In the "New Covenant" made by our Creator God with humanity, as reported in Jeremiah 31:31-34, every human being can know God from within - because the Holy Spirit is revealing our Creator to all who are willing to know the Lord and trust in Him. We can still help each other along the way; so please feel free to share with others these homilies and your own personal faith in God through Jesus Christ. G.S.
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Happy Fathers' Day!
11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
VOCATION: Jesus calls us - He calls you to follow Him, to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and become a missionary disciple....
Gospel & Homily MP3 version - PDF version
What are the offerings that we bring to God? What is the meaning of "HOSANNAH!" We acclaim God for his greatness and praise Him, while at the same time calling upon Him to rescue us in our distress.... "HOSANNAH!" MP3 version
“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness!”
God gave himself a people in the descendants of Abraham and his wife Sarah consisting of their great grandchildren, the twelve sons of Jacob and grandsons of Isaac. All the books of the Old Testament in our Bible come from the descendants of these 12 boys who became the twelve tribes of Israel. These tribes did not all survive the turbulent events of the centuries, such that today, the world’s Jews don’t quite add up to 16 million, which is less than half the population of Canada, and we are a fairly small country.
Still, when we consider the history of humanity, the disproportional importance of the Jewish people cannot be explained in any other way than by the presence and action of God in the midst of his Chosen People. God wanted to prepare the coming of his favourite daughter, the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, the woman God the Father chose from the beginning to one day give birth with a human life to his only begotten divine Son, whom He wanted to name Jesus, that is, Yeshoua in Hebrew, which literally means: “God saves”.
“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness!”
This characteristic of God our Creator manifests itself throughout Creation. Everywhere we look, we see an overabundance of living species: plants, flowers, fruits, vegetables, animals, fish, insects, and even bacteria, most of which are not only beneficial, but essential for life.
The remarkable survival of the Jewish people and the fact that they are abundantly fruitful in many domains: music, medicine, finance, the arts, pure sciences, technology, and in their family and community culture, and this in spite of their small numbers; this too can only be explained by the presence and action of God in the midst of his Chosen People.
“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness!”
The Lord conducts himself towards his people as a good shepherd who loves his sheep and wants to assure not only the survival but the eternal salvation of his people, of each of his lambs. The Lord is our Good Shepherd. What are the trials through which the Lord has helped you to survive as you went through the experience and realization of your own poverty?
As it has been for the Jewish people; so, has it been for us who became Christians by our Baptism as infants or later by choice, over the last two millennia: we gave rise to the university as an open institution, to the scientific revolution, to the remarkable period of the renaissance, and to the evangelization of the entire world.
“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness!”
The good news and the Christian faith have survived several pandemics, the Muslim invasion of the second half of the first millennium, the divisions among Christians of the second millennium, and the twentieth century which was the deadliest century in human history.
Saint Paul reminds us, as he did for the Romans, “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” God manifested his extravagance in the passion and death of Jesus, son of Mary and Son of God, and by his resurrection. Jesus is God who saves us by his reconciliation of us with our Father and Creator. It is impossible for us to earn communion in the love of God, but this inheritance is freely given to us by the Father in his Son Jesus.
“Let us confess that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are his!”
Jesus gave his twelve Apostles a share in his authority to “proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” by doing what seems to us humanly impossible: “Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Your received without payment; give without payment.” That is exactly what they went out and did.
Our life on this Earth is brief. We can choose to live as if God doesn’t exist or as if He is doing nothing, or we can choose to believe in Him, to trust Him, to open our eyes, our minds, and our hearts, and to welcome into our lives his Presence and his saving action.
“Let us confess that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are his!”
That is why it is so important for us to participate well in the heavenly banquet of the Most Blessed Sacrament. We can prepare the day before and on Sunday by remembering all that we have lived since our last presence at the Sacred Liturgy. We can dispose ourselves to place on the altar our whole life: our efforts during the week to live as daughters, sons of God; all that we accept to endure out of love; our trials, our sorrows, our losses, our worries, our prayers, our temptations, and even our sins; putting all our trust in God.
“Let us confess that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are his!”
“Mary Mother of God, St. Joseph, walk with us in the steps of Jesus. O my Jesus, I trust in You! Thank You; You who are God, the Father, + the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
In silence now, the Holy
Spirit helps us to lay down our offering together with that of Jesus….
https://frgilleshomilies.blogspot.com https://homeliesabbegilles.blogspot.com
In the "New Covenant" made by our Creator God with humanity, as reported in Jeremiah 31:31-34, every human being can know God from within - because the Holy Spirit is revealing our Creator to all who are willing to know the Lord and trust in Him. We can still help each other along the way; so please feel free to share with others these homilies and your own personal faith in God through Jesus Christ. G.S.
© 2006-2023 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2006-2023 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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