Category: holiness

Eat the Pickle, Sister

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, holiness, Love, spirituality, Virtue6 Comments

January 26, 2026

The virtue of Love, known as caritas or charity,
is a theological virtue defined as
loving God above all things
and loving one’s neighbor as oneself.

A friend and I had gone mall shopping not too far from my parents’ home. Finishing early, I asked Mattie if she’d mind an unplanned stop to see Mom. I knew Mom would delight in the surprise visit.

Had I alerted Mom, a banquet would have awaited us. She loved to feed people, and she did so with masterful skill. But this impromptu stop occurred the day before weekly shopping. Thus, the coffers were relatively low, at least by Mom’s standards.

Nevertheless, the kitchen table soon filled with the essential makings of a great sandwich. Mattie and I dug in as Mom arrayed a host of condiments at table’s center. However, in the abundance, one glass jar stood out in contradiction. Alone, behind the green Vlasic label, hid the last remaining kosher dill, an unlikely survivor of my family’s lunch habits.

As Mom joined us at the table, she realized the situation. She looked at Mattie, our guest, and encouraged her, “Eat the pickle, Sister!” We all burst out laughing and, indeed, Mattie did eat the lonely pickle.

Our shared laughter signaled a deeper understanding of this straightforward scene. No one had to enumerate what lay behind Mom’s encouragement:

  • As our guest, you get first choice. (Hospitality)
  • Somebody’s got to eat it. It might as well be you. (Practicality)
  • It’s not really important if the rest of us get a pickle. (Discernment)
  • We are blessed to have more choices beyond the pickle. (Gratitude)
  • We’ll be fine, even if we are “pickleless”. (Blessed Assurance)
  • You are the important thing, not the pickle. (Respect)
  • And anyway, who left one stinkin’ pickle in the jar! (Wise Judgement)

For years to follow, Mom and I laughed about that remark. We quoted it often when there was a nebulous situation that called for a final choice, because the phrase contained all the essential elements of a loving and expeditious decision:

  • What’s important in this situation?
  • Who or what has the greatest need?
  • What resources free us to be generous?
  • What action will best reflect our values?
  • And, remember:

Not to decide is to decide.
So never resist a generous impulse

I delight in remembering the story today, the anniversary of my mother’s death. She left me so many lessons under the most unlikely appearances. Who would think that a pickle jar might influence my decision-making for the ensuing 40 years!
Thank you for that pickle, Mom, and for all the other loving condiments you left to dress my life!

Music: ‘Tis A Gift to Be Simple – Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Krauss

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 116: 12-19

Click for Scripture

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 Amoroso Man

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn dying, holiness, Hope, spirituality7 Comments

July 13, 2025

Italian Summer – Brian Crain

On the way to to the library today, I passed an Amoroso truck. We native Philadelphians are very serious about our sandwich rolls – and very biased. We think they’re the best in the world. For those of you outside Philadelphia, Amoroso is a local baking company famous for delicious Italian rolls. Every morning, their crisp white trucks with the red and green detailing can be seen delivering rolls all over our hungry city.

Many years ago, when I worked in an inner city ER, an Amoroso driver was brought in by fire rescue. The man had suffered a heart attack in the stifling July heat. Despite intense efforts by staff, he could not be revived.

My responsibility, after praying with him and for him, was to determine his identity and to inform his family of his death. There were only a few things in the chest pocket of his shirt, which lay ripped and tossed on the ER floor. There was a thin, well-used prayer book and an even thinner wallet with a couple of dollars, a lottery ticket, and a picture of his grandchildren. My eyes filled with tears as I laid these few items out on my desk. Here was a simple, good man’s life – faith, family, hope and responsibility. He carried what was most important to him close to his heart.

Passing the Amoroso truck today, on a warm July morning nearly forty years later, made me ask myself, “What do I keep close to my heart?”

It’s a good question, both literally and symbolically. In the space next to my heart do I have the things that most matter – faith, love, generosity, and joy. Or is there only a vacuum there, made empty by the common killers of our culture: cynicism, self-absorption, materialism, indifference, and competitiveness?

Life is short. Live it for what matters. And if you’re lucky, share an Amoroso roll to bless your journey.

Music: Simple Gifts

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 13:19-22

Click for Scripture

Nicknames

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, holiness, Prayer, Psalms, spirituality2 Comments

Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
November 23, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112324.cfm

Blessed be the LORD, my Rock,
who trains my hands against temptation,
my fingers for the struggle.

My mercy and my fortress,
my stronghold, my deliverer,
my shield, in whom I trust,
who brings me to
right relationship with all Creation

O God, I will sing a new song to you;
with a ten stringed lyre
I will chant your praise,
-You who raise us up in mutual peace
and deliver your servant from evil.
~ interpretation of Psalm 144

David, likely author of Psalm 144, had a few nicknames for God. By exploring these names, David deepened his understanding of God’s Presence in his life, and personalized his prayer in a meaningful way.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We consider the intimacy and power of our relationship with God – how it has changed over the years, how it is at this point in our lives. Do we, like David, have special names for God, reflecting those places in our hearts that are most vulnerable to grace? Perhaps we wouldn’t have a reason to call God “my Rock”. But maybe we might call God my Poet, my Song, my Patient One, my Confidence or my Beloved.

How is God most needed or most present to you today, and how do you name that awareness?

Poetry: Prayer Poem to the Names of God – Richard M. Fewkes

How shall we address thee who art
the One of a thousand names yet ever nameless?

O Vishnu, Maya, Kali, Ishtar, Athene, Isis…
Great Mother of Creation, Womb of the universe,
The Feminine Divine….
Blessed art thou who hast given life to all
And receiveth us at the end, forever thine…

Jupiter, Zeus, Apollo, Dionysius…
Lord of creation, the masculine divine,
In quest of the golden apples of Hesperides,
God of ecstasy and wine, and reason sublime…

Amen, Horus, Aten, Ra…
God of beginnings and endings, the soul, the ka,
Soaring like a bird
To the life-giving, light-giving power of the sun,
All life is one…

Shiva-Shakti, Yin and Yang…
The dance of life and death from hand to hand,
In perfect balance the movement of forces,
As the earth turns ‘neath the stars in their courses…

Rama, Krishna, Varuna, Bramah…
God of the Upanishads and Rig Veda, mystic priests and
the Bhagavadgita, Om Shanti, the lotus, a holy vow,
Creating our own karma and reincarnation, here and now,
And the ever present realization, that art Thou…

Buddha, Nirvana, the Enlightened One…
Liberation sought and won, in daily life begun,
Under a tree, in the sun,
To a state of being indescribable, comparable to none…

Allah-Akbar and Ahura Mazda…
There is no god but God, the All, Ah! the One,
The Righteous One, purity of Fire.
Goodness and Truth to inspire,
Fight fire with fire, quench the evil desire,
Let the call ring forth from minaret to spire…

El Shaddai, Adonai, Yahweh, Elohim
The God of Peace be with you, Shalom Haveyreem
Ten Commandments and the Law for Gentile and Jew
The birth of conscience and a Day of Atonement
To confess, to forgive, to begin anew…

Abba, Spiritus, Logos-Son… God in Three Persons, God in One,
God in all persons: prophets, teachers, daughters and sons,
The Kingdom of Heaven is within us, O let thy Kingdom come…
How shall we address thee who art Alpha and Omega,
The stars in their courses from Denib and Altair to Sirius and Vega?

Thou of a thousand names and yet ever nameless,
Let us confess the mystery of thy holiness,
Let us proclaim the wonder of One without a name,
Let the silence praise thee,
And the nine billion stars of thy namelessness.

Music: God Beyond All Names – Bernadette Farrell

Blossom

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, holiness, spiritualityLeave a comment

Wednesday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
November 20, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112024.cfm

While people were listening to Jesus speak,
he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem
and they thought that the Kingdom of God
would appear there immediately.
So he said,
“A nobleman went off to a distant country
to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return.
He called ten of his servants and gave them ten gold coins
and told them, ‘Engage in trade with these until I return.’
Luke 19:11-13

This is a tough parable to get real devotional about. It’s the story of a nasty guy who wants to be king. When his campaign is repulsed, he takes it out on his servant whom he deems unproductive.

But think about where Jesus told the story. He is at the threshold of Jerusalem where, through his Passion and Death, he will reign over the universe. But Jesus will do this by the inverse of what we would expect. He will be rejected by this world to open us to the deeper essence of its heart.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Jesus wants his followers to be productive in spreading the Gospel. He wants us to blossom in faith and service to God’s Name. We pray for the courage to exercise those gifts in faith, hope, and charity.

Prose: Prayer of Walter Brueggemann

You are the giver of all good things. 
All good things are sent from heaven above, 
rain and sun, day and night, 
justice and righteousness, 
bread to the eater and seed to the sower, 
peace to the old, energy to the young, 
joy to the babes. 

We are takers, who take from you, day by day, 
daily bread, taking all we need as you supply, 
taking in gratitude and wonder and joy. 

And then taking more, 
taking more than we need, 
taking more than you give us, 
taking from our sisters and brothers, 
taking from the poor and the weak, 
taking because we are frightened, and so greedy, 
taking because we are anxious, and so fearful, 
taking because we are driven, and so uncaring. 

Give us peace beyond our fear, and so end our greed. 
Turn our taking into giving, since we are in your giving image: 
Make us giving like you, 
giving in joy, not taking, 
giving as he gave himself up for us all, 
giving, never taking. 
Amen.

Music: God Turn Me Into a Flower

What would it take to truly “blossom” for God, to be the Love that Jesus hopes for us, to take the coin of grace and enrich it by our service of the Gospel?

As you listen to this rather mysterious song, you might consider those questions.

Rejoice

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, holiness, joy, Praise, spirituality, suffering, TruthLeave a comment

Wednesday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
November 6, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/110624.cfm

Do everything without grumbling or questioning,
that you may be blameless and innocent,
children of God without blemish
in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation,
among whom you shine like lights in the world,
as you hold on to the word of life,
so that my boast for the day of Christ may be
that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
But, even if I am poured out as a libation
upon the sacrificial service of your faith,
I rejoice and share my joy with all of you.
In the same way you also should rejoice and share your joy with me.
Philippians 2:15-18

Being a Christian is not easy. It was not easy for the Philippians, and it’s not easy for us. We still live in the midst of a “crooked and perverse generation.” And its crooked perversity is not always easy to discern as the culture becomes more clever in deceitful jargon and technological manipulation.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray to have a clear vision that sees into the heart of life in God. Despite challenges, Paul rejoices in this insightful faith of the Philippians and invites them to rejoice as well. Let’s consider our own faith journey and those aspects of it that cause us to rejoice:

  • God’s faithfulness and our perseverance
  • what we have given for love, and what we have received in return
  • the freedom faith has granted us, and the freedom we have fostered in others
  • the contentment of a long fidelity, and the assured hope of a promised eternity

Poetry: Mindful by Mary Oliver

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.

Music: Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Our Desiring – arranged by D. Qualey

Infinity

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, spirituality, suffering1 Comment

The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed
November 2, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/110224.cfm

In the time of their visitation they shall shine,
    and shall dart about as sparks through stubble;
they shall judge nations and rule over peoples,
    and the Lord shall be their King forever.
Those who trust in God shall understand truth,
    and the faithful shall abide with God in love:
because grace and mercy are with God’s holy ones,
    whose care embraces the Elect.
Wisdom 3:7-9

All Souls Day is a glorious feast, and yet it is threaded with a tinge of sadness. We remember those we have loved and lost into the incomprehensible dimensions of eternity, into an infinty of Love.

The gifted Wisdom writer consoles us with the verse we are all so familiar with from many funerals:

The souls of the just
are in the hand of God,
and no torment shall touch them.

Wisdom 3:1

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We place our trust in God’s promise to hold our beloveds in tenderness until we see them again.

Poetry: from John O’Donohue

Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts,
Where no storm or might or pain can reach you.

Your love was like the dawn
Brightening over our lives
Awakening beneath the dark
A further adventure of colour.

The sound of your voice
Found for us
A new music
That brightened everything.

Whatever you enfolded in your gaze
Quickened in the joy of its being;
You placed smiles like flowers
On the altar of the heart.
Your mind always sparkled
With wonder at things.

Though your days here were brief,
Your spirit was live, awake, complete.

We look towards each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.

Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.

Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Beside us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.

When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.

May you continue to inspire us:
To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love
Until we see your beautiful face again
In that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
And where we will never lose you again.

Music: Spirit Touch – Joseph Akins

Wings

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, Holy Spirit, Jesus, spirituality3 Comments

Thursday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time
October 31, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/103124.cfm

Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you,
how many times I yearned to gather your children together
as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,
but you were unwilling!
Behold, your house will be abandoned.
But I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say,
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
Luke 13:34-35

Scripture often uses the image of wings to convey the sense of divine protection as in Psalm 91:4:

You will cover me with your pinions
and hide me in the shadow of your wings.

In today’s reading, Jesus expresses his desire to love and protect us in this way. Yet some, by their life choices, remain unwilling.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We gratefully nestle in God’s grace and protection asking that our lives be transformed in that Holy Shadow.

Poem: Peace – Gerard Manley Hopkins

When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,
Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?
When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I'll not play hypocrite
To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but
That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows
Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?

O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu
Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite,
That plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does house
He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,
He comes to brood and sit.

Music: Shadow of Your Wings – Amy Michelle

Joy

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Faith, holiness, Hope, joy, spirituality2 Comments

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
October 27, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102724.cfm

Thus says the LORD:
    Shout with joy for Jacob,
        exult at the head of the nations;
        proclaim your praise and say:
    The LORD has delivered his people,
        the remnant of Israel…
… They departed in tears,
        but I will console them and guide them;
    I will lead them to brooks of water,
        on a level road, so that none shall stumble.
Jeremiah 31:7;9

Jeremiah was a pretty gloomy prophet because he lived in pretty gloomy times. Nevertheless, Jeremiah understood the nautre of “joy” – that heartfelt recognition that God abides with us, loves us, and heals us no matter our circumstances.

We have all met peole whose joy, despite difficulty, astounds us. Their faith inspires us, and their strength invites us to tap into that deep, unquenchable river of grace in our own hearts.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray for the gift of that deep joy which is rooted in relationship with God, and sustained by persevering faith.

Poetry: Unholy Sonnet II – Mark Jarman

Half asleep in prayer I said the right thing 

And felt a sudden pleasure come into 
The room or my own body. In the dark, 
Charged with a change of atmosphere, at first 
I couldn’t tell my body from the room. 
And I was wide awake, full of this feeling, 
Alert as though I’d heard a doorknob twist, 
A drawer pulled, and instead of terror knew 
The intrusion of an overwhelming joy. 
I had said thanks and this was the response. 
But how I said it or what I said it for 
I still cannot recall and I have tried 
All sorts of ways all hours of the night. 
Once was enough to be dissatisfied.

Music: The Flow of Life – Tron Syversen

Grace

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

Saturday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
October 26, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102624.cfm

Brothers and sisters:
Grace was given to each of us
according to the measure of Christ’s gift…

… living the truth in love,
we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ,
from whom the whole Body,
joined and held together by every supporting ligament,
with the proper functioning of each part,
brings about the Body’s growth and builds itself up in love.
 living the truth in love,
we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ,
from whom the whole Body,
joined and held together by every supporting ligament,
with the proper functioning of each part,
brings about the Body’s growth and builds itself up in love.
Ephesians 4:7;15-16

There is a grace, inherent in each of us, that can make us physically, spiritually, and emotionally elegant. Some people move, speak, write, and behave with grace. It is a natural gift that may be enhanced by our openness to God’s gentle power in our lives.

But there is another kind of infinite grace that is a pure gift from God. When we receive such grace, we receive a share in God’s own life.

Jesus Christ is the ultimate expression of Uncreated Grace in human form, that gift of eternal, inexhaustible Love which invites our full surrender to its transformative power.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
God’s Love for us is so vast as to be incomprehensibe. Like a star in the seemingly distant heavens, it still touches us with its light, still donates its stardust to our body.
We pray to be grateful, open, awed, and obedient to its urging in our lives.

Poetry: That Lives in Us -Rumi (interpreted by David Ladinsky)

If you put your hands on this oar with me,
they will never harm another, and they will come to find
they hold everything you want.
If you put your hands on this oar with me, they would no longer
lift anything to your
mouth that might wound your precious land-
that sacred earth that is
your body.
If you put your soul against this oar with me,
the power that made the universe will enter your sinew
from a source not outside your limbs, but from a holy realm
that lives in us.
Exuberant is existence, time a husk.
When the moment cracks open, ecstasy leaps out and devours space;
love goes mad with the blessings, like my words give.
Why lay yourself on the torturer’s rack of the past and future?
The mind that tries to shape tomorrow beyond its capacities
will find no rest.
Be kind to yourself, dear- to our innocent follies.
Forget any sounds or touch you knew that did not help you dance.
You will come to see that all evolves us.
If you put your heart against the earth with me, in serving
every creature, our Beloved will enter you from our sacred realm
and we will be, we will be
so happy.

Music: This Ancient – Carolyn McDade