Tag: Our Father

Praying with Jesus

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

Wednesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
October 5, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/100522.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Paul and Peter have a big fight – two of the Greats take it to the mat over an issue of inclusivity in the early Church.

To put the episode in a nutshell, Peter had succumbed to political pressure from Jewish Christians to isolate non-Jewish Christians from full participation in the Church. The pressure was rooted in nationalism, religious prejudice and unexamined fear. Peter, in an attempt to manage these forces, made a huge misstep.

Paul, seeing that Peter’s actions would set a dangerous and divisive precedent in the emerging Church, confronted him before the whole community. For a moment in time, these two pillars of Christianity stood on separate shores.

Lk11_2 Pray

Ultimately, through prayer, respect and discernment, Peter and Paul continued together to shepherd the embryonic Church toward a new reality – one built on, but beyond, the Judaism in which they both had been raised.

The Church, as a living reality, will always be challenged by issues of growth, identity, inclusion and other concerns. But as soon as we define ourselves as anything other than simply Christians, we run the risk of moving to our own “separate shores”. 

We are not conservative or liberal Christians. We are not American, or European or Asian Christians. We are not gay or straight, Black or White, male or female, rich or poor Christians.

We are all sisters and brothers in the Gospel of Christ, standing on the same shore with Him, praying to our one Father. May this shared prayer help us to become who we are called to be.

Poetry: Our Father – Malcolm Guite

I heard him call you his beloved son
And saw his Spirit lighten like a dove,
I thought his words must be for you alone,
Knowing myself unworthy of his love.
You pray in close communion with your Father,
So close you say the two of you are one,
I feel myself to be receding further,
Fallen away and outcast and alone.
And so I come and ask you how to pray,
Seeking a distant supplicant’s petition,
Only to find you give your words away,
As though I stood with you in your position,
As though your Father were my Father too,
As though I found his ‘welcome home’ in you.

Music: Lord, Teach Us to Pray ~ Joe Wise

Alleluia: God’s Own Children

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

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 24, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072422.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, a dominant theme connects all our readings: We are, and are loved as, God’s very own children.

Alleluia, alleluia.
You have received a Spirit of adoption,
through which we cry, Abba, Father.

God’s own children … hmmm.

In our reading from Genesis, some folks aren’t doing too well with that. Imagine being so bad that God would have to come down and check you out! Yikes! Not good! It’s like when you and your cousins were pillow-fighting in the basement and your Mom called down the stairs, “Don’t make me come down there!

Don’t Make Me Come Down There!!!!

You knew what to do, didn’t you? Just cut it out! Apparently, Moses isn’t quite so sure that his buddies will behave, but nevertheless does his level best to save the few good apples in the barrel.

This highly anthropomorphic story still carries a very solid truth:

God loves us without reservation
and wants us to return that love
by growing in God’s likeness.

Paul tells the Colossians that God has forgiven, redeemed and raised them with Christ

You were buried with him in baptism,
in which you were also raised with him
through faith in the power of God,
who raised him from the dead.

In our Alleluia Verse from Romans,
Paul describes our new status
as one of “adoption”,
allowing us to call God “Abba”.

Jesus shows us how to be God’s children by sharing with us the intimacies of his talks with his Father.

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.

Jesus indicates that we can put this prayer in action by being forgiving and selfless people.

If you then, who are inclined toward selfishness,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will the Father in heaven
give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

Poetry: O Magne Pater – Hildegard of Bingen

O magne Pater,
in magna necessitate sumus.
Nunc igitur obsecramus, obsecramus te
per Verbum tuum
per quod nos constituisti
plenos quibus indigemus.
Nunc placeat tibi, Pater,
quia te decet, ut aspicias in nos
per adiutorium tuum,
ut non deficiamus, et
ne nomen tuum in nobis obscuretur,
et per ipsum nomen tuum
dignare nos adiuvare.		O Father great,
in great necessity we are.
Thus we now beg, we beg of you
according to your Word,
through whom you once established us
full of all that we now lack.
Now may it please you, Father,
as it behooves you—look upon us
with your kindly aid,
lest we should fail again
and, lost, forget your name.
By that your name we pray—
please kindly help and bring us aid!
thanks to hildegard-society.org

Music: O Magne Pater – Hildegard of Bingen

Alleluia: God’s Child!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, peace, Poetry, Prayer, spirituality1 Comment

Thursday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
June 16, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061622.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our verse affirms the wonder of our spiritual bloodline:

Alleluia, alleluia.
You have received a spirit of adoption
as God’s children
through which we cry:
Abba! Father!

Elijah

After the Biblical theatrics of our first reading about Elijah and Elisha, our heads might be full of fiery miracles and restorations to life!  Perhaps our Alleluia Verse seems mild by comparison. But it is not!

Think of it! You are God’s child! You are made of Divinity!

Oh, if we only fully believed this about ourselves, what would our lives be like?

Instead, we sometimes behave like lonely orphans in this world, making choices that alienate us from our true nature.

Today as we pray this verse from Romans, and relish the beautiful Gospel which gives us the Our Father, let’s rekindle our sacred heritage as God’s beloved child.

We can speak to God in greatest security and confidence about all that is most central in our lives. Let God hold you and hum to you, a loving Parent Who cherishes your nearness and your trust.

Letting God listen to us, we also listen to ourselves. We may be surprised at what we learn.

Poetry: The Creation (closing stanzas) – James Weldon Johnson

Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that he had made.
He looked at his sun,
And he looked at his moon,
And he looked at his little stars;
He looked on his world
With all its living things,
And God said: I’m lonely still.

Then God sat down—
On the side of a hill where he could think;
By a deep, wide river he sat down;
With his head in his hands,
God thought and thought,
Till he thought: I’ll make me a man!

Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
This great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in is his own image;

Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen.      Amen.

Music: from Songs for the Inner Child – Shaina Noll

Peace be with you, oh my dear one

Peace be with you, precious child.

Peace be with you, oh my dear one

Peace be with you precious child.

Angels hover all about you

They protect you night and day

Angels hover all about you

They will guide you on your way.

God is with you, oh my dear one

God is with you, precious child.

God is with you, oh my dear one

God is with you, precious child.

You are blessed and you are holy

Precious gift god gave to me

You are blessed and you are holy

You’re an angel I can see.

Peace be with you, oh my dear one

Peace be with you, precious child.

Peace be with you, oh my dear one

Peace be with you precious child.

Lent: Fired by the Word

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Poetry, Prayer, spirituality, Thanksgiving6 Comments

March 8, 2022
Tuesday of the First week of Lent

Today’s Readings

So shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth;
It shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.

Isaiah 55:11

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, as I pray with today’s readings, I ask myself two questions:

“What has God’s Word accomplished in me?”
“What does God’s Word yet want to accomplish in me?”

If you’re like me, you’re always thinking about what you haven’t done, still must do, wish you had done.

Let’s just STOP that and, instead, praise our gracious God for the good accomplished through our lives. I know every one of you reading this blog is an amazingly good person. God has already done beautiful things in you and through you. Thank God. Give God the glory.

Let’s consciously pray for one another today as today’s Gospel encourages us:

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

Poetry: My Psalm – Renee Yann, RSM

May my life be its own psalm of praise to You.
Within its melody, my whole being 
bows to you in gratitude.
You chose to breathe your soul into me,
to warm my name in your cupped hands,
to wind your Divine Heart into the notes of my life.
Thank You.
My years have unfolded like flowers, 
slowly warming to your grace.
The petals of my years have each been kissed by You.
Whether in joy or sorrow,
silence or song, seen or unseen,
You have been with me.
Thank You.
You loved the child I once was and You played within me.
You loved the young girl who walked toward your call
along the precious, winding path of mercy.
You loved the woman I became, over and over,
as I learned to find You hiding in the world.
Thank You.
Now, as years deepen and with them,
our comfort in each other's love,
let my trust also deepen.
Let my faith reflect You, 
like the face of a well-polished rock,
fully turned to your steadfast Light, 
fully afire in your Abiding.
Thank You.

Music: My Tribute ( To God Be the Glory)

How can I say thanks
For the things You have done for me?
Things so undeserved,
Yet You gave to prove Your love for me;
The voices of a million angels
Could not express my gratitude.
All that I am and ever hope to be,
I owe it all to Thee.

To God be the glory,
To God be the glory,
To God be the glory
For the things He has done.

With His blood He has saved me,
With His power He has raised me;
To God be the glory
For the things He has done.

Just let me live my life,
Let it pleasing, Lord to Thee,
And if I gain any praise,
Let it go to Calvary.

Psalm 34: Together

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, Gospel, inclusivity, Lent, Prayer, PsalmsLeave a comment

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

February 23, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 34, thought to be a young David’s thanksgiving prayer after God saved him from one of his many dangerous escapades.

In telling his deliverance story, David invites his friends to celebrate with him and to learn the faith-lesson he has learned:

Glorify the LORD with me,
    let us together extol his name.
I sought the LORD, and he answered me
    and delivered me from all my fears. 

I picture myself sitting in David’s audience, absorbing the words of his prayer. This line strikes me:

The LORD has eyes for the just,
    and ears for their cry.

Ah, the Lord has eyes for me….for ME! It conjures up sounds of The Flamingos, doesn’t it? (Sorry for the transcriber’s misspelling 😀)

Most of us want to think that we are individually special to God. This desire is at the core of the Protestant Evangelical model, “a personal relationship with Jesus Christ”. But for some, this model has become confused with a prosperity gospel that is quite misleading.

The only prosperity we should seek from God is the gift of grace because:

Yahweh’s peculiar inclinations are with the broken-hearted and the ones with crushed spirit. That is, Yahweh’s solidarity is not with the ones who go from success to success, but the ones denied success.

Walter Brueggemann The Message of the Psalms A Theological Commentary Ausberg Publishing House 1984

Still, such a personal relationship is not alien to a full and complete faith:

Faith is above all a personal, intimate encounter with Jesus, and to experience his closeness, his friendship, his love; only in this way does one learn to know him ever more, and to love and follow him ever more. May this happen to each one of us.

Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, 2009

(Look for an extra prayer about “The Eye of God” in another post today.)

However, our psalm alerts us that this deeply personal dimension is only part of relationship with God.

When the just cry out, the LORD hears them,
    and from all their distress he rescues them.
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted;
   and those who are crushed in spirit he saves.

To be seen and heard by God, one must be part of the just community. To be close to God, one must feel the brokenheartedness of the poor. We come to the psalmist’s exuberant praise only by walking with suffering, either in our own lives, or beside others who bear distress.

From all their distress
God rescues the just.

Psalm 34 teaches us that our personal relationship with God is interdependent with our relationship with the whole community. David calls his community to share in his praise-song because they- together -recognize God’s mercy and share it in concern for one another.

The LORD has eyes for the just,
    and ears for their cry.

Our Gospel today confirms that a personal love for God thrives only within a communal love. The prayer Jesus shares is not “My Father”. It is “Our Father”. We come to the depths of God’s merciful heart with our sisters and brothers.

Poetry: An Inclusive Lord’s Prayer – Author unknown

Loving God, 
in whom is heaven, 
may Your name be honored everywhere.
May Your Mercy reign.
May the desire of Your heart for the world 
be done, 
in us, by us and through us.
Give us each and all
the bread we need for the day.
Forgive us.
Free us to forgive others.
Keep us from all anxiety, fear, and selfishness.
For You reign in the power that comes from love 
which is Your glory
forever and ever.
Amen.

Music: Our Father – Joe Wise

The Word Will Not Be Void

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality, Thanksgiving2 Comments

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

March 3, 2020

Click here for readings

Today, in Mercy, as I pray with today’s readings, I ask myself two questions:

      • “What has God’s Word accomplished in me?”
      • “What does God’s Word yet want to accomplish in me?”

If you’re like me, you’re always thinking about what you haven’t done, still must do, wish you had done. 

STOP

Let’s STOP and praise our gracious God for the good accomplished through our lives. I know every one of you reading this blog is an amazingly good person. God has already done beautiful things through you. Thank God. Give God the glory.

Lyrics:

How can I say thanks
For the things You have done for me?
Things so undeserved,
Yet You gave to prove Your love for me;
The voices of a million angels
Could not express my gratitude.
All that I am and ever hope to be,
I owe it all to Thee.

To God be the glory,
To God be the glory,
To God be the glory
For the things He has done.

With His blood He has saved me,
With His power He has raised me;
To God be the glory
For the things He has done.

Just let me live my life,
Let it pleasing, Lord to Thee,
And if I gain any praise,
Let it go to Calvary.

And then ask to go on, to open up your heart, to see God’s next desire for your precious life.

waterfal

For my young readers, give your dynamism to God’s imagination for you. There are great and holy things around every corner! Trust! Ride the grace-filled wave! Do not be afraid! Be a waterfall for God’s Word.

 

wellJPGFor some of us, as we get older, we do not have the physical energy to DO all that we once did. But oh, my dears, we can now BE more wonderful for God because of the long accumulation of his generous grace. Be a Well for God’s Word! Sink into grace! Do not be afraid!

 

For thus says the LORD:
Just as from the heavens
the rain and snow come down
And do not return there
till they have watered the earth,
making it fertile and fruitful,
Giving seed to the one who sows
and bread to the one who eats,
So shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth;
It shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.

How amazing that promise is! Trust it! Let the Word transform you every day of your life.

Let’s consciously pray for one another today as today’s Gospel encourages us:

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

Music:  So Will I – Hillsong

Ask and Receive

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Hope, Jesus, Prayer1 Comment

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

July 28, 2019

Click here for readings

Today, in Mercy, our readings are connected by two often oppositional themes: BARGAINING and TRUST.

The Genesis passage is a familiar story, mainly because “Mrs. Lot” later gets turned into a pillar of salt. But the beginning of the story, today’s reading, is all about Moses bargaining with God to spare the inhabitants of sinful Sodom and Gomorrah. 

The Divine conversation is painted in very human terms, a ping-pong match of “what if”s and “OK”s between Moses and God. Moses finally bargains God down to the hope of finding just ten good men in these depraved cities. And Moses trusts God to be merciful, a trust delivered in the salvation of Lot and his family.

In the second reading from Colossians, Paul reminds us of our own deliverance through baptism and sharing in the Resurrection of Christ. This is the infinite gift in which we put our hope and trust as believers.

Our Gospel reading from Luke opens with the Our Father, the ultimate prayer of trust. Jesus goes on to tell us that we can always trust God’s care for us.

Ask and you will receive;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives;
and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Jesus isn’t talking about magic, where we just say the word and automatically get what we imagined, or where we bargain with God as if we had something to offer. 

Lk11_12 Ask_Egg

Jesus is talking about that fundamental trust which believes in God’s faithfulness to us in all circumstances. He will not “hand us a serpent when we ask for an egg”. But it may be a very different “egg” (outcome) from the one we expected. Trust allows us to crack it open to find the unimagined grace inside.

Music: I Will Trust in You – Lauren Daigle

Time with the Beloved

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Lent, Prayer1 Comment

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Click here for readings.

Today, in Mercy,  Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray. His prayer is simple and direct, like talking to your Dad over a morning cup of coffee.

What about us? How do we pray?

Our first learned prayers are a lot like Jesus’s simple Our Father. We praise God, giving thanks, and asking for what we need.

Abba Father

Then we grow up and get sophisticated. We may begin to “say” or read prayers rather than use our own words. While such a practice can deepen our understanding of prayer, it places a layer between us and our conversation with God.

Sometimes others lead our prayer in the community of faith. This too can enrich us as we are inspired by a shared faith. But it is a little like trying to have a private conversation in an elevator.

Just as Jesus often went off in solitude to pray, this kind of prayer is our most intimate time with God – a time when God allows us to know God and ourselves in a deeper way. This sacred time alone with God may be spent in words, song, or the silence that speaks beyond words.

It is a time to be with the Beloved as we would our dearest, most faithful companion. We rest in the field of our experiences, letting them flow over God’s heart in tenderness. We listen with the ear of absolute trust to the secrets God tells us in the quiet.

Music: In His Presence – Sandi Patty

Demons

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Prayer, spirituality4 Comments

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Readings:  http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071018.cfm

Today, in Mercy, Jesus cures a demoniac who is mute. 

In Jesus’ time, the connection between ordinary disease and demonical possession was quickly drawn – perhaps too quickly. As we read some of the Gospel cures, our modern understanding recognizes epilepsy, glaucoma, cataracts and mental illness in the people Jesus touched and healed. But two thousand years ago, these conditions were assigned to demons.

Demons

This doesn’t mean demons don’t exist. Remember the Gerasene miracle where Jesus cast demons into pigs who then threw themselves into the sea? Dramatic evidence that demons are real!

Demons are real in our world too, embodiments of the evil that is always competing for control of Creation, that is always resisting the supremacy of Goodness and Love.

These demons masquerade in various costumes of power, prestige and pleasure. But they are all eventually exposed as addictive, self-consuming and destructive.

How dangerous and deceptive these demons are! The word itself comes from the same Greek root as the word “genius”. And they do have a genius for rendering us:

  • blind to narcissistic motivations
  • crazed with exaggerated self-importance
  • crippled by deceptive rhetoric
  • mute in the face of systemic evil
  • deaf to the cries of the suffering
  • dead to the power of transforming Mercy in our own souls

Even as you read this list, faces and moments of history and current events are flashing before your eyes.  Circumstances in your own life, family and work suggest themselves. Bring these to your transforming prayer today. The touch of Jesus can deliver us from such demons. We pray for that touch in our own hearts and in our world.

Music: Our Father – Leontyne Price

 

Our Father

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus2 Comments

Thursday, June 21,2018

Readings: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/062118.cfm

Today, in Mercy, our readings are a study in contrasts.  Our first reading from Sirach describes the fiery majesty of the prophet Elijah. Everything about Elijah was thunder and lightning.  He toppled kings and raised the dead, and generally cast a path of fire as he preached. At the end of his life, he passed into heaven in a chariot of flames.

The Gospel presents a Prophet of a gentler stripe – Jesus, who is teaching us how to pray.

Jesus says to pray simply, humbly, to ask for forgiveness, and freedom from temptation. He tells us to forgive others, avoid evil and be content with our daily bread.  No fiery chariots; no tumbling governments.  This gentle man will die in the agony of the cross.

No wonder those who hoped for a Messiah like Elijah were disappointed in Jesus.  No wonder we still struggle to understand the contradiction of the Cross.

However, Walter Brueggemann says this:  The crucifixion is

“the ultimate act of prophetic criticism
in which Jesus announces the end of a world of death…
and takes the death into his own person”.  

Still, the witness of Calvary would remain nothing but a contradiction without the transformative act of the Resurrection.

cross ressur

Through the combined witness of Good Friday and Easter, Jesus not only confronts the old order, he embraces and transforms it.  He takes to himself the same suffering and death that we all must face, but he shows us that it cannot destroy us. He proves that, ultimately, death has no power over those who believe in Him and in the Father Who has sent Him.

Indeed, the Our Father is a most powerful, prophetic prayer. It teaches us how to be in the presence of God even in the midst of our daily life. It shows us how to express our faith in God’s Kingdom even as we live in our earthly one.  It helps us to become a little more like gentle, powerful Jesus.

Music: Aramaic Our Father – in the orgs that Jesus likely used.