HOMILY PRONOUNCED  BY  MONS. DIEGO  MONROY PONCE; GENERAL AND EPISCOPAL VICAR OF GUADALUPE, RECTOR OF THE SANCTUARY.
SUNDAY 2DN.  OF  LENT.

 March 4th. of 2007
Day of the family

LENT: EXODUS AND ENCOUNTER

My dear brothers and sisters: we already started the sencond week of Lent, maybe we have experienced that it proposes to us. If it is like this, we thank God for his work on us, but if not, we still have time to listen to his voice which encourages to us to the encounter with ourselves and our brothers. This is the proposal of our faith into love.

Today, God speaks to us with his rich word and we can never reduce it to a few ideas and close it in our short judgment. The readings from today give us 2 images which I want to present.

The first one is about the exodus which was mentioned in the readings and the gospel from the last sunday. The topic was about the 40 years that jews walked through the desert, and also about the 40 days that Jesus was in the desert where suffered temptaitons. The second one it is about the encounter with God and with our brothers, which is the goal of our road from our “departure”( exodus).

The readings from today speak one more time about exodus, God made Abraham to leave from his land where he was raised; God asked Abraham again to leave in order to receibe a promise and sign with him an alliance. In one way, we have a departure in the Gospel, when Jesus makes Peter, John and James to leave and go up to the mountain, where Jesus makes them to live an extraordinary esperience which is an announcement and promise.

Brothers, we walk though the Lent as a way thouhg the desert which demands to us to leave from our securities that we have gotten many times around the sin. Several times we have a strong attachment to these securities as if they were God. We have to leave from ourselves after not listening, feeling anything outside of ourselves.

My brothers, the worst thing of everything, it is that this just gave us misery, sadness and sin with the separation from God and the others, and this is the harmful part that affect us.

In the three readings, the word of the lord invites us to raise ourselves over material things, where we feel insecure, to look at the things from the heaven, where is our unique motherland and our authentic treasure. Abraham was invited to leave and look at the heaven, where he discovered a sing of a promise. The followers were taken by Jesus to the mountain, where he made them to live under pray, an experience of encounter with the mistery of Jesus, in his divine dimension. Jesus has an encounter with his father in the pray that he experienced the transfiguration in the loved son, the expected messiah.

Saint Paul invites us not to put our confidence on the carnal things, on practices that are accepted as a superficial religion. Which are just customs from a bad understanding of the religion. The faith in Jesus Christ, who is the unique person that can save us.

Believe in Jesus as the unique source of salvation, in other words, following him in the obedience and love through the way of the cross to achieve the goal which is in the heaven, where God waits for us. This requires to live permanently in exodus, leaving everything that doesn´t help us. It includes ideas and religious laws. That´s why the exodus gives us freedom, but also it demands an effort. This is the way of the lent.

To mantain firmly ourselves on the way of the lent and also to overcome the temptations, it is neccesary the pray. It transfigures us in the image of obedient Christ and able to serve just to the father. We have the Eucharist every sunday, where we can receive the authentic life through his word and the body of Christ, and also the oportunity of having an encounter with him and our brothers, specially who need more.

May this sunday, day officially declared as a day of the family ( in Mexico), it helps us to rebuild our relation into the family, where we can experience the values of an authentic Christian faith, which has Christ as a center. May we show the face of Holy Trinity. The family is the school of love and it cultivates life. If somebody from other planet askes us where the school of love is, the source of life, we can say to him that our families are that place. It is the prize of the humanity. Prize of human values, peace, solidarity, servece, freedom, colaboration and love.

Love and life are together. Somebody who doesn´t love is dead, but who loves can overcome the death. Only who is loved and love can experience the fullness of life.

A legend or story tells us that there was an artist who wanted to paint the most beautiful thing. He went out to look for the pretty things and wounderful values. So he asked a bride about the most beautiful value and she talked about love, then he asked a soldier and he talked about peace. After that he asked a sister and she talked about faith. So he asked himself: how can I paint love, peace, and faith? But he couldn´t make it. Then he returns at home with a big disappointment, there he was received with sweetness, joy, faith, in a peaceful home environment. So that was the way that he discovered the family as the place where he could find the most beautiful ideals, as a source of his inspiration.

May God concede to us to irradiate the face of Christ to the world and also to give glory which only belongs to God. May our holy Mary of Guadalupe our lady and mother helps us with her intercession to have an encounter with our brother and with God who we want to achieve.

AMEN