Category: Virtue

Valentine’s Lesson

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn friendship, inclusivity, justice, Love, spirituality, Virtue5 Comments

February 14, 2026
St. Valentine’s Day

Benignity, a Fruit of the Holy Spirit, is defined as
compassionate and thoughtful action toward others.

Sister Gertrude was my beautiful 3rd-grade teacher. She was kindness itself in human form, the personification of “Benignity”.

About two weeks before Valentine’s Day, Sister said we could give one another “friendship cards” by posting them to the decorated box she had set in the classroom corner. On February 14th, the box would be opened and we would learn who our best friends were, and even if we might have some secret admirers! I was really excited because I was in love with Johnny Meyers, but I didn’t think he knew I was even alive. I thought this might help me find out!

It sounds like a delightful idea, doesn’t it, until you think about the couple of kids who don’t have any friends, or the ones whose families can’t afford the cost of cards.

I didn’t think about any of those things when I was eight years old, but I do remember one curious thing. On Valentine’s Day, every child in our classroom received several cards, even Henry Walsh whom we all shunned because he was mean and selfish. Besides, he wore his hair little bit like the monster kid from “The Blob”!

Then I realized that Sister’s conversation with me a week earlier might not have been an isolated incident. Maybe she had taken aside other kids besides me and given them three or four cards. Maybe she had encouraged them too to send a card to someone it was hard to like, or to someone who might not have friends. She had told me that we don’t always know what makes a person unlikable, but that usually it wasn’t their fault. Maybe a surprise card could help them out a little bit.

So, I sent a card to a few kids I didn’t like that much. And I learned the lesson Sister was trying to teach. It was the kind of lesson that kept on teaching for the next seventy years … and still going, each year with deeper understanding.

Yeah, and here’s the funny part that I have never fully unpacked. Henry Walsh, class mini-monster, sent ME a card! Apparently, he thought I didn’t have any friends, or maybe he wasn’t too thrilled with my hairdo either!

By the way, Johnny Meyers did send a card, and I don’t think it was one Sister gave him because it came with a friendship ring out of a Cracker Jack box. We all know what that means! Even I knew, and I was only in 3rd grade!

Nevertheless, I didn’t marry Johnny despite that Valentine’s Day proposal, but I learned a life-long lesson about love from Sister Gertrude.

Music: Try a Little Kindness – Glen Campbell’s song sung by Collin Raye

Suggested Reading: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Click for Scripture

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?

Eat the Pickle, Sister

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, holiness, Love, spirituality, Virtue6 Comments

January 26, 2026

The virtue of Love, known as caritas or charity,
is a theological virtue defined as
loving God above all things
and loving one’s neighbor as oneself.

A friend and I had gone mall shopping not too far from my parents’ home. Finishing early, I asked Mattie if she’d mind an unplanned stop to see Mom. I knew Mom would delight in the surprise visit.

Had I alerted Mom, a banquet would have awaited us. She loved to feed people, and she did so with masterful skill. But this impromptu stop occurred the day before weekly shopping. Thus, the coffers were relatively low, at least by Mom’s standards.

Nevertheless, the kitchen table soon filled with the essential makings of a great sandwich. Mattie and I dug in as Mom arrayed a host of condiments at table’s center. However, in the abundance, one glass jar stood out in contradiction. Alone, behind the green Vlasic label, hid the last remaining kosher dill, an unlikely survivor of my family’s lunch habits.

As Mom joined us at the table, she realized the situation. She looked at Mattie, our guest, and encouraged her, “Eat the pickle, Sister!” We all burst out laughing and, indeed, Mattie did eat the lonely pickle.

Our shared laughter signaled a deeper understanding of this straightforward scene. No one had to enumerate what lay behind Mom’s encouragement:

  • As our guest, you get first choice. (Hospitality)
  • Somebody’s got to eat it. It might as well be you. (Practicality)
  • It’s not really important if the rest of us get a pickle. (Discernment)
  • We are blessed to have more choices beyond the pickle. (Gratitude)
  • We’ll be fine, even if we are “pickleless”. (Blessed Assurance)
  • You are the important thing, not the pickle. (Respect)
  • And anyway, who left one stinkin’ pickle in the jar! (Wise Judgement)

For years to follow, Mom and I laughed about that remark. We quoted it often when there was a nebulous situation that called for a final choice, because the phrase contained all the essential elements of a loving and expeditious decision:

  • What’s important in this situation?
  • Who or what has the greatest need?
  • What resources free us to be generous?
  • What action will best reflect our values?
  • And, remember:

Not to decide is to decide.
So never resist a generous impulse

I delight in remembering the story today, the anniversary of my mother’s death. She left me so many lessons under the most unlikely appearances. Who would think that a pickle jar might influence my decision-making for the ensuing 40 years!
Thank you for that pickle, Mom, and for all the other loving condiments you left to dress my life!

Music: ‘Tis A Gift to Be Simple – Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Krauss

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 116: 12-19

Click for Scripture

The Holy Lists

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Church, Conversion, Discipleship, holiness, spirituality, Virtue3 Comments

January 1, 2026

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, please bless and guide us throughout 2026.

As we welcome the new year, I welcome each of you to Lavish Mercy 2026. As I did in 2025, I will offer a reflection about once a week, sometimes more often.


For 2026, I have chosen a theme that I nicknamed “The Holy Lists”. My Catholic friends who, like me, are of a “certain age” will remember the Baltimore Catechism. Though currently updated in language and attitude, that dear old 1945 version contained a mountain of incomprehensible truth condensed into manageable steps. Even though it provided scarce moral latitude, the book left me many unforgettable checklists that still influence my broader reflections and choices. They provided a roadmap for VIRTUE which could use a huge comeback in our morally tumultuous culture.

Who can forget the famous milk bottle by which one measured the level of their adolescent depravity?
Or the theological study questions with which even Thomas Aquinas might have struggled? e.g. (actual samples):

  1. Julius, an irreligious High School boy, claims we are forced to do all the things we do; he says that we are not free. Is this true? What is the reason for your answer?
  2. Leander wonders how it was possible for the prophets to describe the details of Our
    Lord’s passion and death many centuries before they took place.
    Can you explain this to Leander?

I deeply appreciate the wonderful religious instruction I received in the 1950s and 60s. But I think that even for Julius and Leander, some of those powerful lessons may have failed the leap into the 21st century.

So for 2026, I’d like to refresh some of those listed items by connecting them to the day’s reflection or readings. In a cultural and political climate so often disconnected from a moral compass, these virtues can serve a corrective purpose. They are valuable and, when offered in the modern vernacular, may inspire personal and cultural transformation.

Believe me, this is not an attempt to return to pre-Vatican II strictures. I am definitely an “aggiornamento” gal! Rather, I hope to provide an incentive to reclaim the quiescent markers of our faith – a faith that might be captured in a single virtue, or lost in a single fault. And I also think it might be fun!

St. Gregory of Nyssa inspires me with this statement:

The goal of a virtuous life
is to become like God.

Let’s give some time in 2026 to the pursuit of that virtuous life we all committed to at our Confirmation! God knows our world needs it!

See if you remember any of these once-memorized signposts :
• Gifts of the Holy Spirit
• Fruits of the Holy Spirit
• Cardinal Virtues
• Theological Virtues
• Moral Virtues
• Capital Virtues and their nemeses, the Deadly Sins
• Beatitudes
• Mysteries of the Rosary

And now, let’s begin…..