Category: Conversion

Love’s Balance

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Conversion, Courage, Creation, Faith, justice, Love, spirituality1 Comment

March 1, 2026
Second Sunday of Lent

What does it mean to hunger and thirst for justice? The Greek word translated here as “justice” is dikaiosune, a term that refers to personal righteousness as well as to social justice. Those who hunger and thirst for dikaiosune have a deep yearning for things to be right in their individual lives and in society. This will happen when God’s kingdom comes completely and creation is restored to God’s original intention.
~ from the website theologyofwork.org

In our readings during this second week of Lent, we are encouraged to let go of guilt, to “remember not the things of the past”. We hear the story of Joseph, who was sold by his brothers, only to “redeem” them by his forgiveness. We are challenged to change the “season” of our hearts and embrace the full life of the Paschal Mystery. Our hunger for justice is truly the deep desire, not for any kind of reprisal, but for right balance in our lives with God and with all Creation, as seen in this story.

“Can you let this not be about you?” the chaplain asked, as Jane tried to explain her resistance and guilt. Evening darkened the small office just outside the tumultuous ER. There had been a building collapse, and Jane’s mother had been nearly crushed. Jane was the only relative, a long-alienated daughter. “But I’ve wanted to be reconciled”, she wept. “I just never had the courage to face her. Now it may be too late.”

Over several hours, the chaplain patiently encouraged Jane along a path of self-awareness, helping her realize that it was herself she needed to face. Her mother’s situation, while tragic, offered Jane a catalyst to confront the years of excuses and denials that had paralyzed her. Slowly, the hope of reconciliation washed over her.

When her mother finally stabilized, Jane leaned close to her battered face. Her mother summoned the strength to whisper, “I have never stopped loving you.” That forgiving whisper breathed a vital courage into both women. Each would survive a particular kind of death that day.

Despite our best hopes and intentions, life can collapse around us. Broken promises, unfulfilled dreams and soured relationships can litter our landscapes. We may even lose God in the rubble. This week, Isaiah offers us God’s forgiving invitation, “Come now, let us set things right”, says the Lord. “Though your sins be like scarlet, they will become white as snow.”

God will never stop loving us. God longs to embrace our repentant hearts. Let us listen to and believe God’s whisper.

Music: Remember Not the Things of the Past – Bob Hurd

Suggested Reading: Psalm 33:4-22

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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?

Miserere

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Forgiveness, healing, Love, Psalms, spirituality1 Comment

February 22, 2026
First Sunday of Lent

Supplication is a humble and earnest prayer
that asks God for specific spiritual or material aid. 

They stood quietly by a sunlit window. “I have forgotten how to have fun,” Anne said, gazing wistfully toward the wintering trees.

Her friend knew the statement to be true and did not argue. Recently retired, Anne had managed a heavy career by rigorously systematizing her life. She was dependable and predictable – like a trusted clock. But somehow, her joy had been caught in the gears.

Sometimes, change is as simple as confronting unexamined routines. At other times, it requires a profound turning. In this week’s readings, we hear the language of such radical transformation: “be reconciled, be holy, ask, repent, forgive” – words commanding a ruthless examination of our attitudes. They suggest that, in order to renew our hearts, we must let something in us die.

Paul begins the week reminding us that our sinful world is redeemable through the gracious gift of Jesus Christ. Believing this, we will have the courage for true transformation. Such faith frees us of our blindness to the unholy in our lives.

Throughout the week, Esther, Jonah, the God of Moses, and Jesus himself encourage us. We make this Lenten journey in the company Holy Ones who radicalized their lives in faith, awareness, action and joy.

Unless, like Anne, we discover some discomfort in our souls, we will not seek change. Such discovery requires that we pray at the windows of our souls. Have we forgotten the spring-like beauty of a life lived deeply in God? Have we never known it in the first place? This week, we are invited to seek God’s Mercy, to return to joy, or maybe to find it for the first time!

Music: Miserere Mei – Mozart

Suggested Reading:

Psalm 51, interpreted by Rev. Christine Robinson

Have mercy on me, O God,
For I’ve messed up again
Sinned against You in thought, word and deed,
and in what I have left undone.
Been–all too human.

Can you make me a new heart, O God?
and a right spirit? Can you break my willful plundering
of all that is Yours?
If I got it together again, others would follow—
I could teach, guide, help—and I would!

O Lord, open my lips,
that I may praise you.
I know you don’t want ritual sacrifice
were I to give a burnt offering you’d be exasperated.
What you want is that new heart and right spirit.
For this, I pray.

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?

Joel’s Invitation

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness, Hope, Lent, spirituality5 Comments

Ash Wednesday
February 18, 2026

Contrition is an act of the will, not just an emotion,
involving grief for past sins and a desire to regain God’s friendship.
There are two types:
perfect contrition, motivated by a love for God, and
imperfect contrition, motivated by a fear of punishment or hatred of sin.

“Even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
Rend your heart and not your garments.
Return to the LORD your God Who is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love, Who relents from overwhelming us.

Joel 2:12-13

“Even now…” – two of the most powerful words in scripture. Picture yourself saying them to a long-lost friend, or that friend to you. Even now – after all these years, after all you took for granted, after all your ingratitude, forgetfulness, pretense, indifference. Even now, I love and forgive you.

With the touch of sacred ashes, God reiterates that assurance to us … Even now, God waits and wants to restore us to wholeness, as in this story where you might even find yourself.

She had arranged to visit with an old college friend. They had been separated too long by the distancing choices that life often demands. She wanted to reconnect to that rare experience of shared transparency found just once or twice in a lifetime – the gift of a real friend.

They sat on a porch overlooking a gentle pond. The day was bright, the coffee hot, the chairs comfortable. But the magic was gone. Only half her friend had arrived for the cherished conversation. The other half – joy, adventure and the excess of youthful hope – had been lost. Somewhere in the intervening years, her friend had suffered a wound she did not share. This one afternoon would be too short a time to give that wound a name.

The ministry of healing requires time, whether it is to our own soul or to another’s that we bring the sweet ointment of restoration. It requires the quiet listening of a loving spirit. It requires the honest naming of wounds and the ardent desire to be made new.

As we begin our Lenten experience, God is waiting to receive us. God already knows the wounds we will bring to the conversation, already sees where our heart’s light has dimmed. God holds our half-heartedness next to his own heart and yearns to heal us.

Can we hear God’s unique invitation to us in this Lenten season? Can we confidently expose to the Divine gaze the depth of our need for grace and transformation? Can we journey with Christ, through his passion and death, to the wholeness we are called to?

Music: Parce Domine – 6th-century Latin antiphony sung here by A Capella Catholic Choir

Suggested Reading: Joel 2:12-17

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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?

Trinity in Session

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

January 11. 2026
The Baptism of the Lord

The theological virtues are the supernatural gifts of
faith, hope, and love
that are directly infused by God into the human soul
to enable a person to live in relationship with the Holy Trinity.

The Baptism Of Jesus
by Jeff Haynie
For purchase, see:
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-baptism-of-jesus-jeff-haynie.html

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Gospel invites us to the banks of the Jordan River. We sit in the midst of a crowd filled with avid believers and curious doubters. The Baptist passionately preaches on the muddy shore. Some listen intently. Some fiddle with their picnic baskets because they aren’t ready to hear. (They don’t have cell phones to fiddle with.)

Where are you, and what are you doing when the under-breath murmurs begin to rise in surprised chatter? Who is this man exuding mysterious power even as he quietly emerges from the bank’s far side – and why is he here?

Simply this:
Jesus came from Galilee
to John at the Jordan
to be baptized by him.

But Omnipotence reveals Itself in this simple act: Creator, Redeemer, and Spirit present in Divine Voice, Sacred Wing, Grace-drenched Redeemer.

After Jesus was baptized,
he came up from the water and behold,
the heavens were opened for him,
and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove
and coming upon him.
And a voice came from the heavens, saying,
“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Matthew 3:16-17

As you experience this miraculous revelation, are you still looking into your picnic basket? Or have you been changed right down to your roots?

Music: Behold the Lamb of God from Handel’s Messiah

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:

Readings for the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus

Celebrate Epiphany!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, Holy Spirit, spirituality3 Comments

January 4, 2026

Fear of the Lord – A Gift of the Holy Spirit

God wants us to recognize God’s glory,
to experience the awe and wonder
of One Who loves us in our lowliness.
That’s why, perhaps, “awe and wonder”
might better capture what this gift is about.
– from an article by Dr. John M. Grondelski

Remember your Confirmation Day? Maybe not. Maybe you were like me when I was confirmed – about eight years old, covered with Mercurochrome from a recent scuffle, and totally oblivious as to how I would need the Holy Spirit to survive in life!

But as oblivious as I was, I managed to memorize those 7 Gifts, and for a long time was a little troubled about why I needed to “fear the Lord”. My little brain wondered if I was wrong about the Lord always loving me! But, praise God, I wasn’t wrong!

As eight decades have passed, God has continually demonstrated that unfailing love. Especially when one of life’s opaque curtains falls, that love will peek through, a star of hope – an Epiphany. Eventually, we may come to understand “fear” more as astonishment and awe at God’s generosity. Like the Three Wise Royals, we may find ourselves in silent, confident, and grateful worship before such a mystery.

Look at your life today – the present and the past. Count the times God has broken through the darkness for you. Let the remembrance, or perhaps the new awareness, convince you that there is nothing to “fear”. There is only awesome Love.

Music: This Ancient Love – Carolyn McDade

I realize that I frequently suggest this song. That’s because I just love it and hope you do too. It captures everything, don’t you think?

Suggested Scripture: Isaiah 60: 1-6

Click for Scripture

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?

The Holy Lists

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Conversion, Discipleship, holiness, spirituality, Virtue3 Comments

January 1, 2026

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, please bless and guide us throughout 2026.

As we welcome the new year, I welcome each of you to Lavish Mercy 2026. As I did in 2025, I will offer a reflection about once a week, sometimes more often.


For 2026, I have chosen a theme that I nicknamed “The Holy Lists”. My Catholic friends who, like me, are of a “certain age” will remember the Baltimore Catechism. Though currently updated in language and attitude, that dear old 1945 version contained a mountain of incomprehensible truth condensed into manageable steps. Even though it provided scarce moral latitude, the book left me many unforgettable checklists that still influence my broader reflections and choices. They provided a roadmap for VIRTUE which could use a huge comeback in our morally tumultuous culture.

Who can forget the famous milk bottle by which one measured the level of their adolescent depravity?
Or the theological study questions with which even Thomas Aquinas might have struggled? e.g. (actual samples):

  1. Julius, an irreligious High School boy, claims we are forced to do all the things we do; he says that we are not free. Is this true? What is the reason for your answer?
  2. Leander wonders how it was possible for the prophets to describe the details of Our
    Lord’s passion and death many centuries before they took place.
    Can you explain this to Leander?

I deeply appreciate the wonderful religious instruction I received in the 1950s and 60s. But I think that even for Julius and Leander, some of those powerful lessons may have failed the leap into the 21st century.

So for 2026, I’d like to refresh some of those listed items by connecting them to the day’s reflection or readings. In a cultural and political climate so often disconnected from a moral compass, these virtues can serve a corrective purpose. They are valuable and, when offered in the modern vernacular, may inspire personal and cultural transformation.

Believe me, this is not an attempt to return to pre-Vatican II strictures. I am definitely an “aggiornamento” gal! Rather, I hope to provide an incentive to reclaim the quiescent markers of our faith – a faith that might be captured in a single virtue, or lost in a single fault. And I also think it might be fun!

St. Gregory of Nyssa inspires me with this statement:

The goal of a virtuous life
is to become like God.

Let’s give some time in 2026 to the pursuit of that virtuous life we all committed to at our Confirmation! God knows our world needs it!

See if you remember any of these once-memorized signposts :
• Gifts of the Holy Spirit
• Fruits of the Holy Spirit
• Cardinal Virtues
• Theological Virtues
• Moral Virtues
• Capital Virtues and their nemeses, the Deadly Sins
• Beatitudes
• Mysteries of the Rosary

And now, let’s begin…..

The Kick

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, spirituality, Thanksgiving, Truth4 Comments

September 28, 2025

Comfort Zone

I’m sure you’ve done some “Creative Thinking”, just staring into space and letting your mind wander in an attempt to address all worldly problems, personal and universal. One of the best places to do this is in a car or train when no one will interrupt you.

As I drove to work one morning several years ago. I was doing some of that “Creative Thinking “. But it was a special type that I call “Creatively Selfish Thinking”.

Now for those of you who are a lot more angelic than I, and have never engaged in this type of thinking, I will describe it. It’s a fruitless mental exercise that endlessly repeats phrases like, “How come I do all the work, and she gets all the credit?” Or, “How come she can eat anything she wants and never gain weight?” Or, “How come anytime I make a little mistake, it’s such a big deal?” Or, “How come I work so hard, and she has a nicer car?” And so on, and so on, and so on…..

That’s the kind of thinking I was doing that morning when God gave me a Divine “kick in the butt”, as my young nieces would describe. I thought I’d share it with you just in case you are ever tempted to feed your mind with unproductive, self-defeating thoughts.

The revelation came as I drove past the Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia. Crossing the street in front of me walked a father and son. The little boy was no more than four years old. He held his Daddy’s hand, with his face turned upward toward him in a smile. In his other hand, the child held the smallest cane that I have ever seen — not much more than a foot long. Yet as poignant a picture as they made, it was a picture filled with happiness. Both were smiling. Both were obviously joyful in each other’s company. They seemed uncompromised by a burden so obvious to me.

As I continued along my journey, I heard a voice inside me say, “Why are you obsessing over things you can’t change? A loving God holds your hand in both light and darkness. God is walking beside you. God delights in your life, and rejoices when you are joyful. God surrounds you constantly with signs of love and grace. Feed your mind and soul on that Truth.”

That encounter was a real gift to me. I thought perhaps there might be others who could benefit from the grace-filled “kick” I received.

Music: Lord, Hold My Hand – Jocelyn Soriano

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: Isaiah 41:13

Click for Scripture

Autumn Begins

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Creation, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, Seasons, spiritualityLeave a comment

September 22, 2025

I hope that, where you live, it is a glorious day – a perfect vestibule to a season of amazing beauty.  In the northern hemisphere, Nature prepares to shed the plush accretions of summer in a multi-colored ritual of leave-taking. It is time to return to the essentials – back to the branch, back to the buried root, back to the bare, sturdy reality that will anchor us in eventual winter.

Each day, some green leaf or blade will ignite like a phoenix – a blaze of scarlet or gold, only to extinguish that flame for a long winter’s sleep. Nature knows when things are finished.  It knows when it has had enough.  It knows its need for a season of emptying, for a clearing of the clutter, for the deep hibernation of its spirit.

But we humans often ignore the need for an “autumning” of our spirits.  We try to live every moment in the high energy of summer – producing, moving, anticipating, and stuffing our lives with abundance.  

But simplicity, solitude, and clarity are necessary for our spirit to renew itself.  Autumn is the perfect time to examine prayerfully the harvest of our lives – reaping the essentials and sifting out the superfluous. In the quiet shade of a rusting tree, we may discover what we truly love, deeply believe, and really need to be fully happy.

Take time on these crystal days to ask yourself what is essential in your life.  If something besides them inhibits you, let it go.

Nurture your “essentials” with attention and care.  Don’t take them for granted.  After the flare of life’s summer has passed, these are the things that will sustain you: a strong faith, a faithful love, and a loving compassion. Tend them in this season of harvest

Music: The Four Seasons: Autumn – Antonio Vivaldi

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: James 5:7-8

Click for Scripture

Live Like a Weasel

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Creation, Faith, spiritualityLeave a comment

September 4, 2025

Annie Dillard is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author who writes soul-stirring narrative non-fiction. Her book, A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, was almost a second Bible for me when I studied literature in college.

One wonderful section has become part of my own philosophy of life. In it, Annie describes an encounter with a weasel. She portrays the experience in intricate and inspiring detail, using it to present her own theories on the value of intense dedication, clarity of purpose, and “the dignity of living without bias or motive.” In other words, she talks about living life openly and purely, of honoring the world around you, and of striving for simplicity.

She recounts the story of a farmer who shot an eagle and found, affixed to its throat, the dried-out skull of a long-dead weasel. This weasel, even as it died, seized the hope of life and fought to hold on to it. The story always makes me consider the question, “What in my life is important enough for me to hold on to it even to the death?” In other words, what are my very deepest values? So often we say we value something but we fail to make the choices it requires. We “value” exercise, but we never take the time to do it. We “value” health, but we continue habits that are not healthy. We “value” life, but we drink and drive, fail to wear our seatbelts and speed.

But like Dillard’s weasel, if we really value something, we sink our teeth into the very heart of it and we don’t let go, no matter what. Those kinds of radical values define who we are in the world. People see through to our hearts. They know if we have sunk our teeth into honesty or insincerity, into compassion or self-interest, into the common good or self-promotion. No matter what we “say”, our true values always show.

Our families, communities, and friends depend on us to be a person with strong values. Every day we are challenged to put these values first in our decisions and our behaviors. It’s not always easy. Sometimes we must be like the weasel clinging to the throat of the eagle. Nevertheless, we are asked to have the same intensity and clarity about our choices as responsible members of the human family.

Test yourself. What choice would you make in the face of the “eagle’s talon”? When people look into your heart, what do they see shining there? With sincere focus and right intention, we can live with purity of heart. Annie Dillard puts it this way: “We could, you know. We can live any way we want. … The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse. This is yielding, not fighting. A weasel doesn’t “attack” anything; a weasel lives as he’s meant to, yielding at every moment to the perfect freedom of single necessity.”

How blessed our lives are when we live in such perfect freedom!

If you would enjoy reading more about Annie’s weasel, here is a short essay she wrote on the subject:

https://www.dailygood.org/story/1490/living-like-weasels-annie-dillard/

Music: The Wind – Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam

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 Timothy 4:13-16

Click for Scripture

The Day After Labor Day

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Eternal Life, Faith, joy, Scripture, Seasons, spiritualityLeave a comment

September 2, 2025


On the day after Labor Day, our spirits change clothes. Maybe it’s because we all went to school for so long, but today we feel ready for challenging routine, daily discipline, studied preparation, and a chance to start fresh at the most important possibilities of our lives

This “psychological change of season” is an ancient and enduring reality. The writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes, who lived 2500 years ago, tells us, “To everything there is a season…”.
Think of your inner seasons that change despite the calendar.

Winter and spring may indeed come to us in the same day, with a birth announcement in the mail and a death notice in the newspaper. Summer and autumn coexist with a Saturday afternoon pick-up basketball game and a strained muscle that reminds us of our age.

The great challenge of our lives is to live all our seasons with faith. They are a reflection of God’s own Nature which is ever ancient, ever new.

So these days, as the kids (and some of us!) start back to school, and the air cools ever so slightly, it might be a good time to ask God the questions that will help us “season” in grace:

  • What is it You are teaching me in this season of my life?
  • How can I reflect Your love by the way I live my winters and springs, my summers and autumns?

Music: Turn, Turn, Turn – Pete Seeger

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: Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

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