70 years of priesthood: Fr.Joseph Marty
60 years of priesthood: Fr. Jean Charrier; Fr. Jean Louis Duffés; Fr. Gérard Landais; Fr. Loïc de la Monneray; Fr. Jacques Sicard; P. Sébastien Epphère; Fr. Marcel Provost.
Homily of Bishop Michel Cartatéguy from the reading of the first Book of Kings, 17, 3-16
"Get up and walk," God said to Elijah. This is the call of every vocation.
Yours, too, was born out of this call formulated in different ways 70 years ago or 60 years ago.Elijah set out unconditionally, sure that the Lord would lead him and guide him on safe roads even though he guessed they would be unpredictable. Elijah left without assurance except that of fulfilling God's will as you went to Africa to fulfill a vocation to which you have given yourself entirely.
Elijah had gone to the East in a ravine near the Jordan River. The crows brought him bread and meat.
This episode of Elijah gave us the expression "supplied by the crows" to signify the distance of a village without trade and without connection. You may have experienced this situation of remoteness for yourself. Family, cultural or social distance. It doesn't matter! your willingness to do God's will has surpassed trials that might have discouraged you. Elijah was never abandoned as you were not. God has never asked you for the impossible.
Looking at your missionary journey, you have not been spared the difficulties of life, you have had your share of contradiction. As with Elijah, the torrent was sometimes dry, but God always knew how to save you from despondency.
How did he do it? This is his secret and may also be yours.
Didn't he transform the raven's selfish instinct? The crow does not share its prey, it is a real scavenger as we see in Africa on the roofs of markets, ready to steal any food to satisfy its hunger. And yet God chooses him to feed Elijah. The raven, an impure bird, becomes by the grace of God the symbol of the one who knows how to share.
Elijah will not stay in this ravine. God asks him to go further, elsewhere, it is the characteristic of the missionary to leave without settling. Bishop Marion de Brésillac insisted that the missionary not appropriate his achievements and implant himself for life in what comforts him.
To go ever further, to go to a foreign land, to an unknown environment. Personally, as a bishop when I was looking for missionaries to send them where no one wanted to go, I contacted the SMA because that is precisely our vocation.
Some of you have actually gone where it was difficult for others to go and that is to your credit.
Elijah therefore sets out again towards Sarepta. Sarepta is in a foreign land, in a pagan land. Sarepta is not in Israel but in the land of Sidon.
If today, Christian communities are born in Africa in certain countries that had been underestimated, claiming that such a people could not accept the Word of God, your courageous, insistent, and gratuitous presence has produced fruits that the local churches today reap by making you grateful.
Elijah meets Sarepta's widow and asks her, "Take me, I beg you, a little water in a vase so that I can drink, take in hand, I beg you, a slice of bread for me." »
In paying tribute to you, I would also like to express my gratitude to all those who have accompanied you in your mission.
The widows of Sarepta have been numerous on your way offering you water and bread at noon or evening.
Like her, some have shown you their despair without ever refusing hospitality.
You were then touched by the distress of these people especially by those who were rejected by the tradition of their own people.
You then manifested your faith, the faith that puts you back on its feet, the faith that speaks of life. You have brought hope because the Lord has chosen you to transmit words of life.
Dear elder brothers, we thank you for having been Apostles of life, Apostles of God's grace, Apostles according to God's heart.
Amen.
