{"id":6923,"date":"2022-04-08T10:43:41","date_gmt":"2022-04-08T14:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/news\/news-2\/most-rev-christian-lepine-celebrates-10th-anniversary-archbishop-montreal\/"},"modified":"2022-04-08T10:43:41","modified_gmt":"2022-04-08T14:43:41","slug":"most-rev-christian-lepine-celebrates-10th-anniversary-archbishop-montreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/news\/news-2\/most-rev-christian-lepine-celebrates-10th-anniversary-archbishop-montreal\/","title":{"rendered":"The Most Rev. Christian L\u00e9pine celebrates 10th anniversary as Archbishop of Montreal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A rapid ascent<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n

On the Feast of St. Patrick, March 17, 2012, Pedro L\u00f3pez Quintana – then Apostolic Nuncio appointed to Canada by the Holy See – announced to Bishop Christian L\u00e9pine that he had been appointed Archbishop for the Archdiocese of Montreal. Only six months previously, he had been appointed Auxiliary Bishop by Pope Benedict XVI, in recognition of the latter\u2019s confidence in him. The appointment was announced March 20, 2012.<\/p>\n\n

A nod from heaven in Exodus 3:1-8a<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n

The first reading, taken from the Book of Exodus, was a nod from heaven directed at Archbishop L\u00e9pine\u2019s vocation. Through a burning bush, the Lord called upon Moses, entrusting to him a mission that would be fraught with difficulty: to undertake the salvation and leadership of God\u2019s people. To this Moses replied, \u201cHere I am.\u201d This same response, \u201cHere I am,\u201d was also spoken by Christian L\u00e9pine when, 10 years ago, he was appointed Archbishop of Montreal.<\/p>\n\n

We were surprised to see someone other than Archbishop L\u00e9pine advancing to the pulpit to give the homily. This was Fr. Dominic Richer, parish priest for Saint-Nazaire parish in LaSalle, who also oversees the Devotion of the Divine Mercy in Montreal (le Sanctuaire de la Mis\u00e9ricorde). On May 11, 2012, he had been the first priest to be ordained by the newly appointed Archbishop Christian L\u00e9pine. Fr. Dominic reminded us that God\u2019s message to Moses recommends adopting an attitude of humility, and he encouraged us \u201cnot to look at ourselves,\u201d not to concentrate only on our sins, so that we may be able to reach out more freely to our neighbour.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cSimon (\u2026), do you love me?\u201d John 21:16<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n

In John 21, the Gospel reading for the occasion, we heard that remarkable exchange: \u201cSimon son of John, do you love me more than these?\u201d To this question Simon replies, \u201cYes, Lord; you know that I love you.\u201d Thereupon Jesus says to him, \u201cTend my sheep.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

That question: \u201cDo you love me?\u201d which Jesus asks Peter is the Lord\u2019s formal injunction to follow Him, to embark on the path. To follow Christ, we must embrace two fundamental pillars of our faith: the first being that we must accept the fact that, apart from God, we can do nothing (John 15:5). Thus Peter denies Christ three times before becoming the first bishop of Rome. The second pillar is that we must follow Christ while mutually supporting one another and praying for one another. Moses was accompanied by his brother Aaron in bringing the Chosen People out of Egypt. Jesus was accompanied by his disciples, apostles and many important women. Archbishop L\u00e9pine is similarly accompanied in guiding the Church of Montreal.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cI love you\u201d – Archbishop Christian L\u00e9pine<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n

In concluding this moving ceremony, the Most Reverend Ivan Jurkovi\u010d, Apostolic Nuncio to Canada since June 5, 2021, spoke praising Archbishop L\u00e9pine\u2019s apostolic work and highlighting the brave leadership he showed in guiding the diocese through the long, bleak period of the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n

In the moments before the conclusion of the ceremony, Archbishop L\u00e9pine voiced in front of those congregated his own personal answer to Christ\u2019s question: \u201cDo you love me?\u201d His answer was, \u201cI love you, you the Church, you the people of God.\u201d
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A rapid ascent On the Feast of St. Patrick, March 17, 2012, Pedro L\u00f3pez Quintana – then Apostolic Nuncio appointed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6922,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nouvelle"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}