Category: Truth

Wholehearted

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Love, spirituality, Truth1 Comment

Sunday, November 4, 2018

Readings: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/110418.cfm

Today, in Mercy, both Deuteronomy and Mark proclaim the call to love God wholeheartedly.

woleheartedJPG

In Mark, it is one of the scribes who initiates this proclamation by asking Jesus which is the first – most important – of the commandments. Unlike many of Jesus’ encounters with the scribes and Pharisees, this one does not seem hostile. The man, as one might expect of an expert in the Law, wants to know if Jesus continues the priorities of the Torah. 

He is pleased with Jesus’ answer. And Jesus is pleased with him. We can almost see Christ’s smile at the scribe’s sincere and lived response. 

This man sees through the Pharisaical confusions which have been heaped upon this most important law. He understands that love of God and neighbor mean infinitely more than burnt offerings and public sacrifices.

How do we reach this wholehearted love in our complex lives? We’re not busy with burnt offerings, but we are distracted by so many forces that lay claim to our attention and devotion. 

We love many worthy and unworthy things in our lives. We often confuse real love with one of its masquerading forms – “loves” that are self-serving rather than other-serving.

Today’s Alleluia verse is an answer to our, “How?”.

Whoever loves me
will keep my word, says the Lord;
and my father will love him
and we will come to him.

Real love is proved by action. It’s that simple. What do my actions say about where my heart is? Let me just flip back through my last 24 hours to see if God would have smiled at my choices, words, and actions. And let me change what I need to change for tomorrow.

Music: V’Ahavta- Marty Goetz

V’Ahavta is part of the Shema Yisrael (שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל)- a prayer that serves as a centerpiece of the morning and evening Jewish prayer services.

A Worthy Life

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Discipleship, Gospel, Love, Truth2 Comments

Friday, October 26, 2018

Readings: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/102618.cfm

Today, in Mercy, having blessed and reassured the Ephesian community of the power of their Baptism, Paul instructs them in how to live a Christian life. He says that their Baptism demands a life worthy of their call.

Eph 4_2 bear with

Do you feel called? In your daily life, do you recognize the demand to witness to a graced life in the face of a sometimes ungracious world?

Paul says that’s what it’s all about:

  • the humble, gentle, patient exercise of Christian love
  • the building of inclusive community through acts of peace
  • the embrace of one God Who claims all humanity as one people

Therefore, anything that suggests hate, aggression, pride or exclusion is not worthy of our Baptismal call.

I watched – or tried not to watch – a few political ads last night. I heard the vitriolic rhetoric before I could tap the mute button. I saw the news clip about the terrorizing of a particular party’s leaders. My heart keeps saying, “What has happened to us?”

And then I read Paul’s admonitions on Christian responsibility.

Even if our culture’s rampant hostility makes us sad and angry, we must respond to it with Christian courage and peace-building action. We must not become like those who stun us with their indifference to life, humanity, morality and truth. We must never make an appeal to religion as an excuse for loveless behavior.

In our Gospel, Jesus challenges his listeners in a similar way:

Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?

Our times will challenge our Christian character. Will we pass the test?

Music: one Bread, One Body – John Foley, SJ

Important Things

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Jesus, Prayer, Truth1 Comment

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Readings: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100918.cfm

Today, in Mercy, we meet Martha and Mary. These sisters are the personification of the Benedictine motto: Ora et labora: Pray and work – the two essentials that we all struggle to balance in our lives.

Lk10_38 Martha

They, with their brother Lazarus, are dear friends of Jesus. The scriptures show us that Jesus felt comfortable at their home, and that they loved to have him stay with them.

As all of us do with our closest friends, Jesus understood the lights and shadows of their personalities – and they of his. He knew that Martha was the organizer, the one who planned and worried about the incidentals. Mary was deeply spiritual, but maybe had her head in the clouds a bit when it came to getting things done. 

Perhaps these personality differences caused some tensions between the sisters, as they might between us and our family members or close friends. Sometimes these little, unnoticed frictions can suddenly become chasms between us and those we love. 

How and why does it happen?

Jesus gives us the answer in this Gospel passage. He hears Martha’s simmering frustration. He calms her, as one might a child – “Martha, Martha…”. We can hear his gentle tone. Jesus tells her that worry and anxiety are signs that we are not spiritually free. He tells her that Mary has focused on the important thing.

This may sound repetitious, but just think about it a while:

It is so important to know what is important. 

It is so freeing to agree on what matters with those closest to us. Talking with each other in openness, respect, and unconditional love is the only path to that freedom.

Martha and Mary slipped off that path a bit in this situation. But with Jesus’ help, they righted their relationship. 

That’s the best way for us to do it too. Let Jesus show us what is most important through sharing our faith, and even our prayer, with those closest to us. Let him show us where our self-interests, need for control, fears and anxieties are blocking us from love and freedom.

It is the same way that we, like Mary, can strengthen our relationship with God. It is not sufficient for our prayer to consist of incidentals — pretty words and empty practices. 

We must sit open-hearted at the feet of Jesus and let him love us, let him change us. Even in the midst of our responsibilities and duties, we must balance “the better part”.

Music: a charming little song by Peg Angell which leaves me with same practical question I always have when reading this passage: who actually did get the dinner ready?😂

What Would I Ask For?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, dying, Eternal Life, holiness, Prayer, Truth2 Comments

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

          Readings:  http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/092618.cfm

Today, in Mercy, what an interesting prayer we find in Proverbs! The speaker beseeches God to grant him two things before death:

  • to be surrounded by truth and
  • to be neither rich nor poor

A fascinating and radical request, don’t you think? And we get eavesdrop on it.

Prov30_7 truth

The supplicant fears riches because they may cause him to forget his need for God.
He fears poverty because it might cause him to steal and thus betray God’s law.
All he wants is a nice, even life with not too much drama. I get it, don’t you!

In our Gospel, Jesus sends his disciples out, telling them to let go of drama too. If people don’t engage you, move on he says. He instructs them not to be caught up in material possessions, but to leave all behind that for the sake of the truth they will be preaching.

Both these readings are really about truth and freedom, two gifts that allow us to live in grace, hope and joy. They are about not being bound by our possessions, our pretenses, our success, or what people think of us. They are about being at peace with who we really are before God and others.

The Proverbs passage makes me wonder—  if someone were eavesdropping on our most radical prayer, what things they might they hear us asking for? What is it that would free us to be our truest selves before God?

Some quiet music to think about that question:

Anchoress ~ Kerani 

Fear or Faith?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Courage, Faith, Gospel, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Prayer, Truth2 Comments

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

       Readings:  http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/082818.cfm

Mt 23_24 camael gnat

Today, in Mercy, Paul talks seriously with the community at Thessalonika. Some early Christians expected the final coming of Christ to happen imminently. They had become upset, and somewhat obsessed, with concerns and rumors about “the end times”. Reactions range from fear to panic to denial.

Paul basically tells the community to settle down – “Hold fast to the traditions that you were taught.” In other words, focus on the core teachings of your faith – love, service, and grateful, joyful worship – not on the imagined fears of some unenlightened shouters.

We see such misdirection manifested in fundamentalism, scrupulosity, exaggerated devotional practices, cultic behaviors, even superstitions – the kinds of attitudes Jesus condemns in today’s Gospel.  These conditions cause us to become judgmental, elitist and superficial. They distract us from attention to the heart of our faith – mutual love, unselfish service, merciful justice, Christlike inclusivity.

Even as I write this reflection, we have a Church — like Thessolonia — fraught with turmoil.  Many call it unprecedented, although any student of Church History knows it is not. Still. it is a time when we who love the Catholic faith must pray for light, courage and fidelity. Let us pray too for Pope Francis that he may rely on the Holy Spirit to help him act courageously and definitively, as Paul did, to right the Beloved Community.

As for each of us, the fullness of God needs a large soul – not one shrunken by its own pettiness, fears, and self-righteousness. As St. Augustine prayed:

Narrow is the mansion of my soul;
enlarge Thou it,
that Thou mayest enter in.

Music: A Heart Like Yours ~ CeCe Winans

Truth on Friday 13th

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Gospel, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Truth2 Comments

Friday, July 13, 2018

Readings: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071318.cfm

Today, in Mercy, we pray with the word “Truth”. The word appears 137 times in the Bible. God clearly has something to tell us about it!

Jn16_13

A truth theme runs through today’s readings like a magnetic thread, drawing us to deeper self-understanding. Friday the 13th is a good day for that, don’t you think – a day fraught with superstitions and falsehoods?

When I was a teenager, my parents decided to wallpaper our living room. Dad, a master craftsman at just about any DIY project, had been physically incapacitated by several heart attacks. So, while he was the architect, I was the contractor for this home project.

Dad was an exact yet patient teacher. I learned how to cut, paste and match seams. I absorbed the craftsperson’s essential mantra: measure twice, cut once. Even the mysteries and miracles of Dad’s old, treasured toolbox were opened to me.

One morning, Dad said we had to “true up” a wall and that we were going to “drop a plumb line”. It was Greek to me. But he explained that no building is perfectly level. If we didn’t begin our papering from a leveled line, we would end up feeling like our living room was a tilted funhouse. 

Don’t you sometimes feel like our world is that funhouse? But it isn’t really very much fun, is it? We live in a time when information and communication are at our fingertips. Yet, we are confused by half-truths and distorted facts. We are assailed with propaganda and cyber-manipulation. We are fed a diet of constant cabled lies AND we consume them to satisfy our biases. Even in our personal lives, we may be undercut by false friends and masquerading enemies. Like Pontius Pilate, we are left with the question, “Truth! What is “Truth”?

Today’s readings drop a plumb line into that skewed world. 

  • Hosea tells us, “Straight are the paths of the Lord; in them the just walk.” 
  • Our Psalm implores God to create in us a true heart. 
  • Our Gospel tells us that, even in the midst of deceit, that true heart will be guided by the Holy Spirit.

On this Friday the 13th, we can start by truing up our own spirits. Let’s pray for the grace today to be true friends – not fair weather; true patriots – not nationalists; true believers – not Pharisees. 

Behold, you are pleased with sincerity of heart,
and in my inmost being you teach me wisdom.
Cleanse me of sin with hyssop, that I may be purified;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
(from today’s Psalm)

Music: Change My Heart, O God! – Maranatha Music

Where Is Your Treasure?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Gospel, Jesus, justice, Truth3 Comments

Friday, June 22, 2018

Readings:  http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/062218.cfm

Today, in Mercy, Jesus continues to teach us how to live a truly Gospel life. He does it with two small sermons and closes each with a blockbuster statement.

Mt6_19_23

Have you ever sat in church, suffering through a rambling sermon that never got to the point? Then you can understand the beauty and effectiveness of these statements of Jesus:

Where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

If the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be.

The first statement leaves us to ponder what really matters to us. Where do we spend our time, talent and treasure? If we say we love God and God’s vulnerable ones, do our “investments” prove it?

The second statement challenges us to be profoundly honest, to stop naming as “good” only that which is self-serving. We see blatant examples of this in our political life: policies and tactics tied to greedy, prejudiced outcomes – outcomes fed by the suffering and oppression of vulnerable human beings. These tactics challenge us to look at our own heart and test what we proclaim as “light”.

.

The Tangled Web

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Gospel, spirituality, Truth5 Comments

Saturday, June 16, 2018

Readings: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/061618.cfm

Why do we lie? It gets us so mixed up!

I vividly remember a quotation painted along the chalkboard border of my 6th grade classroom. It is from Sir Walter Scott’s poem Marmion:

“O what a tangled web we weave
when first we practice to deceive.”

Perhaps the quote impressed me so much because I was entangled in a juvenile drama over smoking in the girls’ bathroom. Some supposed friend had reported two of us to the principal, a tiny nun who kept an unused  (but nonetheless threatening) cat-o-nine tails in her desk drawer. When confronted, what was there to do but lie?

Mt 5_37 yes_no

But, oh the complexity of it! Would my partner in crime tell the same story? Would any slight discrepancy render us convicted? Would she instead take the part of the informant? Would my smoker parents be brought in as investigators of the behavior they had inspired? Where would the whole quagmire end!

Wouldn’t it have been so much simpler to just tell the truth? So why do we lie? Why do we swear to what is not true? Why do we boast of things we cannot claim? This is the same challenge Jesus puts to his followers in our Gospel passage.

In my young case, as in many others, we lie because our behavior has fractured us from the image of who we are expected to be. We want to be respected, loved, powerful and right. These are conditions that should be earned by the integrity of our behavior. But when our actions cheat, we often lie, pretend, avoid, distract or otherwise compromise the truth.

Our world is full of this kind of lying. Our politics are crippled with it; our leaders unashamedly expert at it. Our culture is so poisoned with a lack integrity, that it seeps into our own relationships and choices almost unnoticed. Lying becomes normalized.

And the situation is not new. In today’s Gospel, Jesus is warning his disciples to avoid just such corruption.

A remedy? Here’s what Jesus says:

“Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’
Anything more is from the Evil One.”

It sounds simple enough. But it requires the hard work of prayerful self-examination, loving mutual correction, forgiveness (even of ourselves), and a good old “firm purpose of amendment”. (Remember that one from the Act of Contrition?)

It was a heck of a lesson I was taught in sixth grade – and, like most great lessons – it wasn’t in any textbook! I only hope I learned it somewhat well.

Music: Tell the Truth ~ Eric Clapton (Get ready to jam! Lyrics below.)

Tell the truth.
Tell me who’s been fooling you?
Tell the truth.
Who’s been fooling who?

There you sit there, looking so cool
While the whole show is passing you by.
You better come to terms with your fellow men soon, cause
The whole world is shaking now. Can’t you feel it?
A new dawn is breaking now. Can’t you see it?

Tell the truth.
Tell me who’s been fooling you?
Tell the truth.
Who’s been fooling who?

It doesn’t matter just who you are,
Or where you’re going or been.
Open your eyes and look into your heart.

The whole world is shaking now. Can’t you feel it?
A new dawn is breaking now. Can’t you see it?
I said see it, yeah, can’t you see it?
Can’t you see it, yeah, can’t you see it?
I can see it, yeah.

Tell the truth.
Tell me who’s been fooling you?
Tell the truth.
Who’s been fooling who?

Hear what I say, ’cause every word is true.
You know I wouldn’t tell you no lies.
Your time’s coming, gonna be soon, boy.
It doesn’t matter just who you are,
Or where you’re going or been.
Open your eyes and look into your heart.

Songwriters: Bobby Whitlock / Eric Patrick Clapton / Robert S. WhitlockTell the Truth lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc, Music Sales Corporation

Let Your “Yes” Be “Yes!”

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Mercy, Truth1 Comment

Friday, May 25, 2018

Readings: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/052518.cfm

Today, in Mercy, we once again are faced with “tough talk” readings. James is simply that kind of preacher. And, in the Gospel, Jesus takes on the gnarly topic of adultery. So it’s not going to be sweet inspiration today!

What both readings have in common is the quintessential call to integrity at the core of committed Christian life. Our word, given in compassion and mercy, should be our bond. Our loving care for ourselves and all Creation should be trustworthy and persevering. For a person of faith, “fake news” and “alternative facts” are simply code for the deceitful avoidance of our duty to love one another.

We should not allow deceit, indifference, pretense or abuse to ever adulterate our efforts to love. Respect for ourselves and for other human beings requires that we say “Yes” and “No” honestly. Our reverence for God demands that we offer the same loving veracity to God.

The covenant of marriage, or of religious profession, places this obligation in a particularly bright light. When we give ourselves in commitment to another, and receive their commitment in return, we imitate the Blessed Trinity who exist in the unity of selfless, creative love. This “Yes”or “I do” is tied to our very identity as a person capable of living in the mutuality of love as God does.

James and Jesus tell us today to take every care to treasure and protect such precious commitments by the deep integrity of our hearts.

Holy Trinity Icon by Andrej Rublëv, an Eastern Orthodox monk, considered to be one of the greatest medieval Russian painters of Orthodox icons and frescos.

Music: Russian Orthodox Chant ~ Srtensky Monastery Choir

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VyREJRz8wNI

Can Love Survive Without Truth?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Love, Truth, Uncategorized3 Comments

Monday, April 16, 2018: Today, in Mercy, we meet Stephen, proto-martyr of the Christian faith. Like Jesus, Stephen is persecuted for his goodness. Like Jesus, Stephen had false witnesses presented against him. How can Love survive in the absence of Truth? And yet, as today’s Gospel assures is, it does. We live in a time that has forgotten the essence and value of truthfulness. We live in a world where some people’s lives are a lie – a pretense of who they truly are as children of God. But our faith calls us to truth, mercy, justice and commitment to Christ’s teachings. May we be inspired by the witness of Stephen and his companions to tell the truth, be the truth, call for truth in others.

Ps119_30