© 2022 Gaétan G. Charland, Maurice Migneault, Éric Tarissan
© 2022 Urantia Association of Quebec
¶ Word from the President August 2022
Gaetan Charland
president@urantiaqc.org
Hello readers and friends of the association,
I hope that your life projects are progressing well during this summer period. The holidays and the sun invite us to relax, to the pleasures of life and for many of us, to a well-deserved rest. But during this period of relaxation from our physical activities, we should not abandon our spiritual practices which contribute to the maintenance of our spiritual growth.
There is a quote in The Urantia Book that very well highlights the danger of abstaining from all spiritual activities for an extended period of time.
“It is very dangerous, however, to practice spiritual fasting knowingly in order to increase your hunger for spiritual gifts. Physical fasting becomes dangerous after four or five days, because one is likely to lose all desire for food. Prolonged fasting, whether physical or spiritual, tends to destroy hunger.” UB 140:5.8
Who among us at some time has not felt a lessening of curiosity about spiritual things, a lessening of interest in the study of The Urantia Book? Abstinence not only diminishes our spiritual hunger, but isolation can weaken our interest in the spiritual life and diminish our faith.
The need for contact with like-minded people sustains my faith in difficult times of life. The teachings in The Urantia Book greatly encourage us to develop a living faith. However, when everything is going well in our lives, we rarely question the nature of our faith.
So what are the means at our disposal to not only make our faith alive, but also make it stronger and more dynamic?
For many years now, I have been asking myself many questions that are always accompanied by questioning my loyalty and sincerity in truly doing God’s will. I often question myself about the ways and means I can use to advance my faith; not only my own, but also that of others. I have also realized that growth in faith is always accompanied by prayer, worship, and service.
Association with people of like spiritual interest has taught me in a powerful way how to apply the lessons contained in The Urantia Book. Without this fellowship, I would certainly have been retarded in seeking the solution of all my spiritual questions alone. What I learn from my many contacts with other seekers of truth remains by far as important an acquisition as The Urantia Book itself.
I can more easily recognize today the essential means at our disposal to fully benefit from the teachings of The Urantia Book.
In their recommendations for the establishment of thousands of study groups, the revelators were well aware of the spiritual influences at work in these meetings. Papers 160 and 161 are another magnificent source of inspiration on the value of meditation, prayer, and worship. The life of Jesus wonderfully exemplifies the value of love in service while at the same time placing at the forefront the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.
All efforts made to maintain our faith and see to spiritual progress become the crowning achievement of the sincere desire to do the will of God.
Happy end of summer, and keep up your daily appointment with the part of God that lives within you.
¶ My experience as a caregiver
Maurice Migneault
Quebec
All these long years, your faltering step has strengthened my balance.
The absence of speech nourished our dialogues.
My intermittent sleep still brought me rest.
Your care has accustomed me to living in the present moment.
What you lost in autonomy, I gained in kindness.
Every bit of autonomy lost made you more vulnerable, but also more authentic, like veils falling to reveal your true nature.
It takes more effort to lower your shield than to keep it up.
It takes more courage to cultivate trust than to go to the front lines to fight.
When it is my turn to cross the great bridge that separates our worlds, I will ask to see you and we will then take another part of the journey together, the time to harmonize our memories and get to know each other again.
¶ The vicissitudes of life
Tribute to Paul-Yvan Deléglise at his funeral service on May 29, 2022. A.U.Q. President Gaétan Charland and some representatives of the friends of the Quebec study group witnessed eloquent spiritual words that day as they heard various tributes in honor of Paul-Yvan and his living faith filled with the search for truth.
Roberte Roussel, his life partner, wanted to present this extract from the Urantia Book that Paul-Yvan was particularly fond of. The reading of this text was done by Guy Leblanc and the last comments come from Éric Tarissan. Here is a significant extract.
THE VICISSITUDES OF LIFE
Because it is true that some people doubt the existence of God because of all the madness, injustice and wars that are still happening on our planet. But here is
The uncertainties of life and the vicissitudes of existence in no way contradict the concept of the universal sovereignty of God. Every life of an evolutionary creature is beset by certain inevitabilities, examples of which are:
Is courage—strength of character—desirable? Then a man must be brought up in an environment that forces him to face hardships and respond to disappointments.
Is altruism—service to one’s neighbor—desirable? Then, life experience must bring one into contact with situations of social inequality.
Is hope—the nobility of trust—desirable? Then human existence must be constantly confronted with renewed uncertainties and insecurities.
Is faith—the supreme affirmation of human thought—desirable? Then the human mind must find itself in this embarrassing situation where it always knows less than it can believe.
Is love of truth—with the willingness to follow it wherever it leads—desirable? Then man must grow in a world where error is present and falsehood is always possible.
Is idealism—the emergence of the concept of the divine—desirable? Then man must strive in an environment of relative goodness and beauty, in a setting that stimulates the irrepressible drive toward better things.
Is loyalty—devotion to higher duty—desirable? Then a man must pursue his path amidst the possibilities of betrayal and desertion. The value of devotion to duty implies the danger that would result from failure.
Is selflessness—the spirit of self-forgetfulness—desirable? Then mortal man must live face to face with the incessant clamor of a self that inescapably demands recognition and honor. Man could not dynamically choose the divine life if there were not a self-life to forsake. Man could never bring righteousness into play for his salvation if there were no potential evil to exalt and differentiate the good by contrast.
Is pleasure—the satisfaction of happiness—desirable? Then man must live in a world where the alternative of pain and the probability of suffering are ever-present possibilities of experience. UB 3:5.5-14
So we can better understand now that all these difficulties that arise in life have their reason for being, because the challenge of facing them and experiencing them in order to resolve and transcend them allows us to realize ourselves and form a true character marked by more intelligence, strength, calm, openness, wisdom, faith and love.
And Paul-Yvan understood all this well, by courageously facing all these challenges of life that presented themselves to him, and that he was able to take up with devotion, sincerity, openness and love. Which comes to enlighten us, by understanding that difficulties are not there to crush us, but to allow us to raise our consciousness by becoming better people. Stronger, courageous, mature and authentic people.
Thank you Paul-Yvan for the example of your life and this spiritual legacy that you leave us, because you too believed in us.
That is why I say goodbye to you, because I know that one day, not so far away, we will see each other again (on the World of Mansions), and that we will be able to continue in joy and happiness this relationship that we had only just begun.
I love you Paul-Yvan, my brother, and I thank God our Father for having perfectly and eternally planned everything to make all this possible.
And I want to thank each of you here today for saying to Paul-Yvan, not goodbye, but see you soon!
See you soon Paul-Yvan!
¶ Letter to a brother!
Eric Tarissan
Quebec
Here is a letter I wrote to someone in a conscience group who finds God a crazy idea.
God, from his point of view, from where He is, inhabiting the whole infinite geography without limits…, that He is!
For does one not need an infinite mind to understand infinity and conceive of eternity?
Inhabiting in an instantaneous, simultaneous and omnipresent way all of limitless infinity, with absolute presence, without beginning or end, thus having access to a point of view which allows him to see and be aware of EVERYTHING, from beginning to end!
Thus giving him an absolute consciousness, full of infinite and equally perfect love!
Seeing the completion and accomplishment for which everything He created and conceived is destined; because from the beginning, everything comes from Perfection and that, because of this, Everything and ALL cannot do otherwise than be inspired by it and eternally approach it, by progressing, evolving, creating and realizing itself.
Everything and EVERYONE who, at the beginning, could seem to start from nothing, in an apparent chaos and who, however, will ALL have an experience of life and destiny without end!
And seen from this angle, can we not understand that only God, from his infinite Perfection, his absolute Consciousness, his Living Truth and his Infinite Love (which is all that); reveals himself to be the only one who could know and adjust in a perfect way, all the universal constants thanks to which the universe was able, not only to see the light of day and exist, but also to evolve to the intelligent life of which we are the representatives, limited, imperfect, but nevertheless endowed with life, a mind, a free will, an ego, a soul, a unique personality and a Pure and Perfect Fragment that God our Father will have given to each of us with all his infinite, living, conscious and perfect love, both transcendent and immanent?
So who are we, from our mortal and temporary point of view, limited and defined, incomplete and unfinished, to come and claim and question, from our weak and light opinions, the absolute and eternal reality of this God who is our Father Creator to ALL who, in addition and above all, will have given us EVERYTHING with ALL his Love?
This love that we allow ourselves to criticize and judge (instead of trying to live it, experience it and understand it) — from these same truncated, unfinished, temporary, mortal and infinitely limited opinions?
Let us have faith in His infinite perfection that dwells in our higher mind and, by establishing a better relationship with Him and a better communication, let us experience His loving, benevolent, long-suffering, wise and respectful presence that will lead us towards the certainty of infinite and perfect peace, joy and love that compose the essence and nature of His Living Spirit, Good, Beautiful, Just and True.
And so you will understand that God, who is none other than our Father, in all his incomprehensible and infinite Living Love, loves ALL of us more than anything we can imagine and this, at any moment in eternity. For it is our limitations, our opinions, our programming and our wounds that prevent us from seeing Him beyond all these barriers and fogs of confusion, fear and uncertainty.
This is why only faith, at the beginning, can achieve the miracle of leading you, step by step, to the conscious light of the certainty of the divine, calm, peaceful, joyful and full of love.
With all my love!
¶ Picnic for the feast of Jesus
Invitation for Sunday, August 21, 2022 at 11:00 a.m.
Come celebrate the feast of Jesus on Mount Royal in Montreal near Beaver Lake and the restaurant Le Pavillon du Mont Royal 2000 Chemin Remembrance, Montreal, Qc H3H 1X2
(follow the signs with concentric circles)
Paid parking nearby
We will be waiting for you with the pleasure of greeting you and sharing
Bertin Perron and Julien Audet
¶ The School of Ambassadors
The Master’s Ministry course provides insightful means, knowledge, and ways to better minister to those who believe in God and those who do not believe in God, and shed light on their belief.
Here is a comment from a student at Ambassadors School:
“If this course can help me bring bread and brandy to my fellow men to bring them back to the fold, it is with great pleasure that I can transmit His message of Harvester to gather beautiful souls into the Kingdom of God. The harvest will always be welcome until the end of time and if we can be the hand of God that guides Us, what a wonderful privilege is offered to us in this case. Thank you My God for being at Your loving Service.
This is why I meet people of various religions and beliefs by going to their worship and sharing moments of their lives which gives me opportunities to share and I hope to do it more and more to practice everything I learn in these classes!
Thanks to the inspired authors and all the visible and invisible actors! ” For more information about the School and the course, visit us at:
https://fr-school.thechristexperiment.org
¶ Study groups
This activity allows several readers of different levels of understanding to exchange 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 step 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: “Uni-Terre”
Region: Joliette
Sundays from 9:00 am to 11:00 am, (virtual Zoom)
Contact :
Eric Martel (450) 756-9387
Group: “At Maisonnia”
Region: Quebec
Every 2 weeks: Sundays, from 1:15 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Gilles Bertrand & Louise Renaud (418) 871-4564
Group: “The United Family of Urantia”
Region: Montreal — Downtown
Thursdays, from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Mrs. Diane Labrecque (514) 277-2308
Group : “Le Pont”
Region: Montérégie
(Sainte-Julie, south of Montreal)
Tuesdays, from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Claude Flibotte (438) 404-6399
NEW
Group: “Urantian Universalists”
Every Monday from 2:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Eastern Time (Montreal)
Responsible:
Claude Flibotte (438) 404-6399
Subject: Appendices of W. S. Sadler Jr.
Zoom Virtual Group. (Get informed)
Group: “Découverte”
Region: Laurentians — St-Jérôme
Mondays, from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Gaétan Charland and Line St-Pierre Tel.: (450) 565-3323
Possibility to participate via Internet (Zoom)
Sherbrooke Group
Region: Sherbrooke
Every 2 weeks: Tuesday or Wednesday, (to be confirmed) from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Helene Boisvenue and Denis Gravelle
Tel.: (819) 569-6416
To see the official list of study groups:
Click directly on the following link: http://urantia-quebec.ca/activites_liste_des_groupes.php
¶ Réflectivité
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(438) 404-6399 Claude Flibotte
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