Category: Seasons

Longing for Spring?

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Faith, Forgiveness, healing, Seasons, spirituality4 Comments

February 9, 2025

Comfort Zone – Stephen Halpern

Is it damp, drippy February where you are? Are you longing for spring? It just does something for you, doesn’t it? On that first really warm afternoon, all the long, cold hours of winter suddenly coalesce into a small memory and disappear like an ice cube at the equator.

That same moment of new life can occur after any “cold season” — even a cold season of the heart. It can occur after a season of anger, loss, doubt, fear, or distrust . It can occur with something so small as a word, a glance, a smile offered in encouragement, love or forgiveness.

Think of a time in your life, perhaps, when a relationship felt “frozen” in anger or doubt. Think of that moment when one of you said to the other, “ I’m sorry”, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”, “I love you no matter what.” In a small phrase, winter turned to spring and life was possible again!

Catherine McAuley understood the profound power of a small word, a glance, or a smile. In the 1800’s, she told the first Sisters of Mercy: “There are things the poor prize more highly than gold, tho’ they cost the donor nothing; among these are the kind word, the gentle, compassionate look, and the patient hearing of their sorrows.”

Each one of us finds ourselves poor in something at sometime in our lives. We may be poor in confidence, strength, courage, or determination. We may be at a point in our lives where we feel we cannot sustain one more worry or responsibility. We look to one another for the small “season-changing” word, glance, or smile.

To consistently be the kind of person who offers that season-changing gift takes concentration, inner clarity, and courage. It is not about being a “pollyanna”, sowing smiles without thought or substance. It means, instead, staying in touch with our interior life, keeping ourselves awake and responsive to our blessings, and sincerely connecting with those around us in reverence and hope for their lives. As we long for spring, may each of us see ourselves more clearly as the “life-giver” we can be. May we radiate that power for our own good and the good of all those whose lives we affect.

Music: The Moment Is Yours – Nicholas Gunn

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 Peter 4:8-11

Click for Scripture

February Stars

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Hope, Seasons, spirituality2 Comments

February 2, 2024

Starry, Starry Night – Don McLean

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

The frosty blue nights of February fill our evening and morning windows.  We look through that deep sapphire richness to discover the diamond stars.  We imagine worlds, possibilities, and miracles presently beyond us.

Since Thanksgiving, we have been celebrating a season of hope:

  • the hope of Hannukah, when we remember the lamp burning miraculously and the courage to renew faith
  • the hope of Christmas, when we remember a small, vulnerable life that changed the world with the phrase, “Love one another.”
  • The hope of a New Year, when we remember past gifts that nourish us for future trust

But what about those times when hope flickers?

As we gaze through our windows at the crystal winter skies, our TV may be broadcasting the news behind us, challenging our hopes with the contradictions of war, violence, and disaster.  We may wonder where the great saviors and prophets are in our time.  Our numbed spirits may perceive only darkness and no starlight.

If so, stay still in the darkness.  Be quiet and wait.  Let one face, one smile, one kindness, one hand outstretched to you rise in your memory like steady Polaris. The world’s transformation to grace always begins within a single, shining human heart.  May your heart be that star for others.  May others like you fill your own skies with unquenchable light.

Poetry: Hope – Lisel Mueller

It hovers in dark corners
before the lights are turned on,
it shakes sleep from its eyes
and drops from mushroom gills,
it explodes in the starry heads
of dandelions turned sages,
it sticks to the wings of green angels
that sail from the tops of maples.

It sprouts in each occluded eye
of the many-eyed potato,
it lives in each earthworm segment
surviving cruelty,
it is the motion that runs
from the eyes to the tail of a dog,
it is the mouth that inflates the lungs
of the child that has just been born.

It is the singular gift
we cannot destroy in ourselves,
the argument that refutes death,
the genius that invents the future,
all we know of God.

It is the serum which makes us swear
not to betray one another;
it is in this poem, trying to speak.

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:

Click for Scripture

Hospitality – Our Human Anti-freeze

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, inclusivity, Seasons, spirituality1 Comment

January 19, 2025

January by Vladimir Sterzer

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

How do the great trees die and come to life again?  It’s a question we can ponder every winter as the bare, black branches fill with ice.  Their stark emptiness seems to be a place from which there is no return.  But we know otherwise.  In the encroaching cold of every December, our experience whispers that there will be another April.  Still, in the frigid dark, it is sometimes hard to believe.

Like nature, each one of us has our seasons.  

  • Our lives contain the seasons of our youth and aging.  
  • Our daily experiences turn in both the ebb and tide of life.  
  • Each of us has blossomed with spring’s new life:  beginning a new job, relationship, adventure.  
  • Each of us has cultivated what we love over warm summers of dedication and growth – our faith, families, friends, ministries, andcareers.  
  • Each of us has reaped the autumn returns of our efforts, walking away from a red and golden field carrying a well-earned harvest – graduations, anniversaries, promotions, retirements. 
  • Certainly, each of us has known our own winters, when cold has threatened and dark has isolated – and yet, like the trees – we have survived.

As we move into the depths of “Winter 2025”, it seems an opportune time to review the lessons of the season – especially the chapters on deep roots, inner quiet, and a hidden spiritual warmth that defies freezing.  

In the winters of our lives, we are invited to learn what truly sustains us.  We are called to delve into the power of endurance, forgiveness, honesty, loyalty, and faithfulness.  These are the winter virtues that sustain life deep under the surface of any paralyzing storm.  These are the salts that keep life’s highways passable, allowing us to stay connected to all that keeps us vibrant.

On any given day of the year, we can experience “winter”.  Think of the times you have received (or given) the “cold shoulder”.  Remember the times your explanations have been given an icy reception?   Haven’t there been conversations where you were frozen out?  Can’t you still see the frosty stare you got from someone who thought you were beneath them?  We have all known some sub-zero responses when we were looking for a warm word.  We have all received some chilly greetings when we needed not to feel like a stranger. 

Hospitality is the perfect antidote to all these methods of freezing one another out.  It is the human anti-freeze that reminds us that we need one another’s warmth to survive the treacheries of life.  If there is someone you have exiled to the Arctic, think about reaching out in hospitality, forgiveness or honesty.  This winter, let go of the glacial grudges, silences, and harbored hurts that sometimes freeze our souls and kill our hope of returning to life.  Listen to the voice of the dark December night.  It tells us how to move toward spring.

Music: Winter Sonata – David Lanz

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: Colossians 3:12-17

Click for Scripture

Big Changes Coming

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Seasons, spirituality12 Comments

November 15, 2024

Dear Friends of Lavish Mercy,

Now that it is mid-November, it is time to let you know that big changes are coming to my blog beginning December 1, 2024.

For a decade, I have shared reflections on the daily scripture readings, first on Facebook alone, and then on my blog. This has taken us through the complete Liturgical Cycle twice for Sundays and three times for weekdays. The compilation of these reflections is readily available in the archives column of the Lavish Mercy blog.

But it is time for something new.

As of December 2024, my daily scripture reflections will cease. Instead, I will publish a weekly reflection, sometimes more. These are personal, seasonal faith essays written over the last thirty years for friends and colleagues. I have edited them for current times in the hope that they will be meaningful for you. A few of these were published in a book about ten years ago, and readers seemed to like them. I am hoping my Lavish Mercy readers will enjoy them too.

For those of you who might want an alternative Scripture-based reflection each day, I highly recommend the app “Pray As You Go”, introduced to me by Mary Kay Eichman, RSM. It is similar in structure to the pattern of Lavish Mercy to which you are accustomed, and I think my faithful readers would like it.

https://pray-as-you-go.org

I look forward to hearing what you think about my new approach. You can comment on the blog itself or e-mail me at renee.yann@gmail.com

Thanks so much for all your support over these ten years. Here’s to a new future for Lavish Mercy.
Renee Yann, RSM

Steward

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, justice, Seasons, spiritualityLeave a comment

Wednesday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
October 23, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102324.cfm

And the Lord replied,
“Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward
whom the master will put in charge of his servants
to distribute the food allowance at the proper time?
Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing so.
Truly, I say to you, he will put him
in charge of all his property.
Luke 12:42-44

In the language of his times, Jesus defines the attributes of a good steward: faithfulness, loyalty, dependability, justice, and mercy. We are the stewards of God’s Creation, given into our hands by our loving Creator.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray to recognize God’s trust invested in us. Through our relationships with all God’s creatures, may we tend faithfully to all that God has loved into being.

Thought: from poet Jane Kenyon

Be a good steward of your gifts.
Protect your time.
Feed your inner life.
Avoid too much noise.
Read good books,
have good sentences in your ears.
Be by yourself as often as you can.
Walk.
Take the phone off the hook.
Work regular hours.

Music: Elk Creek in the Fall – Kathryn Kaye

As the weather begins to change, I think this is a nice song to use for meditation as it brings us into relationship with natural Creation.

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.

As we begin Holy Week…

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Cross, Eastertide, Faith, Jesus, Seasons, spirituality, suffering1 Comment

Holy Week and Eastertide

Holy Week and Eastertide are times of sacred journey for Christians. We walk with Christ into the true and deepest dimensions of our lives.

All life is about journey and passage. At some time in each of our lives, we are passing:

  • from emptiness to abundance
  • from loneliness to love
  • from exhaustion to renewal
  • from anxiety to peace
  • from burden to freedom
  • from confusion to understanding
  • from bitterness to forgiveness
  • from pain to healing
  • from mourning to remembrance

The great Feasts of Holy Week and Easter, and the reflective weeks that follow, assure us that God accompanies us in all our journeys from darkness to light. The sacredness of these days invites us to quietly name whatever darkness surrounds us and our global family, and to reach through it to the hand of God. Like a parent leading a child in from the storm, the God of Easter longs to bring our hearts home to fullness and joy.

During these coming weeks, I will continue offering reflections centered on a single word, since many of you have expressed to me an appreciation for this approach. In the archives listed on the right of the blog, you can access more extensive reflections for each day of the liturgical cycle, accumulated over the past six years.

As we begin these sacred days, let’s pray for one another. And let us pray particularly for those whose current lives are closely patterned on the sufferings of Christ that, with Him, they may be strengthened with Easter hope and courage.