28 septembre 2025 – 26^ème dimanche « C »

Am 6, 1...7; 1 Tm 6, 11-16; Lc 16, 19-31

Homélie

          La plupart des paraboles de Jésus sont des enseignements sur Dieu, dans lesquels Il veut montrer qui est son Père, l’enseignement moral étant en quelque sorte secondaire. Mais d’autres paraboles, comme celle que nous avons dans l’Évangile d’aujourd’hui comportent essentiellement un enseignement moral. Et la technique de la parabole consiste à amener les auditeurs à s’identifier avec un personnage et à tirer de cette identification toutes les conséquences ou tous les enseignements. C’est donc le cas de la parabole que nous venons d’entendre, celle du pauvre Lazare et de l’homme riche. Dieu n’y est d’ailleurs même pas mentionné.

28 September 2025 – 26^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Am 6:1-7; 1 Tim 6:11-16; Lk 16:19-31

Homily

Most of Jesus' parables are teachings about God, in which He wants to show who His Father is, with moral teaching being somewhat secondary. But other parables, such as the one we have in today's Gospel, essentially contain a moral teaching. And the technique of the parable is to lead the listeners to identify with a character and to draw all the consequences or teachings from this identification. This is the case with the parable we have just heard, that of poor Lazarus and the rich man. God is not even mentioned in it.

27 septembre 2025 – samedi de la 25^ème semaine du TO

Za 2, 5-9.14-15a ; Lc 9, 43b-45

Homélie

          Nous poursuivons la lecture du chapitre 9 de l’Évangile de Luc, commencée il y a quelques jours.         

          La profession de foi de Pierre, à Césarée, avait été suivie de la première annonce faite par Jésus de sa Passion. « Le Fils de l’Homme – avait-il dit – doit souffrir beaucoup, être rejeté par les anciens, les grand prêtres et les scribes, être tué et, le troisième jour, ressusciter ». Environ huit jours plus tard, Jésus avait amené avec lui Pierre, Jacques et Jean sur la montagne, où il avait été transfiguré devant eux. Après quoi, il fit la seconde annonce de la Passion – qui est le bref texte que nous venons de lire – puis ce sera la longue montée vers Jérusalem, au cours de laquelle Luc a situé plusieurs des appels les plus radicaux de Jésus à le suivre, en particulier l’appel fait au jeune homme riche de se défaire de tous ses bien et de le suivre.

September 27, 2025 – Saturday of the 25th week of Ordinary Time

Zechariah 2:5-9, 14-15a; Luke 9:43b-45

Homily

We continue our reading of chapter 9 of Luke's Gospel, which we began a few days ago.

Peter's profession of faith in Caesarea was followed by Jesus' first announcement of his Passion. “The Son of Man,” he said, “must suffer greatly, be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, be killed, and on the third day rise again.” About eight days later, Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him up the mountain, where he was transfigured before them. After that, he made the second announcement of the Passion—which is the short text we have just read—and then came the long journey to Jerusalem, during which Luke placed several of Jesus' most radical calls to follow him, in particular the call to the rich young man to give up all his possessions and follow him.

26 septembre 2025 -- vendredi, 25ème Semaine du Temps Ordinaire

Ag 1, 15b – 2, 9 ; Lc 9, 18-22

Homélie

Qui est Jésus?

Ceci a sans doute été durant longtemps, pour nous, une question théorique, qui a pris un sens nouveau le jour où nous avons été amenés à nous interroger sur notre propre identité. (Même si nous ne nous sommes peut-être pas posé la question explicitement.).

26 September 2025 -- Friday, 25th Week of Ordinary Time

Ag 1:15b–2:9; Lk 9:18–22

Homily

Who is Jesus?

For a long time, this was undoubtedly a theoretical question for us, but it took on a new meaning the day we were led to question our own identity. (Even if we may not have asked ourselves the question explicitly.)

The answer to the question ‘Who is Jesus?’ determines the answer to the question ‘Who am I?’.

The Son of God accepted all dimensions of human existence. The devotional books of recent centuries have told us about a Jesus who had a beatific vision from the beginning... But contemporary Christology leads us to rediscover a Jesus more in line with what the New Testament tells us: a Jesus who grows in age and wisdom before God and men—a Jesus who grows in the discovery of his mission and identity. A Jesus who is as fully human as he is fully divine, who, like any human being, needs to be confirmed by his friends in his initial and then growing perception of his identity.

The more I meditate on the Gospel we have just read, the more I am convinced that when Jesus says to his disciples, ‘Who do you say that I am?’, this is not a theoretical question. Nor is it a pedagogical device. Jesus himself needs to hear Peter's answer: ‘You are the Messiah of God’, and this confirmation allows him to fully assume what he already perceived in his human soul: "The Son of Man must suffer greatly, be rejected by the elders... be put to death and rise again..."

Jesus knows how to recognise the signs of the times in his own existence: for him, there is a time to preach courageously and a time to hide, a time to live and a time to die. His disciples, and Peter in particular, help him to make this discernment...

There is a time for everything, a time for every matter under the sun. It is important not to read this with our Western conception of time. For us, time is an immense void, a continuous line with a starting point and an ending point: a void that must be filled.

(We sometimes talk about occupying time, and even killing time.) The Semitic mentality ignores this conception of time. For the Semite, what exists is not a duration to be filled. What exists is above all a number of realities, such as death, joy, sorrow, war. Each reality has its own time.

During our human existence, we encounter some of these realities with their own time. And the important thing is to recognise each of these realities with their own time. There are times that we only experience once in our lives, such as birth and death, but there are other times that we experience often, such as joy and sadness, peace and war, etc. Jesus reproaches his contemporaries for recognising the weather by looking at the signs in the sky, knowing when rain or sunshine is approaching, but not knowing how to recognise the times of the Kingdom of God.

When it comes to the future of our communities, as well as our personal existence, our responsibility is not simply to make human calculations, but to know how to identify the time that is coming and to respond to it: is it a time of growth and expansion, or a time of waiting, and perhaps even, in some cases, a time of death?

During this celebration, let us ask for the grace to recognise the time we have to live.

Armand Veilleux