Category: Jesus

Eucharist Means Thanksgiving

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Jesus, spirituality, Thanksgiving5 Comments

November 16, 2025

It may be a bit early, but as we draw closer to the season of Thanksgiving, it is time to make preparations for our “family eucharist”.

Families pass batons much like relay teams do.  One generation hands its gifts and stories on to the next.  Eventually, the cycle of love and tradition wears a deep path in history that becomes known by your family name.

How often do we see a newborn child and comment that she has her grandmother’s eyes?  How many times have we said to someone, “You remind me so much of your father.”? Whenever we see the pattern of strength and generosity repeated through the generations, we are given reason to hope and to be grateful.

In our family, the making of the Thanksgiving pies is a beloved tradition.  Over the years, it has passed from my grandmother to my mother, my father, my brother, and me.  Like many family traditions, pie-making has become a mark of our family – a “charism”, if you will – symbolizing our desire to feed, support, and love one another. It is also a way of remembering those who have taught us its intricacies.

30 years ago....

Over thirty years ago, I went into the kitchen and found my oldest niece, then about nine years old, preparing the pie crust and stirring the filling.  Looking at her, I realized that she and her brother and sisters are the beloved hope of our family’s future and the blessed confirmation of its past. Now, I have the joy of seeing their children making the Thanksgiving pies – so symbolic of that renewed hope and blessing – and such a source of joy.

Cookies Count Too
Pie with Grandpa
Some prefer to eat pie
Training without product!
Where’s the meat …?

The Newest Generation

Be especially mindful of your children this Thanksgiving. Confirm in them the traditions they continue and the newness they contribute to your family.  Whether they sit over at the kids’ table or have joined you at the “big table”, make Thanksgiving Day a special time to love them.  Share the stories that connect them to their heritage. Offer them that irreplaceable stability as they create their unique chapter of your family’s story.

Such simple moments can offer us a eucharistic grace – 

  • the welcoming of all at a shared table, 
  • the telling of stories that define our values,
  • the exchange of joyful hope, and the security of forgiveness with our familial community
  • the challenge and encouragement to model such hope in the world

Surely at such times, Jesus is with us, reminding us to “Do this in memory of Me.” As we pass the bread – or the pie – to one another, let’s remember the power of such Love.

My Mom’s Family-Famous Chocolate Pie

Music: “Family is Family” from the movie “Family Camp”

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: Ephesians 4:2-3

Click for Scripture

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

Good Friday

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Discipleship, dying, Gospel, Jesus, Poetry, spirituality, sufferingLeave a comment

April 18, 2025

Chopin: Nocturn in C Sharp Minor, played by Hauser. (Listen to it all – lovely.)

Calvary was a glass box where God,
confined, no longer touched the world.
It was a white plain, without sound,
not the groaning, blood-soaked hill
the scriptures leave us.

I know.
Calvary hewed itself inside me once
with the chisel of a long sorrow
that fell, persistent, merciless
like cold, steel rain.

It was a place bereft of feeling.
Only the anticipation and
the memory of pain are feelings.
Pain itself is a huge abyss,
bled by a silence that mimics death,
but is not as absolutely kind.

Calvary is the place where
all strength is given
to the drawing of a breath
to linger in it unfulfilled.

God, now I go quietly inside
where you are dying in a glass box, still.
I release all definitions
to pass through and companion you.
I watch the rain, itself like glass,
crashing to an unknown life 
beneath the earth. Where love roots
absolute, unbreakable, I cling to you
in a transparent act of will.           

Agios O Theos
Agios Ischyros
Agios Athanatos
Eleison Imas

Holy God
Holy Strong One
Holy Deathless One
Have Mercy On Us

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: 44-49

Scripture

Holy Thursday’s Cup

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

April 17, 2025

Ubi Caritas – Taize Community

Life is change. Like a deep and vast ocean, life moves in waves and currents, never still even at its depths. It is the rhythmic flow of God, drawing all creation back and forth in its power. Yet, at the same time, life is constant. Its source is the eternal well of God which has neither beginning nor end.

These are the waters in which we swim. Whether theologian or kindergartner, each one of us lives this mystery every day of our lives. At times we move with great agility, dolphins dancing in the stream of grace. At other times, our stroke falters. We fall like shelled mollusks to the ocean floor, heavy with our imagined limitations.

This is what happened to twelve men on an April night in old Jerusalem. They had been swimming in the miracle of God’s Incarnation. They had even asked, just weeks before, to sit in eternal glory with Jesus. They wanted their current happiness never to change. They did not really absorb the challenge of Jesus’ counter-question: “Can you drink the cup that I will drink?”

But on this April night, this Holy Thursday, that promised cup was handed to them. The clear waters would turn to wine and the wine would turn to blood. The flow of days would sink now to the depths of their hearts. Could they abandon themselves to its tumultuous current? Could they trust so completely as to be buoyed by God alone? Could they accept the cost of such infinite freedom?

Every change in our lives offers us the same cup. The change may be as profound as death or as simple as a clock ticking. The invitation within each circumstance is the same: will you allow this moment to free you into God’s Heart?

Music: Adoro Te Devote – Gregorian Chant Academy

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 26:17-30

Scripture

Near

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, spirituality2 Comments

Friday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
November 29, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112924.cfm

Jesus told his disciples a parable.
“Consider the fig tree and all the other trees.
When their buds burst open,
you see for yourselves and know that summer is now near;
in the same way, when you see these things happening,
know that the Kingdom of God is near.
Luke 21:29-31

Jesus tells his followers to be attuned to the emergence of God’s Kingdom.

The reality is that the Kingdom of God already enfolds us, but it is difficult for us to see it with our human eyes. When we see a ripe peach or tomato, we know it is ready to come to the table. But are we able to see the Spirit of God ripening in the world around us? Are we ready to pluck grace from our everyday circumstances so that God’s Reign is released into the world?

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We prayerfully consider all that blossoms in our daily life. Where is the invitation to holiness within our circumstances? May God lift us to pick the fruit offered.

Poetry: Go to the Limits of Your Longing – Rainer Maria Rilké

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Music: Awakening – Tim Barabas

Thanksgiving

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Faith, Gospel, inclusivity, Jesus, Mercy, spirituality8 Comments

Thursday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time-Thanksgiving
November 28, 2024

Readings for Thanksgiving Day:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112824-thanksgiving.cfm

And now, bless the God of all,
    who has done wondrous things on earth;
Who fosters people’s growth from their mother’s womb,
    and fashions them according to his will!
May he grant you joy of heart
    and may peace abide among you;
May God’s goodness toward us endure
    to deliver us in our days.
Sirach 50:22-24

Poetry: Thanksgiving Presence – Renee Yann, RSM

Music: Now Thank We All Our God

Faithfulness

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Mercy, Service, spirituality, sufferingLeave a comment

Wednesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
November 27, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112724.cfm

Remain faithful until death,
and I will give you the crown of life.

Revelation 2:10

.In Luke 21, Jesus exhorts his disciples to remain faithful. Then he describes how fraught with difficulties that faithfulness will be: denouncement, imprisonment, false judgment, disavowal by family and friends, hatred, and even death. What is so terrifying about the Gospel that it evokes these responses in its enemies? What is so powerful about the Gospel that it will sustain its believers even through such trials?

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
I ask myself, “Have I ever really suffered anything for the sake of the Gospel”? What would that suffering look like? Would it not be setting aside my selfishness for the sake of the neighbor – even the unloved neighbor? If we dare to do that, we will surely suffer.

Prose: from Walter Bruggemann in “God’s Neighborly Economy”

“Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29)

The Bible is unflinching and unambiguous in its identification of the neighbor: widow, orphan, immigrant, the poor, lepers, the blind, deaf, lame … all those without viable resources or reliable advocacy.

Music: Take All the Lost Home – Joe Wise

Reap

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Prayer, spirituality3 Comments

Tuesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
November 26, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112624.cfm

I, John, looked and there was a white cloud,
and sitting on the cloud one who looked like a son of man,
with a gold crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand.
Another angel came out of the temple,
crying out in a loud voice to the one sitting on the cloud,
“Use your sickle and reap the harvest,
for the time to reap has come,
because the earth’s harvest is fully ripe.”
So the one who was sitting on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth,
and the earth was harvested.
Revelation 14:14-16

The Book of Revelation paints another image for us of the end times. We wonder about it, don’t we? The image of God reaping the harvest of which we are a part! Wow!

What will it really be like at the end of the world? Will it come in my lifetime? Will we see our beloveds again? Will we celebrate together the Second Coming of Christ? John wondered the same things we do, and today’s reading describes how he imagined the Parousia.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We spend time in prayer, not so much imagining the unimaginable, but in asking ourselves if we are ready to receive the fullness of Christ for all eternity.

Poetry: For the Interim Time – John O’Donohue

When near the end of day, life has drained
Out of light, and it is too soon
For the mind of night to have darkened things,

No place looks like itself, loss of outline
Makes everything look strangely in-between,
Unsure of what has been, or what might come.

In this wan light, even trees seem groundless.
In a while it will be night, but nothing
Here seems to believe the relief of darkness.

You are in this time of the interim
Where everything seems withheld.

The path you took to get here has washed out;
The way forward is still concealed from you.

“The old is not old enough to have died away;
The new is still too young to be born.”

You cannot lay claim to anything;
In this place of dusk,
Your eyes are blurred;
And there is no mirror.

Everyone else has lost sight of your heart
And you can see nowhere to put your trust;
You know you have to make your own way through.

As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might come free
From all you have outgrown.

What is being transfigured here is your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn.

Music: The Ride of the Valkyries – Richard Wagner

Sometimes when prayer is beyond words, music may capture our feelings and speak them to God for us. I love to play this piece when praying these end-time passages.

Alpha and Omega

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Community, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, justice, spirituality1 Comment

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
November 24, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112424.cfm

Jesus Christ is the faithful witness,
the firstborn of the dead and ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood,
who has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father,
to him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen.
Behold, he is coming amid the clouds,
and every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him.
All the peoples of the earth will lament him.
Yes. Amen.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, ” says the Lord God,
“the one who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty.”
Revelation 1:5-8

Pope Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King in his 1925 encyclical Quas primas. The encyclical was written in response to growing secularism and secular ultra-nationalism. The encyclical, wedged between two World Wars, attempted to focus people’s minds and hearts on Christ whose power unites and directs us to peace rather than domination.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray to be agents of peace and justice in our world, sustained by our devotion to Christ who modeled his kingship by loving service, especially to the poor and marginalized.

Music: Hymn to Christ the King by Sarah Hart