Reading from Timothy:
“I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound teaching, but, having their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. As for you, be sober in everything, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.
Gospel of the Good Shepherd and the hired hands
Le Christ est ressuscité, alléluia. Vraiment, il est ressuscité, alléluia.
Christ is risen, Alleluia. He is risen indeed, Alleluia.
And the risen Christ gives us the gift of being able to celebrate the great feast of Saint François de Laval, founder of Faith here in Canada. François was born with it all. Fils aîné, the one who was entitled to all of the inheritance of the line of the Montmorency-Laval, ancient noble line in France, gave it all up in order to be a bishop. Being a bishop, sounds great. Yet, think of New France in 1600. Being the assistant pastor in a a rough rural parish in southern France would have been more easy because they would have had more resources.
Far from the civilization of France, here in Quebec, St. François found nothing of the culture in which he was raised, a bunch of coureurs de bois and government officials who were there to make money and to exploit resources. Immediately, he took this colony under his care because he had a different vision: to plant Christ, the dominion of Christ in the New World, to bring the Good News which is Christ Jesus alone, the good news of the Good Shepherd who is the one who knows the needs of his flock and lays his life down for them. So, François knew the needs of those who were to come after him. A civilization had to be planted. Out of the disorder of came the order of New France, and this was the foundation of Canada. So to celebrate the work of St. François is not just the celebration of the founding of Catholicism in Canada, but of Canada itself. For it was his vision, the work of Saint Marie de l’Incarnation, the Jesuit martyrs, all the Franciscans, the Récollets who came to be part of that great mission which brought faith and order and care.
The first thing François saw were “hired hands” who were exploiting the indigenous peoples. The first complaint that he made and which he continued throughout his long life was, “We shouldn’t be selling alcohol to the First Nations people. We’re using them and you’re getting money out of them. They’re selling their furs and stuff cheap. This is wrong.” He constantly appealed to the king. The king listened to him and established all kinds of laws which, of course, were utterly ignored. Already at the beginning of Canadian foundation of the kingdom of Christ, the dominion of Christ, there were those who, though they proclaimed to be servants of the dominion of Christ, were actually “hired hands”. And when hired hands operate in a society, they just want to maximize profit. And the way that they maximize profit is by tickling people’s ears. Isn’t that the word that we heard today? Because, Saint Paul said, the time is here, when people “will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.”
Tou want to see an example of that? Go to Quebec, where every wacky spirituality and the emptiness of pure and utter materialism has shown itself through what the people of Quebec have become. Go to Florida, they can’t stand Quebecers. They think they are boors. They are drunks. The are crude. What has arisen in that culture is what they, aping the French, call laïcité, an attitude “we are not religious because the Church persecuted us.” Absolute falsehood. This is shown that it’s false because, bon, their leaders, what do they do? What do our leaders do when they’re finished? They go dating pop stars, right? How many of our leaders would put their life on the line for you?
They want your vote, but they want to get their pension so that they can get consulting jobs when they’re done. So they will speak to tickle our ears. And the Church, too, faces this danger because it’s much better if I and the church simply say what will make us popular. We will say that which will allow people to say, “What a nice group of people they are.” And that temptation is so strong now that we are faced with the collapse of all that François de Laval and the bishops and the parents and the sisters—oh, how many thousands, tens of thousands of women and men laboring for only Christ Jesus have planted.
So today, we give thanks to God for the enduring image of François because he was persistent and consistent in hard times. His long life, 85 years, which is a long time, especially for the period in which he lived, was given to proclaiming day in and day out that the source of all truth and of love is Christ Jesus. And that foundation cannot be undone.
We must be those “who are sober”, who don’t get caught up in what is going on and being swayed by every single idea and fad on the right or on the left. “Be sober”. Because as François de Laval knew, if you are drunk, you can be exploited. So let us not get drunk on our own pleasure. And secondly Paul tells today we must “endure suffering”. People don’t understand. People resent that which speaks to them of the truth. This is how Jesus was treated, He who is the truth. Why should we not be treated in the same way? It is our joy to offer our lives founded on Christ Jesus and “do the work of an evangelist”. We are called to bring the good news that the foundations of Canada, our culture, ourselves, our families have been planted in Christ. And that only in Christ will there be a good building. And so we will invite those who have strayed to come and be rerooted in Christ and to know the freedom, endurance, passion, and joy of Saint François de Laval.
Soyons saints. Let us be saints. Let us be holy.