Category: Eternal Life

The Great Dance

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, joy, spirituality1 Comment

May 4, 2025

Unchained Melody

It could have been at the coaxing of the first mild, peaceful spring night. Its soft breezes and lingering sunlight might have redeemed me from the scars of winter.

A nearby high school was holding a dance. The music pulsated throughout the neighborhood like the heartbeat of an excited giant. Any hope of a peaceful evening died with the first note. Yes, I had succumbed to the old person’s complaint that I so derided in my own youth: “They call THAT music?!”

But eventually, I stopped resisting the thrumping bass and let myself imagine the joyful young dancers perfectly liberated within their chosen music.

What a great gift it is to dance, to have reason to dance, to have someone to dance with!

Do you remember the dances of your early years: girls and boys huddled along opposite walls around a vacant dance floor? Remember the furtive glances across that chasm to assess who might be brave enough to enter the music with you? And then somehow, the invitation was given, the possibility embraced, and we gave ourselves to the song.

The music of life is playing all around us. But we may be lingering at the edge of the great song of Creation. Standing in the middle of the dance floor, God looks at each of us and beckons us to step into the melody.

Music: I Hope You Dance – Lee Ann Womack

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: Jeremiah 31:11-13

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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

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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Crocuses

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Holy Spirit, Hope, Seasons, spirituality, TruthLeave a comment

March 20, 2025

Lanterns in the Sky – Michele McLaughlin

In the block behind my home, there is a small lawn filled with crocuses. A few weeks ago, when snow still had a tight grip on the landscape, those little green nibs began to peek their heads out through the white blanket.

Every year, late in winter, I see this miracle happening in the most unexpected places. And every year, I still doubt that those fragile dots of life will survive and grow through winter’s apparent death. Every year, my doubts prove unfounded. Every year, those delicate purple fields remind me of what it means to live.

Today is the first day of Spring — a great time to remind ourselves that what we are about in this world is always LIFE, never DEATH! Some things we face in life may seem like snowy, frozen fields. But, underneath, where the Spirit never tires, green new life inspires our attitude and choices.

To find that renewed vitality, I must do two brave things:
• Always choose LIFE for myself and others
• Trust that God will sustain me in my choices

Sometimes, we make mistakes about what renews our lives. Still, in our deep hearts, we know that real life cannot be lived in isolation and self-seeking. Choices for real life are always rooted in mutual peace, truth, integrity, generosity, and compassion.

As spring wakes before us, let’s listen carefully to that deep heart’s message.

Once we’ve made the choice for life, we must trust that despite “winter”, the green tender shoots will prevail. They always do! History should confirm our faith! Winter always ends, and it is always worth the choice to live beyond it!

When I see the first spring flowers, I think of a friend’s favorite advice for a happy life:
• Wake up!
• Show Up!
• Be there!
I think the crocuses got the message!

Poetry: The Crocuses – Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911)

They heard the South wind sighing
A murmur of the rain;
And they knew that Earth was longing
To see them all again.

While the snow-drops still were sleeping
Beneath the silent sod;
They felt their new life pulsing
Within the dark, cold clod.

Not a daffodil nor daisy
Had dared to raise its head;
Not a fairhaired dandelion
Peeped timid from its bed;

Though a tremor of the winter
Did shivering through them run;
Yet they lifted up their foreheads
To greet the vernal sun.

And the sunbeams gave them welcome,
As did the morning air—
And scattered o’er their simple robes
Rich tints of beauty rare.

Soon a host of lovely flowers
From vales and woodland burst;
But in all that fair procession
The crocuses were first.

First to weave for Earth a chaplet
To crown her dear old head;
And to beautify the pathway
Where winter still did tread.

And their loved and white-haired mother
Smiled sweetly ’neath the touch,
When she knew her faithful children
Were loving her so much

Music: The First of the Crocuses

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 6:25-34

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February Stars

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

February 2, 2024

Starry, Starry Night – Don McLean

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The frosty blue nights of February fill our evening and morning windows.  We look through that deep sapphire richness to discover the diamond stars.  We imagine worlds, possibilities, and miracles presently beyond us.

Since Thanksgiving, we have been celebrating a season of hope:

  • the hope of Hannukah, when we remember the lamp burning miraculously and the courage to renew faith
  • the hope of Christmas, when we remember a small, vulnerable life that changed the world with the phrase, “Love one another.”
  • The hope of a New Year, when we remember past gifts that nourish us for future trust

But what about those times when hope flickers?

As we gaze through our windows at the crystal winter skies, our TV may be broadcasting the news behind us, challenging our hopes with the contradictions of war, violence, and disaster.  We may wonder where the great saviors and prophets are in our time.  Our numbed spirits may perceive only darkness and no starlight.

If so, stay still in the darkness.  Be quiet and wait.  Let one face, one smile, one kindness, one hand outstretched to you rise in your memory like steady Polaris. The world’s transformation to grace always begins within a single, shining human heart.  May your heart be that star for others.  May others like you fill your own skies with unquenchable light.

Poetry: Hope – Lisel Mueller

It hovers in dark corners
before the lights are turned on,
it shakes sleep from its eyes
and drops from mushroom gills,
it explodes in the starry heads
of dandelions turned sages,
it sticks to the wings of green angels
that sail from the tops of maples.

It sprouts in each occluded eye
of the many-eyed potato,
it lives in each earthworm segment
surviving cruelty,
it is the motion that runs
from the eyes to the tail of a dog,
it is the mouth that inflates the lungs
of the child that has just been born.

It is the singular gift
we cannot destroy in ourselves,
the argument that refutes death,
the genius that invents the future,
all we know of God.

It is the serum which makes us swear
not to betray one another;
it is in this poem, trying to speak.

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 Reading:

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Crystal Clear

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, Service, spiritualityLeave a comment

January 26, 2025

White Cliffs of Dover – Walter Kent

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One January morning, I stood with my sisters in our community cemetery.  As our religious community ages, it is a ritual we practice all too often, as we honor the legacies of women with whom we have spent most of our lives.  But that Saturday was unique. Let me tell you why.

That day, we celebrated our first military funeral for one of our sisters. It was a solemn and thrilling sight. The cold February sky sparkled like blue crystal. Sun reflected off the time-polished tombstones, creating an honor guard of light.  As we processed to the graveside beside her flag-draped casket, three sailors awaited us at attentive salute.

Sister Bernard Mary, a farm girl from Trenton NJ, became a Navy nurse in World War II.  After her service to our country, she entered the Sisters of Mercy and served in our healthcare ministries for over fifty years. She cared for the sick and poor with unrivaled perfection and compassion.  Her entire life was marked by a profound sense of duty – a duty suffused with love.  

As she was laid to rest, the clear notes of “Taps” rang out to the heavens, inviting her compassionate soul to “go to sleep”.  Like all the others gathered there, I drew so many lessons from her dedicated life.  One is this:  understand your duty and execute it with sincerity and love.  If you do, no matter what life throws at you — be it economic, physical, or psychological downturn –your clear spirit will endure and will ring out like singular bugle notes in the crisp morning air.

Sister Bernard Mary lived for ninety-one long years. Still, I left her grave remembering these stirring words of the first Sister of Mercy, Catherine McAuley: “Do all you can for God’s people, for time is short.”

Music: Taps

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: Proverbs 22:1-4

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Hospitality – Our Human Anti-freeze

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, inclusivity, Seasons, spirituality1 Comment

January 19, 2025

January by Vladimir Sterzer

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How do the great trees die and come to life again?  It’s a question we can ponder every winter as the bare, black branches fill with ice.  Their stark emptiness seems to be a place from which there is no return.  But we know otherwise.  In the encroaching cold of every December, our experience whispers that there will be another April.  Still, in the frigid dark, it is sometimes hard to believe.

Like nature, each one of us has our seasons.  

  • Our lives contain the seasons of our youth and aging.  
  • Our daily experiences turn in both the ebb and tide of life.  
  • Each of us has blossomed with spring’s new life:  beginning a new job, relationship, adventure.  
  • Each of us has cultivated what we love over warm summers of dedication and growth – our faith, families, friends, ministries, andcareers.  
  • Each of us has reaped the autumn returns of our efforts, walking away from a red and golden field carrying a well-earned harvest – graduations, anniversaries, promotions, retirements. 
  • Certainly, each of us has known our own winters, when cold has threatened and dark has isolated – and yet, like the trees – we have survived.

As we move into the depths of “Winter 2025”, it seems an opportune time to review the lessons of the season – especially the chapters on deep roots, inner quiet, and a hidden spiritual warmth that defies freezing.  

In the winters of our lives, we are invited to learn what truly sustains us.  We are called to delve into the power of endurance, forgiveness, honesty, loyalty, and faithfulness.  These are the winter virtues that sustain life deep under the surface of any paralyzing storm.  These are the salts that keep life’s highways passable, allowing us to stay connected to all that keeps us vibrant.

On any given day of the year, we can experience “winter”.  Think of the times you have received (or given) the “cold shoulder”.  Remember the times your explanations have been given an icy reception?   Haven’t there been conversations where you were frozen out?  Can’t you still see the frosty stare you got from someone who thought you were beneath them?  We have all known some sub-zero responses when we were looking for a warm word.  We have all received some chilly greetings when we needed not to feel like a stranger. 

Hospitality is the perfect antidote to all these methods of freezing one another out.  It is the human anti-freeze that reminds us that we need one another’s warmth to survive the treacheries of life.  If there is someone you have exiled to the Arctic, think about reaching out in hospitality, forgiveness or honesty.  This winter, let go of the glacial grudges, silences, and harbored hurts that sometimes freeze our souls and kill our hope of returning to life.  Listen to the voice of the dark December night.  It tells us how to move toward spring.

Music: Winter Sonata – David Lanz

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: Colossians 3:12-17

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The Red Fox

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, spirituality1 Comment

January 15, 2025

Photo by Alex Andrews on Pexels.com
We Are the World – Michael Jackson

The red fox lay dead in the road a little east of the mall entrance. It was a beautiful animal come to an inglorious end. 

When an animal is killed trying to cross a road, it demonstrates a lesson learned in college biology – “geographic isolation”.   Geographic isolation occurs when human-made structures, such as roads or canals, artificially separate animals of the same family.  Over the course of decades, the animals on one side of the road assume different characteristics from the same type of animals on the other side of the road.  Eventually, they may begin to behave toward each other as if they were two different species. In other words, their isolation begins to fool them into thinking they are different – even enemies.

There are all kinds of geographies in the world – not just the traditional ones that delineate nations. And there are all kinds of isolations that we can build into our multiple internal and external maps.

That little red fox might cause us to consider the breadth of our landscapes, our mindscapes, our soulscapes.  How restricted are we in our ability to travel to and be comfortable in all different kinds of worlds.   As we look at the circle of our friends, experiences, ideas, multi-cultural exposure – is the circle expansive or very limited and controlled?  Have we allowed ourselves to live in a compressed world with fake boundaries? At the end of our one precious life, will we be sorry for all the growth opportunities we missed because our “geography” was so protected and myopic?

History boasts a few borderless explorers who have led the rest of us out of our comfort zones and into the challenges of discovery. These leaders had a sense of a universal geography.  They saw borders only as the farthest points to which we can stretch – imagination, love, hope and courage. Their standard approach to life’s newness was an inclusive hospitality.  They had a constant attitude that questioned isolation and was suspect of territorialism. They were the believers who knew there was more beyond the horizon – beyond the limits of a flat world or a self-centered universe.

Martin Luther King was such a man.  The artificial boundaries created by race and economic status were invisible to him.  He challenged people who built their “privilege” on these unfounded borders.  He opened the eyes and hearts of millions who had taken this moral “geographic isolation” for granted.  He began the building of bridges that, if we complete them, will ultimately heal our world and our spirits.

Martin Luther King knew that we are all one people.  He refused to allow the separations of prejudice and stereotyping to define the borders of his life.  May his inspiration spur the rest of us to move outside our life-limiting ideas and step into a world of unity, mutuality, respect, and hope.

This year, we will celebrate MLK Day on January 20th. But today, as we mark his actual birthday, let’s take a sincere look at how much our prejudices control our choices.  Let’s find someone or something that will help us continue to grow in openness and understanding.

Music: We Shall Overcome – Morehouse College

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 17:20-23

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New Year’s Eve

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Christmastide, Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, spirituality6 Comments

December 31, 2024

Memory – Andrew Lloyd Webber

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We stand now on the far western shore of the Year of Our Lord, 2024.  It is well near evening.  Our memories are silhouetted against the deep magenta sky as they sail beyond the shimmering horizon.  We have lived, laughed, lost and loved in ways never to be repeated, yet never to be forgotten.  The great turning of time goes relentlessly on, but we have written our story in its indelible trail.

The stroke of midnight on December 31st – magic, mysterious, holy. 

With fireworks and reveling, popular culture will invite us to the brash celebration of our presence within this point in history.  But, at the altar of our hearts, we recognize this long evening of reminiscence as a time of quiet thanksgiving and petition.  It is a time of awe and trust in the power of our Almighty God.

Like flint struck against the steadfast soul of God, we have been given the spark of life.  We are God’s fire at this moment in time’s long unwinding.  Tonight, we turn our spirits to those beside us, behind us, before us, and we pray in thanksgiving and hope for them.

Together, we sink into the dark infinity of our Creator who sustains all life beyond our worries, fears and limitations.  With innumerable universes, God balances us in the palm of Mercy.  As the midnight shadows fall, God closes Divine fingertips over us in grace and protection.

In the split moment between two years, we too become infinite – fire in God’s darkness, spark redeemed beyond time. In 2025, we will forget this transcendent moment.  The bright light of daily living will blind us to that piece of divinity shining in our souls.  But tonight, let us remember.  As midnight passes by, may our spirits kneel within us to the Awesome Mystery who holds us, as one, eternally within Itself.

Music: Auld Lang Syne

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 Reading: Psalm 90: 10-17

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