HOMELIES

Brothers and Sisters,

Your father, who sees in secret, will repay you. So there's a secret to be lived out in almsgiving, prayer and fasting. So what is this attitude, this secret demanded by God in the way we live our walk towards Easter, because now is the right time to do it. It all begins with the prophet Joel's reminder: return to God with all our heart. To return to him because we are elsewhere, because we are probably still a long way from loving him with all our heart and all our strength, and because we have other pleasures besides him. God does not reject a broken and crushed heart. Heartbreak is openness to love, the breach that hurts when we realize that our heart, far from opening up to the love of God and others, has instead closed itself off. We can then pray to God to bring us back to him. And now is the right time to do so, so that we don't let the grace we've received to rediscover each Lent that we were made not for the extinguished ashes that quickly disappear, but for the fire of Easter night, the fire of love that sets everything ablaze, go unheeded.

To return to God and stay focused on what's essential, the Gospel suggests three steps to be taken in secret: almsgiving, prayer and fasting.

It's a bit strange to talk about almsgiving for monks. Of course the community gives as much as it can, but each individual monk doesn't have the money or the means to help others financially. But that's not entirely true either. The monk has what is most precious and rare to give to others: time, his time offered freely to listen to a brother or do him a service. Almsgiving is not just about giving, but rather about giving oneself. And how far can we go in going beyond ourselves and giving of ourselves? There's a type of almsgiving that necessarily requires us to detach ourselves from our favorite pastimes to give our time when our brothers and sisters need us. And in the secret that our God sees, we should be able to achieve this fraternal bond with every human being that would enable us to experience a true sharing of what we have (time, talent, know-how) and that would enable us to say in all truth: everything that's mine is yours.

Beyond the ready-made prayers we may recite without being present to what we're saying, there's a prayer that springs from the heart and is a cry of praise or supplication to God. It has been said of us monks that we are praying in the midst not of unbelievers but of cryers, that is, human beings who don't know what words to put on what rises within them and turns them towards God. Prayer frees us from a purely horizontal life, without transcendence, without the presence of the living God present with us. But we don't know how to pray any more than the cryers do, and we too need to let the Spirit that God has breathed into our hearts speak to us, so that we can seek him out, love him and pray to him. And it is this Spirit of love that binds us to Christ and calls us to a life ablaze with Him.

We begin and live this Lent in a fasting way. It's not just a more austere time of restricted dietary prescriptions, even if there's no dessert for 40 days. It's not even a time of greater solidarity with all those who suffer misery, hunger and thirst in the world today. Even if we can also give this meaning to our gestures of deprivation and commune with them. Like almsgiving and prayer, fasting frees us from dependencies and attachments that seduce, paralyze or anaesthetize our hearts, or imprison others. Fasting pleases God by not shying away from our fellow man when he crosses our path and we can help him to become free and happy. The fervor of our very first love (and it's a very precious memory, because it still lasts) made everything else less important than our unspeakable attachment to the Other. It is this fast that Lent invites us to rediscover. It's not about deprivation, but about the love that unifies our hearts and our lives.

The ashes on our heads or foreheads remind us that we are fragile beings struggling with evil, sin, appearances, our past, our limits and our human illusions. This sign humbly confronts us with our need to heal all our wounds of heart and soul. But God has breathed his Spirit of life into our dust, and what he too does in secret is to make us return to him again and again through the love he has placed in us...

On this first Sunday of Lent, we see Jesus led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted. In the desert, Jesus encounters the Tempter, who offers him three temptations that could bear an uncanny resemblance to some of our own prayers.

Seeing Jesus overcome with hunger, the tempter approached Him and whispered in His ear: "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.

It's not uncommon today to hear people say, "If God existed, there wouldn't be so much misery in the world. Everyone would have enough to eat. When he says this, it's as if he were saying, "Where is your God?

The question "Where is your God?" is one we all ask ourselves at times. When we see all those emaciated and starving people on our screens. How is it that a God who claims to be Love leaves entire populations to die? Why doesn't he answer our prayers?

In fact, God answers our prayers. He has placed on the earth and in the seas all the food needed to feed mankind. It's our hearts that aren't open to sharing. That's why God responds to us as he did to the tempter: "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." In other words: "Put into practice my great commandment of love, learn to share, and you will see hunger and many miseries disappear from your land."

Then the devil takes Jesus to the Holy City and places him on top of the temple. He says to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, 'He will command his angels to carry him on their hands, lest his foot strike the stones'." A dazzling miracle: To throw himself down from the temple and be stopped in his fall by angels who would carry him on their hands in full view of everyone. This is what would convince all Jerusalem that He really is the Son of God.

At a time when the Church is accused of all evils and ridiculed in the media, we too would like to see a great sign in the sky, as some websites are announcing.

A sign that would convince everyone that Christ is truly God's Envoy.

To which God replies, "You will not put God to the test by hoping for extraordinary signs." Moreover, why look to heaven for the great sign that Jesus tells us is to be found on earth: "By your love for one another, you will be recognized as my disciples", or "Father, may they all be one, so that the world may believe that you sent me". It is Christian unity that will prove to the world that Jesus is the one sent by God.

Finally, revealing the depths of his thinking, the tempter takes Jesus to a high mountain and, showing him the world, says: "All this I will give you, if, falling at my feet, you will bow down before me.

A god who bows down to us. How often do we hear people say: "God, I don't believe in that. I've prayed as much as I've prayed for this or that intention and I've never been answered. This proves that God doesn't exist. We'd like a god at our service. A god who answers all our prayers. A vending-machine god into which we put our prayers to get what we want.

To which God replies: "You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve. In other words, if God is God, it's up to us to do his will, not his to do ours. Of course we can present our needs and desires to God in prayer, but without forgetting to add, as Jesus did in the Garden of Olives: "Not my will, but yours be done." Confident that God knows better than we do what's good for us and for others.

Brothers and Sisters

One day Jesus said to Peter: "Get behind me Satan, for your thoughts are not those of God but of men.

Let's take advantage of this Lenten season to ask ourselves about the quality of our prayers? Are they in line with God's thoughts?

On the mountain of Golgotha, on a Friday, Jesus would be disfigured and crucified... Today, on the mountain of transfiguration, he appears clothed in sunlight... Rather: radiating the light that dwells within him, the Light that he himself is, as the Son of God! Jesus experiences this moment of intensity, before embarking on the path that will lead him to the suffering of his passion and death.

which he has already announced to his disciples on two occasions... He has chosen three of them to be witnesses to this unique event.

If we take the time to look at Jesus transfigured today, we will be able to discover much based on his experience: we will learn from him how to face the trials, the moments of suffering and death that we encounter one day or another in our personal lives or in the lives of the people we love... We will learn from him how to get through these moments of darkness, how to move forward beyond the difficulties, the failures, the misunderstandings, the abandonments or betrayals that make us suffer... In these moments of darkness and great suffering, we may be tempted to doubt God's love for each and every one of us; we may even come to the conclusion that the moments of intimacy and light we have known with him in the past, when we have strongly felt God's love for us, that these moments were simply illusions that deceived us...

Rather, by living through the transfiguration before his crucifixion and death, Jesus teaches us that we need to know how to treasure in the memory of our hearts the good and beautiful moments we have experienced thanks to our faith, so that we can draw strength and light from them when the time comes for great trials and darkness... It is by connecting ourselves to the light of our faith that we will be able to get through these painful moments. As Jesus did when he went up a high mountain, we too, even more than he did, need to go into a space of silence, to find ourselves and better perceive the light that dwells within us, we who have become sons and daughters of God, thanks to Jesus who died and rose for our life and salvation.

 The apostle Peter, who had tasted this exceptional experience with Jesus, found it so good that he would have liked to prolong it and camp out, as it were, on the mountain. But they had to come down from the mountain with Jesus, who told them: " Don't tell anyone about this vision, until the Son of Man has risen from the dead ". They must not speak of it, but they must remember it - which they have failed to do - when Jesus lives out his atrocious passion and dies on the cross, the most ignominious death a Jew could ever die.

  This gospel, proclaimed on this second Sunday of Lent, is an invitation to take time out with Jesus, a time to listen to him, as the voice of God the Father invites us to do: " This is my beloved Son, in whom I delight: listen to him! " Yes: listen to him, and above all put into practice what he tells us, as Pope Francis shows us in a commentary on this Gospel page:

"From this episode of the Transfiguration, I would like to highlight two significant elements, which I summarize in two words: ascent and descent. We need... to ascend... This we do in prayer. But we can't stay there. The encounter with God in prayer impels us once again to 'come down from the mountain' and return to the plain below, where we meet so many brothers [and sisters] weighed down by sorrow, disease, injustice, ignorance, material and spiritual poverty. To our brothers [and sisters] who are in difficulty, we are called to bring the experience we have had with God, sharing the grace we have received." (Angelus, March 16, 2014)

We can extend this reflection of Pope Francis by asking ourselves, each and every one of us, according to our state of life and personal vocation: " How am I going to come down to my brothers and sisters, this week?... Is there someone in particular to whom I could come down from the mountain to join them on the plain where they suffer? "

As in all countries where people have long lived as nomads in the desert, wells have always been of great importance. Well sites were meeting places, where caravans stopped and herds gathered. 

In the biblical accounts, many of the sentimental stories of the patriarchs revolve around a well. It was near a well that Moses fell in love with his future wife, Zipporah. It was also near a well that Jacob and Rachel or Isaac and Rebekah met.

But it was also around a well given by Jacob to the inhabitants of Shechem in Samaria (today Nablus in Palestine) that a sad story was born that would make this site a place of discord between the Jews and the people of Samaria.

It is precisely at this well, then, that the encounter between Jesus and the woman from Samaria takes place. In the Gospel account, the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman is introduced by the woman's possession of something that Jesus does not have to quench her thirst: a pitcher.

Jesus needs her to draw water from the well and quench his thirst, but the feud between the Jews and the Samaritans means that she shouldn't even speak to him, let alone lend him her pitcher. As a result, Jesus remains thirsty throughout the story.

It has been said that Jesus did not change the social problems that plagued the society of his time. Here, if he doesn't solve the problem between Jews and Samaritans, he does point it out and is willing to defy the ban. He dares to speak to a woman he doesn't know and who, moreover, is a Samaritan. Yet he does speak to her, and in so doing, provokes in her a surge of hope that gives her the desire to live.

By the very fact of having resurrected hope in her, Jesus revived her ability to identify and express her deepest desire.

Jesus has shown her that there really are other values than the ones she has been striving for until now.

Through this encounter, Jesus drew her into the spiritual dimension of her being.

She understood that the spiritual dimension of the human being transcends social conventions and even the differences between religions: because God is also found in surpassing oneself.

Since her encounter with Jesus, the Samaritan woman realized that she couldn't remain trapped within the limits that had been imposed on her and in which she had imprisoned herself. While nothing had yet changed in her life, she realized that everything could now change: she began to see things differently.

God revealed himself to her as the God of openness, not of confinement. So, what changed in her? Nothing, and yet... everything.

As with the Samaritan woman, we too can let Jesus reach out to us, so that through his contact we can be freed from our imprisonment and dashed hopes.

He alone can give us hope where we thought all seemed lost, for "he is truly the Savior of the World".

Brothers and sisters, this is not the first time in the Gospel that Jesus heals a blind man. Let's remember those who followed him out of Jericho, crying out: "Have mercy on us, Son of David! Have mercy on us, Son of David, or Bartimaeus, who was harshly rebuked by the crowd for having implored God's mercy, or the blind man of Bethsaida, whom Jesus healed outside his village.

What's new today is the mention of a man born blind. The evangelist John is careful to make this clear from the very first verse of his account, as if to emphasize the seriousness of this man's illness; he has not lost his sight through accident, injury, fight or war, this man is simply blind from birth. He has never seen clearly, not once in his life. His blindness has plunged him into darkness to this day. He can live, but because he's blind, he could find himself in mortal danger at any moment. His illness has become a matter of life and death for him.

Yet this man was not born blind because he sinned. Sickness and the trials of life are not a consequence of sin; nor are they willed by God.

Neither he nor his parents sinned, Jesus assures us.

On the other hand, Jesus uses the symbolism of blindness to reveal the darkness that haunts the heart of every human being, the consequence of our closing ourselves off to the love that comes from God. In this regard, and following St. Augustine, Pope Francis writes that "the blind from birth symbolizes the human race; he represents each one of us, who were created to know God, but who because of sin are like blind from birth."

We are like this blind man of birth when we refuse to recognize in Jesus the true light that enlightens every man, the light of the world, when we turn our eyes away from Him, when we prefer to trust in our little lights that shine so dimly in the night, when we grope in the darkness in search of futile pleasures. We are the Pharisees of today, blinded by pride, knowledge and certainties, preventing us from discovering in Jesus the One sent by the Father, the One who saves the world.

Blind-born then, like the one today, but also children of God from birth, since we are not only born of earth and dust, flesh and blood, but also of God himself. Jesus' beautiful gesture of likening the water in his saliva to earth reveals not only the depth of the wound we bear, but even more so the Lord's benevolent and passionate love for each and every one of us.

It recalls the Lord's creative gesture in shaping earthy Adam, breathing into him the breath of life. It tells us that we are created in his image and likeness, that we are children of light, as St. Paul wrote to the community of Ephesus.

We are children of God, Pope Francis continues, "when we abandon our false lights, first of all that of prejudice against others, because prejudice distorts reality and charges us with aversion against those whom we judge without mercy and condemn without appeal. We are children of God when we abandon the seductive and ambiguous light of self-interest, which evaluates people and things on the basis of the criterion of our utility, pleasure or prestige." We are children of God when we fix our gaze on Jesus, the only true light capable of leading us along the road to the beatitudes.

This is what the grace of faith reveals to us, far beyond our sin of blindness.

Where sin has abounded, the grace of faith has, in the words of Saint Paul, superabounded.

Brothers and sisters, what Jesus is saying today through the healing of the born-blind man - and I like to think that this is the most beautiful reason to believe in the Gospel - is that every reality can be viewed differently, according to the perspective of faith. Taking one thing for another, not out of confusion, but out of revelation of the depths it conceals: a birth for an awakening to the inner life, a thirst for a desire for transcendence, blindness for a call to follow the Light of the world, a blind-born sinner for a child of God and a son of light, sin and evil for a work of redemption.

"Neither he nor his parents sinned. But it was so that the works of God might be made manifest in him."

This is the look of faith given to the born-blind man, and by the same token to all of us today who have been baptized into Christ's death and resurrection, gradually bringing us from blindness to the brightness of Easter Day.

Brothers and Sisters,

Over the last fifty years or so, much has been said about the importance of discerning the signs of God in the history of humanity and the Church. And we monks know very well that we're not here to be numerous, but to be a sign. And to be a sign, we don't need to be numerous, as we have been in the past. But our sign must be visible and decipherable, i.e. perceived and understood by people. The prophet Isaiah had already alluded to this: "Do not dwell on the deeds of the past; behold, I, says the Lord God, am going to make something new that is already budding: will you not recognize it? (Is 43:19), and Saint Luke, following on from this discernment of a sacred moment in our history, adds: "See the trees. As soon as they bud, you only have to look at them to know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see certain events taking place, know that the kingdom of God is near... (Lk 21:29f) In the Word of God for this feast, King Acaz refuses to ask for a sign. But a sign will be given: a pregnant virgin will give birth to a son, Emmanuel, God-with-us. But in reality, God has been giving us a sign for a very long time, in a word that he repeats to each generation and to all those to whom he is close. He spoke this word to Mary on the day of the Annunciation. And the risen Christ made it a promise: and I will be with you always, to the end of the age.

To Jacob, Moses, Gideon, Mary: he repeated I am with you, I will be with you. This annunciation is at the heart of what we celebrate today. He is with us. And like Mary, if we let this word enter our hearts, we too may be both amazed and overwhelmed.

We're struggling with our own challenges, and we don't know "how" to solve them, or even how to let God work in us. And it's entirely conceivable that God will give us the same answer he gave to Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary and so many of our brothers and sisters in the faith who have done greater things than they could have imagined on the basis of their human nature alone: The Holy Spirit will come upon you. Gideon doesn't know what to do in the face of the innumerable army besieging his people, and he complains and laments his lack of resources, but the Lord doesn't go there and replies: Go with the strength that dwells in you. It's disturbing to make ourselves available to the wisdom and strength of the Spirit who dwells within us, and to awaken to his inspirations and calls, especially when our daily life is called into question, as was the life of Mary, who had another life project when the angel came to find her for this annunciation.

In reality, we should be able to base our whole life on God's word that he is with us every day. But God knows so well our human limits of perception, deciphering and understanding, so he gives us one last sign to reveal that nothing is impossible for God. The sign is addressed to Mary: Your cousin Elisabeth, in her old age, also conceived a son, even though she was known as the barren woman. The impossible that God can achieve is to transform sterility into fecundity. Even after a very long time of waiting and hoping. In old age, at the end of the life of a person, of a community, suddenly, something that we no longer expected, while continuing to hope for it, emerges, sprouts and buds.

On this day, the great news is that God has entered into the history of humanity, and into my human history. And Christ, in coming into our world, has not changed location, but has become visible in the human condition. He began to dwell visibly among us, within us and between us. He has identified himself with every human being. The question Isaiah asked even before the incarnation of the Son of God remains as relevant as ever: will you not recognize him in what is budding in you and around you?

My God," says the psalmist, "this is what I love, this is what grips me: you have come, you are here, alive and present, every day. And this annunciation will not end until we meet again in eternity.

Brothers and sisters,

One day when Jesus was in the temple in Jerusalem, the Jews gathered around him to ask: "If you are the Christ, tell us openly. To which Jesus replied, "I have told you, and you do not believe me", to which He added, "The Father and I are one." At these words, the Jews bent down to pick up stones to stone Him because He had dared to make Himself equal to God. To escape them, Jesus withdrew to Galilee with his disciples, where he would be safe.

Along the way, his friend Lazarus - who lives in Bethany, about half an hour's walk from Jerusalem - falls ill. His two sisters Martha and Mary, who are surely aware of the events that have just taken place in the Jerusalem temple, don't dare ask Jesus to come back and heal their brother for fear of endangering his life. Nevertheless, they want to let him know. So they send a messenger to tell him: "Lord, the one you love is sick.

Jesus could well have healed his friend Lazarus from a distance, by the power of his Word alone, as he had done when he healed the son of the Roman centurion or cast a demon out of the daughter of the Canaanite woman. All he had to say to the messenger was: "Go back in peace, my friend Lazarus is cured", and his friend Lazarus would have been healed. - And perhaps this is what the two sisters were secretly hoping for, that Jesus would heal their brother Lazarus from a distance without exposing himself to danger - but Jesus loves Lazarus and his two sisters so much that He wants to be by their side to help them through this difficult time. So He decided to return to Judea. Thomas, one of the twelve, who clearly understood the danger Jesus was exposing himself to, exclaimed: "Let's go too, and die with Him. It was on this occasion that the chief priests decided to put Jesus to death.

Brothers and sisters,

We are all Lazarus, friends of Jesus. We were all dead and condemned to darkness for our sins. But Jesus loves us so much that he was willing to leave his safe heaven to come and save us.

He who created heaven and earth by the power of his Word alone. He who said: "Let there be light" and there was light could well have saved us from a distance. He had only to say: "I will that they all be forgiven", and we would all have been forgiven and saved.

The proof that God loves us is that He is not content to save us from a distance. We are so precious to Him that He doesn't hesitate to send His only Son to save us, even though He knows the danger He is exposing Him to. From the moment God decided to create man and woman, He already knew: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

It is this mad love of a God who gives his life for his friends that we will celebrate over the coming holy days.

These holy days are far from sad. Rather, they should make us burst with joy, for they are proof of the greatest love. They tell us how much God loves us.

Palm Sunday homily

Brothers and Sisters,

Holy Week begins by refocusing us and reconnecting us in depth with joy. As Jesus enters Jerusalem, we breathe in a climate of joy. Jesus awakened many expectations and hopes in the hearts of the men and women of his time, especially among the humble, the simple, the poor, the forgotten. He knew how to understand all human miseries, and he showed God's merciful face. He took concrete action to heal not only the sicknesses of the body, but also the wounds of the soul. And it is with this love that he enters Jerusalem. It's a beautiful scene, joyful, contagious, full of the light of Jesus' love and heart.

Joy, of course, is not experienced in the same way at every stage and in every circumstance of our human life, a life that can also be very hard at times. Jesus knows this very well, and he tells his disciples: You will be sad, but your sadness will turn into joy... and no one will be able to take your joy away from you. For our joy does not come from pleasures or riches; it comes from having met him, Jesus. And his message, his word from God, when it reaches us and affects us, is a source of joy: everything he says to us is so that his joy is in us, and our joy is complete.

Each time they see the risen Jesus, the disciples are filled with joy. When Jesus enters Jerusalem, it is not yet this joy that dwells within them and lifts them up. But for us, who know that he is alive and risen once and for all, we share in this unique joy, and it never leaves us as we relive the Passion and Death of Jesus during these Holy Days. We know that the Cross is an inescapable part of the Paschal Mystery. But we also know that this passage through the Cross opens us up to the newness of Easter, and enables us to look at our lives in a whole new way.

Let's take this passage and walk this path, let's walk it for ourselves, encountering the mystery of death and resurrection in each of our lives, but let's go forward with Him... Let's go forward making our own what the psalmist tells us (Ps 42:4): I will go forward to the altar of God, to God who is all my joy.

Let's keep pace with our brothers, slowed down by old age and infirmities. We want to go to Christ together.

Homily on the Passion

More than 60 years ago, our Quebec poet Gilles Vigneault asked: "Without love, why sing?" and the refrain was repeated over and over again: "It's hard to love. Long before him, the psalmist affirmed that love is better than life. He didn't add anything, but we could add the same refrain: that it's hard to love. And we've just heard it again in the Passion narrative: how hard it is to love.

Jesus says one of his own is going to betray him, and the disciples take it in turns to ask: could it be me, Lord? They've been with him for three years; they live with him day after day, but none of them is sure of his feelings. Could it be me, Lord? And when Peter adds: Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you. And all the disciples said the same. A noble and sincere response, but without foundation or anchorage in reality. They all end up running away, disappearing and leaving Jesus alone in the end.

Judas is going to betray Jesus, and the agreed sign of his betrayal is to kiss Jesus. Love is imitated and parodied. It's not only hard to love, but it's also possible to make deceptive, lying gestures of love. Judas will admit that he has betrayed an innocent, but it's too late to make up for it. The chief priests and elders tell him clearly: Your remorse is of no importance to us. That's your business. And Judas, who hasn't learned to face up to the darker side of himself, let alone open himself up to love, sees no other way out than to hang himself. It's hard to love others when you can no longer love yourself.

In denying Jesus, Peter utters terrible words: "I don't know this man. How could he, who had always been so close to Jesus, speak like that? We think he wanted to save his skin, that he preferred himself to Jesus, and there's no doubt something of that in his I know not this man. But perhaps he was telling the truth at that very moment. There are times, even when we think we love someone, when we don't always know if we really know them, and we can say things that take us out of the relationship. Peter then remembered that Jesus had told him what was going to happen and, going back inside himself, he wept bitterly and also rediscovered his humanity. It's hard to love. And it will be interesting later to see how Jesus reconnected with Peter. He brought out the best in this man. He didn't ask him about his zeal, his faithfulness, his courage. He asked him about love. Pierre, do you love me? It's rare for people to be asked about their love, but for Jesus, it was the only question that interested him. Because love is the question that determines the destiny of every human being.

The passage of Simon of Cyrene on Jesus' Way of the Cross is interesting. He is requisitioned. He doesn't make a gratuitous gesture of love like the Good Samaritan, but he does it. And can we really be ourselves before we've learned to carry someone else's cross, or at least someone else's cross? Whether by obligation or freely, sooner or later we are faced with this situation: taking upon ourselves what is too heavy to bear, or even crushing, for someone else, and going along for the ride with them, supporting them as best we can. Simon of Cyrene did not live Jesus' life for him. No one can live someone else's life for them. But we can sometimes share a part of it, for a time. And there's love in that help.

The centurion and those who guarded Jesus with him said: Truly, this was the Son of God. They were seized by the events and undoubtedly by the words of Jesus on the cross. They had before them a crucified man, condemned to death and in agony, no doubt no longer beautiful to look at, but beyond appearances they saw the invisible, they saw the Divine. They were guarding Jesus together, they listened, watched, saw and discerned what was happening at that moment, and what rose up in them was very much like what Saint John would say one day: It is the Lord. They said: Truly, this was the Son of God. Halfway between a confession of faith and a confession of love. A breach of light opened up within them.

Love is always lived in a relationship. For Jesus, this relationship is with us and with his Father. On the cross, he opens his arms to accept our sorrows and joys, to love us to the end. And need I say it again: to love us "lucidly" to the very end. He tastes, but does not drink, the wine-based drink with a grain of incense intended for the crucified, to help them lose consciousness and avoid suffering too much. Jesus cries out loudly My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? A popular singer has taken up the cry of a son to his father: Where are you daddy, where are you? Jesus turns to his father, for at this moment, in the abandonment and solitude that precede his death, he no longer feels the connection, and it is a final cry of love. What he's looking for is not an explanation for his abandonment, but the presence of the eternal Father, tender and loving, who said to him: You are my son, in you I have put all my love...

My Lord and my God!

Brothers and sisters, how can we fail to be moved by the words of the apostle Thomas? How can we fail to be moved by Jesus' gesture to his disciple: Put your finger forward... put your hand in my side: stop being an unbeliever, be a believer? This account of the resurrection is certainly one of the most beautiful pages of the Gospel. Those that never leave us indifferent, even after many years; those that still stir us from within, that move our whole being.

 My Lord and my God!

It is a unique and extraordinary privilege for Thomas not only to have touched the flesh of the risen Christ, but to have put his finger into the nail mark, to have put his hand into the pierced side of the Lord of the living. In so doing, he reached the most intimate part of the Risen One's presence: he touched the wounds of his glorified flesh; he discovered in this unique experience that Christ Jesus is truly God.

My Lord and my God!

Thomas thus bears witness to the fact that it is indeed he, the Crucified One, who now shows himself alive, in the midst of his disciples, in the midst of us, in the midst of our assembly. This is the ultimate sign given by the evangelist John, a sign that will be at the heart of the faith of the Apostles and the Church, namely the death and resurrection of Jesus, which we remember in each of our Eucharistic celebrations. This sign is not the privilege of Thomas or the other disciples. This sign is given to us too, this morning, in this church.

If Christ Jesus shows us today the wounds of his Passion, it is not to dispense us from faith, from "do this in memory of me", but so that through faith we can enter into the mystery of our salvation accomplished in his Passover.

The disciple is not above his master," it is written, "and all that Jesus lived in his person, we are called to live in his footsteps. It was not in vain that he suffered the Passion, or to use the title of a book by Father Robert Thomas, "He did not love us in vain." In his Paschal Mystery, he wants to lead us, through his own wounds, to live our joys, sorrows and trials in faith and hope.

The question is whether, like Thomas, we are ready to take refuge in the wounds of the Risen One? Like the dove in the Song of Songs, who finds shelter and comfort in the cracks of a rock? Are we ready to thrust our hand into the side of the Pierced One to feel new life beating there, the heart of the world, the heart of God and the heart of his forgiveness? Are we ready to humbly acknowledge that it was also our sin that pierced him? Not to make us feel guilty, but because we can only enter into the dynamic of this overflow of life that is the Resurrection by acknowledging our fault and believing in God's infinite mercy. From this springs eternal life.

In his resurrection, and through his wounds, the Risen Christ thus builds a bridge between the finite and the infinite, between the temporal and the eternal, between our sin and the Father's merciful love. And this mercy is the power of God in our poverty, for it was he who had doubted, he who did not want to believe the word of his companions, but who wanted at all costs to touch the Risen One with his hands, who was given the extraordinary grace of approaching the heart of God.

And it is to us today that this grace is given.

Put your finger forward... put your hand in my side: stop being unbelieving, be a believer.

 

The road to Emmaus is the road where God died in the hearts of the two disciples, who no longer understood, and in the lives of many believers today, who can't take it anymore and give in to discouragement... The road to Emmaus is also the road where God is encountered when we no longer dared to hope for him...

To the two disciples, discouraged and shattered by the drama of the Passion, the risen Christ speaks a word that unravels the meaning of the dark hours he has lived through: "Was it not necessary for Christ to suffer these things in order to enter into his glory? A word so rich in meaning that only the Spirit of the Lord can give us access to it, a word so intense that only the Spirit of the Lord can open our hearts to the hope it offers.

"It was necessary..." In speaking this way, Jesus does not present his passion and death as the fatal unfolding of a plan all mapped out in advance by God, but as the free unfolding of his love, which proved faithful to the end, despite all the opposition and obstacles encountered...

"It was necessary...", because God is faithful to his promises and does not take back his word or his love...

"God so loved the world that he gave his only Son (Jn 3:16)!

Jesus' cross is God's ultimate word, the one that says all he has to say, and beyond which he has nothing more to say: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son (Jn 3:16)! This is the word that reveals the full meaning of Jesus' "It was necessary...".

Through his teaching to the two disciples, the risen Jesus sheds light on all the roads to Emmaus today: roads of the deepest discouragement..., roads where the cross stands, incomprehensible, at the heart of the lives of so many people..., roads where suffering becomes so pervasive that it leaves no space for believing in a God who loves us...

Today again, it's in the depths of this experience that the Lord comes to us... This time, he may take on the face of a brother or sister who accompanies us and listens to us... Through this sister or brother, the Risen Christ welcomes our confusion and discouragement... He sheds light on what we're going through, helping us understand that with God, suffering and death will never have the last word... He sheds light on our painful experiences, helping us to understand that, with God, suffering and death will never have the last word... Unlike the disciples of Emmaus, who invited the Lord to their table, it is the Lord who will invite us to his table and share with us his bread of life... And our hearts will become burning, as we commune with God's love, stronger than all suffering and death...

My brothers and sisters, this is the experience we are offered at each of our Eucharists: to meet Christ, to listen to his word that enlightens us and warms our hearts, to eat the bread of his body given up for us, the bread that gradually brings us from death to life, the bread of true and eternal life, begun now...

When we meet Christ in this way, we don't meet him only for ourselves, we meet him in communion with all our brothers and sisters throughout the world, especially with those who toil along paths of suffering... It is in this spirit that we can address the Lord by making our own this beautiful prayer left to us by Pope Francis, at the Eucharist he celebrated at Sainte-Anne de Beaupré last July:

Lord Jesus, we turn to You like the disciples on the road to Emmaus: "Stay with us, for evening is drawing near". (Lk 24:29) Stay with us, Lord, when hope sets in and the night of disappointment fades. Stay with us, because with you, Jesus, the course of events changes and the wonder of joy is reborn from the impasse of discouragement. Stay with us, Lord, for with You the night of pain is changed into the radiant morning of life. We simply say: stay with us, Lord, because if you walk beside us, failure opens up to the hope of new life.

Brothers and Sisters

The sheep follow their Shepherd not only because they know his voice, but above all because they trust him. They know that if they follow his voice, they'll be safe and they'll have enough to eat. If, on the other hand, they had experienced being mistreated, beaten or starved, they would not only stop following his voice, they would run away from him.

These days in Quebec, we rarely hear of shepherds and sheep. Instead, we speak of coaches and coaches. There are coaches in every field. In sports, in business, in industry and in almost every profession. In addition to these team coaches, there are personal coaches who help individuals regain their self-confidence, manage their emotions or resolve conflictual relationships. What these coaches are asked to do is to help us achieve our goals.

If our goal is to know God, to walk in His ways and to live eternally with Him, Jesus is the coach we need. He has all the qualities of a good coach. He's experienced, He knows what He's talking about and, above all, He's achieved His own goal.

Jesus has experience. Born of a woman, He grew up and lived in the small village of Nazareth, where He worked as a carpenter. Recognized as a man by his appearance, He tasted our joys and sorrows, as well as the difficulties of earning a living and establishing good relations with everyone. Moreover, as the author of the letter to the Hebrews points out: He was tested in all things, just as we are, with the exception of sin.

When Jesus talks to us about God, He knows what He's talking about. Being Himself God from God, light from light, Jesus knows God from the inside out. That's why He can speak to us in full knowledge and truth. "The Father and I are one", he once told his disciples.

No one can ever speak to us of God as Jesus spoke to us, since He is the living Word of God. No one has ever seen God," writes Saint John, "except the only-begotten Son, who has made him known to us.

Finally, like all good coaches, Jesus himself achieved his goal. He did not shy away from suffering and even death to reveal to us just how much God loves us. So God raised him from the dead to become the gateway to the kingdom of heaven for all those who believe in Him.

Brothers and Sisters

With Jesus as our coach in the spiritual life, we're sure to reach our goal, because Jesus has a trump card no other coach has. He can give us his Spirit, as Saint Peter tells us in the first reading. This Spirit of strength and holiness that Jesus gives us is a bit like an inner GPS that charts our course to our destination. Even if we sometimes deviate from our itinerary for whatever reason, the Holy Spirit, our inner GPS, traces a new route for us, starting from the very place where we are. Even if the itinerary changes, the destination remains the same. Let's be sure: with the Holy Spirit as our inner GPS, we'll reach our goal, as long as we don't close our GPS.

Brothers and sisters, Jesus, the beloved Son of the eternal Father, entered the space and time of our history by making himself one of us. And his whole message is to reveal to us his Father and God's message of love. He invites us to believe that all the distances introduced into our lives by time and space will disappear. He retains certain images of space, such as the many dwellings in our eternal home, but he also plays on a register that is more difficult to understand when he mentions the intimate unity between his Father and himself, between us and him, and reveals that the Father is not looking for people who worship him in churches, synagogues, mosques or tents, but who worship him in spirit and in truth, who commune with him by becoming his body and blood, welcoming his breath of life, living in accord with his spirit and will. In faith, this is the path we want to take, but how do we recognize it? Since the exodus in the desert on the way to the promised land, hasn't the psalmist (PS 49) said: "On the path he has taken, I will show him the salvation of God. So there is no single, ready-made, pre-drawn path to be found and taken towards a God who is constantly coming to meet us. And, let's face it, despite everything, despite Jesus' resurrection and new life, we are still largely subject to the contingencies of space and time. Jesus has grasped all this, and he gives us the key to moving forward: I am the way. No one goes to the Father without passing through me.

We find the way of Jesus in the mystery of his passion, death and resurrection. But we also find it in all his words of life and freedom, starting with the most precious ones that show us the way to follow him and be like him. His first words all begin with a word of joy and a call to happiness: happy, blessed. This was the beginning of the adventure, the guide to living his gospel. These beatitudes are well known in a formulation that risks missing what we're living if we don't seek to actualize and embody them in our daily lives. Let's try to highlight the beatitude of contemplation and the beatitude of fraternity. Two beatitudes at the heart of our life as monks, but also at the heart of every human being attracted by the absolutes of faith and love.

Blessed are the contemplatives, the dawns of the beginnings are yours. In other words, be truly contemplative, be worshippers in spirit and in truth. A decisive word dwells in you, let it rise up in you, look at it and listen to it. Welcome its Easter glow, which calls you to be only you, to strip yourself even more radically of the illusion of material and commercial goods. Become what you are again: contemplatives, beings capable of creating a welcoming space where others can be themselves in complete intimacy and security, without judgment. Contemplate others who are always unique and who each have a sacred story to tell. Contemplate the infinite in yourself and in them. Men and women are calling you to be there, to be fully who you are, so that they may be less alone in their search. Be contemplative. Jesus could have said be mystics. But contemplative is an invitation to dare a faith that has not yet been fully said, or that is still unheard of. There are so many men and women in search of new words and new rites. Hear them, encourage them. Draw from your inner freedom as prayerful people what it takes to accompany those who are far from being miscreants, but who are so often crying out, unable to find the words and rituals to really say what is rising up and speaking to them. Be there for them.

Blessed are the fraternal. The floods close to home have shown us over the last few days that we are capable of rising up, mobilizing, surpassing ourselves and helping wherever the emergency calls. So there is a real basis of humanity and fraternity, but alas, it's often only for a day, for a short time, for the duration of an emotion. But the daily horizon doesn't preserve long enough the trace of this brotherhood that we need so much in our world. This bond of brotherhood and sisterhood is inscribed on the path of Jesus. It is blessed because we are all born of the same eternal Father, and we are on our way to Him, together. The deeper we delve into our contemplative dimension, the more this acute sense of our universal brotherhood calls out to migrants, exiles, the unknown, the marginalized, the itinerants of all kinds of wanderings, close to us or elsewhere in our common home. We are the guardians of the galaxy, but even more so we are the guardians of our brothers and sisters in humanity, not in the manner of superheroes, but as beings attentive in all humility and gentleness to the wounds of the flesh, heart and soul of one another.

Jesus gave us many beatitudes as paths of life and joy towards the Father. It's up to us to follow these paths, to incarnate them concretely, and to discover what truth and life these paths convey. And then we'll understand with great joy that Jesus is not only the way, but also the truth and the life... of everything we seek for ourselves and for others. And our hearts will no longer be troubled and upset. It will be in peace and joy.

Brothers and Sisters

Today we celebrate the greatest mystery of our faith, that of the Holy Trinity: one God in three persons. This mystery is so implausible (one God in three persons) that it can only be true. Who could have imagined a God in three persons? And who could believe without the gift of faith?

Jews and Muslims, like Christians, believe in one God. But Christians are the only ones to believe that there is only one God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Scandal for the Jews and madness for the Greeks, but for us who believe: revelation from God.

Since the mystery of the Holy Trinity is the greatest of all the mysteries of our faith, I won't attempt to explain it to you. Instead, I'm going to tell you about each of the persons who make up the Trinity, drawing inspiration from the architecture of our church.

*****

Through the large bay window behind me, you can admire God's beautiful creation, with its trees, mountains and sky. All this creative work is traditionally attributed to God the Father. "I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth" we sing in our creed. Everything, absolutely everything, was created by God: heaven and earth, visible and invisible beings. And God has no disgust for any of His creatures, for if He had, He would not have created them," says the Book of Wisdom.

This God, Father and Creator of all, the first person of the Holy Trinity, has spoken to us in these last times through his only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, the second person of the Holy Trinity.

In the sanctuary where I stand. Christ, the second person of the Trinity, is represented by the altar. That's why we bow to the altar every time we enter the church, because it represents Christ.

Also in the sanctuary, to the left of the altar in relation to you, is the ambo on which we place the holy books. Each time these books are read during our assemblies, it is Christ himself, the living Word of God and second person of the Holy Trinity, who addresses each and every one of us. Finally, to the right of the altar, still in the sanctuary, stands the President who, as his name suggests, presides over community prayer, brings the Word of God to life through his homily, and offers the Eucharistic sacrifice in the name of the assembly "in persona Christi", in the person of Christ.

The assembly to which the Word of God is addressed, here made up of monks and laypeople, meets in the nave of the church, opposite the sanctuary. It is the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity, who has brought us together this morning to listen to the Word of God and to give thanks to Him through His Son Jesus Christ.

As we can see, the descending movement of the Creator Father, who speaks to us through his Son Jesus Christ and acts in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, is matched by an ascending movement that starts from the Holy Spirit, who lives in our hearts, and ascends to the Father through his Son Jesus Christ. In our Eucharist, this upward movement reaches its climax in the beautiful doxology: Through Him, with Him and in Him, to you God the Father Almighty in the unity of the Holy Spirit be all honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Brothers and Sisters

These three persons of the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, whom I have separated to tell you about them, are of course always united and form but one God... It is the whole Trinity that creates the beautiful nature we admire, it is the whole Trinity that speaks to us through Jesus Christ, just as it is the whole Trinity that acts in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. In fact, it's there, in the depths of our hearts, that we must descend to adore the Holy Trinity in spirit and in truth.

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