Sasmad Ottawa-Cornwall

07/25/2026

09/22/2025

Risque de contagion
Je visite une dame de 94 ans depuis quelques mois. À chaque visite elle me partage des brides de ce qu’elle a vécu dans le passé et de ce qui l’habite au quotidien. Au courant d’une vie aussi longue, il y a eu, bien sûr, des joies et des peines, des hauts et des bas, de beaux moments et des pertes douloureuses. Elle me partage tout cela sereinement, souvent avec un sourire radieux et beaucoup de gratitude pour tout ce qu’elle a reçu dans sa vie.

Je lui apporte aussi la communion que je lui donne au terme de nos visites. Avant de recevoir le corps du Christ, elle aime se préparer en récitant quelques prières traditionnelles : un Notre Père, un Je vous salue Marie, un Gloire soit au Père... Il y a quelques semaines, après avoir terminé celles-ci, elle en a ajouté une que je ne l’avais pas entendu prononcée à date, mais qui, j’en suis convaincu, fait partie de son répertoire depuis très longtemps. À trois reprises, elle a dit, « O Jésus, doux et humble de cœur, rendez mon cœur semblable au vôtre. » En l’entendant, je n’ai pas pu m’empêcher de penser, « Cette prière, il y a longtemps que Jésus l’a exaucé. C’est évident dans tout ce qui rayonne de cette belle personne. »

J’ai souvent entendu cette prière ailleurs, mais je ne l’avais jamais faite mienne. Toutefois, dans les journées qui ont suivi cette visite, je me suis surpris à l’entendre se dire en moi tout naturellement. En souriant, je me suis dit, « J’ai attrapé ce qui habite cette petite dame. Elle m’a donné le goût de demander moi aussi un cœur doux et humble, comme celui de Jésus. » Faut donc en conclure qu’il y a un risque de contagion quand on visite une personne malade.

Gilles

04/23/2025

« Il en tomba enfin dans la bonne terre, elle poussa et elle donna du fruit au centuple. » Luc 8,8

Formation de base
Une de mes grandes joies est de voir tant de personnes au cœur généreux accueillir l’invitation de Jésus à venir le visiter dans les personnes malades ou âgées. Ces bénévole SASMAD sont cette bonne terre du printemps dans laquelle la semence peut pénétrer facilement, s’y loger et donner du fruit au centuple. Cette bonne terre je la découvre à nouveau en rencontrant les 18 personnes qui se sont inscrites à la formation de base pour devenir bénévoles SASMAD qui débute le 25 avril et se poursuivra jusqu’au 31 mai. Avec cette cohorte, nous aurons dépassé le cap de 100 personnes qui auront reçu une formation initiale SASMAD ici à Ottawa. Je vous invite à garder toutes ces personnes dans vos prières.

10/05/2024

This week I came across a poem by Charles C. Finn that I had never read before. He wrote it in 1966 and shared it then with a few people without saying it was from him. It started circulating as an anonymous poem until he published it in a collection of his poems over 30 years later. Finn relates the fascinating history of "Please Hear What I'm Not Saying" on his website: https://poetrybycharlescfinn.com/pages/journey-of-please-hear

Please Hear What I'm Not Saying

Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
masks that I'm afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
but don't be fooled,
for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water's calm and I'm in command
and that I need no one,
but don't believe me.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope,
and I know it.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.
It's the only thing that will assure me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,
will not be followed by love.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me,
that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with a facade of assurance without
and a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's really nothing,
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,
what I'd like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can't say.

I don't like hiding.
I don't like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
but you've got to help me.
You've got to hold out your hand
even when that's the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings--
very small wings,
very feeble wings,
but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator--
of the person that is me
if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
you alone can remove my mask,
you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please choose to.

Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach to me the blinder I may strike back.
It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man
often I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.
Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.

Charles C. Finn
September 1966

The history behind "Please Hear What I'm Not Saying" began years ago in 1966 when I wrote the poem just after I had begun teaching at St. Ignatius College Prep in Chicago. A Jesuit seminarian at the time, I typed it out and shared it with some students, friends, and family. I didn't put my name on i...

06/22/2023

https://www.sasmad-ottawa-cornwall.com/bulletin-mensuel/bulletin-de-juin-2023

Bulletin mensuel de nouvelles SASMAD Ottawa-Cornwall pour le mois de juin 2023

03/04/2023

https://epaper.vancouversun.com/article/281526525263790

Some­times you don't know what you're get­ting into until you're already there, says Susan South­cott. South­cott grew up in Ott­awa, lived in Montreal and France, got an MBA and trav­elled extens­ively before mov­ing to Los Angeles in 1984 with her...

02/28/2023

https://www.sasmad-ottawa-cornwall.com/blog/mort-de-fatigue-de-vivre

Des voix se font entendre pour reconnaître la « fatigue de vivre » ou la « vie accomplie » comme nouveaux motifs pour accéder à une aide médicale à mourir.

02/23/2023

https://www.sasmad-ottawa-cornwall.com/bulletin-mensuel/bulletin-sasmad-ottawa-cornwall-f%C3%A9vrier-2023

Le Bulletin mensuel SASMAD Ottawa-Cornwall du mois de février 2023

Bulletin SASMAD Ottawa-Cornwall - janvier 2023