Category: Poetry

Hold Hands

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Love, Poetry, Prayer, spiritualityLeave a comment

September 14, 2025,

Think about this short poem:

Hold hands with your life.
Look it in the eyes.
There, in the stillness,
God is revealing the miracle
of knowing who you are.

But life can be hectic, can’t it? You might not have time to just “hold hands”, right?

Don’t you sometimes feel like Indiana Jones, running ahead of that huge boulder, trying to keep all your responsibilities from overwhelming you?  Or maybe you feel as if your life has run so far ahead of you that you’re racing to catch up to it, watching it turn into a dot on the far horizon.

Life wasn’t intended to be like either of these images.  Our lives are meant to be savored and lived in a deep awareness of our “present”. NOW is the only time we have.  The people we are with, the challenges and joys we experience in this moment – this is our life.  So many of us, running from the boulder or chasing the dot, let the beauty of our lives evade us.

When I see people holding hands, I am reminded to be still and to appreciate my life in the present.  It’s beautiful to see a couple walking hand in hand, breaking a new pattern in the fresh snow. They might be young, just beginning an unimaginable journey.   Or they might be elderly, having walked beside each other through miles of love and sacrifice, joy and sorrow.

I love to see a parent holding hands with their child.  The child may be small, reaching up for security, protection and comfort.  Or the parent may be old, reaching over for the same things.  What a blessing to be beside someone whose touch can sustain your life!

Prayer is a kind of holding hands – God reaching for us, and we for God. I tried to capture the experience in a poem I wrote many years ago:

Poem:  A Long Faith – Renee Yann, RSM

This is the way of love, perhaps
near the late summer,
when the fruit is full
and the air is still and warm,
when the passion of lovers
no longer rests against
the easy trigger
of adolescent spring,
but lumbers in the drowsy silence
where the bees hum—
where it is enough
to reach across the grass
and touch each other’s hand.

So hold hands with someone you love today, human or divine.  Slow each other down to a deep appreciation of the gift of life in this present moment. 

Music: Holding Hands – Creative Commons Instrumental Music

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 139:1-10

Click for 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

Spirit

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, holiness, Holy Spirit, Poetry, Prayer, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Teresa of Jesus, Virgin and Doctor of the Church
October 15, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101524.cfm

The Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought,
but the Spirit intercedes with inexpressible groanings.
And the one who searches hearts
knows what is the intention of the Spirit,
Who intercedes for the holy ones
according to God’s will.
Romans 8:26-27

Our readings for the Feast of St. Teresa reflect the power which inspired her holy life. She lived deeply in the Spirit of God, sharing that infinite blessing with the world in her inspiring writings.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ask St. Teresa to intercede for us in our desire to grow in holiness.

Poetry: If, Lord, Thy Love Is Strong – St. Teresa of Avila

If, Lord, Thy love for me is strong
As this which binds me unto thee,
What holds me from thee Lord so long,
What holds thee Lord so long from me?

O soul, what then desirest thou?
Lord I would see thee, who thus choose thee.
What fears can yet assail thee now?
All that I fear is but lose thee.

Love’s whole possession I entreat,
Lor make my soul thine own abode,
And I will build a nest so sweet
It may not be too poor for God.

A sould in God hidden from sin,
What more desires for thee remain,
Save but to love again,
And all on flame with love within,
Love on, and turn to love again.

Music: Adoro Te Devote – Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart

Thanks

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Hope, Mercy, Poetry, Psalms, spirituality2 Comments

Friday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
October 11, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101124.cfm

I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart
in the company and assembly of the just.
Great are the works of the LORD,
exquisite in all their delights.

Psalm 111:1-2

Today’s Responsorial Psalm is a humble, beautiful prayer which places our heart in God’s awesome Presence. The passing events of this life, whether happy of sad, shrink in the realization of God’s generous Mercy.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We bring into God’s Presence our present circumstances, with their hopes, worries, regrets, and joys. We place them there, silence our hearts, and let the Mercy of God speak to us.

Poetry: The Garments of God – Jessica Powers

God sits on a chair of darkness in my soul.
He is God alone, supreme in His majesty.
I sit at His feet, a child in the dark beside Him;
my joy is aware of His glance and my sorrow is tempted
to nest on the thought that His face is turned from me.
He is clothed in the robes of His mercy, voluminous garments—
not velvet or silk and affable to the touch,
but fabric strong for a frantic hand to clutch,
and I hold to it fast with the fingers of my will.
Here is my cry of faith, my deep avowal
to the Divinity that I am dust.
Here is the loud profession of my trust.
I need not go abroad
to the hills of speech or the hinterlands of music
for a crier to walk in my soul where all is still.
I have this potent prayer through good or ill:
here in the dark I clutch the garments of God.

Music: Bach Cantata 156 – performed by Baroque oboist Leo Duarte

… time …

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Creation, dying, Eternal Life, Faith, Hope, Mercy, ordinary time, Poetry, spirituality2 Comments

Memorial of Saint Vincent de Paul, Priest
September 27, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092724.cfm

What advantage have workers from their toil?
I have considered the task that God has appointed
for us to be busied about.
The Infinite One has made everything appropriate to its time,
and has put the timeless into their hearts,
without our ever discovering,
from beginning to end, the work which God has done.
Ecclesiastes 3:9-11

Three thousand years ago, in the Book of Ecclesiastes, a writer called Kohelet meditated on God’s Mercy experienced over a lifetime. Like the writer, we may have done the same thing at various significant times in our lives.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We place our lives against the timepiece pictured above. We may pray over a specific time of challenge and grace. Or we may consider the whole pattern of mercy passing slowly yet constantly through our lives, like the ticking of a steadfast clock.

Poetry: XC Domine, refugium – Malcolm Suite
In this poem, Guite refers to a poem by Philip Larkin which may be read here: https://allpoetry.com/Cut-Grass

XC Domine, refugium
Malcolm Guite

A cosy comforter, a lucky charm?
Not with this psalmist, for he praises God
From everlasting ages, in his psalm. 
A God of refuge –yes – and yet a God
Who knows the death that comes before each birth,
Who sees each generation die, a God

Before whom all the ages of the earth
Are like a passing day, like the cut grass
In Larkin’s limpid verse: ‘brief is the breath

Mown stalks exhale’. So we and all things pass,
And God endures beyond us. Yet he cares
For our brief lives, his loving tenderness

Extends to all his creatures, our swift years
Are precious in his sight. In Christ he shares
Our grief and he will wipe away our tears.

Music: There Is A Season – Tom Kendzia

Name

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Poetry, spirituality3 Comments

Tuesday in the Octave of Easter
April 2, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040224.cfm

Mary said to the angels, “They have taken my Lord,
and I don’t know where they laid him.”
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there,
but did not know it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?
Whom are you looking for?”
She thought it was the gardener and said to him,
“Sir, if you carried him away,
tell me where you laid him,
and I will take him.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary!”
She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,”….

John 20:13-16

It is not until He says her name that Mary recognizes Jesus. Earlier, when He simply calls her “Woman”, she is still confused about who He is. But the speaking of her name clears her vision and she names Him, lovingly, in return.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let us listen to God’s names for us. They will be beyond the Baptismal or nicknames by which everyone knows us. God’s names for us are infinite, changing as we grow in knowledge of ourselves. They are wordless invitations to ever-deeper intimacy as we discover ourselves in God’s heart.

And let us pray with our own names for God. These too may be beyond the common catalog of “Lord” and “Father”. Plumb your soul for your own deepest – perhaps even silent – names for God.

Poetry: Thom Satterlee – One Hundred and Eight Names for God (based on Hal M. Helms translation of The Confessions)

Some of them we’ve heard before–
Lord, Almighty, Omnipotent One.
And others turn God into a pedant,
even if that wasn’t always a bad thing to be:
Power That Weds My Mind with My Inmost Thought.
But many, the best, are like a new birdcall:
Beauty of All Things Beautiful,
The One by Whom I Have Been Apprehended.
They remind me of the unsteady joy
in learning a foreign language: God, Light
of My Eyes in Secret, Inmost Physician,
Exaltation of My Humility. What impresses me most is
his trying again and again to name what he loves,
and how the attempt at once shows
and grows his love.

So what shall we call him,
This Most Effusive Saint? He is An Eloquent
Lover of the Divine, One Holy
Word Hoarder, God’s Appellation Artist.
He is One Who Shows Us
What a Name Can Mean, An Alphabet
That Ends with the Letter for God.

When I found Thom Satterlee’s poem on the internet, there was a link to this wonderful article for anyone who loves to write. Some of you may enjoy it. I think it’s really beautiful.

Poetry and the Art of Naming

Music: In the Garden – Anne Murray

April Blessings

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn joy, Poetry, Seasons, spiritualityLeave a comment

The Yellow Violet
William Cullen Bryant

When beechen buds begin to swell,
  And woods the blue-bird’s warble know,
The yellow violet’s modest bell
  Peeps from the last year’s leaves below.
 
Ere russet fields their green resume,
  Sweet flower, I love, in forest bare,
To meet thee, when thy faint perfume
  Alone is in the virgin air.
 
Of all her train, the hands of Spring
  First plant thee in the watery mould,
And I have seen thee blossoming
  Beside the snow-bank’s edges cold.
 
Thy parent sun, who bade thee view
  Pale skies, and chilling moisture sip,
Has bathed thee in his own bright hue,
  And streaked with jet thy glowing lip.
 
Yet slight thy form, and low thy seat,
  And earthward bent thy gentle eye,
Unapt the passing view to meet
  When loftier flowers are flaunting nigh.
 
Oft, in the sunless April day,
  Thy early smile has stayed my walk;
But midst the gorgeous blooms of May,
  I passed thee on thy humble stalk.
 
So they, who climb to wealth, forget
  The friends in darker fortunes tried.
I copied them—but I regret
  That I should ape the ways of pride.
 
And when again the genial hour
  Awakes the painted tribes of light,
I’ll not o’erlook the modest flower
  That made the woods of April bright.

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