stereotyping, and ignorance

Learning to really live the Beatitudes is key to the Christian life, and it is an ongoing education until the day we die. As we pray with today’s Gospel, may we receive abundant grace for our learning.

Poetry: The Beatitudes – Malcolm Guite

We bless you, who have spelt your blessings out,
And set this lovely lantern on a hill
Lightening darkness and dispelling doubt
By lifting for a little while the veil.
For longing is the veil of satisfaction
And grief the veil of future happiness
We glimpse beneath the veil of persecution
The coming kingdom’s overflowing bliss
Oh make us pure of heart and help us see
Amongst the shadows and amidst the mourning
The promised Comforter, alive and free,
The kingdom coming and the Son returning,
That even in this pre-dawn dark we might
At once reveal and revel in your light.

Music: The Beatitudes – John Michael Talbot

Blessed are the poor in spirit
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven
Blessed are those who mourn
They shall be comforted
They shall be comforted

Blessed are the lowly of heart
They shall inherit the earth
Blest are those who hunger for God
Nevermore shall they hunger or thirst
Nevermore shall they hunger or thirst

CHORUS:
Blessings upon the disciples of Jesus
Blessings upon al the multitudes
Blessings upon those who climb the mountain
With Jesus the Lord, with Jesus our Lord

Blessed are those who show mercy
They shall inherit the mercy of God
Blessed are the pure of heart
They shall see the face of God
They shall see the face of God

Blest are those who strive for peace
They shall be the children of God
Blest are those who suffer for holiness
Theirs is the kingdom of God
Theirs is the kingdom of God

The Gift of Eternal Life

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

Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ
June 11, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061123.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate the Body and Blood of Christ present to us in Eucharist and in the Church. This is one of the great and unfathonable mysteries of our faith. It is also the source of our greatest blessing in Christ because through this gift Jesus continues to live among us and within us.

No life can be sustained without food. This is true of our physical life but even more so of our spiritual life. God has invited all of us to live in eternal life through the gift of Jesus Christ. We are fed for this Life by Christ’s own Body and Blood.

As our Gospel indicates, from the very beginning, some people gave Jesus a hard time about this gift.

Jesus said to the Jewish crowds:
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give
is my flesh for the life of the world.”

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you do not have life within you.

John 6: 51-53

In all honesty, Jesus’s statement is not easy to accept if we hear it only on the level of our practical, tactical experience. But there are many other invisible levels within us and within our world. These deeper levels allow us to move beyond the explicable dimension into the mysteries which defy definition.

I’m not talking about big theological mysteries. I’m talking about the everyday wonders that make our lives beautiful and sublime. Let’s consider a newborn baby. We know all the mechanical and medical reasons why a new life comes into the world. But can we explain the infant eyes that seem to carry profound mysteries, or the first smile that causes us to tear up in thanksgiving. Can we define the immediate love and life-giving protection we willingly give this child perhaps before we even know his or her name? Can we truly analyze the desire and hope we feel for this newborn’s future?

All of these unwordable realities are generated from a place we cannot see but which is nonetheless real. The scriptures describe it as “Eternal Life” – “the God-place” that transcends our comprehension. It is from this place that we learn to live in faith and mystery. We come to understand that we will never really understand in a worldly sense. By accepting that fact in trust, we actually embrace a deeper wisdom that no longer needs definitions.

Jesus wanted his listeners to meet him in that place of sacred mystery and faith so that he could gift them with a gift beyond price. Some were able to do so; others were not.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise them on the last day.

John 6:54

Today’s feast looks forward to the Last Supper when Jesus will bring his promise to fruition. The beautiful sequence “Lauda Sion” gives us a poetic remembrance of the institution of the Eucharist. The sequence was written by St. Thomas Aquinas when he also composed Pange Lingua, Sacris Solemniis, and Verbum Supernum Prodiens, prayers which are used in the Divine Office.

As we pray with today’s readings and sequence, may our hearts be opened to that deep faith which allows Christ to unite us with him in the fullness of eternal life even as we live within this world.

Music: Lauda Sion – Felix Mendelssohn

Poetry: Lauda Sion – Thomas Aquinas

Latin text
Lauda Sion Salvatórem
Lauda ducem et pastórem
In hymnis et cánticis.
Quantum potes, tantum aude:
Quia major omni laude,
Nec laudáre súfficis.
Laudis thema speciális,
Panis vivus et vitális,
Hódie propónitur.
Quem in sacræ mensa cœnæ,
Turbæ fratrum duodénæ
Datum non ambígitur.
Sit laus plena, sit sonóra,
Sit jucúnda, sit decóra
Mentis jubilátio.
Dies enim solémnis ágitur,
In qua mensæ prima recólitur
Hujus institútio.
In hac mensa novi Regis,
Novum Pascha novæ legis,
Phase vetus términat.
Vetustátem nóvitas,
Umbram fugat véritas,
Noctem lux elíminat.
Quod in cœna Christus gessit,
Faciéndum hoc expréssit
In sui memóriam.
Docti sacris institútis,
Panem, vinum, in salútis
Consecrámus hóstiam.
Dogma datur Christiánis,
Quod in carnem transit panis,
Et vinum in sánguinem.
Quod non capis, quod non vides,
Animósa firmat fides,
Præter rerum ordinem.
Sub divérsis speciébus,
Signis tantum, et non rebus,
Latent res exímiæ.
Caro cibus, sanguis potus:
Manet tamen Christus totus,
Sub utráque spécie.
A suménte non concísus,
Non confráctus, non divísus:
Integer accípitur.
Sumit unus, sumunt mille:
Quantum isti, tantum ille:
Nec sumptus consúmitur.
Sumunt boni, sumunt mali:
Sorte tamen inæquáli,
Vitæ vel intéritus.
Mors est malis, vita bonis:
Vide paris sumptiónis
Quam sit dispar éxitus.
Fracto demum Sacraménto,
Ne vacílles, sed memento,
Tantum esse sub fragménto,
Quantum toto tégitur.
Nulla rei fit scissúra:
Signi tantum fit fractúra:
Qua nec status nec statúra
Signáti minúitur.
Ecce panis Angelórum,
Factus cibus viatórum:
Vere panis filiórum,
Non mitténdus cánibus.
In figúris præsignátur,
Cum Isaac immolátur:
Agnus paschæ deputátur
Datur manna pátribus.
Bone pastor, panis vere,
Jesu, nostri miserére:
Tu nos pasce, nos tuére:
Tu nos bona fac vidére
In terra vivéntium.
Tu, qui cuncta scis et vales:
Qui nos pascis hic mortáles:
Tuos ibi commensáles,
Cohærédes et sodáles,
Fac sanctórum cívium.
Amen. Allelúja.

English Translation
Sion, lift up thy voice and sing:
Praise thy Savior and thy King,
Praise with hymns thy shepherd true.
All thou canst, do thou endeavour:
Yet thy praise can equal never
Such as merits thy great King.
See today before us laid
The living and life-giving Bread,
Theme for praise and joy profound.
The same which at the sacred board
Was, by our incarnate Lord,
Giv’n to His Apostles round.
Let the praise be loud and high:
Sweet and tranquil be the joy
Felt today in every breast.
On this festival divine
Which records the origin
Of the glorious Eucharist.
On this table of the King,
Our new Paschal offering
Brings to end the olden rite.
Here, for empty shadows fled,
Is reality instead,
Here, instead of darkness, light.
His own act, at supper seated
Christ ordain’d to be repeated
In His memory divine;
Wherefore now, with adoration,
We, the host of our salvation,
Consecrate from bread and wine.
Hear, what holy Church maintaineth,
That the bread its substance changeth
Into Flesh, the wine to Blood.
Doth it pass thy comprehending?
Faith, the law of sight transcending
Leaps to things not understood.
Here beneath these signs are hidden
Priceless things, to sense forbidden,
Signs, not things, are all we see.
Flesh from bread, and Blood from wine,
Yet is Christ in either sign,
All entire, confessed to be.
They, who of Him here partake,
Sever not, nor rend, nor break:
But, entire, their Lord receive.
Whether one or thousands eat:
All receive the self-same meat:
Nor the less for others leave.
Both the wicked and the good
Eat of this celestial Food:
But with ends how opposite!
Here ‘t is life: and there ‘t is death:
The same, yet issuing to each
In a difference infinite.
Nor a single doubt retain,
When they break the Host in twain,
But that in each part remains
What was in the whole before.
Since the simple sign alone
Suffers change in state or form:
The signified remaining one
And the same for evermore.
Behold the Bread of Angels,
For us pilgrims food, and token
Of the promise by Christ spoken,
Children’s meat, to dogs denied.
Shewn in Isaac’s dedication,
In the manna’s preparation:
In the Paschal immolation,
In old types pre-signified.
Jesu, shepherd of the sheep:
Thou thy flock in safety keep,
Living bread, thy life supply:
Strengthen us, or else we die,
Fill us with celestial grace.
Thou, who feedest us below:
Source of all we have or know:
Grant that with Thy Saints above,
Sitting at the feast of love,
We may see Thee face to face.
Amen. Alleluia.

Give It All You’ve Got

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, spirituality1 Comment

Saturday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time
June 10, 2023

Today’s Reading:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061023.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we come to nearly the last chapter in the Book of Tobit. We hear a passage from Tobit only once again in the entire liturgical year. So if you want to know the whole story, you’ll have to pick up your Bible and do some reading!

Archangel Raphael Leaves Tobias’s Family – Rembrandt

In today’s passage, Raphael reveals himself as God’s elite angel sent in answer to Tobit’s and Anna’s prayers. Before leaving to return to heaven, Rafael gives the family a bundle of advice about righteousness and sanctity. In reality, it is the author of Tobit giving his audience this advice as they cope with the anxieties of the diaspora.

In our Gospel, Jesus finishes up a chapter too. The scribes, Sadducees, and Pharisees have been wrangling with Jesus throughout the week’s readings. Today, rather than enter into debate with them, Jesus uses a visual example to make his point.

Where Jesus sits debating with these elitist religionists, there is a “poor box” to make offerings. The rich and privileged pass by, maybe tossing in a few left over coins from their marketing. But a poor widow approaches the box with a nearly invisible yet momumental gift. Jesus seizes the moment to make a consummate point with an economy of words:

Many rich people put in large sums.
A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents.
Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them,
“Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more
than all the other contributors to the treasury.
For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth,
but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had,
her whole livelihood.”

The Widow’s Mite – James Tissot

Humble Tobit and the Generous Widow teach us volumes about how to love and serve God. They teach us about righteousness and spiritual wealth, about justice and freedom, about fidelity and hope.

As we close this week of wonderful readings, let’s sit with these teachers, and with Jesus, to discern the most important lessons for us.

Poetry: The Widow’s Mites – Richard Crashaw

Two mites, two drops, yet all her house and land,
Fall from a steady heart, though trembling hand :
The other's wanton wealth foams high, and brave ;
The other cast away, she only gave.

Music: Give It All You’ve Got – 3rd Force

Vigil

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Hope, spirituality4 Comments

Friday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time
June 9, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/f060923.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, you might be reminded of your younger days when you read our passage from Tobit.

Tobiah’s mom is worried about his long absence. He was sent off on an errand to retrieve his Dad’s money, but he’s been busy getting married and catching magic fish. So he probably hasn’t taken the time to “call home”.

Meanwhile, Anna has sat watching the road by which her son was to return. When she saw him coming, she called to his father, “Look, your son is coming, and the man who traveled with him!”

Tobit 11:5-6
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Tobias in the House of His Father and Mother

Did your parents ever keep a vigil like this for you? Maybe after a date that went too long? Or an assigned journey to which you added a few stops of your own? Wouldn’t Mom and Dad have been glad to see you coming home, like Tobiah, with a guardian angel by your side – instead of, maybe, the school principal or a police officer! 😉

We keep vigil in the restless expectation of good things.
Even though vigils occur in the darkness before the dawn,
they are fired by hope and trust in God.

Many years ago, my then young brother spent several months in Thailand for his job. My mother and I missed him so much! When we received word that he was coming home for Christmas, the long vigil for his arrival began. It included cleaning, cooking, and planning the holiday calendar that would celebrate his return. (You would have thought Julius Caesar was returning from the conquest of Gaul!)

Waiting…

But Jimmy didn’t arrive on the day he was expected. What did arrive was a big nor’easter snow storm that clogged the roads he would be traveling!

Mom and I took turns peeking out the front window at ten minute intervals, but no matter how often we peeked, Jim still didn’t appear. Finally, bleary-eyed past midnight, we both surrendered to a strained sleep.

Awakening before dawn the next morning, I prayed to see my brother sleeping on the couch. But my hope was not met. Nervous now, I opened the front door to retrieve the nearly frozen milk containers resting in the snow outside.

And there he was – asleep behind the wheel of a rental car parked under the amber street light. He hadn’t wanted to wake us since the snow had delayed his arrival until long after midnight.

Our entire life is a vigil for the expected coming of God Who arrives in every moment. Imagine God, like my kind and freezing brother, wanting us to wake up gently on our own to the Divine Presence right outside the door of our consciousness. Imagine ourselves opening that door in surprised delight and welcoming God into our warm relief.

Poetry: The Heart Cave – Geoffrey Brown
(My long time readers will recognize this beautiful poem as one of my often repeated favorites.)

I must remember to go down to the heart cave
And sweep it clean, make it warm, with fire on the hearth
And candles in their niches
The pictures on the walls glowing with quiet lights.

I must remember to go down to the heart cave
And make the bed with the quilt from home
Strew rushes on the floor
And hang lavender and sage from the corners.

I must remember to go down to the heart cave
And be there when you come.

Music: Homecoming – Hagood Hardy