© 2014 Gilles Bertrand, Gilles Brien, Line St-Pierre, Hélène Boisvenue, Laurent Jalbert, Pierre Routhier
© 2014 Urantia Association of Quebec
¶ My impressions of the Annual General Meeting
(Sunday, February 2, 2014)
ON THIS GROUNDHOG DAY 2014, the twenty or so people gathered at the A.U.Q. Annual General Meeting in Drummondville were quite awake. I would even say very awake, with no shadow on the horizon on this day dedicated to the election of newcomers to the executive members gathered for this occasion.
The obligatory elements of a general meeting with a quorum were carried out. From the opening of the general meeting, to the reading and adoption of the agenda, the minutes, the financial reports and the balance sheet presented in turn by Maurice Migneault (interim secretary), Robert Cadieux (President of Election), Luciano Camellini (interim vice-president), Gaétan Charland (president) and Marcel Laporte (treasurer), it was a flurry of general information and adequate updates.
Thanks were duly given to the resigning members. I would like to take this opportunity to salute our two friends Guy Laporte (former V.-P.) and Éric Martel (former Secretary) for their involvement with the A.U.Q. in 2013.
Concerning the process to renew vacant positions, harmony reigned so much that all the proposals were voted unanimously. We would have perhaps liked to obtain a greater number of candidates for the open positions at the vice-presidency and secretariat, in order to further stimulate our personal and valuable involvement with our organization that is the A.U.Q., but this opportunity for service will be renewed in the long term and I really hope that you will consider active participation at the next meeting of this type.
In any case, the lucky ones were Johanne Séguin as Secretary and Luciano Camellini as Vice-President. Unfortunately, Johanne was absent due to her professional activities and her written application was warmly applauded by all the members present. As for Luciano, his ardour and enthusiasm were not weakened by a night shift and he knew how to entertain us and make us vibrate with emulation both on his projects and on his future involvement concerning the very important international meeting of the UAI in 2015 in Lennoxville. All the useful details will follow in the next Réflectivité and rest assured that the opportunities for service will not be lacking. So thank you Luciano and you make me want to raise my hand and shout also… PRESENT!
After the elections, the session was followed by a presentation by our president, always eager to inform us accurately. He made us understand clearly what the primary mission of the Foundation is compared to the associations of the same name. I finally understood the following: the translation, the printing and the guardian of the inviolate text in fact concern the Foundation. The associations are there to support individuals who wish to keep the teachings of The Urantia Book alive. These latter organizations, the A.U.Q. and the A.U.I. therefore fill this useful mechanism for our individual and collective development with their practical and social tools. It is up to us to refer to them and be active in them. You are like in the advert Gaétan, if we didn’t have you, we would have to invent you…
Gaétan also reminded us of the importance of study groups and the publication mandate, which are equally important templates. Moreover, updates on these subjects will be presented to you later and you will see that the revealers clearly indicate the primary importance of these two subjects. I made it my duty to reread all the literature written on study groups and the publication mandate, documents available on request or to be found on the NET.
Then in the afternoon Line St-Pierre revealed to us some of the activities she has carried out over the past year. This associate trustee of the Urantia Foundation has been able to interest several women not only in Quebec, but also in certain contacts located internationally. These discoveries are mainly due to her personal commitment and her involvement with the Foundation in Chicago. Her project, since it must be called: “The Women’s Committee”, casts a fresh and new look at women and will arouse a certain enthusiasm that will surely explode soon on these standard-bearers of the morality of our society that really has an urgent need for these models of grace, goodness and beauty. Profit and benefit will then be the gain for all men and women. Once again, women are fertile. Beautiful initiative and I salute, with all confidence, these generous souls, these ladies who will come to join this cordial program. I await, women, with impatience, your next reports.
The meeting, which was too short, ended with friendly and spontaneous exchanges and everyone left the room happily with in mind, at least as far as I was concerned, a desire to get involved in the Urantia movement in Quebec.
This Groundhog Day 2014 therefore announces sunny projects for the future, come and join them.
So, to all, a fruitful year 2014.
Gilles Bertrand
Quebec
¶ Comments by Gilles Brien
HELLO MR AND MRS RÉFLECTIVITÉ and the collaborators! Bravo for the last Réflectivité! (and it’s not because I participated in it 
, the texts are particularly good and touching. Thanks to Gaétan for his reminder about study groups. This is really where efforts must be made for the coming years; creating groups of readers. The Publication Mandate is a subject and an object of extreme interest for any sincere reader after reading the book. I will join a group this year. Too bad there is no group in Laval. Unless I start one…
Thanks to Gaétan for pushing me to think about it. Other isolated readers will also think about it for their corner.
Gilles Brien
Laval
¶ Dear Friends of Réflectivité
AS OF NOW, Réflectivité has its email address: reflectivite.auq@gmail.com where you can send your texts, thoughts and comments that will be received by Normand Laperle. Normand has offered to serve and take on a new challenge by taking responsibility for Réflectivité assisted by Gilles Bertrand. Together they will work on correcting the texts, editing the letter and sending it by post as well as by email.
I thank my collaborator Denis Laniel who for more than five years, month after month, helped edit Réflectivité.
Line St-Pierre
¶ Divine Governance
Conference presented at a meeting between students of Progressive Divine Wisdom in July 2013 in Montreal, Quebec Canada
Helene Boisvenue
Part One of Four
¶ Divine Governance for our Planet
I EXPRESS MY WARM THANKS to Mr. Moussa Ndiaye for his powerful support in the development of this conference.
The tragic questioning of men
This study on divine governance for our planet really spoke to me because it can answer the tragic questioning of men about their living conditions.
I use the word tragic because many of those who deny God and call themselves atheists do so because of the human condition which breeds evil and suffering. Buddhism states: “Life is suffering.”
I have noted some statements by philosophers who express the pain and revolt that assail them when they reflect on the human condition:
It is not God that I do not accept, it is the world that he created that I do not accept.
Even if God existed, man would have a duty of disbelief, because this God is intolerable.
Infinitely powerful, God could have done it differently.
Why do I suffer? Suffering is the rock of atheism.
Many atheistic philosophers present the existence of evil as proof of the non-existence of God. For many authors, the reality of suffering is irreconcilable with the existence of God. Can a powerful and good God allow suffering? The heart and reason resist when we must associate suffering with the goodness of God.
Thinkers who reflect on the question and who do not reject God for all that endorse the situation by affirming that the world is not God, it cannot be perfect. Because if it were perfect, it would be God and nothing could exist outside of it. The world is therefore subject to finitude, to imperfection: imperfection in people and instability of nature, hence the possibility of evil and suffering.
It is ignorance of divine wisdom that causes man’s mind to be troubled by his life on earth and at the same time to despair before God. The reflection I present here on divine governance for our planet attempts to grasp God’s wisdom as it relates to the human condition.
Imperfection allows for growth and partnership
We have obvious data at the outset: the human being, his living environment, the planet and the universe are imperfect and they fit into a reality where time undoubtedly intervenes. Could we not pose here the hypothesis that imperfection indicates a quality of incompleteness in time, a situation desired by God. Imperfection allows progress, growth, improvement. A delay in time arises between imperfection and perfection or, in other words, between incompleteness and accomplishment. This delay in time is very important: it makes it possible for creatures to participate in divine creation by allowing created personalities to become partners of the Deity in their accomplishment. UB 105:6.5
Can you not advance in your concept of God’s dealing with man to that level where you recognize that the watchword of the universe is progress? Through long ages the human race has struggled to reach its present position. (UB 4:1.2)
The joy of self-realization or the pleasure of emergence
When my daughter was very small, she was amazed by the cakes I made. She would sit on the counter next to me and watch me fascinated and delighted by the result. Later, around the age of five, she demanded to make the cakes herself. Her work was not as good as mine of course, often there was a mess of dough and icing, but my daughter was very happy to do it. I have fond memories of the joy she showed so vividly. Now, thanks to many experiences, she has become more skilled than me in this area of cooking.
For personalities, there is a lot of satisfaction, fullness, joy in fulfilling oneself, in building, in bringing out things, ideas, values. To the power of emergence that the gift of personality provides, add the pleasure of emergence.
God understands the need of his creatures to fulfill themselves, to build themselves. Is there not a more fascinating project than to fulfill oneself and thus to bring out the spiritual man, the finaliter? God gives us the means.
The living environment contributes to the perfection or divinization of man
One of the determining factors for the development of human beings is their living environment. The earth is not silent and provides the many factors that frame men including family, race, health, social integration, education, religion, economic life (science and industry), population, national planning, leisure, physical environment and others.
We must understand that there is a divine way of governing beings and the things of our world in order to structure and achieve their perfection. The perfection of man is his spiritualization or his divinization. Some mystics of the Christian, Muslim, Jewish religions and surely others from Asia have grasped this truth in past centuries. For example, Meister Eckart, a Dominican of the Middle Ages (1260-1328) already affirmed at that time: “It is absolutely necessary that I become Him and that He become me. ”Meister Eckart’s spirituality was strongly decried by the Church of the time and a trial was conducted against this too audacious preacher. In the 10th century, a Muslim mystic, Al-Halladj, was crucified for having dared to affirm: “I am the Truth”, which amounted to identifying himself with God[1]. Today we are ready to grasp such truths. The mystics of times past are being rediscovered and, it is a grace of God, their writings could fruitfully engender a new spirituality. “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” (Victor Hugo)
God wants to penetrate materiality and he will do so in partnership with man.
From the animal man he wants to bring forth the divine man. The elements of the living environment that I have identified previously generate conditions that enlist men in progress, growth and perfection, which draw man into the process of divinization.
To be continued in April’s Réflectivité.
Helene Boisvenue
¶ My faith, where does it come from?
I WAS BORN IN QUEBEC IN the 1940s, at the time of Maurice Duplessis as Prime Minister and at a time when the clergy had more influence than politicians. At home, every evening in the living room there was the rosary in which the whole family participated. On New Year’s Day morning, the eldest asked for his father’s blessing and, all kneeling before him, Dad blessed us and wished us Paradise at the end of our days. It was a time of traditions.
In elementary school, I was taught by nuns, then by lay women in a college of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart. There was the month of Mary, the month of St. Joseph, the month of the Sacred Heart, patron saint of our school, and prayer every evening at church. We listened to Les Plouffe on the radio and since the commercials were forced to end a little before seven o’clock, we ran to church for evening prayer.
My father was a day laborer, so the income was minimal to support a family of nine children, of which I was the youngest. A higher education was more in our dreams than in reality. However, four of the eldest in the family entered religious communities and received their higher education there.
Despite all this exposure to religious culture, the best times of contact with my Creator were when I went walking in the fields and woods of the farmland surrounding us. It was a monologue, I spoke to HIM as to a friend and could easily tell HIM everything that was bothering me and shared my worries about my future. I felt confident, like a last refuge from everyday life and I felt the presence of a Heavenly Father to whom I confided my hopes, my sorrows, my doubts. I returned from my walk, relieved of this burden that was the future for me, confident that HE would arrange everything in time and place.
At that time, the political situation in Quebec required an increase in population and the priests decided to embrace this cause by preaching that preventing the family was a sin. I remember my mother returning from Sunday mass where she had gone to meet her Creator, telling us all frustrated: “Well, the priest has climbed into the pulpit again and sent us to the devil.” As a result, the family grew again to number twelve. Two years later, my father died, so there was no question of higher education for me, because the household had to be fed.
I started in the job market as a banker followed by a brief stint in aviation and then a job with the federal government that took me to the Maritimes, more precisely to New Brunswick where I met a charming, pretty young girl who became my life partner.
Together, we worked in different organizations to help people find God in their daily lives. We started in a Family Assistance program with engaged or newlywed couples and different topics were discussed, such as finances, sexuality and the problems that any new couple encounters in daily life. Then it was the Marital Renewal, an organization where as a couple with about twenty others we explored spirituality in our lives and within the couple for a weekend. All this was done in discussions, in sharing and by our example. We received a lot, probably more than we gave and these meetings allowed us to grow together.
Shortly thereafter The URANTIA Book came into my life, explaining to me the existence of the Spirit of the Eternal Father within us, called the Mystery Monitor, which we receive at an early age and which constantly guides and helps us if we will cooperate with him, for he will do nothing without our consent. The Adjuster is said to be engaged in a constant effort to spiritualize your mind…(UB 110:4.2) and through him I have had experiences which without a doubt in my mind I know I shall continue to have when I leave this earth life.
This life is a stage of teachings and often, it is through trials that we grow. I have taught and been taught through a multitude of experiences including the long illness of our son, contracted through cancer at seventeen and who died at home at twenty-three, just three days after burying my mother-in-law. A few years later, in our absence, our house was completely destroyed by fire.
All these trials have made us richer psychologically and spiritually. All those material things that we held so dear are now kept in our memories. We have come to realize that the only reality was beautiful and truly spiritual and that when we leave, everything else does not follow.
So, where does my faith come from? I believe it comes firstly from my experience, from the attention I paid to the why of the events that happened in my life, the values that I sought and the application that I made of them in my daily life.
Seeing our trials as a golden opportunity is a leap that cannot be made instantly, but life’s trials are there to teach us. So, “Have a good trial, everyone.”
Laurent Jalbert
New Brunswick
¶ A pioneer retires
ALMOST 30 YEARS OF EXISTENCE FOR the Veritas group which is ending its weekly experiment, for health reasons.
This study group emerged from the first study group in Quebec, “The Premorontians”, and from the Veritas study group was born the study group of Guy Vachon “Le Pont” of the south shore of Montreal.
All these meetings of the Veritas group were exchanges of points of view of the participants, allowing each one to rectify their own.
Pierre Routhier
4071 rue Edna, Montreal, Qc, H4G 1Y6
514-761-2378
¶ Leather cases for the Urantia Book small format
At a rate of $5 plus postage. Let me know your interest, either by email at line.stpierre@gmail.com or by phone at 450-565-3323.
Line St-Pierre
¶ STUDY GROUPS
THIS ACTIVITY ALLOWS MULTIPLE READERS OF DIFFERENT LEVELS OF UNDERSTANDING to share and study together the teachings of The Urantia Book. It promotes spiritual progress by allowing its participants to find practical applications to the teachings of The Urantia Book in their daily lives. This important practice helps to maintain a broad perspective on concepts of truth.
You wish to participate or form a study group; we will be happy to assist you. If you wish to have your study group appear in this list, contact the person in charge, via email association.urantia.quebec@gmail.com or at 450-565-3323.
Group: Découverte
Every Monday from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Laurentians Region Gaétan Charland and Line St-Pierre
Tel.: 450-565-3323
Group: Étoile du Soir
Every Wednesday from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Laurentides region
Carmen Charland
Tel.: 450-553-3601
Group: Le Pont
Every Thursday from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
South Shore of Montreal
Guy Vachon
Tel.: 450-465-7049
Group: Mauricie Readers
Every Monday from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Three Rivers Region
Madeleine Boisvert and
Tel: 819-376-8850
Roger Perigny
819-379-5768
Group: Veritas
Every Tuesday from 7:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Montreal area, near the Church metro station
Lise and Pierre Routhier
Tel.: 514-761-2378
Sherbrooke Group
Every two weeks, Tuesday or Wednesday (to be confirmed)
From 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Helene Boisvenue or Denis Gravelle
Tel.: 819 569-6416
Group: The Ascendants
Every two weeks on Sunday from 13 h 00 to 3:30 p.m.
South Shore of Quebec
Guy LeBlanc
Tel: 418-835-1809
Group: The Agondontarians
Every two weeks on Sunday from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. North Shore of Quebec
Guy & Rolande L. Martin
Tel: 418-651-3851
Group: Les Débonnaires
Wednesdays from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Montreal region
Julien Audet
Tel: 514-315-9871
Group: Urantia Fraternity
Wednesdays from 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Lanaudière region
Richard Landry & Gisèle Boisjoly
Tel: 450-589-6922
Group: Vers les Sommets
Friday from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Regions Ormstown & Valleyfield
Louise Sauve
Tel: 450-829-3631
Group: The United Urantia Family
Monday from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Montreal region
Mrs. Diane Labrecque
Tel: 514-277-2308
The Partners of the Supreme
Monday from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Quebec region
Richard Lachance
Tel: (418) 614-2520 or (418) 933-0244 (cell)
At Maisonia
Every two weeks on Monday from 7:15 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Quebec region
Gilles Bertrand & Louise Renaud
Tel: 418-871-4564
Group: Uni-Terre
Every Sunday from 9:00 a.m.
Lanaudière region
Eric Martel
Tel: 450-756-9387
Group: Laurantia
Every Sunday from 9:00 a.m.
Petite Nation region in Outaouais
Denise Charron & Jean-Claude Lafreniere
Tel: 819-983-2113
Group: The Precursors of Divine Reality
Every two weeks on Tuesday from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Laurentides region
Mrs. Johanne Séguin
Tel: 819-327-3237
Group: Sans Frontiére
Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 a.m.
Hawkesbury region
Yvon and Irene Belle-Isle
Tel: 613-632-5706
Group: from Outaouais
Sunday from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Ottawa Region
Maurice Migneault
Tel: 613-789-6833
Group: The Alphée Brothers
Sunday
Thetford Mines region
Sylvère Marcoux
Tel: 418-332-3560
Group: The South Shore Lighthouse
Every Monday from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
South Shore region of Montreal
Luciano Camellini and Dominique Marchessault
Disclaimer: Any interpretations, opinions, conclusions or artistic representations, stated or implied, are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of Urantia Association International or local and national level associations.
¶ References
¶ Notes
Examples taken from God, by Frédéric Lenoir, Robert Laffont 2011, p. 253 and Meister Eckhart by Jean-François Malherbe, Fides 1999, p. 7 ↩︎