Category: Lent

Ash Wednesday

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Cross, Discipleship, Faith, Lent, repentance, spirituality2 Comments

March 5, 2025

Make Me a Channel of Your Peace

Penance and self-denial are not generally popular concepts. Yet all major religions include them as means of spiritual enrichment. Why do you think that is? Here’s my take on it.

Most of us live within the illusion of many boundaries. We are bound by space, time, circumstances, choices, and perceived abilities or inabilities, to name a few. Sometimes we get terribly caught in our boundaries. We are afraid to try something new; to shed a dangerous but comfortable habit; to break a debilitating, co-dependent relationship; to choose a life-giving but challenging road. Too often, we say “no” to our graced potential.

But God is beyond boundaries. God is limitless, everlasting, infinite possibility and hope. Fasting and self-denial are human attempts to prove to ourselves that we can break through what binds us to live in God’s infinite “YES!”.

Giving up candy, smoking, or mindless TV is a small way of doing that. But attending to our tendencies for gossip, meanness, negativity, and self-centeredness is a great alternative way. Whatever our religious tradition, Ash Wednesday can remind us that God made us for freedom, unconditional love, and unending life. May our choices reflect that.

Music: Take These Ashes – Sarah Hart

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 6: 16-19

Click for Scripture

Yours

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Lent, Love, spirituality6 Comments

Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent
March 21, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032124.cfm

I will maintain my covenant with you
and your descendants after you
throughout the ages as an everlasting pact,
to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

Genesis 17:7

Genesis describes the sacred covenant God shares with us. In our Gospel, Jesus asserts the eternal nature of that covenant, made real in our lives by keeping his Word.

God’s promise of eternal love was made to us as well as to Abraham.
In every moment, God says to us, “I am yours.”
In every moment. we are called to respond, “Yes, Lord, and I am Yours as well.”

Poetry: from The Book of Hours – Rainer Maria Rilkë

Although, as from a prison walled with hate,
each from his own self labors to be free,
the world yet holds a wonder, and how great!
ALL LIFE IS LIVED: now this comes home to me.
But who, then, lives it? Things that patiently
stand there, like some unfingered melody
that sleeps within a harp as day is going?
Is it the winds, across the waters blowing,
is it the branches, beckoning each to each,
is it the flowers, weaving fragrances,
the aging alleys that reach out endlessly?
Is it the warm beasts, moving to and fro,
is it the birds, strange as they sail from view?
This life — who really lives it? God, do you?

Music: My God, I Am Yours – Suscipe of Catherine McAuley

My God, I am yours for time and eternity.
Teach me to cast myself entirely
into the arms of your loving Providence
with a lively, unlimited confidence in your compassionate, tender pity.
Grant, O most merciful Redeemer,
That whatever you ordain or permit may be acceptable to me.
Take from my heart all painful anxiety;
let nothing sadden me but sin,
nothing delight me but the hope of coming to the possession of You
my God and my all, in your everlasting kingdom.

Plot

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Cross, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Lent, spirituality1 Comment

Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent
March 16, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031624.cfm

Yet I, like a trusting lamb led to slaughter,
had not realized that they were hatching plots against me:
“Let us destroy the tree in its vigor;
let us cut him off from the land of the living,
so that his name will be spoken no more.”

Jeremiah 11:19

“Plot” can be an ugly word – a sinister trap woven in the darkness of fear and ignorance. Such plotters are befuddled by innocence, freedom, honesty, and goodness. Without these virtues themselves, they have no tools to meet challenges with sincerity and trust..

In our readings, we see darkened souls interweaving their fears to trap both Jeremiah and Jesus. It’s a picture of “conspiracy theories” in Biblical times!

In our current culture, we see people design elaborate arguments to justify war, rioting, oppression, weaponry, economic excess, and all the many “isms” that trap others in their vulnerability.

Lent is not just a remembrance of things past. It is a living participation in the Paschal Mystery as Christ experiences it in our times. We must ask ourselves if we ever stand with, or even silently near, the “plotters”.

Poem: The Second Crucifixion – Richard Le Gallienne (1866 – 1947)

LOUD mockers in the roaring street   
  Say Christ is crucified again:   
Twice pierced His gospel-bearing feet,   
  Twice broken His great heart in vain.   
  
I hear, and to myself I smile,          
For Christ talks with me all the while.   
  
No angel now to roll the stone   
  From off His unawaking sleep,   
In vain shall Mary watch alone,   
  In vain the soldiers vigil keep.   
  
Yet while they deem my Lord is dead   
My eyes are on His shining head.   
  
Ah! never more shall Mary hear   
  That voice exceeding sweet and low   
Within the garden calling clear:   
  Her Lord is gone, and she must go.   
  
Yet all the while my Lord I meet   
In every London lane and street.   
  
Poor Lazarus shall wait in vain,   
  And Bartimæus still go blind;   
The healing hem shall ne'er again   
  Be touch'd by suffering humankind.   
  
Yet all the while I see them rest,   
The poor and outcast, on His breast.   
  
No more unto the stubborn heart   
  With gentle knocking shall He plead,   
No more the mystic pity start,   
  For Christ twice dead is dead indeed.   
  
So in the street I hear men say,   
Yet Christ is with me all the day.

Music: Agnus Dei – Michael Hoppé

Recompense

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Cross, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Lent, spirituality2 Comments

Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent
March 15, 2024

Today’s readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031524.cfm

The wicked said among themselves…
“Let us condemn him to a shameful death;
for according to his own words, God will take care of him.”
These were their thoughts, but they erred;
for their wickedness blinded them,
and they knew not the hidden counsels of God;
neither did they count on a recompense of holiness
nor discern the innocent souls’ reward.

Wisdom 2: 20-22

In our readings, the Holy One meets the opposition of those who plot against him. They rationalize their persecutions, proclaiming them as acts of justice. They expect their victim to crumble under the pressure of their judgments. What they do not expect is a return of goodness, gentleness, and forgiveness – a recompense of holiness. They do not expect the great contradiction of the Cross, and they are incapable of comprehending it.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

As Lent deepens, and we come closer to the shadows of Calvary, we are summoned into the sufferings of Jesus to test our own understanding of this Great Contradiction.

What does Christ teach us about payback, unforgiveness, revenge, violence, and war – the popular “recompenses” of our culture to any resistance or injury we encounter?

What might a “recompense of holiness” look like in my life when I meet gracelessness in another person or situation?

How might it transform our belligerent culture if we modeled our behaviors on the holiness of Jesus?

Poetry: Peace-making Is Hard …. – Daniel Berrigan, SJ

hard almost as war. 
the difference being 
one we can stake life upon 
and limb and thought and love.
I stake this poem out 
dead man to a dead stick 
to tempt an Easter chance— 
if faith may be 
truth, our evil chance 
penultimate at last, 
not last. We are not lost. 
When these lines gathered 
of no resource at all 
serenity and strength, 
it dawned on me 
a man stood on his nails, 
an ash like dew, a sweat 
smelling of death and life. 
Our evil Friday fled, 
the blind face gently turned 
another way. Toward Life. 
A man walks in his shroud. 

Music: He Trusted in God – from Handel’s Messiah

Calf

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, Lent, repentance, spirituality1 Comment

Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent
March 14, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031424.cfm

The LORD said to Moses,
“Go down at once to your people
whom you brought out of the land of Egypt,
for they have become depraved.
They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them,
making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it,
sacrificing to it and crying out,
‘This is your God, O Israel,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt!’

Exodus 32: 7-8

Today’s readings give us Moses and John the Baptist, each serving as a bridge over the chasm between a faithful God and a faithless people. Both met blockades in their attempts to lead the people to their God, just as Jesus meets opposition in today’s Gospel.

For Moses, the blockade was the golden calf, symbol of all the fragile pretensions we substitute for a true and committed faith. Real faith is dangerous. It asks us to risk ourselves on realities we cannot see. Glittering gold, even in the form of a beast, feels so much more secure!

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s have the courage to look for the golden calves in our lives

  • a greed for control, power which limits others’ freedom
  • any form of disrespect or indifference toward another’s dignity
  • the lust for, or abuse of money or goods
  • willfulness that limits my own spiritual growth, or the spiritual joy of others

Poetry: The Golden Calf – John Newton (1725-1807), also author of “Amazing Grace”.

When Israel heard the fiery law,
From Sinai's top proclaimed;
Their hearts seemed full of holy awe,
Their stubborn spirits tamed.
Yet, as forgetting all they knew,
Ere forty days were past;
With blazing Sinai still in view,
A molten calf they cast.
Yea, Aaron, God's anointed priest,
Who on the mount had been
He durst prepare the idol-beast,
And lead them on to sin.
Lord, what is man! and what are we,
To recompense thee thus!
In their offence our own we see,
Their story points at us.
From Sinai we have heard thee speak,
And from mount Calv'ry too;
And yet to idols oft we seek,
While thou art in our view.
Some golden calf, or golden dream,
Some fancied creature-good,
Presumes to share the heart with him,
Who bought the whole with blood.
Lord, save us from our golden calves,
Our sin with grief we own;
We would no more be thine by halves,
But live to thee alone.

Music: Song of the Golden Calf from the opera Faust by Charles Gounod

Mother

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Lent, Prayer, Scripture, spirituality1 Comment

Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent
March 13, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031324.cfm

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.”
Can a mother forget her infant,
be without tenderness for the child of her womb?
Even should she forget,
I will never forget you.

Isaiah 49: 14-15

In our Gospel, Jesus tells his questioners that he and the Creator are One. Jesus uses the imagery of “Father” to connote his oneness with the Creator. Isaiah uses the imagery of a “Mother” to convey the depth of loving relationship we are given in God.

Throughout Scripture and through the long spiritual legacy of the Church, many images of God have been offered to deepen our prayer.

  • Scripture gives us God as King, Suffering Servant, Rock, Fortress, Shepherd …
  • John of the Cross imaged God as Lover, Francis of Assisi and Hadewijch of Brabant found God in Creation. Therese of Lisieux knew herself as a child of God.
  • The poet Francis Thompson sees God as the Hound of Heaven, William Blake as a Lamb.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Depending on our human relationships and experiences, some of these images help us with our prayer and some do not.

Today we might consider how we relate to our Invisible God. Our prayer can open our understanding to allow God’s Love to come nearer to us. This is something Isaiah understood when he imaged God as Mother, and that Jesus understood when he called God “Father”.

Poetry: The Divine Feminine – by Hildegard of Bingen who is only the fourth woman in history to be declared a Doctor of the Church, joining the names of Catherine of Sienna, Teresa of Avila, and Therese of Lisieux.

I heard a voice speaking to me: 
‘The young woman whom you see is Love. 
She has her tent in eternity… 
It was love that was the source of this creation 
in the beginning when God said: ‘Let it be!’ 
And it was. 

As though in the blinking of an eye, 
the whole creation was formed through love. 
The young woman is radiant 
in such a clear, lightning-like brilliance of countenance 
that you can’t fully look at her… 
She holds the sun and moon in her right hand 
and embraces them tenderly…
 
The whole of creation calls this maiden ‘Lady.’ 
For it was from her that all of creation proceeded, 
since Love was the first. She made everything… 
Love was in eternity and brought forth,
in the beginning of all holiness, 
all creatures without any admixture of evil. 
Adam and Eve, as well were produced by love 
from the pure nature of the Earth.”

Music: 1,000 Names – Phil Wickham

Water

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, healing, Jesus, Lent, spirituality3 Comments

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent
March 12, 2024

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031224.cfm

There is a stream whose runlets gladden the city of God,
the holy dwelling of the Most High.
God is in its midst; it shall not be disturbed;
God will help it at the break of dawn.

Psalm 46:5-6

Our Psalm today connects two readings centered around life-giving water.

Ezekiel’s watery vision offers a symbolic interpretation of the life-force flowing from God’s heart (symbolized by the Temple) to all Creation.

In our Gospel, a man waits for decades beside the waters of an inaccessible pool until Jesus cures him – until Jesus himself becomes the “Water of Life”.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Imagine yourself being blessed by life-giving water – maybe a cool swim on a blistering day, or a warm bath on a frosty one.

Imagine walking in a gentle summer rain, no umbrella, no puddle prohibitions.

If you love the ocean, imagine diving under soft waves at flood tide, belly-riding them back, again and again, to a warm, quiet beach.

Now imagine that all that water is God’s Love for you, because it is. And let your heart pray with a joy similar to today’s psalmist!

Poetry: The Waterfall – Henry Vaughan (1621-1695)

With what deep murmurs through time’s silent stealth
Doth thy transparent, cool, and wat’ry wealth
Here flowing fall,
And chide, and call,
As if his liquid, loose retinue stay’d
Ling’ring, and were of this steep place afraid;
The common pass
Where, clear as glass,
All must descend
Not to an end,
But quicken’d by this deep and rocky grave,
Rise to a longer course more bright and brave.

Dear stream! dear bank, where often I
Have sate and pleas’d my pensive eye,
Why, since each drop of thy quick store
Runs thither whence it flow’d before,
Should poor souls fear a shade or night,
Who came, sure, from a sea of light?
Or since those drops are all sent back
So sure to thee, that none doth lack,
Why should frail flesh doubt any more
That what God takes, he’ll not restore?

O useful element and clear!
My sacred wash and cleanser here,
My first consigner unto those
Fountains of life where the Lamb goes!
What sublime truths and wholesome themes
Lodge in thy mystical deep streams!
Such as dull man can never find
Unless that Spirit lead his mind
Which first upon thy face did move,
And hatch’d all with his quick’ning love.
As this loud brook’s incessant fall
In streaming rings restagnates all,
Which reach by course the bank, and then
Are no more seen, just so pass men.
O my invisible estate,
My glorious liberty, still late!
Thou art the channel my soul seeks,
Not this with cataracts and creeks.

Music: How Deep Is the Ocean
As you listen to the smooth jazz of Diana Krall, let yourself be in love with God who raises you from beside whatever pool where you’ve been lingering.

Loved

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

Fourth Sunday of Lent 
March 10, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031024-YearB.cfm

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him.

John 3:16-17

For some of us, it’s hard to believe in a God we do not see. This passage from John suggests that God understands how hard it is. So that believers might not “perish” in their natural doubts, God made Divinity visible in Jesus Christ. The reason? Infinite Love for and desire to be one with us.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s rest in the confidence and gratitude this passage ignites in our hearts. God loves us — loves you — enough to become like you so that you might become like God.

Poetry: Infinite Love – Julian of Norwich, who was an English anchoress of the Middle Ages. Her writings, now known as Revelations of Divine Love, are the earliest surviving English language works by a woman. They are also the only surviving English language works by an anchoress. ( An anchoress is someone who, for religious reasons, withdraws from secular society to be able to lead an intensely prayer-orientated, ascetic, or Eucharist-focused life.)

Infinite Love

Because of the great,
infinite love which God has for all humankind,
he makes no distinction in love 
between the blessed soul of Christ
and the lowliest of the souls that are to be saved . . . .
We should highly rejoice that God dwells in our soul
and still more highly should we rejoice 
that our soul dwells in God.
Our soul is made to be God’s dwelling place,
and the dwelling place of our soul
is God who was never made.

Music: God So Loved the World – Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Wholehearted

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Faith, Gospel, Lent, Love, spirituality5 Comments

Friday of the Third Week of Lent
March 8, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030824.cfm

The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.

The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.

Mark 12: 29-31

Is there even such a thing as a half-hearted love? When we truly love, we love completely. Otherwise, let’s call half-hearted love what it really is

  • convenience: I “love” because it fits my purposes
  • fear: I “love” because I am afraid of isolation and loneliness
  • pretense: I “love” because I don’t trust that I am loved in return
  • habit: I “love” because it’s the way I’ve always done things
  • keeping up appearances: I “love” because I don’t want anyone to know that I don’t really love

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s pray to love God for God’s purposes with a love that is fearless, trustful, passionate, and committed.

Jesus teaches that such wholehearted love of God is demonstrated by merciful love of neighbor. It’s an easy test — or is it?

Quote: from Rumi

A thousand half-loves must be forsaken 
to take one whole heart home.

Music: Wholehearted – by Newsong (lyrics below)

Trying to live in two worlds at one time
Holdin’ on to all the things that I call mine
Sayin’ one thing, but really livin’ two
It’s not just hard, it’s impossible to do

Lord, I want You to know
That this double life is through
And everything, all of me
I’m giving to You

And with my whole heart
I’m gonna love You
And with my whole life
I’m gonna live it for You
Take my heart, every secret part
I’m wholehearted in love with You

Talk about peace and talk about real joy
I’m talking about things I’ve never talked about before
Two roads to go, but only one road for me
I’ve seen both sides and I’m as sure as I can be

But, Lord, I want You to know
That this double life is through
And everything, all of me
I’m giving to You

And with my whole heart
I’m gonna love You
And with my whole life
I’m gonna live it for You
Take my heart, every secret part
I’m wholehearted in love with You

I’m not divided in my heart anymore
(‘Cause I know it’s You)
I said, it’s You and only You that I’m living for
(Only with my whole heart)

And with my whole heart
(Gonna love You)
With my whole heart
I’m gonna love You
And with my whole life
You know, I’m gonna live all it for You
Take my heart, every secret part
I’m wholehearted in love with You

With my whole heart
You know, I’m gonna love You
And with my whole life
I’m gonna live it all for You
Jesus, take my heart, every secret part
I’m wholehearted in love

Wholehearted in love
I’m in love with You, Lord…
You know, I’m gonna live it all for You, Jesus
Take my heart, take my soul
Wholehearted in love…

Observe

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Lent, Poetry, Praise, spirituality6 Comments

Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent
March 6, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030624.cfm

Moses spoke to the people and said:
“Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decrees
which I am teaching you to observe,
that you may live, and may enter in and take possession of the land
which the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.”

Deuteronomy 4:1

The word “observe” carries several meanings. We may, for example,

  • observe by giving full attention
  • observe by stating our assessment of something
  • observe a holiday or birthday by sending a card
  • observe an order from a superior
  • observe the sacred by a ritual of practice, silence, or waiting

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s take the final sense of sacred observing, placing our lives before God in faith, hope, and love. Each day that we live is a ritual of praise to the One Who created us. By living God’s Law of Love, we offer the praise for which God made us.

Poetry: from First Love by Denise Levertov

In the excerpt, Levertov “observes” by giving, and receiving, full attention.

`Convolvulus,' said my mother. 
Pale shell-pink, a chalice 
no wider across than a silver sixpence.
It looked at me, I looked 
back, delight 
filled me as if 
I, not the flower, 
were a flower and were brimful of rain. 
And there was endlesness. 
Perhaps through a lifetime what I've desired 
has always been to return 
to that endless giving and receiving, the wholeness 
of that attention, 
that once-in-a-lifetime 
secret communion.

Music: Touch of the Spirit – Nadama