{"id":1378,"date":"2018-09-05T03:57:42","date_gmt":"2018-09-05T03:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/?p=1378"},"modified":"2018-09-05T03:57:42","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T03:57:42","slug":"homily-week-22-02-yr-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/2018\/09\/05\/homily-week-22-02-yr-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"HOMILY WEEK 22 02 – Yr II"},"content":{"rendered":"

Living Our Trinitarian Faith \u2013 Optional Memorial Dina B\u00e9langer<\/em><\/p>\n

(1 Cor 2:10-16; Ps 145; Lk 4:31-37)<\/p>\n

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Step 3 of the A.A. program reads, \u201cMade a decision to surrender our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.\u201d<\/p>\n

This step, and today\u2019s readings, invite us to celebrate and live out to the full our Trinitarian faith in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit \u2013 to live in the Spirit, grow in the Father\u2019s love, and become more like Jesus the Son.<\/p>\n

While Step 3 is very broad and wide open, allowing members the freedom to claim an image of God with which they are comfortable, we are so privileged to believe in God who is relationship, intimacy, unity, family. The bond of love between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit. Imagine the power of that relationship \u2013 Father loving the Son, Son loving the Holy Spirit who in turn loves the Father \u2013 a dynamic dance of love or perichoresis<\/em>. That is a God to whom one can feel free to surrender one\u2019s will and life.<\/p>\n

In the first reading to the Corinthians, St. Paul focuses on the Holy Spirit, who alone truly knows the heart of God, and the depths of the human person. The Spirit is also the source of all gifts. Paul speaks of being spiritual and unspiritual. I like the phrase \u201cWe are all spiritual beings having a human experience.\u201d We are so fortunate to have an intimate on-going relationship with the Holy Spirit, including the ability to receive inspiration and direction in very down-to-earth matters. I remember asking for guidance when visiting communities, feeling urged to turn into a specific home, and walking right into a heated argument a couple was having I ended up mediating. It was rather thrilling just to think the Holy Spirit was involved in such incidents!<\/p>\n

The psalm is all about God. In fact, it is a high point in terms of Old Testament theology of God, with its description of God as gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, good to all, compassionate to all of God\u2019s creation, faithful in all God\u2019s works, gracious in all of God\u2019s deeds, and upholding the weak and downtrodden. This description stands out like a shining gem amidst all the other often more violent images of God in the Old Testament.<\/p>\n

This Old Testament image of God, highly developed as it is, falls short of the fullness of God\u2019s love revealed by Jesus on the cross. It is no coincidence the curtain in the temple in Jerusalem was torn asunder from top to bottom the moment Jesus died on the cross. That curtain was there to keep people away from the Holy of Holies which only the high priest could enter once he was purified. Now there is no separation between humanity and God. In Jesus\u2019 death we can see right into the heart of God, and what we see is mercy, compassion, humility, forgiveness, unconditional love, intimate relationship and total non-violence. This is our God!<\/p>\n

In the gospel, we see Jesus, Son of God, Word made Flesh, the long-awaited Messiah in action, healing a man by delivering him of an unclean spirit. That brings to mind the two-fold mission of Jesus as the Messiah \u2013 to redeem and to sanctify, to forgive and to heal. That is something only he can do, and in faith we can come to him for forgiveness and healing. The Holy Spirit gives us spiritual insight to see where we need forgiveness (our sins), and for what we need healing (our sinfulness \u2013 that which makes us sin). Then the unconditional love of the Father present in Jesus comes to us through the power of the Spirit, and we are made new.<\/p>\n

St. Paul claims we have the mind of Christ \u2013 a bold statement. Yet that is what Jesus first preached \u2013 believe and repent. Repent in Greek is to do metanoia<\/em>\u2013 put on our highest mind, be the best person we can be. We truly are to put on the mind of Christ, to think and act as Jesus would, to see reality with his eyes. The bracelet WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) is pertinent here.<\/p>\n

One precise summation of our Catholic spirituality is this sentence: We are all coming back to the Father, through Jesus the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit, with Mary our mother.<\/p>\n

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Today the church holds up as a model for us a fellow Canadian, Dina B\u00e9langer. Born April 30, 1897, Dina was the only daughter of a well-to-do couple in Quebec City. Dina pronounced final vows with the Religious of Jesus and Mary at the age of 25. Her spirit of praise and generosity inspired her motto, \u201cto refuse God nothing.\u201d Despite failing health, her simple life in the convent as musician and educator is testimony to the value of living our individual call to sainthood. As such she is a model for musicians, artists and educators. Dina died on September 4, 1929, at the age of 32, promising her family and friends to be a \u201cbeggar of love in heaven.\u201d She was beatified in 1993.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Eucharist brings all this together. It is an intimate family meal with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We experience the unconditional love of the Father, made present in Word and Sacrament in the person of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n

Forgiven and healed, we are then sent out to live out our Trinitarian faith by loving others as Jesus has loved us, empowered to do so by the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n

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Living Our Trinitarian Faith \u2013 Optional Memorial Dina B\u00e9langer (1 Cor 2:10-16; Ps 145; Lk 4:31-37) ******************************************************* Step 3 of the A.A. program reads, \u201cMade a decision to surrender our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.\u201d This step, and today\u2019s readings, invite us to celebrate and live […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ordinary-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1381,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378\/revisions\/1381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}