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26th Sunday of Year B – 2021

24 septembre 2021
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: anger, blind, envy, Genesis 4:1-8, inventory, jealousy, Numbers 11:25-29

People sometimes talk about things ‘as old as the world’ – to them, it seems that some situations, or attitudes, have always been there with us, human beings.

One of them, I believe is… JEALOUSY.
This ‘demon’ which torments a person filling him/her with regrets, envy, desire to dispossess another of some perceived good. 

We see this present in the first chapters of the Bible (Genesis 4:1-8).
The scene described shows us Cain angry that: 

“The Lord looked with favour on Abel and his offering.
But he did not look with favour on Cain and his offering,
and Cain was very angry and downcast.”
 
The Lord addresses Cain and shows him how he is the prey of:
“a crouching beast hungering for him which he must master.”
This is jealousy – the evil overpowering someone and making that person forget all the good he/she has been blessed with. 

In the 1st reading of this Sunday (Numbers 11:25-29), we hear Moses telling Joshua:
“Are you jealous on my account?”
 
Joshua has been faithfully serving Moses for many years and cannot accept that other people may also be prophets as his master is.
Moses corrects Joshua in no uncertain terms:

“If only the whole people of the Lord were prophets
and the Lord gave his Spirit to them all!”
 
The sad thing is that jealousy makes us blind, blind to the ‘treasure’ that is ours –
the treasure of all our own gifts and talents.
It makes us compare ourselves with others and underestimate what we are and what we can do. 

Perhaps this reflection could lead us to make an inventory of precisely this treasure of ours:
the person that we are and what we can become…
If only we stop desiring to be like someone else… which is not what God has in mind for us!

 

Note: Another reflection is available on a different theme in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/26e-dimanche-de-lannee-b-2021/

 

Source: Images: ASHISH LACKSMAN GOVADCAR- WordPress.com    Free Bible Images   

 

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

23rd Sunday of Year A

7 septembre 2017
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: blessings, expérience, Father in heaven, gospel texts, inventory, Mt.18:15-20, needs, prayer, Prophets, Psalms, wishes

We know and we believe that the word of God in Scripture tells us about him and his will for our lives.
His message comes to us, ‘clothed’ if I may say, in all kinds of ways reaching us as light and guidance, strength and comfort.

The prophets and the Psalms, the gospels texts and the epistles – all of them are meant for our instruction, says Paul (Rom.15:4).
But, personally, I must confess that I am rather partial to texts which offer us promises, yes, promises from God himself.

The last verses of today’s gospel (23rd Sunday, Year A – Mt.18:15-20) give us exactly that: a two-fold promise from Jesus himself.
Words that are powerful and, yes, really promising!
This is what he says:

« I tell you solemnly once again, if two of you on earth agree to ask anything at all,
it will be granted to you by my Father in heaven.
For where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them.”

Some will say: “Wonderful!”
Others will think: “It did not work out for me!” meaning that they asked, and asked, with relatives and friends, and they simply did not get what they were asking for…
And many would endorse this statement and the experience it describes.

Perhaps most of us have made this experience – that of praying with our whole heart, convinced that God hears our prayers but, in the end, what we were hoping for did not materialize.
Did our praying bring about anything? We wonder.
We think to ourselves: If it did, it was surely not what we had asked for.

Perhaps this is because we have yet to identify our real needs… which can be quite different from our wishes and…yes, our whims…
God, who knows us better than we know ourselves, knows also what is best for us, even if we find it very difficult to admit to that.

Today may be a good occasion to make some kind of inventory – the inventory of all that we have received from God recently and see if some of those blessings were not – in disguise – what we were most in need of at the time…

Source: Image: justice-and-peace.org.uk