HOMILY WEEK 01 05 – Yr II, Memorial, St. Marguerite Bourgeoys

New Life through Faith, Forgiveness and Healing

Memorial: St. Marguerite Bourgeoys

(1 Sm 8:4-22; Ps 89; Mk 2:1-12)

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There is a saying, “People get the government they deserve.” That saying applies to the readings and memorial liturgy today.

We are invited to place our faith in Jesus, the true king of Israel, listen to his voice, come to him for forgiveness and healing, and glorify him with our lives.

In the first reading, the people of Israel reject God as their ruler, want to be like the other nations, and pressure Samuel into naming a king for them. God relents to their stubborn demands, but not without warning them they should not expect God to rescue them from the consequences of their poor decision. And we know that for the most part, the role of the kings throughout the history of Israel, including Saul, was fraught with conflict and suffering. The one exception was King David, whose experience of God’s unconditional love as forgiveness, transformed him into the one good king that Israel ever had, pre-figuring Jesus, the true king of Israel and of the world, born of the line of David and referred to as Son of David.

In the gospel, we see that true king of Israel in action, and we learn much about how to be a follower of this king. First of all, Jesus is “speaking the word” to the people. Jesus is the word made flesh. His word is what gives us life. He continues to “speak the word” to us through the scriptures. It is imperative that we read his word, study his word, pray with his word, listen to his word, integrate his word, and live his word. Bible study and Lectio Divina should be part and parcel of our lives as the followers of Jesus. After all, the bible is our book, the book of the church.

Then Jesus notices the faith of the four men who believe in him so deeply, that they go to the extraordinary effort to lower a paralytic through the roof right in front of him. I once saw a painting of this incident that dramatically illustrated their faith – dust settling over the whole scene, sunshine streaming in through the gaping hole in the roof right onto Jesus and the paralytic, the four men looking down on their friend and on Jesus – imagine that kind of faith! That is the faith with which we need to approach Jesus.

It is significant that when confronted with a man who is obviously physically paralyzed, Jesus first tells him that his sins are forgiven. That tells us much about our God who is forgiveness and compassionate love, and who first and foremost wants to forgive us our sins, and heal us of our painful emotions, negative attitudes and addictions that made us sin in the first place. Then, aware of the judgmental thoughts of the scribes, Jesus also heals the man of his physical paralysis, demonstrating the holistic nature of God’s love for us that wants us to be well in all the dimensions of our lives.

What we need to bring to Jesus above all, more so than our physical ailments, is our personal paralysis – our sin and our sinfulness, our hurtful actions for which we need forgiveness, and our painful emotions, negative attitudes and addiction for which we need healing. This incident demonstrates once again the two-fold mission of Jesus as the Messiah – to redeem and to sanctify, to forgive and to heal. There is a difference between sin (that which we do, for which we need forgiveness) and sinfulness (that which makes us do it, and for which we need healing).

The healed man takes up his stretcher in obedience to Jesus and walks out in front of all the people gathered there. Their response is also significant – they glorify and praise God for what they have seen, and so must we, with our lives. Out of gratitude for the love of God lavished on us, especially for freeing us from our paralysis of guilt and fear, anger and resentment, shock and shame, sadness and self-pity – we are to give praise and glory to our God, even if we may not experience a physical healing that we may desire.

Steps four to nine of the Twelve Step program fit this gospel like a glove. Steps four and five are all about receiving forgiveness for our sins, our wrong-doing. Steps eight and nine are all about receiving forgiveness from those whom we have hurt, opening up the possibility of reconciliation and an even stronger relationship. Steps six and seven are all about receiving healing for our defects of character, our painful emotions and negative attitudes that made us sin in the first place.

Those who work these steps sincerely are actually living this gospel, can take up their stretcher they no longer need, and walk upright as free human beings, whether they are physically impaired or not.

St. Marguerite Bourgeoys, whom we honor today, is a wonderful example for us. Born in France in 1620, she had a strong faith in Jesus and even as a young girl, demonstrated an aptitude for “governing”, for gathering together the girls of her age and for group life and organization. She wanted to try a new form of life to honour “the life in the world of the Holy Virgin”, in which “without a veil or a wimple, one would be a true religious.”

In 1653, she sailed to Canada at the invitation of the Governor of Ville-Marie (Montreal) to teach and nurse. In 1657, she organized the erection of a chapel that would serve as a place of pilgrimage in honour of Mary and house the miraculous statue of Notre-Dame du Bon-Secours (Our Lady of Good Help). She started a school for girls including some from the Iroquois First Nation and formed a religious community, including two Iroquois, that became the Congregation of Notre Dame. Marguerite and her companions taught catechism, the basics of literature, as well as virtue, etiquette, practical skills and the love of work. She began to send her companions in pairs to new parishes to start classes for the children of the settlers.

Marguerite Bourgeoys was influenced by the 17th-century French school of spirituality, with its sense of the mystical, its orientation toward teaching, its apostolic aspirations to missionary activity, promotion of Church reform in France, the demands of the love of God and the practice of charity toward the poor, and for her, without cloister or religious habit.

The love of God and neighbour serves as a summary of Marguerite’s life. She modelled herself on the Holy Virgin who she wrote, “was not cloistered, maintained an interior solitude and only left it when it was necessary, to express love or to teach others, or to go to the temple, never refused to be present where love or need required a helping hand and did it in such a way that the poverty and humility that she professed were available to everyone.”

A historian of Hôtel-Dieu Hospital wrote that Marguerite had “the character of the strong woman of the Gospel”. In the face of great spiritual struggle, she wrote, “I have never doubted God’s mercy and I shall hope in him when I see myself with one foot in perdition.” Marguerite Bourgeoys died January 12, 1700, and was acclaimed as the “Mother of the Colony”. She was canonized on October 31, 1982, by Saint John Paul II.

The Eucharist, which Marguerite attended every day, is at its core, an act of thanksgiving and gratitude. The word eucharistes means precisely that – to give thanks. It is also our greatest prayer of praise that gives glory to God.

May we celebrate it with faith, thanking God for the forgiveness and healing that Jesus brings us through Word and Sacrament, and, like the people in the synagogue and St. Marguerite Bourgeoys, give praise and glory to our God.