Gospel & Homily MP3 version Homily PDF version
Sign of the + Greeting
Hello. I’m Fr. Gilles Surprenant, priest of Montreal and Madonna House Associate. In this 4th week of Lent and we are past the mid-point to Easter. St. Patrick is the apostle who brought Jesus to Ireland. Like St. Joseph whom we honor this year, St. Patrick knew Jesus personally; as did all the saints. During this Live Daily Mass, the Lord once again invites each of us to trust in Him and open ourselves completely to be renewed by Him. (Intention) Thank you.
Penitential Rite Brothers and sisters let us acknowledge our sins and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.
We thank you for your daily prayers and donations to the Cathedral and Salt + Light Media in support for this Live Daily Mass.
Blessing and Dismissal
HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S DAY !!!
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HOMILY
The words we just heard from the Lord through the prophet Isaiah are an unforgettable expression of tenderness. There are many such proofs of God’s tender love for us, his children, throughout the Sacred Scriptures. When we consider Jesus, how He lived his life, his mission and then how He surrendered Himself into our hands, the hands of his persecutors; we should not be astonished at God’s declarations of tender love for us.
Perhaps what is truly astonishing is how difficult it is to understand why we find it so hard, so difficult to believe in God’s tender love for us. We have a hard time actually believing that God loves us; that He loves me. Why is that, do you think?
In John’s Gospel we see what great efforts Jesus made to give understanding to the Jewish leaders about who He was and about what He was doing. Could it be that these Jewish leaders were resisting Jesus for the same reasons we do?
Jesus did not fit into the ways they understood their religion and their God. I believe that we have a similar problem. We all have ideas about who God is and about what we expect of Him. It is just as shocking to us as it was to those Jewish leaders that God does not fit into our ideas.
God has his own ideas, because his understanding of Himself and of all that He has created is far higher, broader, and deeper than any understanding we could ever have.
God understands Himself to be a community, a Holy Trinity of divine Persons – the Eternal Father, the only-begotten Son who became human in Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life. God the Holy Trinity is the most wonderful love story in the universe, and we have been created to participate in this awesome love story, this divine Family.
What is holding us back from plunging with delight into this wondrous community of love which is in God? I suppose that for each of us there could be many things holding us back. If I have been hurt, I may be unwilling to forgive the one who hurt me; I may even desire revenge.
Lent is a gift from God: a time to stop and let the Holy Spirit illumine my conscience, my mind, my heart, and my soul to see the dark things that keep me from accepting God’s love and from loving everyone – even those I don’t like. It is time to surrender my darkness to the Lord.
It is hard at any time, even more so during this Pandemic, to confess our sins to a priest. We don’t like to admit we messed up; yet this is how Jesus wants us to reconcile with God, because Confession makes it real. “Father in Heaven, help us put away our pride and humbly declare by confessing our sins that You are God: the Father, + the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
https://frgilleshomilies.blogspot.com
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© 2006-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2006-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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I'm ever eager to learn from others, correct myself, and be converted to the Good News, the "ways of the Lord". Thank you for your comments, observations, or suggestions. God bless you and your family. Fr. Gilles