Month: April 2025

National Day of Prayer

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Creation, Faith, peace, Prayer, spirituality, Thanksgiving4 Comments

May 1, 2025

God Bless America

I know that readers of this blog are people of deep prayer.  Your faith, love, and generosity have built my spirit and lifted my heart many times.

On this National Day of Prayer, I encourage us all to focus on our deepest beliefs about what sustains us in life.  Ask that Source of Love, Peace, and Wisdom – by whatever Name you give – to heal our broken world and to make us people of truth, generosity, and goodness.

As we pray, remember those who struggle with life, with faith, with hope.  Wrap your prayer around their need this day.  If you are one who struggles today with these things, let your spirit hand that struggle over to the prayers of those who lift you up and to the Source of Life Who longs to embrace you.

The Creator and Source of Life wants to heal and encourage us all.  Today, in a more conscious way, let us seek that healing and encouragement together. In particular, let us pray for our nation and for our world, that we may find healing from the terrible divisions generated among us by political aggression and despotic greed.

Prose: from C.S. Lewis

For many years after my conversion, I never used any ready-made forms except the Lord’s Prayer. In fact, I tried to pray without words at all – not to verbalize the mental acts. Even in praying for others, I believe I tended to avoid their names and substituted mental images of them. I still think that the prayer without words is the best – if one can really achieve it.

Music: The Prayer – Celine Dion, Andrea Bocelli

For Your Reflection

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Suggested Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

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Easter Sunday

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eastertide, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, joy, spiritualityLeave a comment

April 20, 2025

Hallelujah Chorus – Kim Hollingsworth

Isaiah Zagar is a noted mosaic artist whose artistic materials are primarily broken and discarded scraps. His unique genius lies in his ability to reshape unwanted fragments into inspiring art. Viewing one of his pieces, one considers the past existence of each remodeled element. What had that delft tile once adorned? Whose uniform had been secured by that battered brass button? That rose-colored glass, whom had is shaded?

We imagine each piece in its wholeness and wonder what fractured that former existence. We imagine the journeys carrying each particle to this new expression, locked now in harmony with every element surrounding it. We begin to discern what our own story might look like fragmented into so many parts. The effect is profound amazement that a wall plastered with debris can evoke such deep reflection.

Like these mosaic pieces, our Lenten journey has brought each of us to a new place. In the company of Christ, we have been broken, healed and lifted into new life. We share the astonishment of Christ’s disciples. Like so many of us, fragmented by our hectic lives, they had forgotten his promise. “I shall rise again,” he told them. Yet they go seeking him in an empty tomb.

Today, remade by Easter grace, we leave the vacant graves where our broken hearts may have lingered. We are new beings in the Resurrected Christ. The world’s disguise has been rolled away, like the boulder at the tomb. We see all creation anew as the expression of the Holy Spirit. With those first disciples, let us run rejoicing to our sisters and brothers. Let us assure them by our actions that Christ is indeed alive!

Music: Se impassibile, immortale – from La resurrezione by George by Frideric Handel

An Aria of Mary Magdalen at the tomb:

Se impassibile, immortale
sei risorto o Sole amato,
deh fa ancor ch’ogni mortale
teco sorga dal peccato.

If immovable and immortal
You are risen, oh beloved Sun,
ah, let all mortals rise with you
out of their sinful state.

For Your Reflection

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Suggested Scripture: John 20:11-18

Scripture

Holy Saturday

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Creation, Cross, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, spirituality6 Comments

April 19, 2025

Tears of the Earth- Michael Hoppè and Tim Whheater

The Buriers of Jesus

In this world, we know much of dying.
It is the inverse of our living.
It is what we do here,
alone, and with each other.

What we do not know
is death itself. We think we know,
but these are death’s imposters:
isolation, self-absorption, dark despair.

The only persons who,
living, may have fathomed death
were the buriers of Jesus
who carried him through space
immediately bereft of God.
All creation was a tomb,
and they within it, tombed.

Those buriers of Christ
watched God’s own Body blanch
to white, to blue,
distancing Itself to pallor
on the far horizon that is
all lost possibility.

They listened, paralyzed,
as Life sucked Breath
from the miracle of Christ,
in horror at the blasphemy
Rejected Gift had turned to.

Left with just the ivory casing
of a once warm God,
the buriers of Jesus
tendered it in perfumed cloths.

The rest of earth was dry,
unscented. Herbs and flowers
closed against the giving
of themselves to air that
held the final breath of Christ.
They dared not fracture
the least of his remains.

Even earth, unbreathing,
accepted Christ into her womb,
a mother turned within to mourn
her own Stillborn Redemption.

No other moment
anywhere in time
has known a death like that.
It was so infinite, so huge
it ripples now to every life,
a nameless anguish,
distancing itself to pallor
in the pining soul.

Music: In Paradisum – Michael Hoppé

In paradisum deducant te angeli;
in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres,
et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem. Chorus angelorum te suscipiat,
et cum Lazaro quondam paupere
æternam habeas requiem.

May the angels lead you into paradise;
may the martyrs receive you at your arrival and lead you to the holy city Jerusalem.
May choirs of angels receive you
and with Lazarus who once was poor,
may you have eternal rest.

For Your Reflection

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Suggested Scripture: Luke 23:50-54

Scripture

Good Friday

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Discipleship, dying, Gospel, Jesus, Poetry, spirituality, sufferingLeave a comment

April 18, 2025

Chopin: Nocturn in C Sharp Minor, played by Hauser. (Listen to it all – lovely.)

Calvary was a glass box where God,
confined, no longer touched the world.
It was a white plain, without sound,
not the groaning, blood-soaked hill
the scriptures leave us.

I know.
Calvary hewed itself inside me once
with the chisel of a long sorrow
that fell, persistent, merciless
like cold, steel rain.

It was a place bereft of feeling.
Only the anticipation and
the memory of pain are feelings.
Pain itself is a huge abyss,
bled by a silence that mimics death,
but is not as absolutely kind.

Calvary is the place where
all strength is given
to the drawing of a breath
to linger in it unfulfilled.

God, now I go quietly inside
where you are dying in a glass box, still.
I release all definitions
to pass through and companion you.
I watch the rain, itself like glass,
crashing to an unknown life 
beneath the earth. Where love roots
absolute, unbreakable, I cling to you
in a transparent act of will.           

Agios O Theos
Agios Ischyros
Agios Athanatos
Eleison Imas

Holy God
Holy Strong One
Holy Deathless One
Have Mercy On Us

For Your Reflection

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Suggested Scripture: Luke 23: 44-49

Scripture

Holy Thursday’s Cup

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

April 17, 2025

Ubi Caritas – Taize Community

Life is change. Like a deep and vast ocean, life moves in waves and currents, never still even at its depths. It is the rhythmic flow of God, drawing all creation back and forth in its power. Yet, at the same time, life is constant. Its source is the eternal well of God which has neither beginning nor end.

These are the waters in which we swim. Whether theologian or kindergartner, each one of us lives this mystery every day of our lives. At times we move with great agility, dolphins dancing in the stream of grace. At other times, our stroke falters. We fall like shelled mollusks to the ocean floor, heavy with our imagined limitations.

This is what happened to twelve men on an April night in old Jerusalem. They had been swimming in the miracle of God’s Incarnation. They had even asked, just weeks before, to sit in eternal glory with Jesus. They wanted their current happiness never to change. They did not really absorb the challenge of Jesus’ counter-question: “Can you drink the cup that I will drink?”

But on this April night, this Holy Thursday, that promised cup was handed to them. The clear waters would turn to wine and the wine would turn to blood. The flow of days would sink now to the depths of their hearts. Could they abandon themselves to its tumultuous current? Could they trust so completely as to be buoyed by God alone? Could they accept the cost of such infinite freedom?

Every change in our lives offers us the same cup. The change may be as profound as death or as simple as a clock ticking. The invitation within each circumstance is the same: will you allow this moment to free you into God’s Heart?

Music: Adoro Te Devote – Gregorian Chant Academy

For Your Reflection

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Suggested Scripture: Matthew 26:17-30

Scripture

What’s in a Name?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, dying, inclusivity, justice, spirituality2 Comments

April 14, 2025

On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was shot. He died the next day.  The violence toward him was directly related to his moral choice to free people from slavery.  

Lincoln died at the hands of John Wilkes Booth, a staunch supporter of slavery and of the cause of the South in the Civil War.  On the night of the assassination, Booth – who had injured himself in a fall from the box where he shot Lincoln – received medical treatment from Dr. Samuel Mudd.  

There has been a historical controversy as to whether or not Mudd was a co-conspirator or an innocent player in the assassination.  Nevertheless, he has become known in history for the role he played in the death of one of the greatest American presidents.  

Perhaps you have heard or used this expression toward someone who is an enemy or a loser, with the words derived from this doctor’s participation: “His name is mud.”  

All three of these men made choices and their choices have brought them a certain place in history.  Only Lincoln’s choice, which he paid for with his life, was made for the sake of freedom and justice for others. His name and memory will always be perpetually honored for that choice.

Poetry: O Captain! My Captain! – Walt Whitman

“O Captain! My Captain!” is an extended metaphor poem written by Walt Whitman in 1865 about the death of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Music: Funeral March, Op. 62 No. 3 – Felix Mendelssohn 

Abundance

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, joy, Love, Praise, Prayer, spirituality, Thanksgiving3 Comments

April 13, 2025

Pange Lingua

We are in the midst of the great Jewish and Christian holy days of Passover and Holy Week. 

During the Passover Seder meal, a beautiful prayer of gratitude is offered. It is called the “Dayenu” which means “It would have been enough”. The prayer recounts fifteen different gifts that God has given the Jewish people. After naming each gift, this phrase is repeated, “It would have been enough…”  To read the full Jewish prayer, click here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/dayenu-it-would-have-been-enough/

The prayer is a celebration of the abundance of God toward us and toward all creation. For each of us, our personal translation might be something like this: 

  • Not just the sun and moon, which would have been enough, – but also stars, planets, comets, quasars … 
  • Not just a robin, which would have been enough, – but also a blue jay, hummingbird, parrot, stork, flamingo … 
  • Not just my breath, which would have been enough, – but also my ability to move, to think, to love, to choose, to bless … 
  • Not just my parents, which would have been enough, — but also my siblings, my spouse, my children, my grandchildren, my friends,,,
  • Not just my humanity, which would have been enough, – but also the rich humanity of every race, ethnicity, color, culture and personality …. 

As Jews and Christians, we will spend time this week remembering our lifelong passage through grace to freedom. But whatever our faith context, all of us can recognize God’s power in sustaining our lives through challenge and fear to bring us to light and life. 

Try today to count the gifts of the Creator’s abundance in your life. It will be impossible because they are infinite. Still, after each precious memory and name, we can breathe the blessing of the Dayenu: “It would have been enough.”

Music: Dayenu – Pagoda Online Learning

For Your Reflection

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Suggested Scripture: Luke 22:14-23

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Kept Covenant

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn dying, Eternal Life, Faith, healing, Hope, spirituality3 Comments

April 6, 2025

The Rose

The golden morning had broken bright and warm through the hospital windows. With its breaking, the attending physician and chaplain had received a page. Dorothy had taken an unexpected turn. She was struggling both to live and to die. 

As they attended and comforted her, Dorothy managed to whisper ” … wait for Henry.” Henry, her husband of fifty-eight years, had arrived promptly at 7:00 AM daily for all the weeks of Dorothy’s hospitalization. Glancing at her watch, the chaplain saw that it was just 6:50 AM. 

When, after ten eternal minutes, Henry appeared at the door, he carried a small bouquet of yellow roses from their beloved garden. Quickly apprehending the changed situation, he laid the roses aside and hurried to hold Dorothy for the last few minutes of her life. In the loving, covenanted presence Dorothy had waited for, she finally embraced a peaceful death.

It had not been easy for Dorothy to die nor, from then on, had it been easy for Henry to live. Still, through many bereavement visits, the chaplain watched their long, honest love arise to heal Henry. Through prayer and the benediction of memories, Henry realized that their love, like the roses still blooming in their garden, was both fragile and eternal.

In this week’s readings, God again calls us to such a love. As God brought Lazarus, Suzanna, and Shadrack out of darkness and death, so God promises to bring us. “I will keep my covenant with you,” God says. “Whoever keeps my word will never die.” Accompanying Jesus, as he nears Jerusalem, let us trust and cherish these promises in our own darknesses and bereavements.

Music: Lazarus, Come Forth – The Bishops

Heartbroken, tears falling
Martha found Jesus
She questioned why Lazarus had died.
When she had thus spoken, her doubts were then silenced.
He walked toward the body and cried.

Lazarus, come forth.
Awake like the morning.
Arise with new hope, a new life is born.
Lazarus, come forth.
From death now awaken.
For Jesus has spoken.
Death’s chains have been broken.
Lazarus, come forth.

The tomb now was empty.
Martha stopped crying.
Her brother now stood by her side.
The Pharisee’s wondered about what had happened.
How could one now live who had died?

The reason this story gives hope to so many
Is although we know we must die.
Our bodies won’t stay there
In cold and dark silence.
We’ll hear Jesus cry from on high.

Children come forth
Awake like the morning.
Arise with new hope, a new life is born.
Children come forth.
From death now awaken.
For Jesus has spoken.
Death’s chains have been broken.
Children come forth.

For Jesus has spoken.
Death’s chains have been broken.
My Children come forth.
Children come forth.
Children, come forth.

For Your Reflection

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Suggested Scripture: John 11:17-44

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