SAFCAM Communique #40 English

SAFCAM Communique #40          20/02/2021

Dear Subscribers

On the first Sunday of Lent, the liturgy always contemplates the story of Jesus' 40 days of fasting. His experience in the desert can be a model for our way of living this season. In fact, the desert can also be an oasis of blessing, a place of peace and joy, because the desert is the place where God speaks to us from heart to heart: "It is I who will seduce her! I will seduce her. I will lead her to the desert and I will speak to her heart”(Hosea 2,16). Like Jesus, let us leave our comfort zones and go to the desert, moved by the Spirit, and listen to the Holy Spirit there. Our experience in the desert will have achieved its goal if we open ourselves to conversion, and if we faithfully adhere to the gospel. For these are the first words of Jesus: "Convert and believe in the Good News".

A meditation

"Those who swim in the sea and know the art of swimming dive when the wave hits them, and let themselves go under it until it has passed. After which they continue to swim without difficulty. But if they want to oppose the wave, it pushes them back and throws them back a good distance. As soon as they start swimming again, a new wave comes over them; if they still resist, they are again rejected and rejected; they just get tired and don't move forward. Instead, let them dive under the wave, as I said, let them sink below, and it will pass without hindering them; they will continue to swim for as long as they want and do what they have to do. So it is with temptations. Supported with patience and humility, they pass without harming. But if we remain to grieve, to be troubled, to accuse everyone, we make ourselves suffer, by making the temptation more overwhelming for ourselves, and the result is that it is not only without profit to us. , but even harmful. " (by Dorothy of Gaza)

True stories for the season

1. It is said that when Michelangelo was painting his fresco of the “Last Supper”, he selected his model for the figure of Christ very carefully. He looked for a young man with pleasant and innocent features for his portrayal of Christ. Sometime later he set about looking for a suitable model for Judas. Eventually he found the person he was looking for. This was another young man, who had fallen on hard times, and had become involved in a life of crime and wickedness, and his features reflected that. When he was brought to the refectory of the monastery where Michelangelo was paining the fresco, he became very uncomfortable. Michelangelo asked him what the matter was. The young man replied that he had been in that room before. He had been the one whom Michelangelo had used as a model for the figure of Christ some time before.
2. Repent and Sin no more!

There was a Scottish painter named Smokey MacGregor who was very interested in making an extra penny where he could, so he often thinned down his paint to make it go a bit further.

As it happened, he got away with this for some time, but eventually the local church decided to do a big restoration job on the outside of one of their largest buildings. Smokey put in a bid, and, because his price was so low, he got the job. So, he set about erecting the scaffolding and setting up the planks, and buying the paint and thinning it down as usual...

Well, Smokey was up on the scaffolding, painting away, the job nearly completed, when suddenly there was a horrendous clap of thunder, the sky opened, and the rain poured down washing the thinned paint from all over the church and knocking Smokey clear off the scaffold to land on the lawn among the gravestones, surrounded by tell-tale puddles of the thinned and useless paint.

Smokey was no fool. He knew this was a judgment from the Almighty, so he got down on his knees and cried: "Oh, God, Oh God, forgive me; what should I do?"

And from the thunder, a mighty voice spoke: "Repaint! Repaint! And thin no more!"

God bless

Camiel and François