How would this courage compare with the courage of those who were liberated from Auschwitz 60 years ago? I have personally heard the witness of many Holocaust survivors and read about one in a newspaper report given me by a parishioner who met her at Saint Mary’s Hospital and these are all humble witnesses of courage. They speak without hate or rage, with condemnation of the atrocious acts but with courage about their fellow survivors ... it is a very humble witness to experience defeat and yet hope for victory. The Concentration camps were overflowing with courage, humility, and integrity, so they risked everything for the magic of what they saw was possible.

Deitrich Bonhoeffer, the great Protestant theologian, a survivor of the Concentration Camps knew from his experience that there was a great cost to being a disciple of Jesus and he entitled his autobiographical reflection: The Cost of Discipleship. In weakness he found the strength of his faith. He also lived life with courage, humility, and integrity, always and risked vulnerability for the magic of what he saw was possible.

Pat Lafontaine, the Hall of Fame hockey player, wrote a book and described a number of people whose courage alone allowed them to survive - and allowed Pat to survive his many concussions that brought about the end of his career. His lived a life of courage, humility, and integrity, and risked vulnerability for the magic of what was possible for so many people who were down and out of their luck.

Father Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan, was also courageous when he allowed a married man to step out of line rather than be executed in the Gas Chambers. This priest’s life of courage, humility, and integrity, allowed him to risk vulnerability for the magic of believing in everlasting life.

All this reflection leads me to that there is a great cost to being a Christian and it takes a great deal of courage, humility and integrity to follow Jesus. We all need courage, humility, and integrity, to risk the vulnerability so that we realize the magic of what is possible.

It takes courage, humility and integrity to accept to be part of a Church that has been humiliated by scandal, a Church at an all-time low of regular attendance, where we have fewer and fewer candidates for the priesthood, where the Church’s voice is a small voice in the midst of many other religious and secular voices, and in so many other circumstances we are called to be courageous, live in humility but always with integrity. Today the cost of discipleship requires a great deal of courage and humility to accept that we are not triumphant but the welcoming mats to continue to offer our humble witness to Jesus and the Gospel.

In today’s Gospel Jesus offers us the Magna Carta of our Christian-Catholic faith. We are given the big picture of what we are expected to be and do. Yet we must not see the usual translation of the beatitudes as "Happy" or "Blessed" to water down the meaning of the Beatitudes. It seems to me that "happy" or "blessed" render me more passive than active. In these two contexts the Beatitudes lack a certain 'umph' .. or 'hutzpah' .. or 'drive' ... to make me want to follow the beatitudes. But if we were to change happy or beloved to "courageous' as I proclaimed the gospel . What is the courage I need to be a follower of Jesus? Do I even want to be a disciple of Jesus?

And yet I remember being struck by what Jean Vanier said when he said: "We need to move from discipleship to friendship." What does it mean to be friend to somebody and what does it mean to be a friend to Jesus?

Believe me it is not easy to put yourself on the hot seat, as I had to this past week, and wonder if I am a good friend to my friends and am I a friend of Jesus. Am I a friend on my own terms or am I a friend of who is willing to give his all to allow my friendships to grow? Do I save the best of myself for my friends?

If I do not save the best of myself for my friends and every time I am with them I complain about how tired I am, how I am thankful to be there without any demands on me, that I have been really busy and don’t have time to call or visit, or I am sorry I forgot your birthday, what kind of a friend am I? And Jesus asks me to be a friend and he tells me through so many examples what he expects of me as a friend? Can I live up to my friendship and can I live up to my friendship with Jesus?

I can be a friend only if have courage, humility and integrity to be vulnerable and await the magic of what is possible.

I went back to the first reading today and I was amazed at what it said to me about friendship and the beatitudes.

Zephaniah strikingly calls us to be humble. "We are to be humble and lowly and as such no one shall make the remnant afraid."

And Paul writes: "God chose the foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world so it is not our time to boast except in the Lord ... for God is the source of your life, and wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption."

We are a Church whose foundation is theological; in other words all we say and do has ultimately something to say about the God of Jesus in whom we believe ... and so we are constantly attempting to explain our faith .. to articulate our faith ... and our response always presents the authentic God revealed to us by Jesus, the Christ, or we are presenting a false god. We must remind ourselves that we are dealing with our relationship with God, in the here and now, in concrete terms, in prayer and in action, and we cannot bear false gods before us. This is the First Commandment.

Our passion is for life and our passion for life is transformed because of our passion for love, a passion that allows us to love the true image and likeness of our God who is passionate for us and whose love must be unconditional. Today our passion must be a passion of courage that can lead us to witness about our faith in humility but with the utmost of integrity. We are also reminded that when we have true courage we will necessarily avoid the pitfalls of false pride. Pride is the slippery slope that leads us to be self-centered world rather than other-centered world. Pride leaves no place for our neighbor and no place for honest relationships and no place for integrity in our relationships. Pride seeks by its nature to make us want to be the center of attention. Ghandi was certainly courageous, humble and his integrity was outstanding, it was his courage of passive resistance to the injustices of society ... a model followed by Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement. I believe it was because there was integrity in the lives of these two modern leaders, and in the life of Nelson Mandela and Pope John XXIIIrd ... and it is integrity that makes them who they are.

A life lived with courage and humility requires integrity because otherwise we may stand and profess the truth but our lives will be a counter-witness to the truth. It is the integrity of our ways as we are called to live as Christians by Jesus, through the Gospel, that allows us to expect the magic of what is possible. Tony Walsh who founded the Benedict Labre House on Young Street in Downtown Montreal was courageous and very humble, living in the midst of poverty, following the spirituality of the Gospel in the footsteps of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement but it was his integrity, his faithfulness to the message of Jesus, that we remember him.

We cannot live the Beatitudes without complete integrity. We deceive ourselves if we think we are courageous and humble but do not have the integrity of the Gospel as the foundation of our lives. The lack of integrity is everywhere we look these days, too often we say that there is no integrity in politicians, economists and religious leaders and they are being judged when they lack integrity. We don’t have to be angry but we have to be in the face of those who lack integrity ... because it matters. God expects integrity and the Holy Spirit obviously reinforces those who live with integrity ... it is not a question of perfection it is a question of accepting ourselves as we are and not being someone we are not. The Gospel we preach may remain an ideal throughout our lives, but it is our integrity that allows us to tell the world that - although we are not perfect we are reaching for the stars. Our integrity means we can be seen for what we do and not only what we say ....

Courage is our foundation, our humility is our way of life and our integrity is our witness.