Category: Love

One Job!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Discipleship, Faith, healing, inclusivity, Jesus, Love, Mercy, spirituality3 Comments

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

October 25, 2026

You’ve seen the classic irony that warns us about success:

Often, the image is accompanied by the phrase, “You had one job.” – like this guy did!

It’s funny, isn’t it – until you realize that it’s describing you at – what? – maybe at fifty points in your past life!

Remember that IKEA bureau whose pull handles ended up inside the drawer? And I bet you’ll never forget that meticulously planned picnic served sans plasticware.

The readings for this Thirtieth Sunday echo these situations. The wise ancient who penned Exodus implies: “You have one job –  to love your neighbor. So, “Plan Ahead”!

Exodus offers practical advice that can be applied exactly as it is given. We should not oppress the alien, or wrong widows and orphans. We should not extort a person who is poor, or permanently deprive anyone of a needed cloak as collateral.

But the passage suggests much more than accountability for any single selfishness. It demands that we reverse all failure to love – especially toward the least lovable and most needy. That avowed reversal is the basis of our relationship with God Who is Love itself.

As we approach the US mid-term elections, these biblical passages shout a critical message. We exercise our faith in the political environment of our times. The choices we make around government, policy, and leadership declare our commitment to our neighbor, the ultimate command of our faith.

“The moment we choose to love, we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love, we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.” (bell hooks)

Three images might strike us from the Exodus reading:

The Alien: How do we respond to that which feels alien to us? Fear? Stonewalling? Stereotyping? Or do we welcome difference, learn from it, encourage it? Do our choices reverence or dehumanize the other?

The Widow or Orphan: How do we respond to people who are isolated, or ‘orphaned’? When we find others suffering loss, shunning, exclusion, or need, how do we act toward them? Do we do our part to promote a universal common good?

The Cloak: When we have the advantage in a situation, how do we use it? For our own or for the common good? Do we demand the “cloak” in security for ourselves, or do we offer its warmth to others in need? Do we support political policy that seeks such equity?

In God’s voice, Exodus reminds us that we are in this world to live as neighbors, who journey to God’s heart only together. The author preaches in the tone of his times with the frightening threat of divine execution if we fail.

But there is a more vicious kind of death that comes from failure to be a neighbor. It is an isolation that leaves us in the company of our own selfishness. And that is hell on earth – a hell that can consume both individuals and nations.

In our Gospel today, Jesus warns us that we have one job – to be neighbors. And our neighborhood is the world. There, we will encounter many people rendered physically, emotionally, economically, or spiritually helpless by a hostile power. Success depends on our willingness to love them like God – with all our heart, soul, and mind.

“You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your soul,
and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Music: Who Is My Neighbor – from Heavenly Love Songs

Love Within, Without, and Eternal

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, Love1 Comment

October 15, 2026
Memorial of Saint Teresa of Jesus, Virgin and Doctor of the Church

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate the great Saint Teresa of Ávila. Teresa was a Spanish noblewoman who became a Carmelite nun, mystic, religious reformer, author, theologian, and first female Doctor of the Church.

Teresa taught that God is within us. Our spiritual journey is one of awareness, not distance. In her masterpiece, The Interior Castle, she wrote: 

“Remember that within you a
is a palace of immense magnificence, 
and he who built it is the King himself.”

The more aligned we are with God’s interior presence, the more we are impelled to share God’s love. Teresa believed that we could do this in the simplest of ways:

“The Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, 
or even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.”
—The Interior Castle

It seems fitting that on this particular feast day, our reading invites us to offer prayerful praise through the magnificent Ephesians Hymn. These verses comprise a foundational New Testament canticle that beautifully frames the glory of God’s redemptive plan.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavens,
as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
to be holy and without blemish before him.

Ephesians 1:3-6

As we pray this glorious passage, we give thanks that, like Paul, Teresa taught us to recognize, love, and praise God’s dynamic presence within us, and revealed in the unfolding of our lives. Let your heart and spirit thrill to that thought as you ponder this exquisite scripture passage today.

Music: Ephesians Hymn – Suzanne Toolan, RSM

Suggested Reading:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavens,
as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
to be holy and without blemish before him.
In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ,
in accord with the favor of his will,
for the praise of the glory of his grace
that he granted us in the beloved.

In Christ we have redemption by his Blood,
the forgiveness of transgressions,
in accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us.
In all wisdom and insight, he has made known to us
the mystery of his will in accord with his favor
that he set forth in him as a plan for the fullness of times,
to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth.

Ephesians 1:1-10

Prayer at Equinox

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Love, peace, Prayer, Scripture, Seasons, spirituality, TruthLeave a comment

September 22, 2026

Prayer’s many seasons have their unique personalities, each with a Truth and Presence awaiting revelation. These seasons rest not within the pages of a calendar but, like the earth’s axis, in the slow leaning of our hearts toward the Incandescent Face of God.

The soul’s Spring prayer is full of words and the longing to know more of the One Whom we desire. It is offered in the rising light of faith. It is surprised, delighted by response. It blossoms in the delicate pastels of self-revelation.

Summer prayer has a settled cadence. It welcomes warmth, the Spirit’s Fire vivifying a Presence beyond words. It lingers in the Light that intensely teaches Love. It bears Love’s fruit wherever it dwells. It comes whenever the soul finds its summer.

Autumn prayer presses its infinite roots deep into time-tested faith.  Like a fecund tree, this prayer unfolds each leaf before Love and awaits Love’s reception. Having come to wisdom, it yields appropriated fruit to the One Who seeded and sustained it. Autumn prayer is a slow falling from consuming color into the radical trust that invites winter prayer.

Winter prayer resides in silence, in the still confidence of reciprocated self-donation. It has become peace, a requiescat of fidelity.

Music: Autumn Longing – George Winston

Suggested Scripture: James 5:7-8

Click for Scripture

For Your Reflection:

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Song for Autumn – Mary Oliver

A Song for Autumn (Poem by Mary Oliver)

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Cross, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Hope, Love, spirituality1 Comment

September 14, 2026

I think we get too used to things, sometimes – in my case, the phrase “Holy Cross”.

Holy Cross Parish was my first mission assignment as a 21-year-old enthusiastic, clueless teacher. For me, the constantly repeated phrase became bleached of any religious meaning, indicating instead a geographic area, a football team, or a Saturday night dance for teens, blithely described in semi-illiterate phrases such as:

Joe: Where ya’ from?  
Pete: Holy Cross up on Springfield Ave.

Joe: Who do ya’ play for? 
Pete: Holy Cross. We won the championship!

Joe: Whata’ ya’ doing Saturday night? 
Pete: Holy Cross. They got a good dance sometimes.

I never once, at that time, considered the true meaning of the sacred name under which I lived. That amazes me now when I think about it, sixty years later. What a blessing I missed! What an invitation I overlooked! To contemplate the mystery of the Holy Cross while I lived within its mantle! But I think I was just too young and, as I mentioned above, clueless!

God has been patient with me though, accompanying me over the next sixty years to a deeper understanding of the precious gift of the Holy Cross as it reveals its mystery in my life. You, too, are surely aware of this slow revelation in your own experience.

We all know this: life brings crosses to every human being. No one lives without experiencing suffering in some or many forms. It is inherent in our human nature as we stretch for heavenly perfection from the bonds of earthly encumbrance.

God knows this too. And so we have been given the gift of Jesus Christ and the mystery of his Cross to steady us as this truth reveals its gift over the unrelenting course of our days.

Whatever pain our crosses bring us, be it physical, emotional, or spiritual, that pain exposes our heart to the grace of transformation.

The Holy Cross of Christ assures us that our personal cross is not simply an unavoidable suffering. It is our unique pathway into God’s heart and the absolute nature of Divine Love.

We will be tempted to think that loss, failure, incapacity, suffering, even death are terminals where life ends or fails. Rather, by the empty cross of the resurrected Christ, we are convinced that these experiences, when received in faith and open to grace, are the portals to Divine Life.

Our crosses test the strength of our faith, the endurance of our hope, and the depth of our love. The Holy Cross is God’s answer to that test.

Music: Vexilla Regis – Hymn to the Holy Cross

Suggested Scripture: Philippians 2:1-11

Click for Scripture

For Your Reflection:

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?