Martyrdom: Testifying to Love

canadianmartyrsparish.ca

This homily was preached at the Martyr's Shrine in Midland by Fr. Peter Bisson, Provincial of the Jesuits in English Canada, on Saturday, September 22, 2012, for the Feast of the Canadian Martyrs. The actual feast was celebrated this past Wednesday.

Thee hundred and sixty three years ago, here in this place, Christ did a new thing in North America. Just as His own identity was fully revealed in His death and resurrection, so too was His life made manifest here in the lives and deaths of Sts. Jean de Brebeuf, Isaac Jogues, Gabriel Lalement, Noel Chabanel, Antoine Daniel, Rene Goupil, Jean de LaLande, as well as in the lives and commitments of their Huron and French companions. True life and true human flourishing - which is to be a friend of God's - is to be found only through the death that is to give yourself away in love.

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Remembering a Prophet and Leader: Fr. Jim Webb, S.J. (1944–2012)

By Edmund Lo and Santiago Rodriguez, S.J.

Some have understood prophets as those who hear the voice of God in the cry of his people. It can be said that this description also fits the late Fr. Jim Webb, S. J.

Fr. Webb—henceforth, Jim—was the former Provincial Superior of the Jesuits in English Canada who recently died of cancer. He was a man who was deeply in touch with God's poor. He learned very early in his Jesuit life that in order to authentically live out the vow of poverty, there is a need to live with the Jesus who is present in the poor and humble of our world. In a sense, Jim heard the cry of the poor and he longed to become a companion of the poor Jesus. He found this motivation in the second week of the Spiritual Exercises, in which the key grace is to follow Jesus Christ as closely and concretely as possible.

His personal identification with the poor and humiliated Jesus led him to seek the poor in our world—be it at West Avenue in Toronto, in Jamaica or in other places—in order to develop deep and life-giving friendships with them. He sought authentic friendships with the members of the mystical body of Christ. He was aware that his ministry with the poor was a kind of sacrament: it was both a sign of and a means to become closer to the poor and humble Christ. Indeed, as we become closer to the poor, we become closer to Jesus.