Holy Week: Wednesday – Darker and Deeper

On April 12, 2022April 8, 2022 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, spiritualityLeave a comment

April 13, 2022
Wednesday of Holy Week

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, the betrayal of Jesus continues, as does his mounting courage to endure its consequences.

In our first reading, the experience of the prophet Isaiah foreshadows that of Jesus. We can hear Jesus praying in Isaiah’s words:

The Lord GOD is my help,
            therefore I am not disgraced;
I have set my face like flint,
            knowing that I shall not be put to shame.
He is near who upholds my right;
            if anyone wishes to oppose me,
            let us appear together.
Who disputes my right?
            Let him confront me.
See, the Lord GOD is my help;
            who will prove me wrong?
Isaiah 50:7-8

We hear Christ’s transcendent openness to the Father’s accompaniment:

Morning after morning
God opens my ear that I may hear;
And I have not rebelled,
have not turned back.

We hear Christ’s courage to face what life unfolds before him:

I gave my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
My face I did not shield
from buffets and spitting.

We hear Christ’s utter commitment, despite suffering, to the Father’s Presence:

The Lord GOD is my help,
therefore I am not disgraced;
I have set my face like flint,
knowing that I shall not be put to shame.

As we pray with Jesus today, may we:

hear God’s purpose in our lives.
see grace unfold in all our circumstances
set our hearts, like flint, upon faith and trust in God

As our Jewish sisters and brothers will begin the Passover celebration this Friday, their rich faith heritage inspires us always to find God in the journey, no matter where it leads us.

In the Gospel’s Passover moment, Jesus walks toward the painful experience of Gethsemane. He invites us to come and receive the reassuring blessing of his Father even as the night shadows fall.

Poetry: The Garden of Gethsemane – by Boris Pasternak who won the Nobel Prize for Literature after writing Dr. Zhivago

Indifferently, the glimmer of stars
Lit up the turning in the road.
The road went round the Mount of Olives,
Below it the Kedron flowed.
The meadow suddenly stopped half-way.
The Milky Way went on from there.
The grey and silver olive trees
Were trying to march into thin air.
There was a garden at the meadow’s end.
And leaving the disciples by the wall,
He said: ‘My soul is sorrowful unto death,
Tarry ye here, and watch with Me awhile.’
Without a struggle He renounced
Omnipotence and miracles
As if they had been borrowed things,
And now He was a mortal among mortals.
The night’s far reaches seemed a region
Of nothing and annihilation. All
The universe was uninhabited.
There was no life outside the garden wall.
And looking at those dark abysses,
Empty and endless, bottomless deeps,
He prayed the Father, in a bloody sweat,
To let this cup pass from His lips.
Assuaging mortal agony with prayer,
He left the garden. By the road he found
Disciples, overcome by drowsiness,
Asleep spreadeagled on the ground.
He wakened them: ‘The Lord has deemed you worthy
To live in My time. Is it worthiness
To sleep in the hour when the Son of Man
Must give Himself into the hands of sinners?’
And hardly had He spoken, when a mob
Of slaves, a ragged multitude, appeared
With torches, sowards, and Judas at their head
Shaping a traitor’s kiss behind his beard.
Peter with his sword resisted them
And severed one man’s ear. But then he heard
These words: ‘The sword is no solution.
Put up your blade, man, in its scabbard.
Could not My Father instantly send down
Legions of angels in one thunderous gust?
Before a hair of my head was touched,
My enemies would scatter like the dust.
But now the book of life has reached a page
Most precious and most holy. What the pen
Foretold in Scripture here must be fulfilled.
Let prophecy come to pass. Amen.
The course of centuries is like a parable
And, passing, can catch fire. Now, in the name
Of its dread majesty, I am content
To suffer and descend into the tomb.
I shall descend and on the third day rise,
And as the river rafts float into sight,
Towards My Judgement like a string of barges
The centuries will float out of the night.’

Music: I Come to the Garden Alone – Sean Clive

I come to the garden alone
while the dew is still on the roses,
And the voice I hear falling on my ear,
The Son of God discloses

And He walks with me and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am his own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known

He speaks, and the sound of his voice is so sweet
The birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He give to me
Within my heart is to ringing.

And He walks with me and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am his own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known

I stay in the garden with Him,
Though the night around me is falling.
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.

And He walk with me and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

Holy Tuesday:Faithful Waiting

On April 11, 2022April 11, 2022 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

April 12, 2022
Tuesday of Holy Week

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Gospel tells the sad story of Jesus’s betrayal by his closest friends.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”
The disciples looked at one another, at a loss as to whom he meant.
One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved,
was reclining at Jesus’ side.
So Simon Peter nodded to him to find out whom he meant.
He leaned back against Jesus’ chest and said to him,
“Master, who is it?”
Jesus answered,
“It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.”
So he dipped the morsel and took it and handed it to Judas,
son of Simon the Iscariot.
After Judas took the morsel, Satan entered him.

*The Last Supper* (1630–1631) is an oil painting by Peter Paul Rubens. The painting depicts Jesus and the Apostles during the Last Supper, with Judas dressed in blue turning back towards the viewer and away from the table. Other than Jesus, the most prominent figure is Judas. Judas holds his right hand to his mouth with his eyes avoiding direct contact with the other figures in the painting creating a nervous expression. (Wikipedia)

Pope Francis, in his 2020 Palm Sunday homily, reflected on the depth of these betrayals:

Jesus suffered betrayal by the disciple who sold him and by the disciple who denied him. He was betrayed by the people who sang hosanna to him and then shouted: “Crucify him!” He was betrayed by the religious institution that unjustly condemned him and by the political institution that washed its hands of him.

We can think of all the small or great betrayals that we have suffered in life. It is terrible to discover that a firmly placed trust has been betrayed. From deep within our heart a disappointment surges up that can even make life seem meaningless. This happens because we were born to be loved and to love, and the most painful thing is to be betrayed by someone who promised to be loyal and close to us. We cannot even imagine how painful it was for God who is love.

These first three days of Holy Week are like the days in our lives when we know there is a wave of suffering coming but it hasn’t quite broken over us. Something just isn’t right in our bodies, minds, spirits, or in the world around us. In such times, the actual pain might be muted, but the fear, loneliness, anxiety and dark imaginations can be acute.

It’s hard to be with ourselves or with another in this kind of suffering. We see in our Gospel how hard it was for the disciples.

All one really has in such moments are the faith and trust that God ever abides with us. It is the kind of assurance Jesus had with the Father.

As we walk beside Jesus on this Fearful Tuesday, let us confide our sufferings, current or remembered, asking to be gracefully transformed by them. Let us listen to Jesus’s pain and heart-break, asking to be a source of comfort and love to Him.

With Jesus, may we carry in our prayer all those throughout the world suffering abandonment, fear, loss, or betrayal at this painful time.

Saint Judas – James Wright

When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.

Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.

Music: I Will Carry You – Sean Clive
You might hear this song in many ways. Perhaps Jesus comforts you with it. Or you might comfort Jesus in his escalating suffering. Or together, Jesus and you may sing it over a suffering world.
(Lyrics below)

I will carry you when you are weak.
I will carry you when you can’t speak.
I will carry you when you can’t pray.
I will carry you each night and day.

I will carry you when times are hard.
I will carry you both near & far.
I’ll be there with you whenever you fall.
I will carry you through it all.

My arms are wider than the sky,
softer than a little child,
stronger than the raging,
calming like a gentle breeze.
Trust in me to hold on tight because

I will carry you when you can’t stand.
I’ll be there for you to hold your hand.
And I will show you that you’re never alone.
I will carry you and bring you back home.

Not pain, not fear, not death, no nothing at all
can separate you from my love.
My arms and hands will hold you close.
Just reach out and take them in your own.
Trust in me to hold on tight.
I will carry you.

Holy Monday – Love’s Oil

On April 10, 2022April 10, 2022 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality2 Comments

April 11, 2022
Monday of Holy Week

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Gospel places a fundamental question before us. How should the precious oil be used – tenderly poured out or reasonably saved? It is a question that challenges us to balance justice with mercy, reality with hope, law with passion. How are we being asked to open our alabaster jar?

This poem by Malcolm Guite may offer inspiration for our prayer:

Come close with Mary, Martha, Lazarus
so close the candles stir with their soft breath
and kindle heart and soul to flame within us,
lit by these mysteries of life and death.
For beauty now begins the final movement
in quietness and intimate encounter.
The alabaster jar of precious ointment
is broken open for the world’s true Lover.

The whole room richly fills to feast the senses
with all the yearning such a fragrance brings.
The heart is mourning but the spirit dances,
here at the very center of all things,
here at the meeting place of love and loss,
we all foresee, and see beyond the cross.

(Malcolm Guite: The Anointing at Bethany)

Jesus, give us courage to accompany you in your final journey. May your passion, death and resurrection bring us new life.

As we make this Holy Week journey, may we prove our love by our actions. May we live generously, hopefully, and gratefully in the Mercy of God.

Music: Pour My Love on You by Craig and Dean Phillips

Holy Week: The Sacred Invitation

On April 9, 2022April 9, 2022 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality6 Comments

April 10, 2022
Palm Sunday

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we begin a familiar journey.

In a warring, dystopian world, the rites of Holy Week offer us a reassuring pattern for our prayer. As we begin these rituals, we already know where we will joyfully finish. It is a feeling so opposite from our current global concerns which leave us questioning how peace and joy can be restored to the human family.

Through the solemnities of Holy Week, we are reminded that there is nothing we experience not already patterned in the Paschal Mystery. There is nothing we suffer or hope for not already etched on the heart of Jesus Christ.

These liturgies are an invitation to enter into that Sacred Heart, to place our experiences beside those of Jesus. No matter where we find ourselves on the journey, Jesus is with us:

In the confusion of Palm Sunday, tossed between loyalty and betrayal
In the suggestive silence of Holy Monday and Tuesday, when plotters whisper and friends weaken
In the discomfort of Spy Wednesday, when we realize suffering is inevitable
In the profound communion of Holy Thursday
In the loneliness of a decisive Garden and the angst of a resisted outcome
In the inexorable solitude of dying and death
In the other-worldly contemplation of a silent Saturday
In the sunrise of a promise, longed for and believed in

These are profound sacred mysteries which invite us to sink into their depths and be renewed. Let’s be intentional about the time and practices we will give to this invitation.

We are invited into the Life and Passion of Jesus Who, in turn, wants to be with us in our experience of this journey. Each day, let us listen – let us become “obedient” (which means “listening”) – for the very personal whisper of grace in our souls. And even though we may pray alone, let us pray for the whole world suffering and rising with our beloved Savior.

I think today’s reading from Philippians is the most beautiful and pregnant passage in all of scripture. May it guide our prayer during this Holy Week when we all so hunger for God’s presence and healing.

Music: Philippians Hymn – John Michael Talbot
(Lyrics below)

And if there be therefore any consolation
And if there be therefore any comfort in his love
And if there be therefore any fellowship in spirit
If any tender mercies and compassion

We will fulfill His joy
And we will be like-minded
We will fulfill His joy
We can dwell in one accord
And nothing will be done
Through striving or vainglory
We will esteem all others better than ourselves

This is the mind of Jesus
This is the mind of Our Lord
And if we follow Him
Then we must be like-minded
In all humility
We will offer up our love

Though in the form of God
He required no reputation
Though in the form of God
He required nothing but to serve
And in the form of God
He required only to be human
And worthy to receive
Required only to give

This is the mind of Jesus
This is the mind of Our Lord
And if we follow Him
Then we must be like-minded
In all humility
We will offer up our love
In all humility
We will offer up our love

Lent: Closer to the Cross

On April 8, 2022April 5, 2022 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

April 9, 2022
Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, worlds are splitting apart, but the Word of God comes to heal them.

In our first reading, we share in the experience of the prophet Ezekiel.

Ezekiel and his wife lived during the Babylonian Captivity on banks of the Chenab River which is in modern day Iraq. He lived during the siege of Jerusalem in 589 BC. In Ezekiel’s day the northern kingdom had been conquered and destroyed 150 years earlier.

In other words, Ezekiel, like his contemporary Jeremiah, had his heart torn apart along with the homeland they cherished as God’s promise to them.

In today’s reading, which comes immediately after his vision of the Dry Bones, Ezekiel prophesies a message of hope and restoration to a fragmented and devastated nation.

In our Gospel, Jesus is the new Ezekiel. He stands in the midst of the bigger “nation” of all God’s Creation which has been fragmented by the failure to love. Like Ezekiel, Jesus offers a message of hope and restoration to sinners.

In this Gospel, Jesus himself is the “Temple” about to destroyed. The prophecy of its destruction is unwittingly delivered by the high priest Caiaphas:

Caiaphas,
who was high priest that year,
said to the Pharisees and Sanhedrin,
“You know nothing,
nor do you consider that it is better for you
that one man should die instead of the people,
so that the whole nation may not perish.”
He did not say this on his own,
but since he was high priest for that year,
he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation,
and not only for the nation,
but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.
John 11: 49-52

Within Christ’s new law of love, these “children of God” go far beyond the Jewish nation. They are you and me, and every other creature with whom we share this time and universe. The fragmentations which separate and alienate us are dissolved in the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Holy Week will begin tomorrow when all believers will intensify their desire to join Christ in his final journey to Resurrection, to understand our own lives anew in the power of Paschal Grace.

Let’s pray for one another, dear friends, for the grace we need to be deepened in the life of Jesus, and for that deepening to bless and heal our suffering world.

Poetry: The New Ezekiel – Emma Lazarus

What, can these dead bones live, whose sap is dried
By twenty scorching centuries of wrong?
Is this the House of Israel, whose pride
Is as a tale that’s told, an ancient song?
Are these ignoble relics all that live
Of psalmist, priest, and prophet? Can the breath
Of very heaven bid these bones revive,
Open the graves and clothe the ribs of death?

Yea, Prophesy, the Lord hath said. Again
Say to the wind, Come forth and breathe afresh,
Even that they may live upon these slain,
And bone to bone shall leap, and flesh to flesh.
The Spirit is not dead, proclaim the word,
Where lay dead bones, a host of armed men stand!
I ope your graves, my people, saith the Lord,
And I shall place you living in your land.

Music: Make Us One – featuring James Loynes. Written by Sally DeFord
(Lyrics below)

Lyrics

How shall we stand amid uncertainty?
Where is our comfort in travail?
How shall we walk amid infirmity,
When feeble limbs are worn and frail?
And as we pass through mortal sorrow,
How shall our hearts abide the day?
Where is the strength the soul may borrow?
Teach us thy way.

Chorus:
Make us one, that our burdens may be light
Make us one as we seek eternal life
Unite our hands to serve thy children well
Unite us in obedience to thy will.
Make us one! teach us, Lord, to be
Of one faith, of one heart
One in thee.
Then shall our souls be filled with charity,
Then shall all hate and anger cease
And though we strive amid adversity,
Yet shall we find thy perfect peace
So shall we stand despite our weakness,
So shall our strength be strength enough
We bring our hearts to thee in meekness;
Lord, wilt thou bind them in thy love?

(Repeat chorus)

Take from me this heart of stone,
And make it flesh even as thine own
Take from me unfeeling pride;
Teach me compassion; cast my fear aside.
Give us one heart, give us one mind
Lord, make us thine
Oh, make us thine!
(Repeat chorus)

Psalm 69: The Plea

On March 30, 2021March 30, 2021 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Cross, Faith, Lent, Poetry, Prayer, Psalms3 Comments

Wednesday of Holy Week

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 69. The verses offered for today’s liturgy describe someone who is abused and abandoned by the community he depended on:

Insult has broken my heart, and I am weak,
   I looked for sympathy, but there was none;
   for consolers, not one could I find.
Rather they put gall in my food,
   and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
Psalm 69: 21-22

The psalmist goes on, into today’s passage and throughout the whole psalm, to proclaim his innocence and call on God for justice – one might say even vengeance.

Heap punishment upon their punishment;
let them gain from you no vindication.
May they be blotted from the book of life;
not registered among the just!
Psalm 69: 28-29

Several Gospel writers include parts of Psalm 69 to describe Jesus’s situation throughout his Passion and Death. However, we find Jesus not invoking divine vengeance but forgiving those who persecute him.

Does Christ’s forgiveness mean that he didn’t feel heart-broken, angry, perhaps even wishing, as the psalmist does, that the tables would be turned onto his harassers?

We don’t really know what he felt. We can only imagine. What we do know is what Jesus chose. Jesus chose forgiveness.

As we pray with Psalm 69 today, let us remember that we cannot help our feelings. They come unbidden. What we can control are our choices. In the sufferings of our lives, may we have the strength to choose as Jesus did.

Poetry: John Greenleaf Whittier, ‘Forgiveness’

My heart was heavy, for its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men,
One summer Sabbath day I strolled among
The green mounds of the village burial-place;
Where, pondering how all human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,
Awed for myself, and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave!

Music: Antonio Vivaldi – Domine ad adjuvandum me festina (Psalm 69)

Deus, in adjutorium meum intende.
Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina.
Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto,
sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper
et in saecula saeculorum. Amen. Alleluia

O Lord, make speed to save me:
O Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be,
World without end, Amen. Alleluia.

Psalm 71: A Long Trust

On March 29, 2021March 29, 2021 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, dying, Faith, Jesus, Lent, Poetry, PsalmsLeave a comment

Tuesday of Holy Week

March 30, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 71, a prayer of yielding and confident faith.

Often thought to be the prayer of an aging David, Psalm 71 recalls a long and steady relationship with God. Even as his youthful vigor wanes, the psalmist declares that his true strength rests in God’s faithfulness.

For you are my hope, O LORD;
   my trust, O God, from my youth.
On you I depend from birth;
   from my mother’s womb you are my strength.
My mouth shall declare your justice,
   day by day your salvation.
O God, you have taught me from my youth,
   and till the present I proclaim your wondrous deeds.
Psalm 71: 15-17

David witnesses to a powerful faith, one that we all might cherish in our human diminishments. It is hard to lose things in our life – youth, health, relationships, reputation, enthusiasm, hope, direction, security. But all of us face at least some of these challenges at some time in our lives.

Judas Iscariot (right), retiring from the Last Supper,
painting by Carl Bloch, late 19th century

In our Gospel today, Jesus acknowledges the loss of trust in a close disciple:

“Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”
The disciples looked at one another, at a loss as to whom he meant.
John 13:21-22

That betrayal is a sign to Jesus that the great dream of his earthly ministry is coming to an ignominious close when even those dearest to him slip into betrayal and denial.

What is it that holds Jesus together, heart and soul riveted on the Father’s Will, as he moves through these heart-wrenching days.

Jesus is the living sacrament of complete obedience and union with God. Every choice of his life has brought him to a readiness for this final and supreme act of trusting love. Like the psalmist today, Jesus’s whole life proclaims:

I will always hope in you
and add to all your praise.
My mouth shall proclaim your just deeds,
day after day your acts of deliverance,
though I cannot number them all.i
I will speak of the mighty works of the Lord;
O GOD, I will tell of your singular justice.
God, you have taught me from my youth;
to this day I proclaim your wondrous deeds.
Psalm 71: 14-17

As we accompany Jesus today, let us pray this psalm with him, asking for an ever-deepening faith, hope, and love.

Poetry: Jesus Weeps – Malcolm Guite

Jesus comes near and he beholds the city
And looks on us with tears in his eyes,
And wells of mercy, streams of love and pity
Flow from the fountain whence all things arise.
He loved us into life and longs to gather
And meet with his beloved face to face
How often has he called, a careful mother,
And wept for our refusals of his grace,
Wept for a world that, weary with its weeping,
Benumbed and stumbling, turns the other way,
Fatigued compassion is already sleeping
Whilst her worst nightmares stalk the light of day.
But we might waken yet, and face those fears,
If we could see ourselves through Jesus’ tears.

Music: Long Ago – Michael Hoppé, Tom Wheater, Michael Tillman

Monday of Holy Week

On March 28, 2021March 28, 2021 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, Psalms3 Comments

Monday of Holy Week

2019 Reflection of all today’s readings

March 29, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 27 which is a cry for help from one who is confident of God’s care.

The LORD is my light and my salvation;
whom should I fear?
The LORD is my life’s refuge;
of whom should I be afraid?
Psalm 27:1

Despite these verses, the psalmist obviously is afraid, otherwise why pray? As we begin Holy Week, we might imagine Jesus voicing such a prayer. Confident of the Father’s participation in his life, Jesus nevertheless must face daunting realities with courage – but not without fear.

We can learn so much from Jesus in this.

It is a very unusual, and perhaps non-existent, person who has no fears. We all fear something… maybe many things. It is human to fear that which we cannot see, control, or withstand. Even the one touting his great fearlessness is likely afraid of being seen as weak.

What Jesus teaches us is not to let our faith, love and hope be dominated by fear; rather, to engage our lives courageously with these three virtues despite our normal human fears. In so doing, we become the person God hopes for us to be, just as Jesus did.

Who would I be,
and what power would be expressed in my life,
if I were not dominated by fear?
Paula D’Arcy

The triumph is in resisting that domination, not in being fearless. Nelson Mandela has written, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

I think Jesus was afraid during these final days of his life, but he pushed through to the truth of God’s Will for his life. We can ask Jesus to help us in our fears by praying as he might have with Psalm 27:

You are my light and my salvation
   Whom then shall I fear?

You are the strength of my life
  of what shall I be afraid?

Trials, enemies, changes, difficulties—
  they rise up and they resolve

Therefore–
   I will trust you
   I will wait for you
   I will seek you.
transliteration of Psalm 27 by Christine Robinson

Poetry: from T.S. Eliot, Four Quartet, East Coker

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away--
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing--
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

Music: Be Still My Soul – Katharina Amalia Dorothea von Schlegel, born 1697

Palm Sunday 2021

On March 27, 2021March 27, 2021 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith2 Comments

Today’s Readings

Today, in Mercy, we enter the sacred embrace of Holy Week.

Last year, about this time, as Jesus began his Paschal journey, we too began a journey whose end we could not foresee. It was a terrible, frightening, and disorienting time. It was also a time of amazing nobility and courage.

Now, this long year later, each one of us has come to a new place, both blessed and tragic. So many have not made it here with us — so many lives lost across the globe, some at our own table. And a way of life, for better or worse, has been left behind forever.

Many of us continued to make this past year’s journey with Jesus, long after Easter had passed. In some ways, all of 2020 was a extended “Passion” with its very real:

Foot Washings

Eucharists

Gethsemanes

Deaths and Burials

As we come to the beginning of
Holy Week 2021,
let us be honest with ourselves
about both our sadness and gratitude.
Let us begin the journey again
asking to share in the courage of Jesus.

Palm Sunday is a feast with two faces.

Jesus rides in triumph into Jerusalem, but his deep heart realizes that the road ultimately leads to his death. Jesus, who once called himself the Vine, knows that the bright green branches waved in adulation will soon be trampled to the ground.

In these final days of Lent, we are faced with the question, “What turns green hope to crumbled brown in us – and how can it be green again?”

Many years ago, I sat in a marbled, flowered funeral home with a bereaved father.

“There are things worse than death,” he said. After several absent years, his drug-addicted son had been found dead in an alley, under the cardboard box where he lived. “At least I know where he is now. Finally, we can all be at peace.”

Jack’s son had been lost to him. In the stranglehold of heroin, the great hope of his young life had degenerated into profound suffering. The vigor of his early dreams had withered, like broken tendrils on the once hopeful vine. It was, in every sense, a human tragedy.

Jesus understood such withering. He prayed for his disciples that they would not suffer it. He knew what would face him and them in the week following the lifted palms. He knows what will face us as we try to discern the honest path to joy, peace and fulfillment.

The enticements of evil are deceptive. Greed comes clothed as entitlement. Lust masquerades as passion, addiction as pleasure. They entwine and choke us in a false embrace that whispers, “This is for you.” Fed by the fear of never having or being enough, we resort to these very catalysts that will destroy us. Even the voice of love struggles to reach someone locked in this cycle of self-absorption. Like every barren branch, they wilt and sever themselves from all that could enliven them.

Jesus acknowledges that the choice for life is not always easy. He tells the disciples that, indeed, they will be pruned. No life escapes the incisions of hard experience. Like his followers, we too will face loss, pain, frustration and diminishment. But if our hearts have been fed by his word, we will hold to grace and we will thrive.

Much of the Palm Sunday crowd shifted gears by Friday, becoming a rabble of accusers. They could not follow Jesus through Calvary to his Resurrection.

But there is no true life apart from God. There is no path to perfection and joy but through God’s Will. The Passion and Death of Jesus have already set our roots in this blessed soil. May we cling by grace to that treasured Vine.

Music: J.S. Bach – Cantata; Himmelskönig, sei willkommen / King of Heaven, be Thou welcome – BWV 182

Palm Sunday: We begin the journey

On April 4, 2020April 4, 2020 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, dying, Faith, JesusLeave a comment

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

April 5, 2020

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Today, in Mercy, we begin a familiar journey.

palm sunday

In these times that feel so unfamiliar, so surreal, the rites of Holy Week offer us a reassuring pattern for our prayer. As we begin these rituals, we already know where we will joyfully finish. It is a feeling so opposite from our current global concerns which leave us questioning how this nightmare will ever end.

These liturgies are an invitation to enter into that Sacred Heart, to place our experiences beside those of Jesus. No matter where we find ourselves on the journey, Jesus is with us:

In the confusion of Palm Sunday, tossed between loyalty and betrayal
In the suggestive silence of Holy Monday and Tuesday, when plotters whisper and friends weaken
In the discomfort of Spy Wednesday, when we realize suffering is inevitable
In the profound communion of Holy Thursday
In the loneliness of a decisive Garden and the angst of a resisted outcome
In the inexorable solitude of dying and death
In the other-worldly contemplation of a silent Saturday
In the sunrise of a promise, longed for and believed in

Even though we cannot attend services in community, let us not allow this pandemic to isolate us from the blessings of this sacred week. Let’s be intentional about the time and practices we will give to these mysteries.

phil cantic

I think today’s reading from Philippians is the most beautiful and pregnant passage in all of scripture. May it guide our prayer during this unique Holy Week when we all so hunger for God’s presence and healing.

Music: Philippians Hymn – John Michael Talbot
(Lyrics below)

And if there be therefore any consolation
And if there be therefore any comfort in his love
And if there be therefore any fellowship in spirit
If any tender mercies and compassion

This is the mind of Jesus
This is the mind of Our Lord
And if we follow Him
Then we must be like-minded
In all humility
We will offer up our love

This is the mind of Jesus
This is the mind of Our Lord
And if we follow Him
Then we must be like-minded
In all humility
We will offer up our love
In all humility
We will offer up our love

April 13, 2022Wednesday of Holy Week

April 12, 2022Tuesday of Holy Week

April 11, 2022Monday of Holy Week

April 10, 2022Palm Sunday

April 9, 2022Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent

April 13, 2022
Wednesday of Holy Week

April 12, 2022
Tuesday of Holy Week

April 11, 2022
Monday of Holy Week

April 10, 2022
Palm Sunday

April 9, 2022
Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent