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Acts 14:21-27

5th Sunday of Easter, Year C – 2022

13 mai 2022
Nicole Gregoire
2 Comments
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: Acts 14:21-27, believe, committed, needs, relationships, rely on, trust

Looking at our lives, we sometimes pause to consider what is important to us.
We may look at this or that aspect and we question what is really… essential!

Our personal needs may first come to our minds.
And, of course, our relationships with the people near and dear to us are most important.

But… something is still missing… which can be found in a verse of today’s 1st reading (Acts 14:21-27).
It speaks of the two apostles, Paul and Barnabas, and says:
“Paul and Barnabas… committed the Elders of the communities to the Lord in whom they had put their trust”.

 To be committed to the Lord and put our trust in him – is this not essential to our very being?

Committed to the Lord by the people who love us, the people to whom we really matter –
this is, in fact, the best gift they can give to us.

Committed to the Lord also as something that WE, ourselves, do.
Committed, being engaged in an on-going relationship with him.
Committed, being faithful to what we know he expects from us.

A commitment which supposes that we have put our trust in him.
We have confided to him whatever is important to us,
we rely on him in all situations,
we surrender to him the small and big things of our daily life,
we confide to him our very selves.

I have noted with interest that in one version of the Bible, the word ‘believe’ is translated by ‘to trust’, ‘to rely on’.
This rendering of the text places faith in a perspective that offers all at once security and serenity…

 

Note: And another reflection, on a different theme, is available in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/5e-dimanche-de-paques-annee-c-2022/

 

Source: Image: Commonweal Magazine

 

5th Sunday of Easter, Year C – 2019  

17 mai 2019
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: Acts 14:21-27, awareness, closed, discovery, inventory, Memories, open, stock taking

Nowadays, technology has changed things, of course.
But at the end of the year, in the not-so-distant past, we used to see such advertisement in the doors of shops.
Business was temporarily stopped to make a list of the remaining commodities and see what needed to be bought for the coming year.
New stocks were ordered, or not renewed, according to the outcome of this important activity: an inventory.
And, for this operation, the shop was CLOSED.

Strangely enough, this memory came back to me with the text of the 1st reading of this Sunday (Acts 14:21-27).
Speaking of Paul and Barnabas, the last verse tells us:

“They assembled the church and gave an account of all that God had done with them.”
 
To me this is an invitation to… make an inventory of a special kind with the clear sign: OPEN!
Open our awareness,
open the treasure of our memories,
open our daily experience, to uncover what is hidden there!

Have you ever made such an inventory – of all that God has done with you?
All that God has done in you, for you, through you…
I think that you may be quite surprised with the outcome.
It may be an experience providing you with some astonishing discovery.
And it may give you much encouragement…

All too often, we take for granted much of what God does for us and, yes, with us.
This Sunday may be a good occasion to have a look again at our daily life and activities and…
see from a different perspective what may lie behind the obvious.
A rewarding exercise of… ‘stock taking’!

Note: Another reflection is available on a different theme in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/5e-dimanche-de-paques-annee-c-2019/

Source: Images: Owler   Pexels

5th Sunday of Easter, C

21 avril 2016
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: Acts 14:21-27, Paul and Barnabas, we work with God, what God does with us

sculptor-carving-working-gypsum-bust-sculpture-68282196It may happen to you as it sometimes happens to me: we read a text and… suddenly we are ‘hooked’ on a sentence, our attention is completely taken up by a few words. The meaning of the whole text remains in the background, we focus on the few words that have struck us.

This is what happened to me when reading the text of the first reading of this 5th Sunday of Easter (year C, Acts 14:21-27). We are told that: “On their arrival, they (Paul and Barnabas) assembled the church and gave an account of all that God had done with them” (v.27).

These words can be understood in two ways: what God had done with them, meaning that God is working with Paul and Barnabas. We usually think about this the other way around! We say that we work with God, WE cooperate WITH HIM in carrying out his plan. But here, it is as if God is the one whose collaboration is given to the two apostles.

A second interpretation of what God had done with them is that God works with whatever materiel he finds in us – what we are, what we do, what we work at – God uses this to carry out his plan. An interesting idea – God is ready and willing to make the best of what is available… in us, at the moment. It is with this that he will create his… masterpiece. Like a master sculptor who uses a given piece of wood, or stone, or marble, to work with.

The story is told of a man who was known to have a very bad temper. He was, by nature, very impatient and he could get very angry for matters that people around would qualify of no importance. One day, someone thought it could help the man if this was pointed out to him. The reply was not long in coming, and really witty too: “Just wait! God is not finished with me yet!”

And each one of us can also say: « God is not finished with me… yet!...

Source: Image: Dreamstime.com