“Keeping” the Word

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Forgiveness, Mercy, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Saints Cornelius, Pope, and Cyprian, Bishop, Martyrs
Saturday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
September 16, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091623.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, in his letter to Timothy, we see that Paul thought he had been the foremost of bad dudes.

This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance:
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
Of these I am the foremost.

1 Timothy 1:15

Well, maybe – maybe not! It’s hard to imagine that a really bad guy could end up with the sacred portfolio Paul compiled before he met his maker. Jesus says as much in today’s Gospel:

A good tree does not bear rotten fruit,
nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit.
For every tree is known by its own fruit.

Luke 6:43-44

So let’s say Paul wasn’t really a “bad guy” before he got knocked off his Damascus-bound horse. Then what was he? The key word in Paul’s self-description is this: SINNER. Paul was a sinner.

Sinners are otherwise “good guys” who make bad choices for their spiritual lives. When those bad choices multiply and begin to feed on one another, the soul deteriorates like the rotten tree in Jesus’s image.

Jesus uses an additional metaphor to describe the process of continual spiritual conversion:

“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I command?
I will show you what someone is like who comes to me,
listens to my words, and acts on them.
That one is like a man building a house,
who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock;
when the flood came, the river burst against that house
but could not shake it because it had been well built.

Luke 6:46-48

We open our hearts to Mercy by these commitments to God’s Word in our daily spiritual life:

  • listening
  • acting
  • deepening

Integrity in these three spiritual practices requires dedicated prayer and reflection, a faithful “keeping” with the Word of God. As our Alleluia Verse assures us:

Alleluia, alleluia.
Whoever loves me will keep my Word,
and my Father will love them,
and we will come to them.

John 14:23

Poetry: [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] – e.e.cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Music: Remain in Me – Steve Angrisano

Her Joys and Her Sorrows

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

Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows
September 15, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091523.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, as we pray with Our Mother of Sorrows, we follow the liturgical cycle and return to Paul’s letter to Timothy for our first reading. However, we break from the cycle to honor Mary, Mother of Sorrows for our Gospel and Sequence.

What a solemn title this is for Mary! It is so much more comforting to think of her as the young, lively mother of Jesus, or the exuberant girl who happily visited her cousin Elizabeth.

But today, the Church remembers Mary’s suffering by which she intimately shared in Jesus’s redemption of the world.

At the cross her station keeping,
Stood the mournful Mother weeping,
Close to Jesus to the last.
Through her heart, his sorrow sharing,
All his bitter anguish bearing,
Now at length the sword had passed.

Mary’s life was full of both mind-blowing and heart-wrenching experiences!

  • Just imagine what it felt like to find an angel in one’s living room with an invitation to star in salvation history.
  • Imagine Mary’s pride, and perhaps frightened astonishment, at Cana when she tasted that “wine-formerly-known-as-water.”
  • Imagine how she fought the urge to slow Jesus down, to call him back to the comfort, safety and anonymity of their Nazareth home.
  • Imagine the utter bereavement of mind, heart, and spirit Mary suffered at the foot of the Cross.

Mary’s life was so full of joys and sorrows that there could be little in our lives she would not fully understand. Let’s be with her in prayer today, turning over our own blessings and difficulties with her – and those of our world – asking for her counsel and care.

Poetry: Mother of God – W. B. Yeats

The threefold terror of love; a fallen flare
Through the hollow of an ear;
Wings beating about the room;
The terror of all terrors that I bore
The Heavens in my womb.
Had I not found content among the shows
Every common woman knows,
Chimney corner, garden walk,
Or rocky cistern where we tread the clothes
And gather all the talk?
What is this flesh I purchased with my pains,
This fallen star my milk sustains,
This love that makes my heart’s blood stop
Or strikes a Sudden chill into my bones
And bids my hair stand up?

Music: Mary’s Heart – Danielle Rose

Oh Mary
Mother of Jesus
Give me your heart
That I might receive Jesus
Give me your heart
So beautiful, so pure
So immaculate, so full
Of love and humanity

Oh Mary
Mother of Jesus
Give me your heart
That I might receive Jesus
Give me your heart
To love him as you loved him
And serve him as you served him
In the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor

Oh Mary
Mother of Jesus
Give me your heart
That I might receive Jesus
In the bread of life
In the poorest of the poor
In distressing disguise
In Christ our Lord
In the bread of life
In the poorest of the poor
In distressing disguise
In Christ our Lord

Oh Mary
Mother of Jesus
Give me your heart
That I might receive Jesus
Jesus

We Adore You, O Christ

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

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
September 14, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 78 which commands us:

Do not forget the works of the Lord!

The psalm, in its entirety, is a recital of God’s faithfulness to Israel over time, culminating in the triumph of David/Jerusalem/Temple.

God chose David his servant,
took him from the sheepfolds.
From tending ewes God brought him,
to shepherd Jacob, the people,
Israel, God’s heritage.
He shepherded them with a pure heart;
with skilled hands he guided them.

Psalm 78: 70-73

David foreshadows Jesus, the Good Shepherd who not only tends the sheep but becomes the Lamb of God. Jesus completes our salvation by his death on the Cross. In him, the long journey of Psalm 78 is ultimately fulfilled.

Philippians’ exquisite hymn captures the profound nature of that fulfillment:

Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
    Rather, he emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    coming in human likeness;
    and found human in appearance,
    he humbled himself,
    becoming obedient to death,
    even death on a cross.

Philippians 2:5-8

Each of our lives reflects, in its own way, the salvation journey we find in scripture. We experience the same kind of twists and turns, highs and lows as those described in Psalm 78.

In each of these moments, we are held in the mystery of the Cross wherein Christ transforms all suffering to grace:

Because of this, God greatly exalted him
    and bestowed on him the name
    that is above every name,
    that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
    and every tongue confess that
    Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:9-11

Poetry: Good Friday – Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Am I a stone and not a sheep 
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath thy cross, 
To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss, 
And yet not weep?
Not so those women loved 
Who with exceeding grief lamented thee; 
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly; 
Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the sun and moon 
Which hid their faces in a starless sky, 
A horror of great darkness at broad noon— 
I, only I.
Yet give not o’er, 
But seek thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock; 
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more 
And smite a rock.

Music: Adoramus Te, Christe

Simplicity Yields Freedom

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
September 13, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091323.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Gospel gives us a quick and intense course in the upside-down, inside-out world of Jesus Christ. The course is known by various names:

  • the Blessings and Woes
  • the Sermon on the Plain
  • the “other” Beatitudes

But the passage might just as well be called, “The Loving Slap in the Face Wake-up Call”.

Picture it. The Twelve have just been commissioned by Jesus as his Apostles (refer to yesterday’s Gospel). I mean this is a big deal! They’ve passed the toughest job interview ever … to stand in for God in the world! They probably want to go home and tell their families, “Guess what! I have a new, fabulous job!”

But then Jesus gives them the orientation manual – the Blessings and Woes – and it’s shocking!

“Blessed are you who are poor,
for the Kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are now hungry,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude and insult you,
and denounce your name as evil
on account of the Son of Man.”

Really? This is what will make me successful in this new gig?

I am called to honor and accompany those who are poor, hungry, heartbroken, hated, excluded and insulted? THEY are the blessed, the “successful” in God’s estimation?

Like many of us, the Apostles may have thought success looked just the opposite – a lot of money, extravagant possessions, careless jocularity, universal adulation, and unquestioned consumption of common resources. You know. – a big boat, a lot of fish, an unconscious immunity from worrying about the poor, hungry guy outside the boatyard.

Jesus turns all of this upside-down and inside-out. He warns that excessive satisfaction with the world’s goods distracts us from true life in God. It hardens us against a loving compassion for one another. It weakens our capacity to receive the immense joy and freedom of life in the Spirit. Jesus calls us to a simplicity of heart that frees us to see and love God in ourselves and others.

As we proceed through Luke’s Gospel, Jesus continues to teach his apostles its contradictory truth. Eleven of the aspirants absorbed his words, transforming their life in a holy “inversion”. Only one, in the long run, proved resistant.

Where might we find ourselves if we stood among them?

Poetry: by C. Austin Miles

A little more kindness, a little less creed
A little more giving, a little less greed
A little more smile, a little less frown
A little less kicking, A man when he's down
A little more "we" a little less "I",
A little more laugh, a little less cry,
A little more flowers on the pathway of life
And fewer on graves at the end of the strife.

Music: A Simple Man – by Lynyrd Skynyrd

Rooted in God

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality2 Comments

Tuesday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
September 12, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091223.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we hear Paul’s beautiful encouragement to the Colossians to rejoice in their radical union with Christ. This unity, Paul points out, should be the cause for profound thanksgiving and steadfast fidelity.

The world against which Paul cautions his readers sounds similarly antagonistic as our own:

See to it that no one captivate you
with an empty, seductive philosophy
according to the tradition of men,
according to the elemental powers of the world
and not according to Christ.

Colossians 2:8

The command to “see to it” is a bit intimidating. Paul is saying, “It’s on you, buddy, to stay on course now that you have chosen Christ.” Well just how am I supposed to do that, Paul, in this messy world????

Paul doesn’t leave us simply to our own resources. He reminds us of this powerful truth:

You were buried with Christ in baptism,
in which you were also raised with him
through faith in the power of God,
who raised him from the dead.

Colossians 2:12

Through Baptism, and through living a Baptismal life, we have experienced our own Resurrection in Christ! We are no longer rooted in the destructible shell of this world. We are tethered to its heart which is the fullness of God.

For in Christ dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily,
and you share in this fullness in him,
who is the head of every principality and power.

Colossians 2:9-10

In North America, we are coming into the heart of hurricane season. Even if our neighborhood doesn’t suffer a direct hit, we often feel the powerful fringe effects of a passing storm. Some of our trees stand fast in such winds; some do not.

So it is with us who set out to follow Christ. If we forget our roots, failing to nourish them in the graces offered us, the winds will overcome us. And the overcoming doesn’t have to look as dramatic as a hurricane. It manifests itself in the small, constant choices for self rather than others – those tiny, debilitating acts of uncharity, indifference, judgementalism, gossip, and self-indulgence. These small branches, when they fall one after another from the tree, eventually leave it bare against the heavens.

Our Alleluia Verse reminds us that we, like the disciples in today’s Gospel, were not chosen to splinter in the wind, but to flourish in the grace of our call, bearing fruit toward eternity:

I chose you from the world,
that you may go and bear fruit that will last,
says the Lord.

John 15:16

Poetry: from Rumi

Everything you see 
has its roots in the unseen world. 
The forms may change, 
yet the essence remains the same. 
Every wonderful sight will vanish, 
every sweet word will fade, 
But do not be disheartened, 
The source they come from is eternal, growing, 
Branching out, giving new life and new joy. 
Why do you weep? 
The source is within you 
And this whole world is springing up from it.

Music: The Memory of Trees – Enya

September 11, 2023

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality2 Comments

Let us remember, heal, learn, choose, and act.

Remembering

Any of us over thirty years old remembers where we were on September 11, 2001. Like our elders who remember Pearl Harbor and President Kennedy’s assassination, current generations will always be marked by that infamous day.
Evil became visible that day. We saw its face in the terrorists.
We saw its deadly scars on 2,819 innocent people and their loved ones.
We have watched its echoes across a score of years that have become more vigilant and less trusting.
Besides the victims in the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, so much else died on September 11th. Innocence died; universal trust died; unconditional acceptance died. And with their loss, our national soul was put in jeopardy.

Healing
But within a few hours of the attacks, we saw the human spirit raise its head. Acts of
tremendous courage, love, support, and generosity became the new face of September 11th. A dormant patriotism was unfurled in millions of flags across America. Who will ever forget how KIND we became to one another when faced with the reality of one another’s loss.

Learning
And so, all indications to the contrary, we learn even from the darkest evil. Throughout history, good people have learned from bad things. Consider these magnanimous leaders:

The Holocaust:

In spite of everything, I still believe that people are truly good at heart….that
this cruelty too will end…

Anne Frank, who died in a Nazi concentration camp

War:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final
sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Forces, World War II

Institutionalized Slavery:

I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.

Harriet Tubman, formerly enslaved woman who navigated the ‘Underground Railroad

Choosing
What have we learned from September 11th and who will we choose to be as a result of our learning? All of us want a better world for ourselves and for our children. We want less fear and more trust. We want less struggle and more peace. We want less tension and more
freedom. What we want will never come to us unless we choose to live it into being.
Leading such change requires great bravery. Mahatma Gandhi said this, A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.

Acting
So, on this 22nd Commemoration of September 11th, let us be brave enough to change the world. Courage and kindness stand side by side because they both require self-sacrifice. As a way of healing and remembering, perhaps we could do one act of anonymous, unrewarded kindness.
Do it to make the world kinder, to contribute to a legacy for the future, to send a message that evil never triumphs, and to honor the lives that were lost on September 11, 2001.

Some ideas that won’t cost you much (from helpothers.org):

  • Treat someone to a cup of their favorite coffee
  • Pay the toll for the person behind you
  • Write a note of appreciation to someone
  • Smile from your heart when you meet people.
  • Greet others when you pass them.
  • Buy flowers for someone who is having a rough time.
  • Call someone who lost a friend or beloved recently
  • Leave a good book out for others.
  • Instead of following normal tipping etiquette, leave a little extra.
  • Be kind to someone who isn’t always kind to you.
  • Pay someone’s expired parking meter.
  • If you experience great service, compliment the worker and tell their manager.
  • Give sincere compliments whenever you can.
  • Leave the coupons you didn’t use at the register for someone else.
  • Spend time with people who might be lonely and just need to talk.

Holiness is Wholeness

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality2 Comments

Monday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
September 11, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091123.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings affirm this fundamental truth: God’s greatest desire for us is our wholeness.

Paul’s impassioned verses to the Colossians demonstrate how he suffered to assure their spiritual integrity:

Brothers and sisters:
I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake…
… in accordance with God’s stewardship given to me
to bring to completion for you the word of God,
the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past.

Colossians 4:24;28

False teachers are the cause of the suffering Paul describes. They are charismatic but ill-intentioned people who latch on to a good thing distorting it for their own purposes.

We are painfully familiar with these devious strategies in our own time. For example, good things such as the internet, artificial intelligence, and various drug therapies are discovered and introduced into our culture. These can enhance our lives but, sadly, can also be manipulated to victimize us.

It is profoundly sinful when religion and spirituality are perverted in this way. Yet that is what Paul contended with as he worked for the spread of the Gospel in Asia Minor.

We are not free of such false teachers in our day. For the sake of money, power, and political influence, counterfeit prophets and evangelists abound throughout history. Jesus encountered such duplicitous leaders in his ministry as well:

The scribes and the Pharisees watched Jesus closely
to see if he would cure on the sabbath
so that they might discover a reason to accuse him.
But he realized their intentions
and said to the man with the withered hand,
“Come up and stand before us.”

Luke 6:7-8

How do we avoid such entrapments that feed on our desire for honest spiritual fulfillment? Today’s Gospel offers a clue:

Then Jesus said to them,
“I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the sabbath
rather than to do evil,
to save life rather than to destroy it?”

Luke 6:9

Anything that inhibits or destroys the sacred life within us or others can never be of God. The Pharisees misinterpreted and misused the Law. They would have invoked “the sabbath” in order to leave this poor man crippled. But Jesus countermanded them, restoring the man’s right hand, and exposing them for the hypocrites they were.

Around our world today, how many spurious “laws” are promoted by those who profit from the constraint of others, or who feed their own egos by a controlling prejudice toward anyone different from themselves! How many prejudicial codes inhibit freedom and life for women, refugees, people of color, and those burdened by poverty, disability, or homophobia.

These vulnerable persons come before our prayerful consciousness today just as the man with the withered hand came before Jesus. How do we respond – like Jesus or like the self-deceived Pharisees? Or perhaps we respond somewhere indifferently in-between which is its own kind of sinfulness.

Prose: from Peter Wehner, Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum

The aggressive, disruptive, and unforgiving mindset
that characterizes so much of our politics
has found a home in many American churches.

When the Christian faith is politicized,
churches become repositories
not of grace but of grievances,
places where tribal identities are reinforced,
where fears are nurtured,
and where aggression and nastiness are sacralized.

Music:Take All the Lost Home – Joe Wise

Oops, slipped up a little!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality18 Comments

September 9, 2023

Good day, dear friends,

As you may have already discovered, I hit the wrong timing button for tomorrow’s (Sunday’s) reflection. So you have two reflections in your mailbox early today. Make sure you’re reading the one you want today and tomorrow. Sorry about that!

While I have you here for a minute, I wanted to let you know that Lavish Mercy passed a half million views last week. Also last week, I posted my 2000th reflection. Thanks so much to all of you for your support over these five years of Lavish Mercy. As a little “Thank You”, here’s a re-post of a September reflection for this beautiful Saturday.

Beautiful September

Being a long-ago teacher, I have always loved September.  It is the sense of new beginning that accompanies these crisp, blue and golden days. 

Remember the fresh batch of school supplies you got every year: 

  • that marble copybook that invited you to a heightened level of neatness (perhaps never achieved !)? 
  • that perfectly compact and complete pencil box with the little sharpener on the end, promising you clear and accurate answers?
  • that un-smudged and malleable soap eraser that would redeem you from any mistake? 
  • and that wonderful box of fresh crayons, each standing at attention, ready to translate your genius into a rainbow of creativity?

What a gift it is in life to be given the opportunity for a new beginning.  Every one of us has grown richer in our hearts by both giving and receiving these opportunities.  Every act of inclusion, forgiveness, encouragement, mentoring and graciousness we have given or received has brought a new dawn to our spirits. 

We see so much violence, hatred and meanness in our world. We all mourn its ugly reappearance unrelentingly in the evening news, especially the lives lost of those who hungered for peace. But we must never allow ourselves to be poisoned or diminished by evil. Good will always overcome evil.

How wise it was of the Universal Spirit to give us both day and night.  Their dance of light and dark is a daily reminder to us that with the evening comes refreshment and with the morning renewed joy.  Every day, the Great Hand of Mercy reaches down into our darkness and lifts us up into the drenching light of hope. Do we ever take a moment to let ourselves be awed by that gift? 

Every day is a new box of crayons!  Every day, we can give and receive the chance to start fresh!  How do I want to color my world differently today?  What do I want to outline more clearly in my life?  What gaps in my life are longing to be filled in with the rainbow of my creativity, courage and love? How will I blend the shades of peace into the world around me?

A beautiful verse from the Hebrew Scriptures puts it this way:  

God’s mercies are renewed each morning, 
so great is His faithfulness.

Let yourself bask in that promise, especially in this golden September. It will renew your hope and strength.

Music: by the way, September is Classical Music Month! Here’s one of my favorites.

Loving Dissuasion

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spiritualityLeave a comment

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

September 10, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091023.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 95, a favorite of liturgists, and one we have met several times before. What different light might it offer us today as we pray?

The psalm today serves as a bridge between powerful readings about neighborly love and fraternal correction. These readings tell us to listen for God’s heartbeat in our world and to enter its rhythm.

They also tell us to love our neighbor enough that, if she or he is out of synch with God’s rhythm, we help align them by our counsel and example.

Have you ever tried to do that? It’s really tough!

First of all, we have to be so vigilant about the purity of our own intentions. We can’t instruct our friends in righteousness out of our own confusion. So often, our desire for others to “improve” grows out of our opinionated self-interest. You might remember what Jesus said about extracting the plank from our own eye before removing the splinter from our neighbor’s!

Next we really have to love our sister or brother and sincerely want their good. We have to forgive them any hurt they have caused us. We have to be bigger than most of us, speaking for myself, are inclined to be.

As the psalm tells us, we can’t have hard hearts. As we approach our sister or brother, our hearts must be softened by listening, patience, understanding, humility and hope. We have to be sure the “voice” we’re sharing comes from God not self.

Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.

And the flip of all this, of course, is that when we are the one out of rhythm, we receive loving correction in the same spirit of openness.

Lots of Grace is needed on both sides of this dance! May we learn and receive it!

Poetry: The Gift by Li-Young Lee

To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he’d removed
the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.

I can’t remember the tale,
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.

Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy’s palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife’s right hand.

Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he’s given something to keep.
I kissed my father.

Music: Let Me Hear Your Voice – Francesca LaRose

Lord of the Sabbath

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Peter Claver, Priest

September 9, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090923.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings reveal the freedom that comes with living in the Holy Spirit.

Paul tells his listeners, “You were once alienated and hostile … but God has reconciled you … in the hope of the Gospel.”

The passage doesn’t specify what the Colossians were “alienated and hostile” about, but one can hazard a guess. They had been struggling to find spiritual meaning in a delusive culture. I think we know how they felt!

Paul writes that we have been reconciled – re-balanced – in the death of Christ. What does that mean?

God has now reconciled you
in the fleshly Body of Christ through his death,
to present you holy, without blemish,
and irreproachable before him,
provided that you persevere in the faith,
firmly grounded, stable,
and not shifting from the hope of the Gospel that you heard,

Our Alleluia Verse offers an answer:

I am the way and the truth and the life, says the Lord;
no one comes to the Father except through me.

In our daily lives, we can get so mixed up about which way to go, what is the truth, and what gives us life.

Commercial voices tell us the “way” to happiness is to have more of everything, that we will never have all we need, and that our possessions are the measure of our value.

Political voices often tell us a “truth” adapted to their own agendas.

Our socio-economic constructs allow us to value some “lives” over others by draining and directing resources from the powerless to the powerful.

Even our religious hierarchies can manipulate “law” so that it becomes self-serving rather than life-giving.

Jesus confronts this kind of fallacy in today’s Gospel. The Pharisees thrived on a self-advancing manipulation of the Law. They used the Law as a means to control the social complex to their economic and political advantage.

Jesus tells them the “law” is meaningless if it no longer embodies the spirit. He references David who, on his good days, lived in genuine and direct relationship with God:

Have you not read what David did
when he and those who were with him were hungry?
How he went into the house of God, took the bread of offering,
which only the priests could lawfully eat,
ate of it, and shared it with his companions?”
Then he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.”

Our readings assure us that through our faithful Gospel lives we will find sacred reconciliation in God.

…. provided that you persevere in the faith,
firmly grounded, stable,
and not shifting from the hope of the Gospel that you heard ..

Poetry: excerpt from “The Great Wagon” by Rumi

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

Music: Deep Peace – Elaine Hagenberg