Alleluia: Everyone’s Invited

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, inclusivity, spirituality2 Comments

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 28, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082822.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings share the common theme of humility, instructing us that the virtue is essential to our salvation.

Lk14_11 humbled

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

Humility, of course, gets a bad rap in our dominating, “me” culture. We tend to think of humiliation, servitude, inelegance rather than the actual root of the word: humus -“of the earth”.

I was fascinated a few years ago by a small fracas arising from the unconsidered remarks of one of our Phillies baseball players. The team had been running hot and cold – with a little bit too much cold for some fans. The famous Philly “boos” had been flying. Frustrated with these, then outfielder Sean Rodriguez referred to the disgruntled fans as “entitled”. 

angry

Uh oh! They didn’t like that. We prefer to think of ourselves as “deserving “, right?

Humility is that virtue which helps us realize that we are not “entitled” or “deserving” of anything over and above other human beings. It roots us in the respect for each other that refuses to rank the worth of other human beings. 

The social leverage that comes from wealth, power, and influence can beguile us. We become lost in a maze of stereotypes, rankings and prejudices which are the foundation of social injustice.

Do we ever hear among ourselves justifying phrases for our entitlement like these. Maybe the thoughts go unexpressed, but the attitude is unmistakably there:

  • well, I earned what I have
  • at least I paid for what I have
  • “they” need to work if they want to have …(food, healthcare, housing…)
  • it’s their own fault for … (dropping out of school, taking drugs, ….)
  • that’s just the way it is in “those” countries. The people are …(lazy, stupid, violent …)
  • “they” don’t need what I need. “They” are used to being … (poor, disabled, sick …)

And probably the most dangerous of all the phrases:

  • it’s not my problem
  • I’m not the one exiling, bombing, blocking, trafficking, enslaving “them”

Today’s readings enjoin us: it is my problem. My attitude, choices, vote, conversation, and lifestyle matter at the banquet of life we are all meant to share.

My intention to humbly join and rejoice with all Creation, to take a seat beside and never above my sister and brother – this is my only “entitlement” to the one banquet that matters.

When you hold a banquet,
invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;
blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.
For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

Prose – from Mary Oliver in Upstream (Penguin Press, 2016)

Understand from the first this certainty. Butterflies don’t write books, neither do lilies, or violets. Which doesn’t mean they don’t know, in their own way, what they are. That they don’t know they are alive – that they don’t feel, that action upon which all consciousness sits, lightly or heavily.

Humility is the prize of the leaf-world.
Vainglory is the bane of us, the humans.  

Sometimes the desire to be lost again, as long ago, comes over me like a vapor. With growth into adulthood, responsibilities claimed me, so many heavy coats. I didn’t choose them, I don’t fault them, but it took time to reject them. Now in the spring I kneel, I put my face into the packets of violets, the dampness, the freshness, the sense of ever-ness. Something is wrong, I know it, if I don’t keep my attention on eternity. May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever in the stream. May I look down upon the windflower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis with the greatest respect. 

Music:  A Place at the Table – Lori True and Shirley Elena Murray

Alleluia: Restless Heart

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, spirituality4 Comments

Memorial of Saint Monica
Saturday, August 27, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082722.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
I give you a new commandment:
love one another as I have loved you.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray in the spirit of St. Monica, that generous, loving mother who never gave up on her wild and wayward son.

St. Monica – by Benozzo Gozzoli c. 1464

Monica was a stalwart example of the humble faith and gratitude Paul describes in our first reading. Monica knew that her entire being depended on God’s graciousness:

God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise,
and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong,
and God chose the lowly and despised of the world,
those who count for nothing,
to reduce to nothing those who are something,
so that no human being might boast before God.
It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus,
who became for us wisdom from God,
as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption…

Today’s Gospel, the insightful parable of the talents,  could very well capsulize Monica’s spirituality. For her, the foolish burier of the talents was her own son. He had been given amazing spiritual and natural gifts only to squander them in religious distortions and moral lassitude. Still she prayed, forgave, and encouraged Augustine until the light of grace dawned upon him.

Monica is such a powerful example for us. It’s hard to love that much and that long when there is no positive response to our hope and care. 

So many parents throughout the ages have shared Monica’s experience. So many family members and friends have agonized for their own beloveds who seemed lost in bad choices, addictions, or the other myriad forms of self-annihilation.

Let’s pray for one another today, especially for the “Monicas” among us who long for the spiritual wholeness of another to be healed and complete. May we/they be patient, honest, hopeful and loving. And may their own “talents” be multiplied and rewarded.

Prose: from Augustine’s autobiography about his mother Monica:

And now you stretched forth your hand from above
and drew up my soul out of that profound darkness
because my mother, your faithful one,
wept to you on my behalf more than mothers
are accustomed to weep
for the bodily deaths of their children.

Instead, she was fully confident that you
who had promised the whole would give her the rest,
and thus most calmly, and with a fully confident heart,
she replied to me that she believed, in Christ,
that before she died she would see me made whole in the faith.

Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Book 1

Music: Augustine: The Way – Tony MacPherson

Alleluia: Wise or Foolish?

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

Friday of the Twenty-First Week in Ordinary Time
August 26, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082622.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
Be vigilant at all times and pray,
that you may have the strength 
to stand before your God.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings are full of dichotomies and contrasts to help us understand the Truth.

Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?
For since in the wisdom of God
the world did not come to know God through wisdom,
it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation
to save those who have faith.

1 Corinthians 1: 20-21

The core of Paul’s eloquent lesson is this:
Worldly wisdom = foolishness 
Heavenly foolishness = true wisdom

Reading this passage, we might feel like we’re back in our Logic 101 class in college. But remember, Paul is preaching to a Greek audience, inheritors of Socratic and Aristotelian language. They would be fascinated and moved by Paul’s presentation style.

Us? Maybe not so much. We might prefer the storytelling technique Jesus used to get the same point across.

The foolish ones, when taking their lamps,
brought no oil with them,
but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps. 

Matthew 25:3-4

Jesus’s lesson:
Foolish virgins = no oil = can’t find Lord
Wise virgins = refreshed oil = find Lord easily

Our Alleluia Verse captures the essence of all our readings for us:

Pay attention to your spiritual life.

  • Keep the Light lit.
  • Don’t be fooled by the world’s false logic.
  • In Christ, we live by the true logic and light of the Cross and Resurrection 

Prose: Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel – The Logic of Faith: A Buddhist Approach to Finding Certainty Beyond Belief and Doubt

But if you are not careful, 
spirituality can quite easily allow you 
to bypass the human dilemma, 
because spirituality can be 
anything you want it to be, 
whereas faith will challenge you. 
It’s not so comfortable. 
It carries with it the undeniable tension 
between your search for security 
and the limits of your ability to know. 
Faith keeps your spiritual quest relevant 
and connected to the heart 
of the human predicament.

Music: Fool’s Wisdom – Malcolm and Alayna

Got myself some wisdom

From a leather-back book

Got myself a Savior

When I took a second look

Opened up the pages

And what did I find

A black and white portrait

Of a King Who’s a friend of mine

Funny how when you think you’re right

Everybody else must be wrong

Till someone with fool’s wisdom

Somehow comes along

His voice is strange and the words He said

I didn’t quite understand

Yet I knew that He was speaking right

By the leather-back book in His hand

Hey, hey

What a day

Fool’s wisdom

Hey, hey

What a day

Fool’s wisdom

Got myself some wisdom

From a leather-back book

Got myself a Savior

When I took a second look

Alleluia: Wake Up!

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

Thursday of the Twenty-First Week in Ordinary Time
August 25, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082522.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
Stay awake!  
For you do not know when the Lord will come.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings offer us beautiful blessings and vigorous encouragement for our spiritual lives. 

Paul begins his letter of instruction to the Corinthians with a stirring reminder of the spiritual gifts they have received:

… to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy,
with all those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…

1 Corinthians 1:1

As we read these words, we open our hearts to allow Paul to speak to us who have received the same call and blessings as the Corinthians:

I give thanks to my God always on your account
for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus,
that in him you were enriched in every way,
with all discourse and all knowledge,
as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you,
so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift
as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 1: 2-4

Wow! What if we really believed that blessing? What if we lived our lives like the fortified, invigorated Christians Paul describes!

What if we really woke up to the graces we have received and lived a life that witnessed to them!

That kind of awakened living is what Jesus calls us to in the Gospel.

Jesus said
“Stay awake!
For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.
Be sure of this: 
if the master of the house
had known the hour of night when the thief was coming,
he would have stayed awake
and not let his house be broken into.
So too, you also must be prepared,
for at an hour you do not expect, the Lord will come.

Matthew 24: 42-44

We often relate this Gospel to the final coming of Christ at the end of time when we don’t want to be caught off guard. But there is a much more extensive call in this powerful parable.

The Spirit of God comes to us in every moment of our lives. It reaches out to us with every breath through which we share in God’s eternal cosmic Inspiration. Jesus invites us not to miss God’s Presence in each moment – not simply the last one in our earthly lives.

As our day passes – as our lives pass – there are no vacuums where God is absent. God is there even in darkness and suffering. God is there even in the mindless bliss that can render us unconscious of our blessings. 

Poetry: Psalm 145 – Opening Heart by Christine Robinson

Let us pray to be fully awake to God’s Presence as we pray today’s Responsorial Psalm as rendered by Pastor Robinson.

I exalt you, Holy One, and open my heart to you
by remembering your great love.
Your expansiveness made this beautiful world
in a universe too marvelous to understand.

Your desire created life, and you nurtured
that life with your spirit.
You cherish us all—and your prayer
in us is for our own flourishing.

You are gracious to us
slow to anger and full of kindness
You touch us with your love—speak to us
with your still, small voice, hold us when we fall.

You lift up those who are oppressed
by systems and circumstances.
You open your hand
and satisfy us.

You ask us to call on you—
and even when you seem far away, our
longings call us back to you.
Hear my cry, O God, for some days, it is all I have.

Music: Psalm 145: I Will Praise Your Name

Alleluia: The Fig Tree

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality, Truth6 Comments

Feast of Saint Bartholomew, Apostle
August 24, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082422.cfm

Jn 1_48 fig

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate the Feast of the Apostle Bartholomew, also known as Nathaniel. As with many of the Apostles, little is known of Bartholomew’s life outside of a few Gospel stories. John’s Gospel tells the wonderful story of Nathaniel’s call by Christ.

The encounter is a very personal one. Jesus and Nathaniel share a conversation that must have impressed the other listeners because it was remembered and recounted word for word in the Gospel.

One exchange, in particular, carries deep significance for Nathaniel. Jesus says that there is no duplicity, or pretense, in Nathaniel. There is a transparency in him shared even with God. Nathaniel wonders out loud , “How do you know me?” Jesus answers, “Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.”

Saint Bartholomew – El Greco

What was going on with Nathaniel under that fig tree? A moment of intense prayer, questioning, decision, doubt, hope? Whatever it was, Jesus had shared it, even at a distance. When Nathaniel realizes this, his faith in Jesus and vocation to follow Him are confirmed. Nathaniel professes, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”

Where are the fig trees in your life story — those moments when, looking back, you realize that God was with you even though seeming distant?

What have been the turning points in your faith, when you came out from under the shadow of a challenging experience, to the grateful amazement that God had accompanied you through it?

What are those pivotal, intimate moments when it was just you and God – those transparent moments that changed your life?

If you can’t recall any such moments, perhaps you are not giving yourself the time and space to let God reach you.

It might be time to seek out a “fig tree” – a place of spiritual solitude where you may speak honestly and directly to God about the most important things in your life. Open your heart, like Nathaniel, to hear what God already knows about you.

Poetry: The Banyan Tree – Rabindranath Tagore

O you shaggy-headed banyan tree
standing on the bank of the pond,
have you forgotten the little child,
like the birds that have
nested in your branches and left you?

Do you not remember
how he sat at the window
and wondered at
the tangle of your roots
plunged underground?

The women would come
to fill their jars in the pond,
and your huge black shadow
would wriggle on the water
like sleep struggling to wake up.

Sunlight danced on the ripples
like restless tiny shuttles
weaving golden tapestry
Two ducks swam by the weedy margin
above their shadows, and
the child would sit still and think.

He longed to be the wind
and blow through your resting branches,
to be your shadow and
lengthen with the day on the water,
to be a bird and perch
on your topmost twig, and to float like
those ducks among the weeds and shadows.

Forest Lake with Boy Fishing – Alfred Wahlberg

Music: The Memory of Trees – Enya (Some lyrical New Age music to listen to under your fig tree!)

Alleluia: Discerning Word

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Gospel, Jesus, justice, Mercy, spirituality, Truth1 Comment

Tuesday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time
August 23, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082322.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
The word of God is living and effective,
able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Jesus and Paul both get downright serious about true spiritual discernment — in other words,

“Stop the bull(ony)!

The passage from Thessalonians indicates that “conspiracy theories” are not just a sick modern phenomenon. Apparently some religious charlatans were trying to delude the neophyte Christian community with threats about the end of the world. Paul is adamant in his advice:

Do not to be shaken out of your minds suddenly,
or to be alarmed either by a “spirit,”
or by an oral statement,
or by a letter allegedly from us
to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand.
Let no one deceive you in any way.

2 Thessolians 2:2

Jesus “woes” the Pharisees once again for a similar type of deluding behavior. For their own advancement, they impose minute religious entanglements which block the true purpose of the law:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin,
and have neglected the weightier things of the law:
judgment and mercy and fidelity.
But these you should have done, without neglecting the others.

Matthew 23:23

Jesus employs a great image to correct such delusions:

You cleanse the outside of cup and dish,
but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence.
Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup,
so that the outside also may be clean.

Matthew 23:25

In matters of faith, always look inside the cup for “justice, mercy and fidelity”. If instead you find “plunder and self-indulgences”, you can be sure it is not the word of God.

Alleluia, alleluia.
The word of God is living and effective,
able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.

Poetry: A Cup Story – Author Unknown

You are holding a cup of coffee when 
someone comes along and accidentally bumps you 
and shakes your arm, 
making you spill coffee everywhere.
Why did you spill the coffee?
Because someone bumped into you, right?
Wrong answer.
You spilled the coffee because coffee was in the cup.
If tea had been in it, you would have spilled tea.
Whatever is inside the cup is what will come out.
Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you,
whatever is inside of you will come out. 
So each of us has to ask ourselves..... what's in my cup?
When life gets bumpy, what spills over?
Joy, gratefulness, peace, and humility?
Or anger, bitterness, harsh words, and reactions?
We choose what's in our cup!

Music: Inside of the Cup – Ernst Samuel

Foundation Day: Sisters of Mercy in Philadelphia – August 22, 1861

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality20 Comments

Many things live, not just the plants, animals and humans that grace our world.  Memories and promises live.  Vows live. Unlike our physical life, these less tangible realities become stronger with time.  Tales of valor and achievement live, often becoming epic with the passing of the years.

Mercy lives too, blessing not only the current receiver, but the unseen generations to whom it is passed. 

Every morning, old fears and new hopes wake up within us all.  They vie with each other to become the engines of our lives.  The happy ones among us have learned to let hope win.

Mother Patricia Waldron outside Merion’s chapel building, holding a flower. circa 1915

On this date August 22, 1861, a small group of just such happy, hopeful people came to Philadelphia. On that hot August afternoon, the first Philadelphia Sisters of Mercy, led by 26-year old Patricia Waldron, arrived at Broad Street Station in North Philadelphia. They carried no worldly possessions. They came with only a dream for Mercy.  It was a dream so alive in them that it still inspires us today, 161 years later.

Can’t you see them standing on the busy platform, the hissing steam trains encircling them in mist?  They must have felt “be-misted” themselves, these mostly Irish country girls engulfed in a big city.

Union troops heading south crowded the platform.  Busy Broad Street crackled with news of the burgeoning national strife.  Lincoln himself would visit the city in the coming weeks.

And hidden within the seams of this bustling city’s garment lay the poor
– the ones for whom they had come.  
How to reach them?  
How to help them change their lives?

Ranging from sixteen to twenty-seven years old, these brave young women had been charged with establishing a kind of “new nation” themselves – not of politics, but of mercy.  No doubt they, like the young stout-hearted soldiers surrounding them, were also a little weak-kneed. They too had their battles to face. They too would see starvation, illness, attack and death – but their spirits would endure for the sake of the Mercy dream, God’s dream for the poor.

Mercy Cemetery – Merion, PA

Enduring dreams begin with small first steps.  So, hailing a horse-drawn carriage, Mother Patricia Waldron led her young band to their new lives.  At first, they lived in a small house in Assumption Parish, Philadelphia. 

Not too much later, the growing band moved to the venerable Broad Street Convent, now of happy memory.

Convent of Mercy – Broad Street and Columbia Avenue, Philadelphia

Thus, on this date, Mother Patricia and her companions began the grace-filled saga many of us know so well and of which we are a part today.  Their dream lives in us who love Mercy:

  • in our continued effort to find those who are poor and sick
    in a world that ignores them
  • in our choice to be compassionate
    in a world that often chooses violence
  • in our commitment to care
    in a world of treacherous indifference

On that sultry August day 1861,  and on this one 2022, people have choices to make.  They have vows and promises to keep. Some choices live forever.  In the name of Mercy, what will you choose today?

Sister Jeanette Goglia conducts “Circle of Mercy” at the Sesquicentennial celebration at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center.

Click white arrowhead above to hear Circle of Mercy

Alleluia: Blessings or Woe

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Gospel, spirituality, sufferingLeave a comment

Memorial of The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary
August 22, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082222.cfm

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

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we jump into several weeks of readings from:

  • Paul’s letters – a little of Thessalonians and a lot of Corinthians
  • a little of Matthew’s Gospel and a lot of Luke’s

Still centering on our daily Alleluia Verse, as we have been since after Eastertide, we open our prayer to the experience of these early communities as they deepened in their Christian story.

Thessoloniki, Greece

Thessalonika was one of the first cities where Paul worked to form a Christian community. That church suffered persecution but showed “endurance and faith”. Paul obviously has great affection for these steadfast believers, an affection which reflects God’s own love for them.

We ought to thank God always for you, brothers and sisters,
as is fitting, because your faith flourishes ever more,
and the love of every one of you for one another grows ever greater.

Matthew’s Gospel shows us Jesus in an opposite situation from Paul. Jesus is speaking out to a faithless group – Pharisees and scribes who pervert religion with meaningless superficialities which make it harder for people to reach God. 

Animation character designs by Cedric Hohnstadt of the Pharisees for the video series “What’s In The Bible?”

Rather than gratitude and blessing, Jesus preaches woe to those who so subvert the faith journey of their community.

Woe to you, blind guides, who say,
‘If one swears by the temple, it means nothing,
but if one swears by the gold of the temple, one is obligated.’
Blind fools, which is greater, the gold,
or the temple that made the gold sacred?

“religious” distortions vs. sincere faith

One would think it should be easy to tell the difference between true faith and manipulative “religion“. But apparently, it’s not so easy. In every age, including our own, we see people caught up in the distortions of religion which disrespect human rights and freedom.

When we see religion used as a pretext for violence, exclusion, political advancement or economic domination, those “woes” should start ringing in our head.

One who swears by the altar swears by it and all that is upon it;
one who swears by the temple swears by it
and by the one who dwells in it;
one who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God
and by the one who is seated on it.

This advice from Jesus could be a little confusing, but in essence it calls us to be sincere and direct in our approach to God and to our sisters and brothers. It is a teaching offered more clearly in an earlier Matthean passage, the Sermon on the Mount:

But I tell you do not swear at all, either by heaven since that is God’s throne, or by earth, since that is His footstool, or by Jerusalem, since that is the city of the great King. Do not swear by your own head either, since you cannot turn a single hair white or black. All you need say is ‘Yes’ if you mean ‘yes’, ‘No’ if you mean ‘No’; anything more than this comes from the Evil One.

Matthew 5:34-37

Poetry: Poetics of Faith – Denise Levertov 

‘Straight to the point’
           can ricochet,
                      unconvincing.
Circumlocution, analogy,
           parable’s ambiguities, provide
                      context, stepping-stones.
 
Most of the time. And then
 
the lightning power
           amidst these indirections,
                      of plain
unheralded miracle!
           For example,
                      as if forgetting
to prepare them, He simply
           walks on water
                      towards them, casually –
and impetuous Peter, empowered,
           jumps from the boat and rushes
                      On wave-tip to meet Him –
a few steps, anyway –
           (till it occurs to him,
                      ‘I can’t, this is preposterous’
and Jesus has to grab him,
           tumble his weight
                      back over the gunwale).
Sustaining those light and swift
           steps was more than Peter
                      could manage. Still,
years later,
           his toes and insteps, just before sleep,
                      would remember their passage.
 

Music: Roberto Cacciapaglia – Angel Falls

just some lovely instrumental music to accompany your thoughts as you pray.

Alleluia: Who’s Coming to the Party?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, spirituality1 Comment

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 21, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082122.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the way, the truth and the life, says the Lord;
no one comes to the Father, except through me.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we glimpse what the great gathering in heaven might be like.

The Kingdom of Heaven by Frank Bramley

Have you ever gotten an e-vite in your email? Perhaps an invitation to a gala event or a birthday party? All you need do to respond is to click a “Yes” or “ No” button. And then you can look to see who else has been invited and what response each has clicked. You can get a pretty clear picture of what the party will be like – chummy, snobby, noisy, elegant, boring, mind-blowing ….

Isaiah records a guest list for us of all who will be invited to God’s party. That “party” described in Isaiah 66 imagines a restored Jerusalem and a rebuilt Temple. It is an image of what Creation will look like when enveloped in God at the end times. It’s pretty cool!

They shall bring all your brothers and sisters from all the nations
as an offering to the LORD,
on horses and in chariots, in carts, upon mules and dromedaries,
to Jerusalem, my holy mountain, says the LORD…

Isaiah’s community really needed to hear that encouraging vision because the Temple-less Jerusalem they were living in had been devastated by the Babylonian invasions. For the Israelites, the Temple and the Holy City modeled the Kingdom to come. They had a long way to go before their environment was restored to Isaiah’s predicted dimensions. Isaiah helps them journey through present reality for the sake of future hope.

In our second reading, Paul gives a similar kind of encouragement to Hebrew converts who were finding difficulties in the pursuit of their new Christian faith. They too had to learn to suffer through in order to realize their hope.

At the time,
all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain,
yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness
to those who are trained by it.
So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. 
Make straight paths for your feet,
that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.

When questioned about heaven, Jesus says it’s not a piece of cake to get in. You have to “know somebody”, and that somebody is the God of your heart.

Jesus answered them,
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter
but will not be strong enough. 

Jesus echoes Isaiah in describing the glorious mix of guests at the heavenly party:

And people will come from the east and the west
and from the north and the south
and will recline at table in the kingdom of God. 
For behold, some are last who will be first,
and some are first who will be last.

Christ Surrounded by Singing and Music – Hans Hemling

I know I want to be at that party. And we all want to see one another there, right?!

So let’s help each other:

  • get on our “horses, chariots, carts, mules, dromedaries” or any other assistance for our journey
  • strengthen our drooping hands to reach for righteousness
  • find the narrow gate and pass through it
  • finally recline at the table

Poetry: God – Khalil Gibran

In the ancient days, when the first quiver of speech came to my lips, I ascended the holy mountain and spoke unto God, saying, “Master, I am thy slave. Thy hidden will is my law and I shall obey thee for ever more.”

But God made no answer, and like a mighty tempest passed away.

And after a thousand years I ascended the holy mountain and again spoke unto God, saying, “Creator, I am thy creation. Out of clay hast thou fashioned me and to thee I owe mine all.”

And God made no answer, but like a thousand swift wings passed away.

And after a thousand years I climbed the holy mountain and spoke unto God again, saying, “Father, I am thy son. In pity and love thou hast given me birth, and through love and worship I shall inherit thy kingdom.”

And God made no answer, and like the mist that veils the distant hills he passed away.

And after a thousand years I climbed the sacred mountain and again spoke unto God, saying, “My God, my aim and my fulfilment; I am thy yesterday and thou are my tomorrow. I am thy root in the earth and thou art my flower in the sky, and together we grow before the face of the sun.”

Then God leaned over me, and in my ears whispered words of sweetness, and even as the sea that enfoldeth a brook that runneth down to her, he enfolded me.

And when I descended to the valleys and the plains God was there also.

Music: Paradise by Mehdi – a beautiful composition to put a little kick in your step on the way up the Mountain! 🙂

Alleluia: At Home in God

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

Memorial of Saint Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church
Saturday, August 20, 2022


Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082022.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
You have but one Father in heaven;
you have but one master, the Christ.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we come to our final reading from Ezekiel for this liturgical year. I think he is a challenging prophet to read with visions, images, and language that sometimes shock and astound.

But when we consider his circumstances of exile and captivity, we see more clearly how his own angst and suffering – as well as his people’s – spawned his compelling prophecies.

Ezekiel takes the Israelites through a curriculum common to many of the biblical prophets.

  1. You people have been sinful so you’re in trouble.
  2. Your persecutors and conquerors are also rotten sinners.
  3. God is going to fix all of you one way or another.
  4. Repent and your hope for restoration will be realized.

These themes are common to our lives too especially when we’re in spiritual discomfort like Ezekiel was.

  1. We examine ourselves for what’s out of kilter.
  2. We fixate on all the people and circumstances around us that are troubling us.
  3. We finally acknowledge our responsibility for our situation and accept what we can and cannot change.
  4. We reimagine a possible future and reclaim our hope

As with Ezekiel and his community, all this self-renewal happens only when we perceive, acknowledge and engage God’s loving will for us. Without that, we continue to live in spiritual exile from our true home in God.

Our Alleluia Verse and Gospel invite us to be fully at home in the Trinity just as they are at home in One Another.

Alleluia, alleluia.
You have but one Father in heaven;
you have but one master, the Christ.

Prayer of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

Make my soul…
Your cherished dwelling place, 
Your home of rest.  
Let me never leave You there alone, 
but keep me there 
absorbed in You, 
in living faith, 
adoring You.

Music: Jesu Dulcis Memoria – written by St. Bernard of Clairvaux whose feast we celebrate today.

Jesu, dulcis memoria, dans vera cordis gaudia, sed super mel et omnia, eius dulcis praesentia.JESU, the very thought of Thee, with sweetness fills my breast, but sweeter far Thy face to see, and in Thy presence rest.
Nil canitur suavius, nil auditur iucundius, nil cogitatur dulcius, quam Iesus Dei Filius.Nor voice can sing, nor heart can frame, nor can the memory find a sweeter sound than Thy blest Name, o Savior of mankind!.
Iesu, spes paenitentibus, quam pius es petentibus! quam bonus te quaerentibus! sed quid invenientibus?O hope of every contrite heart o joy of all the meek, to those who fall, how kind Thou art! how good to those who seek!
Nec lingua valet dicere, nec littera exprimere: expertus potest credere, quid sit Iesum diligere.But what to those who find? Ah this nor tongue nor pen can show: the love of Jesus, what it is none but His loved ones know.
Sis, Iesu, nostrum gaudium, qui es futurus praemium: sit nostra in te gloria, per cuncta semper saecula. Amen.Jesu, our only joy be Thou, As Thou our prize wilt be: Jesu, be Thou our glory now, And through eternity. Amen.