Normandt' meditations

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

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

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

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

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