19 February 2026 -- Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Homily
The paschal mystery is a complex reality, which inseparably includes the memorial of Christ's death and His resurrection. His death would have no meaning if it were not an act of obedience and love towards the Father; and the resurrection only has meaning in relation to this death, since it is the Father's response to the loving obedience of His Son. This is why the liturgical texts immediately bring us face to face with this diptych, by making us hear these words of Jesus on the second day of Lent: ‘The Son of Man must suffer many things... he must be put to death and on the third day rise again’.
What the Master experienced must also be experienced by anyone who has accepted the call to be His disciple: ‘Whoever wants to follow me (that is to say: whoever wants to be my disciple) let him take up his cross every day, and follow me.’ The use of the subjunctive and the imperative mode (in the first clause) clearly indicate the urgency and necessity of the decision. Jesus makes this abundantly clear: ‘Whoever wants to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for me will save it’.
‘Losing one's life’ for Christ can mean many things. For some, such as our seven brothers of Tibhirine as well as several other religious men and women of Algeria, and so many other martyrs -- known or unknown -- of all times, it has meant the acceptance of a violent death. Not all of us have this terrible privilege. But we are all called upon to make - constantly, implicitly and in certain circumstances explicitly - the radical choice between two paths: the one that leads to life and the one that leads to loss.
This choice was already presented to the People of Israel from the beginning of their Exodus - a forty-year Exodus in the desert, which we will symbolically relive during our forty days of Lent. The choice offered by God could not be clearer: "I propose to you today life and happiness, death and misfortune... Choose life... by loving the Lord your God, by listening to His voice and by attaching yourself to Him.’
The mystery -- which is the mystery of human freedom -- is that we are capable of choosing misfortune rather than happiness and death rather than life. And that is exactly what we do every time we sin. Fortunately, the path of loss is not a one-way street. All we have to do is turn around, turn our face towards God's, let ourselves be fascinated by His beauty once again, and here we are, once again on our way to Him, on the path of return, which is the path of conversion.
This is the path to which St Benedict calls us. From the beginning of his Rule, he states that he wrote it for those who, having distanced themselves from God through disobedience, want to return to Him through obedience. It is the path that we want to follow with renewed fervour during this Lenten season.
Armand Veilleux