Tag: 1 John

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

Let Me Go Now

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Christmastide, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, spiritualityLeave a comment

The Fifth Day in the Octave of Christmas
December 29, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122923.cfm

Lk2_29 Nunc

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy,  our first reading offers us John’s perfect honesty and simplicity:

Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commandments
is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
But whoever keeps his word,
the love of God is truly perfected in him.
This is the way we may know that we are in union with him:
whoever claims to abide in him ought to walk just as he walked.

1 John 1:3-6

Yes, it’s that simple and that hard!

Then, in our Gospel, we meet Simeon who speaks with the holy confidence of a long and well-lived life. His lifelong dream was that he might not die before seeing the Messiah. That dream now fulfilled, Simeon intones one of the most beautiful prayers in Scripture, the Nunc Dimittis:

Lord, now let your servant go in peace;
your word has been fulfilled:
my own eyes have seen the salvation
which you prepared in the sight of every people,
a light to reveal you to the nations
and the glory of your people Israel.

Luke 2:29-32

If we live in the Light, we too will see the Messiah within our life’s experiences. We too will come to our final days confident and blessed by that enduring recognition.

For as John also assures us:

Whoever says he is in the light,
yet hates his brother or sister is still in the darkness.
But whoever loves his brother and sister remains in the light …

1 John 1:9-10

Let’s pray today for those who are dying, that they may know this kind of peace.

Let us pray for ourselves, that when our time comes, we too may experience this confidence.

Poetry: Song Silence By Madeleva Wolff, CSC
 
Yes, I shall take this quiet house and keep it
With kindled hearth and candle-lighted board,
In singing silence garnish it and sweep it
                For Christ, my Lord.
 
My heart is filled with little songs to sing Him—
I dream them into words with careful art—
But this I think a better gift to bring Him,
                Nearer his heart.
 
The foxes have their holes, the wise, the clever;
The birds have each a safe and secret nest;
But He, my lover, walks the world with never
A place to rest.
 
I found Him once upon a straw bed lying;
(Once on His mother’s heart He laid His head)
He had a bramble pillow for His dying,
A stone when dead.
 
I think to leave off singing for this reason,
Taking instead my Lord God’s house to keep,
Where He may find a home in every season
                To wake, to sleep.
 
Do you not think that in this holy sweetness
Of silence shared with God a whole lifelong
Both he and I shall find divine completeness
                Of perfect song?

Music:  Nyne Otpushchayeshi ~Sergei Rachmaninoff (translated Nunc Dimittis, Now Let Your Servant Go). This was sung at Rachmaninoff’s funeral, at his prior request. (For musicians among you, point of interest: Nunc dimittis (Nyne otpushchayeshi), has gained notoriety for its ending in which the low basses must negotiate a descending scale that ends with a low B-flat (the third B-flat below middle C).

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9DrTo6PsjCI%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26fs%3D1%26hl%3Den%26autohide%3D2%26wmode%3Dtransparent

Church Slavonic text
Ныне отпущаеши раба Твоего,
Владыко, по глаголу Твоему, с миром;
яко видеста очи мои спасение Твое,
еже еси уготовал,
пред лицем всех людей,
свет во откровение языков
и славу людей Твоих Израиля

English translation
Now let Your servant depart in peace,
Lord, by Your word;
My eyes have seen Your salvation,
Which You have prepared,
In view of all the people,
A light revealed to all tongues
and to the glory of Your people, Israel

John, the Lover

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

Feast of Saint John, Apostle and evangelist
December 27, 2023

Today’s readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122723.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we begin a three-week immersion in John’s magnificent first letter. At the same time, our Gospels will take us on a somewhat random journey with Jesus through his very early years.

Today’s Gospel, however, differs from the expected pattern and – yes, right here in the Christmas season – gives us an account of the Resurrection!

Early in the morning, on the first day of the week,
Mary Magdalene ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we do not know where they put him.”
So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his head,
not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.

John 20: 1-8

Did somebody get mixed up? Did someone think it was the Octave of Easter, not Christmas! No, of course not. I think the choice of this Gospel, at this point in the Liturgical Year, serves at least two purposes:

  • From the start of Christ’s life, it establishes how his days will end. Therefore, throughout the ensuing year, we are to read and interpret all of the Gospel in the glorious light of the Resurrection.
  • Placing this Gospel here, to accompany our first reading, clarifies exactly who John is — the one who indeed saw, heard, and touched the Word of God made visible in Jesus Christ and therefore is eminently qualified to testify to Christ.

Beloved:
What was from the beginning,
what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes,
what we looked upon
and touched with our hands
concerns the Word of life —
for the life was made visible;
we have seen it and testify to it
and proclaim to you the eternal life
that was with the Father and was made visible to us—

1 John 1:1-2

One very popular form of both fiction and non-fiction is the love letter. Some of the most wonderful books are in the genre. Three of my favorites fit the category:

  • 84, Charing Cross Road – Helene Hanff
  • The Love Letters – Madeleine L’Engle
  • A Green Journey – John Hassler

Reading such literature evokes a reverence for the lives we touch in the gathered words. We read what is said and imagine what is unsaid. We witness the depth of another’s self-donation and we ponder our own capacity for such a gift.

In 1 John, we are granted the privilege of reading John’s love letters to his God and to his community. John’s love is profoundly deep yet simply expressed. We might tend to skip through his rich but clipped phrases. But to truly plumb them requires us to suspend time and rest with his words until they open in us like flowers in sunlight.

Poetry: The Living Word – Herman Hesse

The sun speaks to us through light.
Flowers give voice to fragrance and colour.
The air communes through clouds, snow, and rain.
From the sacred center of the world
streams forth an irrepressible desire
to overcome the silence between things.
Art, the ever flowing fountain, reveals
the secret of life through word and gesture, colour and sound.

The world wants to be known to spirit
and find expression for timeless wisdom.
All life longs for a language.
Deep intuitions wish to surface,
find words and numbers, lines and tones,
always evolving forms of understanding.

The red and blue of flowers
and the verses of the poet
point to the inner workings of creation,
always pregnant with beginning and never-ending.
When word and sound marry,
where songs soar and art unfolds
all life is brimmed again with spirit.
And every melody and book
and every painting is a revelation,
is another fresh attempt
to unfold the harmony of life.
Poetry and music invite you
to understand the splendors of creation.
A look into a mirror will confirm it.
What disturbs us often as disjointed
becomes clear and simple in a poem:
Flowers start laughing, the clouds release their rain,
the world regains its soul, and silence speaks.

Music: Love Letter – Anthony Nelson

The Image of God

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Discipleship, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, spiritualityLeave a comment

Christmas Weekday
January 3, 2023

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010323.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with John’s soul-stirring words:

1 jn 3_ 2

Beloved, we are God’s children …

When I pray these words I think of my mother. As a little child, I already bore a clear physical likeness to her. But as I grew into a young woman, and later an older woman, people remarked that we looked like twins. There were even occasions when we were confused with each other.

This visible resemblance gave me great pride. My mother was strong, courageous, funny, wise, and fiercely loving. I loved to hear the phrase, “Oh my, you are the image of your mother!” I wanted to be like her – made of the same stuff as she was.

In our reading today, John tells us that we are made of the very stuff of God – the essence of the Sacred. He suggests that when people look at us they should see God’s features written all over us.

See what love the Creator has bestowed on us
that we may be called the children of God.
Yet so we are.

1 John 2:30

John says that we should see this Divine familial likeness in one another – that we are each imprinted with our Creator’s image.

The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Beloved, we are God’s children now;
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.

1 John 2:31

If we believe John’s words, what tenderness we would bear toward ourselves and others! How could we ever belittle, hate or kill one another? How could we ever do these things to ourselves?

In our Gospel, the great prophet John the Baptist sees the imminent transformation of the world coming toward him in the person of Jesus Christ. May we see this too as, by our sincere prayer and study of the scriptures, the Light of Christmas waxes in our hearts throughout 2023. In that Loving Light, we recognize one another clearly as beloved children of God.

John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said,
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
…..
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 1:29-34

Poetry: I Am the Light – Malcolm Guite 

I see your world in light that shines behind me,
Lit by a sun whose rays I cannot see,
The smallest gleam of light still seems to find me
Or find the child who’s hiding deep inside me.
I see your light reflected in the water,
Or kindled suddenly in someone’s eyes,
It shimmers through the living leaves of summer,
Or spills from silver veins in leaden skies,
It gathers in the candles at our vespers
It concentrates in tiny drops of dew
At times it sings for joy, at times it whispers,
But all the time it calls me back to you.
I follow you upstream through this dark night
My savior, source, and spring, my life and light.

Music: How Can Anyone Ever Tell You – Shaina Knoll

Often, when I think of Christ on the Cross, I can hear God the Mother singing this song to Jesus, reaching from heaven to console Him in His pain.

This morning, we might ask God to sing this song over our wounded world which has so obscured God’s likeness – perhaps to sing it over us if we are in particular pain.

In our heart’s deep forgiveness, we might sing this song over anyone who has hurt us – the meanness coming from their failure to recognize their own beauty – the fact that they and we are the very image of our loving God.

Life’s Curriculum of Faith

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Conversion, Faith, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen,
Bishops and Doctors of the Church
January 2, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/memorial-saints-basil-great-and-gregory-nazianzen-bishops-and-doctors-church

1Jn2_24 beginning

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we continue to relish John’s eloquent first letter in which he heartily instructs us in the life of Christian love and fidelity.

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. 

1 John 2:24-26

John has written this letter out of concern about false teachings that are cropping up in the early Church. Misguided “prophets” are placing distorted interpretations on the pure, original message of the Gospel.

Human beings have never stopped doing that, have we? Down through the centuries, how many heresies and misinterpretations have tried to weave their confusion into the Gospel’s central, inviolable thread? How many charlatans, purposefully or ignorantly, have confused people with their bogus religious interpretations.

Has it happened to our own faith? Have we lost the crisp, clear power of our foundational belief? Have we been hijacked into a “faith” or religious practice that ultimately contradicts the Gospel?

It can happen easily in a society where truth is manipulated for purposes of politics, power, and economics. How can we work to avoid it?

John tells us to hold fast to the core teaching of the Gospel.

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: 27

This is the faith that many of us learned as children from devout parents and teachers. It is a faith that continues to evolve through scriptural prayer and meditation, through openness to theological wisdom, through the holy dialogue of the beloved community.

It is a living faith, stretched and tested by our daily choices for true Christian love for all people, especially the poor, sick and marginalized.

Ultimately, it is a faith rooted in the Cross and transformed by the Resurrection.

Over these next few weeks, let us listen carefully to John as he guides us to the depth of this faith.

Poetry: A Thanksgiving – St. John Henry Newman

The faith-journey of John Henry Newman has always inspired me. Born in 1801, he was an English theologian, academic, intellectual, philosopher, polymath, historian, writer, scholar and poet, first as an Anglican priest and later as a Catholic priest and cardinal. He was an important and controversial figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century. St. John Henry Newman was canonized as a saint in the Catholic Church in 2019.

As a young nun, when I thought faith was largely an intellectual pursuit, I was caught up in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua (Latin: A defense of one’s own life). The essay is a defense of his religious opinions, published in 1864 in response to Charles Kingsley of the Church of England after Newman quit his position as the Anglican vicar of St. Mary’s, Oxford.

Newman also wrote poetry. “A Thanksgiving” traces the unfolding gift and struggle of Newman’s faith journey.

Lord, in this dust Thy sovereign voice
      First quicken’d love divine;
I am all Thine, Thy care and choice,
      My very praise is Thine.
 
I praise Thee, while Thy providence
      In childhood frail I trace,
For blessings given, ere dawning sense
      Could seek or scan Thy grace;
 
Blessings in boyhood’s marvelling hour,
      Bright dreams, and fancyings strange;
Blessings, when reason’s awful power
      Gave thought a bolder range;
 
Blessings of friends, which to my door
      Unask’d, unhoped, have come;
And, choicer still, a countless store
      Of eager smiles at home.
 
Yet, Lord, in memory’s fondest place
      I shrine those seasons sad,
When, looking up, I saw Thy face
      In kind austereness clad.
 
I would not miss one sigh or tear,
      Heart-pang, or throbbing brow;
Sweet was the chastisement severe,
      And sweet its memory now.
 
Yes! let the fragrant scars abide,
      Love-tokens in Thy stead,
Faint shadows of the spear-pierced side
      And thorn-encompass’d head.
 
And such Thy tender force be still,
      When self would swerve or stray,
Shaping to truth the froward will
      Along Thy narrow way.
 
Deny me wealth; far, far remove
      The lure of power or name;
Hope thrives in straits, in weakness love,
      And faith in this world’s shame.

Music: some gentle meditation music for your prayer with John:

Herb Ernst – Song of the Inner Child

https://youtube.com/watch?v=tENEJpSqo-0%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26fs%3D1%26hl%3Den%26autohide%3D2%26wmode%3Dtransparent

Joy Complete

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, joy, spirituality4 Comments

January 8, 2022
Saturday after Epiphany

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings offer us a theme of CONFIDENCE with a dash of JOY.

John begins with the reassuring verse:

From the Latin root meaning “to have full trust”, confidence is a rare and beautiful blessing in our lives. How many people or things are you able to trust that deeply? Are you blessed with a true confidant in your life?

John tells us that this is the kind of relationship we can and should have with God.

He says that when we pray with this confidence, we trust whatever answer we receive to bring us grace and life.

Behold the Lamb of God – William Hatherell, from wiki gallery

In our Gospel, John the Baptist’s followers are having a little trouble with their confidence. They are unsettled by the appearance and rising popularity of Jesus. John says to trust what is happening. He had already told them that a greater One would come after him.

John’s ultimate response is worth repeating in prayer, “So this joy of mine has been made complete. He must increase; I must decrease.”

When Christ shines through us
without hindrance of our pride or fears,
how complete our joy will be,
how profoundly rooted our confidence!

Poetry: JOHN THE BAPTIST: THE PASSOVER (JOHN 1:35–39) by Irene Zimmerman, OSF

For years he’d preached the coming was at hand.
Now John saw Jesus walking on the strand.
“Behold the Lamb of God!” he called, and sent
his own disciples hurrying. They went,
filling Jesus’ footprints in the sand
faster than the water could. John stayed and poured
the river on the people and passed them over to his Lord.

Zimmerman, Irene. Incarnation (p. 42). Cowley Publications. Kindle Edition.

Music: Jesu, Joy of Our Desiring – J.S. Bach (interpreted by Daniel Kobialka)

With Open Arms

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

Friday, January 7, 2022
Friday after Epiphany

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, John and Jesus continue to teach us.

In our first reading, we hear John preaching to a community that has become confused. Some have begun to doubt and to teach a watered-down version of Christ and the Gospel.

John convinces his community, and us, that we are invited into God’s own life through Baptism, the Paschal-Eucharistic Mystery, and through the Holy Spirit. This is the truth of Jesus Christ which we embrace by a faithful life.

This is the one who came through water and Blood, Jesus Christ,
not by water alone, but by water and Blood. 
The Spirit is the one who testifies,
and the Spirit is truth. 
So there are three who testify,
the Spirit, the water, and the Blood, 
and the three are of one accord. 

1 John 5:6

In our Gospel, Jesus shows us how to live that faithful life – through loving, generous service such as he models.

Jesus cleans the leper, Mosaic detail, 12thC,
Cathedral of the Assumption, Monreale, Sicily

A pitiable leper interrupts Jesus on his journey to ask for help. People like this man were scorned, feared, and isolated. Their leprosy impoverished them, making them annoying beggars. Their cries usually met with indifference at best and banishment at worst.

But when this leper poses his proposal to Jesus – “If you want to, you can heal me.” — Jesus gives the spontaneous answer of a true, merciful heart: “Of course I want to!” He responds with open arms and open heart.

Greek rendering of phrase “Of course I do!”

There is no annoyance, no suggestion that other concerns are more important. There is just the confirmation that – Yes- this is the purpose of my life: to heal, love, show mercy toward whatever suffering is in my power to touch. There is just the clear message that “You, too, poor broken leper, are Beloved of God.”

What an example and call Jesus gives us today! We are commissioned to continue this merciful touch of Christ along the path of our own lives. When circumstances offer us the opportunity to be Mercy for another, may we too respond with enthusiasm, “Of course I want to!” May we have the eyes to see through any “leprosy” to find the Beloved of God.

Prose: Mother Teresa – from In the Heart of the World: Thoughts, Stories and Prayers

Seeking the face of God
in everything, everyone, all the time, 
and his hand in every happening; 
This is what it means to be contemplative 
in the heart of the world. 
Seeing and adoring the presence of Jesus, 
especially in the lowly appearance of bread, 
and in the distressing disguise of the poor.

Music: Compassion Hymn – Kristyn and Keith Getty

Lovers or Liars

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

January 6, 2022
Thursday after Epiphany

Today’s Readings

I know: the title sounds like a new TV series, doesn’t it?
But it’s not. It’s a story as old as time!

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, John talks about liars. He made me really think.

Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire!

When I was a kid going to weekly Saturday night confession (yes, remember a lot of us did that!) I really had to scrape to get a decent pile of sins. I mean, honestly, how much evil can one eight-year-old generate in a week?

  • But lying was always a good fallback to report on. You know the deal:
  • I told my teacher that I forgot my homework when I really hadn’t done it.
  • I told Petey Nicolo I could beat him up when I knew I couldn’t.
  • I told Chickie Schmidt I could ride a big bike like hers when I had actually just fallen on my face off a smaller one.
  • I told Sister I wasn’t smoking in the girls’ room when my very own cousin Joanie threw me under the bus!

As you can see, I was your normal childhood compulsive liar – pretending to be and do lots of things I only wished I could be or do. But that’s just part of growing up. Like most people, I got over it when I began to realize the power and necessity of growing confidently into one’s true self.

People depend on us to be who we really are, to be the real deal. The value of our work and contributions to the world hinges on this. The depth and endurance of our relationships rest on such transparency and authenticity. Even our ability to love ourselves is rooted in honest self-awareness.

So how do we deepen in that kind of truthfulness, especially in a modern culture that so often abuses it? John tells us that love is the way:

Beloved, we love God because
God first loved us.
If anyone says, “I love God,”
but hates their brother or sister , they are liars;
for whoever does not love the one they can see
cannot love God whom they have not seen.
This is the commandment we have from God:
Whoever loves God must also love their sister and brother.

1 John 4:19-21

Friends, we live in a culture drowning in lies. Some have come to believe that unless one lies, one cannot compete. Businesses lie to sell untested or worthless commodities. Manufacturers veil the danger of their drugs, tobacco and vaping products. Politicians lie to condemn their opponents and excuse themselves. Leaders lie to justify war. And criminals lie to hide their crimes.

These liars may never even consider that their tangled lives are related to the scriptures. But every one of these deceptions is fueled by a failure in reverence and love for our sisters and brothers, by a failure in courage to be responsible for and love one another.

We lie because we think our truth is not enough.
John tells us differently.
Our awesome Truth is that we all are God’s children!
And that is not only enough–it is EVERYTHING!

Our reading closes today with these words, so critical to the rebuilding of a truthful world:

In this way we know that we love the children of God
when we love God and obey the commandments.
For the love of God is this,
that we keep the commandments.
These are not burdensome,
for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world.
And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.

1 John 5:2-4

Let’s pray for one another’s courage, dear Friends,
to be and demand the Truth that Love requires.

Prose: from “Man’s Universe” by Rabindranath Tagore

On the surface of our being 
we have the ever-changing phases of the individual self, 
but in the depth there dwells 
the Eternal Spirit of human unity beyond our direct knowledge. 
It very often contradicts the trivialities of our daily life 
and upsets the arrangements made for securing our personal exclusiveness 
behind the walls of individual habits and superficial conventions. 
It inspires in us works that are the expressions of a Universal Spirit; 
it invokes unexpectedly in the midst of a self-centered life a supreme sacrifice. 
At its call, we hasten to dedicate our lives to the cause of truth and beauty, 
to unrewarded service of others.

Music: True Heart – Oak Ridge Boys

Often, I use a popular song for prayer, allowing its words to speak to God for me.
You might like to try it with this song. No doubt intended as a human love song, it can be a divine love song too – and it’s sure a good wake up prayer 🙂

Making money they can hide away.
They never know what they’re working for.
All they think about is making more.
And every time the world spins round
There’s a few more hearts that can’t be found
‘Cause they never had nothing to hold on to
The way that I’m holding you.
All ever need is your true heart
Next to me when it’s cold and dark.
All I need to keep from falling apart
Is the beat of your true heart.
Some people spend day and night
Trying to love everybody in sight
They never know what love is for
All they think about is keeping the score.
And every time the world spins round
There’s a few more hearts that can’t be found
‘Cause they never had nothing to hold on to
The way that I’m holding you.
All ever need is your true heart
Next to me when it’s cold and dark.
All I need to keep from falling apart
Is the beat of your true heart.
Your true heart.
No they never had nothing to hold on to
The way that I’m holding you.
All ever need is your true heart
Next to me when it’s cold and dark.
All I need to keep from falling apart
Is the beat of your true heart.
All ever need is your true heart
Next to me when it’s cold and dark.
All I need to keep from falling apart
Is the beat of your true heart.
All ever need is your true heart
Next to me when it’s cold and dark.
All I need to keep from falling apart
Is the beat of your true heart.

The Miracle is Love

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Love, Mercy, spirituality2 Comments

January 4, 2022
Memorial of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Religious

Today’s Readings


Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings are full of surprises for Jesus’s new followers and for us.  

Jesus begins to reveal what his Presence among us is all about. The message is this: I am here for the poor, hungry, sick and abandoned:

The Lord has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor
and to proclaim liberty to captives.

Luke 4:18

And Jesus wants us to be like him.

In our first reading, John makes that sound so simple:

Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.

1 John 4:8

Someone might read that line and think, “OK! I can do that! I love lots of people and things. I know how to love.” 

But then our Gospel suggests that maybe we, like the disciples, have a lot to learn about how God loves. Mark shows us that Jesus is living a new kind of love.

Imagine the situation. John the Baptist has been murdered. The new disciples are returning from their first “apostolic gig”. They, and probably Jesus, are shocked, saddened and tired. Jesus recognizes this and tells them:

“Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” 

Multiplication of the Loaves – Michael Wolgemut

But instead the hungry crowds followed them, their needs intruding on the deserved and desired solitude. The disciples sound a little annoyed in their practicality:

By now it was already late and his disciples approached him and said,
“This is a deserted place and it is already very late. 
Dismiss them so that they can go 
to the surrounding farms and villages
and buy themselves something to eat.” 

Mark 6: 35-36

But when Jesus saw the crowd, his response was not annoyance or practicality.

When Jesus saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd…

Mark 6:34

In the Greek translation, the word for “moved with pity” is “ἐσπλαγχνίσθη” (Esplanchnisthē) – “splancha”

“Splancha”, in my mind, says that the heart of Jesus ”rumbled with mercy”; that he was so shaken to his roots with compassion that he pulled heaven down in a miracle to feed these people who were hungry at every level of their being.

The crowds, and indeed the disciples, are surprised not just by the cataract of fish and bread. But they are even more deeply astounded at this astounding demonstration of how God loves – with impractical, unlimited, immediate, miraculous generosity!

The lesson for us? Just as the disciples were commissioned to distribute the basketsful of miracles, we are charged to carry God’s mercy in our time.

Through the grace of Baptism, we have it within us to be the agent of miracles – the power to let God love through us. As John encourages us:

Beloved, let us love one another,
    because love is of God;
    everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.

1 John 4:7

Poetry: Miracles by Robert William Service

Each time that I switch on the light
A Miracle it seems to me
That I should rediscover sight
And banish dark so utterly.
One moment I am bleakly blind,
The next–exultant life I find.
Below the sable of the sky
My eyelids double darkness make.
Sleep is divine, yet oh how I
Am glad with wonder to awake!
To welcome, glimmery and wan
The mighty Miracle of Dawn.
For I’ve mad moments when I seem,
With all the marvel of a child,
To dwell within a world of dream,
To sober fact unreconciled.
Each simple act has struck me thus–
Incredibly miraculous.
When everything I see and do
So magical can seem to me,
How vain it is to seek the True,
The riddle of Reality . . .
So let me with joy lyrical
Proclaim all Life a Miracle.

Music: Beloved, Let Us Love One Another – a perky encouragement for your prayer 🙂

Begin Again…

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

January 3, 2022
Monday after Epiphany

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, in this week after the Epiphany, we continue with John’s inspirational readings. They are intended to deepen us in love, truth and simplicity.

And we also have several Gospels this week that take us with Jesus as he begins his public ministry.

Today’s Gospel opens with a tinge of sadness. Jesus has just heard that John had been arrested. Reality dawns on them both that theirs will be no easy missionary journey. Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if these cousins could have teamed up, gone about preaching unhindered by the fears and bullying of the powerful?

But a free and easy story is not the one God chose to tell us, because our own stories are not always free and easy. Some, yes, more so than others. But all people suffer in some way and we all need a God who understands and shares that suffering.

So, “hearing that John had been arrested”, Jesus bravely begins. He goes to the Capernaum lakeshore where the common people gather to refresh themselves. He will find them hungry, confused, sinful, questioning, bereft, and battered. And he will begin by feeding and soothing them.

Where would Jesus begin with you? If you sat along that seashore in those first days, what would you lay before his tender mercy? Perhaps the need does not belong precisely to you, but to someone you love, someone who needs love in a harsh world.

Photo by Taryn Elliott on Pexels.com

Picture yourself there this morning. The sun begins to warm the salty edges of the sea. The crowd is large but quiet, as if they think themselves in church. Jesus looks out over all the gathered. But for one moment, his eyes meet yours, and that moment is enough to begin.

Poetry: To the Sea of Galilee – Benjamin Waugh (1839-1908)
(It’s not a great voice of literature, but I think this little poem is charming.)

O PEARL of seas! how fairly set, thou lovely Galilee!
Well may all waters of the world for beauty envy thee.

For more than beauty! On thy shores heaven’s purest feet have trod;
And in thy face, as now yon sun, was mirrored once my God.

He loved to walk with thee beside; He gazed into thy face; 5
Thy troubled moods He calmed for thee; thou seem’st His child of grace.

But yet why envy thee, fair sea, by Jesus favoured thus?
Far more than He hath favoured thee hath Jesus favoured us.

Not for thy waters Jesus came His precious work to do;
’Twas not to give thy troubles peace that Him from glory drew. 10

Thine was a brief, a passing joy, as transient as thy flowers;
Thy side He left, and went away—He never leaveth ours.

Yet, sea of seas, I envy thee, thou small, but greatest deep
For on thy bosom Jesus found the place where He might sleep.

His weary frame, His heavy heart were pillowed on thy breast. 15
As John on Him, so He on thee found place where He might rest.

Jesus, if thou, by work or wrong, should’st sad or weary be,
Come seek within my heart the place once found on Galilee.

Music: Lord, You Have Come to the Seashore