Page 41 - spiritual_accompaniment_montreal_archdiocese

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Thought for the Day # 30 – Tuesday April 14, 2020

“Time to Revisit Our Experience”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

It is a month now that we have been in this health emergency. We have
just come through Holy Week, each in our own way in our own home. Perhaps
we could take this week to review calmly the experience we’re living. What has
been difficult? It is good to take note, to be able to put it in words. To be able to
tell someone.
But also, what is there that’s positive? What is the positive element in
my experience? It is also good to be able to pause there. And in the end, is there
something that I wish to see continue afterwards? Let’s take an example, let’s
say in family life. Perhaps the slowing down of the pace of family life has
allowed that; while previously we saw less of each other, now we see each other
more. We would love to be able to maintain this closeness. How can we keep
and continue to renew this intensity of family life in our lives now, without
waiting for another pandemic?

It can also be in the experience of loneliness, perhaps I live all alone in
my house, in my apartment, in my home. How have I dealt with being alone?
Did I pray? Perhaps, possibly. Did I call someone? Did someone call me? How
did I face my loneliness? Somehow, even when we live in a family, we all have
a fundamental solitude as a human being. How do we face ourselves in this
solitude? How, dare I say, do we embrace the weight of our loneliness to be
able to overcome it? To be able to discover the presence of God and the net-
working in communication with other people because God always puts us in
touch with others as well.

May this week be a time to revisit our experience so we may take good
from it, so we may grow through it. It is a sort of rereading of our experience.
So why not start to review it in front of the Lord himself, asking the Lord: ”
Lord, enlighten me so that this experience may help me grow in my relation-
ship with you and in my relationship with others.”

Collection of texts by the Most Rev. Christian Lépine 41