Tag: Time

The Times of Our Lives

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, Hope, spirituality2 Comments

Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
November 19, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111922.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings are challenging. 

Revelation, a very complex book of the Bible, uses symbols, prophecies and allegorical references to make its point. There are huge bodies of scholarship written in the attempt to interpret these passages.

Our Gospel has Jesus describing what it will be like in heaven – when our human perceptions will be erased and we will finally be absorbed into God’s understanding.

These are BIG thoughts and my mind, at least, needs some more manageable inspirations for my morning prayer.  So here’s how I prayed with these readings today.

Lit yr flowerJPG

What both passages share are continual references to time – past, present and future. They reference then-time, now-time, and to-be-time. These passages, and others in Scripture like them, talk about time like this:

  • “in the days before” (then time)
  • “in the days after” (to -be time)
  • “in the day of” (now time)

So what is this day, November 19th, for me?
How is God revealing Love to me in this, my time? 

Today is among “the days after” the last memorable thing that happened in my life – maybe a good thing, maybe not so much. In “the days after”, we spend time with a completed event – learning, savoring, or perhaps regretting and recovering. The “days after” are a time to pray for grace and blessing over what cannot be changed.

Today is also among “the days before” the next big events of my life. So my prayer includes a petition for new and continued courage, hope and enthusiasm for life.

And, most importantly, today is “a day of”. I ask God to help me see and receive the graces of this present moment – not to miss them because I am looking only back or forward. Let me look God square in the eye on this day, which is the only place that I can really find the God Who is always Now.

The entire liturgical year is built on this understanding of time. 

  • Advent and Lent are “the days before”, the days of preparation, anticipation, imagining, creating, hoping.
  • The feasts like Christmas, Easter and Pentecost are “the days of”, days of celebrating, loving, being with.
  • The various Octaves are “the days after”, days of remembering, thanking, appreciating, understanding, mourning, forgiving and savoring
lit yr

Where are you today in the times of your life? It may be in a very different place from what is printed on the calendar. The events of our lives create their own personal liturgies.

No matter where that happens to be, let us meet God there with full and open hearts.

Poetry: from Burnt Norton by T.S. Eliot

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?

Music: God of All My Days – Casting Crowns

Time’s Shifting Seas

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Hope, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Pius of Pietrelcina, Priest
September 23, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092322.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we read about time, that elusive framework that binds our days.  We are so conscious of time, still it defies all our efforts to define or control it. It lumbers when we want it to skip. It flies when we long for it to tarry. Once it has passed, we wonder where it went. We find the long, vibrant years compressed to a distant, gossamer memory.

Eces3_1 time

Time can create in us a sense of urgency, a deadline for us to make a mark on its surface. But Ecclesiastes counsels us to be patient, telling us there is a time for everything – a segment in our life story for us to plumb each emotion. 

As we read through this antiphonal list of life’s realities, we are conscious of the ones we would rather eliminate – the downside of experience. But the scribe suggests that even life’s shadowed side serves to hone us for eternity. 

Faith allows us to stand in balanced trust
on the crossbeam of our shifting lives.
Hope causes us to expect light
out of every darkness.
Love convinces us that our timeless God
abides with us beyond time’s testing.

In our Gospel, Jesus is conscious that he is coming to the end of his time. As many of us do when we are feeling unsure of ourselves, Jesus asks his disciples what people are saying about him. They respond in glowing accolades – Elijah, the Baptist returned from the dead, the Christ, Son of God. But Jesus knows it is not a time for accolades. He rebukes them with a somber forecast of darkening times.

Even Jesus, Son of the Eternal God, experienced time’s shifting waves. Praying the Gospel daily, living with Jesus through his highs and lows, is the steady fulcrum in our own uneven seas.

Poetry: from Burnt Norton – T.S. Eliot

These are the opening lines from Eliot’s long poem. I love Eliot but he definitely challenges his reader. If you are up to the challenge, here is a link to the whole poem. ( I find it best to read his poems in small doses, reflecting slowly on the depth of his suggestions.) http://www.coldbacon.com/poems/fq.html

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
                                   But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.

Music: In His Time ~ CRC Worship

Psalm 102: God’s Time

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Eternal Life, Hope, Mary, ordinary time, Poetry, PsalmsLeave a comment

Thursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

July 16, 2020

From 2018: Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

For the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel
Click here for today’s readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 102, one of the seven penitential psalms. It is introduced as “the prayer of the afflicted”.

Yet, I find our verses today full of hope. They look with confidence to a better future.

You, O LORD, abide forever,
and your name through all generations.
You will arise and have mercy on Zion,
for it is time to pity her.

That last line, “for it is time to pity her”, is particularly touching as the psalmist nudges God to move forward with healing. Don’t we  pray like that sometimes?

  • Dear God, I’ve had all I can take! Please fix this — now!
  • Lord, I’ve learned my lesson. Please relent and rescue me.
  • Jesus, please let this trial be over and let us survive.
  • Lord, it is time for this to be over!

The bedrock of this prayer is the psalmist’s deep trust that God will act as God has promised:

The nations shall revere your name, O LORD,
and all the kings of the earth your glory,
When the LORD has rebuilt Zion
and appeared in his glory;
When he has regarded the prayer of the destitute,
and not despised their prayer.

You may find your heart filled with a prayer like this today. Surely, our whole human community voices a longing for the pandemic sufferings to be over. Or there may be other afflictions you carry that are testing the limits of your endurance.

Psalm 94 holds out encouragement and hope. Reach for it and let it strengthen you.

But you are forever the same, Lord, 
without beginning or end, 
infinite in your compassion, 
fathomless in your love. 
You rebuild the desolate city; 
you bring the exiles back home. 
You grant the poor your abundance; 
you guide the nations toward peace.
You hear the cry of the destitute 
and the sobbing of the oppressed. 
You soothe the pain of the captive; 
you set the prisoner free. 
Come to me too in your mercy 
and set my soul at peace.
from A Book of Psalms by Stephen Mitchell

Poetry: from Burnt Norton – T.S. Eliot

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future, 
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction 
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been 
Point to one end, which is always present. 
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take 
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. 
My words echo 
Thus, in your mind.

Music: On Time God – Deborah Kline Iantorno

In Every Age

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, holiness, Jesus, spirituality5 Comments

Tuesday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

August 13, 2019

Click here for readings

Dt32_7Jage to agePG

Today, in Mercy, our readings are peopled with individuals of all ages.

Deuteronomy gives us Moses at 120 years, when time forces him to admit:

“I am now one hundred and twenty years old
and am no longer able to move about freely;
besides, the LORD has told me that I shall not cross this Jordan.

We also have Joshua, vigorous and on the doorstep of his career:

Then Moses summoned Joshua and in the presence of all Israel
said to him, “Be brave and steadfast,
for you must bring this people into the land
which the LORD swore to their fathers he would give them.

The Gospel brings us Jesus near the untimely end of his young life, and the disciples growing into their apostolic maturity.

And then we have the picture of the humble little child who is “the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven”.

Every one of them, young or old, is seeking God in the circumstances of their lives.

What about you, dear friends, how is the mystery of God unfolding in your life today?  As summer gently and slowly leans toward autumn, let the passing days teach us that each season brings its own graces.

Music: in Every Age – Janet Sullivan Whitaker

The Illusion of Time

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Hope, Love, spiritualityLeave a comment

Friday, September 28, 2018

                      Readings:  http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/092818.cfm

Today, in Mercy, we read about time, that elusive framework that binds our days.  We are so conscious of time, still it defies all our efforts to define or control it. It lumbers when we want it to skip. It flies when we long for it to tarry. Once it has passed, we wonder where it went. We find the long, vibrant years compressed to a distant, gossamer memory.

Eces3_1 time

Time can create in us a sense of urgency, a deadline for us to make a mark on its surface. But Ecclesiastes counsels us to be patient, telling us there is a time for everything – a segment in our life story for us to plumb each emotion. 

As we read through his antiphonal list of life’s realities, we are conscious of the ones we would rather eliminate – the down side of experience. But the scribe suggests that even life’s shadowed side serves to hone us for eternity. 

Faith allows us to stand in balanced trust on the crossbeam of our shifting lives. Hope causes us to expect light out of every darkness. Love convinces us that our timeless God abides with us beyond time’s testing.

In our Gospel, Jesus is conscious that he is coming to the end of his time. As many of us do when we are feeling unsure of ourselves, Jesus asks his disciples what people are saying about him. They respond in glowing accolades – Elijah, the Baptist returned from the dead, the Christ, Son of God. But Jesus knows it is not a time for accolades. He rebukes them with a somber forecast of darkening times.

Even Jesus, Son of the Eternal God, experienced time’s shifting waves. Praying the Gospel daily, living with Jesus through his highs and lows, is the steady fulcrum in our own uneven seas.

Music: In His Time ~ CRC Worship