Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Tuesday of the 28th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of St. John XXIII, Pope

October 11, 2022

Gal 5:1-6, Ps 119, Lk 11:37-41

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.11.22_CCM_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* There seems to be a serious contradiction in today’s readings. In the Responsorial Psalm, we expressed a great love for the law of the Lord. “In your ordinances is my hope and I will keep your law continually,” we prayed, “because I seek your precepts. I will delight in your commands which I love, and I will lift up my hands to your commands and meditate on your statutes.” Yet in the first reading St. Paul implies that the law is a “yoke of slavery,” that circumcision, which featured prominently in the law, “does not count for anything,” and that those who are “trying to be justified by law” are “separated from Christ” and “fallen from grace.” In the Gospel, moreover, Jesus scandalized the Pharisee who had invited him to dinner because he didn’t undergo the elaborate hand-washing ritual that the Scribes prescribed had to be done before eating, pouring a half egg-shell’s worth of water down his folded hands from fingers to wrists, drying the water by making a fist and rubbing the other hand, only to repeat the gesture of another half egg-shell of water poured from wrists to finger tips. Jesus replied by calling the Pharisees “fools.” What is it? Is the law our hope, delight, and meditation or is it worthless and foolish?

* This leads us to two central truths that need to be grasped in our faith. The first is the purpose of the law of God. As Jesus would say elsewhere in the Gospel, the entirety of the law and the prophets hangs on the two-fold command to love God with all we are and have and to love our neighbor. The second is that, on occasion in salvation history, some began to look at the law not within this lens of helping us to love God and others, but as an end in itself, almost even an idol. People, like the Scribes and the Pharisees Jesus confronts and the Judaizers against whom St. Paul battles, began to focus more on the law than on the Legislator and those made in his image and likeness. Over time they began to create a system of interpretations and “fences” around the law (to try to prevent someone from even getting close to breaking it) that often directly opposed love of God and neighbor. We see this often in the Gospel when Jesus is accused of doing evil because he healed people on the Sabbath day, as if the only day we couldn’t love our sick neighbors was on the day of the Lord. The harmony that flows out of the apparent contradiction in today’s readings is that we are called to hope, seek, delight in, love, meditate upon and keep the law of the Lord continuously, but what God means by this is his law of love for God and for all those God loved enough to take on our human nature and die before. Some aspects of the law, like St. Paul described for us last week, were a “tutor” that meant to train us out of our fallen nature and to love God and neighbor in little things, preparing us to accept what Jesus himself would come to teach as a fulfillment of that preparation. The law of circumcision, for example, consecrated human generation to God’s plans so that men and women would not forget that human love was meant to be part of the Covenant, but the physical act of consecration was surpassed in the new Covenant by the spiritual dedication: a circumcised heart was far more important than the snipping of foreskins (Deut 10:16; Deut 30:6; Jer 4:4). The dietary laws were likewise meant to consecrate one’s appetite for food to God’...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Monday of the 28th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

October 10, 2020

Gal 4:22-24.26-27.31.5:1, Ps 113, Lk 11:29-32

 

To listen to the audio homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.10.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today in the first reading, we continue to explore the sharp contrast St. Paul has been making in his Letter to the Galatians between Judaized Christians who thought we’re saved by our own efforts to keep all the precepts of the Mosaic Law, and the Christians he worked to form who grasped that we’re saved by God, by our response to the manifold graces he gives us. Using an allegorical style of interpretation he learned in rabbinical school, he described the two spiritualities flowing from Hagar through Ishmael and Sarah through Isaac, respectively, as a “yoke of slavery” versus a “freedom” in response to God’s “promise” (grace through the promised coming of the Messiah and his incarnation, passion and resurrection of Jesus) for which Christ has set us free. The Christians in Galatia were being persuaded by the Judaizers that they couldn’t be good Christians unless they yoked themselves entirely to the Mosaic law like the Scribes and Pharisees did. The law was lived by them not as an experience of freedom to love God and others maximally, but as a straightjacket in which many focused far more on the law — and all of the binding interpretations of the law made by the Scribes — than on God. St. Paul stressed that Christ, in fulfilling the Mosaic law, freed us from that slavery, and in the new and eternal Covenant, sought to help us live by faith in the freedom of the truth as beloved sons and daughters of God.

* These two different spiritualities provide a context for us better to grasp what was happening in today’s Gospel. Many of the Jews who had been influenced by the Scribes and the Pharisees were seeking signs from Jesus, despite the fact that Jesus had been working many signs. Immediately before this scene, as we saw in Friday’s Gospel, Jesus had exorcised a demon from a possessed man, but Jesus’ critics refused to accept that sign as pointing to what it obviously spotlighted, that Jesus was working for God and trying to free people from the domain of the evil one. Instead, they pretended as if the miracle were a sign of another agency, that Jesus was casting out demons by the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons. Likewise these same critics weren’t accepting any of Jesus’ other signs, his many miracles of healing and feeding. They were essentially only looking for signs that corresponded to their preconceived prejudices, that if Jesus were the Messiah, then he would work signs that pointed to his liberating them from the Romans and establishing a political renewal of the Davidic Kingdom. If he were the Messiah, then everything he did, they thought, would be signs corresponding to and indeed confirming what they were laying the foundations to establish. The Messiah couldn’t possibly work signs that would contradict what they were expecting and doing, they thought. So on the one hand, they sought miracles, but only those miracles that confirmed what they wanted confirmed. None of Jesus’ miracles seemed to be doing this, which is why they continued to seek signs. They were like children of Hagar. In contrast, we had on Saturday Jesus’ response to the shout of the anonymous woman, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you,” when the Lord responded about the real thing that makes Mary most blessed of all: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” Jesus was looking for those who would receive the Word of God with faith and act on that sa...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Immaculate Conception Seminary, Huntington, New York

Retreat for Columbia University Students

Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

October 9, 2022

2 Kings 5:14-17, Ps 98, 2 Tim 2:8-13, Lk 17:11-19

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.9.22_CMA_Retreat_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* As we approach the end of our retreat on going Into the Deep: Learning and Living the Art of Prayer, we have examples in today’s readings of prayers of intercession, petition and thanksgiving, the attributes of faith and perseverance, and the reaction we should have to the encounter with God in prayer. They lead collectively to what our fundamental response should be to the whole retreat. Let’s go into the deep with the help of the Word of God.

* In the first reading, we see the healing of Naaman the Syrian. We get only the end of the story in today’s passage, but the whole miracle is key for us to grasp for our Christian faith. When this powerful Army commander of the King of Aram was diagnosed with leprosy, he and the King who loved him had no idea what to do. Previously in a raid they had captured a girl from Israel who had become the servant of Naaman’s wife. Having doubtless heard Naaman and his wife lamenting the situation, the girl said, in an example of intercession, “If only my master would present himself to the prophet in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy.” The King told Naaman he should go and sent him, along with a letter of introduction and appeal to the King of Israel, with an enormous retinue as well as ten silver talents, six thousand gold pieces, and ten festal garments. The King of Israel, upon reading the letter, deemed it a provocation to war, since he knew he was not a god and had no means to cure Naaman of leprosy. When Elisha the prophet, however, heard about Naaman’s arrival and the King of Israel’s response, he said, “Let him come to me and find out that there is a prophet in Israel.” When Naaman arrived, however, Elisha, who obviously expected him, sought to test his faith. He didn’t even come to greet him. He simply sent a note saying, “Go and wash seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will heal, and you will be clean.” Naaman responded with anger, saying, “I thought that he would surely come out and stand there to invoke the Lord his God, and would move his hand over the spot, and thus cure the leprosy. Are not the rivers of Damascus, the Abana and the Pharpar, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be cleansed?” And in his indignation, he began to leave. His servants, however, came up to reason with him. “If the prophet had told you to do something extraordinary, would you not have done it?,” they asked. “All the more now, since he said to you, ‘Wash and be clean,’ should you do as he said.” And so Naaman went down and plunged into the Jordan seven times at the word of Elisha and, as we see in today’s excerpt, his flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was totally cleansed.

* There are several lessons we learn from this in our Christian life, but one of the most important is to trust in the means God gives us. It might seem incredible, for example, that water over our forehead and the words,“I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” are enough to wipe away sin, make us God’s children, and fill us with the indwelling of the Trinity, but that is what in fact occurs. We might conceive of many other ways our post-baptismal sins might be forgiven than the Sacrament of Confession, like long years of difficult penances out of contrition, but Jesus wanted his mercy accessible and hence f...

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Immaculate Conception Seminary, Huntington, New York

Retreat for Columbia University Students

October 9, 2022

 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.9.22_Final_Conference_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Immaculate Conception Seminary, Huntington, New York

Retreat for Columbia University Students

October 8, 2022

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.8.22_Forms_Expressions_Fonts_Guides_Obstacles_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Immaculate Conception Seminary, Huntington, New York

Retreat for Columbia University Students

October 8, 2022

 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.8.22_Christ_and_Prayer_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Immaculate Conception Seminary, Huntington, New York

Retreat for Columbia University Students

October 8, 2022

 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.8.22_Necessity_of_Prayer_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Immaculate Conception Seminary, Huntington, NY

Retreat for Columbia University Students

Saturday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

October 8, 2022

Gal 3:22-29, Ps 105, Lk 11:27-28

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.8.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* In today’s Gospel, the conversation between Jesus and an anonymous woman from the crowd who sought to praise his mother Mary is very helpful to us as we seek on this retreat to go into the deep in prayer. “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed!,” the unnamed woman called out. If any womb was blessed, it was the immaculate womb of Mary of Nazareth that tabernacled for nine months the Creator and Savior of the world. If any breasts were blessed, it would have been those that nursed and fed the one who gives us each day our daily bread. But Jesus wasn’t going to limit the praise of the mother whom he daily honored to her inimitable physical bonds to him as the Son of God made man. He replied to the woman by highlighting a far greater source of Mary’s blessing, something that each and every one of us not only can emulate but is called to emulate: “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” Prayer is the attentive listening to the word of God. In Hebrew, there is no distinction between the verb “to hear” and “to obey.” If we hear the Word of God as it’s supposed to be heard, we hear it as a word to be done. A similar distinction is found in Latin. The word to hear is “audire” and the word to obey is “ob-audire,” an intensified listening, almost like eavesdropping. Prayer is ultimately not just to permit us to enter into conversation with God, but as we seek him, find him, hear him, we’re also called to say, like Mary, “let it be done to me according to your word,” to love him and love his will such that we, like Mary, want to do it. The profoundest source of Mary’s beatitude was her faithful listening and response to God in her life. St. Athanasius described that before Mary had ever conceived the Word of God in her womb, she had already conceived Him in her heart through faith. So many medieval depictions of the Annunciation and the miraculous virginal conception of Jesus in the Incarnation show the Holy Spirit entering through Mary’s ears, to highlight this form of faithful listening. In a parallel scene, when Mary had come to see him together with many of his cousins from Nazareth, they told Jesus inside a crowded house where he was teaching and healing that his mother and relatives were outside waiting for him. Taking advantage of the teaching moment, he replied, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Mt 12:46-50). Mary is the paradigm of all those who do the will of God the Father, who hear what he asks and who act on it. To be a true brother or sister of Jesus in the family he came from heaven to earth to found, it’s not really enough just to be baptized, although that’s an essential start. We also have to listen to him as he describes for us the will of God and then, just as he did, say, mean and lovingly do the words “Thy will be done!” This is an essential aspect of going into the deep in prayer.

* In the first reading, we see how Saint Paul describes that the entire Old Testament, the Covenant God made with the Jews, was meant to train them to hear and observe the Word of God. “The law was our disciplinarian for Christ,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Immaculate Conception Seminary, Huntington, New York

Retreat for Columbia University Students

October 7, 2022

 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.7.22_Intro_to_Retreat_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time, C, Vigil

October 8, 2022

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.8.22_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday, when we will not only witness the Lord’s power to heal people of the dreadful disease of leprosy, but the larger point of how we’re supposed to respond when the Lord gives us an incredible gift like that.

* Ten lepers approached Jesus. He would cure all ten of a disease that had been eating away their flesh and bones, that had made them stink worse than skunks, that had made them outcasts and forced them to stay at least 50 feet away from any non-leper and to cry out “unclean!, unclean!,” anytime someone was approaching. It cut them off from their family members. It also cut them off from the communal worship of God as they could never go to the Synagogue on Saturday or to the Temple on the major holy days. But at their insistent, even courageous, cry for mercy, Jesus healed them all and sent them to the priests, which was the means set up in the Mosaic Law to verify that the disease had stopped growing and they were no longer contagious. The text of St. Luke indicates that as they were heading to the priest, they were completely cured: they no longer had their leprous sores, and their bodies had been made whole again. After recognizing that the miracle for which they had prayed and longed for had been granted, we would have expected that all of them would have been rejoicing almost as if they had been raised from the dead. But only one of the ten returned to thank the Lord who had given them this gift. Jesus poignantly asked, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine?”

* Jesus wished them all to return not because he had worked the miracle with impure motives to get them to thank him, but so that he might give them an even greater gift than their stupendous physical cure. He wanted to give them all what he gave the Samaritan who returned: the grace of salvation by faith. After the healed man fell down at his feet to thank him with all his heart, Jesus told him, “Stand up and go. Your faith has saved you!”

* This is a key point: Jesus came into the world not fundamentally to heal our bodies but to restore our souls. He came not to remedy our ills but to redeem our lives. In order to receive these greater gifts, however, we need gratefully to be in relationship with God. While all ten men were cured of the physical leprosy, nine retained a form of leprosy of the soul, an ingratitude that took for granted the greatest gift they had received in life until then. Only the grateful leper would receive the gift of salvation because only he had a heart that was opened to receive it. The other nine didn’t and Jesus made note of it, saying, “Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” The other nine lepers were presumably Jews and Jesus was implying that it was shocking that only the Samaritan returned because the Jews had been trained by God for centuries in the prayers of the Psalms and in the incredible events of salvation history to give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. If anyone should have learned how to say thanks to God, it should have been the Jews. But many of them took God’s generosity, God’s goodness, for granted.

* I’ve always thought that the nine who didn’t return likely looked a...