Quake

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, spirituality2 Comments

Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
May 7, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050724.cfm

About midnight, while Paul and Silas were praying
and singing hymns to God as the prisoners listened,
there was suddenly such a severe earthquake
that the foundations of the jail shook;
all the doors flew open, and the chains of all were pulled loose. 
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.”
Acts 16: 25-28

As their persecutors try to imprison Paul and Silas, Divine Intervention shakes up their intentions! Not only are the disciples freed by the earthquake, but they courageously hang around the prison environs to salvage the guard for Christ.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We might prayerfully consider the interventions God has made in our lives – those unexpected turns in the road that eventually led us to grace. How have we responded?

We might also wish to pray for some little quakes of grace in our own lives and in the world where we need to be shaken up, released from unholy chains, and re-ordered in faith.

Poetry: Unless the Grain of Wheat Falls – Irene Zimmerman, OSF

Easter!
But I’m still torn with grief,
disbelief.
I’m not ready yet!
I clutch the old familiar pain—
I’ve gotten used to the dark,
grown calluses against the rub of walls.
I feel secure confined within the grain. 

Easter!
This unseen Presence signed in Bread,
this utter homey-ness of meal
still leaves a loneliness that gnaws.
It almost would be easier
had you stayed dead.
I would not have to try to learn
to know you in this strange new way 

and when my time came, I could say
good-bye behind a finished smile,
without a thought or care
for those I had not fed.
But now to have to live from day to day
on Bread and promise of Bread—
to eat and pass the loaves along
and not to store! 

This call to grow to Easter ripeness
shakes my familiar ground,
quakes the very kernel of myself.
I thought I had secured my walls so well.
But you roll away, like a child’s toy,
the rock I had sealed against you
and make me an empty shell of wheat
to witness that you are alive in me.

Music: Earthquake – by 2nd Life

Lydia

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Discipleship, spirituality2 Comments

Monday of the Sixth Week of Easter
May 6, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050624.cfm

We spent some time in Philippi.
On the Sabbath, we went outside the city gate along the river
where we thought there would be a place of prayer.
We sat and spoke with the women who had gathered there.
One of them, a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth,
from the city of Thyatira, a worshiper of God, listened,
and the Lord opened her heart to pay attention
to what Paul was saying.
After she and her household had been baptized,
she offered us an invitation,
“If you consider me a believer in the Lord,
come and stay at my home,” and she prevailed on us.
Acts 16: 12-15

From the patriarchal revisionism of early Church history, the names of so few women trickle down to us! How I would love to have known Lydia, acknowledged Philippian leader who helped form the initial Church in this foundational Christian community.

When Lydia met Paul, she was already a “worshiper of God”. Her spiritually-ready heart received the revelation of Jesus and responded completely. Was it to her, likely Church leader, that the beautiful letter to the Philippians was later delivered? Was it she who further preached the Word and fostered this faith community? Was it she who led the Eucharistic gatherings and whose essential role, like those of many early women, is lost in the shadows of history?

How tremendously influential she must have been for her name to have made it even to this singular mention!

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We may want to pray with Lydia to better understand her vibrant faith and participation in the miraculous spread of our early faith. We may want to ask her guidance for our contemporary Church as we seek relevance and truth for our own time.

Poetry: Lydia – Graham Kings

Who is this woman,
Slender in purple,
Approaching the river,
Head demure,
Hands across
Heart secure?

Who are these women,
Accompanying her,
Tumbling, cascading,
Following her gaze,
Slightly perplexed,
Subtly amazed?

Who is this man,
Bearded, intriguing,
Joining the women,
Gorgeous in vesture,
Gently announcing
Greeting in gesture?

By the river of Philippi,
They sat down and met
And sang the songs of Zion,
Outside the gate of the
Greek city, Roman colony.

Lydia, with friends and household,
Dealer in purple, in business astute,
From Thyatira in Asia Minor,
Gentile worshipping God of the Jews.

Paul, with friends, Silas and Luke,
Following a vision of Asia Minor,
Meets a woman of Macedonia,
The Good News comes to Europa.

With hearts open to the cross of Christ,
They pass through the river of baptism,
To enter the joy of the Kingdom.
Like trees planted by the waterside,
They bring forth their fruit in due season.

Music: Water’s Edge – Michael Jones

Listen to this lovely music and join Paul and Lydia at the water’s edge in Philippi.

Love

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Eternal Life, Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Love, spirituality4 Comments

Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 5, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050524.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you
and your joy might be complete.
John 15:9-11

What would it be like if we loved as the Creator loves – eternal life flowing out from Trinitarian Love to sustain all of us for always?

Jesus says that this is how the Father loves, and how Jesus loves all of us. He says that we abide in this Love when we indeed love God above all and our Neighbor as ourselves.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Honestly, can there be a more ubiquitous word than “Love”, and yet we find so little of its true practice in our increasingly self-absorbed and violent culture!

If, when we “love”, it does not strengthen sacred life in another or in the world, then we have not truly loved. We may have desired, admired, adulated, or ingratiated, but we have not loved as God loves.

Let’s pray to be open and responsive to the gift of God’s Love flowing into our hearts.

Prose: from Embodied Love in John of the Cross – Richard P. Hardy, Ph.D.

For John of the Cross, being wholly converted into divine love means actually living God's own life:
The soul lives the life of God.
And the will, which previously loved in a base and deadly way with only its natural affection, is now changed into the life of divine love, for it loves in a lofty way with divine affection, moved by the strength of the Holy Spirit in which it now lives the life of love. By means of this union God's will and the soul's will are now one.
Finally all the movements, operations, and inclinations the soul had previously from the principle and strength of its natural life are now in this union dead to what they formerly were, changed into divine movements, and alive to God.

Music: Amazing Love – Peggy Duquesnel

… Then

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Cross, Discipleship, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality1 Comment

Saturday of the Fifth Week of Easter
May 4, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050424.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.
If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own;
but because you do not belong to the world,
and I have chosen you out of the world,
the world hates you.
Remember the word I spoke to you,
‘No slave is greater than his master.’
If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
And they will do all these things to you on account of my name,
because they do not know the one who sent me.”
John 15: 18-21

I have written about the word “if” several times in past reflections. There are a lot more “ifs” in today’s Gospel – and each of them has a very important “then”.

Thinking about the “if – then” syllogism, I remember one of my favorite professors. Florence Fay taught us Logic when we were young enough not to have practiced it much. She was a wonderful teacher, and building on this basic conditional argument, she led us through the labyrinths of logic.

Jesus seems to be doing the same thing for his disciples. He invites them to recognize that the “thens” of their lives are directly dependent on the “ifs”. He asks them to receive that interdependence without fear because in doing so, they imitate him.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We ask for the courage to live a life balanced on faith so that the “if-then”s of our lives lead us to holiness, not away from it.

Poetry: I See His Blood – Joseph Plunkett

I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.
I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but his voice—and carven by his power
Rocks are his written words.
All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.

Music – Adora Te Devote – Juliano Ravanello

Gospel

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

Feast of Saints Philip and James, Apostles
May 3, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050324.cfm

I am reminding you, brothers and sisters,
of the Gospel I preached to you,
which you indeed received and in which you also stand.
Through it you are also being saved,
if you hold fast to the word I preached to you,
unless you believed in vain.
1 Corinthians 15:1-2

In today’s passage, Paul describes the Gospel as a gift, given through his preaching, and received by his listeners.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Think of the most precious gift that has ever been placed in your hands – how carefully and tenderly you received it, handled it, cared for it. I think of the times the newborns of our family have been handed to me, and how I cherished them and vigilantly held them.

Paul, and our early leaders such as Philip and James, have handed on to us the precious Gospel as they received from Christ himself. It is the key to our eternal life. How we should treasure it, learn from it, stand in it, and hold fast to it, as Paul encourages us to do!

Prose: from John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life

“The Gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life. 
It cannot be grasped by reason and memory only, 
but it is fully understood when it possesses the whole soul 
and penetrates to the inner recesses of the heart.”

Music: Verbum Dei (Word of God) – by Voices Thules

Vocal ensemble Voces Thules was founded in 1992 and has established itself as a leading ensemble for performance and research on Icelandic medieval and traditional music in Iceland. Voces Thules perform both sacred and secular music either a-cappella or with Medieval period instruments.

Joy

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, joy, Love, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
May 2, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050224.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.

“I have told you this so that
my joy might be in you and
your joy might be complete.”
John 15: 9-11

What a joy to hear someone say, “I love you.”! What a gift to be invited to “remain” in another’s heart!

Jesus wants his disciples, and he wants us, to have that joy. He wants it so much that his own joy depends on it!

God wants our love. God wants us to remain in God’s heart!

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let yourself just sink into that amazing revelation, Beloved of God! Jesus’s declaration and invitation are specifically made to YOU!

Poetry: The Madness of Love – Hadewijch Of Antwerp

The madness of love
Is a blessed fate;
And if we understood this
We would seek no other:
It brings into unity
What was divided,
And this is the truth:
Bitterness it makes sweet,
It makes the stranger a neighbor,
And what was lowly it raises on high.

Music: Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony

1 Joyful, joyful, we adore You,
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flow’rs before You, Op’ning to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness; Drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness,
Fill us with the light of day!

2 All Your works with joy surround You, Earth and heav’n reflect Your rays,
Stars and angels sing around You,
Center of unbroken praise;
Field and forest, vale and mountain, Flow’ry meadow, flashing sea,
Chanting bird and flowing fountain Praising You eternally!		3 Always giving and forgiving,
Ever blessing, ever blest,
Well-spring of the joy of living,
Ocean-depth of happy rest!
Loving Father, Christ our Brother,
Let Your light upon us shine;
Teach us how to love each other,
Lift us to the joy divine.

4 Mortals, join the mighty chorus,
Which the morning stars began; 
God’s own love is reigning o’er us, 
Joining people hand in hand.
Ever singing, march we onward,
Victors in the midst of strife;
Joyful music leads us sunward
In the triumph song of life.

Remain

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus, spirituality3 Comments

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter
May 1, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050124.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.
He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit,
and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.
You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.
Remain in me, as I remain in you.
John 15: 1-4

What a tender and comforting passage! When we are invited to “remain” somewhere ( as in, “Please stay for dinner.”), it indicates that we have already arrived into that inviting presence.

Jesus tells us that we are already living in God’s Presence and that he wants us to always remain there in God’s Love. He tells us that we are established in that Presence – that we are already “pruned” for God.

We don’t realize how holy we are. I live with almost 100 spiritually noble women. I have the joy of knowing Mercy Associates, dear family, and personal friends who enrich my life by their desire to live in God’s Light! They would probably never describe themselves as “holy”.

But they are. They have spent their lives steeping themselves in the things of God, and God has delighted in them – invited them to “remain” in Love.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s take time to think about our holiness, not in pride but in humble thanks for the gift God has given us. Each of our lives has “pruned” us in a particular way to reflect God’s glory. Let’s remain – let’s linger – in that blessing as we pray today.

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: Return to the Heart – David Lanz

May

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Faith, Mary, spirituality5 Comments

God’s blessings to all of you, my readers, in this beautiful month of May! These days bring the full blossoming of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere, the grape harvest in Australia, and the close of the rainy season in Peru. May all these gifts, and the special love of Mary, brighten these days.

Please enjoy this beautiful and elegant music, reminiscent of May:

Peace

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

Tuesday of Fifth Week of Easter
April 30, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/043024.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.
Not as the world gives do I give it to you.
Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
~ John 14:27

Jesus did a lot to prepare his disciples for his suffering and death – sort of an “anticipatory grief” workshop! And the essential coping gift he gives them is peace. Not a peace that means free from trouble or conflict, but rather a peace like his own – one of being resolutely grounded in God.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We pray to be so deeply rooted in God that we see all experience through the lens of God’s peaceful abiding in our hearts.

Poetry: Making Peace – Denise Levertov

A voice from the dark called out,
             ‘The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.’
                                   But peace, like a poem,
is not there ahead of itself,
can’t be imagined before it is made,
can’t be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.
                                       A feeling towards it,
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.
                                              A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses . . .
                        A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light—facets
of the forming crystal.

Music: Inner Peace – Hennie Bekker

Advocate

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

Memorial of Saint Catherine of Siena,
Virgin and Doctor of the Church
April 29, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042924.cfm

Whoever loves me will keep my word,
and my Father will love them,
and we will come to them and make our dwelling with them…

I have told you this while I am with you.
The Advocate, the Holy Spirit
whom the Father will send in my name —
will teach you everything
and remind you of all that I told you.

Through the gift of Baptism, the power of the Holy Spirit pours into our hearts — a Waterfall of Grace to nourish us throughout our lives. This is the promise Jesus gives in today’s reading.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We pray to recognize and open ourselves fully to the Spirit Creator’s desire to be in our hearts.

Prayer: The Holy Spirit Prayer of Catherine of Siena

Holy Spirit, come into my heart;
draw it to You by Your power, O my God,
and grant me charity with devoted awe of You.
Preserve me, O beautiful love, from every evil thought;
warm me, inflame me with Your dear love,
and every pain will seem light to me.
My Father, my sweet Lord, help me in all my actions.
Jesus, love, Jesus, love. Amen.

Music: Ablaze – Ken Walther (Lyrics below)
Inspired by the wisdom of St. Catherine of Siena, Ben Walther composed an upbeat song to encourage today’s generation to set the world on fire with God’s love.

[Verse 1]
By His grace, we are conceived
To be mercy, to be peace
To be light amidst the darkness
In His image, we are made
To be brilliant, to be great
To present the world His likeness

[Chorus]
Let’s set the world on fire
Let’s raise His banner higher
Let’s set a broken world ablaze, oh
Let’s hear a generation
Proclaiming His salvation
With every breath and endless praise
And set the world ablaze

[Verse 2]
All aflame but not consumed
We are burning with the truth
For His presence makes us holy
Fanning flicker into flame
Till His love is what remains
For to Him belongs all glory

[Chorus]
Let’s set the world on fire
Let’s raise His banner higher
Let’s set a broken world ablaze, oh
Let’s hear a generation
Proclaiming His salvation
With every breath and endless praise
And set the world ablaze
Set the world ablaze
Set the world ablaze
Let’s set the world on fire
Let’s raise His banner higher
Let’s set a broken world ablaze, oh
Let’s hear a generation
Proclaiming His salvation
With every breath and endless praise
And set the world ablaze
Set the world ablaze