Alleluia: Peace and Abundance

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Discipleship, Gospel, Jesus, peace, repentance, spirituality4 Comments

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 3, 2022

Today’s Readings 

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070322.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Alleluia Verse encapsulates the message of the readings: Christ is the Source of our peace and our abundance.

Alleluia, alleluia.
Let the peace of Christ control your hearts;
let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Colossians 3:15-16

Isaiah describes that peace and abundance like this:

For thus says the LORD:
Lo, I will spread prosperity over Jerusalem like a river,
and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent.
As nurslings, you shall be carried in her arms,
and fondled in her lap;
as a mother comforts her child,
so will I comfort you;
in Jerusalem you shall find your comfort.

Isaiah 66: 12-13

In Galatians, we meet a community that has been arguing over a few things, but especially whether circumcision should continue to be a mark of faith. Paul sounds a little frustrated with the argument.

He claims his “peace and abundance” from the marks of his long ministry and what he has suffered for Christ:

From now on, let no one make troubles for me;
for I bear the marks of Jesus on my body.

Galatians 6:17

In Luke, Jesus indicates that “peace and abundance” will be spread in the New Creation through the sometimes difficult ministry of his disciples:

Go on your way;
behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.
Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals;
and greet no one along the way.
Into whatever house you enter, first say,
‘Peace to this household.’
If a peaceful person lives there,
your peace will rest on him;
but if not, it will return to you.

Luke 10: 3-9

The Gospel message meant to bring peace will, no doubt, bring fear and judgement to those hostile to it:

The kingdom of God is at hand for you.

If we sincerely open our hearts to this message, how might it affect our daily lives? Peace and abundance? A frantic need for repentance? Or maybe just an angry, indifferent, or deaf ear?

Alleluia, alleluia.
Let the peace of Christ control your hearts;
let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Poem: one of my favorite poems, The Heart Cave by Geoffrey Brown

The Heart Cave

I must remember
To go down to the heart cave
& sweep it clean; make it warm
with a fire on the hearth,
& candles in their niches,
the pictures on the walls
       glowing with a quiet light.
       I must remember
To go down to the heart cave
       & make the bed
with the quilt from home,
strew
the rushes on the floor
hang
lavender and sage
         from the corners.
         I must go down
                                           To the heart cave & be there
                                           when You come.

Music: Dwelling Place – John Foley, SJ

Alleluia: Hear; Know; Follow

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

Saturday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 2, 2022

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070222.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Alleluia Verse paints the dynamic picture of Christ’s relationship with those who follow him. With due respect to the ancient “shepherd” image, the verse might speak to us better like this:

Alleluia, alleluia.
My beloved hear my voice, says the Lord;
I know them, and they follow me.

In our readings today, we see the cycle of grace and resistance worked out in the lives of the ancients. Our passage from Amos talks about the full restoration of Israel to a place in God’s favor. Our Gospel shows that those with closed hearts cannot receive the lavish mercy of God given to us in the gift of Jesus.

What about us? Can we open ourselves to that powerful grace? Can we respond in reciprocity to this Divine invitation:

I am the Beloved. 
And my own beloved hear Me.
I know them.
And they follow me.

Poetry: TO LIVE WITH THE SPIRIT – Jessica Powers

To live with the Spirit of God is to be a listener.
It is to keep the vigil of mystery,
earthless and still.
One leans to catch the stirring of the Spirit,
strange as the wind’s will.

The soul that walks where the wind of the Spirit blows
turns like a wandering weather-vane toward love.
It may lament like Job or Jeremiah,
echo the wounded hart, the mateless dove.
It may rejoice in spaciousness of meadow
that emulates the freedom of the sky.

Always it walks in waylessness, unknowing;
it has cast down forever from its hand
the compass of the whither and the why.

To live with the Spirit of God is to be a lover.
It is becoming love, and like to Him
toward Whom we strain with metaphors of creatures:
fire-sweep and water-rush and the wind’s whim.
The soul is all activity, all silence;
and though it surges Godward to its goal,
it holds, as moving earth holds sleeping noonday,
the peace that is the listening of the soul.

Music: Path of Joy – Daniel Kobialka

Alleluia: Come to Me

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Gospel, Jesus, peace, Poetry, spiritualityLeave a comment

Friday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 1, 2022

Today’s Readings: 

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070122.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings revolve around a theme of taxes, measures, weights, scales – those instruments that may be misused to unduly burden others.

We will diminish the containers for measuring,
add to the weights,
and fix our scales for cheating!

Amos 8:5

Our Gospel illustrates the mental instruments we use to measure, and sometimes condemn others – judgement, prejudice, stereotyping.

The Pharisees said to Jesus’s disciples,
“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Matthew 9:11

There are all kinds of ways we can lay heavy burdens on ourselves and others. Our Alleluia Verse invites us to freedom from such burdens:

Alleluia, alleluia.
Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest, says the Lord.

Does this mean that God will remove such burdens from our lives? No. We know better than that don’t we. 🙂

Trusting our lives to God does not change our burdens. It changes us. 

That change – that unburdening grace – allows us spiritual freedom even in the midst of challenges and trials.

Our hope, confidence, freedom and peace rests in God. Nothing can shake that foundation.

Poetry: Edwina Gateley – Let Your God Love You

Be silent.
Be still.
Alone.
Empty
Before your God.
Say nothing.
Ask nothing.
Be silent.
Be still.
Let your God look upon you.
That is all.
God knows.
God understands.
God loves you
With an enormous love,
And only wants
To look upon you
With that love.
Quiet.
Still.
Be.

Let your God—
Love you.

Music: Come to Me – Gregory Norbet

Lyrics

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy burdened
And I shall give you rest
Take up my yoke and learn from me
For I am meek and humble of heart
And you'll find rest for your souls
Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

You, God, are my shepherd, I shall never be in need
Fresh and green are the meadows where you give me rest

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy burdened
And I shall give you rest
Take up my yoke and learn from me
For I am meek and humble of heart
And you'll find rest for your souls
Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden is light

Pursue me, o God, with your fathomless love
In your tent let me dwell all the days of my life

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy burdened
And I shall give you rest
Take up my yoke and learn from me
For I am meek and humble of heart
And you'll find rest for your souls
Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden is light

Alleluia: Grafted to God

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, Jesus, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Thursday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 30, 2022

Today’s readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/063022.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we move from Amos’s angry God to the gentle Jesus of our Gospel who gently lifts a broken man out of both his paralysis and sin.

These readings offer quite a leap as we try to image our invisible God! And, once again, our Alleluia Verse is the bridge that helps us do so.

The verse assures us that, in all circumstances, God in restoring us to a share in Divine Life.

Alleluia, alleluia.
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ
and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

2 Corinthians 5:19

The image that comes to my mind is that of an expert gardener grafting a broken shoot on to a vibrant tree.

That “grafting” occurs within the context of our life stories. In Amos’s time, it was a story fraught with political struggles crippling the community’s moral life. The crowd gathered around Jesus are challenged by the crippling effects of their lack of faith. His cure of the paralytic demonstrates how God wishes to restore their spiritual freedom.

God continues to reconcile the world in Christ
even in our own time.
How am I a recipient
and how am I an agent
of that merciful, conciliatory grace? 

Praying with the elements of Responsorial Psalm 19 today suggests a guide for us. When our lives are reconciled with God, we should experience these gifts:

  • truth
  • justice
  • wholeness
  • refreshment
  • trustworthiness
  • wisdom
  • simplicity
  • right balance
  • joy
  • clarity
  • enlightenment
  • purity
  • steadfastness
  • and spiritual sweetness

Poetry: from Rumi

Find the sweetness 
in your own heart, 
then you may find the sweetness 
in every heart.

Music: Sweet Will of God – by Lelia Naylor Morris (1862 – 1929) an American Methodist hymn writer. In the 1890s, she began to write hymns and gospel songs; it has been said that she wrote more than 1,000 songs and tunes, and that she did so while doing her housework. In 1913, her eyesight began to fail; her son thereupon constructed for her a blackboard 28 feet (8.5 m) long with oversized staff lines, so that she could continue to compose.

In 1900, she published Sweet Will of God, about  the true “sweetness” of a deep spiritual life.

Two versions today. The first is the entire hymn sung by Amy Grant. The second is just the interlude so beautifully sung by Junior W. Smith that I had to share it. (Lyrics below)

Amy Grant

Junior W. Smith

My stubborn will at last hath yielded;
I would be Thine, and Thine alone;
And this the prayer my lips are bringing,
“Lord, let in me Thy will be done.”

Sweet will of God, still fold me closer;
Till I am wholly lost in Thee;
Sweet will of God, still fold me closer,
Till I am wholly lost in Thee.

Thy precious will, O conquering Saviour,
Doth now embrace and compass me;
All discords hushed, my peace a river,
My soul, a prisoned bird, set free.

Shut in with Thee, O Lord, forever,
My wayward feet no more to roam;
What power from Thee my soul can sever?
The centre of God’s will my home.

Alleluia: Saints for the Ages

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Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul
Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062922-day.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

I, Paul, am already being poured out like a libation,
and the time of my departure is at hand.
I have competed well; I have finished the race;
I have kept the faith.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate the great Apostles Peter and Paul. The stories of these men embody all the hills and valleys of a Christian life, albeit to majestic scale: call, conversion of heart, ministry, miracles, sacrifice, suffering, failure and glory.

Every human being passes through these hills and valleys. Why do some emerge as saints for the ages and others not? 

Today’s readings would suggest this answer: they believed, and submitted their hearts to God’s unimaginable grace and power. Through that faith, they ultimately were led to the heights of holiness and carried the rest of us believers with them.

Paul says, 

“The Lord stood by me and gave me strength,
so that through me the proclamation of the Word
might be completed.”

When Jesus asks Peter what he believes, Peter says,

“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Ordinary men responding with a clear and extraordinary faith. May their lives and legacies bless and teach us.

Poetry: Two wonderful sonnets from Malcolm Guite

If you love Malcolm Guite’s poetry as much as I do, you might enjoy his blog found at this link:

Home
Peter Denies Christ – Rembrandt

St. Peter

Impulsive master of misunderstanding
You comfort me with all your big mistakes;
Jumping the ship before you make the landing,
Placing the bet before you know the stakes.
I love the way you step out without knowing,
The way you sometimes speak before you think,
The way your broken faith is always growing,
The way he holds you even when you sink.
Born to a world that always tried to shame you,
Your shaky ego vulnerable to shame,
I love the way that Jesus chose to name you,
Before you knew how to deserve that name.
And in the end your Saviour let you prove
That each denial is undone by love.

Apostle

Caravaggio’s Conversion of Saul
An enemy whom God has made a friend,
A righteous man discounting righteousness,
Last to believe and first for God to send,
He found the fountain in the wilderness.
Thrown to the ground and raised at the same moment,
A prisoner who set his captors free,
A naked man with love his only garment,
A blinded man who helped the world to see,
A Jew who had been perfect in the law,
Blesses the flesh of every other race
And helps them see what the apostles saw;
The glory of the lord in Jesus’ face.
Strong in his weakness, joyful in his pains,
And bound by love, he freed us from our chains.

Music: Nunc scio vere (Now I am sure…) – Introit from today’s liturgy

Alleluia: Trust!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Conversion, Courage, Discipleship, Faith, spiritualityLeave a comment

Memorial of Saint Irenaeus, Bishop and Martyr
June 28, 2022

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062822.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Alleluia Verse, like so many of the Psalms, encourages us to TRUST.

“24” was an action-packed show popular a couple of decades ago. In that TV series, the protagonist was played by a tough Kiefer Sutherland. Iconic to each episode was his repeated assurance to his allies, “Trust me”. Doing so would supposedly get them out of every possible kind of fix!

Trusting him usually brought a few hairy escapes, gunfights and explosions. And I guess it can feel like that sometimes when we think we trust God.  But it shouldn’t.

Real and full trust in God yields deep peace
which then impels us to act for justice and mercy.

Alleluia, alleluia.
I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in God’s word.

Our readings this week from the prophet Amos portray a morally confused community who are tumbling toward God’s wrath. The prophet uses stunning imagery to declare his warning and to call the people to a repentance which acts for justice toward the poor and suffering.

The prophet speaks in imagery. The point is not a literal one. The point, rather, is to recognize that the cost of a disordered public life is inescapably very great. The cost cannot be denied or understated.

Walter Brueggemann

We too as a global community, and as individuals, are called to live lives ordered on God’s Law – lives patterned on justice, mercy, and love for all people.

How do you think we’re doing with that? I think Amos would have preaching tirade if he lived in our day!

But as our Alleluia Verse and our Gospel indicate, a first step toward redemption is TRUST. God is with us. Jesus is “in our boat”. These passages encourage us to get to know, understand, and trust God’s Presence through growing familiarity with the Word.

Once our spirits rest in this kind of assurance, we will have the freedom and courage not only to face ourselves, but to act for true justice, mercy, and love for every person.

Poetry: Poem 8 – Hadewijch of Antwerp, a 13th century mystic and poet.

Born is the new season as the old one that lasted so long is drawing to a close.
Those prepared to do love’s service will receive her rewards: new comfort and new strength.
If they love her with the vigor of love, they will soon be one with love in love.
To be one with love is an awesome calling and those who long for it should spare no effort.
Beyond all reason they will give their all and go through all.
For love dwells so deep in the womb of the Father that her power will unfold only to those who serve her with utter devotion.
First the lover must learn charity and keep God’s law.
Then he shall be blessed a hundredfold, and he shall do great things without great effort, and bear all pain without suffering.
And so his life will surpass human reason indeed.
Those who long to be one with love achieve great things, and shirk no effort.
They shall be strong and capable of any task that will win them the love of love, to help the sick or the healthy, the blind, the crippled or the wounded.
For this is what the lover owes to love.
He shall help the strangers and give to the poor and soothe the suffering whenever he can.
He shall pay loyal service to God’s friends, to saints and men, with a strength that is not human, by night and by day.
And when his strength seems to falter he will still place his trust in love.
Those who trust in love with all their being shall be given all they need.
For she brings comfort to the sad and guidance to those who cannot read.
Love will be pleased with the lover if he accepts no other comfort and trusts in her alone.
Those who desire to live in love alone with all their might and heart shall so dispose all things that they shall soon possess her all.

Music: Sleep in the Storm – by Unspoken Music

(Captures the essence of today’s Gospel where Jesus sleeps in a gusty storm – TRUST!)

Alleluia: God Loves to Talk with Us

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

Monday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 27, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062722.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings dispense a serious dose of fire and brimstone! 

Beware, I will crush you into the ground
as a wagon crushes when laden with sheaves.

Amos 2:13

Consider this, you who forget God,
lest I rend you and there be no one to rescue you.

Psalm 50:22

Some of the prophets, and some preachers even now, have considered “F&B” an effective strategy to reach the hardened sinner. Even our sweet, gentle Jesus comes through tough in today’s Gospel:

Another of his disciples said to him,
“Lord, let me go first and bury my father.”
But Jesus answered him, “Follow me,
and let the dead bury their dead.”

Matthew 8:22

I’ve never been a fan of the hellfire approach to evangelization. I think it tends to raise a wall of fear around our hearts rather than invite a deep conversion.

Our Alleluia Verse helps me to cut through the sulfurous verbiage to the point that might actually change me: God wants to speak to me. Don’t be hard-hearted to God’s message.

Alleluia, alleluia.
If today you hear his voice,
harden not your hearts.

That’s it. That’s the message. Today it’s wrapped in some blazing language but the core is the same.

A loving God wants to speak to me
in every moment of my life.

Poetry: excerpt from Dante’s Inferno

This passage from the epic poem focuses on the sin of indifference, not caring enough to be either bad or good. It made me think of a powerful verse from the Book of Revelation:

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

Revelation 3: 15-16

And I — my head oppressed by horror — said:

“Master, what is it that I hear? Who are

those people so defeated by their pain?”

      And he to me: “This miserable way

is taken by the sorry souls of those

who lived without disgrace and without praise.

      They now commingle with the coward angels,

the company of those who were not rebels

nor faithful to their God, but stood apart.

      The heavens, that their beauty not be lessened,

have cast them out, nor will deep Hell receive them —

even the wicked cannot glory in them.” 

Dante Alighieri, Inferno

Music: De Profundis – Vasari Singers

Psalmus 129 (130)Psalm 129 (130)
1 De profundis clamavi ad te Domine1 Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord:
2 Domine exaudi vocem meam fiant aures tuae intendentes in vocem deprecationis meae2 Lord, hear my voice. Let thy ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.
3 Si iniquitates observabis Domine Domine quis sustinebit3 If thou, O Lord, wilt mark iniquities: Lord, who shall stand it.
4 Quia apud te propitiatio est propter legem tuam sustinui te Domine sustinuit anima mea in verbum eius4 For with thee there is merciful forgiveness: and by reason of thy law, I have waited for thee, O Lord. My soul hath relied on his word:
5 Speravit anima mea in Domino5 my soul hath hoped in the Lord.
6 A custodia matutina usque ad noctem speret Israel in Domino6 From the morning watch even until night, let Israel hope in the Lord.
7 Quia apud Dominum misericordia et copiosa apud eum redemptio7 Because with the Lord there is mercy: and with him plentiful redemption.
8 Et ipse redimet Israel ex omnibus iniquitatibus eius8 And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
______________________

Alleluia: Speak, Lord!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, Poetry, spirituality2 Comments

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 26, 2022

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062622.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Alleluia Verse suggests an amazing consideration- that the Almighty God responds to our human invitation!

Alleluia, alleluia.
Speak, Lord, your servant is listening;
you have the words of everlasting life.

1 Sm 3:9; Jn 6:68

This humble, hopeful prayer encapsulates themes from each of today’s readings which all use the symbol of a yoke to illustrate their message.

Elisha, and the listeners to both Paul and Jesus understand what a yoke does. It ties the beast of burden to its task. It also ties the one who holds the reins and plow handle.

Although the symbols of ploughing and yoke may be less familiar to us, our readings instruct us that to truly hear God’s voice in our lives we must have a deep freedom from anything that burdens our spirits. How do we do that while living normal human lives with responsibilities, worries and frustrations?

Our verse today might offer us an answer. It all depends on how we perceive our daily lives. 

Speak, Lord, your servant is listening;
you have the words of everlasting life.

Do we see our life only for itself with all the burdens it might put on us? Or do we see it as the sacred unfolding of an infinitely deeper life – everlasting life?

  • Elisha’s life was so much more than the field he had to plow that day!
  • The Galatians lives were so much more than the “biting” arguments that plagued them that day!
  • Jesus’s invitation to follow him is to so much more than the surface concerns of our lives.

Our life in Christ is a call to live in the deep stream of grace – to live “everlasting life” even within the limits of time’s circumstances.

Doing so changes us. It breaks the yoke that constricts our vision, our hope, our capacity for mercy. It allows us to invite God to speak and to hear God’s voice in our ordinary day. It strengthens us to live with extraordinary love and “everlasting “ grace.

Poetry: from T.S.Eliot’s Ash Wednesday 

I have taken a few lines from this long poem of Eliot’s. He wrote it in his later years. He expresses his continuing struggle with living a deep faith. After the excerpt, there is a link to the entire poem. I find Eliot not to be an easy poet, but oh is he ever worth the effort!

V 

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent

If the unheard, unspoken

Word is unspoken, unheard;

Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,

The Word without a word, the Word within

The world and for the world;

And the light shone in darkness and

Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled

About the centre of the silent Word.

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word

Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence

Not on the sea or on the islands, not

On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,

For those who walk in darkness

Both in the day time and in the night time

The right time and the right place are not here

No place of grace for those who avoid the face

No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny

the voice

Will the veiled sister pray for

Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,

Those who are torn on the horn between season and season,

time and time, between

Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait

In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray

For children at the gate

Who will not go away and cannot pray:

Pray for those who chose and oppose

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Will the veiled sister between the slender

Yew trees pray for those who offend her

And are terrified and cannot surrender

And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks

In the last desert before the last blue rocks

The desert in the garden the garden in the desert

Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.

O my people.

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/t__s__eliot/poems/15133

Music – I Can Hear Your Voice – Jean Watson, Michael W. Smith

Alleluia: Full of Grace

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, Mary, spiritualityLeave a comment

Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary
June 25, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062522.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Mary, blessed mother of Jesus, and thus of us all who have been born anew in him.

Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed is the Virgin Mary
who kept the word of God
and pondered it in her heart.

What can this beautiful mother teach us, she who kept and pondered the very Word of God?

In order to grow fully in to God’s heart and will, this holy woman held the Word – the way the dough holds yeast to allow its own transformation.

So that she might blossom into the fullness of her own beauty, she caressed faith’s slow-forming bud in the dark protection of her prayer.

Like all of us, Mary was not divine. She was not supernatural. She was an ordinary, good woman who loved God with extraordinary passion.

She spent her days clearing her heart-space of any clutter that would keep her from God. And slowly, that Divine Presence ripened and revealed itself in the flash of an angel wing and the soundless message that would transform all time.

We too, in our particular ways, are asked to allow God the space to imagine Divinity into flesh through our human experience.

Mary believed that God could and would do such a miracle for love of us. She let the Truth of Jesus live, not only in Him, but in her own mother’s life.

This generous mother then became the first disciple, keeping company with Jesus through his Passion, Death and Resurrection

Indeed, we have much to learn from her.

Poetry: Annunciation – Denise Levertov

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,

almost always a lectern, a book; always
the tall lily.
Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage.
The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent.
God waited.

She was free
to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness.

____________________________

Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.

______________________________

She had been a child who played, ate, slept
like any other child – but unlike others,
wept only for pity, laughed
in joy not triumph.
Compassion and intelligence
fused in her, indivisible.

Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,
only asked
a simple, ‘How can this be?’
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel’s reply,
perceiving instantly
the astounding ministry she was offered:

to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power –
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.
Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love –

but who was God.

This was the moment no one speaks of,
when she could still refuse.

A breath unbreathed,
                                Spirit,
                                          suspended,
                                                            waiting.

______________________________

She did not cry, ‘I cannot. I am not worthy,’
Nor, ‘I have not the strength.’
She did not submit with gritted teeth,
                                                       raging, coerced.
Bravest of all humans,
                                  consent illumined her.
The room filled with its light,
the lily glowed in it,
                               and the iridescent wings.
Consent,
              courage unparalleled,
opened her utterly.

Music: Two versions of the magnificent “Ave Maria”.

Ave Maria – Franz Schubert – sung by Ms. Jessye Norman, in German as written by Schubert.

( I had the immense privilege and pleasure of meeting and working with the great Jessye Norman when I chaired a UNCF event in Philadelphia many years ago. She, in her own way, was a bit “divine”!)

Ave Maria – Charles Gounod – sung by Ms. Jessye Norman in Latin, as written

Alleluia: God’s Heart for Us

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Jesus, Love, Poetry, Prayer, spirituality1 Comment

Solemnity of Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
June 24, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062422.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
Take my yoke upon you, says the Lord,
and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we offer our loving adoration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Who teaches us the boundless humility of God.

Although not today’s reading, this passage from Philippians captures for me the perfect description of God’s humility in Jesus:

Though Jesus was in the form of God,
he did not count equality with God
a thing to be grasped,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form
he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death,
even death on a cross.
Therefore God has highly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Creator.

Philippians 2: 6-11

In order to meet our invisible God in prayer, we must imagine God in the ways that most speak to our spirits. For St. Margaret Mary Alacoque that image came in the form of the Sacred Heart, an image which combines both the sacred infinity and the full human heart of Jesus.

Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647 – 1690) was a French Roman Catholic Visitation nun and mystic, who promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in its modern form.

We must never be discouraged or give way to anxiety. . . but ever have recourse to the adorable Heart of Jesus.

Margaret Mary Alacoque

As we pray on this holy feast, may we lean closer and more confidently into the loving heart of Jesus. God loves us enough to do for us what is described in our passage from Philippians. May we fully trust that love and give our own hearts to it.

Poetry: from Rumi in The Masnavi, an extensive poem written in Persian. The Masnavi is one of the most influential works of Sufism, commonly called “the Quran in Persian”. It has been viewed by many commentators as the greatest mystical poem in world literature. The Masnavi is a series of six books of poetry that together amount to around 25,000 verses or 50,000 lines. It is a spiritual text that teaches Sufis how to reach their goal of being truly in love with God.

Open the Window

There’s a street where the Beautiful One
is known to take a stroll.

When a certain radiance is noticed
through the latticed windows
of that neighborhood,

people whisper, The Beloved
must be near.

Listen: open a window to God
and breathe. Delight yourself
with what comes through that opening.

The work of love is to create
a window in the heart,

for the breast is illumined
by the beauty of the Beloved.

Gaze incessantly on that Face!
Listen, this is in your power, my friend!

Find a way to your innermost secret.
Let no other perception distract you.

You, yourself, possess the elixir,
so rub it into your skin,

and by this alchemy
your inner enemies will become friends.

And as you are made beautiful,
the Beautiful One will become your own,
the intimate of your once lonely spirit.

Music: This Ancient Love – Carolyn McDade