Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

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

Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary

October 7, 2022

Gal 3:7-14, Ps 111, Lk 11:15-26

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.7.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today’s Gospel was the first Gospel I ever had the privilege to proclaim and today’s readings were the first ones about which I ever preached, 24 years ago (October 8 that year), the day after I was ordained a deacon. I’ve always thought that God was very good to me in giving me these readings because they’re not particularly easy to preach on, and so from the first time I ever had the chance to act on what I was instructed at my diaconal ordination, to “Believe what you read [and] teach what you believe,” I had to do so explicitly with far greater dependence on God, far greater cooperation with the Holy Spirit. Whenever I have had the chance to proclaim and preach, therefore, on the readings of the 27th Friday of Ordinary Time Year II, it always reminds me of the summons God gives to turn to him for light!

* I’d like to focus on two huge lessons from today’s readings and then tie them to today’s Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary.

* The first is about faith. In today’s reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, the apostle talks to us about faith, saying that those who have faith are children of Abraham. St. Paul was writing this to the Christians he had evangelized on his first and second journeys, but whose faith had then been reprogrammed by Judaized Christians coming from Jerusalem, those who thought that in order to be a good Christian, you first had to be a perfect Jew. They didn’t realize that the Mosaic Law was a gift to prepare God’s people for the advent of the Messiah, who would bring the law to perfection. St. Paul will call the Mosaic Law, as we’ll see tomorrow, a pedagogue or tutor, someone who would travel with you to class to the master or professor, and then, after class, go over all of the lessons. St. Paul was stressing throughout this letter as well as his letter to the Romans that we are saved by God through faith: it’s God’s work that we receive through the gift of faith. The Judaizers, like the Pharisees of which he was once one, thought we were saved by our actions of fidelity to God’s law. We’re judged by them, but not saved by them. But the big takeaway is not just why the Judaizing Christians were wrong. The great takeaway is how we’re supposed to live. We’re supposed to live by faith just like Abraham. We’re constantly being asked by God to make journeys of faith like Abraham did at 75, leaving Ur of the Chaldeans, his security, his life as he knew it until then and journey to a place God would show him. God didn’t tell him the destination, but Abraham trusted in him enough to go. God promised that he would become the father of many nations and showed him the stars of the sky as a confirmation of how many descendants he’d have, but the text of Genesis is clear that he was asked to look into the heavens when the sky was blue, not dark, because dusk came afterward. Abraham knew the stars were there, but couldn’t see them, which is a good image of what faith means, a certainty without seeing with worldly eyes. He didn’t know that he would have to wait 25 years for the fulfillment of that promise, but he continued to believe. He didn’t realize that he would be asked to sacrifice the fulfillment of that promise, Isaac, 13 years after his birth, but he did so with incredible faith, knowing, as the Letter to the Hebrews tells us, that God would raise him from the dead if he should be sacrificed.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

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

Memorial of Blessed Marie-Rose Durocher

Memorial of St. Bruno

October 6, 2022

Gal 3:1-5, Lk 1:69-75, Lk 11:5-13

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.6.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Yesterday when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he began by teaching them that the secret of prayer is to approach God as a loving Father. Once we do, almost everything flows. We begin to seek the glory and sanctification of his name and the building of his kingdom not only because we love Him but also because we know that, as his sons and daughters, we share that name and are heirs of that kingdom. Once we relate to him as a Loving Father than we trust in his providence to give us each day what we need and in his mercy to forgive us when we err because he loves us more than he detests the sins that hurt us and wound our relationship with him. When we relate to him as a Loving Father we trust him not to put us in a position in which we’ll fail the ultimate test but to challenge us and help us to meet those challenges that are beyond what we think are possible.

* Today Jesus continues his responding to our request to teach us how to pray by illustrating for us how to persevere in prayer. He gives us a parable based on middle eastern customs of hospitality. Especially during the summer months when the sun is most brutal, many Jews would travel at night and so it was not unheard of that a guest would arrive at your home — in the days before not only phones, texts and emails but also before a postal system that was affordable and efficient — unannounced at night, famished after a long journey. Because bread was baked normally in the morning, it’s possible that all the bread had already been eaten. That’s why you’d go to your neighbors to ask if they had anything to share. The second thing to understand about middle eastern culture is that their doors were open all day long but when they were shut and locked, that meant that the entire family and all their animals had gone to bed. They’d sleep together in an interior part of the house to stay warm during the typical middle eastern radiational cooling at night. To get up to answer the door when a neighbor was knocking at midnight meant that one would likely be stepping on one’s children, one’s animals and waking everyone up. It’s understandable that one would want to wait to share bread until the morning. But Jesus says that because of the perseverance of the neighbor, “I tell you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.” Jesus mentions this as a lesson in prayer precisely in order to contrast that motivation with one of God. He was saying, “If a neighbor would eventually give in because of harassment, think about how God will respond out of love?” That led Jesus to say, “I tell you, ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you, for everyone who asks receives, everyone who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks the door will be opened.” Notice that he doesn’t say that one will receive, find or have the door opened immediately. He also doesn’t say that one will receive and find exactly what one expected to find. But he does promise God will respond, precisely because God is a loving Father who always responds first and foremost by giving himself. That’s why Jesus said, “What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Wednesday of the 26th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Anniversary of the Dedication of St. Patrick’s Cathedral

Memorial of St. Faustina Kowalska, Bl. Francis Xavier Seelos, Bl. Bartolo Longo

October 5, 2022

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.5.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Yesterday we pondered the example of Mary of Bethany sitting at Jesus’ feet, allowing him to feed her. She had chosen the better part and the one thing necessary, the activity more important than all others. Today we see Jesus sitting at the feet of his Father in prayer. His example of prayer led the disciples to ask him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John [the Baptist] taught his disciples.” Jesus had already taught them much about prayer by his parables describing the need to pray with perseverance, patience, humility, purity of intention, faith, without show and in his name. He had taught them much by his example of prayer, constantly going out at night or early in the morning to pray. But they were asking for some direct instruction, for Jesus to open up to them the mystery of intimacy with God.

* It’s noteworthy that Jesus didn’t reply to their request by teaching them a posture of prayer, telling them to kneel, close their eyes and fold their hands. He didn’t instruct them to go through breathing exercises or other techniques to empty themselves of distractions. He didn’t indicate how to listen to God, like Eli taught Samuel to say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” He didn’t give them a meditation method. He didn’t even given them a formula of vocal prayer, something seen by the fact that Luke’s rendition of the Lord’s Prayer is different from Matthew’s, a sign that Jesus wasn’t passing out “magic words” as much as trying to pass on an attitude, a whole approach to prayer; he wasn’t imparting a quid ores (a what you are to say when you pray) but a qualis ores (a who you are as you pray), as St. Augustine was wont to say. And what was that approach?

* Everything can be summarized by the first word he taught them: Abba! He taught them to turn not to some cosmic life-force way out in the heavens, or to some slavemaster or judge or apathetic Creator, but to a “Father.” This is the open secret to what Jesus teaches us about prayer. We see his own prayers: “I give you praise, Father, … for having revealed these things to the merest of children.” “I thank you, Father, for having heard me. I know that you always hear me.” “Father, glorify your name!” “Father, take this chalice away from me!” “Father, forgive them!” “Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit.” Jesus’ prayers were all to the Father, to whom he turned with great trust and love. In teaching us how to pray, Jesus was trying to form us to enter into his own divine filiation and to pray with loving confidence. He told us in the Sermon on the Plain that if earthly parents aren’t sadists but know how to give good things to their children, so God the Father won’t give us a stone when we ask for bread, or a poisonous eel when we ask for fish, but will give himself — the Holy Spirit — no matter what we ask for. To pray as Jesus taught is to enter into that relationship of love with the Father. Everything else Jesus taught us about prayer flows from that.

* He instructs us to pray, “Hallowed by thy name,” and “Thy Kingdom come,” which means that we are seeking God’s glory not our own, his kingdom not ours. St. Matthew’s inclusion of Jesus’ words “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” is just a magnification of seeking God’s kingdom and the glory of his name.

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Diocese of Green Bay Clergy Days

Holiday Inn, Manitowoc, Wisconsin

October 4, 2022

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.4.22_Green_Bay_Eucharist_and_Charity_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Diocese of Green Bay Clergy Days

Holiday Inn, Manitowoc, Wisconsin

October 3-4, 2022

 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.3.22_Adoration_Homily_St._Therese_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Diocese of Green Bay Clergy Days

Holiday Inn, Manitowoc, Wisconsin

October 3-4, 2022

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.3.22_Green_Bay_Priests_Adoration_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Diocese of Green Bay Clergy Days

Holiday Inn, Manitowoc, Wisconsin

October 3, 2022

 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.3.22_Green_Bay_Priests_Mass_1.mp3

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

October 2, 2022

Hab 1:2-3.2:2-4, Ps 95, 2 Tim 1:6-8.13-14, Lk 17:5-10

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.2.22_CCM_Homily_1.mp3

 

The text that guided the homily was: 

* Right before today’s Gospel begins, Jesus told his followers about the millstone that awaited the necks of those who cause scandal to the young, about the need to correct our brothers and sisters who sin, and about the need to forgive them each they sin against us, repent and ask for reconciliation. All three of these are challenging to live and in response to them, the apostles say to Jesus, “Increase our faith!” They knew they needed a deeper trust in God to rise up to the challenges of setting good example, loving others enough to help them convert, and forgiving those who repeatedly offend or hurt us. Jesus in response to their request describes the power of faith, using typical rabbinical hyperbole to say that if we had even a tiny amount of faith we could transplant mountains. He was saying we should be grateful for the gift of faith we have and act on it, while at the same time always seeking to make our faith stronger by exercising it. Faith is an extraordinary gift. God through the prophet Habakkuk tells us in today’s first reading that “the just man lives by faith,” and that he permits even violence, destruction, strife, discord and misery, to help us grow in faith, which God promises “will not disappoint” even if we sometimes have to wait patiently for the answer to the prayers we make in faith. Ultimately Jesus wants to say about us what we said to a Canaanite woman in the Gospel who approached Jesus begging perseveringly for a miracle for her sick daughter “Woman, great is your faith,” or what he exclaimed with amazement about a Centurion who asked him for a miraculous cure at a distance when his beloved servant was at the point of death: “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.” This Sunday the whole Church is meant to focus on the gift of faith, to be grateful for the mustard seed or mountain of faith we have, and to consider prayerfully how God wants to help our faith increase to the point that he can praise us, too, with amazement for having great faith that excels beyond the rest.

* At a university, students grow in lots of ways. They certainly grow in knowledge about scores of subjects and hopefully advance in wisdom. They grow in age, some in size, and expand a network of friendships. But the most important way Catholic students are called to grow is in faith. In today’s second reading, a middle-aged, imprisoned St. Paul writes a still-young St. Timothy, whom he had met in Lystra during his first missionary journey through modern-day Turkey, and who had left his mother Eunice and grandmother Lois to grow in faith at St. Paul’s side until the time when St. Paul would be able to send St. Timothy as a missionary himself and even appoint him a bishop for the important, growing Christian community in Ephesus. St. Paul always remained his mentor, champion and spiritual father. In today’s excerpt from his second letter to St. Timothy, St. Paul reminds him to “stir into a flame the gift of God” that he had received. St. Paul knew it was easy for people of all ages, including precocious young Christian leaders like Timothy, to let the spark of faith die out, to become tepid or lukewarm, as challenges and oppositions mount, as the life of faith stands in ever greater contradiction to worldly values, and as the price of Christianity becomes costly or even fatal. He urges St. Timothy not to let this happen,

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

October 1, 2022

Hab 1:2-3.2:2-4, Ps 95, 2 Tim 1:6-8.13-14, Lk 17:5-10

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.2.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

* Two of the greatest compliments that Jesus gave in the Gospel were to pagans, a Syrophoenician woman and a Roman Centurion. To the first, Jesus said, “Woman, great is your faith.” To the latter, he said with amazement, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.” Faith is what led to the trust in him and in his power to work stupendous miracles for their loved ones. In today’s Gospel, the apostles, having heard Jesus speak about the consequences of scandal and the need to forgive without limit were led to beg him, “Increase our faith!” It’s a prayer that the Church puts on all of our lips today. The first reading from the prophet Habakkuk tells us explicitly, in the midst of violence, destruction, strife, discord and misery, that “the just man lives by faith,” and the apostles wanted to be such men. The Lord wants to grant us such an increase, too, so that we may live by faith in the son of God who loves us and gave his life for us.

* The way we evaluate whether we are living by faith, Jesus tells us in the Gospel, is whether we are faithful in “doing all [we] have been commanded to do.” Through Habakkuk, it’s revealed by whether we patiently wait for the Lord to fulfill his promises. For St. Paul in today’s second reading, it’s whether we “take as [our] norm the sound words” that we have heard “in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” and guard the faith as a “rich trust” that we seek to “stir into a flame.” God wants us to be on fire with faith. He wants us to take the spark of faith and fan it into a bonfire. If it’s the size of a mustard seed, he wants it to grow into the size of a mountain. He wants us to recognize and treat our faith as a treasure, and to look at his “sound words” and all he commands us, to view the settings of violence, destruction, strife, discord and misery, or the need to forgive over and again or to set the standard of exemplary conduct, as all part of the path to progress in faith.

* The apostles’ prayer for increased faith shows us their humble recognition that up until then they were not living enough by faith and that they needed the Lord’s help to grow. This morning we come here with the same prayer to the Lord, to increase our faith, so that we might become truly great in faith.

* To ask for an increase in faith means to ask for three things, because faith means these three things.

* It means, first, to grow in an obedient trust in God. We see this type of trust in Abraham, our father in faith, and in Mary, our mother in faith. When God asked seventy-five year-old Abraham to leave everything he had behind and journey to a far-away land, Abraham trusted in God and did so (Gen 12:1 ff). He trusted in God when God promised that he and Sarah in their old age would finally conceive a son (Gen 15:5; Gen 18:1 ff). He trusted in God even when God had him wait almost 25 years — even after he was 75 — to fulfill that promise. He trusted in God when, 13 years later, God seemed to be asking him to sacrifice that son, Isaac, even though Isaac was the son God promised through whom he would make Abraham the father of many nations (Gen 22:1ff). Abraham trusted in the Lord so much that he would do anything God asked. Similarly, Mary trusted in God’s words through Gabriel that she would conceive a child without the help of a man and that child would be the Son of God (Gen 1:35).

Fr. Roger J. Landry

Passages for Catholics Meeting, Bar Harbor, Maine

Saturday of the 26th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, Doctor

October 1, 2022

Job 42:1-3.5-6.12-17, Ps 119, Lk 10:17-24

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.1.22_Homily_Edited_1.mp3

 

 

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today in the Gospel, we enter into Jesus’ prayer as he praised his Father for his “gracious will” in revealing his “secrets to the childlike.” The greatest secret of all is about Jesus’ identity and Jesus’ greatest gift of all is to reveal to us the Father and allow us to become and live as the Father’s beloved children. Jesus tells the disciples that they are so blessed because they see what “many prophets and kings desired to see … but did not” — not only the Messiah but God incarnate — and to “hear what you hear, but did not hear it,” most particularly the full revelation of the Father, his love and his plans. The immediate context is Jesus’ response to the seventy-two disciples’ joy that the demons were subject to them because of Jesus’ name. Jesus says that there is a far greater thing that they should be happy about: that their “names are written in heaven,” that they are loved by the Father with an eternal love who wants them to come to eternal life by knowing the Father and the Son. In the first reading, we finish “Job week” with witnessing the effect of the testing we’ve pondered through these last several days: Job has learned how to trust in God even more fully and has come not just to “hear” of God but to “see” him, to know him: “I know that you can do all things,” he said, “and that no purpose of yours can be hindered. I have dealt with great things that I do not understand; things too wonderful for me, which I cannot know. I had heard of you by word of mouth, but now my eye has seen you.” The way he was blessed through enduring this trial is depicted in a material way, with animals, beautiful girls, seeing great-grandchildren and living with health to a happy old age. But for those of us to whom much more has been revealed, God wants to bless us spiritually much more.

* But in order for that to happen we must be “childlike” to receive the revelation of the Father. That’s what today’s feast is all about. St. Therese of Lisieux was declared a doctor of the Church because she showed all of us that way. At the beginning of Mass today, we prayed, “O God, who open your Kingdom to those who are humble and to little ones, lead us to follow trustingly in the little way of Saint Therese, so that through her intercession we may see your eternal glory revealed.” St. Therese shows us the little way of spiritual childhood, the little way of trust and love, that allows us to know the Father and see his eternal glory revealed in this world while veiled and unveiled in the next. As we mark the 125th anniversary (yesterday) the 125th anniversary of her death and birth into eternal life, let’s ponder more deeply how to follow her trustingly along the little way of spiritual childhood.

* The little way is first a way of mature Christian dependence on God the Father. It doesn’t mean we need to become childish. The Lord does call us to “grow in wisdom and understanding” — like Jesus advanced according to his humanity — and to “come to full stature in Christ.” Often, however, as we grow up, we cease to relate to God the way we should, as his beloved children. We may not act quite as poorly as the prodigal son in the parable, who asked for his inheritance while his Father was still alive because to him the Father was already dead,