Category: Scripture

On That Day …

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Advent, Courage, Eternal Life, Scripture, spirituality5 Comments

First Sunday of Advent
November 30, 2025

On that day, the Lord will bind up the wounds of His People.
Isaiah 30:26

Today, we will begin the sacred season of Advent. It is a time of miracles, and we do not want to miss them because of our Yuletide distractions. Let me tell you a story about someone who longs for such miracles.

Christine is a beautiful woman, inside and out. She is as vital as fresh air or summer sun. She is successful, strong, sincere and faith-filled. But her heart is a fragile hidden glass, ready to break at any moment, because her beloved son is a heroine addict. Johnny lives in a tidal darkness beyond the shore of her sustaining light. Like spilled ink, that darkness regularly invades her joy and conspires to steal her hope.

Spiritual darkness holds a profound contradiction. It is the place where we may be deeply lost but even more deeply found. It is an interior tunnel through which every person walks at least once in her life, the deep chasm from which Isaiah pointed to the distant mountaintop.

During the thrilling season of Advent, we step out into the land of promises and prophets. The language of hope unfurls in a galaxy across the heavens, calling us out of darkness toward an Infinite and Incarnate Light. In this first week’s glorious readings, the prophet Isaiah points to our salvation, star by prophetic star:
• There is a Day coming, he tells us, and on that Day, the Lord will bind up the wounds of his people.
• In a very little while, he tells us, Lebanon will be changed. A shoot shall sprout from the tree we had thought to be withered.
• On this very mountain, he tells us, we will behold our God.

For all of us who, like Christine, carry human sorrow in the shadowed valleys of our spirits, there is healing on the near horizon. The Daystar of Jesus Christ is about to dawn through the darkness. God is about to put on the very humanness that is our burden and transform it into glory. Let us begin, with an eager faith, to enter the divine mystery being sung among the stars.

Music: Darkness and Light – Harald 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 Scripture: Readings for the First Sunday of Advent

Click for Scripture

The Day After Labor Day

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Eternal Life, Faith, joy, Scripture, Seasons, spiritualityLeave a comment

September 2, 2025


On the day after Labor Day, our spirits change clothes. Maybe it’s because we all went to school for so long, but today we feel ready for challenging routine, daily discipline, studied preparation, and a chance to start fresh at the most important possibilities of our lives

This “psychological change of season” is an ancient and enduring reality. The writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes, who lived 2500 years ago, tells us, “To everything there is a season…”.
Think of your inner seasons that change despite the calendar.

Winter and spring may indeed come to us in the same day, with a birth announcement in the mail and a death notice in the newspaper. Summer and autumn coexist with a Saturday afternoon pick-up basketball game and a strained muscle that reminds us of our age.

The great challenge of our lives is to live all our seasons with faith. They are a reflection of God’s own Nature which is ever ancient, ever new.

So these days, as the kids (and some of us!) start back to school, and the air cools ever so slightly, it might be a good time to ask God the questions that will help us “season” in grace:

  • What is it You are teaching me in this season of my life?
  • How can I reflect Your love by the way I live my winters and springs, my summers and autumns?

Music: Turn, Turn, Turn – Pete Seeger

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: Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

Click for Scripture

A Gold and A Silver Voice

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Hope, joy, Scripture, spirituality7 Comments

July 27, 2025

Silver and Gold from the movie “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”

In the Spring of 2009, the “Voice of Philadelphia” passed away. Harry Kalas, long-time sports announcer for the Phillies and a commentator for NFL films, died suddenly just before the baseball game. Besides having a golden mellifluous voice, Harry was a good man. The outpouring of love and respect for him was huge.

At the same time, but on a much lighter note, Susan Boyle, a matronly, unassuming woman from a small Scottish village, blew the world away with her soul-stirring singing voice, debuted on Britain’s version of “American Idol”. Her voice is not just good – it is molten silver against the cold darkness. It is a rich and powerful contradiction to the whining nasality of so many willowy stars. It is a victorious testimony to the truism that you can’t tell a book by its cover.

I remember that these events left me thinking about the gift of our voices. This gift, like many others, is one we tend to take for granted. It is only when a voice we love is silenced that we truly appreciate how we had loved to hear it.

Six or seven years after my mother died, my brother Jim and I were playing some old videos of his kids, looking for clips for a graduation tribute. Unexpectedly, my mother appeared in one of the videos, talking to the children in her gentle, grandmotherly tones. Jim and I hadn’t heard that precious voice since Mom had died. We were stunned to tears with the sweet memory and the poignant loss.

The human voice is one of the clearest expressions of God’s Power. It can lift people into the light of hope and reassurance, or it can push them to the edge of despair. It can set someone on the path to self-worth, or it can crush them under the weight of a hasty, intolerant word. It can carve someone a way out of loneliness, or it can imprison them in their own exaggerated sense of difference. The voice can bless or it can curse.

We are powerful people who are sometimes wrapped in a paralysis of unawareness. Often, we don’t realize the power of our words or the force of our silence. Such powers demand and deserve our attention. Our words may never be repeated in tribute like Harry’s and Susan’s have been. But our words can rest forever in the recesses of someone’s heart. Someday — when they draw up that memory, the way my brother and I did — let them be holding silver and gold.

Music: Two songs for your enjoyment, certainly of different musical merit, but both very moving. Enjoy!

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 5:19-20

Scripture

Before …

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Scripture, spirituality1 Comment

Wednesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 24, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072424.cfm

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I dedicated you,
a prophet to the nations I appointed you.
“Ah, Lord GOD!” I said,
“I know not how to speak; I am too young.”
But the LORD answered me,
Say not, “I am too young.”
To whomever I send you, you shall go;
whatever I command you, you shall speak.
Have no fear before them,
because I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.
Jeremiah 1: 5-8

This passage recounting the call of Jeremiah is full of tenderness and encouragement. God assures Jeremiah that the world is bigger than his present hesitations, fears, and inadequacies.

God has known him and been with him even before he was born.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We give thanks that God has been with us always, even before we were born. God accompanies us through whatever fears and hesitations we have in living a good and holy life. Trust is the key that opens our hearts to this blessed truth.

Poetry: Before the World Was Made – W.B. Yeats

In this intriguing poem, Yeats writes from the perspective of a woman whose efforts at physical beauty leave her unfulfilled. She longs for the spiritual beauty she possessed “before the world was made”.

If I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity’s displayed:
I’m looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.

What if I look upon a man
As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while
And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
Or that he is betrayed?
I’d have him love the thing that was
Before the world was made.

Music: I Have Loved You – Michael Joncas

Light

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, holiness, Jesus, Scripture, spiritualityLeave a comment

Memorial of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious
June 21, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062124.cfm

Jesus said to his disciples:
“The lamp of the body is the eye.
If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light;
but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness.
And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be.”
Matthew 6:22-23

Jesus suggests that the movement from darkness to Light is continuous and dynamic. Picture yourself awakening without the intrusion of an alarm. We slowly open our eyes to the increasing light, remembering the world we left only a few hours earlier.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We pray to open the eyes of our heart to the sacred Light Jesus describes. Jesus will go on to say in tomorrow’s Gospel that we find this Light by depending on and serving God.

Poetry: You Who Want Knowledge – Emily Dickinson

You who want
knowledge,
see the Oneness
within.

There you
will find
the clear mirror
already waiting.

Music: Gracious Light – Gregory Norbet

Consume

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Holy Spirit, Hope, Scripture, spirituality2 Comments

Wednesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 12, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061224.cfm

At the time for offering sacrifice,
the prophet Elijah came forward and said,
“LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel,
let it be known this day that you are God in Israel
and that I am your servant
and have done all these things by your command.
Answer me, LORD!
Answer me, that this people may know that you, LORD, are God
and that you have brought them back to their senses.”
The LORD’s fire came down
and consumed the burnt offering, wood, stones, and dust,
and it lapped up the water in the trench.
Seeing this, all the people fell prostrate and said,
“The LORD is God! The LORD is God!”
1 Kings 18:36-39

Elijah was certainly a colorful character, similar in pattern to John the Baptist. They were both so filled with love and commitment to God that their actions could seem outrageous to unbelievers. In today’s reading, Elijah creates an almost impossible situation then calls on God to show that all things are possible with faith.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We ask for the grace to live a passionate faith. May we grow in understanding that the love of God is a consuming love, not compartmentalized into a Sunday devotion or an isolated spiritual habit. May we fully give ourselves to this Love which has given Itself for us.

Poetry; Come, My Love – Thomas Merton

Come, my love,
Pass through my will
As through a window
Shine on my life
As on a meadow
I like the grass to be consumed
By the rays of the sun
On a late summer’s morning
Come, my love,
All through the night
I lay longing
Eagerly to wait
For love’s union
Like dawn’s flower awaits
For the wedding with the sun
Consummated in the light
Your light, my love,
Is stealing my heart
As a secret
I’m left
Like a vanishing form
That leaves no shadows
Exposed naked, alone
Between the heavens and the earth
Lifted high on the cross with the Savior
O life-giving tomb,
Prepared through the night
For dawn’s dying
Like a moon
Like the mansions of heaven
Await the rebirth of a child
New Jerusalem
So come to my life, Light of Heaven
Come, my love,
Pass through my will
As through a window
Shine on my life
As on a meadow
I like the grass to be washed
By the rays of the sun
On the late summer’s morning

Music: Veni, Creator Spiritus – Rabanus Maurus

English Version:
Come, Holy Spirit, Creator blest,
and in our souls take up Thy rest;
come with Thy grace and heavenly aid
to fill the hearts which Thou hast made.

O comforter, to Thee we cry,
O heavenly gift of God Most High,
O fount of life and fire of love,
and sweet anointing from above.

Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts are known;
Thou, finger of God’s hand we own;
Thou, promise of the Father,
Thou Who dost the tongue with power imbue.
Kindle our sense from above,
and make our hearts o’erflow with love;
with patience firm and virtue high
the weakness of our flesh supply.

Far from us drive the foe we dread,
and grant us Thy peace instead;
so shall we not, with Thee for guide,
turn from the path of life aside.

Oh, may Thy grace on us bestow
the Father and the Son to know;
and Thee, through endless times confessed, of both the eternal Spirit blest.

Now to the Father and the Son,
Who rose from death, be glory given,
with Thou, O Holy Comforter,
henceforth by all in earth and heaven. Amen.

Latin Version
Veni, Creator Spiritus,
mentes tuorum visita,
imple superna gratia
quae tu creasti pectora.

Qui diceris Paraclitus,
altissimi donum Dei,
fons vivus, ignis, caritas,
et spiritalis unctio.

Tu, septiformis munere,
digitus paternae
dexterae, Tu rite promissum
Patris, sermone ditans guttura.

Accende lumen sensibus:
infunde amorem cordibus:
infirma nostri corporis
virtute firmans perpeti.

Hostem repellas longius,
pacemque dones protinus:
ductore sic te praevio
vitemus omne noxium.

Per te sciamus da Patrem,
noscamus atque Filium;
Teque utriusque Spiritum
credamus omni tempore.

Deo Patri sit gloria,
et Filio, qui a mortuis surrexit,
ac Paraclito,
in saeculorum saecula. Amen.

Hide

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Faith, Scripture, spirituality2 Comments

Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 9, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/060924.cfm

After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree,
the LORD God called to the man and asked him, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden;
but I was afraid, because I was naked,
so I hid myself.”
Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked?
You have eaten, then,
from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!”
The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with me—
she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.”
The LORD God then asked the woman,
“Why did you do such a thing?”
The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.”
Genesis 3: 9-12

In the Creation story, we are invited to find ourselves in the excuses of Adam and Eve. They choose, but do not immediately accept responsibility for their choices. They hide in their personal reinterpretations of what happened.

But God wants to find them, release them, from hiding in their “coverups” by asking, “Where are you?” —

  • the you I created
  • the you I love
  • the you I invite to eternal relationship

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We listen to God’s question, “Where are you?”. We open to Mercy any place where we may be hiding from God’s invitation to fullness of life.

Poetry: from Paradise Lost by John Milton

In this small snippet from the very long poem, the poet invokes the “Heavenly Muse” to instruct him about the Fall of Adam and Eve.

Say first, for Heav'n hides nothing from thy view
Nor the deep Tract of Hell, say first what cause
Mov'd our Grand Parents in that happy State,
Favour'd of Heav'n so highly, to fall off
From thir Creator, and transgress his Will
For one restraint, Lords of the World besides?
Who first seduc'd them to that foul revolt?
Th' infernal Serpent; he it was, whose guile
Stird up with Envy and Revenge, deceiv'd
The Mother of Mankind, what time his Pride
Had cast him out from Heav'n, with all his Host
Of Rebel Angels, by whose aid aspiring
To set himself in Glory above his Peers,
He trusted to have equal'd the most High,
If he oppos'd; and with ambitious aim
Against the Throne and Monarchy of God
Rais'd impious War in Heav'n and Battel proud
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
Hurld headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie
With hideous ruine and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire,
Who durst defie th' Omnipotent to Arms.

Music: Adam and Eve Duet from The Creation by Joseph Haydn

This Adagio tells of the couple’s early bliss before their fall and attempt to hide from the Creator.

By thee with bliss, O bounteous Lord,
the heav’n and earth are stor’d.
This world, so great, so wonderful,
thy mighty hand has fram’d.

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

Golden Advice

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Scripture, spirituality1 Comment

Monday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
February 12, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021224.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Lent is just a few days away. We will spend the intervening time in good company with insights from James, Peter and Mark. Today we begin the Epistle of James.

The Epistle of James- Chapter 1: Illustration provided to Wikimedia Commons by Distant Shores Media/Sweet Publishing as part of a cooperation project. Sweet Publishing released these images, which are taken from now-out-of-print Read’n Grow Picture Bible Illustrations (Biblical illustrations by Jim Padgett, courtesy of Sweet Publishing, Ft. Worth, TX, and Gospel Light, Ventura, CA. Copyright 1984.), under new license, CC-BY-SA 3.0

This letter is one of the very earliest of the New Testament. Scholars are mixed about exactly which “James” wrote it, but agree that it was one of several who were very close to Jesus – perhaps one of “the brothers of Jesus” mentioned in several New Testament passages:

  • Matthew 12:46-50
  • Mark 3:31
  • Luke 8:19
  • John 2:12
  • Acts 1:14
  • 1 Corinthians 9:5
  • and specifically “the Lord’s brother James” in Galatians 1:19

James writes in the style of Wisdom Literature, those Old Testament books that give advice, proverbs, and insights for living a holy life. His immediate audience was a community of dispersed Christian Jews whose world was filled with increasing upheaval and persecution.

When I read the following description I thought how germane James’s letter could be for our world today. His themes echo the teachings of Pope Francis for our chaotic time:

The epistle is renowned for exhortions on fighting poverty and caring for the poor in practical ways (1:26–27; 2:1-4; 2:14-19; 5:1-6), standing up for the oppressed (2:1-4; 5:1-6) and not being “like the world” in the way one responds to evil in the world (1:26-27; 2:11; 3:13-18; 4:1-10). Worldly wisdom is rejected and people are exhorted to embrace heavenly wisdom, which includes peacemaking and pursuing righteousness and justice (3:13-18).

JIM REIHER, “VIOLENT LANGUAGE – A CLUE TO THE HISTORICAL OCCASION OF JAMES.”EVANGELICAL QUARTERLY. VOL. LXXXV NO. 3. JULY 2013

Here is the golden advice James gives us today:

  • Be joyful in trials.
  • Let trials increase your perseverance not discourage you.
  • Doing this is a sign of wisdom.
  • When your wisdom is depleted, ask God for more with an open and trusting heart.
  • Honor all people, high or low in circumstances
  • Don’t be fooled by riches. They fade away.

In our Gospel, Jesus is frustrated with the Pharisees who insincerely demand a magical sign from him. They demonstrate none of the spiritual wisdom and openness to grace that James describes.

When we think about our own faith, where does it fall on the scale of sincerity, on the spectrum joy, justice, and faithful perseverance?

Poetry: On Joy and Sorrow – Kahlil Gibran

Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises 
was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, 
the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine 
the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, 
the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart 
and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow 
that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, 
and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for 
that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” 
and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, 
and when one sits alone with you at your board, 
remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales 
between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty 
are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you 
to weigh his gold and his silver, 
needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

Music: Count It All Joy

https://youtube.com/watch?v=lXQpNMXhChU%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26fs%3D1%26hl%3Den%26autohide%3D2%26wmode%3Dtransparent