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3rd Sunday of Advent, Year C – 2024-2025

13 décembre 2024
Nicole Gregoire
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Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: Advent, challenging question, generosity, honesty, John the Baptist, Luke 3:10-18, the way we treat people, truth, What God wants

The text of today’s gospel presents us with people who have come to John the Baptist with the desire to be baptized by him (Luke 3:10-18). 
We are told that they are asking themselves questions.

“The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts…”

What they were wondering about was something most important – they were asking themselves…
“if John might possibly be the Messiah”…

So, they wanted to prepare themselves, first by being purified through this rite of purification which was the baptism John administered.
But they realized that more was needed to make themselves acceptable to God when his messenger – “the Messiah”, God’s messenger – would come.

Each group of people asks a question which they know is essential.
Tax collectors, soldiers, the crowd as a whole, they are all questioning John.
They ask him: “What must we do?”

Is it not a question that remains with us, a question that even challenges us, in many situations?
How can we please God?
What should we do, how should we behave?
What does he expect from us in our daily life?

John replies to each of them precisely referring to their life-situation.
The answer he gives them is something practical, concrete, adapted to who they are.

His answers focus on generosity, honesty, truth.
Attitudes that are meant to acknowledge the needs of the people they are in contact with from day to day.
This is something interesting to realize: to please God we must treat his people – everyone we meet – with generosity, honesty, truth.

Rituals, bows and prostrations, repeated formulas of worship, are not what God himself asks for.
What he wants – what he demands, indeed – is that we treat people around us as we would… treat him!

This period of Advent gives us this timely reminder!

 

Note: Another reflection is available on a different theme in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/3e-dimanche-de-lavent-annee-c-2024-2025/

Source: Images: https://jesusfootprints.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/johns-baptism/
                               https://www.scripture-images.com/bible-verse/kjv/luke-3-10-kjv.php

22nd Sunday of Year B – 2024

30 août 2024
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: God's choice, honesty, Isaiah 29:13, love in action, lucidity, Mark 7:1-8.14-15.21-23, perspective, process, progress

In our moments of lucidity and honesty, we are usually ready to admit that…
there is often quite a gap between what we say and what we do!
Our way of acting does not always match our way of speaking…

This is true of many people and shows itself in all kinds of situations.
This thought came to me as I read the gospel text of this celebration (Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23).

We hear Jesus say clearly:
“These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me”.

His words are an echo of what, long before, the prophet Isaiah had proclaimed in the name of God (Isaiah 29:13).
God had already told the people of Israel that he was not satisfied with their repeating religious formulas and performing rituals.
He wanted them to behave as his people, a people faithful to his commands.
He expected them to follow his ways, treating their neighbors as he, God, treats each one of them.

Hundreds of years later, Jesus must repeat the same teaching to correct the attitude of the scribes and the Pharisees.
They are concerned with their own traditions, “human prescriptions’, focusing on small matters, while forgetting the great commandment of love for God and for other people.

It may be that… we also need to hear these words…
It may be necessary to listen to Jesus himself reminding us of… God’s priority!
This is where our ‘heart’ should be!

It is possible that we are more concerned with being attentive to small details and regulations that WE consider important, while leaving aside GOD’S obvious choice of genuine love in action.
We may need to be brought back from pious words to the faithful carrying out of what God asks of us…

Some will say: “It is a difference of perspective”.
It is indeed, but it is much more than that!
It is about the transformation of our thoughts and ways to take on God’s thoughts and God’s ways.

An on-going process… an ever-needed progress…

 

Note: Another reflection is available on a different theme in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/22e-dimanche-de-lannee-b-2024/

 

Source: Image: https://www.scripture-images.com/bible-verse/asv/mark-7-6-asv.php

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

33rd Sunday of Year C – 2022

11 novembre 2022
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: discouragement, efforts, endurance, honesty, injustices, Luke 21:5-19, persévérance, stand firm, struggle

Some people would say that the text of today’s gospel is quite shocking (Luke 21:5-19).
For them, two words may summarize the scenes we are given to witness: abomination and desolation.
It is a rather accurate perception of the ‘mood’ of this text.
The detailed description of events to take place – or taking place – in our world has something frightening about it.

Having read the text to the end, it may be good to remain there, at the end… the last verse giving us a message that is most important (verse 19).
Different versions of this verse give an interesting perspective, telling us:

“Stand firm, and you will win life”.  (New International Version
“Your endurance will win you your lives”. (Jerusalem Bible)
“By your perseverance you shall possess your souls”. (Aramaic Bible in Plain English)

In fact, what we are told is that:

  • We should not give up trying to overcome the problems and difficulties of life.
  • We should not give in to discouragement and despair.
  • We should not give way to the temptation of abandoning the struggle for good to win over evil.

Someone has coined a new expression to qualify this endurance and called it ‘stick-to-itness’!
 
Stick to the fight against injustice and pursue the path of honesty.
Stick to the resolution of siding with the poor and those deprived of their rights.
Stick to the struggle you started always to choose the way of peace and reconciliation.

Would this not be a way to avoid disputes and injustices, recrimination and discrimination, violence and wars?
I like to believe that it is worth trying… it has a gospel felling about it…

 

Note: Another reflection is available on a different theme in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/33e-dimanche-de-lannee-c-2022/

 

Source: Image: Scripture Images  

7th Sunday of Year C – 2022

18 février 2022
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: 1 Samuel 26:12-13, 1 Samuel 26:22-23, 1 Samuel 26:7-9, God sees, guilty, honesty, power, truth

Reading the texts of the Bible can stir up our imagination, or our memory… or both!
The 1st reading of this 7th Sunday brought to my mind, as an echo, a saying that people sometimes use.
People whose interpretation of truth and honesty is rather… stretching to the point of falsehood and dishonesty…

You can hear them say:
“Not seen,
Not caught,
Not guilty.”

What we see in the text of the 1st book of Samuel is exactly the opposite (1 Samuel 26:2,7-9,12-13,22-23).
Saul is searching for David because he has planned to kill him.
When, at nighttime, Saul is sleeping, David could easily take the life of his persecutor.

He has the occasion,
He has the power,
He has the means.

The text says:
“No one saw,
No one knew about it,
No one woke up.”

But David spares the life of the one he recognizes as “the Lord’s anointed.”
 
David was aware that, in fact, someone saw and someone knew: God himself!
David was living his life in faithfulness to this God.
A God whose gaze is perhaps demanding and challenging but also supportive and sustaining.

Would this be… YOUR God?
 

Note: Another reflection on a different theme is available in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/7e-dimanche-de-lannee-c-2022/

 

Source: Image: pinterest.com

1st Sunday of Advent, Year C – 2021

26 novembre 2021
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: adjust, Advent, future, God's ways, honesty, integrity, Jr.33:14-16, justice, promise

There is no doubt about it: this 1st Sunday of Advent invites us to look to the future.
A promise is essentially doing this and it is a promise that we are given in the 1st reading (Jr.33:14-16).
The text of the prophet Jeremiah gives us God’s words in a clear language:

“The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfil the gracious promise I made…
In those days, I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line;
he will do what is just and right in the land.”
 
We often speak of God’s grace, yes, our God is a gracious God.
He delights in showering on us his blessings of all kinds.
The promise he makes is that the Gracious One – the Righteous One – will do what is good for us.

Another translation of the text uses the words “honesty and integrity”
And the one who is coming to us in God’s name – God himself – is called:
“The Lord-our-integrity.”
 
We all want to receive good things from God, but how can we be sure that his blessings will be ours?
I would venture to say that the best way is to… ad-just ourselves to God’s ways –
that is to become just ourselves –

just in our ways of thinking
just in our ways of judging situations
just in our choices and decisions
just in the plans we make and the options we choose
just in our relations with people…

In other words: behaving with honesty and integrity.

This could be the first step in this Advent period as we set on the path to welcome anew God’s coming to us.

 

Note: Another text is available on a different theme, in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/1er-dimanche-de-lavent-annee-c-2021/

And in a short video, also in French, Ghislaine Deslières offers us another reflection on this 1st Sunday of Advent at: https://youtu.be/lpkMLsxne3s

 

Source: Image: slideplayer.com

25th Sunday of the Year, C

15 septembre 2016
Nicole Gregoire
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Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: cheating, free, honesty, liberty, Lk.16:1-13, money, possessions, riches, slave

None of us would like to be seen as … a slave – the only thought of it is shocking! We cherish and defend our liberty and we do not want it diminished in any way. And yet… in some rare moments of lucidity and honesty, perhaps… perhaps we would admit – only to ourselves, of course – that we may not be as free as we like to believe…

1080-plusToday may be such a moment. The gospel text of this Sunday (25th, Year C – Lk.16:1-13) gives us some food for thought when we hear Jesus say: “No servant can be the slave of two masters… you cannot be the slave both of God and of money.”

Here again, we may be tempted to protest and say: ‘A slave, me? Of course not!’ Yet… a small inner voice may rise gently and say something different.
MONEY, we need it, we save it, we spend it, we… give some of it, no? It is a ‘must’ of our daily life and activities. What can be done without money? What can be obtained without coins, and bills, and credit cards – all this ‘tainted’ currency? It is only ‘normal’ to acquire possessions, and riches of all kinds, if we can manage it!

We know well that the words of Jesus are the echo of the old saying: “Money is a good servant but a bad master.”
We strive to reach the proper balance between possessing and being possessed… no easy feat…

m-dailyhunt-in

 Some questions can help us look at our status of… slave or free person:
– Do I often complain that I do not have enough money?
– Do I use money properly or do I spend it on useless items?
– Do I sometimes cheat to be able to get things I would not otherwise be able to afford?
– Do I use most of the money I earn for my own purposes and little for my family?
– Do I give money to those in need, or… pretend that I need it myself?

Some are quick to defend themselves saying: ‘I am not rich, I really don’t have much!’ The danger lies not in how rich one is but how attached one is to the little he or she has.
So, perhaps today is THE day to start making friends with money – the kind of friends Jesus speaks about!…

Source: Images: 1080.plus    m.dailyhunt.in