Beatification Ceremony of Sister Marie Leonie Paradis (11 September 1984)

On Tuesday, 11 September 1984, the Holy Father celebrated the Beatification Ceremony of Sister Marie-Léonie Paradis in Jarry Park. In his homily, the Pope reflected on the words of God to Moses,  “The place whereon your feet tread is holy ground,” applying them to Canada.

Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I am happy to be with you today, in Montreal, and I bless the Lord for it. I come among you as a pilgrim of faith and as the Bishop of Rome, charged with the mission once entrusted to Peter to confirm his brothers in the faith. To each and every one of you: “Grace and peace in abundance, through the true knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord” ( 2 Pet . 1:2).

“May you have more and more grace and peace through knowing God and Jesus our Lord.”

Seeing you gathered here, I think of the founders of the old Ville-Marie. They planted here, at the foot of Mount Royal and near the banks of the St. Lawrence, a seed that has become a great tree. With joy I join you in celebrating the faith that has so profoundly marked your history and that it is up to you to keep and revive following the example of Sister Marie-Léonie, whom we are going to beatify.

As I travel the world, I discover the joys and concerns of all the churches. To all of you, believers in Canada, I bring greetings.

I bring you great tidings from the young and dynamic Churches of Asia and Africa.

The traigo el eco de la fe resistente de sus hermanos y hermanas de América Latina expuestos a la violencia del subdesarrollo y de las armas.

I fratelli della Chiesa di Roma e dell’Italia vi salutano!

Przekazuję wam również pozdrowienia od Braci i Sióstr wierze, którzy żyją na polskiej ziemi.

May these testimonies of the tenacious faith of your Christian Sisters and Brothers throughout the world stimulate and confirm you in your own faith.

1. “The place whereon your feet tread is holy ground!” ( Ex . 3:5).

Moses heard these words from the burning bush. He was tending his flock and was approaching Horeb, the mountain of God. The bush was burning and was not consumed. Then Moses asked himself: What is the meaning of this fire that does not destroy the bush, but at the same time burns and gives light?

The answer came in the midst of this prodigy, a more than human answer: “Take off your sandals, for the place where your feet are treading is holy ground” ( Ibid .).

Why is this place holy? It is holy because it is the place of God's presence. The place of God's revelation: of theophany. "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob" ( Ibid . 3, 6).

Moses covered his face, fearing to look into the fire where the living God was revealed.

2. Dear Brothers and Sisters of Quebec, of Canada, what about your encounter with the living God? Sometimes today's world seems to veil it, to make you forget it. This apparent spiritual desert contrasts with the time still recent when the presence of God was manifest in social life and in multiple religious institutions. And you hear people say: "Where is your God?" ( Ps . 42:4).

The human heart, however, does not get used to the absence of God. It suffers from living far from God, like Moses' compatriots. But God is never far from each of us ( Acts 17:27). He is mysteriously present, like the fire that cannot be grasped, like the gentle breeze that passes, invisible ( 1 Kings 19:12-13). He beckons to us. He calls us by name to entrust us with a mission.

And it is in vain that we seek to replace God. Nothing can fill the void of his absence. Neither material abundance, which does not satisfy the heart; nor the easy and permissive life, which does not satisfy our thirst for happiness; nor the sole search for success or power for their own sake; nor even the technical power which allows us to change the world but does not provide a real answer to the very mystery of our destiny. All this can seduce for a time, but leaves a taste of illusion and an empty heart, if we have moved away from the Burning Bush.

Then, as if in the background, there can appear the hunger for the spiritual, the attraction of the Absolute, the thirst for the living God ( Ps . 42:3). Paradoxically, the time of the “absence of God” can become the time of the rediscovery of God, like the approach to Horeb.

3. Yes, God continues to give us signs through our personal history and the history of our world, as with Moses through the sufferings of his people. Who has not known, at one time or another, these experiences of light and peace: God has entered my life! A sudden experience or the fruit of slow maturation. The occasions when this mysterious presence questions us are many: the wonderful birth of a child, the beginning of an authentic love, the confrontation with the death of a loved one, with failure or with the mystery of evil, compassion for the misery of others, the grace of having escaped an accident or of being cured of an illness, the creation of a work of art, the silent contemplation of nature, the encounter with a person inhabited by God, participation in a praying community: so many sparks that light the way to God, so many events that open the door to God. But the revelation itself comes from God, from the heart of the Burning Bush. It is his Word, read and meditated upon in prayer, it is the sacred history of the people of God, which allows us to decipher the meaning of these signs, to recognize the Name and Face of the living God, to discover that he transcends all experience, all creatures. As one of your poetesses said: Our God is “like the deepest source of the deepest waters” (Anne Hébert, Presence , 1944).

4. God reveals himself to Moses to give him a mission. He must bring Israel out of slavery to the pharaohs of Egypt.

Moses experiences the presence of God. He knows who the God of his fathers is; but in the face of the mission he receives, he asks: “They will ask me what his name is; what shall I say to them?” ( Ex 3:13). The question of the name is the fundamental question. Moses asks the question of the essence of God, of what constitutes his absolutely unique reality.

“I am that I am” ( Ibid . 3, 14), is the answer. The Essence of God is to be. To exist. Everything that exists, the whole cosmos has its origin in him. Everything exists because God gives existence.

One day, Saint Catherine of Siena - following Saint Thomas Aquinas - guided always by this same wisdom drawn from the theophany of which Moses was a witness, said to God: “You are He who is, I am she who is not”.

Between the “I am” of God and the “I am” of man - as also of every creature - there is the same relationship: God is He who is; the creature, man, is he who is not . . . he is called to be from nothingness. From God we have “life, movement and being” ( Acts 17:28).

5. Today, in this great city of Montreal, we want to give glory to the One who is. We want to give glory to Him with all creation, we who exist only because He is.

We exist and we pass away, while He alone does not pass away. He alone is Existence itself.

This is why we say with the psalm of today's liturgy: "Great is the Lord - He who is - highly praised . . . give to the Lord the glory due to his name . . . adore the Lord ..." ( Ps . 96 (95), 4-9), as Moses adored him when "he hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God" ( Ex . 3, 6).

Bow down, you men of today!

You know the mysteries of creation incomparably better than Moses! Do they not speak to you even more about God!

Bow down! Read the testimony of the creatures to the end!

6. God is above all creatures. He is absolute transcendence. Where the testimony of creation ends, there begins the Word of God, the Verb: “In the beginning he was with God. Through him all things were made, and without him was not anything made that was made” ( Jn 1:1-3).

“In him was life, / and the life was the light of men . . .”. But let us listen to what follows: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us . . . To all who received him, to them he gave power to become children of God: to those who believe in his name, to those . . . who are born of God” ( Ibid . 1, 1-14).

Yes, God who is above all creatures, who is absolute transcendence, God became creature, man. The Word became flesh. In him, men - born of men - are born of God. They become sons, by divine filiation, they become sons in the Son.

Today, in this great city of Montreal, we want to give glory to God who became man:

“A holy day has dawned for us:

...light has shone upon the earth.

... Glory to you, O Christ, proclaimed among the peoples; glory to you, O Christ, received into the world by faith” ( 1 Tim . 3:16). Alleluia!

We give thanks for all those who welcomed this Light here on Canadian soil.

7. We give thanks especially for those who through Christ have become the light of the Church and of all humanity.

The Church has in fact officially recognized the holiness of a certain number of them; several had come from elsewhere, notably from France, but it was here that they spent their lives and reached the measure of their holiness. They are familiar to you. It is enough for me to cite their names: the holy Jesuit martyrs, founders of the Church in Canada; Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys; and the blessed: Monsignor François de Montmorency-Laval, Mother Marie de l'Incarnation, the young Iroquois Kateri Tekakwitha, Mother Marguerite d'Youville, the priest André Grasset, Mother Marie-Rose Durocher, Brother André Bessette.

I myself have had the joy of celebrating five of these beatifications and one canonization in Rome. But I know that other causes are being introduced, and I hope that their examination will be successful. I am thinking in particular of Mother Catherine of Saint Augustine, whose heroic virtues have just been recognized.

Beyond those who are officially canonized or beatified, there are surely legions whose faith has borne fruit in an admirable love of God and neighbor on a daily and often discreet basis. If the modesty of the visible traces they have left prevents a thorough examination of their lives by the Church, they are known to God; they have responded to his call, like Moses. They have increased his glory and his reign on this Canadian land.

Before all these men and women, we must repeat the words of the great Irenaeus, in the second century: “The glory of God is the living man”: the man who lives the fullness of life, which is of God in Jesus Christ.

8. Today, in this living book of the saints and blessed of the Church which has remained for centuries on Canadian soil, a new name is added: Sister Marie-Léonie Paradis.

This woman from your country, humble among the humble, takes her place today among those whom God has raised to glory, and I am happy that such a beatification is taking place for the first time in Canada, which was her country.

Born to simple, poor and virtuous parents, she quickly grasped the beauty of religious life and committed herself to it through her vows, with the Marianist Sisters of the Holy Cross. She never questioned this gift to God, even in the midst of the trials of community life in New York and Indiana. And when she was assigned to serve in a college in Memramcook in Acadia, her life as a religious was so radiant that she spontaneously gathered around her young girls who also wanted to dedicate their lives to God. With them, and thanks to the understanding of Monsignor Laroque, Bishop of Sherbrooke, she founded the congregation of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family, still flourishing and so appreciated.

Without ever doubting her call, she often asked: “Lord, show me your ways,” to know the concrete form of her service in the Church. She found and proposed to her spiritual daughters a particular commitment: the service of educational houses, the service of seminaries, of priests’ houses. She did not fear the various forms of manual work which is the lot of so many people today, which was honored in the Holy Family, in the very life of Jesus in Nazareth. It was there that she saw the will of God for her life. It was in carrying out these tasks that she found God. With the sacrifices inherent in this work, but offered out of love, she experienced a profound joy and peace. She knew that she was joining the fundamental attitude of Christ, “who came not to be served but to serve.” She was completely imbued with the grandeur of the Eucharist, and the grandeur of the priesthood in the service of the Eucharist: this is one of the secrets of her spiritual motivations.

Yes, God has looked upon the holiness of his humble servant, Marie-Léonie, who was inspired by Mary's availability. And henceforth her Congregation and the Church will call her, from age to age, blessed ( Luke 1:84).

9. This new beatification of a Canadian nun reminds us that Canada has benefited abundantly from the contribution of many religious communities, in all sectors of ecclesial and social life: contemplative prayer, education, assistance to the poor, hospital care, apostolate of all kinds. This is a great grace. And if, today, the services can be diverse and evolve according to needs, the religious vocation remains a marvelous gift from God, an unparalleled witness, a prophetic charism essential to the Church, not only for the very appreciable services taken on by the Sisters, but first of all to signify the gratuity of love in a nuptial gift to Christ, in a total consecration to his redemptive Work (Ioannis Pauli PP. II, Redemptionis Donum ). And I allow myself to ask this question to all the Christians assembled here: does the Canadian people still know how to appreciate this grace? Does it help religious women to find and strengthen their vocation? And you, dear Sisters, do you measure the greatness of God's call and the radically evangelical lifestyle that corresponds to this gift?

10. Women religious, turned towards the Burning Bush, have a particular experience of the living God. But I address myself in this Mass to all the Christian people of Montreal, Quebec and Canada. Brothers and sisters: seek the Lord; seek his will; listen to the One who calls each of you by name in order to entrust a mission to you, so that you can bear his light within the Church and society.

You are the Christian laity, baptized and confirmed. And you wish to live as sons and daughters of God. In the Body of the Church there are many charisms, many forms of activity for developing your talents in the service of others. God sends you to serve your brothers and sisters who are suffering, in distress, in search of him. By your prayers and deeds each day may the love of God, the justice of God and hope find their place in the earthly city, in all your places of work, leisure and research. Having had the experience of God yourselves, contribute to building a fraternal world which is open to God. I address this message to all people; but since I am beating a woman today, I address it especially to women. Like all the baptized, you are called to holiness in order to sanctify the world according to your vocation in the plan of God, who created humanity as "man and woman". Together with men, bring into the heart of your families, bring into the heart of this society, the human and Christian capacities with which God has endowed your femininity and which you will be able to develop according to your rights and duties to the very degree that you are united with Christ, the source of holiness.

The Lord counts on you so that human relationships may be permeated with the love that God desires. The ways of accomplishing this service may differ from that chosen by Blessed Sister Marie-Léonie. But - in the most evangelical sense which transcends the opinions of this world - it is always a question of service, which is indispensable for humanity and the Church.

11. The saints and the blessed, and all those who allow themselves to be led by the Spirit of God, can take up the words of the letter to the Ephesians that we have heard:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in heaven with spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus” ( Eph . 1:3).

Yes, the names of the saints particularly confirm the truth of our existence in Jesus Christ. The truth and the call to holiness, that is, union with God through Christ.

Let us listen again to this letter to the Ephesians:

- God “chose us (in Christ) before the creation of the world”;

- out of love he has destined us in advance “to be his adopted sons through Jesus Christ”;

- in Him we obtain “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of his grace”, - “he has united under one head, Christ, all things in heaven and on earth”; - in Him we have also been made heirs;

- in Him we have received “the mark of the Holy Spirit”, the first advance that he has made for us on the inheritance which we will take possession of, on the day of the final deliverance, “to the praise of his glory” ( Eph . 1, 4-14).

12. “The place where your feet tread is holy ground!”

In the time in which we live, what we see on this earth makes sin more evident to us than holiness. There are many reasons why we, in the various countries and continents, see more the misfortunes that sin brings than the light of holiness. Even if at the same time an ever-increasing tendency is emerging for sin to no longer be called sin, it is nevertheless true that the human family lives in fear of what is ultimately brought about by human intelligence and will against the will of the Creator and the Redeemer. All of us here know these perils that threaten our planet, and we recognize man's part in them.

And yet...

Yet this land, the place where we live, is the holy land.

It was marked by the presence of the living God, whose fullness is in Christ. And this Presence remains in our land and produces the fruits of holiness.

This Presence is Reality.

She is grace.

This presence never ceases to be the call, and the light.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” ( Jn 1:5).

Amen.

© Copyright 1984 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana