Page 188 - spiritual_accompaniment_montreal_archdiocese

HOMILIES

For us to exist, it his necessary that an eternal being exists. We are mortal beings that have a
beginning and an end. Our history, the history of humanity, has a beginning and an end. The
history of the universe had a beginning, some billions of years ago, and it will have an end, and
God knows when. Everything has a beginning and everything has an end.

If everything has a beginning and an end however, we can say that there is nothingness, that
nothing exists! For something to exist, there must be an eternal reality. If there is nothing
at any given moment, then there is nothing afterwards, because nothing comes from
nothingness! For something to exist, there must be an eternal being at work. For a reality
with a beginning and an end to exist, an eternal reality is required.

Then we can say, “I believe in a God.” It means that I believe in a God, who is the eternal being.
I believe in a God, who is eternal life. I believe in a God, source of all that exists. I believe that
there is a God.

Now we can go a little further. We can say “I believe in God!” To state that we believe in God is
to take it a step further. “I believe in God” is to say that I believe in God who exists. “I believe
in God,” is to say that I give things over to God. I give myself over to God. I give my life over
to God. I give my death over to God. I put my thirst for happiness into God’s hands. I give my
worries over to God. I give my illness over to God or put the illness of a loved one in God’s
hands. I place all suffering, my own and that of others, in God’s hands. I place the injustice
and the racism in God’s hands. I put everything, absolutely everything in the hands of God.

Now we come to understand that the question goes much farther than whether God exists or
not. The question goes much farther than believing in eternal life. Now it becomes a question
of living now, in this world with my weaknesses, my frailties, and when nobody can deny the
fact that I exist and live in the world. It is because I live and exist today in the world that I can
put my whole life into God’s hands.

Now the question is no longer only about my death. It is about now. It is about my life now, in
the present, in every moment. I am invited to place my whole life into God’s hands now, and
this includes my death, when the moment has come. But beginning now, I have the possibility
of putting my life into the hands of God.

What allows us to transition from “I believe in a God who exists” to “I believe in God and I
place my life in his hands”? To understand, we must listen to what Saint John says in his
Gospel today, “God is love.”

(cont’d)

Collection of texts by the Most Rev. Christian Lépine 188