Eternal Life

On May 20, 2023May 20, 2023 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality5 Comments

Seventh Sunday of Easter
May 21, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052123-Sunday.cfm

A little explanation: For those of my readers who do not live in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, today’s readings will be different from the ones used for the reflection. In the archdioceses and dioceses within the Ecclesiastical Provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Omaha, and Philadelphia, the Ascension of the Lord always falls on Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter and is a Holyday of Obligation. In all other archdioceses and dioceses, the Ascension of the Lord is transferred to the Seventh Sunday of Easter.

If you wish, you may use the Ascension reflection from last Thursday, or refer to this reflection by the always excellent Mary McGlone from this week’s NCR.

https://www.ncronline.org/spirituality/scripture-life/ascension-lord-until-end-age?utm_source=NCR+List&utm_campaign=e35aef7b74-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_05_19_06_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6981ecb02e-e35aef7b74-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

Could this be a rarely seen 1st century photo of Mary (in blue)
with some friends and the Eleven.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our reading from Acts gives us a group photo of the “Apostolic Council”. Think of it as the foundational selfie of Catholic history. And all the big names are there in indelible magic marker with a few “also ran”s mentioned as a seeming afterthought.

Let’s talk about those “also ran”s – those unnamed champions of the faith who are there, who show up, who do the heavy lifting, and whose names disappear into history like the black powder in an Etch-a-Sketch. Let’s talk about them because they are us.

In his letter, Peter tells us to be joyful when our devotion to the faith brings us suffering! Doing so, we become the unnamed disciples of the Gospel carrying human history forward to eternal life.

Rejoice to the extent that you share in the sufferings of Christ,
so that when his glory is revealed
you may also rejoice exultantly.
If you are insulted for the name of Christ, blessed are you,
for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

Living with that kind of resolute joy is a huge challenge unless we understand the reason for it. Jesus explains the reason clearly in our Gospel – eternal life.

Father, the hour has come.
Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,
just as you gave him authority over all people,
so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him.
Now this is eternal life,
that they should know you, the only true God,
and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.

We not talking about a good life, a happy life, a complete life, an inspiring life. They are all really wonderful things. What we’re talking about here is THE only thing that matters:

Let’s ask for it. Let’s pray for it. Let’s do everything we can to open our hearts to it!

Poetry: Forever Is Composed of Nows – Emily Dickinson

Forever – is composed of Nows –
’Tis not a different time –
Except for Infiniteness –
And Latitude of Home –

From this – experienced Here –
Remove the Dates – to These –
Let Months dissolve in further Months –
And Years – exhale in Years …

Music: Song to the Moon – from Rusalka

Rusalka Op. 114, is an opera (‘lyric fairy tale’) by Antonín Dvořák. The “Song to the Moon” is so beautiful and one of my favorite arias. The vocal version is thrilling, but I found this instrumental version which is more fitting for meditation. I hope you enjoy it.

What About “Strangers”?

On May 10, 2023May 10, 2023 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, inclusivity, spiritualityLeave a comment

Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter
May 11, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051123.cfm

Peter Preaches to Jews and Gentiles

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, the Apostles continue to deal with the assimilation of Gentiles into the faith community. Their struggle is one that continually challenges the human community throughout history.

Think about it. What’s it like when someone new comes into your established community – your family, parish, workplace, convent, social group, etc.? How did it feel when you met your potential in-laws, or teacher-partner, or new boss, new novices, or your betrothed’s questionable friends?

And, maybe more importantly, how did they feel bumping up against your already solidly established relationships and practices?

It’s no fun being the new guy or gal. It’s exciting maybe, but it’s also a little scary. And it’s certainly no fun feeling different or like a stranger in one’s new environment.

And, in a way, it’s no fun being the old guy or gal either. It can be challenging, even annoying, to have to realign our comfortable routines to incorporate a newbie. And when these routines are centuries old religious practices, oh baby, we have a problem!

This is the challenge the early Christian community faced as the established Jerusalem church spread out across Asia and the Mediterranean basin to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles. Through Peter’s leadership, they seem to have handled the issue very well:

“My brothers, you are well aware that from early days
God made his choice among you that through my mouth
the Gentiles would hear the word of the Gospel and believe.
And God, who knows the heart,
bore witness by granting them the Holy Spirit
just as he did us.

God made no distinction between us and them,
for by faith he purified their hearts.
Why, then, are you now putting God to the test
by placing on the shoulders of the disciples
a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?

On the contrary, we believe that we are saved
through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they.”

What powerful lessons to learn as we continue to build an inclusive and universal Church, and to deal with the many blocks inhibiting us: racism, xenophobia, sexism and heterosexism, to name a few. All of these are based on a negative pre-judgment whose purpose is to maintain control and power in a dominant group.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, Peter was able to let go of that need. Let’s ask him to help us and our Church.

Poetry: Song of Myself #48 – Walt Whitman

I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,
And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is,
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud,
And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth,
And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times,
And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero,
And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel’d universe,
And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.

And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,
(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.)

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign’d by God’s name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe’er I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.

Music: You Don’t Have to Be Like Me – RebbeSoul

Who? Me?

On April 22, 2023April 4, 2023 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, Jesus, spirituality1 Comment

Third Sunday of Easter
April 23, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042323.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings invite us to consider any unrecognized blindness in our lives.

In the passage from Acts, Peter confronts the Israelites with an appalling truth to which they had been blind:

Jesus the Nazarene was a man commended to you by God
with mighty deeds, wonders, and signs,
which God worked through him in your midst, as you yourselves know.
This man, delivered up by the set plan and foreknowledge of God,
you killed, using lawless men to crucify him.
Acts 2:22-23

Peter Preaching in Jerusalem – Charles Poërson -c. 1642

Peter left his audience no outs, no excuses. He put the harsh fact before them and asked them to acknowledge it so that they might move forward in faith.

In our second reading, Peter counsels the early converts to recognize that they were rescued from a spiritually fatal blindness:

… conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning,
realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct ..
1 Peter 1:17-18

Pilgrims on the Road to Emmaus – James Tissot

Luke’s Gospel gives us the warmly accessible Emmaus story. We have walked beside these beloved, crest-fallen disciples for years, haven’t we? But each year might reveal something different and deeper about the “blindness” that prevented them from recognizing Jesus who walked right beside them.

These progressive revelations can challenge us about how readily we recognize God’s Presence in our lives.

Were these otherwise faithful disciples just disappointed that their faith had not been rewarded with the results they expected?
Were they angry that they had wasted time trusting an apparent “failure”?
Were they only shallow believers anyway who had not really invested in Jesus?
Were they riddled with false expectations about the Messiah?
Were they so confined by old religious habits that they just couldn’t imagine an “Easter Jesus”?
Or were they just tired, hungry and caught on a dark road, thinking they could find an answer all by themselves?

Maybe we’ve been in a spot like theirs sometime in our lives.

Dinner at Emmaus – Caravaggio

Let’s be with those disciples today and find ourselves in their story. Let’s attend to the “bread” of our dailyness as Jesus breaks it, and let our eyes be opened:

… while he was with them at table,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him…
Luke 24:30-31

Poetry: Witness – Denise Levertov

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

Music: Open My Eyes, Lord – Jesse Manibussan

Even When We Do Not See

On April 15, 2023March 20, 2023 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, spirituality4 Comments

Second Sunday of Easter
(Sunday of Divine Mercy)
April 16, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041623.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we read about the “Golden Years” of Christianity, those early days when Resurrection glory still lay fresh and warm over the nascent Church:

Awe came upon everyone,
and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.
All who believed were together and had all things in common;
they would sell their property and possessions
and divide them among all according to each one’s need.
Every day they devoted themselves
to meeting together in the temple area
and to breaking bread in their homes.
They ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart,
praising God and enjoying favor with all the people.
And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Acts 2: 43-47

Have you had times like that in your life where circumstances merged to make life a little piece of heaven? The right time, the right people, the right work to share? Perhaps the effort was taxing, but the merged joy and enthusiasm carried you through.

***Some of my wonderful friends sharing a joyful project together***

We cherish such times when we have them. And we remember their stories with tenderness, laughter and gratitude. This kind of remembering is what Luke, Peter, and John offer in our readings. They invite to experience the “indescribable joy” of our “new birth in Christ“ just as they experienced it.

Of course, we weren’t with the disciples in that first post-Easter glow. We might struggle a little, like absent Thomas did, to enthusiastically believe. He demanded to SEE before he would give his heart over:

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve,
was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”
But he said to them,
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands
and put my finger into the nailmarks
and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
John 20:24-25

Jesus was so kind to Thomas, wasn’t he – allowing Thomas not only to see, but to touch his sacred wounds.

Jesus is kind to us too. Through our Baptism, we are invited to see and touch Christ’s wounds in our own time and, like the gloriously joyous disciples, to be healers in God’s name.

In this you rejoice, although now for a little while
you may have to suffer through various trials,
so that the genuineness of your faith …
may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor
at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Although you have not seen him you love him;
even though you do not see him now yet believe in him,
you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy,
as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
1 Peter 1:6-8

Poetry: from “Sounding of the Seasons” by Malcolm Guite

“We do not know… how can we know the way?”
Courageous master of the awkward question,
You spoke the words the others dared not say
And cut through their evasion and abstraction.

Oh doubting Thomas, father of my faith,
You put your finger on the nub of things
We cannot love some disembodied wraith,
But flesh and blood must be our king of kings.

Your teaching is to touch, embrace, anoint,
Feel after Him and find Him in the flesh.
Because He loved your awkward counter-point
The Word has heard and granted you your wish.

Oh place my hands with yours, help me divine
The wounded God whose wounds are healing mine.

Music: Surely God Is With Us – Rich Mullins

Alleluia: Pray with Peter

On August 3, 2022August 3, 2022 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Discipleship, Faith, spiritualityLeave a comment

Memorial of Saint John Vianney, Priest
August 4, 2022

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080422.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, I am going to invite you to pray with the star of our Gospel, Peter.

Jesus said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter said in reply,
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
And so I say to you, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my Church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

And I will be honest with about why I offer that invitation. I got mixed up on the date (which I often do) and wrote a reflection for Friday instead of Thursday. It was well into the day when I discovered the error and didn’t want to be too late for my Australian and Pacific Rim friends. So I have gone back to an earlier reflection on dear St. Peter.

I hope it is helpful to your prayer. And you will just have to wait to see what I really wrote as I prayed today with Friday’s “advance readings” !

Rembrandt_Harmensz._van_Rijn_012 — Peter Denies Christ – Rembrandt

Simon Peter – John Poch

There are three things which are too wonderful for me,
Yes, four which I do not understand.
The way of an eagle in the air,
The way of a serpent on a rock,
The way of a ship in the heart of the sea,
And the way of a man with a maid
–Prov. 30:18, 19

I
Contagious as a yawn, denial poured
over me like a soft fall fog, a girl
on a carnation strewn parade float, waving
at everyone and no one, boring and bored
There actually was a robed commotion parading.
I turned and turned away and turned. A swirl

of wind pulled back my hood, a fire of coal
brightened my face, and those around me whispered:
You’re one of them, aren’t you? You smell like fish.
And wine, someone else joked. That’s brutal. That’s cold,
I said, and then they knew me by my speech.
They let me stay and we told jokes like fisher-
men and houseboys. We gossiped till the cock crowed,
his head a small volcano raised to mock stone.

II
Who could believe a woman’s word, perfumed
in death? I did. I ran and was outrun
before I reached the empty tomb. I stepped
inside an empty shining shell of a room,
sans pearl. I walked back home alone and wept
again. At dinner. His face shone like the sun.

I went out into the night. I was a sailor
and my father’s nets were calling. It was high tide,
I brought the others. Nothing, the emptiness
of business, the hypnotic waves of failure.
But a voice from shore, a familiar fire, and the nets
were full. I wouldn’t be outswum, denied
this time. The coal-fire before me, the netted fish
behind. I’m carried where I will not wish.

Music: Peter’s Song – Jacob Moon

Friday of the Seventh Week of Easter

On June 2, 2022June 1, 2022 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, Gospel, Love, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs

June 3, 2022

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Paul’s case goes before Festus and King Herod Agrippa. Just in case you are confused, like I was, about just who this particular Herod is, this family tree from Wikipedia helped:

This King Agrippa was Marcus Julius Agrippa II (A.D. 27-100), son of Agrippa I (Acts 12:1-25) and great-grandson of Herod the Great (Mt 2:1-23).

I offer these facts for no real spiritual reason, but they remind me that these biblical characters were real people, like us, engaging (or not) a real life of faith. (Also, I thought it was fun to see how uncreative they were in naming their babies )

In our Gospel, Jesus once again prepares Peter for his tremendous responsibility in the building of that faith. Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love Me?”. By the third interrogation, Peter’s answer sounds a little intense:

“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”

Hearing this response, Jesus lays the full burden of Peter’s life upon his shoulders. Not only must Peter “feed” the faith of Jesus’s followers, he must do so by giving over all control to God:

“Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger,
you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted;
but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands,
and someone else will dress you
and lead you where you do not want to go.”

Like Peter,
we too are given the gift and responsibility
of living a faithful life.
Like Peter, we all learn through the years,
that life comes to us in unexpected ways.
In reality, life often chooses us
rather than the other way around.

As we pray with these passages, we might want to look back over our lives for those points where life challenged or unbalanced us. What unexpected blessings came from those surprises/shocks? When God’s plan contradicted our own, how were we eventually blessed with courage, hope, gratitude, and insight?

We are the person we are today because of how we responded to God’s mysterious plan for our lives. Did we reach out our hand and let God lead us? Do we still need to do some letting go in order to enjoy that kind of freedom?

Rather than a poem today, I will be offering second post. It is a reflection I wrote many years ago for healthcare ministers and other chaplains. I think you might enjoy it. Watch for it later today – “Holding Hands with God”

Music: Precious Lord, Take My Hand – written by Thomas A. Dorsey, sung here by the Great Mahalia Jackson

When my way groweth drear

Precious Lord, linger near-ear

When my li-ight is almost gone

Hear my cry, hear my call

Hold my ha-and lest I fa-all

Take my hand, precious Lor-ord

Lead me on

Precious Lord, take my hand

Lead me on, let me sta-and

I am tired, I’m weak, I am worn

Through the storm, through the night

Lead me on to the li-ight

Take my ha-and, precious Lor-ord

Lead me home

When my work is all done

And my race here is are you-un

Let me see-ee by the light

Thou hast shown

That fair city so bright

Where the lantern is the li-ight

Take my ha-and, precious Lor-ord

Lead me on

Precious Lord, take my hand

Lead me on, let me sta-and

I am tired, I’m weak, I am worn

Through the storm, through the night

Lead me on to the li-ight

Take my ha-and, precious Lor-ord

Lead me home

Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter

On May 8, 2022May 8, 2022 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Conversion, Gospel, inclusivity, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

May 9, 2022

Today’s Readings

Click here for readings

800px-Domenico_Fetti_-_Peter's_vision_of_a_sheet_with_animals_-_Kunsthistorisches_Museum_Wien — Peter’s Vision of the Sheet – By Domenico Fetti – Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Bilddatenbank., Public Domain

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we have the long story and explanation by Peter about who can be welcomed into the Community.

The earliest Christians were all Jews. Their beginning Christian rituals had deep roots in Jewish tradition. Their entire expectation of a Messiah was wrapped in the garment of the Old Testament. So it was hard for them to comprehend that Gentiles might also be saved by the Blood of Christ.

We might be tempted to consider these Jewish Christians very provincial, parochial, or even prejudiced in their closed attitudes. But maybe we should just look in the mirror!

It seems to be an enduring human inclination that, rather than – like Peter – seek a road to inclusion, we claim privilege for ourselves and exclude others on all kinds of bases:

She’s a woman, so she can’t…. whatever…
He’s gay, so he can’t …
She’s divorced, so she can’t…
He’s pro-life, or pro-choice, so he can’t…
She’s a Muslim, an atheist, and (irony of ironies) a Jew, so she can’t…
He’s too young – She’s too old – so they can’t …

Maybe in your own life, you have felt the pain of some of these suggested or blatant exclusions.

Jesus, in our Gospel, has a whole different approach to whom he loves. All creatures belong to him and will be brought to the Father in love.

I am the good shepherd,
and I know mine and mine know me,
just as the Father knows me and I know the Father;
and I will lay down my life for the sheep.
I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.
These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice,
and there will be one flock, one shepherd.

Let us pray today to know and love our God ever more intensely. Let us ask to experience God’s infinite love and knowledge of us so that our unquenchable joy, humble gratitude, and limitless charity grow more evident.

Let us pray these gifts for all our sisters and brothers, no matter by what gate they come to the sheep fold.

Quote: I couldn’t find the original source, but it is a quote common in Eastern Spirituality:

We are all One.
There is no Other.

Music: They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love

This is an interesting rendering of an old hymn. Kind of touched my heart.

Saturday of the Third Week of Easter

On May 6, 2022May 6, 2022 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Eastertide, Eternal Life, Faith, spiritualityLeave a comment

May 7, 2022

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Peter is a headliner in both our readings.

I really love Peter. Can’t we relate to him on so many levels as he stumbles and shines through his growing relationship with Jesus?

Some of my best prayers with Peter have been:

when he tries to walk on water to meet Jesus in the sea

And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Mk.14:28

when he gets slammed for trying to stop Jesus from talking about his death

Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. “Far be it from You, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to You!” But Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me!” Mt. 13:41

when his name is changed to Rock and he’s foretold his future

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. Mt. 16:18

when he cowers in denial outside Jesus’s trial

Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows twice you will disown me three times.” And he broke down and wept. Mk. 14:72

when he recognizes the Resurrected Jesus on the shore and swims to him

Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. Jn.21:7

In today’s first reading, we see Peter in his full authority as the Vicar of Christ.

In our Gospel, we see Peter’s unequivocal confession of faith, voiced for the Church, voiced for all of us:

Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe
and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

Let’s take whatever piece of Peter is in us today
and lay it at the feet of Jesus
in our own confession of faith and hope.

Poetry: Simon Peter – John Poch

Music: Lord, to Whom Shall We Go? – Carolyn Arends

Third Sunday of Easter

On April 30, 2022April 29, 2022 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

May 1, 2022

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Mercy, Jesus asks Peter an open-ended question, the kind that leaves both parties very vulnerable to the answer:

Do you love me?

Wow! What if Peter says “No”, or “Sort of” or worse yet, just stares off into the distance in silence? Would that break Jesus’ heart?!

And the question is kind of scary for Peter too. Maybe he’s thinking, “OK, this is it. Jesus wants me to lay it all on the line. Am I ready?” — because, as Jesus says so clearly, the measure of true love is service and sacrifice:

Jesus said to him the third time,
“Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was distressed that Jesus had said to him a third time,
“Do you love me?” and he said to him,
“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.
Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger,
you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted;
but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands,
and someone else will dress you
and lead you where you do not want to go.”
John 21: 17-19

The Gospel poses questions to each of us today as well:

Who and what do I really love?
How does my primary love drive my life choices?
Are there places in my life that lack love – places where prejudice, blindness, selfishness or hate have filled in the emptiness?
How inclusive is my love? How redemptive? How merciful? How Christlike?
Where is God in my loves?

Prose: St. John of the Cross wrote this:

At the end of our lives we will be judged on love.
Learn therefore to love God as God wishes to be loved.

Music: Where Charity and Love Prevail – a lovely English translation of Ubi Caritas, written in Gregorian chant.

Second Sunday of Easter: Sacred Shadows

On April 23, 2022April 23, 2022 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eastertide, Gospel, spiritualityLeave a comment

April 24, 2022

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings continue to show us the rising power of Christ after the Resurrection.

Acts demonstrates how powerfully Jesus lives in his disciples, and in the faith of the emerging Church.

… the people esteemed them.
Yet more than ever, believers in the Lord,
great numbers of men and women, were added to them.
Thus they even carried the sick out into the streets
and laid them on cots and mats
so that when Peter came by,
at least his shadow might fall on one or another of them.
Acts 5: 13-15

Our Gospel recounts two Post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus where He bolsters that faith for these still fledgling followers. They were gathered in the Upper Room, doors locked and fearful. When Jesus appears, the first thing he says is, “Peace”, because that is what his little flock most needs.

In the course of the reading, we discover Thomas’s adamant doubt unless he can see and touch evidence of the Christ he once knew in the flesh. His doubt is so strong that his faith, when it comes, overwhelms him.

My Lord, and my God!

In these first sainted founders of the faith, we can find a mirror image of our own call to witness Christ. We are delegated to be his presence in the world, to cast a shadow that bears his blessing in the midst of suffering and confusion.

But in the locked room of our hearts, we may still be afraid. We may feel, like Thomas, that we were absent when the affirmation and courage were distributed!

Knowing our own weaknesses – and captured in the maze of their little dramas – we may be skeptical that Christ desires to rise in us, to preach by our lives.

What Jesus said to these very fragile witnesses, he says to us

Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me,
so I send you.

Let us look around today in awareness of those who fall in the shadow of our faith: our children and families, our religious communities, our elders, our neighbors, our friends and co-workers. As we pass through life together, does our presence bless them with a trace of God?

As we pray today, let us place our doubts, fears, weaknesses and self-concerns into Christ’s sacred wounds. Let us leave them there in confidence as we humbly choose to be his Presence and Mercy for others by the simple, selfless choices of our lives.

Poetry: In the Upper Room – by Fr. Charles O’Donnell, CSC – 11th President of Notre Dame University (unfortunately not as well known for his beautiful, mystical poetry)

Music: Under the Shadow of Your Wings – Chris Bowater

Seventh Sunday of EasterMay 21, 2023

Thursday of the Fifth Week of EasterMay 11, 2023

Third Sunday of EasterApril 23, 2023

Second Sunday of Easter(Sunday of Divine Mercy)April 16, 2023

Memorial of Saint John Vianney, PriestAugust 4, 2022

Memorial of Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs

We are all One.There is no Other.

Do you love me?

Seventh Sunday of Easter
May 21, 2023

Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter
May 11, 2023

Third Sunday of Easter
April 23, 2023

Second Sunday of Easter
(Sunday of Divine Mercy)
April 16, 2023

Memorial of Saint John Vianney, Priest
August 4, 2022

We are all One.
There is no Other.