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Good Friday, Year A – 2023

7 avril 2023
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: abandon, betrayals, condemnation, denials, human beings, John 18:1-19, new beginning, not giving up, not taking NO as an answer, rejection

Some people are known as not taking ‘NO’ as an answer!
By definition, they keep on trying, trying to make you agree to something even if you have refused.

This could be said of… God!
Our betrayals, our denials, our refusals to trust him – all these will never make him give up on us!
This is, somehow, a summary of what the celebration of Good Friday is about (John 18:1 – 19:42).

We see Jesus – God among us – betrayed by one of his apostles.
He is denied three times by another of them.
Apart from one, the others keep prudently away while he is being tortured.
The religious leaders of his people are his accusers and will not rest till he hangs on the cross.
The Roman governor responsible for rendering justice simply washes his hands.
A fellow convict sneers at him.
Some bystanders mock him and challenge him to free himself.

Rejection, abandon, condemnation – God has known it all… from us, human beings.
Yet… yet, he remains present when we experience all these –
present to sustain us, comfort us, assure us that…

That after what seems to be the end, there is a new beginning.
He knows it from experience!
And he offers to us this new beginning!…
 

Note: Another text is available on a different theme, in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/vencredi-saint-annee-a-2023/

 

Source: Image: piercedhearts.org

 

30th Sunday of Year A

26 octobre 2017
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: compassion, cry, downcast, Ex.22:20-26, favourites, justice, needy, orphans, Psalm 82:2-4, rejection, Rom.2:11, stranger, widows

 

 

 

 

 

If I were to say : ”Here are the people God prefers”, some may be quick to reply :
“God has no favourites”, saint Paul says it clearly when writing to the Romans (Rom.2:11).

And yet… I believe that God is… partial to some people among all his children.
They are mentioned many times throughout the Bible:
the widows, the orphans, the strangers, the weak, the needy, the downcast, those whose rights are ignored.
Amazingly, God affirms that he, himself, will defend them.

It is the message of this Sunday’s 1st reading: (30th Sunday Year A – Ex.22:20-26).
The text is forceful and the words challenging, to say the least:

“You must not molest the stranger or oppress him…
You must not be harsh with the widow, or with the orphan;
if you are harsh with them, they will surely cry out to me,
and be sure I shall hear their cry.”
 
Many texts of Scripture repeat this message clearly given also in Psalm 82:2-4:
“Let the weak and the orphan have justice,
be fair to the wretched and destitute;
rescue the weak and needy.”

The lowly and the needy, those despised and rejected, the victims of exploitation and repression, the ones who experience dejection and rejection – all of them have a special… power, it seems – the power to touch God’s heart and be favoured with his compassion.

If God hears their cry, we, who should reflect God’s image, should we not do as much?…

Source: Images: blogs.tribune.com.pk        Youtube    Soul Sheperding

 

 

27th Sunday of Year A

5 octobre 2017
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: bad faith, behaviour, compassion, exclusion, Jesus, Mt.21:33-46, obstinacy, parable, Pharisees, pride, rejection, scorn, scribes, truth

The gospel narratives give us many parables of Jesus.
All of them are inspiring, some are challenging, others rather disturbing.
I think that the one in this Sunday’s gospel (27th Sunday, Year A – Mt.21:33-43) must have appeared very shocking to Jesus’ listeners.
And it was!

For us, 21 centuries later, the meaning is obvious and the words leave no doubt as to what Jesus wanted to say.
But I believe that the scribes, the Pharisees and the leaders of the people who heard the words of Jesus also had a rather clear picture of what he meant.
It was aimed at them – at their obstinacy in refusing to recognize him as God’s messenger.
In the verse following the parable we are told: “The chief priests and the scribes realised he was speaking about them” (v.45).

From the start they had challenged him, they opposed him, and they tried to trap him in all kinds of ways.
They saw all too clearly how his miraculous powers had a great influence on the crowds of people coming to hear him from all over the country.
They noted how his compassion for those whom they themselves despised was bringing more and more people to him.
“The crowd looked on him as a prophet but they would have liked to arrest him” (v.46).
A hard text, directed at people precisely hardened in their thoughts and settled in their ways – thoughts of pride and arrogance and ways of contempt and rejection.

Has the story, well-known as it is, anything to tell us in this day and age?
We like to believe that we would never have followed the ways of the Pharisees.
We would never have adopted such a behaviour as theirs.

Yet, one can wonder: are self-conceit, obstinacy, scorn, disdain, bad faith, exclusion, rejection,
are all these absent from our own attitudes in this or that situation?…
One can only wonder . . . and . . . possibly face an unpleasant truth never acknowledged until now.

Source: Image: LDS