Lord, You will show me the path of life. Alleluia! - April 23rd, 2023 - 3rd Sunday of Easter - MQP Church in JLW Parish - Also prepared for the Late Sunday Mass

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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3rd Sunday of Easter 

VOCATION: Jesus calls us - He calls you to follow Him, to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and become a missionary disciple....

 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 

Luke 24:35 "They recognized Him...

Original Art work by Pat Onofrio - July 2nd, 1983 
(Pat died August 13th, 2009.)

“Lord, you will show me the path of life. Alleluia!” 

Since the days when Jesus walked our Earth, He has raised up witnesses to establish the reality of his resurrection and ascension into Heaven at the right hand of the Father. We heard the Apostle Saint Peter speak and testify with assurance and boldness to the resurrection of Jesus. He went so far as to say to the crowd about Jesus: “you crucified and killed him by the hands of those outside the law.” Peter was unafraid of the crowd’s anger because he did not come to accuse them, but to proclaim the good news that this same Jesus rose from the dead.

However, we know full well that Peter himself, along with all the apostles and disciples of Jesus, did not believe the good news when they first heard it. They all needed to see and hear with their own eyes and ears that Jesus, in spite of his atrocious death on the cross, was now forever alive following his resurrection from the dead. What Jesus said to Cleopas and his companion, He could very well say to all of them and also to us: “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have declared!”

“Lord, you will show me the path of life. Alleluia!”

Last Sunday, it was the Apostle Thomas’ turn to hear this reproach from Jesus. After this, Jesus said to him: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” What a gift the Lord leaves us by referring in this way to all of us who have succeeded his apostles and disciples since the beginning of his Church. We who are alive today, we are all among “those who believe without having seen.”

Nonetheless, without necessarily seeing with our own eyes Jesus risen from the dead, we still need to taste for ourselves the great joy of Easter. We need to know for certain that the tomb in which the body of Jesus had been laid down for burial is now empty. We desire to feel upon ourselves the warm loving look of Jesus risen from the dead. It is necessary for us to know that Jesus remains at every momentby our side until the end of our journey on this Earth. God the Father Himself wants to come and dwell within us with his risen Son Jesus in the power of his divine love which is the Holy Spirit. 

“Lord, you will show me the path of life. Alleluia!” 

Well, that’s all very nice, but how exactly do we acquire the conviction that Jesus is risen and alive? We don’t dare to ask Him for signs and miracles the way King Herod tried to do or like the crowd who later taunted and mocked Jesus during his agony on the cross. After all, we are nothing more than creatures, and the Father, in communion with Jesus his Son, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, is God, our Creator. We must do as Mary and the apostles and disciples did, and set about earnestly listening to the Most Holy Trinity in prayer.   

“Lord, you will show me the path of life. Alleluia!” 

Like Cleopas and his companion, we must all walk together and share our sorrows, our worries, our challenges, and our hope with one another. The Holy Spirit wants to help married couples to open up to one another their thoughts, their hearts, and their souls. Parents with their children can also open themselves up to each other. Just as importantly, we all need to join in with the assembly to hear the Word of God, to adore the Lord our God, and to eat the Body and drink the Blood of Christ. As the baby suckles and is nourished at its mother’s breast, so too must we drink deeply from Jesus’ Sacred Heart. It is his own divine life with the Father in the Holy Spirit that Jesus causes to spring up within us as a fountain of living water. 

The new life which Jesus gives us through our Baptism is a sharing in his paschal mystery. As we accept to die with Jesus, we die to our old life of selfishness in order to rise from this death to the new life of love for our neighbour; loving even our enemies. Jesus drew his disciples into two movements. In the first movement, Jesus said to them, as He says to us: “Come to me all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Then, nourished and strengthened by Him, in the second movement, Jesus sends them out, as he also sends us: “Go and proclaim the good news, and make disciples. You have received freely; now, give freely.” 

“Lord, you will show me the path of life. Alleluia!” 

“Lord Jesus, we are sinners, but we cannot wait to be perfect before proclaiming to our world the good news that You are the Son of God and the one and only Saviour of the human race. In your great and divine mercy, forgive our sins, repair our defects, heal our wounds, strengthen our weaknesses, and fill us with your Holy Spirit. Send us out and accompany us as we go to the people of our time; help us to share with them the Good News that You rose from the dead; You are the Son of God; You love them and You offer them a new life which will lead them and us into eternal life. Come, Lord Jesus. O my Jesus, I trust in You.”   

“Lord, you will show me the path of life. Alleluia!” 

“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

 

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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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© 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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There is no greater joy than to suffer humiliation for the sake of Christ, by speaking of God's love to others - 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time - MQP Church in JLW Parish - July 4th, 2021

        Homily MP3 version                                 Homily PDF version      

“I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardship, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” “To You, I lift up my eyes, O Lord!”

Brothers and sisters, you are baptized and confirmed. Do you know you are also prophets? The prophet is not a person who foretells the future, no; the true prophet is a person whom God sends to tell the truth: the truth about God, the truth about us, human beings, the truth about the world, and the truth about life here on Earth which then continues into eternity.

Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Jonah, and all the prophets of the Old Covenant had a lot of trouble in trying to declare the Word of God to the people. St. John the Baptist was the last of these great prophets, and according to Jesus, John was the greatest among all the prophets who preceded him. John the Baptist was the greatest because he was closest to Jesus, sent by God to prepare the way for Jesus, Saviour of the world.

We are all prophets in the image of John the Baptist, because like him we are called and sent by God the Father to prepare the way for Jesus in the hearts of the people of our time. It isn’t the eloquence of our words that matters, but the reality of our life of faith. Our Good God doesn’t need our strength or our success; for his divine power, his divine mercy, and his love are more than enough to give life to every person who opens their thought, their heart, and their soul to the advances of our loving Creator God.

“I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardship, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” “To You, I lift up my eyes, O Lord!”

The perfect joy and the great freedom of the Good News is precisely that our Good God is sufficient in Himself to save the whole world. The Holy Trinity – Father, Son Jesus, and Holy Spirit – the Holy Trinity suffices in itself to save us. God desires to forgive our faults, to give vigor to our weaknesses, and to make us capable of loving even our enemies; for it is with the participation of us all, his children, that God wants to save the whole world.

Salvation comes from the sacrifice which Jesus made of his whole life from his infancy to the end on the Cross. In complete confidence, Jesus offered his life to the will of his Father. He calls us now to follow Him and to make of our own life the same sacrifice with the same confidence in God the Father by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes God delivers us from distress, but whether we are delivered or not, God needs our confidence in offering Him every day our illnesses, our faults, our sufferings, and even our sins. God uses the offering of our poverty to manifest to all his power and his mercy to save.

“I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardship, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” “To You, I lift up my eyes, O Lord!”

It is difficult to speak of God to others, to share with them why we trust in God, why we love God. The Holy Spirit gives us the strength and the love of Jesus draws us on to do it. It is also for love of our neighbour that we can dare to open our mouth and let the Holy Spirit give us the words. In that moment, maybe people will be glad to hear us talk about God, but maybe not. They may even get angry. That’s the unavoidable risk we take.

Like Jesus, we cannot avoid suffering rejection and maybe even persecution at the hands of those who are closest to us: our own family, our friends, our neighbors, and our colleagues at work or at school. It is a wonderful thing for Christians to suffer opposition, persecution, and humiliation for the glory of God and out of love for our neighbor. Jesus said it Himself: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13

“I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardship, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” “To You, I lift up my eyes, O Lord!”

“God, our Father, fill us anew with your Holy Spirit; that we may trust in You wholeheartedly and from day to day freely choose to live as your children, and to testify before others to your love and your mercy; so that the world may turn to Jesus, our Saviour.”

Brothers and sisters, let us ask every day the help of Mary, Mother of Jesus, Saint Joseph, and all the saints of God – the Father, + the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let us take a few moments to let the Holy Spirit renew and deepen our trust in Jesus.  

 

https://frgilleshomilies.blogspot.com         https://homeliesabbegilles.blogspot.com 

 

© 2006-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC

Obedient to the Holy Spirit, we can rejoice in persecution and be joyful witnesses for God and for life - Saturday, 5th week of Easter - May 8th, 2021 - Mary Queen of the World Basilica Cathedral for QLC

  Homily MP3           Mass for Québec Life Coalition 

Pilgrimage with our Blessed Mother for Life 

Abortion, Human Rights, Animal Rights, and Human Dignity

        I watched the April 12th Vision TV Current Affairs show “Test of Faith” attempt to open up the debate on abortion.  I was somewhat surprised at first that none of the guests were very willing to take the animator up on the question.  Is it that the pro-choice lobby has become so successful that there is now a generalized public impression that to even raise the question about the morality of abortion is automatically branded as a stance against women? 
        In that regard, I believe the same to be true about the debate around same-sex marriage.  The gay lobby has also been quite successful in reshaping public opinion, so that any attempt at legitimate debate on the nature and value of marriage in human society as an institution always understood to be for a man and a woman is immediately branded as an attack against gay rights.  In other words, I believe that what we are witnessing in our time and culture is the advent of inverse tolerance: we pride ourselves at being tolerant and go so far as to defend our tolerance by attacking and condemning anyone who disagrees with us, and we do it in not so subtle fashion by branding them as intolerant by simple virtue of the fact that they wish to disagree with the formerly and perhaps still minority view that is entrenching itself in the public forum as the self-appointed correct view.
        To get back to the animator’s attempt to stir up some debate on abortion, there really wasn't much debate on abortion itself.  What I remember hearing was mostly an affirmation of women's rights to make their own moral choices.  That's a fairly safe position to adopt.  Even those that are considered "conservative" Roman Catholic Christians hold to the primacy of the individual conscience.  When people like Pope John Paul II make public declarations about abortion and other moral issues, they are simply trying to carry out their mandated responsibility to express the positions that emerge from what is called the natural law - the common denominator of truth that the average human being can perceive within them - whether or not they follow it.  For example, the majority of German citizens from 1932 on knew in their conscience that what was happening to their Jewish neighbors was wrong, but for various reasons, they chose to ignore their conscience.  The debate on abortion would have been more complete and there would have been more of a chance to reach for the whole truth if more had been said about the nature of abortion and how that relates to our nature as human beings.
        The animator attempted to bring into the debate recent scientific research, but I sensed she was too polite - actually a scientist would have been in a better position to make those points.  There is an inner logic that what is conceived by a man and woman in her is human from the very first instant of fertilization.  No scientific research has been able to establish that there is any intervention whatever that takes place after fertilization that could demonstrate or prove a change in the nature of the living organism that just goes on multiplying and growing.  All the visible changes that occur are all contained in the genetic coding of the very first fertilized cell, much as the roots, trunk, branches, leaves, flowers, seeds, and fruit are all contained in the seed of a fruit tree.  An apple seed never produces anything other than an apple tree, and apples of the very same kind as the fruit from which the seed came. 
        If then, what is conceived is indeed fully human, but just so little that it cannot yet be conscious as we understand consciousness or speak for itself, then this raises two questions.  First, at what point of development does that consciousness become human?  Second, if what we are aborting is little human persons, what are the problems that emerge from this action?
        The Nazis were not the first and they won't be the last to set limits on what can be granted the status of human being.  The long-standing Christian view - though there are some who claim to be Christian but deny the basic tenets of their faith - is that the essence of human dignity is that we have this dignity by the very fact of our nature.  As Genesis puts it, we have been created in the image and likeness of God.  No one can have the temerity to claim for themselves the right to grant or deny that dignity.  It is there from the first moment of independent and spontaneous self-sustaining growth, regardless of the flaws that may occur in that growth - in other words - from the first moment of fertilization.
        This implies then that whenever we abort a human life - from as early as the contraceptive pill that disallows the fertilized cell cluster from adhering to the uterine wall to as late as final term abortions or even infant killings as was practiced by the Greeks of antiquity - we are murdering a human life.  Of course, this is the very discourse that all who advocate pro-choice and the rights of women to do what they want or need to do with whatever is contained within the confines of their body at times stridently refuse to hear or allow to be spoken. 
        I really do sympathize with women - especially young women - who find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy, and deeply pity the men - especially the young men - who avoid their opportunity to become men and shirk their responsibilities to the woman they have ravished and the life she has conceived.  What we have is a mess, which in many ways is of our own making.  I remember not so long ago as a child watching movies where the young adult children rebelled against their parents' restrictive moral directions and engaged in uncommitted sexual intercourse, sometimes getting away with it, and sometimes not.  What became evil was no longer the irresponsible sex, but the parental attempts to impose limits on their children's behavior.  Granted, the parenting may have often been faulty.  You can forbid and punish a young child, but an adolescent and young adult needs to be trained and prepared to make personal and responsible decisions.  If they are never allowed to decide and make mistakes, then they will deliberately go against their parents' directions simply to affirm their independence and strive to search for their innate human dignity, which they sense within them.
        On the other hand, our culture has become so allergic to authority as to become blind to anything but our own desires, views, opinions, feelings, and inclinations.  As a society, we have come to take a very adolescent stance in the face of life: we want to do what we want to do, but are in total denial of the facts of life - the laws of nature and the natural law of conscience - we want reality to be the way we want it, and when it isn't we resort to bending it out of shape so it can fit our distorted desires.  It is a massive attempt to exert mind over matter.  Because the life in the womb is defenseless, there is no longer anyone to oppose our distorted self-will.  There used to be laws that were an attempt to enshrine in human law the dictates of the natural law and human conscience, but since so many are now in denial of both, it no longer made sense to keep the law on the books.  In a way, human justice is a reflection of the common conscience of the people.  As it was in Nazi Germany, so it can be again anywhere, anytime.
        As a practitioner in the development of human consciences - through my ministry of guidance and in the Sacrament of Reconciliation where the faithful of all ages come to confess the sins of which they have become aware - it has been my experience that there truly is a natural law that is discernible by the individual human heart and conscience.  It is there even in the absence of parental restraints.  It is there even in the almost complete absence of restrains in our open, western culture.  Anytime people go against their conscience, they begin to live a life of inner torment, without inner peace.  Whenever they go along with their conscience, such as it is and often in error or not fully informed, but against the natural law, it's only a question of time before the consequences of their choices cause sufficient upheaval within them to bring to awareness at least the basic notion that all is not well within them.
        At times like that, without telling them what I think is wrong with them, a little guided tour through the landscape of their living situation and conditions, of their choices and preferences, of their opinions and views, and of how all of that compares with what is to be found in the Christian and Jewish Scriptures, usually begins to bring sufficient light within their conscience that the penny begins to drop and they can draw their own conclusions about where they have gone wrong.  No one needs to tell them.
        The problem, I think, with the sterility of the current debate is that there is a whole view - the one anyone disagrees with - that is being demonized (on both sides) with the result that there really isn't a true debate.  Only partial truths are being admitted to the debate.  Only partial conclusions can be reached.  When all is said and done, there may be the temporary comfort of having our own way, but this is not what acknowledges our human dignity in all of its stature, nor is it what respects the individual person in all their potential for living a fully human existence.  We are settling for something less that fully human, and we are condemning whole generations by attempting to lock them into partial truths.  At some point, it can only blow up in our faces, and when the younger generations some day awaken to all of the truth involved here, we can expect them to have considerable contempt for how we will have disrespected their freedom of conscience.
        I found it most interesting that the topic lined up for the following week - this past Monday - was the debate on animal rights.  Isn't it ironic that on the same planet at the same time we can find views that will on the one hand deny the humanity, dignity, and rights of the unborn human lives unwanted for whatever reasons, and on the other hand come to the defense of the rights of animals to be treated humanely?  I must admit that the contrast leaves me almost speechless.  Silence in the face of such a contradiction is in some ways the better response.  As they say in poker, "Read 'em and weep!" 
        Still, I would like to make one point here.  Through all of human history, it has been generally considered part of a woman and all women's dignity that they have the capacity and determination to generously conceive, nurture, deliver, and rear human beings, with the support of their man.  No matter the circumstances, it saddens me to observe the harm that a woman does to her own nature when the confines of her body - designed to be a place of nurture, safety, and tender care - becomes a place of deliberately dealt out death.  We all know how tragic and painful miscarriages are, and how devastated many women feel afterwards - even though it was not at all their fault - we can only begin to imagine the dire consequences for the female psyche when the life they carry is deliberately terminated. 

Even in the case of rape, though that act was so terribly wrong and such a violation, an additional wrong and violence can't make it right, but only further violates the dignity of her womb, her body, her sense of herself, her conscience.  I can only weep.  And I am outraged at attempts - without anger at those who do so with the best of intentions - to declare abortion OK, or without serious consequences, or less wrong, or whatever.  Killing is killing.  It just isn't self-defense as in war, when the one to be killed is an aggressor who fully and deliberately intends to take lives.
        In addition, it has also been generally considered part of a man and all men’s dignity that they have the capacity and determination to care for their woman or wife and for the human life she conceives, nurtures, delivers, and rears, and to defend them from all external dangers.  It saddens me to observe the disintegration of the male psyche into something base and less than human that seeks only its own comfort and ease.  I am equally outraged at attempts by men but also by parents to leave the burden of unwanted pregnancies on the shoulders and consciences of the women – it is unfair that the man be allowed to escape what the unfortunate woman cannot – since she cannot escape her own body or feminine nature.  Our notion of the male nature is so damaged that there is little or no sense of failure when the man just abandons the woman and goes back to his own narcissistic agenda and his parents are content to let the woman’s family bear the whole burden.

In conclusion, I must thank the animator for at least attempting to spark the debates.  If I may make a suggestion, it would be that animators research and find other speakers who can better represent the other facets of any given issue, so that there may be more likelihood of at least touching on the full spectrum of facets to the usually multifaceted truths of our human existence.

Fr. Gilles A. Surprenant, pastor – St. Thomas à Becket Parish – Montreal QC – April 2004

© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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