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

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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

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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

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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

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The Red Fox

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

January 15, 2025

Photo by Alex Andrews on Pexels.com
We Are the World – Michael Jackson

The red fox lay dead in the road a little east of the mall entrance. It was a beautiful animal come to an inglorious end. 

When an animal is killed trying to cross a road, it demonstrates a lesson learned in college biology – “geographic isolation”.   Geographic isolation occurs when human-made structures, such as roads or canals, artificially separate animals of the same family.  Over the course of decades, the animals on one side of the road assume different characteristics from the same type of animals on the other side of the road.  Eventually, they may begin to behave toward each other as if they were two different species. In other words, their isolation begins to fool them into thinking they are different – even enemies.

There are all kinds of geographies in the world – not just the traditional ones that delineate nations. And there are all kinds of isolations that we can build into our multiple internal and external maps.

That little red fox might cause us to consider the breadth of our landscapes, our mindscapes, our soulscapes.  How restricted are we in our ability to travel to and be comfortable in all different kinds of worlds.   As we look at the circle of our friends, experiences, ideas, multi-cultural exposure – is the circle expansive or very limited and controlled?  Have we allowed ourselves to live in a compressed world with fake boundaries? At the end of our one precious life, will we be sorry for all the growth opportunities we missed because our “geography” was so protected and myopic?

History boasts a few borderless explorers who have led the rest of us out of our comfort zones and into the challenges of discovery. These leaders had a sense of a universal geography.  They saw borders only as the farthest points to which we can stretch – imagination, love, hope and courage. Their standard approach to life’s newness was an inclusive hospitality.  They had a constant attitude that questioned isolation and was suspect of territorialism. They were the believers who knew there was more beyond the horizon – beyond the limits of a flat world or a self-centered universe.

Martin Luther King was such a man.  The artificial boundaries created by race and economic status were invisible to him.  He challenged people who built their “privilege” on these unfounded borders.  He opened the eyes and hearts of millions who had taken this moral “geographic isolation” for granted.  He began the building of bridges that, if we complete them, will ultimately heal our world and our spirits.

Martin Luther King knew that we are all one people.  He refused to allow the separations of prejudice and stereotyping to define the borders of his life.  May his inspiration spur the rest of us to move outside our life-limiting ideas and step into a world of unity, mutuality, respect, and hope.

This year, we will celebrate MLK Day on January 20th. But today, as we mark his actual birthday, let’s take a sincere look at how much our prejudices control our choices.  Let’s find someone or something that will help us continue to grow in openness and understanding.

Music: We Shall Overcome – Morehouse College

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: John 17:20-23

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Epiphany

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, spirituality7 Comments

January 5, 2025

Brent Mulligan- Revelation Song

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Have you ever heard a troubled friend say, “I feel as if God has abandoned me!”? Here’s a little story about that.

One spring morning, two country kids were walking to school across their local railroad tracks.  They had been drilled in the three essential steps before crossing:

STOP, LOOK and LISTEN!

On this particular morning, as they diligently executed these steps, they heard an unexpected, barely audible sound.  Four tiny, orphaned ducklings had taken refuge in a gully under one of the nearby ties.  The children, in their alert attentiveness, were able to hear the tiny peeps that would otherwise have been missed. They scooped up the ducks and carried them to safety. What an epiphany! 

January places us in the season of Epiphany. The word means much more than just “discovery”.  It means an unexpected revelation of divine grace within our ordinary circumstances – the Unexpected within the Ordinary.

When the Three Wise Men experienced the Epiphany, it was not just “dumb luck”.  They had prepared for that moment throughout their entire lives, just never imagining where they would find it — hidden in a cold stable. Through study, prayer and living good lives, they had perfected the all-important practice:  STOP, LOOK and LISTEN to your ordinary life, to what is happening just underneath the surface, underneath appearances, underneath the silence. Allow yourself to be surprised by God!

It is in the life underneath that God waits to be revealed to us every day.  The revelation doesn’t come like a loud, anticipated train.  It comes in the unexpected whisper we would have missed had we not stopped, looked, and listened to our lives.  It comes in the otherwise unspoken need of a friend, in the finally recognized destructive practice or relationship we must change, in the belated act of forgiveness, in the long overdue and grateful acknowledgment of our life as the blessing that it is.

Before we go too far in this New Year, think about this practice.  When we feel as if God or the Spirit is not part of our lives, we may not be looking in the right places.  Each morning and evening, give yourself at least five quiet minutes to breathe.  Put a “reflective stethoscope” to your day, and ask yourself “Where is God hidden in these moments?”  If we really STOP, LOOK and LISTEN, eventually, the Epiphany will come!

Music: Listen, Listen, Listen – Robert Gass

Listen, listen, listen to my heart’s song:
I will never forget you, I will never forsake you.

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: 1 Samuel 3:1-10

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New Year’s Eve

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Christmastide, Courage, Eternal Life, Faith, spirituality6 Comments

December 31, 2024

Memory – Andrew Lloyd Webber

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We stand now on the far western shore of the Year of Our Lord, 2024.  It is well near evening.  Our memories are silhouetted against the deep magenta sky as they sail beyond the shimmering horizon.  We have lived, laughed, lost and loved in ways never to be repeated, yet never to be forgotten.  The great turning of time goes relentlessly on, but we have written our story in its indelible trail.

The stroke of midnight on December 31st – magic, mysterious, holy. 

With fireworks and reveling, popular culture will invite us to the brash celebration of our presence within this point in history.  But, at the altar of our hearts, we recognize this long evening of reminiscence as a time of quiet thanksgiving and petition.  It is a time of awe and trust in the power of our Almighty God.

Like flint struck against the steadfast soul of God, we have been given the spark of life.  We are God’s fire at this moment in time’s long unwinding.  Tonight, we turn our spirits to those beside us, behind us, before us, and we pray in thanksgiving and hope for them.

Together, we sink into the dark infinity of our Creator who sustains all life beyond our worries, fears and limitations.  With innumerable universes, God balances us in the palm of Mercy.  As the midnight shadows fall, God closes Divine fingertips over us in grace and protection.

In the split moment between two years, we too become infinite – fire in God’s darkness, spark redeemed beyond time. In 2025, we will forget this transcendent moment.  The bright light of daily living will blind us to that piece of divinity shining in our souls.  But tonight, let us remember.  As midnight passes by, may our spirits kneel within us to the Awesome Mystery who holds us, as one, eternally within Itself.

Music: Auld Lang Syne

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: Psalm 90: 10-17

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We Are Wrapped in Love

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality1 Comment

Christmas, 2024

My prayers of gratitude, love, and blessing
to each of you and your loved ones this Christmas.

Silent Night

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus
that the whole world should be enrolled.
This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria.
So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town.
And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea,
to the city of David that is called Bethlehem,
because he was of the house and family of David,
to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.
While they were there, the time came for her to have her child,
and she gave birth to her firstborn son.
She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger,
because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 2: 1-7

Reflection:

Mary is wrapped in the cold darkness of this winter night.
She is vulnerable as she waits to bring forth her child.
Yet she feels wrapped by God and supported by God’s love.
And she wants to welcome this child in warmth
And to wrap him in love and tenderness.
We too want to welcome Jesus with tenderness.
We have tried to bring Christ into our world over many years,
And to warm and comfort people with God’s presence.
Is there a person in your life
Or a place in your heart needs the same warmth, comfort and love tonight.
Maybe our quiet prayer could be for that person or place in our hearts.

Music: The Beautiful Mother – John Foley, SJ

The beautiful mother is bending low, where her baby lies.
Helpless and frail for her tending, but she knows the glorious eyes.
The mother smiles and rejoices, while baby laughs in the hay.
She listens to heavenly voices: “The child shall be king one day.”

All nations draw near to the manger low on this holy night.
Surely as shepherds and kings they come, to know the glorious sight.
0 see the angels before Him, who rule the earth with their might.
With Ioseph and Mary adore Him, in stillness behold the light.

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?

Coal and Tangerines

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Christmastide, Faith, spirituality1 Comment

December 24, 2024

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

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One of the treasured rituals of my childhood home was the filling of the Christmas stockings.  They were simple times, and my family lived simply – so the items we anticipated might be surprising today.    Each year, there might be a new pencil, a silver dollar, an emory board, and maybe a comic book and bubble gum.  

But two staples that appeared yearly were a piece of coal and a tangerine.  These two constants were oddly comforting to my young heart.  They came to represent important truths: we are not perfect (coal from Santa), and there is the hope of spring freshness even in the winter. (tangerine) 

As you and your family gather in this holy season, may you be warmed by the goodness in your own hearts.  In your “stockings”, there will “coal” and “tangerines”.   May each of them, in their own way, bring you an awareness of gratitude and peace, anchoring your heart in recognition of the love that blesses your life.

This beautiful holy season is the time to wrap ourselves in the circles of faith, family, and friendship that sustain our lives.  It is a time to remember, to be grateful, and to hope.  May these holidays and holy days renew and bless you and your loved ones.  May Christians be deepened and confirmed in the grace and love of Jesus Christ.  And for all of us of every faith, may this be a time of peace, good health, and joy.

Music: Tangerine – one of my Dad’s favorite songs

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: Wisdom 18:14-17

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O Radiant Dawn

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spiritualityLeave a comment

December 24, 2024

O Radiant Dawn: Isaiah 9:1-2
But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. 
In the former time the Lord brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, 
but in the latter time God will make glorious the way of the sea,
the land beyond the Jordan, 
Galilee of the nations.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.

Music: O Radiant Dawn – James MacMillan

O Radiant Dawn, Splendor of eternal Light, Sun of Justice:
come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.
Isaiah had prophesied,
The people who walked in darkness have seen the great light
upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.
Amen.

For Your Reflection:

Picture the most glorious sunrise you have ever seen.

Find God in your imagination.

O King of All Nations

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spiritualityLeave a comment

December 23, 2024

O King of Nations: Isaiah 28:16-17
Therefore thus says the Lord God,
See, I am laying in Zion
a foundation stone, a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation:
“One who trusts will not panic.”
And I will make justice the line, 
and righteousness the plummet;
hail will sweep away the refuge of lies,
and waters will overwhelm the shelter of falsehood

Music: O Rex Gentium – Gloriae Dei Cantores

For Your Reflection

  • Many resist the title of “King” for God because it implies a hierarchy and separation from us.
  • However God is central and omnipotent to our lives. What does that mean for you?
  • God’s infinite power was inversely expressed in the Passion and Death of Jesus. What does that mean for your spiritual life?

Gifts of Darkness

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, FaithLeave a comment

December 22, 2024

Winter Moon – Dulin

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For me, there is always something magical about dark winter mornings.  I think the feeling might be left over from childhood.  Stretching on tiptoes then, I would peek over the window sill into that rich darkness to see if it had snowed.  Had the silent night left a white playground awaiting me in the first glimmer of the morning?  

The magic too may be a residue of many Christmas mornings when I would peer into the darkness for a glimpse of a vanishing Santa, hoping to surprise him before his undiscovered retreat.  Even today on a winter morning, before I brew my tea, I look out into the darkness for the promise and surprise of the new day.  Something of childlike hope stays in all our grown-up hearts.

But sometimes, darkness can be scary.  It can cause us to lose our way.  It can cover the familiar with a grey veil of unfamiliarity. But darkness can also reveal what we might otherwise overlook.  The magnificence of the stars can only be realized in the dark. The gentle revelation of moonlight on the water is a gift only of the night.

My father died suddenly when I was still a young woman.  His death was devastating to me and my family and I wondered why God had seemed to forget us.  The deep mourning lasted for months, but I remember one night in the midst of it that changed everything.  

It was a clear, almost purple evening.  I had walked to the window, my soul still filled with the silent tears of a long bereavement.  I stared out into the darkness and saw the first brilliant evening star singularly poised in the velvet blackness.  In that moment, I knew that under all our pain, the love and justice of God still anchored the world.  I knew that in time more stars would break through and eventually the first rays of sun.  I knew that the darkness contained much more than I could ever see or understand and that my father was safe in its embrace. I understood that the deep light of faith is often wrapped in the shawl of night.

This is a time of year when we remember the gifts that have come to us out of the darkness.  Advent is a time when we await the Divine Word Who “when the night was midway through its course, and the whole world was still, leapt down from heaven to earth.” (Wisdom 18:1) .

During this time of faith and magical memories, may each one of us find our light in the darkness. May that light fill any night inside us with promise, hope, forgiveness, and thanksgiving.  May it lead us to the confidence that under all our experience, God anchors our world in love.

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:

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