Family Trees

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

Christmas Weekday
January 6, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010624.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings are laced together with a genealogy theme.

In our first reading, John describes our most fundamental and powerful lineage: we are children of God with the gift of eternal life.

And this is the testimony:
God gave us eternal life,
and this life is in his Son.
Whoever possesses the Son has life;
whoever does not possess the Son of God does not have life.
I write these things to you so that you may know
that you have eternal life,
you who believe in the name of the Son of God.

1 John 5: 11-13

The Church offers alternative Gospels for reading today. One describes the Baptism of Jesus and one delineates his patriarchal lifeline.

Mark’s Gospel, which will most likely be read at Mass today, presents Jesus as the Son of God:

It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee
and was baptized in the Jordan by John.
On coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open
and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him.
And a voice came from the heavens,
“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

Mark 1: 9-11

Today’s alternative Gospel of Luke presents Jesus as the descendant of a long patriarchal line including Adam, David, and “as was thought” Joseph. It emphasizes Jesus’s place in the human family (In contrast to Matthew’s genealogy which emphasizes Jesus’s place in the Hebrew history.)

When Jesus began his ministry he was about thirty years of age.
He was the son, as was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli,
the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi,
the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, the son of Mattathias,……

Luke 3:23-38

What are we supposed to learn today from this impressive array of scriptures? This is where my prayer took me:

Jesus Christ, human and divine, took flesh to share eternal life with me through Baptism. Through him, I gain the sacred pedigree that reaches through time to God’s eternal womb.

Poetry: Jesus’s Baptism – Malcolm Guite

Beginning here we glimpse the Three-in-one;
The river runs, the clouds are torn apart,
The Father speaks, the Sprit and the Son
Reveal to us the single loving heart
That beats behind the being of all things
And calls and keeps and kindles us to light.
The dove descends, the spirit soars and sings
‘You are belovèd, you are my delight!’
In that quick light and life, as water spills
And streams around the Man like quickening rain,
The voice that made the universe reveals
The God in Man who makes it new again.
He calls us too, to step into that river
To die and rise and live and love forever.

Music: Epiphany on the Jordan – Steve Bell and Malcolm Guite

Steve Bell worked with Malcolm Guite converting the poem above into this inspiring song. As we approach the Season of Light, revealed in Epiphany and Baptism, this meditative song is a great companion to our prayer.

The heavens split and the water spilled
And streamed around the man like a quickening rain
A quickening rain
The Word behind all worlds revealed
That God in man makes everything new again
New again
This word of God to his beloved
Has settled on me like a dove…
He calls us too, to step into that river
To die and rise to life and love forever
And so graciously extends to me, a sinner
To tread the sacred waters of
The mystery of love
What can be said about a mystery
Except to say that the last word can never be said
Never said
Best leave that to poetry
Kindling words for quickening the dead
The living dead
Pure, single heart behind all things
Each to the other, by the spirit sing
He calls us too, to step into that river…

Back to the Fig Tree

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality10 Comments

Memorial of Saint John Neumann, Bishop
January 5, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010524.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, John gives us this powerful verse:

Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us,
we have confidence in God.

In our Gospel, we meet Nathaniel who has been sitting under a fig tree, perhaps examining his heart in the manner that John describes. I have frequently sat under the fig tree with Nathaniel because his was the name I was given over sixty years ago when I began my religious life.

I had never heard of him before that, nor at least had I paid attention to him. When Mother Bernard solemnly pronounced his name over me, it fell with a thud into my consciousness. Who was this guy anyway??? And what happened to “Regina”, “James Marita”, and “Eleanor Mary” – the names I had humbly requested! I imagine my eyebrows knit into a skeptical question mark!

I remember Mother Anthony peeking over Mother Bernard’s shoulder, encouraging me to smile as the superior’s hands rested on my head in blessing. Later she told me that she wasn’t so sure I would like the name, but that Mother Bernard really did. So I decided that I would learn to really like it too. That’s when I first met Nathaniel under the multi-trunked tree where he sat pondering his life.

Oddly enough at that first meeting, Nathaniel was young like I was then. He was trying to figure out, and plot out, his whole life in that one afternoon, much like I used to do when I was very young. I wanted to make the right decisions to set my life on a perfect course. So did Nathaniel I think.

Well. over the years since, both Nathaniel and I have met Jesus who has intervened in our self-interested ponderings. Jesus has called us beyond our mirror-bound reflections to the “greater things” of God’s vision for us and for Creation.

Nathaniel said to him, “How do you know me?”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.”
Nathaniel answered him,
“Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Do you believe
because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?
You will see greater things than this.”

John 1:47-50

When I meet Nathaniel these days under the aging fig, we too have aged and mellowed. Asking God’s sustaining intervention for just the day or the hour has become sufficient. Now as the plump fruit falls occasionally from the limb, we listen more than we think or speak. Jesus has joined us there under the leaves’ broad shadows. We share the fruit that has been given to us. And yes, Jesus still knows us in ways that amaze, challenge, and comfort.

Poetry: Seeing for a Moment – Denise Levertov

I thought I was growing wings—
it was a cocoon.

I thought, now is the time to step
into the fire—
it was deep water.

Eschatology is a word I learned
as a child: the study of Last Things;

facing my mirror—no longer young,
the news—always of death,
the dogs—rising from sleep and clamoring and howling, howling,

nevertheless
I see for a moment
that’s not it: it is
the First Things.

Word after word
floats through the glass.
Toward me.

Music: Under the Fig Tree – Lake Isabel

Let No One Deceive You

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, justice, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Religious
January 4, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010424.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, John is gentle but scathingly direct in his teaching:

Children, let no one deceive you.
The person who acts in righteousness is righteous,
just as God is righteous.
Whoever sins belongs to the Devil,
because the Devil has sinned from the beginning.

1 John 3: 7-8

John tells us that good is good, and bad is bad. Don’t let anyone fool you. And don’t make excuses when you fool yourself!

John gives us a clear measuring stick to test alignment with his teaching:

In this way,
the children of God and the children of the Devil are made plain;
no one who fails to act in righteousness belongs to God,
nor anyone who fails to love their sisters and brothers.

1 John 3:10

It’s so simple but so hard to be the kind of person John calls us to be!

In our deep hearts, we know what righteousness looks like. It looks like peace, forgiveness, reverence, truth-telling, kindness, service, faithfulness, hope.

And we know what unrighteousness looks like. It looks like war, vengeance, brutality, bigotry, manipulation, indifference, greed, selfishness, megalomania, dishonesty, fear-mongering.

How has our society gotten so mixed up that we allow unrighteousness to parade in the costume of justice! How have we gotten so lazy, greedy, or indifferent that we refuse to look for and remedy the root causes of our societal grievances? For example, when I dig deeper in my prayerful thinking, I might realize that:

  • Thousands of immigrants are not crossing their borders just to bother me or take my job! They are in fear for their lives and well-being because of a lopsided global economy and a classist devaluation of life.
  • The armament and weapons industries are not founded on a mission to protect me and my loved ones. Like all businesses, they operate to make money. The more guns they sell, and the more expensive and destructive they are, all the better. We are their marketplace not their protectorate.

The Scriptures are God’s living Word. They are not to be read and set aside as a completed devotional practice meaningless for today’s world.

They teach us about the past but they speak to us of the present. As we pray with them, we are called to be changed by them into persons who more clearly reflect Jesus and the Gospel. That is the hard work of righteousness – work that is the everyday stuff of our lives.

Deeply internalizing John’s teaching today is a good place to start our transforming prayer.

Poetry: And 2morrow – Tupac Shakur, (1971 – 1996), was an American rapper. He is widely considered one of the most influential and successful rappers of all time. Shakur is among the best-selling music artists, having sold more than 75 million records worldwide. Much of Shakur’s music has been noted for addressing contemporary social issues that plagued inner cities. His life was filled with violence and eventually, he was murdered, but his creative work revealed a deep though conflicted longing for justice and peace.

Today is filled with anger
fueled with hidden hate
scared of being outcast
afraid of common fate
Today is built on tragedies
which no one wants 2 face
nightmares 2 humanities
and morally disgraced
Tonight is filled with rage
violence in the air
children bred with ruthlessness
because no one at home cares
Tonight I lay my head down
but the pressure never stops
knawing at my sanity
content when I am dropped
But 2morrow I c change
a chance 2 build a new
Built on spirit intent of Heart
and ideals
based on truth
and tomorrow I wake with second wind
and strong because of pride
2 know I fought with all my heart 2 keep my
dream alive

Music: Beauty for Brokenness (God of the Poor) – Graham Kendrick

See!

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

Christmas Weekday
January 3, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010324.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we again have John the evangelist and John the Baptist as the “bookends” of our prayer. Each one calls his listeners to see the world differently – more deeply, under the surface – with the eyes of God.

See what love God has lavished upon us
that we may be called the children of God.
Yet so we are.
The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

1 John 3:1

The spiritual vision the Evangelist describes comes through our knowledge of Jesus Christ. Through his life, death, and Resurrection, Jesus taught us how God loves and wants us to love. That is why a prayer life rooted in scripture, particularly the Gospel, is so critical to our spiritual integrity.

John the Baptist was steeped in this kind of integrity. Stripped of worldliness by ardent desert prayer, the Baptist was ready to not only hear the Word, but to see it when it came to him across the Jordan.

John testified further, saying,
“I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from the sky
and remain upon him.
I did not know him,
but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me,
‘On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain,
he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’
Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.”

John 1:32-34

Our readings today tell us that we too, through our Baptism into Christ, have been born to a new vision. Every day, this side of heaven, we are challenged to live within that vision – to see the world as God sees it, to live in the world as Jesus would live. The courage to do that comes from our hope which, with faith and love, purifies and fires our heart.

Beloved, we are God’s children now;
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is.
Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure,
as he is pure.

1 John 3:2-3

Poetry: Into the Eye of God – Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB

For your prayer, your journey into God
May you be given a small storm,
A little hurricane named after you,
persistent enough to get your attention
violent enough to awaken you to new depths
strong enough to shake you to the roots
majestic enough to remind you of your origin:
Made of the earth yet steeped in eternity
Frail human dust yet soaked with infinity.
You begin your storm under the eye of God
A watchful caring eye gazes in your direction
as you wrestle with the life force within.
In the midst of these holy winds
In the midst of this divine wrestling
Your storm journey, like all hurricanes
Leads you in to the eye of God
Into the eye of God where all is calm and quiet
the stillness beyond imagining
Into the eye of God after the storm
Into the silent beautiful darkness
into the eye of God.

Music: Apple of My Eye – Sal Arico

Truth. It Matters.

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors of the Church
January 2, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010224.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, John the evangelist and John the Baptist teach us. Their lessons are about truth and honesty.

Do you remember when truth and honesty were actually honored in our culture — you know, the whole George Washington and the cherry tree thing?

Now it seems that what’s honored is being able to lie and get away with it at the expense of anyone else but ourselves.

What is so hard about the truth? Why have we gotten so bad at living it?

Think of your own childhood. One of the very first things our parents and teachers taught us was to tell the truth. I can still remember sitting in the darkened church each Saturday afternoon preparing to go to weekly confession. The frequency of the sacrament made it difficult for my 10-year-old self to come up with enough sins. But I could usually deliver a few lies to the penitential conversation.

Was that childish exercise foolish? Some might think so, but I don’t. That weekly — really daily — practice set my thinking in a certain direction. The Commandments were real and they had a purpose. When I was a kid, I thought that purpose was to please God. But that was only part of it.

The real purpose was to guide me to find my true self, to grow in my ability to offer that truth to others, and to be an influencer of that respectful honesty in the larger world, in the community of faith.

This is the kind of honesty John demands of Christ’s followers in our first reading. These early Christians had a singular faith initially, but corruptive forces had seeped in. Perhaps they listened to the wrong people, were motivated by the wrong goals, cared about the wrong kind of rewards in life. Perhaps they just got faith mixed up with reason which is a dangerous confusion.

Beloved:
Who is the liar?
Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ.
Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist.
Anyone who denies the Son does not have the Father,
but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.
Let what you heard from the beginning remain in you.
If what you heard from the beginning remains in you,
then you will remain in the Son and in the Father.
And this is the promise that he made us: eternal life.
I write you these things about those who would deceive you.
As for you,
the anointing that you received from him remains in you,
so that you do not need anyone to teach you.
But his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and not false;
just as it taught you, remain in him.

1 John 2: 24-27

Let’s just assume that John is talking to us today and not some emergent Christians 2000 years ago because ….well… he is!

Prose: Pope John Paul II in his 1998 encyclical Faith and Reason addresses this issue:

Yet the positive results achieved must not obscure the fact that reason, in its one-sided concern to investigate human subjectivity, seems to have forgotten that men and women are always called to direct their steps towards a truth which transcends them. Sundered from that truth, individuals are at the mercy of caprice, and their state as person ends up being judged by pragmatic criteria based essentially upon experimental data, in the mistaken belief that technology must dominate all. It has happened therefore that reason, rather than voicing the human orientation towards truth, has wilted under the weight of so much knowledge and little by little has lost the capacity to lift its gaze to the heights, not daring to rise to the truth of being. Abandoning the investigation of being, modern philosophical research has concentrated instead upon human knowing. Rather than make use of the human capacity to know the truth, modern philosophy has preferred to accentuate the ways in which this capacity is limited and conditioned.

Music: Everything but the Truth – Lucinda Williams

You got the power to make this mean ole world a better place.
You got the power to make this mean ole world a better place.
People say they hate you, try to kill you, while they're grinning in your face.
You got the power to make this mean ole world a better place.

Before you can have a friend, you gotta be one.
Before you can have a friend, you gotta be one.
You gotta do the right things, gotta jump on in and see that it gets done.
Before you can have a friend, you gotta be one.

Everything's gonna change, everything but the truth.
Everything's gonna change, everything but the truth.
He's not playing games; he's taking names; he is bullet proof.
Everything's gonna change, everything but the truth.

God put the firewood there, but you gotta light yourself.
God put the firewood there, but you gotta light yourself.
You gotta go it alone, you gotta gather it up and nobody gonna help.
God put the firewood there, but you gotta light yourself.

You gotta make the most of what equipment you've got
You gotta make the most of what equipment you've got
Don't sit around complaining, crying all the time, cause you don't have a lot.
You gotta make the most of what equipment you've got

Sooner or later before too long, you gotta make a payment.
Sooner or later before too long, you gotta make a payment.
You've gotta settle up with this sweet ole world and give back what you've taken.
Sooner or later before too long, you gotta make a payment.

Everything's gonna change, everything but the truth.
Everything's gonna change, everything but the truth.
He's not playing games; he's taking names; he is bullet proof.
Everything's gonna change, everything but the truth.

Everything's gonna change, everything but the truth.
Everything's gonna change, everything but the truth.
Everything's gonna change, everything but the truth.
Everything's gonna change, everything but the truth.

The Year of Our Lord 2024

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality4 Comments

Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God 
The Octave Day of Christmas
January 1, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010124.cfm

Happy New Year to all!!

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, in the Year of Our Lord 2024, our readings begin with abundant blessings:

The LORD bless you and keep you!
The LORD let his face shine upon
you, and be gracious to you!
The LORD look upon you kindly and
give you peace!
So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites,
and I will bless them.

Numbers 6:24-27

Throughout our readings today, this blessing is woven with complementary themes assuring us, and inviting us, to live our identity as God’s child. In God and through Jesus Christ we are:

  • blessed
  • ransomed
  • adopted
  • amazed
  • named

BLESSED

May God bless us in mercy.

Psalm 67:2

Our Responsorial Psalm reminds us that our greatest blessing is to live in the Mercy of God made flesh in Jesus.

RANSOMED

When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son,  
born of a woman, born under the law,  
to ransom those under the law,  
so that we might receive adoption as God’s own children.

Galatians 4:4-5

Paul reminds us that, as God’s child, I no longer live by Law but by Love.

ADOPTED

As proof that you are God’s children,  
God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,  
crying out, “Abba, Father!”

Galatians 4:6

Paul encourages us to listen to our hearts crying out to God, not as some distant Being but as our Father/Mother/Abba

AMAZED

The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph,
and the infant lying in the manger.
When they saw this,
they made known the message
that had been told them about this child.
All who heard it were amazed
by what had been told them by the shepherds.

Luke 2:16-18

Luke reminds us that to be blessed with such grace is to live in holy amazement and thanksgiving!

NAMED

When eight days were completed for his circumcision,  
he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel  
before he was conceived in the womb.

Luke 2:21

Luke describes Christ’s naming in which we all share as “Christians” and which invites us to live in the pattern of Christ.

Empowered by these incredible blessings,
let’s start 2024 well
by gratefully opening our lives
to God’s Lavish Mercy.

Poetry: Mornings at Blackwater – Mary Oliver

For years, every morning, I drank
from Blackwater Pond.
It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,
the feet of ducks.
And always it assuaged me
from the dry bowl of the very far past.
What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.
So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,
and put your lips to the world.
And live
your life.

Music: Only Time – Enya

… a cup of kindness yet …

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, spirituality9 Comments

New Year’s Eve
December 31, 2023

The motherhouse chapel is hushed in sacred quiet. We have spent these New Year’s Eve hours in prayer, thanksgiving, and hope. Now in midwinter’s purple shadows, a silent nun touches her single, small light to the majestic candelabras to prepare for this Mass which balances on the turning of the years. The tiny flames slowly saturate the darkness, transforming it to a warm, golden invitation.

Our Mercy family gathers from the places where they have been praying.  Each one carries a heart filled with the past year’s blessings and challenges and with the new year’s hopes.  

As each one enters the chapel, she places her thoughts in the ciborium of silence. She pours her needs into the chalice of trust.

Evening, through the stained-glass windows, breaks its dark rainbow across the sanctuary, wakening an expectant God to receive our promises. The schola rustles to life for the celebration.  With them, our spirits hum the treasured Christmas harmonies learned in distant novitiates. Some who will celebrate Jubilee this year gather at the back of chapel for the entrance procession, awed that the years have carried them to this moment. The stage is set for the great liturgy of renewal, for on this night each year, we pronounce again the vows that sculpt our lives.

This is a most-hallowed ritual for year after year in Mercy, even before we were born, we have been carried by the sacrament of one another’s fidelity.  As we light the slender tapers, we remember and are encouraged by our beloved sisters who now live the fulfillment of their vows in heaven.  

We give thanks for the new life of our candidates and novices whose eyes and hearts open in wonder at the incredible power of call and community. And we see the inexplicable beauty of one another whose lives, woven together in joys and sorrows through the years, have carried us to the merciful heart of God.

These are the grains of bread.  These are the drops of wine – these lives, taken and called by God, blessed and broken over the world, given again and again in mercy for the poor, sick and uneducated. This is the Eucharist of our vowed and covenanted lives.  This is the Body and Blood of Christ.

On this night, the spice of life steeps in a mulled wine where tart experience and sweet assurance marry in faith. On this night, we offer the past; we pledge the future, but we do so in this present moment which alone holds meaning. It is in this vowed moment – this pledged renewal – that the host is lifted and the cup sanctified. It is a moment repeated infinitely in the faithful living of our call. It is the moment of transformation.

Poetry:

Music: Auld Lang Syne – played by Kenny G

Prayer for Our Families

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality6 Comments

Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
December 31, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/123123.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, as we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family, we pray with Psalm 128.

Blessed is everyone who lives in awe of the LORD,
who walks in God’s ways!
For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork;
blessed shall you be, and favored.

Throughout Christmas Day, I spent much time realizing and thanking God for how blessed I am by my family, and by my extended families of community and friends.

It can be a great blessing to grow old in one’s family. I now claim the matriarchy within my bloodline lineage. 

I am the oldest, the only one to have known all our living lineage as babies. I can even reminisce over all my young in-laws with codgy phrases that claim my elder experience. 

I try to make that elderhood a blessing to them by my prayers and unconditional love, and by carrying to them the tremendous devotion with which my parents and grandparents long ago blessed me and the future family they would never know.

But so many times, it is I who am blessed by these “youngsters”. 

On Christmas, through digital miracles like FaceTime, I could watch my younger only brother and sister-in-law continue our family benediction over their grown children and young grandchildren.

I saw my millennial nieces and nephews pour that long-rooted caring over the next “grand” generation, their own beautiful children.

The caretaking of such a legacy is never automatic or guaranteed in a family. It requires the intentional choice of a maturing love and a deliberate generosity in each member as they grow in responsibility. It demands engagement, trust, and – at times – forgiveness and reconciliation.

Such a heritage thrives where each member provides their degree of mutual example, encouragement and support for the whole family. I think of Peg, my aunt by marriage not blood. I knew she loved and nurtured me and my brother with the same vigor that she loved her own children. That’s the kind of power that holds a family together over generations.

No family is perfect. We need to step in for each other sometimes. Sometimes, we need to call each other to our best selves. 

The Holy Family helps us through those times. They had their trials: unexpected pregnancy, town gossip, refugee status, widowhood, and a son arrested and executed by the government – just to cite the challenges we know of. Yet they model for us the grace-generating love God has for us as a human family.

As we deepen in years and grace, we learn that “family” can be defined by more than blood. In fact, it must be. And the greater our hearts, the wider our sense of family will be – until we might be fully enriched to realize that every person is our brother or sister.

As we pray and strive to learn from the Holy Family, may we be blessed according to Psalm 128:

Behold, thus are we blessed
who live in awe the LORD.
The LORD bless us from on high:
may we see grace and well-being
together, all the days of our lives.

Poetry: Family Court- Ogden Nash, whose light verse always has a point to it 😉

One would be in less danger 
From the wiles of a stranger 
If one's own kin and kith 
Were more fun to be with.

Reading with Music:

Anna, Teach Us the Prayer of Wisdom

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality2 Comments

An added meditation for today’s Gospel about the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

Anna

Prayer of the Imagination (For Anna, the Prophetess)
by Leddy Hammock and Susan Kelly
(Text and Music below)

Now, in this moment I close my outer eyes
and look within with my inner eyes.
I see a vision of wonder,
for I am the daughter of the vision of God,
of the tribe of the blessed ones,
a soul under grace.
I judge not by appearances.
I believe in God’s promises.
I fast from shadows and I live on light.
From my youth, I have served at the temple,
a vessel to a holy purpose.
Prayer is the temple where I dwell
Here I behold the image of the Lord.
I close my eyes and behold that image,
the eyes of the Infinite beholding me
all through the ages,
so tenderly gazing with love and compassion,
enfolding me.
Prayer is the temple where I dwell.
Here, I behold the image of the Lord.
The thoughts held in mind
are mirrored in kind all around me,
reflecting through all that I see.
Now, I behold with inner vision
the wonders that will be in the fullness of time.
The dreams of all my days and nights
are incensed in the inner sanctum.
My thoughts of truth are flowers on the altar of light.
In the presence of the Holy of Holies,
I keep the high watch.
Gifted with the inner sight,
I see beyond the present.
I am an old, old soul, yet ageless in eternity.
Though outer eyes may seem to dim with time,
the inner eyes are crystal clear.
Though outer vision may seem obscured by time and place,
or clouded by the sorrows and the slavery of sense,
another world’s revealed so clear.
And what I see will be.
My thoughts are giving form,
And held in mind, shall reproduce in kind.
O Lord, I take a long loving look at the real.
I prophesy.
Christ is here.
I have seen the Lord, Thine image,
and held that image to my own heart.
I am the Spirit of Imagination.
I am Anna, the prophetess, woman of power

Music: Imagining- Hammock and Kelly

Praying with Anna

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Christmastide, Courage, Faith, Gospel, spirituality2 Comments

The Sixth Day in the Octave of Christmas
December 30, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/123023.cfm

rembrant anna
Presentation in the Temple – Rembrandt van Rijn

There was a prophetess, Anna,
the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher.
She was advanced in years,
having lived seven years with her husband after her marriage,
and then as a widow until she was eighty-four.
She never left the temple,
but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer.
And coming forward at that very time,
she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child
to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.

Luke 2:36-38

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we meet the venerable prophetess Anna. Oh, what she has to teach us!

  • Perseverance: she had waited eight decades for the revelation
  • Unconditional Faith: throughout those decades, she prayed always believing
  • Pure Spirit: she believed that, like the pure in spirit, she would see God
  • Unquestioning Receptivity to the Holy: when the Savior appeared, not in glory nor a fiery chariot, she received his vulnerability without hesitation
  • Adoration: “She never left the temple,but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer.”
  • Sacred Satisfaction: “And coming forward at that very time, she gave thanks to God” because her faith and hope had been affirmed.
psalm_light

There is so much in this reading for each one of us. Find yourself somewhere within it today as you pray. Perhaps:

  • Am I expecting God in every moment of my life?
  • If I have received the gift of “old age”, how has the long wait blessed and/or challenged me to keep hold of God’s hand?
  • If I am still “young”, how do I invite God into my unfolding journey?
  • Am I asking God to continually reveal Divinity in my daily life?
  • Am I purifying my heart of self-interest so that I can better perceive God’s Presence?
  • Can I welcome God no matter how the Divine Presence clothes itself?
  • Do I stay with my prayer, creating a deep temple in my spirit?
  • Can I find contentment and peace with how God chooses to be with me – even in suffering?

(In a second post, I will share a powerful reflective poem by Leddy Hammock & Sue Kelly – Prayer of Imagination for Anna, the Prophetess. I hope you love this piece as much as do.)

Music: While I Wait – Lincoln Brewster