Category: Love

Abundance

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, joy, Love, Praise, Prayer, spirituality, Thanksgiving3 Comments

April 13, 2025

Pange Lingua

We are in the midst of the great Jewish and Christian holy days of Passover and Holy Week. 

During the Passover Seder meal, a beautiful prayer of gratitude is offered. It is called the “Dayenu” which means “It would have been enough”. The prayer recounts fifteen different gifts that God has given the Jewish people. After naming each gift, this phrase is repeated, “It would have been enough…”  To read the full Jewish prayer, click here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/dayenu-it-would-have-been-enough/

The prayer is a celebration of the abundance of God toward us and toward all creation. For each of us, our personal translation might be something like this: 

  • Not just the sun and moon, which would have been enough, – but also stars, planets, comets, quasars … 
  • Not just a robin, which would have been enough, – but also a blue jay, hummingbird, parrot, stork, flamingo … 
  • Not just my breath, which would have been enough, – but also my ability to move, to think, to love, to choose, to bless … 
  • Not just my parents, which would have been enough, — but also my siblings, my spouse, my children, my grandchildren, my friends,,,
  • Not just my humanity, which would have been enough, – but also the rich humanity of every race, ethnicity, color, culture and personality …. 

As Jews and Christians, we will spend time this week remembering our lifelong passage through grace to freedom. But whatever our faith context, all of us can recognize God’s power in sustaining our lives through challenge and fear to bring us to light and life. 

Try today to count the gifts of the Creator’s abundance in your life. It will be impossible because they are infinite. Still, after each precious memory and name, we can breathe the blessing of the Dayenu: “It would have been enough.”

Music: Dayenu – Pagoda Online Learning

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 22:14-23

Click for Scripture

Languages

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, friendship, inclusivity, Love, spirituality, Truth2 Comments

March 26, 2025

A Sister of Mercy, visiting from Honduras, was scheduled to dine out with my friend. One spoke only Spanish; the other only English. Thus, the dinner party was widened to include another American friend who had spent many years in Peru and spoke both languages. 

Language can both bind and divide us. So often, people speak to each other in the same language but share no true level of understanding. I think of the venomous rhetoric that has poisoned our political culture and am saddened to see the beautiful gift of language used in such hateful ways.

But at other times, even without a shared spoken language, we can communicate with clarity and respect.

I remember a chance meeting a friend and I – two unilingual North Americans– had with one of our Peruvian sisters. We connected at an airport, each preparing to return to our widely-distant homes. She spoke very little English, and I– only the stilted, useless phrases of a high school curriculum. Still, with a few gaps and miscommunications, we enjoyed lunch in one other’s company. By combining signs, gestures, guesses, and silence, we grew comfortable in each other’s hospitality and care. 

There are so many languages beyond the spoken word. The language of kindness, respect, compassion, mutuality– these are the elements of the multilingual world we all should yearn to master. No one is so distant from us that they do not understand a smile, an extended hand, or the offer to share a meal.  And in that offer, we may just learn that we are “multi-lingual” after all. 

Poetry: Silent Language – Thomas Burbidge (1860-1892)

Speak it no more—no more with words profane
What only for the language of the eye
Is fit—what only can be told thereby!
The heart has tones which words cannot contain,
And feelings which to speak is to restrain.
Like scent with scent commixed invisibly,
Or rays of neighbour planets in the sky
Inter-confused; or, as in some deep strain
Of music, heavenly passion is combined
With thought, and tone with tone in harmony,
Thus be the meeting of our hearts, dear love!
The pure communion of mind with mind,
Above poor symbols of this earth,—above
All that can baulk or cramp,—can change or die.

Music: Love in Any Language – Sandy Patty

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 4:1-7

Click for Scripture

Loving a Whole God

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Creation, Faith, Love, Prayer, spiritualityLeave a comment

February 14, 2025

As we may think about love this Valentine’s Day, I offer one of my poems on a different aspect of love.

Rusalka, Op. 114: “Song to the Moon” · Antonín Dvořák
One bitter day in February
I sat inside a sunlit room,
made warm love to You in prayer,
and she passed outside my window,
the unhoused woman, dressed 
uncarefully against the wind,
steadied on a cane, 
though she was young.

She seemed searching for
a comfort, unavailable and undefined.
The wound of that impossibility
fell over her the way it falls
on every tender thing that cries
but is not gathered to a caring breast.
Suddenly she was a single
anguished seed of You,
fallen into all created things.

Re-entering prayer,
I wear the thought of her
like old earth wears fresh rain.
I’ve misconstrued You,
Holy One, to whom
I open my heart
like a yearning field,
Holy One, already ripe within
her barest, leanest yearning.

Music: Teach Me to Love- Steve Green (Good song, but sorry for the non-inclusive language)

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 8:43-48

Click for Scripture

Sweet

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Creation, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Love, Psalms, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr
November 22, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112224.cfm

How sweet to my taste is your promise!
In the way of your decrees I rejoice,
as much as in all riches.
Yes, your decrees are my delight;
 they are my counselors.
The law of your mouth is to me more precious
than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
How sweet to my palate are your promises,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Your decrees are my inheritance forever;
the joy of my heart they are.
I gasp with open mouth
in my yearning for your commands.
from Psalm 119

Today, I choose to pray with our Responsorial Psalm 119, a beautiful love song to God. The psalm lists everything for which we might love God.

Picture a beloved asking you, “What do you love about me? Can you make a list?” Picture God doing the same thing. Psalm 119 is one person’s list of how they love the sweetness of God. What would your list look like?

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We take time in prayer to share “love talk” with God. How does the Divine Sweetness touch us, change us? How do we return that sweetness to God by our touch upon God’s Creation?

Poetry: Song Silence By Madeleva Wolff, CSC

Yes, I shall take this quiet house and keep it
With kindled hearth and candle-lighted board,
In singing silence garnish it and sweep it
                For Christ, my Lord.
 
My heart is filled with little songs to sing Him—
I dream them into words with careful art—
But this I think a better gift to bring Him,
                Nearer his heart.
 
The foxes have their holes, the wise, the clever;
The birds have each a safe and secret nest;
But He, my lover, walks the world with never
A place to rest.
 
I found Him once upon a straw bed lying;
(Once on His mother’s heart He laid His head)
He had a bramble pillow for His dying,
                A stone when dead.
 
I think to leave off singing for this reason,
Taking instead my Lord God’s house to keep,
Where He may find a home in every season
                To wake, to sleep.
 
Do you not think that in this holy sweetness
Of silence shared with God a whole life long
Both he and I shall find divine completeness
                Of perfect song?

Music: Cor Dulce – Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), sung by Benedictines of Mary

Sweet heart, most loving heart;
our love wounded,
our love languishing;
be merciful to me. 

Heart of Jesus, sweeter than honey;
heart purer than the sun;
Holy word of God,
fullness of God’s wealth.

Thy haven for a shipwrecked world;
secure portion for the faithful,
defender and refuge of our minds;
rest for our faithful hearts.

Cor dulce, Cor amabile,
Amore nostri saucium,
Amore nostri languidum,
Fac sis mihi placabile. 

Cor Jesu melle dulcius,
Cor sole puro purius,
Verbi Dei sacrarium,
Opum Dei compendium. 

Tu portus orbi naufrago,
Secura pars fidelibus,
Reis asylum mentibus,
Piis recessus cordibus.

Love

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Conversion, Courage, Cross, Faith, Love, spirituality1 Comment

Friday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
November 15, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111524.cfm

But now, Lady, I ask you,
not as though I were writing a new commandment
but the one we have had from the beginning:
let us love one another.
For this is love, that we walk according to his commandments;
this is the commandment, as you heard from the beginning,
in which you should walk.
2 John 4:5-6

The Motherhouse chapel is impressive, more like a cathedral than a chapel. I remember being led into it for the first time when, at 18 years old, I came for my initial interview. It took my breath away. You can imagine the intensity of my prayer as I knelt for the first time at the altar rail, realizing that my young, inscrutable choices were about to change my life irrevocably.

I looked up to the Gospel command emblazoned above the apse thinking, “That’s what this is all about. Let me begin.”

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Perhaps, remembering a long-ago choice in your life, you will see how it has unfolded in love over the years. This is a good day to pray those memories and blessings with God.

Poetry: Slowly – Macrina Wiederkehr

Life unfolds
a petal at a time
slowly

The beauty of the process is crippled
when I try to hurry growth.
Life has its inner rhythm
which must be respected.
It cannot be rushed or hurried.

Like daylight stepping out of darkness,
like morning creeping out of night,
life unfolds slowly a petal at a time
like a flower opening to the sun,
slowly.

God’s call unfolds
a Word at a time
slowly.

A disciple is not made in a hurry.
Slowly I become like the One
to whom I am listening.

Life unfolds
a petal at a time
like you and I
becoming followers of Jesus,
discipled into a new way of living
deeply and slowly.

Be patient with life’s unfolding petals.
If you hurry the bud it withers.
If you hurry life it limps.
Each unfolding is a teaching
a movement of grace filled with silent pauses
breathtaking beauty
tears and heartaches.

Life unfolds
a petal at a time
deeply and slowly.

May it come to pass!

Music: The Faith – Leonard Cohen

Woe

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Faith, Gospel, inclusivity, Jesus, justice, Love, spirituality1 Comment

Wednesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
October 16, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101624.cfm

The Lord said:
“Woe to you Pharisees!
You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb,
but you pay no attention to judgment and to love for God.
Luke 11:42

Jesus got fed up with those who lived a loveless law. The Pharisees were meticulous in their outward observation of the Law of Moses, but they failed its core test to love their neighbor as themselves as written in Leviticus.

Thought:

The only love of God that has any substance
is the love of God enacted as love of neighbor.

Walter Brueggemann

Music: Love God, Love Your Neighbor – Dale Sechrest

Friendship

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Books, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, friendship, Gospel, Jesus, Love, spirituality1 Comment

Thursday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
October 10, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101024.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Suppose one of you has a friend
to whom he goes at midnight and says,
‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread,
for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey
and I have nothing to offer him,’
and he says in reply from within,
‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked
and my children and I are already in bed.
I cannot get up to give you anything.’
I tell you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves
because of their friendship,
he will get up to give him whatever he needs
because of his persistence.

“And I tell you, ask and you will receive;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives;
and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Luke 11:5-11

In our Gospel today, Jesus describes the meaning of friendship and invites his disciples to receive that gift from God.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ask God to show us the profound beauty of Divine Friendship. We are grateful and humbled to be offered such a gift.

William Barry, SJ – one of my top ten spiritual writers – has written an inspiring book about friendship with God. Barry believes, as I do, that the concept of friendship best describes one’s deepening relationship with God.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=William+Barry&i=stripbooks&crid=3N6T8EPSQT76V&sprefix=william+barry%2Cstripbooks%2C93&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

Excerpt from William Barry, SJ:

What does God want in creating us? My stand is that what God wants is friendship.
To forestall immediate objections, let me say that I do not mean that God is lonely and therefore needs our friendship. This is a romantic and quite unorthodox notion that makes God ultimately unbelievable. No, I maintain that God—out of the abundance of divine relational life, not any need for us—desires humans into existence for the sake of friendship.

Music: I’ve Found a Friend – J. G. Small (1866)

Although this hymn echoes some revival tones of the 19th century, I think is still a beautiful and unexpectedtribute to Divine Friendship.

Better

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, holiness, Jesus, Love, Prayer, spirituality1 Comment

Tuesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
October 8, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/100824.cfm

Jesus entered a village
where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.
She had a sister named Mary
who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak.
Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said,
“Lord, do you not care
that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving?
Tell her to help me.”
The Lord said to her in reply,
“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her.”
Luke 10:38-42

What is the sacred balance between prayer and action? How do we acieve the sweet point where prayer and action infuse each other in mutual inspiration? In this Gospel, Jesus indicates that one element has precedence over the other — there is a “better part”.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We seek to deepen our prayer life while employing it to inspire our merciful service to Creation.

Poetry: Martha and Mary by John Newton (1725-1807)

Martha her love and joy expressed
By care to entertain her guest;
While Mary sat to hear her Lord,
And could not bear to lose a word.

The principle in both the same,
Produced in each a different aim;
The one to feast the Lord was led,
The other waited to be fed.

But Mary chose the better part,
Her Saviour’s words refreshed her heart;
While busy Martha angry grew,
And lost her time and temper too.

With warmth she to her sister spoke,
But brought upon herself rebuke;
One thing is needful, and but one,
Why do thy thoughts on many run?

How oft are we like Martha vexed,
Encumbered, hurried, and perplexed!
While trifles so engross our thought,
The one thing needful is forgot.

Lord teach us this one thing to choose,
Which they who gain can never lose;
Sufficient in itself alone,
And needful, were the world our own.

Let groveling hearts the world admire,
Thy love is all that I require!
Gladly I may the rest resign,
If the one needful thing be mine!

Music: Come Mary, Come Martha – Anna Purdum

Charity

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Church, Discipleship, Faith, Love, spirituality1 Comment

Memorial of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, virgin and Doctor of the Church
October 1, 2024

Today’s Readings: from the Mass for St. Thérèse

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/1001-memorial-therese-child-jesus.cfm

The disciples approached Jesus and said,
“Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?”
He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said,
“Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children,
you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven.
Whoever humbles himself like this child
is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 18:1-4

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We celebrate one of the most beautiful souls in the Communion of Saints. Let us learn from her profound wisdom lived with impeccable simplicity.

Charity gave me the key to my vocation.
I understood that the Church
being a body composed of different members,
the most essential, the most noble of all the organs
would not be wanting to her;
I understood that the Church has a heart
and that this heart is burning with love;
that it is love alone that makes the members work,
that if love were to die away
apostles would no longer preach the Gospel,
martyrs would refuse to shed their blood.
I understood that love comprises all vocations,
that love is everything,
that it embraces all times and all places
because it is eternal!

Music: Love Changes Everything – Andrew Lloyd Webber, sung by Michael Ball

Alabaster

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Discipleship, Faith, friendship, Hope, Jesus, Love, spirituality2 Comments

Thursday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
September 19, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091924.cfm

Bringing an alabaster flask of ointment,
she stood behind him at his feet weeping
and began to bathe his feet with her tears.
Then she wiped them with her hair,
kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment….

Simon, when I entered your house,
you did not give me water for my feet,
but she has bathed them with her tears
and wiped them with her hair.
You did not give me a kiss,
but she has not ceased kissing my feet.
You did not anoint my head with oil,
but she anointed my feet with ointment.
So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven;
because she has shown great love.
Luke 7:37-38;44-47

Mary (identified in John’s Gospel as Mary of Bethany) loves Jesus beyond words. Sensing that his Passion and Death are near, she pours out that love in silent tenderness.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Prayerfully imagine the alabaster jar, holding it gently in your hands. It is fine and delicate, easily broken unless handled tenderly.

As we express our love for God and for God’s Creation, we carry it in delicate wrappings, like alabaster. Sometimes, we may doubt our capacity for love, faith, and hope. We may see our “sinfulness” rather than our spiritual strength.

But if we, like Mary, focus our hearts on God, and fearlessly pour our love over God’s Creation, our fragility becomes our strength.

Poetry: Anointings at Bethany – Irene Zimmerman, OSF

Solemnly, Mary entered the room,
holding high the alabaster jar.
It gleamed in the lamplight as she circled the room,
incensing the disciples, blessing Martha’s banquet.
“A splendid table!” Mary called with her eyes
as she whirled past her sister.

She came to a halt at last before Jesus,
bowed profoundly and knelt at his feet.
Deftly, she filled her right hand with nard,
placed the jar on the floor,
took one foot in her hands
and moved fragrant fingers across his instep. 

Over and over she made the journey
from heel to toes, thanking him
for every step he had made
on Judea’s stony hills,
for every stop at their home,
for bringing back Lazarus. 

She poured out more nard,
took his other foot in her hands
and started again with strong, rhythmic strokes.
She felt her hands’ heat draw out his tiredness,
take away the rebuffs he had known
—the shut doors, the shut hearts. 

Energy flowed like a river between them.
His saturated skin gleamed with oil. 

But she had no towel! 

In an instant she pulled off her veil,
pulled the pins from her hair,
shook it out till it fell in cascades
and once more cradled each foot,
dried the ankles, the insteps,
drew the strands between his toes.

Without warning, Judas Iscariot
spat out his anger, the words hissing
like lightning above her unveiled head:
“Why was this perfume not sold
for three hundred denarii
and the money given to the poor?” 

“Leave her alone!”
Jesus silenced the usurper.
“She bought it so that she might keep it
for the day of my burial.” 

The words poured like oil,
anointing her from head to foot.

Music: Pour My Love on You – Craig and Dean Phillips

I don’t know how to say exactly how I feel
And I can’t begin to tell you what your love has meant
I’m lost for words
Is there a way to show the passion in my heart
Can I express how truly great I think you are,
My dearest friend.
Lord, this is my desire:
To pour my love on You

Chorus:
Like oil upon your feet
Like wine for you to drink
Like water from my heart
I pour my love on you
If praise is like perfume
I’ll lavish mine on you
Till every drop is gone
I’ll pour my love on you.