Glad to join you on the road to summer. On the road to vacation for some. It’s a time to ride differently. Other. A time to renew our perspective on the realities that surround us. This privilege is mine every week with this column of spirituality.
Summer is an invitation to get going. Slowly and silently. It is possible to do this even with a shaky and fragile body. Because first and foremost, it is our mind that is called upon to evolve: to free it from sterile dogmatisms to go elsewhere than into erroneous perceptions, hasty judgments, received and ready-made ideas.
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It is interesting that to evoke the spiritual evolution of a person, we speak of progress. The analogy of the road ahead is apt. When we walk, we have new perspectives on reality: aspects of the landscape appear quite different to us. With a new look, we can change our idea of what seems immutable to us.
Walking is fundamental in the history of civilizations. Religions too! The founding event of Judaism is a march across the sea and the desert to enter the promised land.
Year 0 of the Islamic calendar commemorates the departure of the Prophet from Mecca; this hegira in 622 of our era is the beginning of a long march towards Medina. Among the 5 pillars of Islam, the practice of pilgrimage, partly market, is essential.
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When the Galilean wants to bring the Kingdom to life for his disciples, he does not send them to the temple or to the synagogues. He sets them off. He invites them to become beings of the path. Like him. All his life, Jesus was the man of the road, “walking barefoot and with long hair, speaking of love and peace”. He rarely stopped at the same place for several days. As if he didn’t want to be from one place, but from everywhere.
When he met people, it was often on the way. He stopped to teach them, feed them and talk with them. He liked to talk to people on the way. Encourage them, support them and give them a new direction.
These people are also on the move in their minds: they are ready to move. So it’s easier to send them back to themselves and to others, where they have a chance to meet God.
On the way! To meet others. To find peace in the rolling waves, the setting sun, the laughter of children, the dancing grasses. To meet God on the way… seems to me that it must help to be able to recognize him at the end of the road.
This week…
Read again the tribute book to the nuns of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame. Their departure puts an end to a 300-year journey with the Acadians: after Port-Royal and Louisbourg, they contributed to the survival and love of the French language in the Maritimes. By making profession, nuns commit themselves to the sequela Christi, the walk behind Someone who leads them to various places. This time, they are going to Quebec. May they be thanked and fulfilled.
requested for Christian communities welcoming a new parish priest or priests from elsewhere. For others also who express their gratitude to nuns who leave. Although these changes no longer cause the upheavals of old, they do have an impact on the life of a region. Often more than you imagine! It can be the prelude to the end of an era. Or the beginning of a new way of living the community.
Informed parishioners of the Pope’s upcoming pilgrimage to us. He can hardly move on his two legs the Holy Father. And yet, the theme of the papal visit is “Walking together”. There is more important than moving from one place to another: to evolve in one’s ideas and one’s way of seeing the other. This is essential for reconciliation and the writing of a bright chapter in our history with the First Nations.
Collaborated with the Maison de la Culture de Shippagan for the programming of “Music for a Sunday”. Mini-recitals of music and songs every Sunday at St-Jérôme church until early September. These artists make beauty overflow by animating the Sunday mass. It is not a goal, but a stopover to regain strength and renew yourself from within. To take the road with courage. To savor life. To endure trials. To live better. Have a nice summer… on the road!