It truly is a pleasure to be back at St. Patrick's to share a word of Scripture with you, to join you for this wonderful three days of celebration. I have to say, I'm inspired by how many of you have come out on a Monday night. It's truly a sight to behold.

There's a beautiful invitation in the first reading today. The Lord says to King Ahaz, “Ask a sign of the Lord. Ask for anything that you want, as high as heaven or as low as hell. Ask the Lord. He'll give it to you.”

And why would the Lord give Ahaz such a gift? Well, King Ahaz was deep in trouble. He was surrounded on the left and on the right by enemies, by other kingdoms, that he knew he didn't have the strength or the resources to fight, to stand against.

But the prophet Isaiah said, “You're giving up on the Lord too quickly. The Lord wants to help you and ask for a sign, be reassured of your faith.” And Ahaz says, “I will not put my Lord God to the test.”

King Ahaz was a bit of a coward. He was a bit of a conniver, a bit of a scoundrel. And before Isaiah even came to him to ask him to ask the Lord for a sign, King Ahaz had already sold out.

We know that when we break the covenant with the Lord, things can't go well. But in this case, amazingly, God said, and God already knew what was in Ahaz's heart. God said, “I'm going to give you a sign anyways.”

We're surrounded by signs. Sometimes people say God is invisible. Where is this God that you have your faith in? Why doesn't God show himself? Well, I say God does show himself. God always shows himself. God is always giving us signs that we can see.

I want to share a little story with you of an Easter I spent in a small Cree village in northern Alberta. The first thing I learned about this village was that they saw signs everywhere. They saw signs in nature, in the weather, in the migration of animals, in the snow. They saw signs that made them think about what was coming next. And so the people of that community gathered around the fire. As many people as there were, there was twice as many dogs.

And as I prayed over the fire and came to the end of the Easter blessing, I said a great big Amen. And as soon as I said Amen, every dog howled together in unison. “Whoooo!” Just went on and on. So later that night, after the celebration was over, the elders came back to the priest's house for a cup of tea. I thought I'd question them. I said, “Did you notice the dogs howl? Do you think it's a good sign?”

They looked at each other, and then they started to talk to each other in Cree. Back and forth. Back and forth. Five minutes and then finally, the oldest one in the group turned and said to me, “We think so?” Sometimes God's signs are a little confusing, a little complicated, a little mysterious.

In the Book of Revelation tonight, we heard that message from John, John, the evangelist. He wrote this message of a vision that he saw, of a woman and a child. Except this was no ordinary woman. This was a woman as big as the universe, with the sun as her halo and the moon under her feet. And she was fighting beasts in order to protect her child.

And the woman we celebrate tonight, Mary, our mother, she was the one who said yes. She saw the signs. She heard the signs from God, God who asked her to participate in the mysteries of salvation.

And she understood what God was showing her. Sometimes it was clear. When an angel stands before you and asks if you want to be the mother of God's son, it's pretty clear. When you visit your cousin Elizabeth, who is well into her elderly years and thought to be barren and who is out to here, pregnant with John the Baptist, it's a pretty clear sign.

But Mary also had to discern a lot of difficult signs, a lot of subtle signs as she watched Jesus grow, as she tried to understand God's plan for her son. We hear in the Scriptures that Mary wasn’t blessed with all this knowledge. We’re just told that she had faith and she pondered these things in her heart. Slowly and surely, God’s signs began to make sense to her.

So that, when the day came and she experienced that most horrific moment of seeing her son hanging on the cross, she could stand, not in grief, not in misery, but in faith, knowing that this cross was a sign not of an end, but of a beginning of something new. And her son looked down upon her and the disciple who he loved, and he put them together and said, “Be with one another. This is your mother. This is your son.” And it was there that the Church was born.

The question then, if the signs of God are all around us, if God reveals himself to us in mysterious ways and in clear ways, if God shows himself to us in our life and the people we know, in the bodies we walk this earth in, if we're willing to be like Mary, a person of faith and not like Ahaz, a person who is afraid. Then what are the signs of God asking for us? When God invites us to ask him a sign, something as high as Heaven or as low as Hell, ask a sign of the Lord God. What does God want in return? And what he’s asking of each one of us is that as we see the signs of God in our life, we become signs for one another.

And that's why I'm so pleased to see you all here tonight. You could have been anywhere. You could have been home watching TV. Could have been out for a walk. But you chose to come here tonight so that you could pray and be together in faith. And in our world today, that's a very important sign.

When I was the pastor of our parish in Saskatoon – it’s another Easter story – we were gathered after the Holy Thursday Mass. The Eucharist was in the Altar of Repose and the people were praying. We kept the church open until midnight. Our neighbourhood in Saskatoon is an interesting neighbourhood. It has its troubles, it has its struggles and sometimes the young people of the neighbourhood are looking for signs of hope and when they don’t find it, they gang together and get into mischief.

I was standing at the back of the church when a group of young people congregated on the steps of the church. It was dark; it was about 10 o’clock at night. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was ready for anything. So, I put my ear to the door, they didn’t know I was there and I eavesdropped on their conversation and this tough gang, one of them turned to the other and said, “Do you believe in God?” And the other one turned back and said, “I’m not sure.” And the first one says, “I think I do.”

It was a very basic innocent conversation but not one that I expected to hear from a gang of young people at 10 o’clock at night, walking the streets. And they soon moved off, but the one who began the conversation remained behind and he came into the church and he saw me standing there in my collar and he said to me, “I’m not staying but I just wanted to let you know that I’m really glad that you guys are here praying.”

And it really struck me that in our own small way as we gathered around the Eucharist, as we had celebrated the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the young group of teenagers looking for a sign of hope found it in the church on a Thursday evening in downtown Saskatoon.

They found hope. They found signs of hope in people praying together and lifting up their voices in prayer to God.

So tonight, as we celebrate, I invite you to recognize yourselves as a sign of God's presence. You are a sign of God's love. A sign of God's presence. Do not be afraid. Say “yes” when the Lord comes asking for you to help.