Normandt' Catholic Meditations

[Normandt]

199. Let's unite


The Lord our God is rallying. During the Old Testament period, God never stopped wanting to bring the people back into his covenant. He still has the same desire.

Even when we suffer and we live difficult passages of life, God is present with us and he supports us with Love. When we receive it daily in our lives, the much needed faith increases and helps us in the midst of the trials we experience.

Then there's the community. God keeps inviting the living communities of faith to enter into his Intelligence and Wisdom, so that we may also feed people outside the Church. The common good is that all people have the chance to walk toward their salvation in God. All people, without exception, must know that God Loves them.

Jesus needed to surround himself with people like the Apostles. It's necessary to surround ourselves with people who have faith. We read that crowds follow Jesus, want to hear him and receive his teaching. Jesus also taught Joseph and Mary how to become a holy family. The family is the basic cell for the community.

Let's meditate in our hearts on the delicacy and wisdom of God to each person.

The new American Bible, 2011-2014
Book: Here, where we are, Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

200. God needs evangelizers


Jesus is the Good Shepherd who gathers the sheep of Israel and the whole world. Every lost sheep, he wants to bring back to the Father. He doesn't want any of them to be lost. He continues to send prophets today. He wants to get his message of freedom and salvation to us.

Today, where we are, we're called to share the Good News of our salvation in Jesus Christ. We are the people Jesus needs for our time. His Spirit will guide us to share his message so that the world hears it.

Jesus is there for everyone, but not everyone gives himself the means to meet with Jesus. When we cannot evangelize people near us, let's look elsewhere for other sheep. May we work full time, continuously.

We often hear that in families and with their own children that it's not always easy to keep up with faith. This isn't the time to become stationary and discouraged. It opens the door for other people. If we join other people, they may join the children of the families someday. Meanwhile, our faith supports our children. Let's keep going. In any case, we know that Jesus is in their heart.

Let's not lose hope. Let's place our trust in Jesus. In this way we will have vocations everywhere, committed people who will announce the good news. Paul does not force anyone, he leaves elsewhere:
'From now on I will go to the Gentiles.' So he left there and went to a house belonging to a man named Titus Justus, a worshiper of God; his house was next to a synagogue. Crispus, the synagogue official, came to believe in the Lord along with his entire household, and many of the Corinthians who heard believed and were baptized. Acts, chapter 18, verses 6 to 8

Jesus is with us. We want to keep his Love with us forever. May our sorrow of seeing a world seek and not find a shepherd turn into joy of being able to join them, personally, and to evangelize them.

May the world know that God is alive and that salvation has passed for every person of every generation. It's this joy that we are called to transmit to others.

The new American Bible, 2011-2014
Book: Here, where we are, Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

201. Help humanity


Since the beginning of humanity, the rich want not to be poor and the poor would like to be rich or at least have what's necessary to survive. Still, investing a little in the poorest and they would be active in society.

How many poor neighborhoods around big cities, with few resources and efforts, could be helped and recover? It's a strange mystery that of the human being in front of poverty.

We still notice them today. They are begging on the street. Their budget is tight. They are easy to recognize and yet how many people are passing by them. The rulers don't seem to be able to find answers to help out. Television shows are devoted to people from the most disadvantaged countries.

But it doesn't stop there. Although it's important and disappointing, there are other kinds of poverty. There are people who cannot go into a group or in a small place. There are those who cannot write, those who are intimidated,
those who are marginalized, those who don't eat (anorexic), those who cannot stop eating, sickness, sadness.

There are the disappointments of life, the bad weather, the horrors of war, and so on. Poverty then follows several slippery and often steep slopes.

There's a multitude of people who help in all dimensions of poverty. Let's encourage these people and help them to continue to invest time and resources in this mission of humanity.

Brother Andre of Mont-Royal knew how to find, by God's grace, the wound of a person and ask Saint Joseph to intercede to Jesus for healing. Saint Bernadette Soubirous, by the faith of God in her, has made Lourdes a stronghold to many cures from which bodies and hearts can be healed. And in Medjugorje, people can find peace through Mary's intercession.

Let's observe and seek in our heart the precise point that is wrong with a person and offer it to Jesus. Sometimes that's what bothers us most about this person. We may have similar poverties.

The new American Bible, 2011-2014
Book: Caring for our poverties, Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

202. Poor of bad habits


As soon as we feel angry with a person's gesture or word, it's the signal that informs us to offer it and him to Jesus. Something hurts us in what he says or does? it's also a signal to pray for him and to put his difficulty back to Jesus.
It's a mission to simply find faults and sins in others, without becoming instigators and without hurting them further.

It's a mission to detect what is wrong with others and it is evangelization to hand it over to Jesus, so that he cleanses the wound and transforms their lives.

We are invited to observe what the poverty of the person is. What's stopping him from moving forward? What prevents him from being free and confident? Where is his difficulty?

How many people close to us could we help? We are on a mission where we are, with Jesus and above all with his Spirit. Let's also offer what is wrong with us to Jesus.

Caring for our poverty takes on a double meaning.
The first sense is that there is poverty among people who need help. We must help the poor recover from everything they lack of, mostly from a lack of relationship with Jesus and be aware of what's essential to their survival.

The second meaning to give to poverty is that it's practical and necessary if it leads us to be free from the bonds of this world and leads us to Jesus. Being poor, for example, or free of drugs, is poverty that leads us to freedom.
Fasting teaches us to become poor of superfluous or bad habits.

The new American Bible, 2011-2014
Book: Caring for our poverties, Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

203. Quality of people's lives


Let's meditate Paul's reflection:
"Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God.
It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that, as it is written, 'Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.'" 1 Corinthians, Chapter 1, verses 26 to 31

Paul seems to have understood how a person on a mission is. He doesn't elaborate much and defines it in a few words: "foolish, weak, lowly, despised". That's what Paul thinks of us. It's not very flattering. But it depends on the point of view of the person who receives it.

For the world, being foolish, weak, despised, it's the equivalent of nailing us onto a cross. In their eyes, we're poor.

But when we place our weaknesses in God, in what Paul says about us, becomes strength. For the strength doesn't come from our pride, our know-how, our wisdom, but from God. We place our pride in God.

We are foolish to believe in a Crucified Messiah. We are despised to follow Jesus, we are weak to trust only in Jesus. We mention this from the beginning to give us an idea of the different types of poverty. For some people, poverty is wealth, for others wealth is poverty. But, in reality, there is real wealth and real poverty, and all humans stand between these two realities.

As we read this book, we're invited to reflect on our different personal experiences of poverty and the different kinds of poverty we see around us. These discovered poverties we can give them to Jesus. We will be on a mission to help improve the quality of people's lives.

The new American Bible, 2011-2014
Book: Caring for our poverties, Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

204. Life and happiness


We could still hear today the message Moses receives from the Lord:
"I have today set before you life and prosperity, death and doom." Deuteronomy, chapter 30, verse 15

God proposes to all: "life and prosperity". What comes at the beginning is life. Life is a gift of God's Love and what's complementary is happiness. Happiness is lived in the present. Happiness is to know we're Loved. But above all, happiness comes from its source, which is God.

Happiness comes from the Lord. Nobody else has given it. Happiness is the fruit of God's Love. It is to be shared and received between people.

It's the ultimate choice of our faith. We have the choice between "life and prosperity, or death and doom". Happiness is in God. God has nothing to do with evil, death and doom. He offers us Love. It is we who can either follow the road to happiness or descend the slope into evil.

Unlike welcoming God's Love, the result is the misfortune that leads to death. Death is the gradual response that leads to refusing God. It's our responsibility to choose one or the other, life or death, good or evil, truth or lies, forgiveness or hatred, joy or despair, etc.

The choice seems easy, but according to our experience, we know that sometimes we have wandered in the wrong at the expense of good.

Under the ashes of misery we see, there is often the embers of Love that we no longer see. In this world that too often proposes a culture of death in all its forms, we struggle to find embers under the ashes.

We are created to be the bearers of embers, to ignite the world of God's Love. This ember, we carry in our heart, so that others discover "life and prosperity" which is suggested to us.

Jesus also speaks in the same sense:
"If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." Luke, chapter 9, verse 23

This cross is very light when we know about the Love we bring to humanity. For people who do not know that the cross is Love, it can seem heavy. Heaviness comes with lack of love, either from others or from us.

The cross of Love that Jesus offers us is much easier to bear than misfortune. And the more we share God's Love, the more our existence becomes meaningful. Let's give misfortune, evil, poverty to Jesus and live fully with the embers of the Love of God.

The new American Bible, 2011-2014
Book: Caring for our poverties, Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

205. God's Love in us


Jesus doesn't cut anyone from his presence. But there's nothing simpler than cutting us off from Jesus. To which source do we sink our roots? Which sun do we stay close to, during our life? The sun that gives cancer when we are too exposed to it or the Sun (Son) of God of which there's no limit of exposure, since he increases Love in us?

God is the patient master who always gives new chances. He wants us to take advantage of his Presence and to root ourselves so that we may sink deeper and deeper into his Heart.

Moses speaks to the people of Israel and offers decrees to observe in the name of the Lord. Here is a solid foundation:
"I have today set before you life and prosperity, death and doom, if you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees." Deuteronomy, chapter 30, verses 15 to 16

Let's keep God's Love in us.

The new American Bible, 2011-2014
Book: Caring for our poverties, Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

206. Let's be vigilant


Paul gives this recommendation:
"See to it that no one be deprived of the grace of God." Hebrews, chapter 12, verse 15

Of all the insurances that we can buy to give us a sense of security, the assurance of God's grace is the one that exceeds all others. Let's ask God for our assurance to stay with Jesus.

The assurance of God's grace costs nothing. It's true that today, we often think that what costs more is better, but it's almost never true. With God, what's necessary for life and for the road is free.

God offers his endless grace, but we can neglect it. How easy it is to get away from the exercise regime that we gave ourselves at the beginning of the year. It's even easier to get away from the grace of God and lose sense of reality. Let's be sure to be constantly under the coverage of God's grace.

Let's check if our "coverage" of the "grace of God" is still valid. God's service is always open, but are we updating it in our lives? Otherwise, let's regain confidence. Let's take time for an appointment with Jesus and take up the coverage of the Holy Spirit on us. May his assurance be renewed every day.
Let's walk in faith with the complete and free coverage of God.

The new American Bible, 2011-2014
Book: Caring for our poverties, Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

207. Follow the call


Paul, from his prison cell, evangelizes his friends:
"I urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace." Ephesians, chapter 4, verses 1 to 3

The call we've received from the Lord is to love him and to love one another. Paul invites us to be humble because we have received a lot, we have received everything from God and we could believe that what we have, especially when the habit settles in, is our possession.

Stopping to walk is like stopping eating and drinking. It's even worse. It is necessary to renew the water and food in our body to continue living. We receive them from nature. We especially have to renew the Love we receive from God by standing near him.

Sometimes we lose a lot of spiritual vitality when we move away from the Love of God and we can't find a way to replace ourselves in the right way.
So, to help others, it is necessary to find ways to keep ourselves in the path of joy, serenity and holiness, on the road with Jesus.

The new American Bible, 2011-2014
Book: Caring for our poverties, Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

208. Welcoming Jesus


"Quiet! Be still!" Mark, chapter 4, verse 39

We wouldn't like it that much if someone said, "Quiet! Be still!" But this person would possibly serve us well. This is what we need to recognize the presence of the Trinity in our heart.

Only silence can help us hear what Jesus tells us. Only silence allows us to return to Jesus and be free. Silence also allows us to find ourselves and clean out our lives.

Let's welcome silence as a gift of the Holy Spirit. Some people have the gift of talking, why not ask for the gift of being silent? We may be experiencing the poverty of lack of silence and to speak at the right time.

Silence is not necessarily lack of noise. Silence is a state where we are well, where we develop a sense of serenity and listen to the Lord, to ourselves and others.

We can write, sitting in a restaurant, with some pretty loud music and still be in silence, internally. We can write in a library and silence could bother us. The external noise isn't the first cause of the lack of silence, but the inner noise, the noise in us. Let's give the many sounds in us to Jesus.

We would be surprised at the number of people working in the noise, and yet this doesn't stop them from praying while going along. We can be in silence and be with Jesus, even if our work is noisy.

As soon as we approach Jesus in silence, even if it's a timid approach, immediately Jesus will be able to obtain us peace. The more we are silent, the more Jesus will touch us subtly and the more we'll feel his presence.

Is Jesus really present? The question gives out the answer. Yes, he is present. When we say Jesus's name he is immediately present. We cannot live, love, breathe, sleep, hope, laugh, and so on, without Jesus in us. May we welcome him.

The Holy Spirit is the very sweetness and he displays his strength in the silence of the soul. Now, the Spirit of Jesus will fill us as a breeze in our soul.

The new American Bible, 2011-2014
Book: Caring for our poverties, Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

209. Jesus keeps evil away


Jesus sees a man come out of the tombs. It is someone who consciously or unconsciously allowed himself to be influenced and trapped in evil:
"Catching sight of Jesus from a distance, he ran up and prostrated himself before him, crying out in a loud voice, 'What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me!' (He had been saying to him, 'Unclean spirit, come out of the man!')" Mark, chapter 5, verses 6 to 8

With Jesus, the evil in this man doesn't resist, doesn't hide. Jesus recognizes that there's an evil spirit in this man. Even the evil spirit obeys him, it leaves and abandons the man who is now set free. We could also say that humanity is free, like this man, if we decide to let Jesus free us.

Notice when the conversion begins for this man. In spite of the evil that annihilates him, it's when he advances to join Jesus, that he's being released. Jesus is the key, the answer. Always moving forward to reach Jesus, always adjusting our lives to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, always placing ourselves under the Light of God and letting him act in our existence, saves us.

Jesus wants us to tell him now that we want to follow him and be transformed by his graces. Ready? Let's run to him!

The new American Bible, 2011-2014
Book: Caring for our poverties, Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

210. Outing evil must hurt


Often, we encounter situations, more or less painful, that we live or that people live. And sometimes, when a person gives us an easy way out, we don't think it will work or fear makes us think that we'll have more pain.
We think that to solve a problem, there must be pain. And very often, actually, it will hurt. But, getting out of harm's way is more of a healing. And it doesn't hurt in the same way.

How often, when we discover the truth of a painful situation, we say that it hurts: "You cannot imagine how it hurt when I knew the truth!" What a falser expression than this one! The truth has never hurt anyone. It's not the truth that hurts, but the discovery of the lie, of a painful situation. It's the lie that contains evil. The discovery of truth leads to freedom.

One of our greatest poverties is not knowing how to differentiate between good and bad. The line is thin when we don't understand, at the time of discovery, whether it's good or bad that hurts. Let's be certain, it's always evil that causes evil, hurt, sorrow.

Let's take the example of a person who is bitten in the leg by a venomous snake. The bite and the venom are the cause of evil. And to pluck the venom in the leg hurts even more. If the doctor has to cut the flesh around the bite of the snake, the person will certainly cringe. Ouch!

What's good? It's the person who helps extract the venom. The hurt wasn't caused by the person helping, but by the bite and the venom. Once the venom is gone, the life of the person is saved. He will have avoided death and he will continue to live.

The "evil hurt" he felt by curing from the venom is related to the bite and venom. The good that spared him from death, even though he felt the pain, is the good intention of the person who has helped heal the dying man. Let's be sure to distinguish between what's really good or bad.

The new American Bible, 2011-2014
Book: Caring for our poverties, Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

211. The good news


Let's return to Love, let's get away from what isn't good:
"You shall love your neighbour as yourself." Matthew, chapter 22, verse 39

To love oneself with the Love of God is to avoid violence and evil to stick to our life. When we listen to people talking to us, we don't accept that they yell at us. Why do we accept it in certain programs and music, for example?

Suffering is already in the world because of evil. But we are invited to become saints by being ourselves and spread peace, joy and hope of life in Jesus Christ for the glory of God and the salvation of the world.

We are continually doing our best not to enter into a plan of misfortune. We must also help the world around us not to embark on ideas that will cause misfortune.

Quite simply, we are responsible for bringing the good news that Jesus is to the world and for keeping us, as we can, away from evil. It's a decision: "You shall love your neighbour as yourself."

The new American Bible, 2011-2014
Book: Caring for our poverties, Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

212. God is patient


God has all eternity. We only have a few years. He's totally patient with us. He is mercy. He continues to want the fig tree to produce fruit and is ready to weed it and put new soil around it. God takes care of it.

Let's imagine that this next story is forever repeated. We understand that God constantly wants to give us opportunities to come back to him. Jesus tells this parable:
"There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, he said to the gardener, 'For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. (So) cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?' He said to him in reply, 'Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.'" Luke, chapter 13, verses 6 to 9

God, the gardener, by his great mercy, doesn't stop wanting to help us to develop roots into his Love. The tree of our existence cannot flourish and bear fruit unless it is rooted in God. He wants the tree to take root in him. It would be easy to tell ourselves that this is false, since we seem to have everything to stay alive.

We live? Indeed, we live. But we can close our lives in a well-insulated cave without the constant and beneficent source of God. The cave is all that attracts us and keeps us in front of a treasure that sparkles, unattainable, illusory, instead of rooting us in the ground that is ours, in our own heart in the centre of God's garden.

We are invited to convert every day. Every moment when we take the advantage to place ourselves in the Heart of Jesus it's always a precious moment. This moment is worth an infinite quantity of treasures.

The Trinity is always there for us, but from time to time we are in our shelter, focused on something else and not watchful to receive God in our life.

The new American Bible, 2011-2014
Book: Caring for our poverties, Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

213. The thorn, the grace


There may be something left in us that still need transformation. We'll always be able to move forward, even if sometimes we feel tried or we seem stationary.

In spite of the journey that Paul has gone through, remains the test that will increase his faith and lead him to the best of himself. Since he has not finished living the purification of his being to lead him in the Love of God,
Paul describes to us the ordeal he bears:
A thorn in the flesh (...) Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.' I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me. 2 Corinthians, chapter 12, verses 7 to 9

To put one's pride in one's weaknesses is not so pleasing, to let ourselves be drawn into our weaknesses, but to remind us that God Loves us no matter what our difficulties are is a blessing.

To acknowledge that we have weaknesses allows us not to pride ourselves on the strengths, qualities that God offers us, and to create false ideas about ourselves. We have received everything from the Trinity, so we must place our pride in God.

The closer we come and discover God, the more our being leaves what makes it proud, and the more we become like God by recognizing him as the "everything" of our life. Let's seek the Love of the Trinity in everything we have.

The new American Bible, 2011-2014
Book: Caring for our poverties, Normand Thomas