Category: Service

Snowball Man

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Service, spiritualityLeave a comment
Summer Haze – Andrè Aguado

Friends invited me out to a swanky dinner one night. Every menu item was presented in an elegant and appetizing manner. One offering particularly struck me. To clear the palate, the upscale restaurant offered “shaved ice infused with delicate essence“.

Immediately, my mind returned to a hot summer street in 1950 or so. The relative cool of evening had begun to fall over the broiled city. Families sat out on their steps or lawn chairs to catch whatever breeze might pass through the tight city streets. From the distance, a bicycle bell announced the impending arrival of the “Snowball Man”. He pedaled through the neighborhoods on a crudely cobbled cart, his newly purchased ice block tracing the watermarks of his passage.

Both nickel and dime portions were offered, with complimentary choices of flavoring from the half-dozen bottles which framed the precious ice block. There was no refrigeration. Of necessity, he journeyed quickly and a dawdling kid would be passed over for the next certain one in line.

The Snowball Man carried a transitory treasure which, in time, melted quickly into only memory. Yet it is in that memory where his jingling existence is preserved in a sweet array of colorful flavors.

That night, sixty years later, in a noisy, overpriced restaurant, the memory reminded me that so much of life is fleeting and fragile. Like the vendor’s ice block, our chance to offer sweet refreshment to the world will quickly melt away. Catherine McAuley, the first Sister of Mercy, expressed it this way: “Do all you can for God’s people for time is short.”

Today, when many around you are thirsty and parched, how will you share and flavor the precious refreshment within you?

Music: Time in a Bottle – Jim Croce

As you listen to this beautiful song, think about going through time with God and God’s People.

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 3:1-14

Click for Scripture

Crystal Clear

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, Service, spiritualityLeave a comment

January 26, 2025

White Cliffs of Dover – Walter Kent

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

One January morning, I stood with my sisters in our community cemetery.  As our religious community ages, it is a ritual we practice all too often, as we honor the legacies of women with whom we have spent most of our lives.  But that Saturday was unique. Let me tell you why.

That day, we celebrated our first military funeral for one of our sisters. It was a solemn and thrilling sight. The cold February sky sparkled like blue crystal. Sun reflected off the time-polished tombstones, creating an honor guard of light.  As we processed to the graveside beside her flag-draped casket, three sailors awaited us at attentive salute.

Sister Bernard Mary, a farm girl from Trenton NJ, became a Navy nurse in World War II.  After her service to our country, she entered the Sisters of Mercy and served in our healthcare ministries for over fifty years. She cared for the sick and poor with unrivaled perfection and compassion.  Her entire life was marked by a profound sense of duty – a duty suffused with love.  

As she was laid to rest, the clear notes of “Taps” rang out to the heavens, inviting her compassionate soul to “go to sleep”.  Like all the others gathered there, I drew so many lessons from her dedicated life.  One is this:  understand your duty and execute it with sincerity and love.  If you do, no matter what life throws at you — be it economic, physical, or psychological downturn –your clear spirit will endure and will ring out like singular bugle notes in the crisp morning air.

Sister Bernard Mary lived for ninety-one long years. Still, I left her grave remembering these stirring words of the first Sister of Mercy, Catherine McAuley: “Do all you can for God’s people, for time is short.”

Music: Taps

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: Proverbs 22:1-4

Click for Scripture

Faithfulness

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Mercy, Service, spirituality, sufferingLeave a comment

Wednesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
November 27, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112724.cfm

Remain faithful until death,
and I will give you the crown of life.

Revelation 2:10

.In Luke 21, Jesus exhorts his disciples to remain faithful. Then he describes how fraught with difficulties that faithfulness will be: denouncement, imprisonment, false judgment, disavowal by family and friends, hatred, and even death. What is so terrifying about the Gospel that it evokes these responses in its enemies? What is so powerful about the Gospel that it will sustain its believers even through such trials?

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
I ask myself, “Have I ever really suffered anything for the sake of the Gospel”? What would that suffering look like? Would it not be setting aside my selfishness for the sake of the neighbor – even the unloved neighbor? If we dare to do that, we will surely suffer.

Prose: from Walter Bruggemann in “God’s Neighborly Economy”

“Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29)

The Bible is unflinching and unambiguous in its identification of the neighbor: widow, orphan, immigrant, the poor, lepers, the blind, deaf, lame … all those without viable resources or reliable advocacy.

Music: Take All the Lost Home – Joe Wise

Innocence

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Courage, Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Service, spiritualityLeave a comment

Memorial of Saint Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church
September 30, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/093024.cfm

An argument arose among the disciples
about which of them was the greatest. 
Jesus realized the intention of their hearts and took a child
and placed it by his side and said to them,
“Whoever receives this child in my name receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
For the one who is least among all of you
is the one who is the greatest.”
Luke 9:46-48

In the Gospel both today and yesterday, the disciples are struggling with their pride and expectations. Jesus calls them to live with a mature and humble innocence.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Our commitment to a Gospel life suffers when we become concerned with our status or importance. We ask for the humble courage to embrace a sacred innocence sustained by the Gifts of the Holy Spirit – Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord

Thought:

“Humility is the foundation
of all the other virtues hence,
in the soul in which
this virtue does not exist
there cannot be any other virtue
except in mere appearance.”

Augustine of Hippo

Music: from “Scripture to Song”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0g1cA1IocM

Even

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Community, Courage, Faith, Gospel, inclusivity, Jesus, Love, Mercy, Service, spirituality2 Comments

Thursday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
September 12, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091224.cfm

Do to others as you would have them do to you.
For if you love those who love you,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners do the same.
If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners lend to sinners,
and get back the same amount.
But rather, love your enemies and do good to them,
and lend expecting nothing back;
then your reward will be great
and you will be children of the Most High,
for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
Be merciful, just as also your Father is merciful.
Luke 6:31-36

“Even” can be a parsimonious word – as in “get even”, “even-steven”. In such phrases, “even” means we settle things without forgiveness or generosity. It means we get our due without considering the other’s need.

But Jesus says the Gospel heart is not about “evenness”. Rather it is weighted on the side of extravagant mercy, generosity, and forgiveness.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray for the courage to model our relationships with others on God’s incredible kindness to us.

Quote: Wendell Berry from his reflection, “Loving my enemies and living simply”.
The entire reflection is available here:
https://www.openhorizons.org/loving-my-enemies-and-living-simply-wendell-berry-on-jesus-and-the-gospels.html

But to take the Gospels seriously, to assume that they say what they mean and mean what they say, is the beginning of troubles. Those would-be literalists who yet argue that the Bible is unerring and unquestionable have not dealt with its contradictions, which of course it does contain, and the Gospels are not exempt. Some of Jesus’ instructions are burdensome not because they involve contradiction, but merely because they are so demanding.

The proposition that love, forgiveness and peaceableness are the only neighborly relationships that are acceptable to God is difficult for us weak and violent humans, but it is plain enough for any literalist. We must either accept it as an absolute or absolutely reject it. The same for the proposition that we are not permitted to choose our neighbors ahead of time or to limit neighborhood, as is plain from the parable of the Samaritan.

The same for the requirement that we must be perfect, like God, which seems as outrageous as the Buddhist vow to “save all sentient beings,” and perhaps is meant to measure and instruct us in the same way. It is, to say the least, unambiguous.

Music: Love Your Enemies – Kyle Sigmon

Remembering

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Faith, peace, Prayer, Service2 Comments

September 11, 2024

Every one of us remembers where we were on September 11, 2001. Like the elders among us who remember Pearl Harbor and the assassinations of MLK, JFK, and RFK, the current generation will always be marked by that infamous day.

Evil became visible that day. We saw its face in the terrorists. We saw its deadly scars on 2,819 innocent people and their loved ones. We have watched its echoes across two decades that have become more vigilant and less trusting.

Besides the victims in the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, so much else died on September 11th. Innocence died; universal trust died; unconditional acceptance died. And with their loss, our national soul was put in jeopardy.

Healing
But within a few hours of the attacks, we saw the human spirit raise its head. Acts of tremendous courage, love, support, and generosity became the new face of September 11th. A dormant patriotism was unfurled in millions of flags across America. Who will ever forget how KIND we became to one another when faced with the reality of one another’s vulnerability.

Learning
And so, all indications to the contrary, we learn even from the darkest evil. Throughout history, good people have learned from bad things such as:
The Holocaust:
“In spite of everything, I still believe
that people are truly good at heart….
that this cruelty too will end…”
(Anne Frank, who died in a Nazi concentration camp)

War:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense,
a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and not clothed.”
(President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Five-star General
and Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, World War II.)

Institutionalized Slavery:
“I had reasoned this out in my mind,
there was one of two things I had a right to,
liberty or death;
if I could not have one,
I would have the other.”
(Harriet Tubman, formerly enslaved woman who led many others to freedom
by the Underground Railroad)

Choosing
What have we learned from September 11th and who will we choose to be due to our learning? All of us want a better world for ourselves and our children. We want less fear and more trust. We want less struggle and more peace. We want less tension and more freedom. What we want will never come to us unless we choose to live it into being.
A quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi puts it this way:
“You must choose to be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Leading such change requires great bravery. Gandhi also said this,
“A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.”

Acting
So, on this 23rd Commemoration of September 11th, let us be brave enough to change the world. Courage and kindness stand side by side because they both require self-sacrifice.
To commemorate the lives lost that day, we may choose to make one act of anonymous, unrewarded kindness. Do it to make the world kinder, to contribute to a legacy for the future, to send a message that evil never triumphs, and to remember the lives that were lost on September 11, 2001.

Some ideas that won’t cost you much (from helpothers.org)
• Tape the exact change for a soda to a vending machine
• Treat someone to a cup of their favorite coffee
• Pay the toll for the person behind you
• Leave a treat in the kitchen at work
• Write a note of appreciation to someone
• Smile from your heart at strangers.
• Greet others when you pass them.
• Offer to babysit for free for new parents so they can sleep or spend time with each other.
• Spend time with an elderly person.
• Buy flowers for someone in your office who’s having a rough time.
• Leave a good book at a bus stop.
• Instead of following normal tipping etiquette, leave a little extra.
• Be kind to someone who isn’t always kind to you.
• Cook a meal for someone who is sick, elderly, or just had a baby.
• Pay someone’s expired parking meter.
• Visit someone in hospice care.
• Let someone go in front of you in line while you’re doing your grocery shopping.
• If you experience great service, compliment the worker and tell their manager.
• Give sincere compliments whenever you can.
• If you see an elderly person having trouble pumping their gas at a gas station, offer to do it for them.
• Leave the coupons you didn’t use at the register for someone else.
• Spend time with people in nursing homes. More often than not, they are lonely.

Ambition

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Service, spirituality1 Comment

Wednesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
May 29, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052924.cfm

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
came to Jesus and said to him,
“Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”
He replied, “What do you wish me to do for you?”
They answered him,
“Grant that in your glory
we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.”
Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking.
Can you drink the chalice that I drink
or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”…

… You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles
lord it over them,
and their great ones make their authority over them felt.
But it shall not be so among you.
Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.
Mark 10: 35-38; 42-44

James and John are filled with the enthusiasm of their calling, but they are young in its understanding. They look past the challenge of their present circumstances to the glory on its other side. Jesus sets their ambition straight, as he does ours. First we must drink the cup that Jesus drank.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We too want our ultimate destination to be a place beside Christ. But to come to that place, we must follow Jesus closely in the choices of our own lives.

Poetry: Create in Me – Anna Beth Fore

Create in me a pure heart
filled with love, joy, and peace.
Calm these inner struggles
and give my soul release.

Renew my love and passion
for my Savior and my King.
Fill me with psalms and songs,
an offering to you I bring.

Cleanse me every day, Lord,
and make me pure and holy.
Comfort me with your Spirit
as he lives inside of me.

Transform me with your love,
your mercy, and your grace.
Strengthen me when I am weary
so that I can finish the race.

Welcome me with open arms
when my life on Earth is done.
Let the angels sing, “Hallelujah,”
when the battle on Earth is won.

Music: Are You Ready to Drink the Cup? – Cyprian Consiglio

First/Last

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, ordinary time, Service, spirituality1 Comment

Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time
May 21, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052124.cfm

They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house,
he began to ask them,
“What were you arguing about on the way?”
But they remained silent.
For they had been discussing among themselves on the way
who was the greatest.
Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them,
“If anyone wishes to be first,
he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”
Taking a child, he placed it in their midst,
and putting his arms around it, he said to them,
“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;
and whoever receives me,
receives not me but the One who sent me.”
Mark 9:33-37

Here we are, friends, back in Ordinary Time after our sacred journey with Jesus through Lent and Eastertide. Drenched in the Spirit of Pentecost, we pick up with the Gospel of Mark which we left back in March.

And what is the first lesson of this reclaimed time? It is one of the many sacred inversions in the Gospel which assure us that the fullness of the Christian life is merciful service – that a holy emptiness is the preferred dwelling of God’s Spirit.

If anyone wishes to be first,   
he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.

Today, in God’s Loving Mercy:

We pray for the insight and strength to choose a Gospel-rooted life despite the contradictions of the world. We ask the Holy Spirit, renewed in us on Pentecost, to steep us in the selflessness that is true love.

Poetry: Where Is God? – Mark Nepo

It’s as if what is unbreakable—
the very pulse of life—waits for
everything else to be torn away,
and then in the bareness that
only silence and suffering and
great love can expose, it dares
to speak through us and to us.

It seems to say, if you want to last,
hold on to nothing. If you want
to know love, let in everything.
If you want to feel the presence
of everything, stop counting the
things that break along the way.

Music: Will You Let Me Be Your Servant