Published on 15 March 2024

Homily by Father Emmanuel Schwab, rector of the Sanctuary

Decisive appeal of two catechumensin the name of the Bishop of the Armed Forces

4rd Sunday of Lent – ​​Year B

1st reading: 2 Chronicles 36,14-16.19-23

Psalm: 136 (137), 1-2, 3,4-5, 6

2rd reading: Ephesians 2,4-10

Gospel: John 3,14-21

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The people of God settled on the earth to which God led them end up forgetting God, multiplying infidelities, profaning the house of God through idolatry, abandoning the commandments. And in a merciful way, the Lord God sends prophets so that man can hear the word of God, this word which gives life and which saves.

“But they derided the messengers of God, despised this word and mocked his prophets.”

I admit that while reading these lines, I cannot help but think of Europe and our country. “France, eldest daughter of the Church,” said John Paul II at Le Bourget in 1980, “France, eldest daughter of the Church, what have you done with the promises of your baptism? » (John Paul II, 1er June 1980, extract from the homily delivered at Le Bourget). And there is no shortage of prophets, starting with the last three popes Saint John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, to carry the word of God high and recall the demands of human life, the meaning of human life. and the truth of love... But they derided the messengers of God, despised his words and mocked his prophets.

Sometimes, for our conversion, we must “hit the wall” to finally stop our path, and begin like the prodigal son to enter into ourselves to seek the source of life. You who ask to receive baptism, you have in one way or another encountered Christ Jesus who touched you, and you have found in him and in the community of disciples, the Church a meaning: the meaning of your existence… Because by discovering Christ we discover who God is, who we are and the meaning of our life. If there is no God, if there is no salvation, the only horizon is the cemetery. If there is a sky, then that changes everything! We sang Psalm 136, which is a psalm of Exile, when in VIrd century before Jesus, the people of Judah were deported en masse to Babylon and the sons of Israel who were in Babylon, on the banks of the rivers of Babylon, mourned their exile:

Remembering Zion,

to the surrounding willows

we had hung our harps.

How would we sing a song of the Lord

on a foreign land?

If I forget you, Jerusalem,

let my right hand forget me!

In a letter to Léonie, Thérèse said to her:

[During Lent,] I will be content to follow Jesus in his painful way, I will hang my harp on the willows which are on the banks of the rivers of Babylon... But after the Resurrection I will pick up my harp again, forgetting for a moment that I am exiled ; with you I will sing the happiness of serving Jesus and living in his house, the happiness of being his wife for [2r] time and for Eternity!… LT 175 to Léonie February 24, 1895.

Thérèse is very sensitive to this question of exile. For her, life in fullness is indeed Heaven, our Homeland, and we are here, on this earth, in exile. This tension between the exile that Lent evokes, and the Homeland that the Easter Season evokes, this tension between exile and the Homeland is resolved in the eyes of Thérèse in the presence of Jesus. In Jesus, Heaven is present on earth, in Jesus, the Homeland is present in exile. And in Jesus, through Him and with Him, we can live in this exile already having our hearts present in the Homeland, already having our hearts present in Heaven and learning to live, in this exile, as if we were already in Sky. This is what the grace of baptism, this gracious gift of God, achieves in us. This is what Paul tells us: “It is by grace that we are saved. It doesn't come from you, it's the gift of God. This does not come from actions: no one can take pride in them”.

In the sacraments of Christian initiation, in this exile, we are immersed in the death of Christ in order to resurrect with him and already now become citizens of Heaven; and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, who is given to us in fullness in the sacrament of Confirmation, to be made capable, in this exile, of living the way of life in Heaven. Charity, Paul will tell us in the Letter to the Romans in chapter 5, the charity of God - that is to say, the love with which God loves - this charity of God is spread in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us so that we can love as God loves (Cf. Rom 5,5:XNUMX).

In another letter, written much earlier, in 1889 - these are the letters from the time of the novitiate which are quite extraordinary and I cannot recommend reading them enough - therefore, on March 12, 1889, still in Lent, Thérèse wrote to his sister Céline who is still at Buissonnets: The shape of this world is passing... Soon we will see new skies, a more radiant Sun will illuminate with its splendors ethereal seas, infinite horizons!... The immensity will be our domain... we will no longer be prisoners on this land of exile... everything will have passed!… With our celestial spouse we will sail on shoreless lakes… the infinite has neither limits nor bottom, nor shore!… “Courage, Jesus hears until the last echo of our pain. » Our harps are at this moment hanging on the willows which border the river of Babylon... but on the day of our deliverance, what harmonies will we not make heard... with what joy we will make all the strings of our instruments vibrate!... LT 085 to Céline March 12, 1889.

And she continues:

The love of Jesus for Céline can only be understood by Jesus!!..

I comment: when Thérèse says “The love of Jesus for Céline”, we can replace the first name “Céline” with each of our first names. The love of Jesus for each of us is such that it can only be understood by Jesus.

Jesus did crazy things for Céline…

Jesus did crazy things for each of us brothers and sisters!

Let Céline do crazy things for Jesus... Love is only paid for by love - This is a word from Saint John of the Cross - and the wounds of love are only healed by love.

Love is only paid for by love and the wounds of love are only healed by love : this is the key to Christian life: it is to understand that our horizon is Heaven, and that Jesus did crazy things so that we can, poor sinners that we are, live from Heaven... not only tomorrow after our dead, but already today in communion with Jesus.

The path of catechumens, like the path of the baptized, is to be disciples of Jesus, it is to be in love with Jesus, it is to be closely united to Jesus. And the first task that must be ours is to take care of our relationship with Jesus. Just as spouses must also take care of their marital relationship, that is, take care of the way in which they love each other, like the love of Jesus for the Church. and the Church for Jesus.

But each of us must take care of our relationship with Jesus. Prayer, reception of the sacraments, meditation on the Holy Scriptures, starting with the Gospels, are part of this care of our relationship with Jesus.

And I end by emphasizing such an important point in this Gospel that I really invite you to keep in your memory at all times: “ God - God Trinity — loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, that those who believe in him may have eternal life”. God's will is that we have eternal life: not an eternity of hell, but an eternity of life. And for this, Christ Jesus comes, and his very presence exercises judgment. He is the light of the world — he will say it a little further (Jn 8,12:XNUMX). He is the light of the world. What do we do with this light? Light has come into the world, said Jesus to Nicodemus, and men loved the light more than the darkness (Jn 3,19:XNUMX). Not other men, brothers and sisters: this question arises for each of us! We sometimes love darkness more than light, and in doing so we do the work of the devil because the one who does evil hates the light. The one who does evil — the verb is the verb πράσσων which means the one who “practices” evil. On the other hand, Jesus is not talking about the one who doeswell, but of the one who “does” the truth with the verb ποιέω “to do” the truth: a work that must be carried out. The one who has just practiced evil and who, turning around, says "but I have done evil and I repent of it", he has already changed his path, he is beginning to shed light and he opens to the grace of Christ and the grace of salvation.

Jesus does not put before us the fact of doing evil or doing good. He puts before us whether we love darkness or love light.

In this Lenten journey, the Church invites us to shed light on our lives

After the decisive appeal that we celebrated for you, I hope that there will also be the celebration of the elections where the Church asks catechumens to let themselves be scrutinized by God, to shed light in their lives. But may each of us, in this Lent, shed light, prepare a true Easter confession. That we can truly allow ourselves to be renewed by the grace of Christ, that we are not going to hide a little dust of our heart under the carpet, but that on the contrary, we come to put it in the light of God's mercy.

God wants us to be saved, more than we want!

God wants to enlighten us with his light, much more than we want!

God wants to be gracious to us, wants to be merciful to us much more than we want!

Let us learn, brothers and sisters, to let ourselves be loved.

Let us learn, brothers and sisters, to welcome the Lord Jesus.

Yes, as Thérèse says in yet another letter:

Oh ! that the earth is exile!… There is no support to seek outside of Jesus because He alone is immutable. What joy to think that he cannot change...

Amen.