Page 214 - spiritual_accompaniment_montreal_archdiocese

HOMILIES

relationship with others. Human beings exist as individuals in their own right. Yet, at the
same time, they exist as individuals open to the other. They exist to encounter the other, to
encounter God, to encounter one another.

All that we have learned over the past three-and-a-half months about communicating —
online, by telephone, by radio or television, or by other means ¬– is important. But we know
that it does not replace direct contact with others.

This period of hardship continues. However, we are not facing this alone. I like to think that
all those who are sick in hospitals or elsewhere, in residences, those at the end of their life, all
those whom no one was permitted to visit, I like to think, and I believe with all my heart, that
God visited them.

A week ago, when it was again possible to visit the sick, I went to see someone in the
hospital. In the same room, there was a woman who had been there for three months. For
three months, she had been there. For three months, no one could visit her! What struck me,
what I found extraordinary is that she had been alone and sick in her hospital bed, receiving
good nursing care but without physical contact with her family, yet in her eyes was the most
astonishing expression of serenity. They expressed inner peace, serenity that I found incred-
ible! As a man of faith, I was certain that I saw in her eyes the fruit of God’s grace. Isolated
from her family, even cut off from her family, but God was with her. And God has been with us
since the beginning of this pandemic as He was before and will continue to be.

Let us continue to rely on Him and believe that we will continue to grow from this experience.
This pandemic is an opportunity for personal growth. We can emerge from it having grown
in grasping the meaning of our life; we can emerge having grown in our own family relation-
ships; we can emerge, quite simply, having grown in our ability to recognize our weaknesses.
Too much of life is about running away from and not even recognizing our weaknesses! But
if we were able to grow in recognizing our weaknesses, we truly grew because someone was
ready to welcome us in our weaknesses. This is the Lord! Now, having recognized our weak-
ness and fragility, our love grows in humility. Perhaps we have become more humble through
this pandemic. When we become more humble, we love more truthfully. In humility, we love
others for being the other, rather than what we want them to be for us.

(cont’d)

Collection of texts by the Most Rev. Christian Lépine 214