Death

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Cross, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

Saturday of the Twenty-Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
September 28, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092824.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
Our Savior Christ Jesus destroyed death
and brought life to light through the Gospel.

Today’s readings may strike us as grim. The Book of Ecclesiastes acknowledges our discomfort with the darkness inherent in faith. We believe because we do not know. If we knew, there would be no need for faith. But at times our believing is challenged by our life circumstances. Thus is the story of Ecclesiastes – all in life that confronts our faith.

In our Gospel, Jesus introduces the hard reality of his impending death. He challenges the faith and commitment of the disciples as the time of testing approaches.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Acknowledging the truth of today’s readings, we choose to pray with them in the light of the Resurrection as it is so beautifully and simply stated in our Responsorial Psalm.

Poetry: from John Donne’s Holy Sonnets – Death Be Not Proud

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Music: Cantata, BWV 31 – “The Heavens Laugh” – J.S. Bach

The heavens laugh! The earth shouts with joy
and what she bears in her bosom.
The creator lives! God most high triumphs
and is free from the bonds of death.
He who has chosen the grave for rest,
the Holiest, cannot decay.

… time …

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Creation, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, Hope, Mercy, ordinary time, Poetry, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Vincent de Paul, Priest
September 27, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092724.cfm

What advantage have workers from their toil?
I have considered the task that God has appointed
for us to be busied about.
The Infinite One has made everything appropriate to its time,
and has put the timeless into their hearts,
without our ever discovering,
from beginning to end, the work which God has done.
Ecclesiastes 3:9-11

Three thousand years ago, in the Book of Ecclesiastes, a writer called Kohelet meditated on God’s Mercy experienced over a lifetime. Like the writer, we may have done the same thing at various significant times in our lives.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We place our lives against the timepiece pictured above. We may pray over a specific time of challenge and grace. Or we may consider the whole pattern of mercy passing slowly yet constantly through our lives, like the ticking of a steadfast clock.

Poetry: XC Domine, refugium – Malcolm Suite
In this poem, Guite refers to a poem by Philip Larkin which may be read here: https://allpoetry.com/Cut-Grass

XC Domine, refugium
Malcolm Guite

A cosy comforter, a lucky charm?
Not with this psalmist, for he praises God
From everlasting ages, in his psalm. 
A God of refuge –yes – and yet a God
Who knows the death that comes before each birth,
Who sees each generation die, a God

Before whom all the ages of the earth
Are like a passing day, like the cut grass
In Larkin’s limpid verse: ‘brief is the breath

Mown stalks exhale’. So we and all things pass,
And God endures beyond us. Yet he cares
For our brief lives, his loving tenderness

Extends to all his creatures, our swift years
Are precious in his sight. In Christ he shares
Our grief and he will wipe away our tears.

Music: There Is A Season – Tom Kendzia

Every

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, Mercy, Prayer, Psalms, spirituality1 Comment

Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
September 26, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092624.cfm

Lord, you have been our refuge
from one generation to another.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or the land and the earth were born,
from age to age you are God.

You turn us back to the dust and say,
“Go back, O child of earth.”
For a thousand years in your sight
are like yesterday when it is past
and like a watch in the night….

…. Satisfy us by your loving-kindness
in the morning;
so shall we rejoice and be glad
all the days of our life.
Make us glad by the measure of the days that you afflicted us
and the years in which we suffered adversity.
Show your servants your works *
and your splendor to their children.
May the graciousness of the Lord our God be upon us;
prosper the work of our hands; prosper our handiwork.
Psalm 90:1-4;14-17

Our beautiful Responsorial Psalm today allows us to reflect on our grateful past and our hopeful future. God’s mercy is with every person in every age of our lives.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ponder this infinite blessing so that we can open our hearts to its amazing grace.

Poetry: On Thy Wondrous Works I Will Meditate – Mary Oliver

Every morning I want to kneel down on the golden
cloth of the sand and say
some kind of musical thanks for
the world that is happening again—another day—
from the shawl of wind coming out of the
west to the firm green
flesh of the melon lately sliced open and
eaten, its chill and ample body
flavored with mercy. I want
to be worthy of—what? Glory? Yes, unimaginable glory.
O Lord of melons, of mercy, though I am
not ready, nor worthy, I am climbing toward you.

Music: Psalm 90 – Marty Goetz

Shoulders Day 2024

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality1 Comment

Associate Marge Koons took great photos of our Shoulders Day gathering. This is an event to honor and be with those sisters on whose shoulders we stand. God gave us a beautiful day. It was wonderful to see everyone there. (The pictures are in two separate videos.)
I thought some of you would enjoy seeing them.

Before you view videos, you may want to listen to the beautiful song “Standing on the Shoulders”. Click the litte white arrowhead on the left below.

Nothing

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

Wednesday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
September 25, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092524.cfm

Jesus summoned the Twelve and gave them power and authority
over all demons and to cure diseases,
and he sent them to proclaim the Kingdom of God
and to heal the sick.
He said to them, “Take nothing for the journey,
neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money,
and let no one take a second tunic.
Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there.
And as for those who do not welcome you,
when you leave that town,
shake the dust from your feet in testimony against them.”
Then they set out and went from village to village
proclaiming the Good News and curing diseases everywhere.
Luke 9:1-6

That’s what Jesus said – NOTHING – “Take nothing for the journey”! Within their coming journey, everything already awaited his disciples. He asked them to empty the box of their acquired possessions so that they could see through to heaven.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
I picture myself when I go on a journey of a week or two. Almost always, I carry at least one suitcase I never need. Instead, I have dragged a bag full of inessentials through most of Europe and the U.S.! We carry so much with us we do not need – both materially and spiritually.

Whenever I read this Gospel, I am reminded of a verse from Janis Joplin’s smash hit song of 1971, “Me and Bobby McGee”. Janis was a tortured soul but a magnificent artist. Her song captured the transitory nature of anything we try to possess in life

The line I love is this – take it for whatever truth it can offer you:

Freedom’s just another word
for nothing left to lose.

Poetry: On Freedom – Hafiz

We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.

We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.

Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.

Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.

We have a duty to befriend
Those aspects of obedience
That stand outside of our house
And shout to our reason
“O please, O please,
Come out and play.”

For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,

But to experience ever and ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom and
Light!

Music: Me and Bobby McGee – written by Kris Kristofferson, sung by Janis Joplin

Bubbles

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

Tuesday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
September 24, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092424.cfm

To do what is right and just
is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.
Haughty eyes and a proud heart–
the tillage of the wicked is sin.
The plans of the diligent are sure of profit,
but all rash haste leads certainly to poverty.
Whoever makes a fortune by a lying tongue
is chasing a bubble over deadly snares.
Proverbs 21:3-6

King Solomon is credited with writing this portion of Proverbs. His wisdom wrapped in wit is both inspiring and enjoyable. But his admonitions are not humor – he is dead serious about what is “acceptable to the Lord“.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray for the grace to erase the frivolous from our lives – the “bubbles” that fool and distract us from the centrality of God.

Poetry: from Emily Dickinson

So has a Daisy vanished
From the fields today --
So tiptoed many a slipper
To Paradise away --
Oozed so in crimson bubbles
Day's departing tide --
Blooming -- tripping -- flowing
Are ye then with God?

Music: Bubbles over the Ocean
You may want to listen to just a few minutes or maybe to all of this reflective music. Enjoy!

Light

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Creation, Discipleship, Faith, inclusivity, Jesus, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Pius of Pietrelcina, Priest
September 23, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092324.cfm

Jesus said to the crowd:
“No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel
or sets it under a bed;
rather, he places it on a lampstand
so that those who enter may see the light.
For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible,
and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light.
Take care, then, how you hear.
To anyone who has, more will be given,
and from the one who has not,
even what he seems to have will be taken away.”
Luke 8:16-18

Jesus indicates that the only way to spread light in the world is to do it together. Some have been given more, some less. But pooling all we have creates a Divine Fire illuminating a shadowy world.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ask for the courage to recognize, claim, and offer our light in a world that longs for it. We ask for the humility and insight to encourage holy fire in others.

Poetry: I Understand This Light to Be My Home – Mai Der Vang, the author of Afterland (Graywolf Press, 2017), which recounts the Hmong exodus from Laos and the fate of thousands of refugees seeking asylum. The book received the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets.

In the awareness, I am brought closer
to my being from long before.
In my
awareness, there is only what I can take
from the small spaces of

knowing, an earnest ascendance imparted
by way of transmissions from the grid,
a voice calls
out unbroken below and above as the aura
of faraway light.

There is a light that

shimmers so deep it never goes anywhere
but to shimmer.

Light assumes its job is to shimmer,
and so it is,
but more than that, light is ancestral.
Light is witness. Light is prehistory,

blueprint of vibrations shifting through
all directions of time.

Light as hidden winter that leads to
shadow as the growth.
Light as first
language of source. Light as both terrestrial
and celestial. Light of long nights far up

in the sky, I stare to the heavens and
weep for
the stars whose light I have always known
and understood to be my rooting.

I once shared a life with the name of
this light as I know it in the stars who
gave me

my body. As I know it in the frequencies
of my footsteps,

as I hear it in the code of a landscape
imprinted on my fingers,
as I spirit
my eyes open from the inside,
as I know and understand this light
to be kin.

Consider then the pain of leaving
this light, of losing the stars to spaces

no longer lit by its truth.
I am shaped
in the spaces where the light does
not reach, a need for what does not
shimmer

but opening to the shadow to receive
just as much light.
I miss this
light always.

Then more light.

Ever more light. Deficit of light to bring
more light.

Template of light to bring more love.

That is my one true wish, as I know
and
understand

this light to be my home, as a knowing
up there in the galaxy is me,

and I am up there
in my bones built from stars.

Music: Dark Sky Island – Enya – a beautiful song in which she names some of the stars.

Cultivate

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

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 22, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092224.cfm

Beloved:
Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist,
there is disorder and every foul practice. 
But the wisdom from above is first of all pure,
then peaceable, gentle, compliant,
full of mercy and good fruits,
without inconstancy or insincerity. 
And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace
for those who cultivate peace.
James 3:16-18

It appears that the moral tumult of our world already existed in James’s world over 2000 years ago. And no doubt it has existed in every age in between. Jealousy and selfish ambition drive so much of our public life. It takes great insight, patience and wisdom to cultivate peace:

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray to be agents of peace in our world despite the inverse image of our culture offered by politics and media. We want to lessen the influence of these negative factors in our lives and open ourselves to the promptings of faith and goodness.

Prose: Cultivating Peace from Pope Francis

War begins in here, in the heart, inside the person, and finishes out in the world. The news we see in the papers or on television… Today so many people die, and that seed of war, which breeds envy, jealousy, and greed in my heart, is the same – grown up, become a tree – as the bomb which falls on a hospital, on a school, and kills children. It is the same. The declaration of war begins in the heart, in each of us. For this reason, the following question arises: ‘How do I care for peace in my heart, in my interior, and in my family?’. The answer is: Care for peace; not only care for it, but make it with your hands every day. Just so, will we succeed in spreading it throughout the whole world.

Music: Peace Train – Cat Stevens

Mercy

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Jesus, Mercy, spiritualityLeave a comment

Feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle and evangelist
September 21, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092124.cfm

As Jesus passed by,
he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, “Follow me.”
And he got up and followed him.
While he was at table in his house,
many tax collectors and sinners came
and sat with Jesus and his disciples.
The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples,
“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
He heard this and said,
“Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
Go and learn the meaning of the words,
I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
Matthew 9:9-13

From their very first encounter, Jesus clarifies for Matthew the essence of his mission: mercy not sacrifice. Jesus uses a phrase from the Hebrew scriptures with which Matthew and all of his listeners are familiar:

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
    and acknowledgment of God
rather than burnt offerings.

Hosea 6:6

Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

1 Samuel 15:22

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray for a deeper understanding that to live in loving obedience to God is to live in mercy toward all Creation.

Prose: from “The Climate of Mercy – For Albert Schweitzer” by Thomas Merton

Thus, Law without mercy kills mercy in the hearts of those who seek justification solely by socially acceptable virtuousness and by courting the favor of authority. This legal holiness, in its turn, destroys the hope of mercy in those who despair of the Law.

We must, therefore, remember the religious and Christian importance of not implicitly identifying external “Law” with interior “Mercy,” either in our doctrine (and in this we usually manage to keep them distinct) or in our lives (here we tend in practice to confuse them by making the fulfillment of the Law’s inexorable demand either a condition for receiving mercy or a guarantee that one has received it).

Music: Beautiful Mercy – sung by Jaye Thomas