Tag: Jonah

Neighbor

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Faith, friendship, Gospel, inclusivity, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
October 9, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/100923.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, get ready for a three-day cruise with Jonah and a radical journey down the Jericho road with the Good Samaritan.

The message of Jonah is clear: all people, even hated Ninevites, are children of God’s Mercy. Resisting that understanding can be catastrophic to our spiritual life.

Patricia Tull, Rhodes Professor Emerita of Old Testament at Louisville Seminary, summarizes the Book of Jonah like this:

A postexilic book, Jonah’s story is atypical for prophetic works. Not only is it a narrative about the prophet rather than his speeches, but it also rebuffs Jonah for his refusal to preach to foreign enemies. Jonah’s story portrays foreigners as more than ready to repent and turn to God. The book uses humor, hyperbole, and irony to make its parabolic point.

Our Gospel gives us one of the most beloved yet challenging parables of Jesus – who is our “neighbor”. The infinite dimensions within this parable continue to unfold for us as we deepen in our mercy spirituality.

God does not see anyone as a “foreigner”. Every human being lives with the breath of God. We are “neighbors” because we share that breath, that “neighborhood” of God’s boundless Love.

But, oh my God, how we have forgotten or rejected that common bond of reverence for one another! Just yesterday, one of our sisters brought up the subject of a recent hit-and-run accident in Philadelphia. It now seems to be the common practice to leave the scene of such an occurrence, abandoning the victim to his fatal circumstance. She wondered, incredulously, how anyone could be that callous.

Our Gospel parable describes that callousness. Notice that both the priest and the Levite pass the victim by “on the opposite side“. The phrase implies that if I can build a wall to make you invisible to me, I can more easily ignore your claim on my merciful neighborliness.

The Samaritan lived without those walls. He did not see a Jew, or a foreigner, or an expendable “other”. He saw a human being, like himself – a neighbor who was struggling to live.

The Good Samaritan (1880) by Aimé Morot

Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan is a clear example of the call of the Gospel to neighborliness. In the story, such a call is an inconvenient truth because it summons outside the comfortable community to find the neighbor among the not-well-regarded “others.” 

Walter Brueggemann, Health Progress, January – February 2010

We don’t want to be like resistant Jonah, nor like the prejudicially blinded priest and Levite of our parable. But it is hard. The world conspires to separate us into the haves and the have-nots, the deserving and the undeserving, the winners and the losers, the sinners and the saints. Mercy not only resists but dismantles such walls. Do we have the courage to examine our own prejudices and to step across from “the opposite side” for the sake of our neighbor?

Poem: Neighbor – Iain Crichton Smith

Build me a bridge over the stream
to my neighbour’s house
where he is standing in dungarees
in the fresh morning.
O ring of snowdrops
spread wherever you want
and you also blackbird
sing across the fences.
My neighbor, if the rain falls on you,
let it fall on me also
from the same black cloud
that does not recognize gates.

Music: JJ Heller – Neighbor

Sometimes it's easier to jump to conclusions
Than walk across the street
It's like I'd rather fill the blanks with illusions
Than take the time to see
You are tryna close the back door of your car
You are balancing the groceries and a baby in your arms
You are more than just a sign in your front yard
You are my neighbor
I can get so lost in the mission
Of defending what I think
I've been surfing on a sea of opinions
But just behind the screen
You are grateful that the work day's finally done
You are stuck in miles of traffic, looking at your phone
You are tryin' to feel a little less alone
You are my neighbor
When the chasm between us feels so wide
That it's hard to imagine the other side
But we don't have to see things eye to eye
For me to love you like you are my neighbor
My neighbor
Oh, to fear the unfamiliar
Is the easy way to go
But I believe we are connected more than we might ever know
There's a light that shines on both the rich and poor
Looks beyond where we came from and who we voted for
'Til I can't see a stranger anymore
I see my neighbor
May my heart be an open door to my neighbor
You are my neighbor

No Sign Will Be Given Except…..

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

Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 24, 2023

Today’s Reading:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072423.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Jesus is pestered by scribes and Pharisees who want him to prove himself by a sign.

Jesus answers their jibing in a kind of spiritual code.

Some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus,
“Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”
He said to them in reply,
“An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign,
but no sign will be given it
except the sign of Jonah the prophet.
Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights,
so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth
three days and three nights.

Matthew 12:38-40

So what exactly is “The Sign of Jonah”? Sounds like the title of a Dan Brown novel, doesn’t it?

Well, it is the title of a wonderful book, but not one by Dan Brown.

When I was in high school, I was obsessed with the writings of Thomas Merton. The fire was ignited by my freshman homeroom teacher who gave me a copy of his “Seeds of Contemplation” — another book that changed my life. Inspired by that first read, I slowly made my way through Seven Storey Mountain, No Man is an Island, Thoughts in Solitude … finally coming, in a veil of limited understanding, to “The Sign of Jonas”.

I didn’t understand the title. What I did begin to understand, as Merton journaled his daily life in the Abbey of Gethsemane, was that we discover God not by any external revelation or intellectual acquisition, but by our choices for love in the pattern of Jesus.

In today’s Gospel, the scribes and Pharisees seek an external demonstration that Jesus is all powerful. But their seeking is an insincere attempt at self-satisfaction, not a choice for Gospel love.

So what does Jonah have to do with the Pharisees’ insincerity? Jonah, given a mission by God, could not initially align himself with God’s call. At God’s irresistable invitation, Jonah spent three days of solitude in a whale’s belly contemplating his circumstances. By the graces gained in his solitude, Jonah emerged as a prophet for God.

As recounted in his book, the whale’s belly for Merton was his life in Gethsemane Abbey where he found the profound meaning and deep awareness of his vocation.

Let me rest in Your will and be silent.
Then the light of Your joy will warm my life.
Its fire will burn in my heart
and shine for Your glory.
This is what I live for. Amen, amen.

It may not sound all that inviting, but every one of us is called to the “whale’s belly”. Our transformation there is accomplished by our congruity with Christ’s sojourn in the tomb. Like Jesus, we must die to self for the sake of others. Like Jonah, we must abandon our fears and conveniences to become signs of God’s love in the world.

The Pharisees didn’t get it. And, God help them, I understand. It’s hard to get it! Life seems so much easier if we run away from this deep call like Jonah did at first. But the call remains: to be God’s Word in the world – to “shine for God’s glory“.

The editorial staff of the National Catholic Reporter wrote this about Merton’s Sign of Jonas:

Thomas Merton wrote in his early journals that the “sign of Jonas” — the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection — is “burned into the roots of our being.” Sooner or later, everyone faces the universal truth that only through death to self do we find life. Merton embraced this sign and described himself as one like Jonah, because “I find myself traveling toward my destiny in the belly of a paradox.”

We may need to choose a little “whale-belly” time to get our hearts straight with this astounding yet universal call to be “for God” in our paradoxical world.

Poetry: two poems from “You! Jonah!” by Thomas John Carlisle

THE GREAT INTRUDER
It is exasperating
to be called
so persistently
when the last thing
we want to do
is get up and go
but God
elects
to keep on
haunting
like some
holy ghost.

———————–

COMING AROUND
And Jonah stalked
to his shaded seat
and waited for God
to come around
to his way of thinking.
And God is still waiting
for a host of Jonahs
in their comfortable houses
to come around
to His way of loving.

Music: Jonah and the Whale – Louis Armstrong – lyrics below

Jonah was a man who got a word from the Lord
Go and preach the Gospel to the sinful land‿
But he got on a ship and he tried to get away
And he ran into a storm in the middle of the sea

Now the Lord, He made the waves just roll so high
The ship begin to sink and they all begin to cry
So they pulled ole Jonah out of the hole
And they jumped him in the water just to lighten up the load

Now the Lord made a whale, long and wide Lord, Lord waddnat a fish
And he swallowed up Jonah, hair and hide Lord, Lord waddnat a fish,
Mmm, Lord, mmm, Lord

Now Jonah started to pray in the belly of the whale
Lord, Lord waddnat a fish
He repented of his sins like a man in jail
Lord, Lord waddnat a fish
Mmm, Lord, mmm, Lord

Now Jonah must o’ been a bad man, he must o’ been a sinner
Lord, Lord waddnat a fish
Cos when the whale got him down, he didn’t like his dinner
Lord, Lord waddnat a fish
Mmm, Lord, mmm, Lord

Well he swum around the ocean, sick as he could be
Lord, Lord waddnat a fish
And after three days, whoops! he had to set him free
Lord, Lord waddnat a fish, mmm

So the whale spit Jonah out onto dry land
Lord, Lord waddnat a fish
And went on to preaching like a righteous man
Lord, Lord waddnat a fish

Then the people quit their sins when they heard him the town
Lord, Lord waddnat a fish
So when you hear the call, don’t you turn the Gospel down
Lord, Lord waddnat a fish, mmm?

Alleluia: Imperative Mood

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

Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 18, 2022

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071822.cfm

Alleluia, alleluia.
If today you hear God’s voice,
soften your hearts.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, the readings heighten the familiar imperative of our Alleluia Verse with several more injunctions:

  • Hear
  • Soften
  • Arise
  • Answer 
  • Do
  • Love
  • Walk

God is not shy in telling us what to do in order to grow in holiness – in mutual relationship with God.

We have to DO something, to be responsive in order to unite with God. We can’t be just passive lumps of inactive devotion.

Don’t Be a Spiritual Couch Potato

Each instruction has its own vitality which is meant, in turn, to vitalize our spirits and to make us agents of the Holy One in the world.

Our first reading carries this message clearly to the people of Micah’s time. It’s not about contrived sacrifice. It’s about love and compassion.

With what shall I come before the LORD,
and bow before God most high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with myriad streams of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my crime,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
You have been told, O Creature, what is good,
and what the LORD requires of you:
Only to do the right and to love goodness,
and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6: 6-8

The scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’s time demand a sign before they will listen. Jesus says the only sign they will get is to remember that the Ninevites listened when Jonah delivered God’s message. 

At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation
and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah;
and there is something greater than Jonah here.

Matthew 12:42

We don’t have a Micah or a Jonah coaching us to holiness. What we have is the Word present to us in the Gospel and in the community of faith. That Word reveals itself in the circumstances of our lives to which we must respond by:

Hearing God’s invitation 
Softening our hearts from judgments 
Arising from our self-absorption 
Answering the call to holiness
Doing good
Loving compassionately 
Walking humbly with our God

Poetry: from Rumi

Discard yourself 
and thereby regain yourself. 
Spread the trap of humility 
and ensnare Love.

Music: Act Justly – Pat Barrett

Lent: Second Chances

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Lent, Poetry, Prayer, repentance, spiritualityLeave a comment

March 9, 2022
Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, one line from our readings hit me like a lightening bolt:

The word of the LORD
came to Jonah
a second time.

Jonah 3:1

Yes, it’s the truth! God will keep coming back again and again to encourage us to hear the true message for our lives.

Our Gospel gives us a hint about how resistant we sometimes are to do this deep listening:

This generation is an evil generation;
it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it,
except the sign of Jonah.

Luke 11:29

What is the sign of Jonah anyway?

To put it simply, it is the witness of the Resurrection – that overarching event that changed everything for believers. For just as Jonah was able to return from certain death in the whale’s belly, so Christ conquered death and rose to new life, promising us the same power.

This is the central, life-changing belief for Christians. It should make a difference in how we live.

By our Lenten repentance, we can be like Jonah, grasping the second chance God always gives us to respond to our life circumstances with faith, hope, and love.

I would bet there is something in your life right now that is calling you to such a response. Someplace in your life, you may be caught in a bit of a “whale’s belly 🐳” about some issue, am I right?

God makes us ask ourselves questions most often when He intends to resolve them. He gives us needs that He alone can satisfy, and awakens capacities that He means to fulfill. Any perplexity is liable to be a spiritual gestation, leading to a new birth and a mystical regeneration.

Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas

Today’s readings remind us that we already have the glorious sign of the Resurrection to inspire us to leap from that dark “belly” into God’s hope for us!

Poetry: WE ARE JONAH – Rabbi Rachel Barenblat

In Rabbi Eliezer’s vision
Jonah entered the whale’s mouth
as we enter a synagogue.
Light streamed in through its eyes.
Jonah approached the bimah, the whale’s head.
Show me wonders, he said, as though
his own life weren’t a miracle.

The whale obliged, swimming down
to the foundation stone,
the navel of creation
fixed deep beneath the land.
Tsk tsk, chided the fish:
you’re beneath God’s temple —
you should pray.

Prayer requires stillness.
Running away had always been
so easy. Sitting silent
in self-judgement — forget it!
But waves only churn the surface.
In the deep beneath the deep
Jonah was wholly present.

We all flee
from uncomfortable conversations
the drip of a hospital IV
the truths we don’t want to own
the work we don’t want to do.
Now we’re in the belly of the whale,
someplace deep and strange.

God calls us to awareness:
to stand our ground
in the place where we are,
to do the work which needs doing.
To bring kindness and mercy
even to those who are unlike us.
Are we listening?

Music: a fun song “In the Belly of Whale” – The Newsboys

Forgiveness

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, Jesus, ordinary time, Poetry, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Wednesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time 
October 6, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 86 which, following our first reading about vindictive Jonah, shows us a heart converted to mercy.

These readings are so powerful. I think a little “Jonah” lives in most of us – that part of us that wants “them” to get what they deserve. We can’t quite get ourselves to want “them”, instead, to receive the unmerited mercy of God.

In our first reading, God tries to help stingy-hearted Jonah face his unforgiveness toward the Ninevites.

Our psalm, on the other hand, is prayed by a humble servant who understands forgiveness because they need it themselves.

Have mercy on me, O Lord,
    for to you I call all the day.
Gladden the soul of your servant,
    for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
    abounding in kindness to all who call upon you.
Hearken, O LORD, to my prayer
    and attend to the sound of my pleading.

Psalm 86: 3-6

Psalm 86 invites us to grow in our spiritual life in two ways:

  • to recognize our need for forgiveness because we are not without sin
  • to extend that forgiving desire to those who have sinned against us

It is the lesson Jesus affirms in today’s Gospel:

Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say:
    Father, hallowed be your name,
        your Kingdom come.
        Give us each day our daily bread
        and forgive us our sins
        for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test.”

Poetry: Forgiveness – John Greenleaf Whittier

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: Lord, Teach Us to Pray – Joe Wise

Lord, teach us to pray…

It’s been a long and cold December kind of day.
With our hearts and hands all busy in our private little wars.
We stand and watch each other now from separate shores.
We lose the way.

I need to know today the way things should be in my head.
I need to know for once now the things that should be said.
I’ve got to learn to walk around as if I were not dead.
I’ve got to find a way to learn to live. (Refrain)

I still get so distracted by the color of my skin.
I still get so upset now when I find that I don’t win.
I meet so many strangers—I’m slow to take them in.
I’ve got to find a way to really live. (Refrain)

I stand so safe and sterile as I watch a man fall flat.
I’m silent with a man who’d like to know just where I’m at.
With the aged and the lonely I can barely tip my hat.
I need to see the sin of “I don’t care.” (Refrain)

I stand so smug and sure before the people I’ve out-guessed.
To let a man be who he is I still see as a test.
And when it all comes down to “must,” I’m sure my way is best.
I’ve got to find what “room” means in my heart. (Refrain)

Lord, teach us to pray.
We believe that we can find a better way.
Teach us to pray. We lose the way.
Teach us to pray.

A Second Chance

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, repentance, spiritualityLeave a comment

Wednesday of the First Week in Lent

March 4, 2020

Click here for readings

Jonah3_1another chance

Today, in Mercy, one line from our readings hit me like a lightening bolt:

The word of the LORD
came to Jonah
a second time.

Yes, it’s the truth! God will keep coming back again and again to encourage us to hear his true message for our lives.

Our Gospel gives us a hint about how resistant we sometimes are to this deep listening:

This generation is an evil generation;
it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it,
except the sign of Jonah.

 

What is the sign of Jonah anyway?

res and life

To put it simply, it is the witness of the Resurrection – that overarching event that changed everything for believers. For just as Jonah was able to return from certain death in the whale’s belly, so Christ conquered death and rose to new life, promising us the same power.

This is the central, life-changing belief for Christians. It should make a difference in how we live.

By our Lenten repentance, we can be like Jonah, grasping the second chance God always gives us to respond to our life circumstances with faith, hope, and love.

I would bet there is something in your life right now that is calling you to such a response. Someplace in your life, you may be caught in a bit of a “whale’s belly 🐳” about some issue, am I right?

God makes us ask ourselves questions most often when He intends to resolve them. He gives us needs that He alone can satisfy, and awakens capacities that He means to fulfill. Any perplexity is liable to be a spiritual gestation, leading to a new birth and a mystical regeneration.” ― Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas

Today’s readings remind us that we already have the glorious sign of the Resurrection to inspire us to leap from that dark “belly” into God’s hope for us!

Music:  a fun song “In the Belly of  Whale” – The Newsboys

Grace and Peace

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel1 Comment

Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

October 14, 2019

Click here for readings

Today, in Mercy, we begin about a month of readings from Paul’s letter to the Romans. We will also continue with Luke’s Gospel all the way up to Advent.

To help me in praying with Romans, I am using a book by Scott W. Hahn, Father Michael Scanlan Chair of Biblical Theology at Steubenville University. In his introduction, Hahn says this:

Hahn_Romans

Today’s reading offered me these elements to ponder and pray with:

  • Paul calls himself a “slave” of Jesus Christ
  • He invokes his call as an Apostle
  • He sets himself in the company of the prophets
  • He appeals to Jews who revere David
  • but proclaims Christ, through his Resurrection, as Messiah beyond human lineage
  • He proclaims his mission to the Gentiles
  • to bring about “the obedience of faith”

I’ll be honest with you. I’ve read or heard this passage maybe fifty times in my lifetime, and it has meant little or nothing to me. At best, it has sounded like a formal introduction such as those we hear from government “whereas” type decrees.

But I took Dr. Hahn’s advice, studying the passage, and reading it slowly and prayerfully. Here’s what I received:

  • Paul’s Apostolic call, to which he willingly enslaved his heart, was to preach the Good News of our redemption in Jesus Christ – to preach it to Jews, Romans, Gentiles, and all people.
  • It is an awesomely incredible message that can be received only through the gift of faith.
  • It is a message rooted in the scripture stories we love, and where we look to find a reflection of our own stories.
  • Learning from these realities will help us come to a faith which expresses itself in action and gives glory to God in our own time.

Luke gives us one such story today. Jesus reminds the crowd of two familiar passages – that of Jonah and the “Queen of the South” (the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings 10). He indicates that the people in these stories believed without a sign.

Jesus tells the people gathered around him  to learn from this. The crowd demands a sign, but Jesus says the sign is right in front of you – it is only your open heart that is lacking.

In his introduction, Paul prays for such open hearts in the Romans:

Rm1_grace_peace

Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.

By that same grace, may we receive faith’s blessing as well.

Music: Grace and Peace – Fernando Ortega

Pray Always

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, PrayerLeave a comment

Tuesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

October 8, 2019

Click here for today’s readings

Today, in Mercy, our readings suggest that there are many different ways to pray – to acknowledge and respond to God’s Presence in our lives, to deepen in relationship with God.

png-divider-lines--1400

Jonah has just finished his prayer of thanksgiving for deliverance from the chaos. This prayer is transformative. Jonah is different – open to God’s call – after it. The Ninivites, after hearing only one day of Jonah’s preaching, respond by acts of fasting and mortification . Their king, when he hears of their actions, himself formalizes a drastic national atonement. The repentant prayer of the Ninivite Kingdom is also transformative. They turn from their evil ways and open their hearts to God’s sovereignty.

png-divider-lines--1400

ps130_1 lament

Our Responsorial Psalm 130, a treasured and classic song of lament, shows us the transformative power of this kind of prayer. The one praying from the depths of her heart:

  • names her suffering
  • weeps with God because of it
  • begs deliverance
  • in the begging, relinquishes the outcome to God
  • receives peace in the relinquishment
  • is transformed by that peace and offers praise

png-divider-lines--1400

Our Gospel offers us another classic example of types of prayer, that of contemplation and that of service. In the story, Mary is affirmed for her singular attention to the presence of Christ – her contemplative prayer. Martha, on the other hand, pays attention to Christ by her service. Some have interpreted Martha’s as a lesser form of prayer. However, Macrina Weirdekehr, in her new book “The Flowing Grace of Now”, gives us this powerful insight into Martha’s prayer:

“Mary’s listening annoys Martha, who is busy serving. Yet if the full truth be known, Martha was also sitting at the feet of the teacher. She is sitting at the feet of service. Later, after dinner was served, with Jesus gone and Mary retired for the evening, I envision Martha finally sitting down by herself, and listening to the experience of the evening. As she reviewed the evening and her lament in the midst of her service, perhaps she began to realize that all of this was part of the wisdom offered by the school of life. We learn by contemplating our daily struggles.”

(I so highly recommend this deeply beautiful book available from:

Click here to go to Ave Maria Press or

Click here to go to Amazon

Today, we might consider our many ways to talk with and be with God, to give time and awareness to this all-encompassing relationship in our lives.

Music: Lord, I Need You – Matt Maher 

 

Transparent Prayer

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Jesus, Mary, PrayerLeave a comment

Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary

Monday, October 7, 2019

Click here for today’s readings

Today, in Mercy, our first reading is from the Book of Jonah, a drama with which we are all familiar.  Because of the fantastical nature of the tale, we may tend to read it simply on the level of allegory – the way we might read Aesop’s fables. But there is much spiritual depth to be found in this well-known story.

As I pray with the Jonah passages for these three days, I am using an article by Walter Bruggemann to inform my prayer.

You can access Bruggemann’s article here

Since today is the feast of the Holy Rosary, a prayer which has blessed the Church for centuries, Bruggemann’s consideration of Jonah’s prayer caught my attention:

The complexity of (Jonah’s) prayer is reflective of the complexity of all prayer.  Prayer purports to be single-minded in its communication with Yahweh.  Everyone who prays is complex, given to deception, distortion, and willfulness; our prayers are most often thick with mixed motives, distortions, and exhibits, even if only to the self.  There are “saints” who are more mature and more disciplined than this in their prayer.  But evidently Jonah is not among those mature, disciplined saints.  For that reason his compromising and manipulative maneuvers are highly visible in the prayer.  We may spot such maneuvers in his prayer and be driven to reflect on our own acts of seduction in prayer whereby we deceive ourselves, even if God is not deceived.

The Rosary, intended as a contemplation not a recitation, allows us the silence and time to sort out the complexities of our own prayer. It is a prayer not to be rushed. Praying it well requires us to lay aside our busy existence and excuses, and to place ourselves in the stillness of Divine Transparency.

rosary

The Rosary invites us to enter more deeply into the truth of Christ’s life, but also into our own. Seen in the light of Mary’s and Jesus’s lives, what is our own life teaching us?

So many of us have a Rosary in our drawer or purse that we haven’t touched for a while. Many of these beads were given to us by, or belonged to, someone who loved us – who wished us the blessings that come from its devotion. Perhaps we might like to rekindle our love for the Rosary today while remembering that beloved person. In the drawer beside my bed, my Dad’s well worn rosary is waiting for me.

Music: Ave Maria – Bach, sung by Jessye Norman

Want a Sign? Wake Up!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Jesus, Mercy, repentance1 Comment

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

 Click here for readings

Today, in Mercy,  our readings talk about the “sign of Jonah”? What is that really, and how does it speak to me?

The passage from the Book of Jonah describes a remarkable event. Jonah, finally coughed up from the belly of a whale, marches part way through Nineveh announcing its impending destruction.

What if somebody did that in your neighborhood ? Would you ignore them, call the police, or maybe move? Not the Ninevites. They LISTENED! They recognized Jonah’s message as a last ditch chance to get their act together! Talk about conversion! Even the king ripped his robes and sat in ashes!

Ps51_miserere

When those questioning Jesus ask for a sign that they should repent and change, Jesus has had it with them. He basically says “No sign; learn a lesson from Jonah.“ In so many words, he tells them “I am your Jonah. I am your last ditch chance at conversion.”

Is there a message for us? Are we as bad off as the Ninevites or the dense crowds missing Jesus’s point? Are there realities in our lives that need conversion of heart?

Often, when asking ourselves such a question, we look to the sins we commit through our weakness and selfishness. We confess, own up, seek forgiveness for the things we have done.

But sometimes we are blind to our sins of omission – the things we haven’t done that we should have – the forgiveness withheld, the support never offered, the gratitude unexpressed, the half-hearted work for which we claim full payment, the family and community where we take but seldom give, the times we let ourselves and others be less than their best selves.

I don’t think Jesus wants us to sit in the ashes over these things, but rather to be honest with ourselves and shape up. Through prayer and reflection, we need to ask for the grace to hear Jonah’s voice in our lives.

Music: I Repent – Steve Green