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16th Sunday of Year B – 2024

19 juillet 2024
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: believers, God's plan, God's will, honesty, integrity, Jeremiah 23:1-6, righteousness, transparency, uprightness

It goes without saying, as believers, we try to please God.
We strive to follow Jesus’ teaching and to fulfil God’s will in our daily life.
From day to day, we make special efforts to behave as we think he wants us to do.

At times, we wonder if we really manage to do this…
Thinking about what we said, what we did on a certain day, we may find that we did not succeed very well.
Looking back on certain situations, perhaps we find that our response to people was not what Christ’s response would have been.

We may feel discouraged… we may think that our efforts do not achieve what we would like…
We may feel that no matter how we try, our life is not really Christ-like.

A few words in today’s 1st reading may bring us some comfort (Jeremiah 23:1-6).
The prophet Jeremiah, speaking about God, tells us that God is:

“The Lord-our-integrity”.
Or, in another translation:
“The Lord-our-righteousness”.

In other words, the Lord himself is the one who will make us more and more as God wants us to be… if we only allow him to do so!
He is the one who will achieve his plan for us and through us.

Integrity is this quality of honesty, transparency, that characterizes someone truly open to God.
The righteousness we aim for is the goodness and uprightness of someone who does not ‘cut corners’ as we would say in today’s language.
Someone acting with integrity does not pretend nor show off.

This way of living may not be achieved easily – we know this from experience.
But as we remind ourselves of God’s presence with us – he who is “the Lord-our-integrity” –
we take heart, and we do our best day after day.

 

Note: Another text is available on a different theme, in French, at: https://image-i-nations.com/16e-dimanche-de-lannee-b-2024/

 

Source: Image: https://www.scripture-images.com/bible-verse

22nd Sunday of Year A – 2023

1 septembre 2023
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: "real' world, believers, blessings, choice, friends, God's invitation, Matthieu 21:12-13, prophet, relationships

 

Our lives are woven with all kinds of relationships:
family, relatives, friends, neighbours, colleagues.
There are also the specialists we are referred to, or the technicians who fix things for us.

Our relationship with each one of them can be very different.
Some neighbours may become friends, but we may not develop a friendship with certain colleagues.
Some relatives may remain quite distant, while the specialist who treated us has become a close friend.

At a certain moment in time, a choice has been made.
A decision has been taken to accept this, or that person, in our life in a closer way.

Have you ever thought that the same is true about… God!
As you read this, it may happen that you stop and think…
Slowly, you realize that it is true…
You had never thought about it in this way, but you see it now: God invites himself into our lives.

Some people may not want to see God ‘interfering’ in their existence!
It is a little what we see in today’s 1st reading where the prophet Jeremiah is not eager for God to come too close! (Jeremiah 20:7-9).

“You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed…
I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name.”

Jeremiah laments the choice God has made of him to be a prophet.
The message he must pass on to the people in the name of God brings him insults and abuse.
But he cannot resist fulfilling his mission.

Looking at our own lives, we may somehow feel disappointed as well.
We may have thought that accepting God in our lives would bring us blessings of all kinds.
But we are sometimes faced with being laughed at, or rejected, for being believers.
We may be seen as naïve, or out of touch with the ‘real’ world.
We may lose friends because of our being followers of Christ.

God does not impose himself on us, but he proposes a life of relationship with him.
The choice to accept, or to reject, God’s invitation, God’s presence in our life, is ours.

Much depends on our decision…
A more meaningful life, and a more promising afterlife…

God’s offer is a permanent one… and the choice always remains ours…

 

Note: Another text is available on a different theme, in French, at: https://image-i-nations.com/22e-dimanche-de-lannee-a-2023/

 

Source: Images: unsplash.com (Helena Lopes)        pexels.com (Andrea Piacquadio)      https://www.encounter247.com       Wikipedia

World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation – 1st September

1 septembre 2018
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: believers, care of creation, challenges, Churches, hope, Laudato si', opportunity, protection, replies, thanks

Pope Francis has asked Catholics and others throughout the world to pray this day and until the Feast of St Francis on 4th October for the care of creation, in line with his recent encyclical Laudato Si.

According to a letter from the Pope announcing the annual World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, this time “offers to individual believers and to the community a precious opportunity to renew our personal participation in this vocation as custodians of creation, raising to God our thanks for the marvellous works that He has entrusted to our care, invoking his help for the protection of creation and his mercy for the sins committed against the world in which we live.” (Letter from the Vatican, 6th August 2015)

The Orthodox Church also honours 1st September as a Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, and Pope Francis notes his hope that this should become an annual occurrence so that it “will be a valuable opportunity to bear witness to our growing communion with our orthodox brothers. We live in a time where all Christians are faced with identical and important challenges and we must give common replies to these in order to appear more credible and effective.  Therefore it is my hope that this Day can involve, in some way, other Churches and ecclesial Communities and be celebrated in union with the initiatives that the World Council of Churches is promoting on this issue.” (ibid)

Source : Text : World Methodist Council  Image: nyfaithformation.org