Page 164 - spiritual_accompaniment_montreal_archdiocese

HOMILIES

By praying for the cause of evangelization, as Pope Francis invites us to do, we experience
anew the spirit of evangelization, a new proclamation of the Joy of the Gospel.

We can pray for each and every one of us, because in order to evangelize others, we first have
to evangelize ourselves! We have to evangelize ourselves in order to be able to evangelize to
others. This is the message that Paul VI left the church in his important apostolic exhortation
about evangelization.

Before evangelizing the world, the Church must evangelize itself. For this reason, let us lift
up our prayer to ask the Lord to guide us on a path of conversion, because the first step to
evangelize is to ever increase our own conversion. Therefore, let us ask him to guide us on a
path of personal, family, and spiritual conversion.

To convert is to open our heart to Jesus Christ, so that our whole soul dwells in His holiness,
letting us be transformed by His holiness.

Let us benefit from this Novena to the Holy Spirit to ask for a new grounding in Jesus Christ,
a new life of Jesus Christ in us, which would fill us with a missionary zeal and renew our
capacity to bear witness to the name of Jesus.

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, I invite you to pray for an intention that is particu-
larly close to my heart, which is to pray with all fervor for the reopening of church doors. We
know that the doors of the church were closed, but the Church is not closed. And even though
the doors of churches are closed, the doors to our hearts are not closed. Pray that church
doors will soon reopen and also that we learn again to keep them open all day long, if possible!

Even before the pandemic, the church doors were open but usually only during celebrations,
but not throughout the whole day! Therefore, someone seeking closeness with God who
came knocking at the door of a church would find it closed, unable to enter, having to return
home to pray.

Perhaps we can, then, relearn not only to reopen the doors of churches, but also to keep them
open throughout the day! We need to rediscover the meaning present in their being open all
day! They had been open before the pandemic, but they could be open more often. The
project of keeping our church doors open all day will be an integral part of our future.

Pope Francis has often talked about his sorrow at seeing church doors closed shut, not open
to welcome those who were looking for comfort from God.

(cont’d)

Collection of texts by the Most Rev. Christian Lépine 164