Catholic Preaching

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Ash Wednesday

February 22, 2023

Joel 2:12-18, Ps 51, 2 Cor 5:20-6:2, Mt 6:1-6.16-18

 

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.22.23_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* “Return to me with your whole heart!” These words that God says to us today through the Prophet Joel summarize the whole meaning of Lent. Lent is about returning to the Lord not partially but with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength. As we prayed in the Psalm, God wants to give us his help so that we might have a “clean heart,” thoroughly washed from sin and guilt. Just like Paul urged the Christians in Corinth in today’s second reading, so God appeals to us to convert, not to receive his grace in vain, but to act with urgency to be reconciled to him. Now is the acceptable time, he says. Now — not later, not even tomorrow — is the day of salvation. He wants us to seize this gift!

* The ashes we receive are a reminder to us not to procrastinate on seizing that gift of salvation.

* First they are a sign of our mortality, that we are dust and unto dust we shall return. Lent reminds us that we will die and we never know the day or the hour. But ashes point beyond death. Like at the beginning of creation when we were formed from the dust of the earth and God infused into us the breath of life, so ashes point to the fact that we are not just a mortal body but have an immortal soul, which God wants to infuse with his life. Yes, we will die, but God wants to raise us, even now. Ashes remind us that Lent is ultimately about death but also about resurrection, and how Christ calls us to share in his triumph.

* Second, ashes are a sign of repentance. We see them used this way by the prophet Jonah with the Ninevites, by Daniel, by the Maccabees. They are a summons to repent and believe in the Gospel. The conversion to which they point is not meant to be a minor course correction in life, eliminating a bad habit or striving to acquire a new good one. Ashes point to how the conversion to which we’re summoned is ultimately a death and resurrection, in which we die to our old ways and rise to a new life of faith with Christ.

* Third, as we see famously in the Book of Esther, they are a means of supplication, of prayer, for others, for their salvation. Ashes are a sign that we recognize we need a Savior and that, as St. Paul reminds us, now is the day of salvation. God, as we pray in the Psalm, wants to restore us to the joy of salvation and Lent is meant to bring about that joyful restoration!

* Today in the Gospel Jesus speaks to us about the three practices that help us to grow in those realities to which the ashes point: to die to ourselves so that Christ the Savior might live, to help us correspond to the graces he breathes into our soul so that we might live faithful to the Gospel. Jesus calls us to pray, to give alms and to fast. Prayer helps us die to our ego so that we may live for and with Christ, putting on his mind. Almsgiving has us think of others’ needs and act to help them, rather than be obsessed about our own pleasures. Fasting checks the domination of our appetites over us and makes possible our hungering for what God hungers. They are a way by which God the Father helps to restore our proper relationship with him through prayer, with others through charity, and within ourselves through fasting. They are a means by which we enter into Jesus’ prayer, his fasting for 40 days in the desert, and his total self-giving down to the last drop of his blood. Today is a day in which we make resolutions with regard to all thre...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame, Manhattan

Tuesday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of St. Peter Damian, Doctor of the Church

February 21, 2023

Sir 2:1-11, Ps 37, Mk 9:30-37

 

To listen to an audio recording of today’s Gospel, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.21.23_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today Jesus continues to stress with his disciples the same lesson they rejected in Caesarea Philippi, that God the Father told three of them to listen to on Mt. Tabor, and that Jesus reemphasized as they were descending the mountain. He reiterates today, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.” In response to this, they do not console him or even ask him questions to try to understand. Instead, they begin to debate who’s better than whom. It’s sad and ridiculous. It would be like if a mom said she had two weeks to live and the kids, rather than focusing on her, began immediately in her presence to talk about who is her favorite or who gets her car. But Jesus never tried to eliminate his followers’ ambition, but to purify it and direct it toward true greatness. He told them the path, which would be his path, the path of cruciform love: “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” To be great we must become great in loving service. And to illustrate exactly what he was describing, lest we interpret it according to our comforts, he took a child and said, “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.” An infant is someone who cannot will to reward us, with whom we cannot engage in a quid pro quo. An infant is not even able to thank us. While it’s true that whenever we love we receive more than we give and that those who love children receive so many blessings in return, Jesus’ point is that we need to love those who cannot explicitly reward us. That’s the type of service we’re called to give to which we’re supposed to aspire.

* In the first reading from the Book of Sirach, we ponder the wisdom of the Cross, of this life of cruciform love. Today’s passage begins, “When you come to serve the Lord, … prepare yourself” not for a stream of consolation, but “for trials.” It then describes them: “time of adversity,” “crushing misfortune,” even “a crucible of humiliation.” These trials are all tests, meant to help purify us, just as “in fire gold and silver are tested.” For that reason, while we’re in them, we should not think that God has abandoned us, but is helping us to learn how to be great, to learn how to love him and trust in him so that we might truly serve him and become the servant of all. So he tell us “Be sincere of heart and steadfast, incline your ear and receive the word of understanding undisturbed in time of adversity, wait on God with patience, cling to him, forsake him not, … accept whatever befalls you, be steadfast when sorrowful, be patient in crushing misfortune, trust God and God will help you … and direct your way. Wait for his mercy, trust him and your reward will not be lost, hope for good things, love him and your hearts will be enlightened.” Sirach reminds us, “Study the generations long past,” including the martyrs, “and understand: has anyone hoped in the Lord and been disappointed? … Persevered and been forsaken? … Called upon God and been rebuffed?” God “saves in time of trouble and is a protector to all who seek him in truth.” This is the type of trust in trial we witness in Jesus when he was fulfilling today’s Gospel words on the Cross. Psalms 22 and 69 which he cited on Calvary in his words “My God,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Monday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of Saints Francisco and Jacinta Marto

February 20, 2023

Sir 1:1-10, Ps 93, Mk 9:14-29

 

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.20.23_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today, on the heels of a study of creation in the Book of Genesis through the lens of the Letter to the Hebrews, the Church begins the study of the Book of Sirach, the longest of all of the Old Testament works of wisdom literature. Normally the study is two weeks, but this year, we will have it only two days, since Lent begins this Wednesday. Today we encounter the introduction to the Book, which highlights the main theme: Awe and wonder at the mystery of God’s wisdom concealed in creation, from sands on the seashore, to drops of rain, to heaven, to earth, to subterranean realities. The inspired Joshua ben Sirach tells us that real wisdom comes from God, “one, wise and truly awe-inspiring, seated upon his throne, … Most High all-powerful creator-king and truly awe-inspiring one, the God of dominion.” His wisdom effuses throughout his creative word, for “the word of God on high is the fountain of wisdom and her ways are everlasting.” But God “has lavished” this gift of wisdom, this capacity to understand, “upon his friends.” Throughout the Book of Sirach, we see how that font of God’s wisdom lavishly overflows to those who live in friendship with the Lord.

* When we turn to the Gospel, we see one way in which that wisdom is lavishly poured out upon us in the explanation that Jesus gives to his apostles about why he was able to drive out a demon they couldn’t. He was imparting to them the means by which they could share not just in his wisdom but more fully in God’s powerful recreative work. The scene is a father’s request on behalf of his son, who since birth has been possessed by a demon in such a way that it was causing him to be deaf, mute, thrown into convulsions and even suicidal. When the father and a crowd meet Jesus returning from Mount Tabor with Peter, James and John, he tells Jesus that the apostles were arguing with the Scribes over why they couldn’t heal the boy. Doubtless the Scribes were attacking them for their failure. Jesus seems to express some frustration that, because of a lack of faith among a “faithless generation,” the miracle wasn’t able to be worked by the nine apostles who were at the foot of Mt. Tabor as he was being transfigured. There was two-fold lack of faith.

* First is the father who asked, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us,” to which Jesus replied, “If you can! Everything is possible to one who has faith!” And the father replied that he did have faith but needed more of it to overcome his weakness and doubt.

* The second lack of faith was in the disciples. When they asked Wisdom incarnate why they couldn’t drive it out, he responded, “This kind can only come out through prayer.” In many of the early manuscripts it said “prayer and fasting.” Notice that Jesus didn’t say, “I was able to do this miracle but I have divine power that you don’t.” He said “prayer” and perhaps “fasting,” the type of activities that they were capable of, the practices in which he was engaged. Wisdom incarnate from whom all wisdom flows was sharing with his friends his secrets. It was a summons for them to grow in faith, like the father of the boy, through their own prayer and fasting.

* It was a summons likewise for us. Miracles still happen, and happen all the time. We see stupendous miracles in Lourdes and in every approval for a beatification or canonization....

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

February 19, 2023

Lev 19:1-2.17-18, Ps 103, 1 Cor 3:16-23, Mt 5:38-48

 

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.19.23_CCM_Mass_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* There are many demanding aspects of living faithfully the Christian life. As we heard three weeks ago, he summons us to live by the Beatitudes rather than seek wealth, power, sex, fame and approval like so many do in the world. Jesus tells us that to be his disciple, we must deny rather than affirm ourselves, pick up our Cross each day and follow him, a summons on which we will focus during Lent, which begins this Thursday. He tells us that we have to treat the poor, hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, stranger or imprisoned the way we would care for him. He calls us to be brutal in excising sin from our life, even to the point of plucking out our eyes or chopping off hands and feet if there’s no other way to stop using them to sin. He says that we have to make a hard choice between him and money, insisting we cannot serve both God and mammon. He tells us that we have to forgive not just once or twice, but 70 times 7 times.

* All of these are supremely challenging, but I think the hardest part of living the Catholic faith seriously comes in today’s Gospel, when Jesus calls us to “offer no resistance to one who is evil,” to turn the other cheek, to go the second mile, to give our clothes and not just our jacket, and, especially, to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. That requires heroic trust in God and unconquerable benevolence. But what’s most amazing of all is that Jesus, in calling us to it, knows that with his grace we’re capable of it! The Gospel is always a gift before a demand and Jesus, in giving us such a demand, wills to give us all the help he knows we need to live up to it. Today, however, we need to recognize that he is in fact calling us to such a measure and open ourselves up to receive his help to achieve it.

* Throughout the whole Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has been calling us, as his disciples, to live by his standards, not by the criteria of others. Last week, he told us that our righteousness must surpass that of the scribes and the Pharisees, who were the most religiously observant Jews. Today he tells us that we need to do better than the tax collectors who love those who love them, than the upright Gentiles who greet and do good to those who greet and do good to them. He calls us to live by God the Father’s standards, which he personifies. Today’s readings all make this point emphatically.

* In today’s first reading from the Book of Leviticus, we see what God commanded Moses to say to all the Israelites: “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord, your God am holy.” He tells them both to what standard he’s calling them— not just to be a “good person” but to “be holy” — as well as the reason why: “because I, the Lord, your God, am holy.” He is calling us, in short, to be like him, to live as his image and likeness.

* In the second reading, St. Paul indicates to the Corinthians and how we’re called to become holy like God. “Do you not know,” he asks, “that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? … God’s temple is holy and you are that temple.” Our holiness means allowing God who is “holy, holy, holy” to dwell within us, to grow within us, to love within us, to reign within us. Sometimes we’re tempted to think that the essence of holiness involves thousands of good deeds on our part; rather, holiness means allowing God truly to abide in us, transforming us more and more according to the image in which he created us a...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

February 19, 2023

Lev 19:1-2.17-18, Ps 103, 1 Cor 3:16-23, Mt 5:38-48

 

To listen to an audio recording of this homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.19.23_MC_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* The main point of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is that he is calling us, as his disciples, to live by his standards, not by the standards of others. Last week, he told us that our relationship with God must surpass that of the scribes and the Pharisees, who were the most religiously observant Jews. Today he tells us that we need to do better than the tax collectors who love those who love them, than the upright Gentiles who greet and do good to those who greet and do good to them. He calls us to live by God the Father’s standards, which he personifies. Today’s readings make this point emphatically.

* In today’s first reading from the Book of Leviticus, we see what God commanded Moses to say to all the Israelites: “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord, your God am holy.” He tells them both what standard he’s calling them to — not just to be a “good person” but to “be holy” — as well as the reason why: “because I, the Lord, your God, am holy.” He is calling us, in short, to be like him, to live as his image and likeness.

* In the second reading, St. Paul indicates to the Corinthians and how we’re called to become holy like him. He says, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? … God’s temple is holy and you are that temple.” Our holiness means allowing God who is “holy, holy, holy” to dwell within us, to grow within us, to love within us, to reign within us. Sometimes we’re tempted to think that the essence of holiness involves thousands of good deeds on our part; rather, holiness means allowing God truly to abide in us, transforming us more and more according to the image in which he created us and for which he redeemed us.

* In the Gospel today, Jesus puts an exclamation point on this primary Christian vocation. He tells us, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Very often when we hear this summons, we’re thrown off by the word “perfect” and think that this is an unachievable standard, because after all, none of us is perfect, none of us will ever be perfect, and if God is calling us never to make a mistake, then he’s calling us to something beyond human capacity. Therefore, we can feel somewhat justified in dismissing what Jesus says as if it’s a clearly unattainable goal. But before we ignore what Jesus is calling us to, as if he couldn’t possibly have meant it, we should focus on a few things:

* First, the main emphasis of what Jesus is saying is “Be like your heavenly Father.” He was specifically calling us to be like him in special, challenging ways in today’s Gospel, so that we “may be children of [our] Father in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” Jesus implies that we will not really become children of God until we start behaving like God, that he can be our Father — through creation, most especially Baptism — without our being his children, unless we experience the inner revolution to which Jesus is calling us. That means seeking to act as his children, to behave like Jesus who shows us how to live as a Son of God. Just as God the Father loves everyone and does good to everyone, including those who curse him, including those who make themselves his enemy through sin and an evil life, including those who try to use him whenever they need him, Jesus calls us to do the same, to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Corpus Christi Monastery, Bronx, NY

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Spring Retreat

February 18, 2023

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.13.23_STA_and_the_Eucharist_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Corpus Christi Monastery, Bronx, NY

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Spring Retreat

February 18, 2023

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.18.23_Thomas_Aquinas_1.mp3

 

 

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Corpus Christi Monastery, Bronx, NY

Saturday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Spring Retreat

February 18, 2023

Heb 11:1-7, Ps 145, Mk 9:2-13

 

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.18.23_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* How fitting it is today, as we make our Spring Retreat, that we have the Gospel of the Transfiguration, which was a retreat day Jesus held for himself and the apostles Peter, James and John. He led them up a mountain far apart from the crowds to pray, together with him, just like later, in the Garden of Gethsemane, he would take the same three apart for the same purpose. Prayer is faith in action and Jesus was seeking to strengthen their faith, and through them, after his resurrection, the faith of the other disciples and centuries later our faith. They needed to make a huge exertion, climbing up a mountain. Growth in prayer, in the life of faith, in our relationship with God, is not always easy. They needed to make a long hike. We needed today to get up early and get on public transportation over to the Bronx. But as we see for them, that exertion paid off, just like we pray ours will. While they are praying, Moses and Elijah appear, showing how in prayer Sacred Scripture is actualized, in which we encounter the great saints not as past figures but very much present. They were speaking not of great feats 1300 and 700 years prior, but of the present and the future, precisely Christ’s “exodus” through death to life and suffering to glory. A cloud descended, symbolic of God’s glory and of mystery. Jesus is transfigured before them, in which his flesh and clothes became dazzlingly white from the inside out. And then God the Father spoke, not to his Son, but to Peter, James and John. “This is my Son, my beloved. Listen to him!” Those are exceedingly strange words in context, because the three apostles had been doing nothing but listening to Jesus for the previous two years. But God the Father knew that they were selectively listening and they were particularly tone deaf to what Jesus had said just before.

* The context was immediately after the scene of Caesarea Philippi, when subsequent to Peter’s confession of Christ as the Messiah and Son of God, he and the other apostles refused to accept Jesus’  words that he would “suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days” and that if any of them wanted to reign with him he would have to “deny himself, take up his cross, and follow” Jesus, losing his life to save it. Peter replied “God forbid, Lord” and rebuked Jesus. It’s clear they needed faith to accept the reality of Christ’s suffering, to trust in his word because of their trust in him, to accept in the present what Christ was saying was a guarantee about the future. Jesus had asked the twelve, “Who do the crowds say that I am?,” and then, “Who do you say that I am?” At the top of the Mount of Transfiguration, God the Father answers his Son’s question by thundering from the cloud that was covering Jesus, “This is my Son, my beloved. Listen to him.” He wasn’t John the Baptist, Elijah who was speaking to Jesus then, or one of the other Prophets, including Moses who was considered God’s greatest prophet. He was far more. And the apostles were challenged to grasp it. Peter, overwhelmed, wanted to do something to prolong the experience. He volunteered to build three tents, for Christ, Moses and Elijah respectively.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time, A, Vigil

February 18, 2023

 

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.18.23_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily:

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy to have a chance to ponder with you the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with us this Sunday, as Jesus takes us further into his famous Sermon on the Mount. As we have pondered the last few weeks, Jesus has been calling us, as his disciples, to live by his standards, not by the standards of others. Last week, he told us that our relationship with God must surpass that of the scribes and the Pharisees, who were the most religiously observant Jews. This Sunday he tells us that we need to do better than the tax collectors who love those who love them, than the upright Gentiles who greet and do good to those who greet and do good to them. He calls us to live by God the Father’s standards, which he personifies.

* Jesus this Sunday puts an exclamation point on this calling. “Therefore,” he tells us, “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Many people when they hear this are thrown off by the word “perfect” and think that this is an unachievable standard, because, after all, none of us is perfect, none of us will ever be perfect, and so if God is calling us never to make a mistake, then he’s calling us to something beyond human capacity. We therefore feel justified in dismissing what Jesus says as if it’s clearly impossible. But before we ignore what Jesus is calling us to, as if he couldn’t possibly have meant it, we should focus on a couple of things:

* First, the main emphasis of what Jesus is saying is “Be like your heavenly Father.” Earlier in the passage he gave us specific exhortations so that we “may be children of [our] Father in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” Jesus implies that we will not really become children of God until we start behaving like God, that he can be our Father without our being his children unless we experience the inner revolution to which Jesus is calling us and unless we seek to act as God’s children, to behave like Jesus who shows us how to live as a son or daughter of God. Just as God the Father loves everyone and does good to everyone, including those who curse him, including those who make themselves his enemy through sin and an evil life, including those who try to use him whenever they need him, Jesus calls us to do the same, to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, to walk the second mile, to give our cloak as well as our tunic, to give generously to all those who need to borrow. We’re called to be good — to let our sun or life-giving rain fall — not just on those who are good to us but even on those who are not good to us, just like the Father does. This is the path to true holiness, Jesus implies. This is the means by which we become, in action, sons and daughters of our heavenly Father, by behaving as he behaves.

* Second, to understand what Jesus means when he calls us to be “perfect” like our Father in heaven, we have to grasp the Greek word St. Matthew employs. The Greek word St. Matthew uses is “teleios,” which is the adjective that comes from the noun “telos,” which means “end” or “goal.” Teleios means fit to achieve its end or purpose. A hammer, for example, is teleios for pounding in a nail. A student is teleios when he has mastered the material, lives it and can teach it to others.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Campus Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Friday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of the Seven Founders of the Servite Order

February 17, 2023

Gen 11:1-9, Ps 33, Mk 8:34-9:1

 

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/2.17.23_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* One of the most important things to learn in the life of faith is about the proper interplay between God’s actions and ours. God acts first and our first action must be in response to his, namely to cooperate with him, to let him do his thing. I like to say that the Christian life is a fiat (“let it be done to me according to your word”), not a faciam (“I will do”). The perennial temptation is for us to try to act first, to seek to be in control, to structure the relationship with God on our terms rather than on his. We see this temptation in all its clarity in today’s first reading, in the scene of the building of the Tower of Babel, an historical event that takes on added meaning in this metropolis of skyscrapers!

* After the regeneration of the human race with Noah, it didn’t take long for the residents of Babel to say, “Let us build ourselves a city … and so make a name for ourselves.” On the surface, it seems like a simple story of human initiative, but there was much more going on: they were coordinating not to allow God to build them up as a people for the glory of his name — something he had been doing since creation and after the second chance with Noah. They were trying to establish a relationship with God on their own terms through a tower reaching God’s dwelling in the heavens and to allow his name (signifying his person) wane in importance to the glory of their own name, ingenuity and engineering. They were seeking to hallow their own name instead of God’s, to build their own kingdom rather than the kingdom of God, to do their will instead of the Lord’s. And so God responded by confusing their speech so that they wouldn’t understand each other and be able to conspire in such a way. God’s penances are always medicinal, and we see that once again here: God confuses speech so that they would no longer prioritizing conversing with each other to the exclusion of God. He wanted them, rather, to dialogue with him and learn from that conversation how to order their social relations. The Responsorial Psalm draws a contrast between the way God will often frustrate our plans when they would harm the fulfillment of his own: “The Lord brings to nought the plans of nations. He foils the designs of peoples. But the plan of the Lord stands forever. The design of his heart through all generations.” Because God has “fashioned the heart of each, and knows all their works,” he’s able to do this adroitly. But God was confusing their speech only for a time. He was awaiting the time in which he would redeem us and restore our capacity to use our speech to converse with God and about him, to use our ability to communicate to bring us into communion with God and others. That’s what happened on Pentecost. Each year during the Pentecost Vigil, today’s first reading is proclaimed as the first of four Old Testament readings, and the Church prays in the Opening Collect that God will grant that “from out of the scattered nations the confusion of many tongues may be gathered by heavenly grace into one great confession of your name” and later, that God’s “Church may always remain that holy people, formed as one by the unity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” and “manifest to the world the Sacrament of your holiness and unity and leads it to the perfection of your charity.”

* This switch between our building a tower supposedly to God and...