Tag: bible

Don’t Be Confused

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Courage, Gospel, Jesus, justice, spirituality5 Comments

April 16, 2026

When political reality invades my prayer, I am moved to speak.

Yesterday, in an AP report from Bill Barrow and Emilie Megnien, I read:

A day before coming to Georgia, Vance tried to laugh off the meme (of Trump as Christ) as a joke that “a lot of people weren’t understanding.” The vice president also seemed to echo Trump’s assertion that Leo should concentrate less on global affairs.

“It would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what’s going on in the Catholic church and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy,” Vance said in a Fox News interview.

AP reporters BILL BARROW and EMILIE MEGNIEN
Updated Wed, April 15, 2026 at 12:03 AM EDT

————

Each night before retiring, I prepare for the next morning’s meditation by reading the assigned scriptures. But too often, the noise of the day intrudes. Last night was one of those nights. Instead of stillness, my thoughts were preoccupied by this deeply disturbing report on Mr. Vance that echoes earlier comments by Mr. Trump.

I also drifted back to a seemingly inconsequential clip from the 6:00 PM news. A reporter had stopped a woman on the street and asked her opinion about the latest clash between the President and the Pope.

“It’s unfortunate,” she said. “I think the church should stay out of politics.”

However casual and uninformed, her answer lingered into my late evening. Beneath it lies a confusion that is anything but casual: the failure to distinguish between politics and morality. Hearing her, motivated me to examine my own conscience with this prayer:

Dear God, don’t let me be confused.

  • Help me see clearly the difference between politics and morality, yet their critical interdependence.
  • Let me honor and attend to the Pope as he courageously calls us to moral honesty.
  • Let me have the personal courage to name the moral corruption consuming our current politics.
  • Let me have the clarity to look beyond confusing, political explanations to see the greed, hatred, and moral weakness infesting our public life.
  • Let me not question the Pope’s mischaracterized “politics” as he raises a moral voice for the innocent, for the likes of those little school girls massacred with the click of a distant computer button.
  • Let me not characterize Pope Leo’s challenge as an unqualified intrusion but as a beacon of truth in a cacophony of self-serving excuses and outright lies.
  • Deliver me from the audacious ignorance that would condemn the Pope’s theology with the apparent limitations of my own subjective vainglorious creed.
  • Let me not doubt that when the destruction of a civilization is threatened, the Pope is impelled to speak, that he is inspirited to lead when other leadership so ignominiously fails.

Perhaps it was coincidence, or perhaps not, that the scripture readings for this week echo the same tension. The apostles, proclaiming the truth, are challenged and condemned by pharisaical politicians. Christ himself is rejected, not for lack of authority, but for the discomfort of what he reveals.

It has always been easier to label truth as disruptive than to respond to it.

So the question is not whether the Church should “enter politics.” The question is whether we are willing to hear a moral voice at all.

May we have the clarity—and the courage—to answer Pope Leo’s prophetic call.

Forgiveness

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

Thursday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
November 14, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111424.cfm

Beloved:
I have experienced much joy and encouragement from your love,
because the hearts of the holy ones
have been refreshed by you, brother.
Therefore, although I have the full right in Christ
to order you to do what is proper,
I rather urge you out of love,
being as I am, Paul, an old man,
and now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus.
I urge you on behalf of my child Onesimus,
whose father I have become in my imprisonment,
who was once useless to you but is now useful to both you and me.
Philemon 1:7-11

Did you ever have to intercede for a friend? Or if you were the friend, did anyone ever have to intercede for you? That’s what is happening in this passage.

Onesimus, the escaped slave of Philemon, had also been accused of petty theft. During his escape, he comes into Paul’s company, is converted, and befriends and assists Paul.

Paul pleads with Philemon to forgive and reconcile with Onesimus as a brother in Christ.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We give thanks for those who have stood by us in times of testing, who knew our hearts better than others did, and who represented us in Christ.

Poetry: “Onesimus” by Tania Runyan

Since I stole your money, Philemon, and even more, myself, the body
that broke earth and stacked stones at daybreak while you slept,

you have every right to lash me till the whites of my intestines show,
brand FUG on my forehead, or throw me to the lions, who love especially

the taste of escaped slaves, our blood sweet with freedom’s fleeting breath.
But Paul, wild-eyed with Christ, has washed down his prison walls

with prayer. He knows you will take me back, not a slave, but a brother
delivering koinonia to your congregation in this present evil age, teaching

how to pray paralytics into motion and how to sleep in peace
when soldiers sharpen swords outside your windows. Paul calls me his son, no—

his very heart. I am no longer your body but will reside in yours,
pump forgiveness and prayer through your veins. I will make you

see Christ in every jangling harlot and rotting, leprous face.
I will make you a slave to God’s bidding.

Music: Return to the Heart – David Lanz

Truth

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Eternal Life, Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus, spirituality, Truth1 Comment

Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
May 8, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050824.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,
he will guide you to all truth.
He will not speak on his own,
but he will speak what he hears,
and will declare to you the things that are coming.
John 16:12-13

In this passage, Jesus indicates that the “Truth” can be overwhelming. He tells the disciples that they cannot bear it all just now. But the Holy Spirit will guide them to receive the Truth.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Isn’t that a fact for all of us? Don’t we need to grow into the Truth rather than comprehend it all at once?

At best, we live in a world of appearances and, at worst, a world of fabrication. We may be tempted to judge reality based on these thin and misleading surfaces.

To respond to the deep truths of life, we need to prayerfully follow the Spirit – to be gradually strengthened in our capacity to see the world as God sees it, to respond to the world as God would respond. – in Truth.

Poetry: Witness – Denise Levertov 

Sometimes the mountain
is hidden from me in veils
of cloud, sometimes
I am hidden from the mountain
in veils of inattention, apathy, fatique,
when I forget or refuse to go
down to the shore or a few yards
up the road, on a clear day,
to reconfirm
that witnessing presence.

Music: Holy Spirit, Truth Divine – David Eck