News
March 2022

From 2022-03-25 to 2022-04-10

Fourth Sunday

A tenderness without measure

For the elder son, the father renews the free and moving steps of a communicative tenderness: he goes out to meet him, he reminds him of his prerogatives as a son, he begs him to come in and invites him to share his joy and that of his brother.

God is this father of tenderness. We are loved, expected, welcomed and forgiven. This is the essential Good News for our faith.

To each his share of error

It is clear that the two sons, one who left but returned, the other who stayed at home but refused to enter, schematically represent the two faces of our sin, our double face. It would be futile to try to classify ourselves and others on one side or the other.

We are the younger son with our unfaithfulness, our disregard for the faith of our baptism. We are his twin brothers with our lustful instincts and our temporary or chronic follies. Our sin is always somewhere a kind of running away from the house of God.

If we want to take on the role of the elder son, let's not forget that he is the image of our proud self-importance of being better than others. He reminds us of our jealousies, our unquestioning judgments, our reflexes of owners and our grudges. There is in each of us a part of hidden misery, darkness, revolt and weakness. One cannot be a good son of God if one is not a good brother to others.

Joseph Proux

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

From 2022-03-19 to 2022-03-29

Third Sunday

A new chance

The gardener in the parable, who delays and works to save an unproductive fig tree, reveals to us the face of the living God for whom patience is the other name for his love:

He is never discouraged by our wanderings and our fruitless past. He does not abandon us to our mediocrity.

He sows discreet but insistent signs on our path; he gives us brothers and sisters to warn us and accompany us. He gives us nudges at the right moment.

Let us not abuse God's patience! This Lent is perhaps a last chance not to be missed.

But we must also show the same patience to others. To trust someone and to bet on his capacity to change and to surpass himself, is to allow him to grow.

This is called giving someone a chance.

From 2022-03-12 to 2022-03-20

Second Sunday of Lent

Where did this mysterious light come from that invaded the face and clothes of the transfigured Christ? Jesus was praying, Luke explains. This prayer was a luminous encounter.

- Joseph Proux,

Meeting with the Father

On Mount Tabor, the light of the resurrection shone on the face of the one who was already on his way to the disfigurement of the Passion. Peter, the patron fisherman of Galilee, who had a good head on his shoulders, was almost delirious when he asked for three tents to set up this vision and himself!

Luke specifies that Jesus was praying: he was meeting the Father whose presence was indicated by the cloud that enveloped them.

True prayer is a meeting with the living God, in a dialogue sometimes without words, in the simplicity where God reveals himself to the humble.

Prayer then becomes a source of strength, peace and love. It becomes a place of Covenant, as it was for Abraham, whose mysterious sleep was none other than the strange and overwhelming state where man finds himself in tune with God.

Meeting with brothers

The transfiguration of Jesus was also a conversation of prayerful people. "Two men were talking with him." Moses had received the revelation of God's Name in an extraordinary conversation with God at the burning bush. Elijah, the rugged prophet, had also met God when he stood on the mountain.

A true praying person is never alone. Prayer puts one in communication with others. It transfigures the gaze to come to love them beyond what disfigures them. It secretly carries those present or absent and joins them in the heart of God. The praying person is an advocate for his brothers.

Encounter with oneself

The one who prays enters into a test of truth where his life is laid bare, because it is no longer possible to keep his masks. Then, in the stripping away of his false pretences, he discovers the loving gaze that God has for him. He is welcomed like the publican in the parable.

Praying in truth transfigures the greyness of daily life and makes one look differently at one's worries, one's work, one's happiness, one's trials, one's greatness and weaknesses. He who prays sees his life differently...

What if we were lacking in prayer?

 

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)