Sermon for the 4th Sunday after Pentecost

The Mass of this 4th Sunday after Pentecost brings to my mind many memories. First, it was the first solemn Mass I offered, a week after my Ordination and such a day can never be forgotten by a priest. I remember the words of Father Gaudray, my spiritual director when I was a seminarian – Father Gaudray will celebrate the 60th anniversary of his Ordination in a few days, so please, pray for him. He spoke about the life of a priest as the accomplishment of the mysteries of the Rosary. I often think about what he said at the end: now you have to live the joyful and sorrowful mysteries, but the glorious mysteries will be later.
What he told me is true for each one of us. We received the life of Christ on the day of our Baptism. Now we still have to live the same life as Jesus did in order to be another Christ, as we are supposed to be. We do this when we renew in our own lives the mysteries of the life of Jesus and Mary that we meditate on when we pray our rosary.
Dear Brethren, the rosary is not only a devotion or a habit of prayer that we do every day. It should be what I dare to call an appropriation of the life of Jesus and Mary. In fact it is the true meaning of the word devotion which is the act of being totally devoted to a cause, and in our case this cause is someone: Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Look at the children! Our Lord says that we have to be like them in order to go to heaven. Children all have their heroes, someone they would like to be like. They like to be dressed like him – or like her, for the girls – and to imitate him. They play his character and become him in a certain way. Well, if Jesus and Mary are truly our heroes – and they are more than this – why don’t we imitate them? There is a book, one of the most known in the world, translated into many languages, called The Imitation of Christ. I would say that it is like the script of our character that we should play as actors, except that it is not cinema, but true life. When an actor has to play a character, he likes to know about him and reads a lot, trying to find the most information that he can, so that he can act as authentic as possible. When he is really good, he usually gains a reward for his performance.
Well, we have a reward to gain too, which is not an academy award but an imperishable crown as Saint Paul says. But for this, we have to do more than playing a role. We have to live a life, which has been well summarized in one sentence by Saint Paul: mihi vivere Christus est - For to me, to live is Christ. (Phil. 1:21)

The Disciples by Eugène Burnand

Praying the rosary is a very good work; living the rosary is much better. The Father does not want us to honor Him only with our lips. He wants to see the image of His Son in each one of us. This won’t be possible as long as we refuse to be totally transformed by His grace. We have to accept to living the sorrowful mysteries, which means to accept His cross. This is the supreme act of charity and charity supposes acts such as forgiving those who have trespassed against us, helping the poor and renouncing sin. Let us not allow Our Lord to say about us: This people honors me with their lips: but their heart is far from me. (Mark 7:6)

May Our Blessed Mother teach us how to be other Christs by living the life of Jesus day after day. This is truly the only thing that matters. The rest is just vanity!