Canadian Region Assembly - Homily - Day 3
Today, the Church invites us to commemorate Saint Augustine, a great figure of the Church who left many writings to the Church. He was a man who was always in search of the truth, a great intellectual who initially followed the Manicheans but later discovered that their teachings did not truly embody the truth in the proper sense. As a seeker of God, Saint Augustine left us extraordinary writings, the most famous of which is The Confessions, through which he reveals his personal spiritual journey and his discovery of God. Everyone can see themselves in Saint Augustine’s Confessions, as it reflects a constant search for the presence of God. He famously said, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.” Thus, he was a man who never rested, always seeking higher, further, and deeper for the presence of God in his life.
This invitation is extended to us today as well. He reminds us that we are made for God, who is for us the only true good to seek; otherwise, we risk wandering aimlessly and getting lost. Saint Augustine invites us as Christians to go, to seek, and to find peace in God, who is the supreme truth. He is also the father of charity, as he loved to say, “Love, and do what you will,” meaning that if we love in truth—that is, if we receive God’s love in truth and learn to love as He does—then we can do what we want. It is this love that comes from God that allows us to align with the love of Jesus Christ for humanity, enabling us to do what we want because what we want aligns with what God wants. In other words, we are truly in the will of God.
Today, we will install the brother superiors of our three communities. Dear local superiors, I want to repeat what Augustine said: “For you, I am a bishop, and with you, I am a Christian.” Like him, the superior is, above all, a person who lives with his confreres, doing the same things they do, living the same ideal of religious life, and striving to embody Dehonian values. The superior is, above all, an animator, a shepherd who cares for his sheep, who searches for the lost and wounded. This is what you, our superiors, have committed to. And today’s Gospel gives us a good framework to understand who we are as Christians with others, who we are as Dehonians with the other members of the Congregation in general, and in your local community in particular.
In fact, today’s Gospel speaks to us about being watchful, staying awake so that Christ finds us ready when He comes and, something I have added, being watchful means keeping the community always dynamic, always engaged, always ready to be of service, always ready to radiate the love and presence of Christ.
This Gospel does not only apply to superiors but to all of us here present at the end of this assembly. It invites us to stay awake. Like pilgrims on this earth, we will set out on the road and encounter the men and women we meet daily who expect that we are ready to serve them.
To be ready is to be dressed for service; to be dressed for service, above all, means to live as a disciple of Jesus. To live as disciples of Jesus is to make the Gospel come alive by proclaiming it as good news amidst the uncertainties and turbulence of our world.
Being watchful involves a call to vigilance. We must not let the inner fire, the small flame that we have received or kindled during these four days together, be extinguished too quickly. We must not let indifference and relativism creep in as soon as we return to our ordinary activities; we must not let resignation and passivity overtake us.
Being awake, as Jesus tells us today, doesn’t mean keeping your eyes open and doing nothing or contemplating the world with total indifference. What it means is to sow seeds of love, peace, and justice in the wake of the hearts of our brothers and sisters who are in need and who challenge us with their cries of distress, whose living conditions call us to take action that will likely bring a glimmer of hope in their lives. To be watchful and awake is to bring to the people of our time the bread that is lacking so that a meal becomes a time of sharing, to pour the wine that invites everyone to the feast of life. To be vigilant is to join the long line of those who struggle for a better future; it is taking the road of those who fall, bent over under the burden of sorrow and fear. Yes, we cannot rest on our laurels or fall asleep doing what we usually do. Love in the service of our brothers and sisters is always in the present, a present that calls us through our confreres who are confronted with the trials of sickness and aging, a present that reminds us of the presence of the immigrant and homeless person, a present that calls me to solidarity with just and noble causes in a world disfigured by injustice Yamof all kinds, a world marked by the indifference of those faced with the misery and suffering of others.
Being watchful means being attentive to the presence of God in a world that is constantly evolving, in a Church that questions and reflects through a synodal process. What place will I take? That of a passive spectator, asleep in my habits, or that of an awakened servant, concerned for others, ready to change in my way of life what is not in line with the dynamic of the Gospel? Ready to commit myself so that the Kingdom of God is proclaimed through my life as a witness of Christ. Ready to question my certainties so that peace, justice, and solidarity may come about. Ready to be a living Gospel for others.
Dear brothers and sisters, this page of the Gospel is not a threat but an urgent invitation to live each day in fidelity and active expectation of God. We are called to remain awake. The parable draws our attention to not forgetting our responsibility as disciples of Jesus, following in the footsteps of Father Dehon, whose charism we wish to live out daily. Today’s Gospel questions us and, even more, challenges the local superiors who will be installed shortly, about what kind of servant we want to be. Do we live our faith as a mission entrusted by God to care for our brothers and sisters with love and responsibility? Let us ask the Lord for the grace to live in joyful and active expectation of His return. Let us be vigilant witnesses of God’s love.
At the end of our assembly, wake up and follow in the footsteps of Jesus so that our communities do not fall asleep but remain very much alive with the spirit of Pentecost given to us by Christ. Amen.
Fr. Gustave Lulendo N'dotony, scj
