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3rd Sunday of Easter, Year B – 2024

12 avril 2024
Nicole Gregoire
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Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: Christ's life, Christ's suffering and death, food, Luke 24:35-48, proofs, Risen Christ, understand

There are gospel texts which we find difficult to understand, others we see as very demanding.
But there are some which, somehow, are encouraging.
On many occasions, the attitude of the apostles can make us feel that we are not so far from them!

They had lived for some three years with Jesus.
They had heard him teach people about many things.
They had seen him perform miracles, even raising some dead people to life.
And yet, yet… so often they did not understand him, nor recognize what he was about.

In today’s gospel text, as Jesus appears to them, his disciples think they see… a ghost ! (Luke 24:35-48).
Of course, they knew he had been tortured and had died a cruel death on a cross.
They thought – rightly so – that he had really died.
How could he be there alive before them?

He has to repeat that he is truly their Master.
He has to give them some proofs – the kind of proofs that they will understand:
he shows them his hands and feet that have been pierced,
he asks them food to eat, and he eats in front of them.

But he has to do more.
The evangelist Luke tells us:

“He opened their minds so they could understand…” 

Understand what his whole life was about.
Understand what his suffering and death were for.
Understand how they had to share with others what they had seen as witnesses do.

Perhaps we need the same kind of understanding…
The Risen Christ can open our own minds… if we ask him to do so…

 

Note: Another text is available on a different theme, in French, at: https://image-i-nations.com/3e-dimanche-de-paques-annee-b-2024/

Source: Image: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Holy Thursday, The Last Supper, Year B – 2024

27 mars 2024
Nicole Gregoire
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Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: Apostle Peter, bewildered, faithful disciples, Jesus washing feet, Last Supper of Jesus, never - for ever, protestations, questions, understand

Human beings are complex beings, to say the least!
Somehow, we know this from experience.
The scene of the Last Supper of Jesus with his apostles gives us a vivid picture of it as well (Jean 13:1-15).
Especially the dialogue between Jesus and Peter.

It starts silently as Jesus comes near to Peter and kneels to wash his feet.
Bewildered – I think this is a fair description of him – Peter questions Jesus:

“Lord, do you wash my feet?”

This seems an impossible course of action – it is absolutely unworthy of Jesus, their Master!
Jesus explains that Peter cannot understand now, but he will understand later.
Peter remains adamant:

“You shall never wash my feet.”

He will finally accept when Jesus links this gesture to the relationship with him that Peter wants very much, of course.

The attitude of Peter is perhaps characteristic of our reaction in certain situations…
We present God with… questions and protestations!…
It is as if, somehow, we knew better than God!

God could give us the answer of Jesus to Peter:
“You cannot understand now…”

It is so very true: there are many situations that puzzle us.
Many events baffle us completely.
We are bewildered by what takes place before our eyes, or in our lives.

Perhaps we need to follow the example Peter’s yielding to Jesus’ request.
What brought the change in the apostle was his desire to remain for ever the friend of Jesus.
His strong affirmation: “You shall never wash my feet”,
was transformed by his eagerness to remain a faithful friend and disciple for ever…

Our repeated ‘never’ can also be transformed into ‘for ever’…
Thus becoming, in our turn, faithful friends and disciples of Christ.

 

Note: Another text is available on a different theme, in French, at: https://image-i-nations.com/jeudi-saint-la-cene-du-seigneur-annee-b-2024/

 

Source: Image: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

The Alphabet of Lent – Letter Q

8 mars 2024
Nicole Gregoire
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Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: become aware, challenge, Genesis 3:9, interrogation, know, learn, Luke 14:5-6, Mark 8:18, Mark 9:33-34, Matthew 16:15, questions, understand

Q for Questions

 Questions – they are part of our life in many forms.
From our childhood, we learn to use them in all kinds of situations:
Where? When? How? Who? What? Why?

We want to know, to learn, to understand.
We ask questions from people around us and they do the same themselves.

But have you ever thought of the questions that… God addresses us?…
The first chapters of the Bible present us man being asked questions by God:
“God called to the man: ‘Where are you’?” (Genesis 3:9) – an existential question if ever there was one…

In the gospel, we see Jesus using this form of communication to arise the attention and sometimes provoke people around him.

“Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit,
will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?”
And they could not answer Him regarding these things” (Luke 14:5-6)

 “When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?”
But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest” (Mark 9:33-34).

On an other occasion, Jesus challenges his apostles by asking them a question about himself:
“What about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:15).

These questions represent:
a challenge,
a call to become aware,
an interrogation inviting to a relation…

Then, one day, to those who shared life with him from day to day, Jesus asked a series of questions
that called them to see themselves as they were:

“Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?” (Mark 8:18).

You possibly see this as shock therapy!
Jesus probably saw that his apostles needed this…
Could it be that we, too, sometimes need this?…

And God’s method of searching with questions may bring us back to ourselves… and to him!

 

Source : Image: unsplash.com (Matt Walsh)

Feast of the Holy Trinity, Year C – 2022

10 juin 2022
Nicole Gregoire
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Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: faith, God Father-Son-Holy Spirit, Holy Trinity, imagine, perceive, Romans 5:1-5, understand

One day, I heard someone say with much conviction: “We must let God be God!”
Perhaps this is what today’s celebration is meant to remind us of: Let God be God…

Accept that God is…
so much greater than we can picture,
so much wiser than we can understand,
so much more powerful than we can realize,
so much more surprising, than we can imagine,
so much beyond all that our human mind can perceive…

Today’s feast of the Holy Trinity is the celebration that:

God is a Father relating in a unique way to his Son, a relationship lived within their common Spirit.
 
We cannot imagine, understand or realize this – no human being can.
But this statement must be corrected –
one human being has understood: Jesus, he who was truly one of us,
God-made-man, God-become-human.

While we do not understand God,
because of Jesus, through him, we share in God’s life.

As we are told in the 2nd reading, in the letter that Paul wrote to the Christians of Rome (Romans 5:1-5):

“God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, 
who has been given to us.”
 
This reveals the real meaning of what we believe,
of who God is,
and of what he has made us to be!

 

Note: Another reflection, on a different theme, is available in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/fete-de-la-sainte-trinite-annee-c-2022/

 

Source: Image: YouTube 

 

Holy Thursday, Year C – 2022

13 avril 2022
Nicole Gregoire
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Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: Holy Spirit, Jesus washing feet, John 13:1-15, question, understand

Parents sometimes ask their children: “Do you understand?”
A teacher will ask the same question to a class of students.
A contractor may use the same words addressing workers at a building site.

« Do you understand? »

When, at the  Last Supper, Jesus asked this question from his apostles (John 13:1-15),
his voice must have carried a special accent and intensity.
He had just been washing their feet – he, their Master.
In spite of Peter’s objection, he had done this work usually done by a servant.

“Do you understand what I have done to you?”

The apostles may have thought they did, yet soon after, it was obvious that they had understood very little.
They would need their whole life, they would need, in fact, the help of the Holy Spirit to understand –
understand what God had done to them… through Jesus.

What if the question were addressed to us?…
We are, indeed, confronted to the same questioning day after day:
Do we understand what God does to us… for us?…

Do we understand the kind of God he is?
Do we understand what he has made us to be… and what he wants us to become?

Perhaps we, too, need the help of the Holy Spirit and…
the understanding may come to us all through our life.
                                                             

Note: And another reflection, on a different theme, is available in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/jeudi-saint-annee-c-2022/

 

Source: Image: churchofjesuschrist.org   

 

 

 

Easter Sunday, Year C – 2019

20 avril 2019
Nicole Gregoire
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Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: believe, creed, dogma, Jn.20:1-9, Lk.24:11, Lk.24:25, psychology, science, understand

We have to admit it:
the world is full of things that puzzle us,
daily life is rife with events that baffle us,
situations abound when we cannot make sense of what is happening.
Science and psychology give some clues but they are unhelpful in so many cases…

We study, and we search, and we analyze, but…
our minds fail to understand many aspects of our human existence.
and our hearts remain dissatisfied, so very often…
 
And today, celebrating the Feast of the Resurrection of Christ, where are we at?…
The last verse of the gospel text (Jn.20:1-9) tells us:
 
« Till this moment, the disciples had failed to understand the teaching of scripture
that he must rise from the dead. »
 
Amazing, is it not?
They had been living with him for three years, or so.
They had walked with him from day to day.
They had listened to hours of his teaching.
They had witnessed countless ‘signs’ of who he was – God’s special messenger.
Yet, “they had failed to understand…”
 
As they run to what they have been told is an empty tomb, Peter and John do not understand.  
They are convinced the women have lost their minds as they think Jesus’ body has been removed. (Lk.24:11)
The disciples of Emmaus will be told they are “foolish men, slow to believe…” (Lk.24:25)
 
Believing – not seeing, not understanding, not being able to explain, or justify,
But BELIEVING, plainly and simply.

Not only admitting some articles of a creed that one recites with devotion…
Not solely repeating the explanations one has received long ago about ‘the truths of our religion’…
Not being satisfied with accepting the contents of dogmas passed on to us…

But BELIEVING in deed and in truth.
Trusting Someone to the utmost, unconditionally.
Relying on that Someone even in the midst of the most trying situations.
Surrendering to that Someone all that I am and hope to become…

Some may think: ‘It is stupid, absurd, it is pointless any way.
Only people who are naive and gullible can believe.’

Yet, all things considered, perhaps it is foolish… NOT to believe!…

Note: Another reflection is available on a different theme in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/dimanche-de-paques-annee-c-2019/

  

Source: Image: Wikipedia

Holy Thursday, Year C – 2019

18 avril 2019
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: Jn.13:12, Mark 7:17, meaning, Mk.4:10, Passover, perception, question, understand

So many ideas come to mind when we observe and reflect on what happened on the first Thursday
we now call Holy Thursday.
We need to see, yes, but we need also to… listen,
listen to what is said by this man who is aware that his life is soon coming to an end.

He has much to say to his apostles, the friends who have walked with him for the past 3 years.
But very early on during their celebration of the Passover meal, he asked them a question.
A very simple question, one that we ask one another very often.
But the answer to HIS question is very… demanding:

“Do you understand?…” (Jn.13:12)

During the years spent with him, many times his apostles had not understood what he was saying
or what he was doing.
They waited to question him at night time, away from the crowds. (Mk.4:10; 7:17)

One day, he had openly asked them:
“Do you not yet understand? Have you no perception? Are your minds closed?” (Mark 8:17)
 
That was some time ago, what about tonight?… 
He had just done something unusual for the ‘Teacher’ that he is: He had washed their feet –
the work of a servant.
No wonder, he needs to ask:

“Do you understand what I have done for you?”
 
He goes on to explain the meaning of his unusual gesture.
They are to learn from it – learn the hard lesson of service.

I ask myself: ‘What if Christ asked me today that very same question…’ 
What he has done for me… in my life… over the years…
Have I understood?
Somehow, I feel I need still to understand much of what he did… what he does for me every day…

Note: Another reflection is available on a different theme in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/jeudi-saint-annee-c-2019/
And a blog is also offered at: https://image-i-nations.com/noublie-pas-2/

 

Source: Images: Free Bible Images   Pinterest