Category: Faith

Joel’s Invitation

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness, Hope, Lent, spirituality2 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

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?

Fun=Joy in Action

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, friendship, inclusivity, joy, Love, spirituality2 Comments

February 7, 2026

Today’s news is full of impending competition – (even outside Washington 😂). Who will prevail, be the best, break the record, win the trophy?

But the opening of the Olympic Games and the start of Super Bowl weekend have me thinking about other kinds of games – the ones we play for fun, not to gain advantage.

Photo by Jim De Ramos on Pexels.com


Long ago, an older friend complained to me, “I have forgotten how to have fun!” The declaration startled me and left me speechless. If there was a formula, “young me” didn’t have it. However, over the decades of my own aging, I have pondered that remark, often examining my own life for signs of “fun diminishment”.

Those signs do seem to increase as responsibility grows or as energy wanes. What came naturally to us as children requires a little attention as we mature. As kids, we simply ran outside into the sunshine or rain, found somebody or something that absolutely entranced us, and magic happened.

I remember sitting on the front step with my friend Harry. We were both nine years old. I had just gotten a plastic camera in the mail with a quarter and a coupon from a cereal box. For an hour or so, we took pictures of pigeons perched on the telephone wires and garbage cans. We imagined ourselves expert artists creating a legacy for generations. It was easy then to forget that we were serious fourth-graders with unfinished homework, impending report cards, and a few chores before bedtime. It was also easy to forget that there was no film in the camera!

Later in life, that kind of beneficial forgetting is not so easy. We must unleash ourselves from a chain of “to dos” and “be carefuls”. We know better now. We don’t go out in the sun without screening, nor into the rain without an umbrella. We mostly try to avoid pigeons and garbage cans. Our potential “playgrounds” become much more constrained, sometimes inhibited by a false requirement of excessive money, planning, or chemical relaxation.

Examining my fun levels today, I realize how blessed I am.

My nieces, nephews, and grands live hundreds of miles away from me. Yet they provide me with invaluable links to pure fun. Every morning, a few of us play Wordl, Connections, or Crossplay together. I know they may be checking to see if I’m still alive, but the main purpose is fun – and the precious assurance of mutual care.

The younger kids delight me with photos of themselves doing modern imitations of Harry and me with the pigeons.
In our convent community rooms, I may find a game of pinochle, Hand and Foot, chess, bingo, or gin rummy. Even more precious, there always awaits a conversation with memories of good times, funny stories, and the generous abandon of enjoying one another.

So, if I came up with a fun formula today, it would include these essentials:

  • Fun is any “playground” where we find and give joy.
  • To have real fun, we don’t focus on the score.
  • We need time to have fun, just like we need time to eat, sleep, work, and pray.
  • We need to know what fun is – that it makes us laugh, appreciate the other, relax, and surrender self-importance
  • Fun is essentially spontaneous, but we can expose ourselves to its influence by not taking ourselves too seriously.
  • Fun always requires getting “outside” – even if it means only from our self-centeredness.
  • We can have fun alone with a game or movie, but it helps to have someone to have fun with, (and as Pope Leo said, someone not created by AI.)

Music: We All Stand Together – Paul McCartney

Let yourself be delighted by the thought of FUN!

Suggested Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:9-13

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?

Candlemas: A Seasonal Anchor

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Christmastide, Courage, Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness, Jesus, Mary, Seasons, spiritualityLeave a comment

Feast of the Presentation
February 2, 2026

Candlemas,
also known as the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus Christ,
the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
or the Feast of the Holy Encounter,
is a Christian feast day commemorating
the presentation of Jesus
at the Temple by Joseph and Mary.
It is based upon the account in
Luke 2:22–40.

How do the great trees die and come to life again? It’s a question we might ponder every winter as the bare, black branches fill with ice. Their stark emptiness seems a place from which there is no return. But we know otherwise. In the relentless cold of every February, our experience whispers the hope for April. Our liturgical year is filled with lynchpins to stabilize and orient us in this hope.

The Feast of Candlemas (February 2), an ancient celebration of hope, is one of the seasonal anchors Medieval people used to ground their faith through its various seasons. The Feast commemorates Mary’s Purification and the Presentation of Christ to the world – thus the candles!

Other ancient and seasonal feasts were:

May 3: Roodmas – celebrating the discovery and veneration of the True Cross (called “Rood” in Middle English)
Aug 1: Lammas – Originating from the Old English hlafmaesse (“loaf-mass”), it involved blessing loaves made from the new crop, signifying gratitude for the summer’s bounty and preparation for the coming winter.
Sept 29 Michealmas – Festival of St. Michael the Archangel, known as the protector against evil and leader of heaven’s armies
Nov 11 Martinmas – a festival celebrated on November 11th, marking the end of the harvest and the start of winter, honoring St. Martin of Tours, a soldier famous for sharing his cloak with a beggar, symbolizing light and charity as days grow shorter
Dec 25 Christmas – the ultimate celebration of hope in the Light of Jesus Christ

Like nature, each one of us has our seasons. Our lives contain the cycles of our youth and aging, birth and death. Our daily experiences turn in both the warm and the chilly intervals of our lives.

  • We have blossomed with the expectant life of spring: a new job, relationship, adventure.
  • We have cultivated love over warm summers of dedication and growth – our faith, families, friends, and ministries.
  • We have reaped the autumnal 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 experience the depths of “Winter 2026”, Candlemas 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 learn what truly sustains us. We are called to delve into the power of endurance, resilience, forgiveness, honesty, loyalty, and faithfulness. These are the winter virtues that preserve 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 when 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 really looking for a warm word. We have all received some chilly greetings when we needed not to feel like an isolated stranger.

Hospitality is not listed as a Fruit of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, it is the melding of many of them. Hospitality is a radical welcome rooted in God’s love. It is the perfect antidote to all our 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. It is a virtue to be deeply pondered in this societal age of frigid inhumanity to those we judge to be “alien”.

If there is someone in your life that you have exiled to the Arctic, consider reaching out in hospitality, care, 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 life. Listen to the voice of the dark February nights. It is telling us how to move toward spring.

Music: We Are Called to Welcome Strangers – Jubilate

Suggested Scripture: 1 Peter 4:7-11

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 Call

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Faith, Gospel, inclusivity, justice, spirituality12 Comments

Martin Luther King Day
January 19, 2026

Photo by Chris on Pexels.com

On this blog, I strive never to cross a political line without a clear moral imperative. Today, on the memorial of a fearless prophet for justice, I would be remiss not to comment on our current national socio-political environment.

This administration’s governmental dysfunction can no longer be ignored, excused, or rationalized. It has moved beyond the realm of political differences and polite skirting of “politics” at the dinner table. We are now in the penultimately dangerous dynamic of evil masquerading as good while, in fact, fostering a virtual genocide of anyone who is not white, rich, male, Maga, and subservient to its agenda.

We no longer stand on the doorstep of veiled neo-Nazism, it is consuming us, and many feel helplessly dismayed in its torrent. Look at us! Masked stormtroopers in full military gear, plundering, gassing, murdering unarmed protestors, wreaking havoc on innocent refugees, and teargassing pacifist clergy and children. Weep for our country, seen for decades as the keeper of peace, now threatening and enacting invasion on former allies and weaker countries.

We have a morally rogue President with a spineless Congressional majority to enable him, and an indebted Supreme Court to endorse him. It has become all too evident that we can no longer expect wisdom or leadership from the majority in Congress. There are many heroes there who are fighting the good fight, but they are outnumbered by those who choose to be blind or complicit.

If you are still caught in political denial, please step back into the Gospel. What does our current environment require of us who want to live the Gospel call in our time? Not silence. Not indifference. Not stubborn opinion.

These times require witness, mercy, courage, and accompaniment of those suffering under this plague of evil. You may feel that you can do nothing, but that’s not the case.
You can:

  • Refuse to condone any argument that blames refugees, people of color, or moral activists for current unrest
  • Persistently write and call your members of Congress expressing your outrage and demand for justice
  • Participate to the degree you are able in peaceful protests demanding justice and human rights for all people
  • Vote! Vote! Vote! In 2024, 90 million Americans failed to vote! The vote of another 77 million either ignored the bare fascism of Project 2025, or bought into its extremist agenda. We can never let that happen again!

In the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King:

The church must be reminded that it is not the servant nor the master of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.

And from Bishop Mark Seitz at the El Paso Courthouse:

I make an urgent plea today that the government and immigration enforcement pull back from the edge and respect the sanctity of every human life, the constitutional and civil rights guaranteed to all in this country, to cease actions that degrade the moral and public order, and take action to address the impunity and lack of accountability we are witnessing in the indiscriminate enforcement taking place every day.

My friends, let us pray for courage; let us act with justice; let us live in mercy. Let us take inspiration from a great prophet of our times, Rev. Martin Luther King.

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?

Don’t Read This!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, Seasons, spirituality5 Comments

December 31, 2026
Happy New Year’s Eve

You know what? Don’t read this! It’s only all advice, and who needs advice anyway!

Oh, OK. You’re going to read it anyway? Thanks! Here goes:

Have you ever driven on a long road with no visible signposts? Maybe in a driving rain or snowstorm? Maybe on a moonless night? Your passengers constantly ask, “Are we there yet?” You keep saying, “Almost”, as you think, “Please Lord, I hope so!”

Well, life is a long road, and sometimes there are no directions on how to navigate it. The celebration of the New Year can be our human attempt to mark the road with milestones that help us keep going.

No matter where the journey takes me in 2026, I have come to trust the following road markers:

Mile Marker One: YOU WILL CHANGE.

We know this so well! We want the change to be an improvement, not a downgrade. That’s why we make New Year’s resolutions. Here’s a New Year’s resolution worth trying:
Never resist a generous impulse. I remake this particular resolution every year. To the degree that I keep it, it improves everything about my life. I recommend it highly.

Mile Marker Two: YOU WILL STAY THE SAME

In other words, you will survive. Those basic gifts of guts, determination and resilience, which have brought you through challenges you never imagined, will continue to do so. You will make it — no matter how sad, sick, tired or overwhelmed you feel. There is always a new day and a new year. So believe in yourself, have faith, and move with courage through your pain or doubt — because you are a unique and unrepeatable expression of God that nothing can destroy.

Mile Marker Three: YOUR WORLD WILL CHANGE

The New Year reminds us of how passing life is. Take a look in the mirror!
Jobs change. Kids grow up and leave home. Friendships fade. Investments fluctuate. Buildings fall. And people die. So love and cherish all that the present moment offers you: yourself, your family, your friends, your work. Use your resources wisely and generously — the return never diminishes. Build places of love and mutuality — they do not fall. Love unselfishly — death cannot break such bonds.

Mile Marker Four: YOUR WORLD WILL STAY THE SAME

You know it will! The same aches and pains; the same unappreciative boss or uninvested coworker; the same demanding kids, spouse, or in-laws; the same rattle-trap car, horrendous traffic, unbearably excessive weather, and scarcity of downtime. But since so many things really won’t change, why don’t you change?
Here’s how. Live gratefully. That aching body is still alive! You have family and friends when many are alone or abandoned. A dear old friend put it this way when asked how he was: “I woke up on this side of the grass!”
You get the drift! Appreciate. Be positive. Give good energy and ask for it in return. It can turn a resistant world into putty in your hands!

Mile Marker Five: GOD NEVER CHANGES

God’s love for each one of us is complete, unconditional, and constant — and as the Hebrew Scriptures (Lamentations) tell us, it is renewed each morning, not just each year! God thinks you’re the greatest thing that ever happened because God knows your potential: you are made in God’s own image — creative, beautiful, generous, holy and powerful for good. When you look in the mirror all year– every morning, remember that! When you look at every other human being, remember that!
It is a New Year. May you be renewed, blessed and happy.

Thought: St. Augustine’s Ever New and Changeless God

Music: This Ancient Love – Carolyn McDade

Sun of Justice

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Courage, Faith, Mary, spirituality1 Comment

Second Sunday of Advent
December 7, 2025

Blessed are you, holy Virgin Mary, deserving of all praise;
from you rose the sun of justice, Christ our God.
Alleluia Verse: Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

There are a few places where nature offers a darkness so absolute that it can be terrifying. Assateague Island lies along the barrier coast of Virginia. On a winter night, darkness there feels complete, enveloping. As evening lengthens, night pulls its velvet canopy from the black ocean, covering the beach in silence.

The whisper of rustling sea oats along invisible dunes is the only link to a land left behind. But slowly, like sparks rolling through dry tinder, stars burn one by one through heaven’s blanket. By midnight, their incomparable brilliance convinces the soul that it has never been and can never be alone.

During this second week of Advent, which includes the feasts both of the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe, we are continually assured that we are not alone. Mary, First Among the Redeemed, rises like an evening star in the long story of salvation history. She begins a motherhood for Jesus and, in so doing, becomes our Mother too.

Like all maternities, Mary’s was a gradual awakening to the Life she bore within her. In this week’s readings, we see her absorb the angel’s stunning announcement into the immensity of her faith. We see her begin to prepare, in the confines of her humble life, a dwelling for Infinity. We see her labor to introduce God’s extraordinary secret into the ordinary dimensions of her life. We see her carry Incarnate Grace into the disrupted world of her cousins Elizabeth and Zechariah, anointing them with the blessing of her faith-filled Magnificat.

Boticelli: Madonna of the Magnificat

As we pray with Mary this week, let us hold all mothers in our hearts. Certainly, we hold our own mothers, whether in presence or in memory. May our prayer embrace all single mothers, unwilling mothers, refugee mothers, mothers so overburdened by poverty that they cannot enjoy the blessing of their children. We include all mothers, sick with any form of illness in body, mind or spirit. May any darkness these mothers face be lifted by the gracious hand of Mary who intimately knows their hearts and circumstances.

Mary visits each of us with the same unbounded joy she brought Elizabeth in that ancient Advent. She teaches us the profound yet simple secret of her holiness: that she understood her life to be a sacred channel for God. As we prayerfully wait with our blessed Mother for Christ to be born, may we listen in the darkness for her maternal lessons.

Music: Magnificat – Johann Pachelbel

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 1: 26-38

Click for Scripture

Grace

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Faith, Prayer, spirituality, Thanksgiving3 Comments

November 26, 2025

What is “grace”? I think it can be many things:

Saquon Barkley weaving through the opposing defense like an electric needle
Alysa Liu, her silver skates writing poetry
in the icy air.
Andrea Bocelli, embracing a world he cannot see
with the vision of song

Yard by yard, spin by spin, note by note, these graceful artists work their lovely craft.

This Thanksgiving Day, many families will begin their sumptuous meal with Grace, that humble awareness that all we are and have belongs to God. At some tables, the youngest will be appointed to say the blessing, encouraging them to recognize God’s gifts. Whoever offers the prayer, let the moment be a reminder for us of what true grace is.

Grace is an attitude of the heart that lives life gratefully. It is that constant, though sometimes silent, acknowledgement that I did not create myself, nor any of the gifts that bless my life. With kindness and respect, we see all life as gift, a reflection of Divine Generosity.

In a harsh world, where Life and Earth are often dismissed with irreverence and violence, Thanksgiving offers us the grace to reach deepened awareness and compassionate action.

Meister Eckhart, 14th-century mystic and theologian, said, “If the only prayer we say in our entire lives is ‘Thank You’ it is enough.” And it is enough. When we realize that gratitude is the only appropriate response to the awesome gift of life, that realization is enough to make us holy, happy, and wise. It is enough to let us live with true joy.

Thanksgiving Day, our all-American feast, is a time to gather family, friends, memories, and hopes, celebrating the community that embraces us. Even if the past year has brought a measure of loss or struggle, still we have been blessed with one another’s courage and support.

In a way, we become like the luminaries mentioned earlier. Through grace, we find the opening in the defensive walls around us. Through grace, we keep our footing in icy circumstances. Through grace, our lives create their own melody.

Don’t let the cascade of football games or preparations for Black Friday shopping obscure our appreciation for this holy time. Grace is the light of God’s life within us, and no darkness can ever extinguish it. Revere it on this beautiful holiday.

Tomorrow, as we give thanks for God’s gifts, let your gratitude be evident. It may take the form of a long-overdue reconciliation, or a private “thank you” for overlooked work. It may be a little extra help in the kitchen, or an offer to head the clean-up crew. It may even be volunteering to say the Grace with humility and hope. It may be a walk after dinner with someone who needs your light. Whatever form your thanks takes, may it fill your heart – and the hearts of your family and friends – with renewed strength and love.

And thank you all sincerely for your kindness and encouragement in supporting me and this Lavish Mercy. Know that you are in my Thanksgiving prayers. ❤️ Renee

Music: The Thanksgiving Song – Ben Rector

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 5:16-23

Click for Scripture

Our Saints

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Discipleship, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, spirituality9 Comments

November 1, 2025

Often, we see someone more clearly in death than we do in life.

One Sunday, nearly 25 years ago, our religious community gathered to commemorate the precious life of our Sister Germaine Donohue. Germaine, who was more familiarly called Mercedes (Mercy), was one of our missionaries in Peru. She was vivacious, compassionate, holy, and too young to die. While ministering in our remote mountain home village of Pacaipampa, Peru, this marathon runner who loved to dance suffered an unexpected heart attack. By the time the neighboring villagers brought her down the eight-hour descent to Lima, she lived only a few more hours. It was All Saints Day.

At her funeral liturgy, the legacy of love she had quietly planted throughout her life blossomed like a field of vibrant wildflowers. Listening to stories that spanned the 40 years of her religious life, it was easy to see how consistently she chose to be with others in simplicity, honesty, and joy. It became clear that everything in her life had led her to a remote mountain village among the poor, who perfectly mirrored her deepest values. They were her heart’s companions.

Just like producing a prize-winning garden, bringing one’s life to such a degree of simplicity and beauty is no easy task. As human beings, we are constantly battling the weeds of self-interest and the complexity it breeds. But when, like Germaine, we choose to learn from those who are poor, we can grow in our capacity to trust a Power greater than ourselves to sustain our lives. We thus become freer to celebrate the beauty of others and of life around us.

For their first ten years in Pacaipampa, our Mercy community had been laboring — without success – to bloom roses in their tiny garden. When the sisters returned from Lima with Sister Germaine’s body to bury her among her beloved poor, they were greeted with the miracle of the first Pacaipampa rose. It blossomed there, a new life among the simple “pueblos jóvenes”. Perhaps they named that rose “Mercedes”.

I share the story of Sister Germaine’s passing because I hope it will offer you the gift it gave to me. The slow, daily, and sometimes frustrating work of building our lives around truly important values will — in the long run — transform and bless us. In everyday decisions, it is difficult to get enough perspective always to realize that. But when our lives are gathered someday in the story-telling of our children, our friends, and our communities, may we be fortunate enough to have left a legacy of beauty — our own miracle “rose”.

Music: El Condor Pasa

This song, popularized by Simon and Garfunkel, is actually drawn from a Peruvian folk song.

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 31 (Adaptation)

Who can find a merciful woman?
She is worth far more than rubies.
Her community has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.
She brings them good, not harm,
all the days of her life.
She gets up while it is still night;
she provides food for her neighbors
and portions for the very poor.
She considers a field and buys it;
out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.
She sees that her work is fruitful,
and her lamp does not go out at night.
In her hand she holds the distaff
and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
She opens her arms to the poor
and extends her hands to the needy.
When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.
She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
She watches over the affairs of her beloved community
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her neighbors arise and call her blessed;
her family also praises her:
“Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.”
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman of mercy is to be praised.
Honor her for all that her hands have done,
and let her works bring her praise at the heavenly gate.