Normandt' Catholic Meditations

[Normandt]

205. Life or death

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.

Book: Caring for our poverties
Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

[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.

Book: Caring for our poverties
Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

[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.

Book: Caring for our poverties
Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

[Normandt]

208. He moved away
“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.

Book: Caring for our poverties
Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

[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!

Book: Caring for our poverties
Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

[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.

Book: Caring for our poverties
Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

[Normandt]

211. Returning

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.”

Book: Caring for our poverties
Normand Thomas

[Normandt]

[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.

Book: Caring for our poverties
Normand Thomas