Category: Prayer

Grace

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Faith, Prayer, spirituality, Thanksgiving3 Comments

November 26, 2025

What is “grace”? I think it can be many things:

Saquon Barkley weaving through the opposing defense like an electric needle
Alysa Liu, her silver skates writing poetry
in the icy air.
Andrea Bocelli, embracing a world he cannot see
with the vision of song

Yard by yard, spin by spin, note by note, these graceful artists work their lovely craft.

This Thanksgiving Day, many families will begin their sumptuous meal with Grace, that humble awareness that all we are and have belongs to God. At some tables, the youngest will be appointed to say the blessing, encouraging them to recognize God’s gifts. Whoever offers the prayer, let the moment be a reminder for us of what true grace is.

Grace is an attitude of the heart that lives life gratefully. It is that constant, though sometimes silent, acknowledgement that I did not create myself, nor any of the gifts that bless my life. With kindness and respect, we see all life as gift, a reflection of Divine Generosity.

In a harsh world, where Life and Earth are often dismissed with irreverence and violence, Thanksgiving offers us the grace to reach deepened awareness and compassionate action.

Meister Eckhart, 14th-century mystic and theologian, said, “If the only prayer we say in our entire lives is ‘Thank You’ it is enough.” And it is enough. When we realize that gratitude is the only appropriate response to the awesome gift of life, that realization is enough to make us holy, happy, and wise. It is enough to let us live with true joy.

Thanksgiving Day, our all-American feast, is a time to gather family, friends, memories, and hopes, celebrating the community that embraces us. Even if the past year has brought a measure of loss or struggle, still we have been blessed with one another’s courage and support.

In a way, we become like the luminaries mentioned earlier. Through grace, we find the opening in the defensive walls around us. Through grace, we keep our footing in icy circumstances. Through grace, our lives create their own melody.

Don’t let the cascade of football games or preparations for Black Friday shopping obscure our appreciation for this holy time. Grace is the light of God’s life within us, and no darkness can ever extinguish it. Revere it on this beautiful holiday.

Tomorrow, as we give thanks for God’s gifts, let your gratitude be evident. It may take the form of a long-overdue reconciliation, or a private “thank you” for overlooked work. It may be a little extra help in the kitchen, or an offer to head the clean-up crew. It may even be volunteering to say the Grace with humility and hope. It may be a walk after dinner with someone who needs your light. Whatever form your thanks takes, may it fill your heart – and the hearts of your family and friends – with renewed strength and love.

And thank you all sincerely for your kindness and encouragement in supporting me and this Lavish Mercy. Know that you are in my Thanksgiving prayers. ❤️ Renee

Music: The Thanksgiving Song – Ben Rector

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: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-23

Click for Scripture

Extraordinary Days

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Hope, joy, Love, Mercy, Prayer, spirituality1 Comment

November 20, 2025

As we draw close to the Holy Season that will close our year, let’s welcome each final day as an extraordinary gift, grateful for the faith, hope, and love that sustain our lives.

Music: “Your Love” from “Once Upon A Time in the West” ” – by Ennio Morricone – performed by Hauser

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 Reading: Lamentations 3:22-23

Click for Scripture

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

Monkey Bars

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Faith, Prayer, Psalms, spirituality1 Comment

June 22, 2025

Verde – Guido and Maurizio De Angelis

When I was a little girl, I hated the monkey bars. I knew it was cool to be able to do them — but I wasn’t any good at it! I can remember jumping up to hang on to the first bar, and thinking, “O.K. — this is as far as I can go”! For me, it was really a challenge to loosen the grip on one of those secure, sweaty hands and reach out in both hope and anxiety for the next stabilizing bar.

I remember one particularly challenging day at the playground. It had rained heavily the night before, and the ground under the bars was a muddy mess. Big Jimmy, the neighborhood bully, had challenged me to a monkey bar duel. Within a flash of the challenge, he had powerfully swung his way from one end to the other. He stood egging me on from his place of success.

I tentatively climbed up and hung on the first bar. Painstakingly, I lurched my way to the second. My hands were slippery, nervous pools. As I stretched for the third bar, I felt my grip slipping. I tried to re-grab — but I couldn’t. I hung by the fingernails of one hand over a two-inch muddy pool. There seemed to be no hope!

Suddenly I felt two strong hands around my little waist. They lifted me so that I could regain my grasp and they supported me while I hand-over-handed my way to the end. My Uncle Joe, who had been passing by the playground, saw me struggling and had come to my assistance. Without words, he told Big Jimmy, who was three years my senior, that someday I would catch up to him. But until then, I needed a little help to negotiate some of my challenges.

We’re not little kids anymore, but we can still get unnerved by the demands of life and of the world at large. The once-lithe body that reached for the monkey bars may now struggle to get out of a chair. The “Uncle Joe” saviors may no longer magically appear to support us when we are uncertain. The “Big Jimmy” bullies may seem to have poisoned our political culture with violence and fear. Yes, sometimes growing up and growing old can be worrisome.

No matter how challenging or scary life’s passages, God accompanies and supports us. There is no circumstance so muddy that God will not carry us through. No matter how slippery our grip feels, God’s hands are at the center of our lives, holding us in unassailable grace. We can trust God infinitely more than even our “Uncle Joe”s.

Yes, life can sometimes feel like we are swinging from slippery monkey bars, but by trust and faith, we can invite God’s loving support to surprise and uplift us.

Music: You Raise Me Up – Josh Groban

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 28

Click for Scripture

National Day of Prayer

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Creation, Faith, peace, Prayer, spirituality, Thanksgiving4 Comments

May 1, 2025

God Bless America

I know that readers of this blog are people of deep prayer.  Your faith, love, and generosity have built my spirit and lifted my heart many times.

On this National Day of Prayer, I encourage us all to focus on our deepest beliefs about what sustains us in life.  Ask that Source of Love, Peace, and Wisdom – by whatever Name you give – to heal our broken world and to make us people of truth, generosity, and goodness.

As we pray, remember those who struggle with life, with faith, with hope.  Wrap your prayer around their need this day.  If you are one who struggles today with these things, let your spirit hand that struggle over to the prayers of those who lift you up and to the Source of Life Who longs to embrace you.

The Creator and Source of Life wants to heal and encourage us all.  Today, in a more conscious way, let us seek that healing and encouragement together. In particular, let us pray for our nation and for our world, that we may find healing from the terrible divisions generated among us by political aggression and despotic greed.

Prose: from C.S. Lewis

For many years after my conversion, I never used any ready-made forms except the Lord’s Prayer. In fact, I tried to pray without words at all – not to verbalize the mental acts. Even in praying for others, I believe I tended to avoid their names and substituted mental images of them. I still think that the prayer without words is the best – if one can really achieve it.

Music: The Prayer – Celine Dion, Andrea Bocelli

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: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Click for Scripture

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

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

Party Line

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Prayer, spirituality12 Comments

December 1, 2024
First Sunday of Advent

by Richard Clayderman

Click the white arrowhead to the left above for some relaxing music while you read. 
You may repeat click if you wish. Click double bars to stop.

In today’s cell phone-saturated culture, it seems hard to believe that, in the years just after WWII, not every household had a phone.  A nice little living could be made as a “runner”, a kid who answered the phone at the corner drugstore and then ran to a neighborhood house to tell someone they had a call.  By the time that neighbor got back to take the call, a good ten minutes might have passed.  It was definitely not an “instant society”.

Our house was lucky enough to have a phone, but we shared a “party line”.  There was a family at the end of the block who used the same phone line as we did.  I was taught as a little girl to very gently lift the receiver when I made a call, just in case Mr. Lambing was already on the phone.  He often was, which meant that our family could not receive or make calls.  Someone else had the line.

Sometimes that’s a good description of our relationship with God and our spirituality. Even though a direct line is available to us, we opt to share that line with a thousand other distractions.  In this season, many of us find ourselves remembering to reflect or pray only after we have shopped, cooked, cleaned, mounted the snow tires, and put in the storm windows.  When we think about lifting the receiver to talk with our souls, somebody else is already on the line – maybe somebody named  “Mercedes Benz”, “J.C. Penney” or “Jim Beam”.

In the Christian tradition, we begin the season of Advent today.  It is a time of waiting, preparation, and hope for the coming of God’s grace in our lives.  Every religious tradition has such times:  Ramadan, Lent, the Jewish holy days of Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur.  Like these, Advent is a time to remember our deep relationship to our Creator and to freshen that intimacy through prayer and acts of generosity.  

We need to remember that we are “blue-toothed” into God’s heart.  We are like the people who wear those earbuds (who we thought were talking to us in the airport or supermarket.)  We are so connected to God that all we have to do is let our hearts speak and God hears us. The challenge is that many of us have forgotten how to understand the answering language of God – the language of trust, patience, receptivity, clarity, wisdom, and silence.  Sometimes, it’s really, really hard to find God’s message in the garble of our lives.  It may seem like all we hear is the static of strained relationships, economic challenges, or unrealized dreams.  But deep inside even all of that, God’s Word is seeking us with a message of unconditional love.

In this Holy Season, whatever our religious tradition, let’s take the time to clear our “party lines” through prayer and quiet reflection, so that all God has to do is speak – maybe through the beauty of a starlit winter night, or the gift of an honest, loving conversation, or the blessed recognition that most of us really already have everything we need – so that all God has to do is speak and we will hear.

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 25 from Today’s Liturgy

Click here for Psalm 25

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.

Nicknames

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, holiness, Prayer, Psalms, spirituality2 Comments

Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
November 23, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112324.cfm

Blessed be the LORD, my Rock,
who trains my hands against temptation,
my fingers for the struggle.

My mercy and my fortress,
my stronghold, my deliverer,
my shield, in whom I trust,
who brings me to
right relationship with all Creation

O God, I will sing a new song to you;
with a ten stringed lyre
I will chant your praise,
-You who raise us up in mutual peace
and deliver your servant from evil.
~ interpretation of Psalm 144

David, likely author of Psalm 144, had a few nicknames for God. By exploring these names, David deepened his understanding of God’s Presence in his life, and personalized his prayer in a meaningful way.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We consider the intimacy and power of our relationship with God – how it has changed over the years, how it is at this point in our lives. Do we, like David, have special names for God, reflecting those places in our hearts that are most vulnerable to grace? Perhaps we wouldn’t have a reason to call God “my Rock”. But maybe we might call God my Poet, my Song, my Patient One, my Confidence or my Beloved.

How is God most needed or most present to you today, and how do you name that awareness?

Poetry: Prayer Poem to the Names of God – Richard M. Fewkes

How shall we address thee who art
the One of a thousand names yet ever nameless?

O Vishnu, Maya, Kali, Ishtar, Athene, Isis…
Great Mother of Creation, Womb of the universe,
The Feminine Divine….
Blessed art thou who hast given life to all
And receiveth us at the end, forever thine…

Jupiter, Zeus, Apollo, Dionysius…
Lord of creation, the masculine divine,
In quest of the golden apples of Hesperides,
God of ecstasy and wine, and reason sublime…

Amen, Horus, Aten, Ra…
God of beginnings and endings, the soul, the ka,
Soaring like a bird
To the life-giving, light-giving power of the sun,
All life is one…

Shiva-Shakti, Yin and Yang…
The dance of life and death from hand to hand,
In perfect balance the movement of forces,
As the earth turns ‘neath the stars in their courses…

Rama, Krishna, Varuna, Bramah…
God of the Upanishads and Rig Veda, mystic priests and
the Bhagavadgita, Om Shanti, the lotus, a holy vow,
Creating our own karma and reincarnation, here and now,
And the ever present realization, that art Thou…

Buddha, Nirvana, the Enlightened One…
Liberation sought and won, in daily life begun,
Under a tree, in the sun,
To a state of being indescribable, comparable to none…

Allah-Akbar and Ahura Mazda…
There is no god but God, the All, Ah! the One,
The Righteous One, purity of Fire.
Goodness and Truth to inspire,
Fight fire with fire, quench the evil desire,
Let the call ring forth from minaret to spire…

El Shaddai, Adonai, Yahweh, Elohim
The God of Peace be with you, Shalom Haveyreem
Ten Commandments and the Law for Gentile and Jew
The birth of conscience and a Day of Atonement
To confess, to forgive, to begin anew…

Abba, Spiritus, Logos-Son… God in Three Persons, God in One,
God in all persons: prophets, teachers, daughters and sons,
The Kingdom of Heaven is within us, O let thy Kingdom come…
How shall we address thee who art Alpha and Omega,
The stars in their courses from Denib and Altair to Sirius and Vega?

Thou of a thousand names and yet ever nameless,
Let us confess the mystery of thy holiness,
Let us proclaim the wonder of One without a name,
Let the silence praise thee,
And the nine billion stars of thy namelessness.

Music: God Beyond All Names – Bernadette Farrell