We exist in the infinite embrace of God’s mercy. In mercy, we all were created. In mercy, we all live. In mercy, we all have the hope of eternal life.
The lavish mercy of God pours over us in every sunrise and sunset, in every noon and midnight. With every breath, we draw on mercy. With every thought, we capture its spirit and turn it to our hope. The gift of such divine power in us calls us to lavish mercy with our own lives, to be agents of mercy in all things.
This journal is offered as an act of thanksgiving and celebration for that lavish mercy. It is a gathering of reflections and prayers which sift through our ordinary experience to seek the breath-giving grace of God awaiting us there.
My name is Renee Yann. I am a Sister of Mercy. I love to chase God through the bright blessing of words. I love to discover words in the dark blessing of silence. It is a joy to share with you the humble fruit of those mutual blessings.
Our entire theological tradition is expressed in terms of Mercy, which I define as the willingness to enter into the chaos of others. James F. Keenan, S.J.
Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. We pray, within this Loving Mystery, to our Creator, Redeemer, and Abiding Spirit. In each Divine Expression, may we praise and thank our generous God.
The Quaker Meetinghouse that William Penn attended is just a short distance from my home. I pass it frequently and read the Penn quote posted above its entrance, “Let us see what love can do.”
Trinity Sunday is a day to see what love can do. We contemplate the mystery of God, Who is Uncontainable Love, Who progenerates in Infinite Creation, Redemption, and Sanctification.
This is a beyond-big mystery that defies human comprehension. So how am I supposed to pray with it, one might ask!
First off, the Mystery of the Trinity can’t be analyzed or solved. Only problems can be addressed in that way. Like cathedrals of the soul, mysteries must be entered, revered, and embraced as they are. In today’s readings, Moses, Paul, and John share their experience of praying within the mystery of the Trinity.
In our first reading, Moses meets the Creator. He bows in profound awe, then comfortably welcomes God’s company. The passage invites us to an unexpected intimacy with Omnipotence. Love wants to be with us. Love wants to create through us.
Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship. Then he said, “If I find favor with you, O Lord, do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own.”
Exodus 34:8-9
In our Second Reading from Corinthians, Paul instructs that the Redeemer abides with us through our joy, mutual encouragement, and peaceful co-existence. Like the Creator’s kiss that gives us life, the holy kiss of Christian community nurtures the timeless vitality of the Gospel.
Brothers and sisters, rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the holy ones greet you.
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
That Redemption, given in the gift of God’s Son for us, imbues us with a share in eternal life – the Holy Spirit living within our redeemed hearts. We ourselves become the vessels where the Trinity chooses to abide eternally.
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
John 3:16
So what might this Sacred Mystery mean for me today?
I think it shows us what God Who is Love can do:
Love can create life. Love can redeem life. Love can abide for life.
When you feel overwhelmed by a seemingly lifeless situation, remember what Creative Love can do.
When you encounter someone or something that seems irrevocably lost, remember what Redemptive Love can do.
When you are tested to abandon faith, hope, or charity, remember what Abiding Love can do.
Music: Hildegard of Bingen: De Spiritu Sancto (Holy Spirit, The Quickener Of Life) – sung by St. Stanislav Girls’ Choir
Just a reminder that we are back in ordinary time and that post will be less frequent, probably about one every 7 to 10 days. I hope you enjoyed the post during Easter tide. And I hope you enjoy the beginning of summer here in the northern hemisphere.
In the Northern Hemisphere, many await the day with parched longing for sun-kissed skin, salt water, and cook-outs.
In the swirl of that longing, we may forget the real meaning of the day, a day to honor and mourn lives given in military service. Originally titled “Decoration Day”, the memorial included the practice of strewing flowers, or “decorating”, the graves of fallen soldiers.
Immediately after the tragedy of the Civil War, there was an abundance of American graves to be so decorated, and a nation deeply wounded by its internal rivalries. A striking example is the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, a quiet town of about 2000 residents in the late 1800s. But in November 1864, in the farmers’ fallow fields, 10,000 Americans were wounded by one another, and 2300 died. Even if every resident buried a soldier, there would not have been enough grave diggers!
Confederate soldiers killed in the Battle of Franklin were buried on a two-acre plot of land at the Carnton Plantation donated by the McGavock family. “Widow of the South” Carrie McGavock cared for the cemetery for the rest of her life. Photograph courtesy of the Battle of Franklin Trust
Practical healing was sorely needed. In that hope, Memorial Day was formalized by an order issued by Grand Army of the Republic Commander-in-Chief John A. Logan in 1868. It has been observed ever since to honor those sacrificed to our continuing obsession with war.
Despite the happiness of approaching summer, I find Memorial Day heartbreaking. How profoundly sad that men, women, and children die, even now, in the wreckage of war when the human mind is capable of designing peace.
Each evening, somewhere between the Nightly News and Jeopardy, ads pop up for organizations like Wounded Warriors or Second Chance. The images of young men and women – their broken bodies, minds, and dreams – overwhelm me with a turbulent mix of pity and anger.
Ask yourself: Where do they get the guns?
The human family can change this! To do so would be a truly reverent way to honor our fallen and wounded heroes. World leaders could initiate the dismantling of systems that feed war, and reinforce efforts to establish global agreements for sustained peace. It is each of our responsibilities to demand this of our leaders and of ourselves.
To begin, we must ask ourselves these questions, determining where we fit in the answers:
Who benefits from war?
Who enriches themselves by its machinery?
Who retains power and wealth by appeasing warmongers?
Who pays the greatest price for war, and why are we willing to dehumanize and sacrifice them?
How does the rhetoric of force, retribution, and domination feed the avaricious fears of tyrants and their sycophants? How does such language affect me?
How do my own language, advocacy, and voting patterns reflect my understanding of war and commitment to peace?
Each Memorial Day, each Veterans Day, I do indeed honor our heroes. There are beloved members of my family and friends among them who have been willing to stand in harm’s way for my sake. Still, at a deeper level, I pray that war may recede to an ancient memory and not another name be added to its lamentable honor rolls.
On this sacred day, let us pray with the encouragement offered by Pope Leo on the 2026 World Day of Peace:
Dear brothers and sisters, whether we have the gift of faith or feel we lack it, let us open ourselves to peace! Let us welcome it and recognize it, rather than believing it to be impossible and beyond our reach. Peace is more than just a goal; it is a presence and a journey. Even when it is endangered within us and around us, like a small flame threatened by a storm, we must protect it, never forgetting the names and stories of those who have borne witness to it. Peace is a principle that guides and defines our choices. Even in places where only rubble remains, and despair seems inevitable, we still find people who have not forgotten peace. Just as on the evening of Easter Jesus entered the place where his disciples were gathered in fear and discouragement, so too the peace of the risen Christ continues to pass through doors and barriers in the voices and faces of his witnesses. This gift enables us to remember goodness, to recognize it as victorious, to choose it again, and to do so together.
Music: Where Have All the Flowers Gone – Peter, Paul, and Mary
These reflections during Eastertide 2026 are reblogs from 2023 and 2020.
Our readings for those years were the same as this year’s, and some of the thoughts might be worth rethinking. I hope my long-timers enjoy them a second time, and that my new-timers appreciate a trip back in time. I thank all of you for journeying with me on Lavish Mercy.
Today, we celebrate Pentecost, the great Solemnity of the Holy Spirit.
As I prepare this reflection, I recall a small incident from more than a half-century ago. My Sunday morning charge was to teach the weekly Confirmation class to eight and nine-year-olds. Their charge was to have studied their preparatory catechism throughout the intervening week. Neither of us was good at these charges, yet we both persevered.
Confident that every youngster would have equal knowledge to Thomas Aquinas, I called little Mary Beth to my side one Sunday and asked her, “Who is the Holy Spirit?” In beautiful innocence, she responded, “I’m not sure, but I think it’s some kind of a bird.”
The Holy Spirit’s Descent at Jesus’ Baptism
Having been heavily influenced by religious illustrations, no one in the class chuckled – including me, because I was then, and am still now, unable to define the Holy Spirit. And I hope I stay that way.
The “spirit” of anything is impossible to define fully. “Spirit” has to be felt and lived in order to be made manifest. Trust me. Just try to define the “spirit” of your family, neighborhood, workplace, or team in 4000 words or fewer, as Aquinas attempted to define the Holy Spirit! (See Summa Theologiae, First Part, Section 36: https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1036.htm
When I think of the Holy Spirit, I think of Her as Divine Poetry, that inexpressible Presence that invisibly generates all life and truth – a Presence released in one’s life only by a full entrustment to faith, hope, and love – the gift of the sacrament of Confirmation.
Like poetry, relationship with the Holy Spirit changes one’s perception of reality. We see that, as with an iceberg, much of truth is hidden beneath life’s surface. The Holy Spirit allows us see with God’s eyes and God’s hope for the world. The “ordinary” becomes “gracefully extraordinary”. The new vision impels us to act as God would act in the world.
Percy Bysshe Shelley said this about poetry, and I think it holds for the Spirit as well:
“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.”
For me, a good way to pray with the Holy Spirit is to relish, line by line, the beautiful Pentecost Sequence. Find a phrase within the Sequence that most touches your heart and soul at this particular time in your life. Let go of definitions and invite that phrase to bless you with the Holy Spirit’s Love.
Come, O Holy Spirit, come! From Your bright and blissful Home Rays of healing light impart
Come, Defender of the poor Source of gifts that will endure Light of ev’ry human heart
You of all consolers best Of the soul most kindly Guest Quick’ning courage do bestow
In hard labor You are rest In the heat You do refresh And solace give in our woe
O most blessed Light divine Let Your radiance in us shine And our inmost being fill
Nothing good by man is thought Nothing right by him is wrought When he spurns Your gracious Will
Cleanse our souls from sinful stain Lave our dryness with Your rain Heal our wounds and mend our way
Bend the stubborn heart and will Melt the frozen, warm the chill Guide the steps that go astray
On the faithful who in Thee Trust with childlike piety Deign Your sevenfold gift to send
Give them virtue’s rich increase Saving grace to die in peace Give them joys that never end Amen. Alleluia
Music: The Pentecost Sequence, sung by the Church of the Holy Family in Katong, Singapore
These reflections during Eastertide 2026 are reblogs from 2023 and 2020.
Our readings for those years were the same as this year’s, and some of the thoughts might be worth rethinking. I hope my long-timers enjoy them a second time, and that my new-timers appreciate a trip back in time. I thank all of you for journeying with me on Lavish Mercy.
In this 2023 reblog, Friday of the Seventh Week of Easter fell on the Memorial of St. Philip Neri. That is not the case in 2026, so please ignore that reference.
These reflections during Eastertide 2026 are reblogs from 2023 and 2020.
Our readings for those years were the same as this year’s, and some of the thoughts might be worth rethinking. I hope my long-timers enjoy them a second time, and that my new-timers appreciate a trip back in time. I thank all of you for journeying with me on Lavish Mercy.
These reflections during Eastertide 2026 are reblogs from 2023 and 2020.
Our readings for those years were the same as this year’s, and some of the thoughts might be worth rethinking. I hope my long-timers enjoy them a second time, and that my new-timers appreciate a trip back in time. I thank all of you for journeying with me on Lavish Mercy.
These reflections during Eastertide 2026 are reblogs from 2023 and 2020.
Our readings for those years were the same as this year’s, and some of the thoughts might be worth rethinking. I hope my long-timers enjoy them a second time, and that my new-timers appreciate a trip back in time. I thank all of you for journeying with me on Lavish Mercy.
These reflections during Eastertide 2026 are reblogs from 2023 and 2020.
Our readings for those years were the same as this year’s, and some of the thoughts might be worth rethinking. I hope my long-timers enjoy them a second time, and that my new-timers appreciate a trip back in time. I thank all of you for journeying with me on Lavish Mercy.
Lavish Mercy 