Paroisse Ste. Élisabeth
25 October 2026
30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Père Réjean Champagne.

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« In the Law, what is the greatest commandment? »

 The question merits being asked because in the Book of the Law there are 613 laws. These were added progressively in order to respond to different contexts. In all civilizations, laws were created in order to protect the weak. What is new here is the foundation of this Law: it concerns a People who have had two experiences of slavery in Egypt, and their liberation by God. The Lord is revealed as He who hears the complaint of the humiliated and who gives them their liberty and their dignity. Using the Law, God continues to take up the defense of the humiliated.

All the Biblical Laws are noted for « the things they recall »: remembering the suffering that was endured when they were slaves in Egypt, recalling that God is the liberator of His People. If God liberated His People, it is because He heard the cry of the unhappy. He is concerned by human suffering. For the time being, threats were still needed so that the Law would be respected: “if you upset them and they call to Me, I will hear their cry. My anger will be inflamed. However, the man educated by God and by the Law will have no further need of a threat, because he will have learned to see a brother or sister in each person.”

In the second reading, Paul shows clearly what the love of God is. He encourages the Thessalonians to answer with dignity to this love, which is in Him. They are all called to become, for those around them, models of faith and love. They have just been freed from the foreign idols! They are now invited to turn themselves towards the true God and to work actively for the coming of His Kingdom. This is important for us today. We live in a difficult world: Christians are criticized, seen with derision or persecuted. It is a test of the true faith: we cannot escape it; it comes without having sought it! This is the logic of the Gospel which is always true.

In the Gospel, we hear Jesus answering the question from the Pharisees: “What is the Great Commandment?” If they are asking Jesus, it is not to deepen the teaching of the law, but rather to try to trap Him:  Every day, they have seen Him doing works of mercy; He was very close to those suffering from life: the sick, the excluded, and the untouchables. He healed them on the Sabbath Day. They reproached Him for doing this to the detriment of the Law of God.

In His response, Jesus recalls what is written in the Book of Deuteronomy: “You will love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your spirit. “ (verses 37-38)  He could have stopped there, but He adds something that had not been asked by the Doctor of the Law: “The second Commandment is similar to the First. “You will love your neighbor as yourself.” We cannot love God without loving the next person. And we cannot love the next person and not love God.

To live this Gospel, we must turn towards Christ. What He asks of us, He has lived to the end. On the evening of Holy Thursday, He said: “As I have loved you, so you must love each other.” It is not simply a written law; it is a law to be lived by persons who give themselves. Christ continued to breathe the Holy Spirit into His believers to enliven their thoughts, their words and their actions.  He identifies himself as our neighbour, He calls us to recognise Him in our neighbour. “What you have done to the least of these, you have done for me.”

It is by our love for the weak and the excluded that we will be judged. And through them, it is Christ who is there! He reminds us all to love God all day and in every circumstance. And at the same time, He calls us to love every day our brothers and sisters, far and near. Thus our charity must be active and generous. Solidarity groups are there to help us to make our generosity effective. The Lord is there to accompany us and show us the road.

Through Communion, it is Jesus who comes to us. He comes to us to love our Father and all our brothers and sisters on Earth. We give Him thanks: Blessed are you,  O Lord for this love. You send us the radiance around us. Keep us faithful in this mission, that it be the path of all our lives. Amen

Translation by Hugh Gwyn

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11 October 2026
28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Père Léo Durocher
“Everything is ready and we pray for it!”

Brothers and Sisters in the Faith,

            On this Sunday, the Feast of Thanksgiving,  we are invited to give thanks to God for all the marvels of creation of which we are part, that that the Lord gives us in His goodness, His generosity, His love.  And also for our environment, and for the fruits of the earth during this time of harvest. Give thanks to Jesus, the unique Son of God who became like us, human, He who undertook our salvation and who invited us on this day to take part in the great feast of love which the Father will give in His House.

To give thanks as well to the Holy Spirit, who has loved us since the day of our Baptism, He who helps us to put into practice the Great Commandment, to love God and our Neighbour. He, as the Gospel says, helps us to put on the wedding garment to participate in the eternal celebration.

Give thanks to God. Let us recognise and be filled with gratitude to Him as His children, His invited guests to the banquet, to the eternal celebration of which the Gospel speaks. Give thanks! It often happens that we are too turned towards ourselves. We attract all the merit for who we are, we are too filled with ourselves. We attribute to ourselves all that we are and all that we do. It happens often to act like children and forget to use the magic word “Thank you.”

We forget that we owe for all that we are, and all that we do, to the love and the generosity of God! Our present life only has one string attached. On this feast of “Thanksgiving” we must learn to recognise all the goodness that God gives us and also who we are, “created beings in the image and the resemblance of God, invited to participate in the great feast which God will have one day on His Mountain”, as we heard in the first reading.

Joy, acts of Thanksgiving, are there to enliven us according to the first reading and the Gospel. With these two texts, we are invited to greet and make our own the great dream that God carries in His heart, which is to gather together all the humans in a great celebration where joy and happiness will enliven us. Our path here below is often difficult, terrible, filled with difficulties of all sorts, suffering, sickness, tears and sadness. Our dreams of happiness, joy, loving, and peace, are so often improbable dreams.

Our future worries us, faced with difficulties of all sorts: violence , war, pain, sicknesses, problems of instability, housing. We can think of these difficulties when we see what is happening in Spain, France and even in Belgium, the monetary dispute between Canada and the United States! And so on!

God knows our paths in life and He comes today to nourish our hope, our confidence that someday our roads of the Cross here below will end with a resurrection where life triumphs and death will disappear forever, as we read in Isaiah, Isaiah who calls us to recognise that God is at work for us, for us because He will save us. It is He, the Lord in whom we hope, He who has saved us and He who is always there at the heart of our lives.

As on previous Sundays, the Gospel brings us another parable which Jesus addresses to the High Priests, to the Pharisees and also to us today. The parable tells us in other words, the dream, the project which God the Father carries in His heart. It is to gather all of us in His House to celebrate the great feast which He will have some day for His Son who has come to offer us salvation.

The Father’s focus will not be on His Son, but rather on the people invited to the wedding. And it is we who are invited to this wedding! What is it that we say before receiving Communion: “Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb!“ Happy are we today on this day of “Thanks Giving”.  We are participating in the feast of the Lamb of God! Happy are we to receive in our hearts the Lamb of God, who removes the Sins of the World. Happy are we at this moment to be received by God Himself in His home where His Word and the “Body of Christ” are given to us.

But we note that in our circle, in our families, among our friends, in our larger world, some have little interest in coming to participate in this meal of the Feast of the Lamb. As the Gospel reading underlines, all sorts of excuses are given for not responding positively to the invitation of the Lord. We so often encounter that the dimension of faith is absent in our agendas. The realities of the world, the search for power and riches, race for pleasure now or for later are of the priority.

And yet, we see that the world is searching for real happiness, to make real sense of our journey here on Earth. Must we cry, be discouraged, separate from this world, which searches more for the realities here below rather than those of Heaven above? The response is “NO” !

Despite all the negative elements that we live with today, God always has this great dream in His heart and one day it will be reality! One day, as we read in the first reading, God will remove the veil which envelops all peoples. He will make death disappear forever. He will wipe the tears from every face, He will erase all the humiliation of His people.

It is for us to let the Holy Spirit strengthen us, to give us courage and hope to encourage in our lives the light which lets us see, which helps us today to be in the work of grace for all the goodness which comes from above. It is also up to us to renew each day the wedding garments, the clothes of the faith, of hope and of the love that Jesus invites us to wear anew to live fully in order to believe profoundly, to love intensely  and to be counted among the many elected.

We should also know and have at hand the words of Saint Paul who invites us to live well our reality of each day. To be ‘well fed and to be hungry, of having plenty and of being in need’.

We know that each day we must adopt the profound motivation of Saint Paul:  “I think of Him who gives strength” and we can add, “In Him who is our Shepherd. He who revives us. He who leads us on the right path. In Him, who is with us.”

In this weekend of “Action de Grace”, we can say: Thank you to Him who, today, gives Himself to each one of us because He loves us. We know to express our gratitude to Him who on this day reminds us of His standing  invitation to participate in this great “Feast of love in the house of the Father.” And as it says in the Gospel, let us pray to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to open the eyes of our hearts with His light so that we understand the hope that His call gives us. Amen.

Translated by Hugh Gwyn