NOTRE-DAME-OU-CAP-DE-LA-MADELEINE
HOMILY
TROIS-RIVIERES,
QUEBEC
SEPTEMBER
10, 1984
Dear
Brothers and Sisters,
Blessed
is she who believed!" (Lk 1,45).
These
words were spoken to Mary of Nazareth by her relative
Elizabeth on the occasion of the Visitation.
They
are contained in the second
salutation that Mary received. The first
salutation
was from
the Angel at the Annunciation: "Rejoice, so highly-favoured!
The Lord is with you" (Lk 1,28).
These were the words spoken
by Gabriel, the herald who was sent by God to a town in Galilee called
Nazareth. At the time of Mary's visit to the house of Zechariah, this
greeting
of the Angel finds in the mouth of Elizabeth its human complement:
"Of all women you are the
most blessed, and blessed is the fruit
of your womb" (Lk 1,42).
This
human greeting and that of the Angel to
Mary are blessed with the same light. Both are the Word of
God in
the mouths of the Archangel and of Elizabeth.
Together
they form a harmonious whole.
Both have become our prayer to the
Mother of God, the prayer of the Church. "Why should I be
honoured with
a visit from the mother of my
Lord?" (Lk 1,43).
Elizabeth
is the first to profess the
faith of the Church: Mother of my
Lord, Mother of God, Theotokos!
"Yes,
blessed is she who believed that
the promise made her by the Lord would
be
fulfilled!" (Lk 1,45).
Today,
Elizabeth's words to Mary at the
Visitation are repeated by the whole
Church.
By
these words, the entire
Church blesses God himself above all. "Blessed
be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 P 1,3).
Our
Lord, Jesus Christ, is the Son. He is of
the same nature as the Father.
He was made man
by the work of the Holy Spirit. He became incarnate
at the Annunciation in the womb of the Virgin
of Nazareth and he was
born
from her as a true man. He is God made man.
Concretely,
this took place in Mary at the time of the
Annunciation by the Angel. And
she was
the first to believe in this mystery. She believed in God himself on the word of the
Angel. She said
"fiat", let what you have said be done to me! "I am the handmaid
of the Lord".
And
so it was.
When
the
Church blesses and gives thanks to God, the Father of Jesus Christ,
with the
words of the first letter of Peter, it also blesses the "fiat" of Mary, the handmaid of the
Lord.
With
these words of Peter the Apostle, the Church is united with Mary in
her faith.
"Blessed
be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy
has given us a new birth as his sons,
by raising Jesus Christ from the
dead,
so that
we have sure hope and the promise of an inheritance that can
never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away, because it is
being kept for you in the
heavens. Through
your faith, God's power will guard you until
the salvation which has been prepared is revealed at the end of time (1 P 1,3-5).
This
is the faith of the Church and the hope of the Church but,
above all, it is the faith of Mary. She has her
part, a most eminent part, in the faith and hope of the Church. She
believed
before all others and better
than all
others. She believed before the apostles. Although his relatives did not believe in Jesus (Jn
7,5), and
although the crowds had more
enthusiasm than faith, she was unshakable in her faith.
Mary
is the primordial model for the Church as it makes its
way along the path of faith,
hope and
charity. At the end of the constitution on the Church, Vatican II stated: "The Mother
of God is the model of the
Church in the order of faith, charity and perfect union with
Christ...
It is in faith and in obedience that she brought the Son of the Father
to
earth... like a new Eve who believed, not in the serpent, but in the
messenger
of God with an unwavering faith.
She gave
birth to her Son, whom God made the first born among many brethren (Rm
8,29),
that is, the faithful, whose birth and upbringing benefit from
her
maternal love" (Lumen Gentium, No. 63).
"Blessed
is she who believed..."
These
words,
spoken by Elizabeth, which the whole Church has made its own, are being
repeated by us today at the shrine of Notre-Dame-du-Cap on Canadian
soil.
The
Church on earth rejoices in professing here in this place, its participation
in Mary's faith.
With
the whole universal Church, the Canadian Church thanks Mary
for having helped it to
build the faith
of the people of God over many generations.
Yes,
once the witness of Catholic faith was
brought to Canada and shared
by the people, the Virgin Mary played an important part in
their
adhesion to Jesus, the Saviour, the Word made flesh in her, and in the growth
of this believing nation. The founders
of this Church were people of
great
faith, consecrated to Our Lady. It could not have been otherwise. It
is the same in every country. You know that
my compatriots in Poland have experienced this very profoundly. We are
talking
about a devotion that
is firmly
anchored in the hearts of the Christian people, in their daily
prayers, in their families and in their
parishes. It becomes concrete
by the building of
important Marian shrines where the faithful come
on pilgrimage and where the Virgin herself shows her tenderness and her
powerful intercession in a special way.
Dear
brothers and sisters, that happened
here and I am sure you all
know
the story. I mention it because I,
myself, was quite touched by it. In 1651, Abbé Jacques de la Ferte, the
pastor
of Sainte-Madeleine de Châteaudun in France, donated this part of the
Cape to
the Jesuit missionaries.
Not long afterwards, on the Feast of the Presentation of Mary, they
founded a
village on this site. Marian devotion became so important
in the parish, which they named
Cap-de-la-Madeleine, that a Congregation
of the Holy
Rosary established itself here before the end of the 17th century. Thus in 1714, the
shrine was built and it became the
national
Marian shrine and the oldest church
in Canada. But tradition recounts
some
even more moving facts.
In
1879, the parishioners of
Cap-de-la-Madeleine prayed to the Virgin Mary
and worked with incredible courage all winter long transporting
stones for
the
construction of the new Marian building.
To do so they made use of a
providential ice-bridge that had formed on the St. Lawrence known subsequently as the bridge of the
rosaries.
This was a sign from the Virgin that she approved this initiative.
These facts,
dear brothers and sisters,
attest
admirably to the faith of your forebears to their clear understanding
of
the role of Mary in the Church. Since that time, the same Marian piety has brought thousands
of pilgrims
from all over Canada to seek faith
and courage from their Mother! People of all ages and backgrounds; especially the humble and the poor;
young
families and elderly couples; parents concerned about their children's
upbringing; youth, people seeking the one who is "the way, the
truth and the life"; the sick in search of strength and hope; missionaries who
came to consecrate their difficult
apostolate to the Queen of the Apostles; all those seeking new vigor to
serve
the Lord, the Church and their brothers and sisters, just as Mary visited Elizabeth.
These
pilgrimages bring us "heavenly
hours", as some call them, in the joy
of faith with Mary; far from allowing us to escape our daily tasks,
they
give us renewed strength to live
the Gospel today while assisting us to cross to the other shore of life
where Mary "already shines as a symbol of assured hope and consolation before
the people of God on
pilgrimage" (Lumen
Gentium, No. 68).
Yes,
this Marian pilgrimage remains as a
great gift to the Canadian people.
May the stream of the faithful who come to pray here never run dry!
May this Basilica, which you have
recently rebuilt and extended, this church
dedicated to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, be often filled! It
is with
satisfaction that I think of the twelve thousand primary school students in Canada who came here to
prepare for my
visit. I have received their
messages
and I thank them. I congratulate them. I say to them: with Mary, build the Church of Canada.
I,
myself, so anxious to mark each one of my pastoral
visits abroad by a pilgrimage to
a great
Marian sanctuary am moved and touched to find myself a pilgrim
of Mary in
this place and to entrust my apostolic mission and the fidelity of all the Christian
people in Canada to our Mother.
Today,
we come to the shrine of
Notre-Dame-du-Cap as people of our own time.
We
have come
to pray with the Bishop of Trois-Rivières, his Excellency Laurent
Noel, with the members of his diocese
and with those who have come from
the whole region to this
Marian shrine.
We
have come to repeat the words of
Elizabeth: "Blessed is she who believed
that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled" (Lk 1,45).
We have come to ratify
the participation of past generations in the faith
of the Mother of God. In the beautiful heritage which you received and which has made you what you are,
faith was
primordial. Devotion to Mary,
to
which your predecessors dedicated themselves, was essential for their loyalty to that faith.
We
have come to transfer in some sense
that faith into the hearts of our
generation and of future generations.
The
words spoken by God to Mary were
fulfilled. That fulfillment is called
Jesus Christ.
When
the risen Christ appeared before the
apostles after the passion, one
of them, Thomas, who had
been absent at the time, did not want to believe.
A week later, he saw Christ and
proclaimed: "My Lord and my God!"
(Jn 20,28). And he heard the Master say to him: "You
believe because you
see. Happy
are those who have not seen and yet believe" (Jn 20,29).
And
you, dear brothers and sisters, "you
did not see him, yet you love him; and you believe in him still without
seeing
him, ..." (1 P 1:8). Mary,
the
Mother of Christ is there to help you in this faith. She was the first
to believe! She will lead you to him!
Let
us pray now for our generation, so that
future generations may share
the faith of
the Mother of God.
This
faith will
help
you to bear the suffering and pain of life, it will
help you to persevere
with hope even in the midst of "all sorts of trials". Even more, these "trials will test
your faith which is more precious
than gold, which is corruptible even though it bears testing by fire" (1 P 1:7).
Let
us pray that our
generation may have lucid and mature faith, unfailing
faith!
May this faith be a sharing in the faith of Mary who stood
at the foot of her son's Cross on
Calvary.
Was
not Mary's great trial to see her son
rejected and condemned to death
by
the leaders of his
people? She persevered to the end. She
shared it
all.
She was united to Jesus who gave his life to save the world... And we,
when we feel God is far away, when we do not understand his ways, when
the
cross hurts our shoulders and our heart, when we suffer for our faith,
let us
learn from our Mother about steadfastness of faith in every trial, let
us learn
how to find strength and courage in our unconditional commitment
to Jesus Christ.
It
was at the cross that Mary was able to
repeat in a special way the words of the Magnificat: "He has looked
upon
his humble servant" (Lk
1,48).
Mary's
humility is joined in a saving union with the
stripping of the garments of the crucified Son!
The
whole Church, seeing Mary at the foot of
the Cross, rejoices "blessed
is she who has believed...". And in that faith of Mary's at the foot
of the Cross there appears as it were the first light of
the Easter dawn.
The
cross and the resurrection are joined in
one mystery: the Paschal mystery.
The
Church 1ives this mystery from day to day.
The
Church meditates on this mystery in
prayer and, here, the prayer of the
rosary takes on its importance. It is with Mary, to the rhythm of
the angelic
salutation, that we enter the whole
mystery of her Son, who was made
flesh, died
and rose from the dead for us. In a shrine like Notre-Dame-du-Cap,
but also in the life of
each
Christian, each family, this Marian
prayer
should be like daily breath.
The
Church meditates, but it also celebrates
the ineffable Paschal mystery
in the eucharist every day. Surely, this is the high point of
our assembly
this evening: with Mary, we approach
the source, we are united with
her
Son's sacrifice, we are nourished by his life; "The Mystery of faith!".
And
day after day the Church expresses her
overflowing joy before this Mystery
by drawing out its secret from the heart of the Mother of Christ at the
moment
in which she sings the "Magnificat":
"My
soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord... for the
Almighty has done great things
for me. Holy
is his name..." (Lk 1:46, 49).
We
learn from Mary the secret of the joy
which comes from faith, in order
to
enlighten with it our lives and the lives of others. The Gospel of
the Visitation is full of joy: the joy of
being visited by God, the joy of
opening the doors to the Redeemer. This joy is the fruit of the Holy Spirit,
and no one can take it from us if we
remain faithful to him.
Holy
Mother! Our Lady of the Cape!
May
the Church on Canadian soil always take strength in the
Paschal mystery of Christ!
May
it take strength from your Magnificat!
The
Almighty has truly done great things for
us.
Blessed
is His name!