Tag: Dwelling Place

Shekhinah – Indwelling Presence

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

Thursday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 3, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080323.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our scripture passages focus on how God dwells with us and calls us to ever greater intimacy.

In Exodus, Moses meticulously performs God’s instructions to build a holy dwelling place – the Ark of the Covenant. When Moses’s work is finished, God settles in among the Israelites and begins the new work of leading them to the promised land. It is a “Finished. What’s Next” scenario.

The “next” is this: by manipulating a visible cloud, God signals when it is time to rest and when it is time to move forward on the journey.

Whenever the cloud rose from the Dwelling,
the children of Israel would set out on their journey.
But if the cloud did not lift, they would not go forward;
only when it lifted did they go forward.

Exodus 40:35-36

Verse 33, not included in today’s selection, says this:

Finally, Moses set up the court around the tabernacle and the altar and hung the curtain at the gate of the court.
Thus Moses finished all the work.

Exodus 40:33

The italicized phrase should ring a bell with us. It is reminiscent of this familiar phrase in Genesis:

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.

Genesis 2:2

And it is predictive of this solemn phrase in John’s Gospel:

When he had received the sour wine, Jesus said, ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

John 19:30

Praying with Exodus today, we might consider how God continually finishes chapters in history and in our lives. With each completion, a new dynamic is initiated which reveals God’s deeper Presence to us. If our hearts are open, God always invites us deeper – that is the journey.

God enacts this ever-renewing revelation in the Scriptures as well as in our lives.

  • In Genesis, God comes to dwell in the Creation.
  • In Exodus, God comes to dwell in Presence.
  • In the Incarnation, God comes to dwell in our flesh.
  • In Pentecost, God comes to dwell in our spirits, giving us the capabilty of opening ourselves to the inexhaustible bounty of God’s Love.

God keeps coming to us anew, not with a new Face, but with a Face that, earlier, we may not have had the depth to recognize.

A word from the Hebrew, first encountered in ancient rabbinic literature, captures the concept of the eternal generative Presence dwelling among us: Shekhinah. The word means “dwelling” or “settling” and denotes the presence of God, as it were, in a particular place.

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus finishes a significant chapter of his ministry. In five succinct parables, Jesus has painted a picture of our “next” – the Kingdom of Heaven.

  • the mustard seed
  • yeast
  • the hidden treasure
  • the merchant
  • the net

Image by chanwit whanset from Pixabay

Closing today’s lesson, Jesus charges the future teachers of the faith to remember the whole history of God’s indwelling as they guide the people to God’s penultimate revelation. As we move forward to a Parousia we can only imagine, we can be encouraged and consoled by the stories of God’s Presence in the past, and imaged for us in the parables.

“Then every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven
is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom
both the new and the old.”

Matthew 13:52

Image by chanwit whanset from Pixabay

Before today, we may never have thought of ourselves as God’s “scribes”. But just as God used our first parents, and Moses, and the early disciples, God is using us to write the current and future story of God’s love for all Creation.

The chapter with your name will not be included in the Bible, but it will be written large in the Book of Life. It will be read by those who love you, depend on you, work with you, or need you. Each of our lives, in its own way, is a scipture for our times.

Poetry: Wellfleet Shabbat – Marge Piercy

The hawk eye of the sun slowly shuts.
The breast of the bay is softly feathered
dove grey. The sky is barred like the sand
when the tide trickles out.

The great doors of Shabbat are swinging
open over the ocean, loosing the moon
floating up slow distorted vast, a copper
balloon just sailing free.

The wind slides over the waves, patting
them with its giant hand, and the sea
stretches its muscles in the deep,
purrs and rolls over.

The sweet beeswax candles flicker
and sigh, standing between the phlox
and the roast chicken. The wine shines
its red lantern of joy.

Here on this piney sandspit, the Shekinah
comes on the short strong wings of the seaside
sparrow raising her song and bringing
down the fresh clean night.

Music: Dwelling Place – John Foley, SJ

Alleluia: Welcome the Word

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

Saturday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 23, 2022

Today’s Readings 

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072322.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we are reminded that God’s Word dwells in us and will bear fruit according to our “welcome” – that is, to the degree that we nourish it.

Alleluia, alleluia.
Humbly welcome the word 
that has been planted in you
and is able to save your souls.

Our readings ask and answer the question “Where does God’s Word dwell?”.

  • In the compassionate heart. 
  • In the mutuality of sincere community. 
  • In reverence for all Creation.

And there are conditions for that indwelling.  Jeremiah defines them clearly:

Only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds;
if each of you deals justly with the neighbor;
if you no longer oppress the resident alien,
the orphan, and the widow;
if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place,
or follow strange gods to your own harm,
will I remain with you in this place,
in the land I gave your forbears long ago and forever.

Jesus tells us that our desire to meet such conditions will be tested by a selfish and sinful culture, like the good wheat which struggles to thrive amidst the weeds.

He says that only at the harvest will the crop’s value be affirmed, indicating that we must be patient, persevering and steadfast even in the moral confusions of our world.

“Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?
Where have the weeds come from?”
He answered, “An enemy has done this.”
His slaves said to him, “Do you want us to go and pull them up?”
He replied, “No, if you pull up the weeds
you might uproot the wheat along with them.
Let them grow together until harvest;
then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters,
‘First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning;
but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

Psalm 84 beautifully captures our longing to be this kind of dwelling place for God. You might wish to pray with the following interpretation of this psalm.

Poetry: Psalm 84 – Ease by Christine Robinson 

The sparrow has a place in the rafters.
The swallow raises her young in the nest she has made.
They live and move easily in their places.
They flit and soar around Your world altar.
They are home.

It is not so easy for me.
I long for that ease of being and pray
for the grace to live in the world as at Your altar.

Happy are they who live in the Pilgrim way;
They walk through desolate landscapes
and find your springs.
They toil through mountains and discover your peaks.
They set themselves to the tasks of love and service
and know deep satisfaction

One day lived in this grace is better than a thousand spent
at our own devices.
When we walk our appointed path in peace,
We find our home and our way.

Music: How Lovely Is Your Dwelling Place – Jesuit Music Ministry 

Memorial of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Creation, Psalms, Scripture, spiritualityLeave a comment

Thursday, July 29, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 84 – one of the loveliest.

My soul yearns and pines 
    for the courts of the LORD.
My heart and my flesh
    cry out for the living God.
Even the sparrow finds a home,
    and the swallow a nest
    in which she puts her young–
Your altars, O LORD of hosts,
    my king and my God!

Psalm 84: 3-6

The image of God’s dwelling places raises so many possibilities for prayer:

  • Mary, the dwelling of Jesus as he completed incarnation 
  • Eucharist, Christ’s continuing dwelling with us
  • Ourselves and all creatures as dwelling places of God’s spirit

Thinking of a dwelling place, many characteristics come to mind. Foremost for me is hospitality. We must be welcomed into a place in order to dwell there. We must be comfortable, cared about, and appreciated. We must feel at home.

We’ve all been in homes that make us feel this way, and hopefully our own home offers such hospitality to us and others. I think this morning of three old friends now at home with God. They were the sisters of a beloved pastor with whom I worked. We got to know them well at the time of his death and continued our friendship until they too died.

We often visited their old but perfectly appointed little home. And their hospitality took very evident forms: a prepared pitcher of Manhattans in the fridge, little snacks that we might have mentioned we liked, lively conversation, and the sharing of life-making stories – with a few secrets sprinkled in between.

I think that’s the same kind of hospitable home Mary, Martha, and Lazarus offered Jesus – a tasty meal, some good wine, and the sharing of life, laughter, and tears.

When we open our hearts to be dwelling places for God, we too can share the bread of life, the wine of experience, and the certainty of love with our infinitely hospitable Creator.

What immeasurable gifts! Having received them from God, may we offer them to others especially those who find them nowhere else.

Poetry: Dwelling Place – Henry Vaughan (1621-1695) who was a Welsh metaphysical poet, illustrator, translator, and physician

John 1:38-39 

What happy secret fountain, 
Fair shade or mountain, 
Whose undiscovered virgin glory 
Boasts it this day, though not in story, 
Was then thy dwelling? Did some cloud, 
Fixed to a tent, descend a shroud 
My distressed Lord? Or did a star, 
Beckoned by Thee, though high and far, 
In sparkling smiles haste gladly down 
To lodge light and increase her own? 
My dear, dear God! I do not know 
What lodged Thee then, nor where, nor how; 
But I am sure Thou dost now come 
Oft to a narrow, homely room, 
Where Thou too hast but the least part: 
My God, I mean my sinful heart.

Music: Dwelling Place – John Foley, SJ

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Do You Have Your Housekey?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, Prayer, spirituality, TruthLeave a comment

Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter

May 17, 2019

Click here for readings

Jn14_2 dwelling

Today, in Mercy, Paul continues his preaching in Antioch. He delivers a very powerful, and condemnatory line about the inhabitants of Jerusalem and their leaders …

Though they found no grounds for a death sentence,
they asked Pilate to have Jesus put to death…

Being unable to accept the Truth that Jesus was, they conspired to destroy him.

Understanding, accepting and living within the Truth of God and of ourselves is the way to eternal life. In our Gospel, Jesus tells us that he is this Way, Truth and Life.

It sounds so straightforward and simple, doesn’t it? 

But in our world, truth has lost its definition. Its edges have been stretched beyond recognition by propaganda, moral convenience, political pretense, false advertising, manipulative social media, and other forms of self-serving deceit.

truthThe distortion of truth has become epidemic among us, infecting us all in one way or another.

Just as in the presence of any disease, we need to take precautions to keep ourselves healthy – true to God and to ourselves:

  • placing ourselves honestly before God in prayer
  • practicing a brief examination of conscience at the end of each day
  • discerning how we use power and advantage in terms of self-interest
  • living by self-respect and respect for others
  • evaluating our actions and choices in the light of the command to love one another

In the Father’s House there are many dwelling places. Truth is their entry key:

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

Music: Dwelling Place – John Foley, SJ

I Fall on My Knees

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Prayer1 Comment

Thursday, October 25, 2018

Readings: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/102518.cfm

Today, in Mercy, we are gifted with another magnificently beautiful prayer from Ephesians. Friends, there are times when simply nothing more can be said. 

Eph 3_20_21 knees

Let your heart kneel in God’s Presence as you savor this powerful prayer:

I kneel before the Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name,
that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory
to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner self,
and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
that you, rooted and grounded in love,
may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones
what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to accomplish
far more than all we ask or imagine,
by the power at work within us,
to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus
to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Music: Dwelling Place- John Foley, SJ