Page 156 - spiritual_accompaniment_montreal_archdiocese

HOMILIES

And in this pandemic, maybe we rediscovered this. And as we are in confinement, maybe we
rediscovered in a new way how important our family is in our life, but also for the whole
of society. In society, many things are important. But family is the basic unit of society. No
family, no society.

And in the Church, maybe we rediscovered the family. There is this classic expression, the
family is a domestic church. Maybe in this time we think often in terms of this world that
we live in. We think often of individuals, and we have many laws and many things and many
people or institutions who take care of the individual. But somehow, the family, we don’t
always think about the family. And maybe one of the fruits of the pandemic, one of the good
things that could come out of this pandemic, is the rediscovery of the family as a domestic
church, for the whole Church, and as the basic unit of society.
In that sense, maybe the pandemic is an occasion to rediscover the sense of Sunday. The
sense of Sunday as a day for the Lord, and Sunday as a day for the family! A day for the family.
Sunday as a day for rest. Sunday as a day for the family. And maybe somehow, we don’t know
how, Sunday has become or is like a day like any other day. We live in a time frame where it is
24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Maybe we really need to reconsider Sunday. Maybe we need to
reconsider that it is not just an option, it is necessary to rediscover the seventh day.

The day of rest. And then, make out of it a day for the family. A day when everyone of the family
can be together. Everyone in the family is there. It cannot be only something a decision that
a family takes on itself, without the others, because it only works when we do it together.
Sunday can become a day of the family only if we do it together. Only if society cooperates,
Sunday becomes a day for the family. We are between this Sunday, this day of the family, and
the Father’s Day that we will have in June, maybe between the two, we can consider Sunday as
a day for the family. As a day when we think of what we believe, as a day for the Lord, as a day of
the Lord. And even as we live in this world, this earth, we take it as a day for the earth, because
the earth also needs to catch a breath. Happy Mother’s Day!



Collection of texts by the Most Rev. Christian Lépine 156