Gospel & Homily MP3 version Homily PDF version
Sign of the + Cross - Christ is risen! Alleluia! (traditional response is) He is truly risen! Alleluia! Hello. I’m Fr. Gilles Surprenant, priest of Montreal and Madonna House Associate. In this 4th week of Easter, the Lord cautions us to be wary of clinging to our opinions. Our thoughts and opinions are powerless but Jesus’ words are the will of the Father and they will endure forever. During this Live Daily Mass, the Lord calls us to receive his words and to keep them; so that we may live. (Intention) Thank you.
Penitential Rite Brothers and sisters let us acknowledge our sins and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries. (Formula 1)
HOMILY
During his short life on Earth and his even shorter public mission, Jesus was acutely aware that people did not believe in Him. Jesus healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, made the lame walk, gave hearing and speech to the deaf and mute, cast out demons, healed lepers, and even raised a girl, a young man, and his friend Lazarus from death. Still, people did not believe in Him. Why is that? What was wrong with those people? What is wrong with all of us?
They say that at Mary’s Shrine in Lourdes in France there are incredible healings. People afflicted by lupus have, instead of a face, a gaping cavity with no more nose or lips or cheeks. When they are healed, suddenly their face grows back. Some without limbs suddenly find limbs where there were no limbs before. Apparently, many eye witnesses, who see these astounding miracles with their own eyes, simply cannot believe their eyes. Later, they tell themselves and others too that what they saw is simply impossible; so, they must have imagined it.
So, you see, it is never enough to see with our own eyes and to hear with our own ears or to touch with our own hands. In the presence of the mystery of God and of his wonderful works, it is only faith that can enable us to embrace the truth as real, and to believe in Jesus as the Son of God. In every generation, God the Father is offering everyone a personal relationship with Him in his Son Jesus. We are offered the grace, the divine power to trust and to believe, no matter how we may feel. All we have to do is to embrace God in his mystery and accept Him as real, as true, and as loving.
Today we remember and give thanks and praise to God for Saint Peter Chanel, a Marist missionary in the Pacific Islands near Fiji, who was so successful in bringing people to faith in God that a frightened chief had him assassinated in 1841. He was 38 and is now a martyr.
We also remember Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort who was a priest for only 16 years when he died at the age of 43 in 1716 in France. During his work in hospitals and giving missions, he was so successful in bringing people to faith in God that jealous people resented him and forced him to leave. The Pope made him a “missionary apostolic”; so, no one could block his mission any more. In a very short time, he founded the Brothers of Saint Gabriel, the Daughters of Wisdom, and the Montfort Missionaries, who all put their faith in Jesus as God’s Divine Wisdom. Jesus is more trustworthy than our human wisdom, which is foolishness.
When we put all our trust and faith in God through Jesus, we give God permission to do all that He wants to do. We just decide not to be shaken by fears, not to prefer our own thoughts, feelings, plans, and opinions, but instead, we look to Jesus, cling to his words as true, and put our trust and faith in Him. We do this in every practical situation of our lives. We still live our life actively; while we leave all the results up to God and accept whatever comes as his will.
Added thoughts: No matter our thoughts or how we may feel, or even though we may feel nothing at all... God's relationship with us and our relationship with God - Father, Jesus his Son, and the Holy Spirit - remains mysterious, because God is mysterious, and in many ways; so are we mysterious even to ourselves. Our relationship with God the Most Holy Trinity is unlike our relationships with fellow human beings alive and walking around like us on this Earth. We don't usually get immediate replies from God as we generally do from people around us.
However, our "relating" to God takes place in the context of faith; as we "look to" God, "turn to" Him, "wait on" Him, and "live in vibrant and hopeful expectation" that, in his good time and in his own way, God "sees me", "hears me", "knows me", "loves me", "cares for me", "instills his divine life of the Trinity in me", "forms and shapes me into his own likeness", and "draws me ever more deeply" into the life and love of the Most Holy Trinity, which is Heaven and eternal life.
O God, help us to really trust in You: the Father, + the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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Saint Joseph, pray for us. Blessing and Dismissal
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© 2006-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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