Category: Faith

Autumn Lessons

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Love, Seasons, spirituality7 Comments

October 24, 2025

“The Angelus” – Jean-François Millet

In grade school, we had a course called “Picture Study”. Every Friday afternoon, Sister distributed small blue McLaughlin Notebooks. In them, we found the treasures of the great art galleries – paintings by Monet, Van Gogh, and Rembrandt. One of my favorites was a picture by Millet called “The Angelus”. In it, peasant farmers pause to pray as they gather their small harvest at the close of day. All the colors of late fall had dripped from the artist’s brush to capture feelings of peace, completion and hope.

I have a dear friend who doesn’t like fall. She is a complete and beautiful “summer” spirit! For her, autumn brings a sense of “closing down”. The freedom of summer evaporates; the heavy sharpness of winter looms. Some of us might feel that way as the sunlit hours shrink. But, for the reflective heart, there are deep blessings in Autumn’s ebbing.

Indeed, fall dances to a different tune from summer. The carefree skip of July becomes the thoughtful stroll of late October. It is a time for gathering, for counting the harvest, for putting up the fuel to sustain us through the winter. It is a time no longer to take things for granted. It is a time to pause and prepare. We begin to consider what the waning year has given us, and what it has taken.

As a child, I lived in a very old home originally built to house the 19th century immigrant factory workers of North Philadelphia. The kitchen, added by my grandfather’s own hands, was unheated. In the 1940s, my dad installed a pot-belly stove to warm this preferred gathering spot for our family.

Dad always left for work before the rest of us woke up. Beginning in the late fall, he would light a fire in that little stove every morning. By the time the rest of us assembled for breakfast, a freshly-perked pot of coffee awaited us atop the stove as a greeting from dad. I associated my father with that comfort and that delicious scent. Although we wouldn’t see him until late at night, his kindness accompanied us in the cozy, inviting kitchen every morning.

As deep October approaches, the earth steeps itself like fragrant tea in its own magnificent colors, but the chill suggests the coming change. Seeing this, I remember Dad and realize, such is the work of autumn:

  • to express beauty in the subtle colors of our kindness
  • to build the warm fires we know our loved ones will need
  • to brew the fresh tonic that wakes others to life and warms them against its sometime chill

It is a time now to glean summer’s final fruits and to wrap ourselves in their bounty; to listen, in the snug quiet of our spirits, to the voice of Love in our lives. What does Love ask of us as winter approaches? For each of us, the answers will be different. In the gathering October stillness, to what does the Divine Spirit invite me?

Music: Autumn “Allegro-Adagio Molto” (The Four Seasons) – 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 Reading: James 5:7

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Healing

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, dying, Faith, friendship, Mercy, Psalms, Seasons, spirituality6 Comments

October 2, 2025

Artwork by Judy Ward, RSM

Today, for your reflection, a poem I wrote decades go. I offer it today in memory of Judy Ward, RSM who passed away on September 27, 2025. Her life will be celebrated on October 2nd in a Mass of Christian Burial in the chapel at Mt. St. Mary, where Judy attended school, became a Sister of Mercy, and taught for many years.

Judy, a gifted artist, did so much to encourage me and to illustrate and promulgate my work. I will miss her generous kindness and her friendship.

October is a time when nature changes clothes.
Leaves, like miniature volcanoes, flare up and die, ashes at the foot of a silent, seemingly immortal tree.
Geese, having dawdled all summer in veiled expectation, suddenly leap into the clouds and disappear.
These solemn miracles may incline us to consider our own impermanence and the gossamer phenomenon we call life.

Healing

Music: A Playlist of Autumn Music

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: Psalm 104

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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

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Hold Hands

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Love, Poetry, Prayer, spiritualityLeave a comment

September 14, 2025,

Think about this short poem:

Hold hands with your life.
Look it in the eyes.
There, in the stillness,
God is revealing the miracle
of knowing who you are.

But life can be hectic, can’t it? You might not have time to just “hold hands”, right?

Don’t you sometimes feel like Indiana Jones, running ahead of that huge boulder, trying to keep all your responsibilities from overwhelming you?  Or maybe you feel as if your life has run so far ahead of you that you’re racing to catch up to it, watching it turn into a dot on the far horizon.

Life wasn’t intended to be like either of these images.  Our lives are meant to be savored and lived in a deep awareness of our “present”. NOW is the only time we have.  The people we are with, the challenges and joys we experience in this moment – this is our life.  So many of us, running from the boulder or chasing the dot, let the beauty of our lives evade us.

When I see people holding hands, I am reminded to be still and to appreciate my life in the present.  It’s beautiful to see a couple walking hand in hand, breaking a new pattern in the fresh snow. They might be young, just beginning an unimaginable journey.   Or they might be elderly, having walked beside each other through miles of love and sacrifice, joy and sorrow.

I love to see a parent holding hands with their child.  The child may be small, reaching up for security, protection and comfort.  Or the parent may be old, reaching over for the same things.  What a blessing to be beside someone whose touch can sustain your life!

Prayer is a kind of holding hands – God reaching for us, and we for God. I tried to capture the experience in a poem I wrote many years ago:

Poem:  A Long Faith – Renee Yann, RSM

This is the way of love, perhaps
near the late summer,
when the fruit is full
and the air is still and warm,
when the passion of lovers
no longer rests against
the easy trigger
of adolescent spring,
but lumbers in the drowsy silence
where the bees hum—
where it is enough
to reach across the grass
and touch each other’s hand.

So hold hands with someone you love today, human or divine.  Slow each other down to a deep appreciation of the gift of life in this present moment. 

Music: Holding Hands – Creative Commons Instrumental Music

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: Psalm 139:1-10

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A New Box of Crayons

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Faith, healing, joy, justice, spirituality4 Comments

September 7, 2025

You were a kid once, right? Well when I was a kid, one of the things I really loved about September was getting a new box of crayons. It was a chance to start fresh. It was an opportunity once more to make my contribution to the design of the world with renewed sharpness and depth. It was a beginning participation in the infinite cycle of experience and revitalization we call “Life”.

Our ability with crayons, like our ability with life, develops in stages. As toddlers, our first box of crayons may have been a small three-pack of the primary colors, thick enough for little fingers to grasp, bright enough to make a mark, and (if Mom was lucky) maybe washable! Like life, each year our box of crayons grew bigger with both vibrant and subtle colors, usually indelible, a lot like life itself.

We learned not only that things are rarely black and white. They are not often really red, blue or yellow. We learned that a wild red rose begins as a shy pink bud, just like some people do. We learned that a true blue friendship doesn’t just happen but has to be proven through many green seasons. We learned that what appears to be a yellow streak may really hide the aqua depths of a courageous peacemaker. Each of our experiences brings us a greater capacity and depth to express the power of our spirit as they add the nuances of color to our understanding of life.

On September 11, 2001, our nation and our world added a bruising violet to our box of crayons. As time passes, we are learning to use that painful color to deepen our capacity for courage, compassion, hope, and resolve. Sometimes we and our leaders do this well; sometimes poorly. Our civic and moral duty is to pursue universal peace and justice for all peoples; to contribute to the well-being of Earth and all who share her riches.

As we continue to color our world with meaning, God, Who holds our hand, renews us in grace. In that grace, we are invited to begin afresh. We have a new chance every day to make our lives and our world better — just as we did in our early Septembers with that new box of crayons.

Let’s pray for and encourage one another — especially as September 11th approaches. Let’s pray for those who were most profoundly wounded by the deep purple shadow that fell over all of us that day. Let’s pray for leaders who have the magnitude of heart and spirit to create a compassionate and just world. And let’s reach out in sincerity to one another every day, like we did as children– sharing the colors of hope, faith, and love.

Music: Colors – Black Puma

This song and video present a moving contradiction. The music is upbeat, suggesting happiness. But in the video, a family struggles with losing their home and living unhoused.
The video invites us to think about the counterbalance between struggle and joy, between justice and reality. Lyrics at end of page.

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: Genesis 9:13

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[Verse 1: Eric Burton]
I woke up to the morning sky first
Baby blue, just like we rehearsed
When I get up off this ground, I shake leaves back down
To the brown, brown, brown, brown ’til I’m clean
Then I walked where I’d be shaded by the trees
By a meadow of green
For about a mile
I’m headed to town, town, town in style

[Chorus: Eric Burton with The Soul Supporters]
With all my favorite colors, yes, sir
All my favorite colors, right on
My sisters and my brothers see ’em like no other
All my favorite colors

[Post-Chorus: Eric Burton with The Soul Supporters]
It’s a good day to be, a good day for me
A good day to see my favorite colors, colors
My sisters and my brothers, they see ’em like no other
All my favorite colors

[Verse 2: Eric Burton]
Now take me to the other side
Little bitty blues birds fly
In gray clouds, or white walls, or blue skies
We gon’ fly, feel alright
And we gon’, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh, yeah
They sound like ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh, yeah
And the least I can say, I anticipate
A homecome parade as we renegade in the morning, right on

Photo by Susanne Jutzeler, suju-foto on Pexels.com

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

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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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Fresh Ground Pepper

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Hope, joy, Mercy, Seasons, spiritualityLeave a comment

September 1, 2025

September has barely poked its nose through the door, but already we see signs of Autumn. A slight gold shimmers on the trees. Geese gather in noisy expectation. Early morning sheds its night veil in slower layers of magenta and blue. There have even been a few sweet nights when we can open the windows wide and sleep in the suggestively crisp air. All the signs are there — it is a new season – “The Season of Freshness”.

“Fresh” is a powerful word. Who can resist the crisply-aproned waiter suggesting, “Fresh ground pepper?” Who can ignore the aroma of fresh baked bread? Some of us even remember with appreciation the scent of linens fresh from our mother’s clothesline.

Let this beautiful season remind us that each day the Creator shakes out a fresh beginning for every one of us. With every radiant morning, the slate is clear with mercy. The opportunity to re-create the world awaits us. Our lives, our work, our relationships are the fresh bread of God’s hope for us. Within them, we are invited to reveal the powerful grace which runs just under the visibility of the ordinary. It whispers to us, “You are Beloved, and I want your life to be a fountain of joy.”

September is for fresh beginnings: a sparkling season, an unmarked semester, a turning of the garden, a clean page. It is nature’s way of saying forgiveness is possible, life is resilient, hope is eternal. Imagine September as the white-aproned waiter inviting you to freshness. At the Creator’s table, the tablecloth is clean and the sacred menu is forgiveness, hope, mercy and renewed beginnings. Don’t miss this opportunity to assess what needs refreshment in your life. Feast on September’s graces! They can be life-changing!

Music: September Song – Alexis Ffrench

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: Psalm 92

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The 5th of July

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Faith, friendship, justice, spirituality8 Comments

July 5, 2025

Photo by Rakicevic Nenad on Pexels.com
1812 Overture in E-Flat Major, Op.49: I. Largo – Allegro giusto

After all the speeches, sparklers, and spectaculars, the “Next Day” dawns. I wonder what it was like for Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, and Adams on the fifth of July in 1776. Did they wake up thinking, “Declaration of Independence – signed. Now, make it happen!”?

When you get right down to it, most of our days are 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8ths of July. They are the days after graduation when we need to get a job. They are the days after the honeymoon when somebody needs to cook dinner and take out the trash. They are the days after the promotion when the first deadline looms and a bunch of faces are looking to you for the plan. They are the days that follow any major life decision, when we must take stock and determine who we are now – in this new dimension.

If the 4th of July is Independence Day, the 5th is Dependability Day, a day to celebrate the people we can always count on. They are there for the parades but they are there for the clean up afterward. They light the spark for the fireworks, but they have a hose nearby just in case. They put their “John Hancock” on the brave new dream and they show up the next morning to design its daunting execution.

The 5th of July is a day to celebrate our own sense of responsibility or “Dependability” – to realize that most of us really do try to be good spouses, parents, employees, neighbors, sons, daughters and friends – that we do keep making the effort every day to be someone for others and not just for ourselves. It is a day to look around at the people in our lives and be grateful that most of them are trying to do the same thing.

Like the founding patriots, we all need to wake up the next day, consider the “dependabilities” in our lives, and put our shoulders to the task of making a better world. Each of our lives is its own small country where the future really depends on how we show up on our “5th of Julys”. The fact that you get up every day and engage that challenge is cause for its own celebration. So if you have a little sparkler left in your back yard, light it for yourself tonight – and for your spouse, your community, your friends, your boss, your kids, your co-workers – who all showed up today to do the best they could on the 5th of July.

Thanks for that and Happy Fifth!

Music: We Need Each Other – PROSKUNED

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: Romans 12:3-21

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Monkey Bars

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Faith, Prayer, Psalms, spirituality1 Comment

June 22, 2025

Verde – Guido and Maurizio De Angelis

When I was a little girl, I hated the monkey bars. I knew it was cool to be able to do them — but I wasn’t any good at it! I can remember jumping up to hang on to the first bar, and thinking, “O.K. — this is as far as I can go”! For me, it was really a challenge to loosen the grip on one of those secure, sweaty hands and reach out in both hope and anxiety for the next stabilizing bar.

I remember one particularly challenging day at the playground. It had rained heavily the night before, and the ground under the bars was a muddy mess. Big Jimmy, the neighborhood bully, had challenged me to a monkey bar duel. Within a flash of the challenge, he had powerfully swung his way from one end to the other. He stood egging me on from his place of success.

I tentatively climbed up and hung on the first bar. Painstakingly, I lurched my way to the second. My hands were slippery, nervous pools. As I stretched for the third bar, I felt my grip slipping. I tried to re-grab — but I couldn’t. I hung by the fingernails of one hand over a two-inch muddy pool. There seemed to be no hope!

Suddenly I felt two strong hands around my little waist. They lifted me so that I could regain my grasp and they supported me while I hand-over-handed my way to the end. My Uncle Joe, who had been passing by the playground, saw me struggling and had come to my assistance. Without words, he told Big Jimmy, who was three years my senior, that someday I would catch up to him. But until then, I needed a little help to negotiate some of my challenges.

We’re not little kids anymore, but we can still get unnerved by the demands of life and of the world at large. The once-lithe body that reached for the monkey bars may now struggle to get out of a chair. The “Uncle Joe” saviors may no longer magically appear to support us when we are uncertain. The “Big Jimmy” bullies may seem to have poisoned our political culture with violence and fear. Yes, sometimes growing up and growing old can be worrisome.

No matter how challenging or scary life’s passages, God accompanies and supports us. There is no circumstance so muddy that God will not carry us through. No matter how slippery our grip feels, God’s hands are at the center of our lives, holding us in unassailable grace. We can trust God infinitely more than even our “Uncle Joe”s.

Yes, life can sometimes feel like we are swinging from slippery monkey bars, but by trust and faith, we can invite God’s loving support to surprise and uplift us.

Music: You Raise Me Up – Josh Groban

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: Psalm 28

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