Learning to Say Goodbye

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Faith, Hope, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

Wednesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
May 24, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Jesus and Paul continue to teach us how to say goodbye.

I think most big goodbyes are pretty hard. Even if we’re not completely in love with our situation, we might still be comfortable in it. We don’t want to make the effort to change or to disconnect from the dailyness to which we are accustomed.

And when we are in love with our situation – with the people and activities that give us life – then goodbyes can be brutal. These kinds of goodbyes are often unchosen, unwelcome, and disorienting.

We can all recall scores of goodbyes we have either chosen or been forced to say. Most of them, I think, are a mix of the two descriptions above – a little bit of sugar and a little bit of vinegar.

One of the many goodbyes I remember came after I had lived in and taught at a lovely parish for over a decade. Our convent was blessed with a wonderful community of sisters. We loved our generous pastors, our welcoming parishioners, and the engaging neighborhood around us. I loved my students and the work I did with them. I loved the sisters I lived with. We recognized our blessings and often quipped to one another that we were living in our “Golden Years”.

But after eleven years, I knew it was time for something different in my life, A call to a new ministry emerged in my heart and that was exciting. But the leave-taking still cut like a razor.

That story has repeated itself several times in my life with different settings and different casts of characters. And I know the same thing is true in each of your lives. When we pause to reflect on all those goodbyes, we may realize that each led to an unimagined hello – hellos that offered us new graces to deepen our lives.

In our readings today, Jesus and Paul stand on that fragile beam which leads from goodbye to hello. Their disciples stand there with them, so both Jesus and Paul make every effort to help them balance themselves to step into the future.

Paul does it like this:

Be vigilant and remember that for three years, night and day,
I unceasingly admonished each of you with tears.
And now I commend you to God
and to that gracious word of his that can build you up
and give you the inheritance among all who are consecrated.

Acts 20:31-32

Jesus does it with a prayer:

Holy Father, keep them in your name
that you have given me,
so that they may be one just as we are one.
When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me,
and I guarded them, and none of them was lost
except the son of destruction,
in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
But now I am coming to you.
I speak this in the world
so that they may share my joy completely.

John 17:11-13

Today, we may want to spend a little time with Jesus and Paul looking back over the long beam of our lives, thanking God for the graces that poured from our many goodbyes and hellos.

Poetry: In My Dreams – Stevie Smith

In my dreams I am always saying goodbye and riding away,
Whither and why I know not nor do I care.
And the parting is sweet and the parting over is sweeter,
And sweetest of all is the night and the rushing air.

In my dreams they are always waving their hands and saying goodbye,
And they give me the stirrup cup and I smile as I drink,
I am glad the journey is set, I am glad I am going,
I am glad, I am glad, that my friends don’t know what I think.

Music: Every Goodbye Is Hello – Andrew Lippi from the musical “John and Jen”

There’s a wonderful place
Just waiting for you
There are wonderful things
You’ll get to do
Out there, somewhere, the world
And all its wonders
One small step is all it takes to know
Every goodbye is hello
There’s a magical phrase

I’ll tell it to you
Always honor the old
But live for the new
Out there, somewhere

About to be discovered
Trust yourself and
each new day will show
How every goodbye is hello
I will always be near

To hear of all the things you’ll be
Everyone needs a home to return to
And you can turn to me
There’s a time in our

lives when we will know
(There’s a time in our
lives when we will know)
There’s a time to stay home
And a time to grow
Out there, somewhere, your life
And all its promise
Sometimes part of love is letting go
But every goodbye is

Welcome to the world
(Welcome to the world)
Hello

Valedictories

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, spiritualityLeave a comment

Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
May 23, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/tuesday-seventh-week-easter

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we listen to both Jesus and Paul as they offer their farewell addresses to their beloved disciples.

It seems an appropriate time for these readings here as students close their educational years and move on to their future. The disciples of Jesus and Paul are doing the same thing. And their valedictorians are the beloved masters on whom they have come to depend.

Paul and his disciples share a tearful good-bye as he departs for Rome

In Acts, Paul prepares to depart from Ephesus where he has lived for three years. It is his cherished community as we can assess from the beautiful letters Paul writes to the Church there. The disciples are heartbroken to see Paul leave, and he is quite emotional himself in his remarks:

I earnestly bore witness for both Jews and Greeks
to repentance before God and to faith in our Lord Jesus.
But now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem.
What will happen to me there I do not know…

But now I know that none of you
to whom I preached the kingdom during my travels
will ever see my face again.
And so I solemnly declare to you this day
that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you,
for I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God.

Acts 20

Paul, declaring that he has done all that he can for the Gospel, sternly charges his followers to carry on the work of evangelization.

Jesus is a little gentler but no less dramatic in describing the charge to his disciples:

I pray for them.
I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me,
because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours
and everything of yours is mine,
and I have been glorified in them.
And now I will no longer be in the world,
but they are in the world, while I am coming to you

John 17

Both these readings speak to us, not only about the disciples’ experience of commissioning, but of our own. Our Baptismal incorporation into the faith came with a price tag — “Carry on the Gospel in your life.”

As we listen to the passion with which both Jesus and Paul advised their followers, let’s hear them speaking to us as well. Let’s listen for the unique call we are receiving through the circumstances of our particular life. Not everyone is called to be Paul, or Peter, or Lydia, or Apollos, or Silas or the others we have read about throughout Eastertide.

But we ARE called to be

_________________________________
(Fill in your name)
a believer and doer in the Name of Jesus Christ

Poem: by Hafiz from Love Poems from God – Daniel Ladinsky

I am
a hole in a flute
that the Christ’s breath moves through—
listen to this
music.

Music: By Faith – Keith and Kristyn Getty

To Live in the Holy Spirit

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

Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter
May 22, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052223.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we begin a week of final and powerful readings which close both the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel of John. These readings proclaim the inherent centrality of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church and of every Chrisitan believer.

In Acts, Paul has traveled deeper into the heart of Asia Minor, where he meets “disciples” who have never even heard of the Holy Spirit. They have much to learn about the faith and how it will live in them now, after the conclusion of Christ’s life on earth.

“Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?”
They answered him,
“We have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”
He said, “How were you baptized?”
They replied, “With the baptism of John.”

Acts 19:2-3

The baptism of John was a sacred ritual of the Old Testament which prepared its recipients to open their hearts to a new understanding of God. That new understanding is manifested in the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus. It is then in Jesus’ Name, and in our communion with him, that we are able to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit, just as the disciples did on Pentecost.

So the process looks like this:

In Scripture: In our lives:
Baptism of Johnwe desire to believe and deepen our life in God
Incarnation of God in Christwe learn what God is like and how to love God through the life and teachings of Jesus
Manifestation of God on Pentecostwe are immersed in the Holy Spirit, God’s life living eternally within us

In our Gospel today, Jesus continues to lead his disciples to the awareness that he is returning to God and that the Spirit will come. They express their reliance on him, but he tells them that that is not enough. In his physical absence, that reliance will be sorely tested and they will retreat into their own fragile securities.

However, Jesus assures them that his transcendent relationship with the Creator in the Holy Spirit will sustain him. His disciples should find peace in that knowledge and the strength to overcome whatever has weakened and “scattered” them.

(the disciples said)
“Now we realize that you know everything
and that you do not need to have anyone question you.
Because of this we believe that you came from God.”
Jesus answered them, “Do you believe now?
Behold, the hour is coming and has arrived
when each of you will be scattered to his own home
and you will leave me alone.
But I am not alone, because the Father is with me.
I have told you this so that you might have peace in me.

John 16:30-33

As we read these profound and pivotal passages, we must remember that every word in Scripture also speaks to us. We too are approaching the great epiphany of Pentecost when our hearts are renewed in God’s incandescent Eternal Love. Filled with the peace Jesus offers in our Gospel, let us respond in synchonicity with our Alleluia Verse today:

Alleluia! Alleluia!
If then you were raised with Christ,
seek what is above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Colossians 3:1

Poetry: To Live with the Spirit of God – 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: Veni Sancte Spiritus – Mozart

Eternal Life

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality5 Comments

Seventh Sunday of Easter
May 21, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052123-Sunday.cfm

A little explanation: For those of my readers who do not live in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, today’s readings will be different from the ones used for the reflection. In the archdioceses and dioceses within the Ecclesiastical Provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Omaha, and Philadelphia, the Ascension of the Lord always falls on Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter and is a Holyday of Obligation. In all other archdioceses and dioceses, the Ascension of the Lord is transferred to the Seventh Sunday of Easter.

If you wish, you may use the Ascension reflection from last Thursday, or refer to this reflection by the always excellent Mary McGlone from this week’s NCR.

https://www.ncronline.org/spirituality/scripture-life/ascension-lord-until-end-age?utm_source=NCR+List&utm_campaign=e35aef7b74-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_05_19_06_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6981ecb02e-e35aef7b74-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

Could this be a rarely seen 1st century photo of Mary (in blue)
with some friends and the Eleven.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our reading from Acts gives us a group photo of the “Apostolic Council”. Think of it as the foundational selfie of Catholic history. And all the big names are there in indelible magic marker with a few “also ran”s mentioned as a seeming afterthought.

Let’s talk about those “also ran”s – those unnamed champions of the faith who are there, who show up, who do the heavy lifting, and whose names disappear into history like the black powder in an Etch-a-Sketch. Let’s talk about them because they are us.

In his letter, Peter tells us to be joyful when our devotion to the faith brings us suffering! Doing so, we become the unnamed disciples of the Gospel carrying human history forward to eternal life.

Rejoice to the extent that you share in the sufferings of Christ,
so that when his glory is revealed
you may also rejoice exultantly.
If you are insulted for the name of Christ, blessed are you,
for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

Living with that kind of resolute joy is a huge challenge unless we understand the reason for it. Jesus explains the reason clearly in our Gospel – eternal life.

Father, the hour has come.
Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,
just as you gave him authority over all people,
so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him.
Now this is eternal life,
that they should know you, the only true God,
and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.

We not talking about a good life, a happy life, a complete life, an inspiring life. They are all really wonderful things. What we’re talking about here is THE only thing that matters:

Let’s ask for it. Let’s pray for it. Let’s do everything we can to open our hearts to it!

Poetry: Forever Is Composed of Nows – Emily Dickinson

Forever – is composed of Nows –
’Tis not a different time –
Except for Infiniteness –
And Latitude of Home –

From this – experienced Here –
Remove the Dates – to These –
Let Months dissolve in further Months –
And Years – exhale in Years …

Music: Song to the Moon – from Rusalka

Rusalka Op. 114, is an opera (‘lyric fairy tale’) by Antonín Dvořák. The “Song to the Moon” is so beautiful and one of my favorite arias. The vocal version is thrilling, but I found this instrumental version which is more fitting for meditation. I hope you enjoy it.

Teaching the Faith

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, spiritualityLeave a comment

Saturday of the Sixth Week of Easter
May 20, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052023.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings remind us that there are many ways to learn about and grow deeper in our relationship with God.

We can learn from teachers, each of whom has a different tincture to enrich the body of Christian teaching. Today, we meet a few of these very early teachers – Apollos, Priscilla, Aquila, and of course the Teaching Master, Jesus.

Apollos, Aquila and Priscilla

Apollos was a Jewish Christian from Alexandria, Egypt. He was brilliant, steeped in the knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. He was a compelling presenter and an exceptional logician. Luke tells us that Apollos had been instructed in the “Way of the Lord”. When he arrived in Ephesus, Apollos immediately began to “speak boldly” in the synagogue.

There was a problem though. Even though he knew the “Way” or the Gospel, Apollos hadn’t completed the whole course, so to speak. He knew only the baptism of John and not that of the Holy Spirit. So there were some gaps in his “curriculum”, gaps which were evident to two other excellent teachers – the husband and wife team of Priscilla and Aquila.

Priscilla was so kind. She took Apollos aside and quietly redirected some of his thinking. He must have been so grateful for her wise attention and gentle collegial wisdom. And Apollos deserves credit too. He was receptive to the fraternal correction, even that of a woman! Imagine!

This passage from Acts offers us so much food for thought. As we learn and share our faith and spiritual understanding, we must seek guiding input from well-grounded teachers. We should be willing to speak up when we hear the Gospel poorly interpreted or used inappropriately for the advancement of personal and political agendas.

Over the 2000-year evolution of Christianity, many suspect offshoots have arisen. In the early centuries, Christian teachers coped with various heresies which you may have studied in high school such as Arianism, Pantheism, Pelagianism, Gnosticism, etc.

In our modern world, major religions deal with such aberrations as the distortions of the “prosperity Gospel”, exaggerated fundamentalism, and abusive Sharia law.

In our Gospel, Jesus is clear that true faith resides in those who love him, and who love as He has loved. They live and teach in His Name. Without love like Christ’s at its core, any purported religious teaching is a mere shell of the true Gospel.

The hour is coming
when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech,
but I will tell you clearly about the Father.
On that day you will ask in my name,
and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you.
For the Father himself loves you because you have loved me
and have come to believe that I came from God.
I came from the Father and have come into the world.
Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.

John 16:25-28

Prose: from Rabindranath Tagore

A teacher can never truly teach
unless he too continues to teach himself.
One lamp can never light another
unless it continues to burn its own flames.

Similarly, the teacher who has come
to the end of his subject,
and has no living traffic with his knowledge
but merely repeats his lessons to his students,
can only burden their minds,
he cannot inspire them.

Truth not only must inform
but also inspire;
if this inspiration dies out
and information merely keeps on accumulating,
then truth loses its infinity.

Music: Teach Us, Good Lord (The Prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola – see below) – Music, David Ogden

Teach us, good Lord,
to serve you as you deserve;
to give, and not to count the cost,
to fight, and not to heed the wounds,
to toil, and not to seek for rest,
to labor, and not to ask for reward,
except that of knowing
that we are doing your will.

Sacred Decade of Days

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

Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter
May 19, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051923.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings suggest a slight tone of “the after-Ascension” blues.

It’s a bit like how we might feel on the day after Christmas. The big celebration has come and gone. The company has all gone home. Maybe we’re exhausted from the preparations and clean-ups. Maybe we had been so busy that we didn’t take enough time to think about the meaning of the Feast. Maybe we feel like we’ve been spun around in time’s tumbler and can’t believe it’s now the end of the year. It’s a “what do we do next?” time when we come out of a flurry and need to get our bearings.

Click the arrow to get the spun-around feeling!

And for the disciples, it’s a morning they wake up and realize that Jesus has really gone home. In an otherwise chilly room, they might linger in their cozy cots reflecting on his parting words:

Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn,
while the world rejoices;
you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.
When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived;
but when she has given birth to a child,
she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy
that a child has been born into the world.
So you also are now in anguish.
But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice,
and no one will take your joy away from you.

These very special days between the Ascension and Pentecost offer the perfect time to quiet our spirits and get our spiritual bearings. Unlike the video of the deer above, it is a time to stop the spin, to clear the inner space, to ready ourselves for the promised and longed-for Spirit.

It’s a time not to be afraid of the silence or the echoing space deep in our hearts which longs for the presence of God.

Even if we are still in the midst of our busy lives, we can make a choice to be on “inner retreat” – to limit useless noise, directionless activity, and mumifying distractions.

If we have forgotten how to sit quietly enough to hear the wind and the distant meadowlark, let’s try to remember. Let’s try to make an inner chamber for the whisper of God Who hums through these ten days until bursting forth in Pentecost.

This decade of hours is a very special time to pray.

Poetry: excerpt from Sara Teasdale’s poem “Silence” (I love her archaic British term “anhungered“)

We are anhungered after solitude,
Deep stillness pure of any speech or sound,
Soft quiet hovering over pools profound,
The silences that on the desert brood,
Above a windless hush of empty seas,
The broad unfurling banners of the dawn,
A faery forest where there sleeps a Faun;
Our souls are fain of solitudes like these.

and a second brief but powerful verse from Emily Dickinson:

Silence is all we dread.
There’s Ransom in a Voice –
But Silence is Infinity.
Himself have not a face.

Music: Achtsamkeit (German for “Mindfulness”) this is an hour’s worth of beautiful music. You can tap into various parts of the video to hear different pieces.

Amid Trumpet Blasts

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

The Ascension of the Lord
May 18, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051823-Ascension.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 47, one of seven enthronement psalms which celebrate a “coronation” of God.

All you peoples, clap your hands,
    shout to God with cries of gladness,
For the LORD, the Most High, the awesome,
    is the great king over all the earth.

Psalm 47: 1

Used for the feast of the Ascension, the point of the psalm is much more than an exercise of pageantry. It is an act of faith and reverence to God, the Loving Omnipotence who chose to redeem us by assuming our humanity.

It is a confirmation that we believers do see the Supreme Being in the human Jesus we have come to love. This is what Paul prays for the Ephesians in our second reading:

May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened,
that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call,
what are the riches of glory
in his inheritance among the holy ones,
and what is the surpassing greatness of his power
for us who believe,
in accord with the exercise of his great might,
which he worked in Christ,
raising him from the dead
and seating him at his right hand in the heavens,
far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion,
and every name that is named
not only in this age but also in the one to come.

Ephesians 1:18-21

The Great Commission, found in today’s Gospel, is the true gift of the Ascension.

Go into the whole world
and proclaim the gospel to every creature.

Mark 16: 15

Jesus tells us that his time on earth is complete. The lesson of Incarnational Love has been taught. We now are given the power to continue the message for all time. 

Jesus promises that our faith will:


–overcome evil
-create new possibilities to preach the Gospel
-show courage against antagonism
-resist suppression
-heal and strengthen others to believe

These signs will accompany those who believe:

-in my name they will drive out demons,
-they will speak new languages.
-They will pick up serpents with their hands,
-drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them.
–lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.

If we believe and open our hearts to this message, indeed, it is a day for trumpet blasts! Here are a few from one of my favorite triumphal pieces! If the Apostles had only had trumpets, they might have played something like this for the Lord as He ascended 🙂

Poetry: Ascension Sonnet – Malcolm Guite

We saw his light break through the cloud of glory
Whilst we were rooted still in time and place
As earth became a part of Heaven’s story
And heaven opened to his human face.

We saw him go and yet we were not parted
He took us with him to the heart of things
The heart that broke for all the broken-hearted
Is whole and Heaven-centred now, and sings,

Sings in the strength that rises out of weakness,
Sings through the clouds that veil him from our sight,
Whilst we our selves become his clouds of witness
And sing the waning darkness into light,

His light in us, and ours in him concealed,
Which all creation waits to see revealed.

Music: Psalm 47 – Rory Cooney

Faith and Truth

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Gospel, Holy Spirit, Jesus, spirituality1 Comment

Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
May 17, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051723.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Paul is the headliner at the famed Areopagus in Athens.

The Areopagus is a prominent rock outcropping located northwest of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. The name Areopagus also referred, in classical times, to the Athenian governing council, because they convened in this location. It was the ancient version of a stadium, but one provided by nature rather than human hands.

Paul’s address, from Acts today, has been perfectly crafted for his audience who are Gentile intellectuals and philosophers. We are familiar, up until now, with Paul’s speeches to Jews whom he wishes to convert. In those circumstances, he drew on the Hebrew scriptures with which they are familiar. But for the Athenians, Paul uses their art, poetry and philosophy to lead them to the topic of Jesus as the one true God.

And things go well for Paul in his long and finely detailed oration. The thoughtful Athenians are listening, that is until they hit a snag:

(Paul proclaimed) God demands that all people everywhere repent
because he has established a day on which he will ‘judge the world
with justice’ through a man he has appointed,
and he has provided confirmation for all
by raising him from the dead.”

When they heard about resurrection of the dead,
some began to scoff, but others said,
“We should like to hear you on this some other time.”
And so Paul left them.

Acts 17:30-33

Jesus Christ, Risen from the dead is the touchstone of our Christian faith. It is the Sacred Reality that surpasses and changes every other reality we encounter.

Resurrection faith is not something we can study, analyze, or comprehand with simply the powers of our minds. That’s what the Athenians tried to do, but their analytical inclinations blocked them.

Resurrection faith is a Divine gift, given through the Spirit, to a heart opened in trust and readiness to God. It defies logic and philosophy because it is greater than they are. For one who has this kind of faith, explanations are not only unnecessary, they are restrictive and superfluous.

Jesus understood that to live with such faith is challenging. He suggests that the disciples cannot bear the weight of it without the indwelling companionship of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said to his disciples:
“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when the Spirit comes, the Spirit of truth,
you will be guided to all truth.

John 16:12-13

As people desiring to grow in faith, we can learn from the Athenians who walked away from the Grecian hillside. Is my capacity to believe limited by what my small human intellect can define? Or are my heart and mind given in trust to the infinite God Who loves me into the fullness of Truth.

Poetry: Tell All the Truth, but Tell It Slant – Emily Dickenson

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant –
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind –

Music: The Faith – Leonard Cohen

The sea so deep and blind
The sun, the wild regret
The club, the wheel, the mind,
O love, aren’t you tired yet?
The club, the wheel, the mind
O love, aren’t you tired yet?

The blood, the soil, the faith
These words you can’t forget
Your vow, your holy place
O love, aren’t you tired yet?
The blood, the soil, the faith
O love, aren’t you tired yet?

A cross on every hill
A star, a minaret
So many graves to fill
O love, aren’t you tired yet?
So many graves to fill
O love, aren’t you tired yet?

The sea so deep and blind
Where still the sun must set
And time itself unwind
O love, aren’t you tired yet?
And time itself unwind
O love, aren’t you tired yet?

Unchained….

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eastertide, Gospel, spirituality4 Comments

Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
May 16, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051623.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we meet people who are deeply dedicated to their life commitments – sometimes for good, sometimes for woe.

In Acts, we meet the unnamed “jailer”. Paul and Silas have been manhandled and thrown into prison. Their jailer receives the instruction to “guard them securely” and he takes it very seriously, binding them in chains in the innermost dungeon.

This man revels in his job, to the degree that it is his only identification in the scriptures. We never know his real name.

His job gives him authority and power he would not have in his ordinary circumstances. Perhaps his job has even become his identity so that without it, he feels like little or nothing. When God decides to “earthquake” Paul and Silas out of their chains, the guard freaks. It’s more than an earthquake to him – his very identity is crumbling in the tumult.

And how about Paul? Is he cool in this reading, or what??? Paul’s power relies not on an assumed identity but on God’s centrality in his life.

When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open,
he drew his sword and was about to kill himself,
thinking that the prisoners had escaped.
But Paul shouted out in a loud voice,
“Do no harm to yourself; we are all here.”

The jailer’s awed response is full-hearted! He does a transformational flip which transfers all his past “job dedication” into his new spiritual conversion. Not only does he allow the disciples to go free, he guides them to his own house, ministers to them, and is baptised. No doubt, his past employers were not too happy with him!

In our Gospel, the disciples, who are deeply dedicated to their vocations, still demonstrate a bit of job-jitters.

Jesus has made it clear that he’s on his way to another dimension and that his disciples will to have to carry on the evangelization business on their own. He promises them all kinds of supernatural help but they can’t imagine functioning without him.

Finally Jesus tells them that, in his physical absence, the Spirit will give them an enhanced power to promulgate the Gospel:

But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go.
For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you.
But if I go, I will send him to you.
And when he comes he will convict the world
in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation

Both our readings today remind us that it’s all about what really makes us tick. Do we really understand that it is God’s life with us that gives us “importance”, security and identity? Do we tap into that Infinite Power to give us hope, confidence and transformational resilience in life’s many earthquakes? If so, we like the disciples, will be “unchainable” — because it isn’t about us. It is about the God we love whose Spirit lives in us.

Poetry: Peter and the Angel – Denise Levertov

(This poem is not about Paul and Silas, but rather about Peter when he too was freed from prison by Divine intervention (Acts 12:5-17))

Delivered out of raw continual pain,
smell of darkness, groans of those others
to whom he was chained—
unchained, and led
past the sleepers,
door after door silently opening—
out!
And along a long street's
majestic emptiness under the moon:
one hand on the angel's shoulder, one
feeling the air before him,
eyes open but fixed . . .
And not till he saw the angel had left him,
alone and free to resume
the ecstatic, dangerous, wearisome roads of
what he had still to do,
not till then did he recognize
this was no dream. More frightening
than arrest, than being chained to his warders:
he could hear his own footsteps suddenly.
Had the angel's feet
made any sound? He could not recall.
No one had missed him, no one was in pursuit.
He himself must be
the key, now, to the next door,
the next terrors of freedom and joy.

Music: Love is the Only Way – from the film Paul, Apostle of Christ by Jan Kaczmarek

An extra treat to bless your day: this beautiful and powerful rendition of “Unchained Melody’

The Musikschau der Nationen invites army orchestras from almost a dozen countries the U.S. Army website classifies as “Europe’s biggest brass band music festival.” Though not always consecutive, the festival enjoys over 35 years of time-honored traditions. Some participants besides the U.S. included Vietnam, Russia, and Mexico, among others. In 2002, they performed an all-orchestra version of “Unchained Melody”. The performance represented the largest millitary orchestra in the world.

Colorful Faith

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Discipleship, Gospel, spirituality3 Comments

Monday of the Sixth Week of Easter
May 15, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051523.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our first reading opens with the beautiful image of Paul and co-ministers sailing off into the Mediterranean blue, finally ending up in Philippi.

There they meet Lydia, “a dealer in purple cloth”. Lydia was a notable figure. Some scripture scholars say she was businesswoman and head of a significant household who offered hospitality to Paul’s entire traveling team. Others see her as a morally questionable “huckster” whose invitation of men to her home would have been morally questionable.

In a magnificent paper for her doctoral dissertation, Alexandra Gruca-Macaulay argues for Lydia as the “Perceptive Disciple” whose true heart became an agent for God’s Word.

Click to access Gruca-Macaulay_Alexandra_2013_thesis.pdf

A complex but excellent read for those who might be interested.

However we imagine Lydia, Acts clearly notes that she was already a “worshipper of God”, Lydia listened to the disciples’ evangelization. God opened her heart and she accepted Jesus Christ. This is most significant because her heart-opening, much like Mary’s, allowed the Gospel to pass through to her household and, symbolically, to all of Asia Minor.

Halliday, Edward Irvine; St Paul Meeting Lydia of Thyatira; University of Liverpool; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/st-paul-meeting-lydia-of-thyatira-66511

Lydia is the first Christian convert in Philippi, a church which Paul grew to love deeply as we can discern from his beautiful letter to the Philippians. As Paul and his company finish their initial evangelization in Philipppi, the community is entrusted to the hands of Lydia and her devoted neighbors.

What exactly was Lydia’s role as Paul sailed on to other horizons? As in so many cases involving early Church women, history folds that answer into the opinionated edits of 2000 years of monks and translators.

I choose to think that Lydia continued at least as a presbyter, if not a priest. The community had long gathered around her generous and dynamic leadership. Why would that change after Paul departed?

In our Gospel, Jesus is speaking to people like Lydia and like us, down through the ages. He indicates that once we are transformed in the Holy Spirit, we can’t help but cry out the wonder of God in our lives.

Jesus said to his disciples:
“When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father,
he will testify to me.
And you also testify,
because you have been with me from the beginning.

John 15:26-27

Let’s pray to and for all true disciples, especially the women God has chosen to stand at the center of an ever-evolving Church and to weave its energy always toward an inclusive community.

Poetry: Epilogue – Sister Lou Ella Hickman, a widely published poet whose collection ” she:robed and wordless” captures the essence of many biblical women. Her poem cited here attracted me because of the colors – purple, of course, then oranges and reds. I can almost hear our Lydia reciting such a poem!

Music: Piano instrumental of the beautiful song Deep Purple