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God’s love

4th Sunday of Lent, Year B – 2021

12 mars 2021
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: 2 Ch.36:14-16, 2 Ch.36:19-23, caricature, Ephesians 2:4-10, Exodus 20:1-17, God's love, image, John 3:14-21

In the 1st reading of last Sunday (Exodus 20:1-17) God gave his people what is known as:
The ten commandments.
In that text, we can read:

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image –
any likeness of anything that is in heaven above,
or that is in the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth.”
 
I sometimes reflect that God did not want people to ‘create’ a representation of him
because he wanted them to see his true image.
He, himself, was to help us discover this image through the message he was to give us.
Something of this message is given to us in today’s readings.

The 1st reading of this Sunday (2 Ch.36:14-16,19-23) describes for us something of who God is:
“The Lord, the God of their ancestors, tirelessly sent them messenger after messenger
since he wishes to spare his people.”

The 2nd reading (Ephesians 2:4-10) tells us:
“God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy.

And in the gospel (John 3:14-21), we hear that:
“God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost,
but may have eternal life.

This is the image of God – the true image of who he is and what he wants to be for us.
We should be careful not to present any other image of God –
it would be a poor image,
truly a caricature of him…

 

Note: Another reflection on a similar theme is available in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/4e-dimanche-du-careme-annee-b-2021/

And a video (in English) presents Nicodemus meeting Jesus in today’s gospel: https://youtu.be/rfpNLx-uFMs

 

Source: Images: bibleisnpirations.org   flickr

Good Friday, Year B

30 mars 2018
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: believe, exaltation, faults, glorification, God's love, Good Friday, Hitler, Is.52:13 – 53:12, Islamic State, Jn.3:16-17, love, Mao Tsé-Tung, martyrs, Nicodemus, salvation, sins, Stalin, suffering, wounds

“The crowds were appalled on seeing him –
so disfigured did he look that he seemed no longer human –
… without beauty, without majesty,
No looks to attract our eyes…
A man to make people screen their faces. »

This is what Isaiah tells us in the 1st reading of today celebration
(Good Friday, Year B: Is.52:13 – 53:12).
This is the picture we are presented with today:
Someone who no longer appears to be a human being
and who certainly does not appear… to be God.
Someone people prefer not to see, someone they choose to ignore, to move away from.

What if, for the word ‘people’, we substitute the words ‘we’, ‘us’?…
Isaiah did and this is what we read:
“We took no account of him…
We thought of him as someone punished, struck by God…”

No striking feature, except that of suffering.
No attractive trait, except that of suffering.
No appealing expression except that of suffering.
A veil covering the recognition of what appears before the onlookers, confronting them.

Yet, it is a misconception to think that Good Friday is the glorification of suffering.
Some well-intentioned preachers may say that Jesus suffered more than anyone else.
We are not asked to believe this.

The martyrs of the early Christian era,
the victims of Stalin of Russia,
of Hitler of Germany,
of Mao Tsé-Tung of China,
of Pol Pot of Cambodia,
of Idi Amin in Uganda,
and closer to us, of the so-called Islamic State torturers, to name but a few –

all of them have undergone unimaginable suffering.

Good Friday is not the glorification of suffering, it is the exaltation of love –
the love of God made man,
though he no longer looked like either…
A love that made him to be “pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins.”
Indeed, “through his wounds we are healed.”
 
This Friday is indeed good if it enables us to understand what, some time before this day of ultimate suffering, Jesus has revealed to Nicodemus:

“Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost, but may have eternal life.
For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world,
But so that through him the world might be saved.”   (Jn.3:16-17)

Note: Another reflection is available in French on a different theme at: https://image-i-nations.com/vendredi-saint-annee-b/

Source: Image: comforftinthemidstofchaos.com

33rd Sunday of the Year, C

10 novembre 2016
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: "Sun of righteousness", God's compassion, God's forgiveness, God's love, God's mercy, healing, Malachi 3:19-20, November, reality

November is there – the days are shorter and the clouds are often masters of the sky. It seems that the days are dark, dull and dreary and… somehow dispiriting.

But let the sun suddenly shine through the clouds and everything is changed: the colours take on richer hues – the reds are blood patches, the yellows are golden touches, the browns are rich copper blotches.

All this because the rays of the sun have pierced through the darkness.

This is the reflection that came to me as I read the 1st reading of this 33rd Sunday (Year C: Malachi 3:19-20). The last words tell us: shutterstock“The sun of righteousness will shine with healing in its rays.”

A message of hope if ever there was one! And it is truly needed as we read the gospel text for this Sunday (Lk.21:5-19). The scenes described there resemble our November weather: dark and dreary and they evoke pictures of death. Troubles, terror, tragedy – yes , all these are part of life, the sad and painful part of it. But it is not the whole picture. It is not the full reality. Healing is possible, healing is available, there, so near, from the one who offers it to us by his very presence.

The “sun of righteousness” is God’s love and mercy, God’s compassion and forgiveness. It is offered to us to heal in us all that is weak and disable, all that lacks faithfulness, all that prevents us from being what God expects us to be and to become. All…  

Source: Image: Shutterstock  

Ordinary time?

11 janvier 2016
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: extraordinary, God's love, ordinary time, special, time

the-different-between-ordinary-and-extraordinary-is-that-little-extra, designcarrot.coChristmas has gone by, the New Year has been with us for 10 days now, and we have celebrated the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord – so we are back to ‘ordinary time’, or… are we?

« It might seem like a contradiction in terms but Ordinary time can be special. Most of our lives are ordinary. They are not spectacular, full of extraordinary experiences or achievements. We live in quite ordinary houses and do ordinary jobs and have ordinary friends. But that is where we meet God. In our day-to-day relationships, whether working or out of work with the children, in the parish, going shopping, planning our day or simply doing what we’re told, we are walking with the Lord.

Ordinary is described as ‘normal, customary, usual, commonplace,’ and that is where we are most of the time. And that is also where God loves us most of the time. He loves each one of us with a personal love. He makes the ordinary to be quite extraordinary and special.« 

Source: Ed. Hone, cssr., Sunday Bulletin, 2nd Sunday in ordinary time, 19th January 1992