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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

27th Sunday of Year C – 2022

30 septembre 2022
Nicole Gregoire
2 Comments
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: 2 Timothy 1:13-14, 2 Timothy 1:6-8, adjust, approaching God, approaching people, fear, friends, Holy Spirit

Most of us are in contact with many people every day.
We approach some of them spontaneously, considering them as friends.
Others, we keep our distance from them, we are not sure how we will be received.
There are some, we know that we will always be welcomed when knocking at their door.
Others, we would not go to them at any time, we feel we must choose the right moment.

What about God?
Do we approach him, spontaneously, without any hesitation?
Are we convinced that any moment is a good moment to ‘get in touch’ with him?
Or are we in doubt that we will be welcomed?
Are we afraid to go to him just as we are?

In today’s 2nd reading, we meet the apostle Paul writing to his friend Timothy (2 Timothy 1:6-8,13-14).
Some of his words can help us to ‘adjust’ our way of looking on to God – enabling us to come to him in a way that is ‘just’.

  • Just seeing him really as our Father.
  • Just accepting that we are his beloved children.
  • Just trusting him, truly.

Paul writes:
“God did not give us a spirit of fear
but power, and love, and self-control.”
 
It is sad to see how many people fear God, how may do not dare to come to him with the simplicity of a child.
They may think that they are sinners and are not worthy to approach him.
They forget that Jesus came precisely for sinners – he said it openly (

).

God never asked us to be worthy, he asks us to be confident in his mercy – that’s all!

Some of us have yet to REALize this basic and wonderful reality!
May it become REAL indeed!

The last line of the reading tells us how this is possible…
“…with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.”
 

Note: Another reflection is available on a different theme in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/27e-dimanche-de-lannee-c-2022/

 

Source: Image: Oak Grove Church of Christ

 

6th Sunday of Easter, Year B

4 mai 2018
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: discoveries, freedom, friend of God, friends, Jn.15:9-17, requirement, The Father, value

Whether we like it or not, Facebook is one of the most popular social media.
It has taken on the ‘mission’ of ‘connecting’ us, of linking together the inhabitants of Planet Earth.
To achieve this task, it makes use of all kinds of clever ways – one of which is the ’FRIENDS’ feature.

It is interesting to listen to people telling one another how many ‘friends’ they have on Facebook.
Some will boast of having thousands of friendly followers who faithfully check, daily of course, what is happening to them.

Today, I ask myself: How many people have in their personal list the name of… GOD?!
Strange to say, I have never heard anyone make such a claim!

Reading the gospel of this Sunday (6th Sunday of Easter, Year B – Jn.15:9-17)
I find the words of Jesus who says clearly:

”I shall not call you servants any more…
I call you friends
because I have made known to you
everything I have learnt from my Father.”
 
An amazing statement indeed and for more than one reason.
Each one of us can say, in all truth: ‘I am a friend of God’.
This does NOT require any qualification, social status, privileged background, or exceptional experience.
The only requirement is that… we accept his friendship!

By definition becoming the friend of someone is a free decision.
It is no different with friendship with God.
He has created us free beings and will not force us into anything –
surely not into accepting him as a personal friend in our lives.
Coercion would destroy the beauty and value of friendship.

The second aspect of Jesus’ words that I find amazing is that he claims that
he has made known to us all that he, himself, has learned from his Father.

I personally feel that… I have still to make an inventory of all of this…
I am convinced that I am bound to make astonishing discoveries when I seriously get down to it!…
The same may happen to you . . .

Note: Another reflection is available in French on a different theme at: https://image-i-nations.com/6e-dimanche-de-paques-annee-b/

Source: Image: Alan Kraft

International Women’s Day – 8 March

8 mars 2018
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: #MeToo, #TimesUp, call to action, colleagues, communities, friends, gender parity, motivation, press for progress

International Women’s Day 2018 campaign theme: #PressforProgress

With the World Economic Forum’s 2017 Global Gender Gap Report findings telling us that gender parity is over 200 years away – there has never been a more important time to keep motivated and #PressforProgress. And with global activism for women’s equality fuelled by movements like #MeToo, #TimesUp and more – there is a strong global momentum striving for gender parity.

And while we know that gender parity won’t happen overnight, the good news is that across the world women are making positive gains day by day. Plus, there’s indeed a very strong and growing global movement of advocacy, activism and support.

So we can’t be complacent. Now, more than ever, there’s a strong call-to-action to press forward and progress gender parity. A strong call to #PressforProgress. A strong call to motivate and unite friends, colleagues and whole communities to think, act and be gender inclusive.

International Women’s Day is not country, group or organisation specific. The day belongs to all groups collectively everywhere. So together, let’s all be tenacious in accelerating gender parity. Collectively, let’s all Press for Progress.

Source: Text & Image: International Women’s Day

 

Feast of Christmas, Year B

24 décembre 2017
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: child born, friends, greatness, Jesus, man, marvel, Mary and Joseph, One Solitary Life, progress, property, visitors

When a baby is born, people look at the child and wonder…
They wonder at the marvel of a new life, yes.
But they also wonder about what this new-born will be… what he will become.

No doubt, the people who visited Mary and Joseph to see the new-born Child must have asked themselves such a question.
Centuries later, this is what has been written about this ordinary-looking baby and most extraordinary human being.

ONE SOLITARY LIFE
Here is a man who was born in an obscure village
the child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another obscure village.
He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty,
and then for three years he was an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never owned a home.
He never had a family.
He never went to college.
He never set foot inside a big city.
He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where he was born.
He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness.
He had no credentials but Himself.
While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him.
His friends ran away.
One of them denied him.
He was turned over to his enemies.
He went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.
His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth while He was dying –
and that was his coat.
When He was dead, He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone
and today He is the centerpiece of the human race
and the leader of the column of progress.

I am far within the mark when I say that
all the armies that ever marched,
and all the navies that ever were built,
and all the parliaments that ever sat,
and all the kings that ever reign,
put together have not affected the life of man upon this earth
as powerfully as has that ONE SOLITARY LIFE.                                   James A Francis, D.D.

Source: Images: chabad.org   Sharefaith  thegardian.com