Glory

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, Love, Praise, Prayer, spiritualityLeave a comment

Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord
August 6, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080624.cfm

Beloved:
We did not follow cleverly devised myths
when we made known to you
the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.
For he received honor and glory from God the Father
when that unique declaration came to him from the majestic glory,
“This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven
while we were with him on the holy mountain.
Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable.
You will do well to be attentive to it,
as to a lamp shining in a dark place,
until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
2 Peter 1:16-19

This beautiful passage from Peter shines with faith, adoration, and praise. It invites us to let go of our “thinking” about God and, instead, to bask in the Divine Glory of which our faith assures us.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
The Feast of the Transfiguration beckons us to be with God in the way we would be with someone we deeply love – not analyzing the bliss, but resting in it gratefully and contentedly.

Poetry: Transfiguration – Malcolm Guite

For that one moment, ‘in and out of time’,
On that one mountain where all moments meet,
The daily veil that covers the sublime
In darkling glass fell dazzled at his feet.
There were no angels full of eyes and wings
Just living glory full of truth and grace.
The Love that dances at the heart of things
Shone out upon us from a human face
And to that light the light in us leaped up,
We felt it quicken somewhere deep within,
A sudden blaze of long-extinguished hope
Trembled and tingled through the tender skin.
Nor can this blackened sky, this darkened scar
Eclipse that glimpse of how things really are.

Music: Transfiguration – by Wren and Manalo

False

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, spirituality, Truth2 Comments

Monday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 5, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080524.cfm

Remove from me the way of falsehood,
and favor me with your law.
Take not the word of truth from my mouth,
for in your ordinances is my hope.
Psalm 19:29,43

The passage from Jeremiah tells the story of the false prophet Hananiah who offered a counterfeit hope because he did not have a true relationship with God. Jeremiah’s message, which called for sincere repentance, was honest but not popular.

Today’s Psalm 19 is a prayer for the courage to listen to and live in God’s Truth, not to ascribe to a false message just because that is the one we want to hear.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray for the courage to hear God’s Word in the truth of our hearts, a truth created by living a life of prayer, spiritual honesty, repentance, and mercy.

Poetry: Tell All the Truth – Emily Dickinson

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: Great Is Thy Faithfulness – written by Thomas Chisholm (1866–1960)

Bread

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Love, spirituality2 Comments

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 4, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080424.cfm

Then the LORD said to Moses,
“I will now rain down bread from heaven for you.
Each day the people are to go out and gather their daily portion;
thus will I test them,
to see whether they follow my instructions or not.

“I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites.
Tell them: In the evening twilight you shall eat flesh,
and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread,
so that you may know that I, the LORD, am your God.”
Exodus 16:11-12

In both our readings, God recognizes physical hunger and ties it to spiritual strength.

In our Gospel, Jesus makes the connection clear. He tells his followers:

“For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.”

No matter how much we are “fed”, we will never be satisfied until our nurture blesses the rest of the world as well as ourselves.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ask to be more aware of, grateful for, and generous with the blessings we have received.

Poetry: Bread – Richard Levine

Each night, in a space he’d make
between waking and purpose,
my grandfather donned his one
suit, in our still dark house, and drove
through Brooklyn’s deserted streets
following trolley tracks to the bakery.
There he’d change into white
linen work clothes and cap,
and in the absence of women,
his hands were both loving, well
into dawn and throughout the day—
kneading, rolling out, shaping
each astonishing moment
of yeasty predictability
in that windowless world lit
by slightly swaying naked bulbs,
where the shadows staggered, woozy
with the aromatic warmth of the work.
Then, the suit and drive, again.
At our table, graced by a loaf
that steamed when we sliced it,
softened the butter and leavened
the very air we’d breathe,
he’d count us blessed.

Music: Bread for the World – Bernadette Farrell

Answer

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Cross, Faith, Jesus, Prayer, Psalms, spirituality3 Comments

Saturday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 3, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080324.cfm

In today’s readings, both Jeremiah and John the Baptist encounter persecution. Jeremiah is saved, but John is not. Maybe both of them had questions about how, when they were so dedicated to God, evil yet pursued them. Perhaps they felt they had run into a spiritual wall. Ever felt like that?

Our Responsorial Psalm captures the longing for an answer – an understanding of how and why God works in our lives.

Lord, in your great love,
answer me.

Psalm 69:14

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
I think it’s safe to say that we all have questions about life and death, good and evil, grace and darkness, worldly success and spiritual peace, God’s Presence and God’s apparent absence.

Poetry: The Answer – Carl Sandberg

You have spoken the answer.
A child searches far sometimes
Into the red dust
                       On a dark rose leaf
And so you have gone far
                       For the answer is:
                                           Silence.

   In the republic
Of the winking stars
                       and spent cataclysms
Sure we are it is off there the answer is hidden and folded over,
Sleeping in the sun, careless whether it is Sunday or any other
    day of the week,

Knowing silence will bring all one way or another.

Have we not seen
Purple of the pansy
            out of the mulch
            and mold
            crawl
            into a dusk
            of velvet?
            blur of yellow?
Almost we thought from nowhere but it was the silence,
            the future,
            working.

Music: Popule Meus – Motet by Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)

Ecce lignum crucis:
In quo salus mundi pependit,
Venite, adoremus.

Popule meus, quid feci tibi?
Aut in quo contristavi te?
Responde mihi.

Quia eduxi te de terra Aegypti,
Parasti Crucem Salvatori tuo.

Hagios o Theos. Sanctus Deus.
Hagios Ischyros. Sanctus Fortis.
Hagios Athanatos, eleison himas.
Sanctus Immortalis, miserere nobis.

Quia eduxi te per desertum
Quadraginta annis,
Et manna cibavi te,
Et introduxi te in terram satis bonam,
Parasti Crucem Salvatori tuo.

Hagios o Theos. Sanctus Deus.
Hagios Ischyros. Sanctus Fortis.
Hagios Athanatos, eleison himas.
Sanctus Immortalis, miserere nobis.

Ego propter te flagellavi Aegyptum
Cum primogenitis suis:
Et tu me flagellatum tradidisti.

Popule meus, quid feci tibi?
Aut in quo contristavi te?
Responde mihi.

Ego te eduxi de Aegypto,
Demerso Pharone in mare Rubrum,
Et tu me tradidisti
Principibus sacerdotum.

Popule meus, quid feci tibi?
Aut in quo contristavi te?
Responde mihi.

Ego ante te aperui mare,
Et tu aperuisti lancea latus meum.

Popule meus, quid feci tibi?
Aut in quo contristavi te?
Responde mihi.

Behold the wood of the cross:
On which hung the salvation of the world,
Come, let us adore.

O my people, what have I done to you?
Or wherein have I grieved you?
Answer me.

Because I led you out of the land of Egypt:
You have prepared a Cross for your Saviour.

O Holy God. O Holy God.
O Holy Strong One. O Holy Strong One.
O Holy and Immortal, have mercy upon us.
O Holy and Immortal, have mercy upon us.

Because I led you through the desert,
For forty years,
And fed you with manna,
And brought you into a land exceeding good,
You have prepared a Cross for your Savior.

O Holy God. O Holy God.
O Holy Strong One. O Holy Strong One.
O Holy and Immortal, have mercy upon us.
O Holy and Immortal, have mercy upon us.

For you I scourged Egypt,
And its firstborn,
And you have delivered me to be scourged.

O my people, what have I done to you?
Or wherein have I grieved you?
Answer me.

I brought you out of Egypt,
And sank Pharaoh in the Red Sea,
And you bave delivered Me
To the chief priests.

O my people, what have I done to you?
Or wherein have I grieved you?
Answer me.

I opened the sea before you,
And you have opened my side with a spear.

O my people, what have I done to you?
Or wherein have I grieved you?
Answer me.

Outcast

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spiritualityLeave a comment

Friday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 2, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080224.cfm

Jesus came to his native place and taught the people in their synagogue.
They were astonished and said,
“Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds?
Is he not the carpenter’s son?
Is not his mother named Mary
and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?
Are not his sisters all with us?
Where did this man get all this?”
And they took offense at him.
But Jesus said to them,
“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and in his own house.”
And he did not work many mighty deeds there
because of their lack of faith.
Matthew 13:54-58

Today’s readings are painful and sad. Both Jeremiah and Jesus were outcast for trying to inform and help their own people. And the people suffered because of their hardness of heart.

Why do people resist the message of mercy and redemption? Walter Brueggemann says that “a prophet is someone that tries to articulate the world as though God were really active in the world.”

If one’s heart is too hard to trust and respond to God’s activity in the world, the words of the prophets are lost on them.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray that by informing our hearts with the Gospel, we may respond to God’s continuing call for our transformation.

Poetry: The opening lines from “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran

(The Prophet), the chosen and the beloved,
who was a dawn unto his own day,
had waited twelve years in the city of Orphalese
for his ship that was to return and bear him back
to the isle of his birth.
And in the twelfth year, on the seventh day of Ielool,
the month of reaping,
he climbed the hill without the city walls and looked seaward;
and he beheld his ship coming with the mist.
Then the gates of his heart were flung open,
and his joy flew far over the sea.
And he closed his eyes and prayed in the silences of his soul.
But as he descended the hill,
a sadness came upon him, and he thought in his heart:
How shall I go in peace and without sorrow?
Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city.
Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls,
and long were the nights of aloneness;
and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?
Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets,
and too many are the children of my longing
that walk naked among these hills,
and I cannot withdraw from them without a burden and an ache.
It is not a garment I cast off this day,
but a skin that I tear with my own hands.
Nor is it a thought I leave behind me,
but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst.

Yet I cannot tarry longer.
The sea that calls all things unto her calls me,
and I must embark.
For to stay, though the hours burn in the night,
is to freeze and crystallize and be bound in a mould.
Fain would I take with me all that is here. But how shall I?
A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings.
Alone must it seek the ether.
And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.

Music: Sounds of Silence – Simon and Garfunkel

Remade

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

Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
August 1, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080124.cfm

I went down to the potter’s house and there he was,
working at the wheel.
Whenever the object of clay which he was making
turned out badly in his hand,
he tried again,
remaking of the clay another object
of whatever sort he pleased.
Then the word of the LORD came to me:
Can I not do to you, house of Israel,
as this potter has done? says the LORD.
Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter,
so are you in my hand, house of Israel.
Jeremiah 18:3-6

In the simple image of a potter with clay, we come to understand the transformative power of God’s grace. Like nourishment for a precious plant, that divine grace breathes new life into any fading flowers of faith, hope, and love. Jesus came among us so that we might be remade in his image as the Beloved of God.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray for a supple heart, an acute attention, and a patient openness to God’s power in our lives.

Poetry: The Song of the Potter – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Turn, turn, my wheel! Turn round and round,
Without a pause, without a sound:
So spins the flying world away!
This clay, well mixed with marl and sand,
Follows the motion of my hand;
For some must follow, and some command,
Though all are made of clay!
Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change
To something new, to something strange;
Nothing that is can pause or stay;
The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,
To-morrow be to-day.
Turn, turn, my wheel! All life is brief;
What now is bud will soon be leaf,
What now is leaf will soon decay;
The wind blows east, the wind blows west;
The blue eggs in the robin's nest
Will soon have wings and beak and breast,
And flutter and fly away.
Turn, turn, my wheel! This earthen jar
A touch can make, a touch can mar;
And shall it to the Potter say,
What makest thou? Thou hast no hand?
As men who think to understand
A world by their Creator planned,
Who wiser is than they.
Turn, turn, my wheel! 'Tis nature's plan
The child should grow into the man,
The man grow wrinkled, old, and gray;
In youth the heart exults and sings,
The pulses leap, the feet have wings;
In age the cricket chirps, and brings
The harvest home of day.
Turn, turn, my wheel! The human race,
Of every tongue, of every place,
Caucasian, Coptic, or Malay,
All that inhabit this great earth,
Whatever be their rank or worth,
Are kindred and allied by birth,
And made of the same clay.
Turn, turn, my wheel! What is begun
At daybreak must at dark be done,
To-morrow will be another day;
To-morrow the hot furnace flame
Will search the heart and try the frame,
And stamp with honor or with shame
These vessels made of clay.
Stop, stop, my wheel! Too soon, too soon
The noon will be the afternoon,
Too soon to-day be yesterday;
Behind us in our path we cast
The broken potsherds of the past,
And all are ground to dust at last,
And trodden into clay.

Music: Abba, Father – Carey Landry

All

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Eternal Life, Faith, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Priest
July 31, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/073124.cfm

Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant
searching for fine pearls.
When he finds a pearl of great price,
he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.
Matthew 13:45-46

On this feast, our readings offer us a perfect understanding of what motivated the life of St. Ignatius Loyola – he gave everything to possess the pearl of eternal life.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray the Suscipe of Ignatius, asking to deepen in our understanding of how we are called to holiness in our particular life circumstances.

Poetry: As Kingfishers Catch Fire – Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

Music: Take, Lord, Receive – John Foley, SJ

Take, Lord, receive all my liberty,
My memory, understanding, my entire will.

Give me only Your love and Your grace, that’s enough for me.
Your love and Your grace, are enough for me.

Take, Lord, receive all I have and possess.
You have given all to me, now I return it.

Give me only Your love and Your grace, that’s enough for me.
Your love and Your grace, are enough for me.

Take, Lord, receive, all is Yours now.
Dispose of it, wholly according to Your will

Give me only Your love and Your grace, that’s enough for me.
Your love and Your grace, are enough for me.

Seed

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

Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 30, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/073024.cfm

The seed is the word of God,
Christ is the sower;
all who come to him
will live for ever.

Encapsulating today’s Gospel, our Responsorial Psalm delivers the clear message that Christ sows the Word of God in our hearts. Will that Divine Seed be overwhelmed by selfish weeds? Or will it thrive? The answer comes with very high stakes – eternal life.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray for a fertile soul, open to God’s Word, vibrant with the Gospel of Christ.

Poetry: May we raise children who love the unloved things – Nicolette Sowder

May we raise children
who love the unloved things – the dandelion, the
worms & spiderlings.
Children who sense
the rose needs the thorn
& run into rainswept days
the same way they turn towards sun…
And when they’re grown &
someone has to speak for those
who have no voice
may they draw upon that
wilder bond, those days of
tending tender things
and be the ones.

Music: Gardens of the Sun – Georgia Kelly

Friends

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, friendship, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus
July 29, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072924.cfm

Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary
to comfort them about their brother [Lazarus, who had died].
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,
she went to meet him;
but Mary sat at home.
Martha said to Jesus,
“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,
God will give you.”
John 11:19-22

Jesus needed and had friends, just like we do. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were that kind of close friends. Jesus could hang out at their house, be comfortable at their table. They loved when he visited, bustling about to tidy the house and make him a special meal. They could sit with him for the afternoon in the comfortable silence between close friends. And could expect him to share their joys and sorrows.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Jesus wants to be that kind of friend with us – sharing presence, refreshment, a quiet comfort, a lively conversation. He wants to share our ups and downs and in-betweens.He wants us to love him as he loves us.

Poetry: Malcolm Guite – The Anointing at Bethany

Come close with Mary, Martha, Lazarus
so close the candles stir with their soft breath
and kindle heart and soul to flame within us,
lit by these mysteries of life and death.
For beauty now begins the final movement
in quietness and intimate encounter.
The alabaster jar of precious ointment
is broken open for the world’s true Lover.
The whole room richly fills to feast the senses
with all the yearning such a fragrance brings.
The heart is mourning but the spirit dances,
here at the very center of all things,
here at the meeting place of love and loss,
we all foresee, and see beyond the cross.

Music: Pour My Love on You by Craig and Dean Phillips