Tag: Sirach

A Grape Soon Ripe

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Faith, holiness, spirituality8 Comments

Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs
June 3, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/060323.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with our final passage from the Book of Sirach. We will read Sirach only five or six times again scattered throughout the liturgical year.

In today’s reading, Sirach offers a grateful reflection on the early blessing of wisdom and pursuit of holiness in his life.

I thank the LORD and I praise him;
I bless the name of the LORD.
When I was young and innocent,
I sought wisdom openly in my prayer
I prayed for her before the temple…

Sirach 51:13-14

Sirach’s prayer will resonate with many of us whose earliest days were blessed with faithful parents and grandparents. These wisdom figures taught us to love and seek God in our lives. As we pray today, we think of them with gratitude, as well as of the many teachers who guided our young spirits into God’s Light.

Even if we have moved far from the parish church of our youth, we may recall the graces we received within her walls. We might prayerfully recollect our beloved grade school and high school where we were guided in the pursuit of a meaningful and reverent life.

Hopefully, our prayer brings us to realize how blessed we have been from the beginning of our lives. This is the kind of prayer Sirach prays in today’s reading. He is filled with gratitude and praise because he understands that it is all a gratuitous and undeserved blessing:

My heart delighted in Wisdom,
My feet kept to the level path
because from earliest youth I was familiar with her.
In the short time I paid heed,
I met with great instruction.
Since in this way I have profited,
I will give my teacher grateful praise.

Sirach 51:15-17

Sirach’s prayer brings him to that still and holy place deep in his heart — that place where he touches the Wisdom of God. He describes it like this:

I sought Wisdom openly in my prayer
I prayed for her before the temple,
and I will seek her until the end,
and she flourished as a grape soon ripe.

Sirach 51:13-15

Many of us are so busy and intent on living our lives forward – trying to make it through this day to the next. We may not take the time to consider and appreciate the “ripe grape” our life has already become.

I look around me in our convent chapel and realize that I am living with holy people. Of course, like me, they have their personal twists and trademarks. Still each one of them has walked through their roundabout years into the heart of God. Every day they live into a deeper goodness – aging like fine wine, unaware that the grape has already ripened and is blessing the world around them.

The Great Vintner accomplishes this holy transformation in us by a slow accumulation of blessings which saturate our hearts in God. Pausing, like Sirach, to recognize and give thanks fills us with generous gratitude and a confident courage for the days to come.

Take time to look at the holy people in your own life today, the ones through whom God’s Wisdom has poured into your life. They are the ones who love you into a better person by their goodness, honesty, humility, and generosity. You meet them in your family, friends and workplace. Or you may have met them only in a book, poem, song or story.

I met with great instruction.
Since in this way I have profited,
I will give my teacher grateful praise.

Sirach 51:16-17

Poetry: Our Responsorial Psalm 19 today beautifully complements Sirach’s prayer and can serve as a perfect poetic refletion for us.


The law of the LORD is perfect,
refreshing the soul.
The decree of the LORD is trustworthy,
giving wisdom to the simple.

The precepts of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart.
The command of the LORD is clear,
enlightening the eye.

Awe of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever;
The ordinances of the LORD are true,
all of them just.

They are more precious than gold,
than a heap of purest gold;
Sweeter also than syrup
or honey from the comb.

Music: Psalm 19 – Jess Ray

Don’t Miss Sirach!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, ordinary time, Scripture, spirituality4 Comments

Memorial of St. Justin, Martyr
June 1, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/060123.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with one of our last few readings from the Book of Sirach. On Saturday, we will finish this book and, on Monday, move on to the Book of Tobit.

Both Sirach and Tobit are considered deuterocanonical (or “second list”) books of the Bible. That’s a really big word that makes you sound smart but its meaning is simple. The term refers to a group of writings composed sometime in the 300 years before the birth of Christ. The Catholic Church considers them part of the Old Testament. Most Protestant denominations do not.

Therefore, my readers who are not Catholic may be unfamiliar with these books. The Protestant Bible is composed of the protocanonical (or “first list”) of books, the earlier texts which comprised the Hebrew scriptures. Catholic translations of the Bible include both proto and deutero books.

So who cares, you might be saying. Well, I think it’s helpful to realize that the formulation of what comprises the Bible was a fluid process. Jews, Catholics and Protestants mean different things when they say “my Bible”. We share many of the same readings, but may never have heard some others. Sirach and Tobit are good examples of those sometimes missed readings.

And what a shame it would be to miss the wise and lyrical Sirach who was a real poet writing around 200 years before Jesus was born. His work was preserved, popular and shared. Many references in the New Testament indicate that Jesus and the disciples were familiar with Sirach’s work. That’s cool, don’t you think? I like to think of Jesus listening to sacred stories or reading books like Sirach before he went to bed at night.

And maybe Jesus, as we might this morning, walked along the beach or sat by a dawn-lit window praying with these beautiful words:

Now will I recall God’s works;
what I have seen, I will describe.
At God’s word were his works brought into being;
they do his will as he has ordained for them.
As the rising sun is clear to all,
so the glory of the LORD fills all his works;
Yet even God’s holy ones must fail
in recounting the wonders of the LORD,
Though God has given these, his hosts, the strength
to stand firm before his glory.

Sirach 2:15-17

Our Gospel may lead us to pray with Bartimeus, begging for the kind of sight Sirach describes – an inner sight that comes from allowing God to plumb our hearts:

He plumbs the depths and penetrates the heart;
their innermost being he understands.
The Most High possesses all knowledge,
and sees from of old the things that are to come:
He makes known the past and the future,
and reveals the deepest secrets.

Sirach 42:18-19

Poetry: how about if we just enjoy more of Sirach’s elegant poetry

How beautiful are all God's works!
even to the spark and fleeting vision!
The universe lives and abides forever;
to meet each need, each creature is preserved.
All of them differ, one from another,
yet none of them has God made in vain,
For each in turn, as it comes, is good;
can one ever see enough of their splendor?

Music: Across the Universe – John Lennon and the Beatles

This song reminds me that God’s Universe is everlasting. Nothing will change God’s Presence to us. The phrase “Jai Guru Deva” is a Sanskrit phrase which can be translated “Glory to the Shining Remover of Darkness”, reminding us of Bartimeus’s experience of being healed from his blindness.

Thursday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Gospel, ordinary time, Prayer, PsalmsLeave a comment

May 27, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 33. It is a song of extravagant praise to the Creator of a universe which extends infinitely both within and without us.

Our readings call us to be aware – to see – this infinite power and generosity of God, and to order our life upon the abundance of that vision.

Our lyrical passage from Sirach includes this:

How beautiful are all God’s works!
    even to the spark and fleeting vision!
The universe lives and abides forever;
    to meet each need, each creature is preserved.
All of them differ, one from another,
    yet none of them has God made in vain,
For each in turn, as it comes, is good;
    can one ever see enough of their splendor?

Sirach 15:22-25

In Mark’s Gospel, a blind man – one who longs to see – cries out for Jesus:

Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”
So they called the blind man, saying to him,
“Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.”
He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.
Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?”
The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.”
Jesus told him, ‘Go your way; your faith has saved you.”
Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.

Mark 10:49-52

God is calling us too, as we pray Psalm 33, to be grateful, to trust, to SEE the wonders around and within us:

Give thanks to the LORD on the harp;
on the ten-stringed lyre offer praise.
Sing to God a new song;
skillfully play with joyful chant.
For the LORD’s word is upright,
and works are trustworthy.
God loves justice and right.
The earth is full of the mercy of the LORD.

Psalm 33:2-5

This kind of seeing is more than just looking.
It is letting go of prefabricated expectation.
It is waiting in trust for the Invisible
to capture our hearts.

Prose: from de Chardin

“Seeing. One could say that the whole of life lies in seeing — if not ultimately, at least essentially. To be more is to be more united — and this sums up and is the very conclusion of the work to follow. But unity grows, and we will affirm this again, only if it is supported by an increase of consciousness, of vision. That is probably why the history of the living world can be reduced to the elaboration of ever more perfect eyes at the heart of a cosmos where it is always possible to discern more. Are not the perfection of an animal and the supremacy of the thinking being measured by the penetration and power of synthesis of their glance? To try to see more and to see better is not, therefore, just a fantasy, curiosity, or a luxury. See or perish. This is the situation imposed on every element of the universe by the mysterious gift of existence. And thus, to a higher degree, this is the human condition.”
(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: The Human Phenomenon, trans. Sarah Appleton-Weber, p. 3)

Music: Vision of Change by Back to Earth

Eulogy

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

Friday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

February 7, 2020

Click here for readings

Today, in Mercy, Sirach gives us a beautiful eulogy for King David.

A eulogy sets a particular frame of remembrance around a person’s life. Like Sirach today, that frame tries to capture the positive accomplishments of the person who has died. We set aside any mistakes and negativity. Or we acknowledge them as Sirach has done for David by invoking God’s forgiveness:

The LORD forgave him his sins
and exalted his strength forever.

To tell the truth, I’ve attended a few funerals where I wondered what the speaker might come up with in a positive regard. You know, you need more than a sentence or two for a decent eulogy! Despite my wondering, every tribute has provided an enriching lesson on the sacred beauty of a human life.

Sir47_1 eulogy

There are times when I leave such a life celebration thinking, “Gosh, I never realized that about him!” or “Wow, there are so many things we don’t understand about someone’s life!” 

If only we could treat every living person with the same honor their eulogies inspire!

In our Gospel, we read the sad and violent story of John the Baptist’s martyrdom. It’s a passage filled with the best and the worst of the human heart. One would wonder what kind of eulogy could have eventually been crafted for the likes of Herod, Herodias, and Salome.

But for John the Baptist, Jesus had given him the perfect epitaph even before John died.

I say to you, among those born of women
there is no one greater than John;

In the verse, Jesus also reveals what it takes to earn greatest accolade in God’s eyes:

… yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God
is greater than John.

Luke 7:28

When Jesus spoke that verse, John had not yet died. If Jesus said anything about John after his death, the words are not recorded. All we have is this poignant response from Matthew:

Later, John’s disciples came for his body and buried it.
Then they went and told Jesus what had happened.
As soon as Jesus heard the news,
he left in a boat to a remote area to be alone.
But the crowds heard where he was headed
and followed on foot from many towns.
Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat,
and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Matthew 14: 12-14

As we pray today with the legacies of David and the Baptist, we might consider what we’d want to see engraved on our own tombstones. I’ve told my friends I’d like to see this:

She was kind.

Still working on it!😉

What about you?

Music: Lay Me Down – in this song, two icons of country music, Loretta Lynn and Willie Nelson sing their own kind of eulogy. (Lyrics below)

Lay Me Down
Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn
I raised my head and set myself
In the eye of the storm, in the belly of a whale
My spirit stood on solid ground
I’ll be at peace when they lay me down
When I was a child, I cried
Until my needs were satisfied
My needs have grown up, pound for pound
I’ll be at peace when they lay me down
When they lay me down someday
My soul will rise, then fly away
This old world will turn around
I’ll be at peace when they lay me down
This life isn’t fair, it seems
It’s filled with tears and broken dreams
There are no tears where I am bound
And I’ll be at peace when they lay me down
When they lay me down some day
My soul will rise, then fly away
This old world will turn around
I’ll be at peace when they lay down
When they lay me down some day
My soul will rise and fly away
This old world will turn around
I’ll be at peace when they lay me down
When I was a child, I cried

That Fish Was Sooo…..

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus2 Comments

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

October 27, 2019

Click here for readings

Today, in Mercy, in our readings:

  • Sirach assures us that the prayer of the humble reaches the ear of God
  • Paul readies himself for death
  • Jesus gives us one of his most memorable parables. 

The thread running through all of these? Humility- that beautiful virtue which allows us to be who we truly are before God and humanity.

Oh my goodness friends, how many times have we been with “the Pharisees”, such as Jesus describes, at a meeting or dinner? They are so unsure and unaware of their true value in God, that they begin to create an illusion to protect their fear.

We know the statements (or attitudes) by heart. Sometimes, they’re harmless; sometimes not. We may be guilty of a few of them ourselves:

fish

But there are other statements, such as the Pharisee’s, that can certainly make us question a person’s self- perception: 

  • There has never been a better leader, CEO, deal-maker, neighbor, human being
  • I am smarter than the generals, the lawyers, the financiers, the scientists
  • Nobody does things better than me
  • I am the smartest person of all time

Certainly, it’s angering, but more than that, it’s sad. It’s really sad to miss the whole point of one’s true greatness: that we are beloved and redeemed by God – just like every Creature! That we are called, in that belovedness , to serve God in our sisters and brothers. Knowing this inalienable truth is the source of all humility, courage, joy, and perseverance in faith. It is the whole reason we were created. What a tragedy to, like the Pharisee, miss the whole point!

Let us pray with Paul and the humble tax collector today. “O God, be merciful to me a sinner – a redeemed, grateful, and joyful sinner.”

Music: Miserere Mei – Gregorio Allegri 

What Return Can I Make?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, spirituality, Thanksgiving2 Comments

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Click here for Readings

Today, in Mercy, our readings challenge us to consider what we might offer to God in return for all the good we have received.

Ps50_praise

When I was young, and on a stressful occasion still, I have been known to bargain with God.  It goes something like this:
“Dear God, please, if You will only do X, I promise to do Y.”

The process reminds me of a game my Uncle Joe played with me when I was a toddler. He would give me some pennies to buy candy from him that he had just purchased at the corner store. He intended to teach me simple math. But I also learned what is was like to have resources, to possess buying power.

The glitch in the process was this: none of the resources really belonged to me. Everything belonged to Uncle Joe who allowed me to use his resources to learn and grow.

When we think about what we can offer God, it’s sort of a similar model. We have nothing that doesn’t first and already belong to God. We can give God nothing to “buy” God’s love and grace. God gives these freely and without restriction.

All that we really have to offer God is our love, demonstrated by our charitable actions. That’s what Sirach is talking about today.

In our Gospel, Peter – ever a guileless and simple soul – wants to make sure Jesus knows how much Peter has given up for God. Jesus affirms Peter’s offering, but says that God’s generosity exceeds it a hundredfold.

We live in loving relationship with an infinitely generous God. Our only currency in this relationship is the return of love, praise and thanksgiving.

When I regress to my bargaining stance with God, I think God smiles at me the way Jesus probably smiled at Peter. The smile says, “I am already giving you everything you need. Let yourself rest in Me.”

Music: To God Be the Glory ~ Andrae Crouch

Turn To Me

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

Monday, March 4, 2019

Click here for readings

Today, in Mercy, our readings are steeped with the scent of Lent, coming this week.

Sirach 17 turn

Sirach appeals to us to be penitent, to turn around and look at the Lord with new eyes. Mark describes the entrance to God’s Kingdom as smaller than a needle’s eye!

The word “penitent” comes from a Latin root paenitere which carries a sense of being filled with regret at what is missing or lacking in our lives.

In Mark, Jesus meets a good young man longing for something more in his life.

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him,

“You are lacking in one thing.
Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor
and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

These readings set us up perfectly for the coming Lenten season. It is a good day to think about what is lacking in our spiritual life, what it will take for us to follow Jesus more wholeheartedly.

Let us turn our hearts to look at Jesus who loves us as much as he loved that young man. Let us ask Jesus to accompany us on the coming journey, giving us the courage to change whatever in us needs change in order to pass through the needle’s eye.

Music: Turn Around – The Vogues

The Blessing of Friends

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, friendship, Uncategorized3 Comments

Friday, March 1, 2019

Click here for Readings

Sirach6_15 friend

Today, in Mercy, our beautiful reading from Sirach reminds us how blessed we are in our friends.

To have a true friend, loving, honest and concerned for us is a gift beyond description. In modern parlance, such friends are often referred to as BFFs – “Best Friends Forever”. 

Pray in thanksgiving for your BFFs today. 

Some you may not have seen in many years. Still they are nestled in a place of eternal thanksgiving within you.

Some you may not speak to every day. You still carry and can depend on their strength and love.

Some may have been present to only a small part of your life. Still their impression lives in you.

Some may have grown old and gone home to God. Their eternal life rises in you.

Let us all give thanks today for the precious gift of friendship. Let us pray to be good and faithful friends ourselves.

(A second posting today with a few of my poems on friendship. Thank you to all of you, my friends, for the gift of your friendship.)

Music: More Than You’ll Ever Know – Watermark 

Wait on the Lord

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Jesus, Mercy, peace, Prayer, spirituality, Truth1 Comment

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

 Click here for Readings

Today, in Mercy,  we find so many singular, profound words in Sirach. Each word is like a deep pool that can be prayed into, like a diver becoming one with the water.

Sirach2_2

Sirach is instructing his “son” on relationship with God. As we pray with the reading, we can focus on these words. We can ask for the grace to enrich our friendship with God by deepening in these virtues:

Justice —- Sincerity—- Steadfastness—-
Peacefulness —- Patience —- Trust —-
Mercy —- Hope —- Spiritual Insight—-
Compassion —- Forgiveness

In our Gospel, the disciples need a reminder about which virtues lead to true greatness. Like them, we all get off track sometimes about our own self-importance.

Jesus brings their focus back to truth by placing a little child in their midst. Let’s pray today for a graceful re-focusing of our hearts.

“If anyone wishes to be first,   
he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”
Taking a child, Jesus placed her in their midst,   
and putting his arms around her, he said to them,
“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;
and whoever receives me,
receives not me but the One who sent me.”

Music: Be Still – Mary McDonald – Sunday 7pm Choir