1 November 2005
Bible Meditations & Prayers (by language)Monthly Bible Meditation (en)Acts 10:1-48The importance of this long chapter cannot be overestimated. Peter visits the home of a pagan and even shares a meal with him, at the risk of being excluded as unclean by contagion!
In order to allow the Good News to reach the ends of the earth, the first Christians did not invent a strategy. Rather, they let themselves be led by events, convinced that God is at work in history. Persecution scattered them into Samaria, and that led them already to proclaim the Gospel in a foreign land.
But how could the centuries-old barrier (...)
1 October 2005
Bible Meditations & Prayers (by language)Monthly Bible Meditation (en)Mark 3:31-35In this passage, Christ uses a small incident as a starting-point to express something important about what it means to be close to him. His family, worried by the unexpected course his life is taking, come looking for him. When their arrival is announced, he responds with a startling question: Who are my mother and my brothers?
In the silence that follows, he looks around at the crowd about him, letting his words sink in.
Our family, our near relatives. What does this really mean? It suggests those who are close to us, and (...)
1 September 2005
Bible Meditations & Prayers (by language)Monthly Bible Meditation (en)Psalm 16Someone who possesses nothing discovers he has everything because he has God. Psalm 16 could be summed up quite well in those words. The believer who expresses himself here undoubtedly possesses nothing because he belongs to the tribe of Levi, which did not receive its portion of the Promised Land, because that tribe was devoted to the service of God.
The fact of possessing nothing could have led to bitterness or to extreme insecurity. The author of the psalm discovers just the opposite. But when he says: “I bless the Lord who (...)
1 August 2005
Bible Meditations & Prayers (by language)Monthly Bible Meditation (en)John 21:15-17Peter was depressed after he disowned Jesus three times on the eve of the Passion. When the risen Jesus meets Peter again, however, he questions him not about what he has done but about what is deepest and truest in him, about his love. He knows that this has not disappeared in Peter, in spite of everything.
After each question, Jesus entrusts Peter with a responsibility. Precisely this weak and sinful person is loved and is called to respond. Anyone who takes on responsibilities in the communion of the Church has to discover (...)
1 July 2005
Bible Meditations & Prayers (by language)Monthly Bible Meditation (en)1 Corinthians 1:18-25This passage is surprising, paradoxical, difficult. We can allow it to explain itself through some questions it asks us.
1. What is human wisdom? Could it perhaps be defined as the art of living well in order to be happy? Then folly would mean heading towards failure and unhappiness. Still, we need to know where happiness is found, and discover that realistically speaking it is not possible to be happy all alone, without others.
2. Why does Saint Paul speak so negatively about this wisdom? Because it was in the name (...)
1 June 2005
Bible Meditations & Prayers (by language)Monthly Bible Meditation (en)Luke 14:12-14Using the example of the people we invite to the parties we organize, Jesus reminds us that the overflowing life of God’s Kingdom goes far beyond anything we can imagine and accomplish, even were we to manage our life, our resources and our relationships in the most prudent and judicious way possible.
God gives, with no strategy or keeping of accounts. He aspires to awaken in human beings someone like himself who enters into fellowship with him. The primary motivation in God’s Kingdom is the joy of unconditional giving. We are (...)
1 May 2005
Bible Meditations & Prayers (by language)Monthly Bible Meditation (en)Nehemiah 9:16-19These few lines from the Book of Nehemiah sum up Bible history in a striking fashion, with an astounding revelation as the key: even when misunderstood, unloved and rejected, the God of the Bible continues to love each person to the very end; God never abandons anyone, no matter what happens. This revelation is all the harder for human beings to accept since, when they are unable to reconcile themselves to certain facets of their personality and their past, they often find it hard to feel that they are worthy of being (...)
1 April 2005
Bible Meditations & Prayers (by language)Monthly Bible Meditation (en)Luke 7:1-10Exterior circumstances would normally lead the relationships in this story to be very different. The centurion is an officer in a military force of occupation, but astonishingly he has won the friendship of the local people. Whereas masters are not usually very interested in the welfare of their employees, he is deeply concerned about his sick servant – as if he were his own child. He is also full of respect for the people where he has been sent: he has built them a Sabbath meeting place (possibly the same synagogue mentioned in (...)
1 March 2005
Bible Meditations & Prayers (by language)Monthly Bible Meditation (en)Isaiah 40:25-31The anonymous prophet who spoke during Israel’s exile in Babylon announced to his compatriots that they would return to their homeland, but his hearers no longer had the courage to believe him. Their morale was broken. A nation in exile was considered doomed to disappear. Did not this situation mean that God no longer had compassion on his faithful or, worse still, that he showed himself to be powerless in the face of events?
To the physical exhaustion was thus added a profound weariness of faith. And it was up to the prophet (...)
1 February 2005
Bible Meditations & Prayers (by language)Monthly Bible Meditation (en)John 6:22-34“The work of God is to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:29). For John, faith is the heart of Christian life. Believing means trusting in Jesus, welcoming the mystery of his being. That explains why, in John’s Gospel, expressions like “recognize,” “welcome,” “see” and “come to” are synonyms for believing. “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry; whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). The object of faith is the person Jesus, who comes to satisfy the deepest longings of human beings.
To believe, according to John, (...)