February 2021

Are you happy or unhappy? Or rather:

Do you have positive or negative attitudes towards yourself, others and events?

- I will leave you alone.

  I give you my peace, says Jesus.

  I do not give it like the world gives it.

  May your heart stop being troubled and afraid (John 16:27).

- I tell you this so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy be perfect (Jn 15:11).

- I am overflowing with joy in all our tribulations (2 Cor. 7, 4).

We often hear nowadays that you have to be positive to get better results; being positive in all circumstances is not always easy, but for many people it is a real desire to become so.

The human being is no longer able to find around him his vital need to love and be loved. The true human presence is becoming quite rare in a society as structured as ours: the individual is just one number among many. On the one hand we see the exploited people and on the other hand, the people who exploit.

When we do not find inner peace, insecurity invades us and we flee from reality by seeking to make ourselves dizzy. It is an unconscious reflex that helps us to forget our worries; it is this fear of reality that leads us towards artificial and easier solutions.

The world needs truth and no longer knows where to find it; its aggressive and self-destructive reactions are proof of this. Ignoring the inexhaustible resources within him, the being is reduced to the use of alcohol, drugs, pills, distractions of all kinds, to maintain a precarious balance.

If the being does not wake up, his ignorance of realities and values will engulf him in decadence: ignorance of human and divine realities and values. I also mean "divine", that is:

- To see with the eyes of God: it is faith,

- To move forward with the power of God: this is hope,

- To love with the heart of God: this is charity.

 

These divine realities and energies, we all possess them, but alas, we do not use them or use them very little.

Perhaps the reflections can shed light on our own attitudes and lead us to correct them if necessary.

A word of advice first:

Do not look only at the right side of an embroidery, admire the other side too. Just looking at these little pink, green or yellow threads, which cross and cross each other again in a kind of mess, I find it extraordinary because I know that, on the other side, it gives beautiful, finely drawn flowers. Moreover, the one who has faith accepts to be shaped by people, life events, successes and setbacks, because he knows that the divine artist, the Holy Spirit, wants to make each of us different masterpieces among them, but all wonderful as Jesus and his mother Mary were.

 

Father Eusebio Ménard

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