A pilgrimage is defined as a journey to a shrine or sacred place in order to be healed or have questions answered or to achieve some other spiritual benefit. And so, during this Year of Faith, we come here to the shrine of Our Lady of La Salette seeking to encounter in a special way the one to whom Mary always directs our gaze and our attention. That person is Mary`s son, Jesus, who is the Son of God and who by offering up his life has brought salvation to the whole world.

Every time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, we encounter the person of Jesus who is present to us in this sacrament. We encounter the person of Jesus who reaches out to touch us and transform us, to bring us healing and to lead us to find the answers to the great questions of our lives. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life for all who believe in him.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his letter proclaiming the Year of Faith, asked Catholics throughout the world to increase our knowledge of what we believe as Catholics. By knowing better our faith we are better able to celebrate it and to give witness to our faith to those around us by the way we live our lives.  

Our faith centers of course on Jesus. For Jesus said to us: ⁴⁰This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’ And so, in the readings of today’s Mass, we are asked to believe again and again that Jesus is the giver of life who has the power to conquer death.

In the Gospel, St. Luke shows us Jesus power over death. This is a message of great hope for us because none of us has power over death whether it be our own or those whom we love.  But Jesus does and Jesus saves us from death. As Jesus approached the town of Nain he encountered a funeral procession coming out through the town’s gate. The body of the only son of a widowed mother was being carried out of the town to be buried.

In this grieving mother we see our own experience when we lose someone close to us in death. Jesus knows our sorrows and he is filled with compassion for us. Jesus says:“Do not weep.”How often Jesus says in the Gospels:“Do not be afraid,”or“Do not let your hearts be troubled,” “believe in God and believe in me.” “Trust in God and trust in me.”

And then Jesus demonstrates the power that enables us not to be afraid in life, not to have to endure troubled hearts. He goes up to the body and says:“Young man, I say to you, rise!”And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.” What a gift that sorrowing woman received that day. It was truly the gift of life. It was the gift of salvation from great sorrow and loss.

That gift was miraculous. It transformed two lives and filled them with joy. Yet it was but a sign of the greater gift to come. For that young man and his mother would meet death again. But their faith in Jesus, the compassionate giver of life, would bring them into a life that death would have no power ever to touch again. The gift of Jesus to all who see him and believe in him is eternal life, life forever in all its fullness sharing the very life of God. Jesus truly saves us from death.

My dear sisters and brothers, we then are people of life and not of death. We are called show the world our faith in Jesus, who is Life for all people everywhere. This is a message of hope that we have to give to our world today.

The great moral questions in our country today center on the beginnings of life and the end of life.  There are strong voices in our society that the way we deal with these challenges is death: the death of the unwanted child in the womb by abortion, the death of the person burdened by their fears of dying through euthanasia.

Our witness to our world is that we, the disciples of Jesus, are a people of life not death. We are called to be a people who have compassion for those who fear, whose hearts are troubled. We are called to offer support and help to mothers who see the birth of a child as a frightening burden. We are called to help them find strength so they may choose life.

For those who approach death with fear, we are called to accompany them with love and assurance and care and our presence. We are called to be givers of life to them as Jesus is a giver of life to us.

Today as we receive Jesus, the Bread of Life come down from heaven, we enter into an ever deepening communion with him. Through that communion we are one with him and he with us. So much so that we are the very members of his body, bringing his saving healing and life to all around us.